As I approach the cabin, I pass an enormous tree trunk with an axe wedged into the wood. The metal blade glints at me, and I can’t help gulping.
Not so cute.
I climb the porch steps and face the door. My heart is thumping, nerves clawing at my chest as I raise my fist. It hovers over the wood, but I can’t muster the courage to knock. Part of me wants to forget this whole thing and run back to the road. Maybe Grandma hasn’t left yet…
No.
There’s no going back now.
This place is the only thing Dad left for me that the bank couldn’t take. It’s the only thing I own in this world, and I can’t just walk away. No matter what happens, I’ve handled worse than a grumpy mountain man like Thorne Dalton.
You got this, Ari.
With a deep breath, I knock firmly on the front door.
3
THORNE
I gritmy teeth when I hear the knock at the door.
Goddammit.
I was just about to head out into the forest. Got a big order to fill for some fresh timber, and I’m already late getting started. Since dawn, I’ve been fixing things around the cabin: thawing pipes, clearing the frozen chimney flue, shoveling snow off the porch.
Feels like I spend my whole damn life fixing up this cabin.
This place wasn’t meant to be habitable. When my dad and his buddy built it back in the seventies, it was just a logging shack. But after I left the military, I decided to fix it up. It was a big job. I redid the plumbing, added electricity, and extended the shack into a proper cabin. Been living here ever since.
The forest is my home now. Just me and the fir trees, towering up like cathedrals, making everything feel far away. All the shit I saw in the military. My past as a sniper. The wilderness doesn’t give a shit about any of it. Out here, I don’t have to answer to anybody. It’s isolated. Off-grid.
The kind of place where I shouldn’t have to deal with people knocking on my damn door.
With a grunt of annoyance, I head toward the sound. I figure it must be Clay. He’s the closest thing I have to a friend out here—a fellow veteran. We both joined the military young. Both know how broken the world feels after you leave. Neither of us ever learned how to live as civilians. Hell, we never really tried. We keep to the forest, crossing paths occasionally, helping each other when necessary.
We don’t ask questions. Don’t push for details.
I pretend not to notice his prosthetic leg.
He pretends not to notice my missing fingers.
When I open the door, a blast of icy wind floods into the cabin, snowflakes tumbling through the trees outside. I’m expecting to see Clay with his axe slung over his back.
I’m sure as hell not expecting the young woman on my doorstep.
Our eyes meet, and my mouth goes dry as I take her in.
She’s beautiful.
So fucking beautiful.
Her pretty face is soft and rounded, cheeks ruddy from the cold. I see her plump lips part as we stare at each other, golden brown eyes blinking up at me, thick-lashed and doe-like. Her hair falls to her chest, shining like ink against the red wool of her coat, and I can’t stop my gaze drifting down to her body.
Holy shit.
The way she fills out her clothes sucks the breath from my lungs. The fabric hugs her plump curves tight, sending all my blood rushing downward. One look at this woman and my cock is already swelling in my boxers, thick and heavy against my leg.
“Hi,” she says.
