“Concerns?”
“Mm. The Blackwells have always managed the valley’s hospitality permits. You may want to smooth things over before you start renovations.”
I grip the phone tighter. “I’m not asking their permission to rebuild my family’s business.”
He clears his throat delicately. “I didn’t say you should. Just—be careful how quickly you move. The board has ways of making life difficult up there.”
Thunder rumbles one last time in the distance—as if the mountain itself agrees with him.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say.
“Good girl. And Raine?”
“Yes?”
“Lock your doors. Shadow Falls hasn’t changed as much as you think.”
The call disconnects.
I lower the phone, my reflection in the screen. My hair’s damp from last night’s storm, and my eyes are shadowed with the kind of exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix.
The fog lifts around me, and I lift my head.
Down in the valley, the distillery’s roof gleams through the trees—cold and polished.
It feels like it’s watching me.
CHAPTER 2
Tristan
The storm broke sometimebefore dawn, leaving the valley washed clean and raw.
From my office window, the vines glisten like wet glass under the gray morning light. The distillery’s copper stills hum in the distance, steady and predictable—everything I built this place to be.
Everythingshe’sthreatening to undo.
I flip through the morning reports, pretending to care about production totals, but my mind keeps drifting to the ridge—to the faint glow I saw through the rain last night. The lights at the Voss Estate shouldn’t have been on. No one sane works on that property in weather like that.
And yet, she had.
Raine Voss. The niece. The complication.
My mistake was driving up there.
The second I stepped out of the truck, soaked and half-wild with adrenaline, old instincts took over. Control the situation. Reclaim the high ground. Remind her who owns this valley.
Instead, I let it slip.
Her face behind the glass—fear, then defiance—lodged somewhere in my chest and hasn’t left since.
The door to my office swings open without a knock.
“Morning, sunshine,” Calder drawls, stepping in with a cup of coffee and that smirk that makes women forgive him for everything. His hair’s a mess, shirt half-buttoned, the picture of effortless charm. “You look like hell.”
“Good morning to you, too,” I mutter, signing the report I haven’t read.
Calder sets the coffee down and drops into the chair across from me. “Heard the ridge flooded last night. You go up there?”
