1
KAMERON
The roadhouse had never been this quiet.
No clinking glasses. No country music drifting from the jukebox. No laughter from the firefighters who'd made this place their second home since the station opened across the street. Just the hum of the refrigerator behind the bar and the occasional creak of the building settling against the snow piling up outside.
I'd sent my employees, Elsa and Allegra, back to the kitchen to start shutting everything down. No point keeping the fryers hot when nobody was coming through that door tonight. Not with the roads doubling as ice skating rinks.
Three days, maybe four if we stretched the kitchen stock for whoever got stranded here. That was how long we could hold out if this storm kept up.
For the first time all day, I was alone.
I let out a breath and leaned against the bar. My clipboard sat abandoned on a barstool, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd willingly set it down. That thing was practically an extension of my arm most days.
The ponytail I'd put up this morning had given up the fight somewhere around hour ten. Strands of hair fell around my face, and I didn't bother pushing them back. Nobody was here to see me looking like a mess.
I rubbed the back of my neck, working at the knot that had taken up permanent residence there. Running this honky-tonk during normal hours was exhausting enough. Running it during a snowstorm like this felt like steering the Titanic with one hand while pouring drinks with the other.
The jukebox was dark. The stage in the corner sat empty. Even the lights seemed dimmer than usual, casting everything in this warm, golden glow that made the roadhouse feel smaller. Cozier. Like the storm outside couldn't touch us in here.
I closed my eyes for just a second. One breath. Two. The tension in my shoulders started to ease, and I let myself lean a little harder against that bar, just for a moment?—
The front door crashed open.
I spun around, my hand flying to my chest as wind and snow and a very large man came barreling through the entrance. He was stomping his boots and shaking snow off like a golden retriever after a bath, already talking before he even looked up.
"Kameron. Heads up, we've got?—"
He stopped.
I stood there with my hand still pressed to my chest, heart hammering, hair in my face, looking nothing like the put-together manager who ran this place with an iron fist and a color-coded spreadsheet. His eyes found mine, and something shifted in his expression.
Conner. That was his name. One of the new firefighters from the station down the street. He came in here with the rest of the crew a few times a week, always cracking jokes, always needling somebody about something. The guy with the sharp tongueand the easy smile who seemed physically incapable of taking anything seriously.
Right now, though, he wasn't smiling. He wasn't saying anything at all. He just stood in the doorway with snow melting in his hair, staring at me like he'd forgotten how words worked.
The silence stretched between us. One second. Two.
I recovered first. "You've got what?" I straightened, smoothing down my shirt even though it was a lost cause. The professional mask slid back into place like armor. "What's happening?"
He blinked, then shook his head slightly like he was clearing it. “I…we've got incoming. Mason and Gabby. They're right behind me."
Mason and Gabby. Gabby was the server I'd sent home an hour ago because her tires were bald and her car was a death trap. I'd asked one of the firefighters to drive her, and apparently that plan had gone sideways.
"What do you mean, incoming?" I grabbed my clipboard off the barstool without thinking about it. The weight of it in my hands felt steadying. Normal. "I sent her home. Mason was supposed to take her."
"Yeah, well." Conner finally stepped all the way inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. The sudden absence of wind made the Wildwood Valley Roadhouse feel impossibly quiet. "They slid into a ditch about halfway up the mountain. Tree came down across the road behind them. We had to go up with the rescue truck and dig them out."
My stomach dropped. "Is she okay? Is she hurt?"
"She's fine. Little shaken up, maybe. Mason's truck is toast, though. Front end looks like a crumpled beer can." He pulled off his gloves and shoved them in his jacket pocket. "Roads are completely shot. Captain's stuck at his girlfriend's place—can't even get his truck out of the driveway. He's running commandfrom her living room, splitting the rest of us up to cover different areas."
I was already moving toward the kitchen. "Elsa. Allegra. We've got people coming in."
But Conner's voice stopped me. "Wait."
I turned. He was standing in the middle of the room now, snow still melting on his shoulders, and he was looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Not the usual smirk. Not the teasing glint that seemed permanently fixed in those blue eyes.
