Chapter One
Ruby
I'D CHECKED MY BANKbalance five times in ten minutes. It hadn't changed.
$847.00.
Every penny I had left after barely scraping by with my food truck, Rise & Grind—my last shred of independence. Gil Pruitt and his Apex Hospitality Group swept into Lovesbury, bought Flynn's Lodge right out from under my family, and left me with nothing but a food truck and fury.
My reflection appeared resolute—eyes hard and green, auburn hair falling loose around my shoulders instead of yanked into my usual work bun. A dusting of freckles scattered across my nose and cheeks, visible without the flour dust I normally wore by midday. I'd dressed carefully for tonight. Fitted jeans that hugged my curves, a dusty rose sweater soft enough to make me look approachable instead of like the angry woman who'd been glaring at The Pinnacle resort from her food truck window for the past half year.
I needed to look good. Beautiful, even. Because tonight wasn't about looking professional or practical.
Tonight was all about revenge, and I intended to sweeten that brand of confection as much as possible. I'd always had asweet tooth—which led to my training as a pastry chef at Le Cordon Bleu. Not that anyone would know, given the compact food truck I'd painted cream and sage green that now served as my entire culinary empire.
My thumb hovered over the banking app one last time. $847. Still there. Still everything.
"You can do this," I told my reflection. "He deserves this."
Gil Pruitt had walked into my uncle's life, waved his corporate checkbook around, and transformed Flynn's Lodge—my childhood home, my parents' legacy, my entire world—into The Pinnacle, some luxury destination resort for rich tourists who wanted to pretend they were rugged mountain people for a weekend.
He'd gutted what mattered, slapped a new name on it, and claimed it as his own.
And Uncle Danny... God, Uncle Danny. Working for Gil now as a ski instructor at the resort that used to be ours. I'd glimpsed him on the mountain from a distance a few times, teaching tourists how to snowplow while Gil sat in his fancy office and counted his money.
I locked my phone and shoved it into my purse. My gaze swept the apartment one last time—the sagging couch I'd bought secondhand, the chipped laminate counters in a kitchen barely big enough to turn around in, the single window that overlooked a parking lot instead of pine-covered mountains. This wasn't the life I'd imagined when I'd graduated from Le Cordon Bleu. Back then, I'd pictured myself running Flynn's Lodge kitchen, creating the kind of food that made people remember their visits for years. Instead, I scooped croissants into paper bags from a food truck while tourists streamed past me into the resort that used to be mine.
Tonight, I'd make Gil pay. Not with money—every penny I was about to bid at the Valentine's Bachelor Auction was goingstraight to the veterans' center as a charitable donation. But what I'd get in return was better.
One weekend with Gil. Two days to seduce him, search his office for proof of his corrupt business practices, then reveal exactly who I was at Sunday's festival finale—daughter of the family he'd destroyed. By then, the whole town would know what kind of man Gil Pruitt really was.
The man who'd stolen everything from me would learn what it felt like to lose what mattered.
I grabbed my coat and headed for the door, locking the apartment behind me. The hallway smelled like burnt popcorn and someone's overcooked dinner. I could hear a baby crying through one wall, a television blaring through another. My neighbors and I exchanged polite nods in passing but never spoke. That was the thing about this cramped village apartment—it was just where I slept between shifts at the food truck, between bouts of seething at what Gil had taken from me.
Flynn's Lodge had been home. The place where my parents had built something meaningful, where I'd learned to bake in the big commercial kitchen, where guests had become like extended family over the years. Every room had held memories—my mother planning events in her office, my father reviewing the books in his, Uncle Danny teaching me to ski on our modest slopes.
And Gil Pruitt had taken it all.
HEARTSTONE SQUARE WASlit up like something out of a winter fairy tale. Paper lanterns shaped like hearts glowed pink and red against the February darkness. The heated pavilion—the town's community gathering space—had been transformed with Valentine's decorations and twinkling white lights strung across the ceiling. Vendor stalls ringed the space, selling hot chocolateand cookies decorated with dollops of red and white frosting. The smell of cinnamon and sugar hung in the cold air, mixing with wood smoke from somewhere nearby.
Cold bit at my cheeks as I wound through the crowd, my boots crunching on packed snow. Groups of women clustered together, laughing and speculating about which man they'd bid on. I caught fragments of conversations—"Did you see the calendar?" "I heard the one with the tattoos is former military"—and tuned them out.
The whole thing had started when Evelyn Hartwood—the mayor's wife and Lovesbury's undisputed queen of meddling—convinced a handful of local men to pose for a "community fundraiser calendar" back in December. Shirtless bachelors. Puppies. Somehow, one of her behind-the-scenes photos had gone viral on Facebook, and suddenly women from three states wanted to know where this town full of rugged mountain men was hiding. Evelyn, naturally, took that as a sign from the universe and organized tonight's auction. One weekend with a bachelor, auctioned off to the highest bidder, with all proceeds going to fix the veterans' center roof.
I found a seat in the middle section of folding chairs facing the small stage. The space filled fast, energy crackling like static. Women whispered and pointed at the stage, some clutching printed copies of the calendar. I could feel it—this was going to be the story everyone told for months. One of the men being auctioned tonight was Gil Pruitt—the mysterious developer who'd transformed the old Flynn property into the most talked-about destination in town.
"Can you believe this is actually happening?"
I glanced over. Iris Whitfield had settled beside me, her clear blue eyes bright with curiosity. We'd been a year apart in school, ran in different circles, but she'd always been kind.
"Knowing Evelyn?" I said. "I absolutely can."
She laughed softly. "When Evelyn gets an idea in her head, there's no stopping her, is there?"
"Not even a little," I said dryly.
Before she could respond, a woman swept onto the stage as if she owned it.
