Wanted By the Mountain Man Sheriff (Mountain Man Bodyguard Protector #14)

Chapter 1

one

. . .

Sophie

The espresso machine at Roz’s has a grudge against me.

I know this because it works fine for everyone else. For Roz, it purrs. For her part-time girl Dani, it cooperates. The second my hands touch the dial, it gurgles, spits, and produces something that smells like burnt grounds.

I tap the portafilter twice against the knock box and try again. This time the machine gives me what I want. Barely.

Nothing comes easy this early in the morning, especially when I’ve been awake since four-thirty checking the locks. I’ve done the rounds twice already: front door, back door, and the narrow hallway that leads to the storage room. Old habits die hard, and some habits I don’t want to kill. Not yet.

I pull the shot, set it on the saucer, and slide it to the row of morning orders. Roz works the floor, moving between tables with the efficiency of a woman who’s run this diner for decades and knows which opinions to keep to herself.

Most of them.

The diner hums at seven forty-five. Flat, cold March light slants through the front windows, catching dust motes in the air and making everything feel a little too exposed.

Mud season has started, which means the road up the ridge is open again, and the regulars have returned.

I know all their orders, which tables have sightlines to the back hall, and the exact minute the propane truck backs into the alley on Tuesdays.

The bell over the door chimes.

I don’t look up. I don’t have to. The compass needle in my chest already knows.

Logan King settles onto his usual stool, the third from the left with the best view of both doors. I pour his coffee before he asks. Two sugars, no cream. Neither of us acknowledges that I know this about him. We’ve been calling it nothing for months. Longer than that if you want to get technical.

“Morning.” Logan wraps his big, capable hands around the mug. Those strong, steady hands have always done something to me. They look like they could fix anything or hold someone safe through the worst of any situation.

“Morning,” I say.

I’m already moving away, but I feel his gaze follow me—it always does—dragging heat down my spine and making my stomach tighten with an emotion I refuse to name.

Last month I stood in this same diner with my arms crossed while half the women in town bid on his Valentine’s date night basket. The place had been packed, decorated pink and red with Nora running the auction like a seasoned auctioneer.

Logan stood on the low riser in his deputy uniform, looking calm and steady and unfairly good in that charcoal gray. The basket was perfect for him: a high-end first-aid kit, a topographic map of the local trails, and a handwritten voucher for a year of free pie from Roz’s.

Bids climbed fast. Seventy-five. A hundred. A hundred and twenty. The new schoolteacher kept raising her paddle with a hopeful little smile.

Logan’s gaze never left my face. Not once.

Everyone was watching us. The longer I stayed silent, the more I was sure people could see my pulse in my throat.

My chest felt too tight and my hands too cold.

I wanted to bid. God, I wanted to. I wanted to claim that basket and finally let myself have something good in this town I was trying to come back to.

But I couldn’t.

Not with what I’d brought back to Lush Hollow. And bidding would have meant standing in front of everyone and saying: I choose this man who broke my heart, I choose this town, and I’m staying.

Not when I didn’t know whether staying would get him hurt… or worse.

So, I kept my arms folded tight across my chest and let the schoolteacher win him for a hundred and eighty dollars. I didn’t watch her collect the basket. I turned away and mixed cocktails until my hands stopped shaking and the noise of the crowd blurred into a distant roar.

Now, I refill syrup bottles and try not to think about his hands or how he looked at me the night of the auction, like the only bid he wanted was mine. The bittersweet memory still burns sometimes.

The morning rush thins by nine. Logan leaves for whatever a newly acting sheriff does with his day, and the diner quiets.

Nora arrives at nine-fifteen, thirty-eight weeks pregnant and still moving like she’s running a board meeting. She lowers herself onto Logan’s stool with a sigh. “Please tell me there’s still a cinnamon roll.”

“I saved you the last one.” I slide the plate across the counter.

She takes the plate with both hands like it’s sacred. “Sophie Wilde, I will name this baby after you.”

“You’re having a boy.”

“Middle name, then.” She takes a bite and moans. “Okay. How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Mm.” Nora studies me with those sharp eyes that miss nothing. “You’re doing the thing.”

“What thing?”

“Smiling at everyone while you’re somewhere else entirely.” She tilts her head. “The performance.”

My chest tightens. I shrug. “It’s nine in the morning, Nora. I’m not caffeinated yet.”

“You had an espresso when you arrived. Roz texted me.”

I look over at Roz, who is suddenly focused on wiping a table that’s already clean. “You two are menaces.”

“We’re invested.” Nora’s voice softens. “Jesse says hi. He wants to know if you’re coming to Sunday dinner.”

“Maybe.”

“That means no.” She doesn’t push. That’s one of the things I love about my sister-in-law. “The offer stands.”

We talk about nursery colors and the latest Jesse debate until my shoulders drop a little. This—Nora, Roz’s, the mountain outside the window—is why I came home.

Not the other thing.

The lunch rush blurs past. Eli walks in just after twelve.

My cousin has Jesse’s height, Mason’s stubbornness, and none of their tendency toward drama, which makes him the most tolerable Wilde by a significant margin.

He drops onto a stool and waits in that quiet Wilde way that always means trouble.

I come up to the counter. “What do you want?”

“Coffee.”

“At noon?”

Eli pushes the empty mug toward me, and I pour. He says nothing, which is how I know he’s deciding to say something I’m not going to like. “You see the rental car parked out front of the store this morning?”

My hands stay steady. Barely. “Out of state plates?”

“Oregon. But it’s not from Oregon.” His voice stays easy. His eyes don’t. “Seen it three times since Sunday. Always within a block of the diner.”

I pick up a rag and wipe the counter I just cleaned. “Lots of people come through town in spring.”

“Hikers don’t sit in rental cars watching buildings.” He holds my gaze. “Know whose car it is?”

I don’t answer.

Eli lets the silence stretch, then sighs. “Jesse’s up at the cabin. Mason’s at the ranch. My door’s open. Whenever.”

“I’m fine.”

He nods like he expected that answer, finishes his coffee, and stands. “Soph.”

I look up.

“Door’s open,” he repeats, then leaves.

I breathe through the familiar cataloging that rises automatically: exits, sightlines, and distance to the back door. I grip the edge of the counter until my knuckles whiten.

You’re in Roz’s. Home. Safe as you’re going to be.

The afternoon drags. I’m restocking the garnish tray when my phone buzzes against the register. Blocked number.

The message is simple: my address.

My thumb hovers. Then I delete the text, set the phone face down, and keep working.

Roz comes out of the kitchen later. “You good?”

“Fine.”

She studies me. “This diner’s going to stand whether you hold it up or not, Sophie. You don’t have to earn the right to be in it.”

Her words land like a stone in still water. I keep restocking.

I drive home at six, glancing in my mirror the whole two-block route. I park in the lit spot under the streetlight and sit in the car. A couple walking a dog. Mrs. Porter’s lights on above the library. A truck I recognize is outside the feed store.

I wait until it feels safe enough, then go upstairs to my apartment, and check every lock twice before I take off my coat.

I don’t call Jesse. Or Mason. Or Eli.

And I definitely don’t call Logan King, sheriff or not.

Around midnight, I finally let myself admit what I’ve been avoiding since Sunday.

He found me.

The mountains were supposed to make me harder to find than this.

I don’t know what to do now.