Three years ago, I had every intention of staying exactly what I was.
Single. Quiet. Up on the mountain. Running the family business, delivering firewood, keeping to myself, and letting the rest of the world do whatever the hell it wanted without asking anything from me.
Simple life.
Safe life.
Then Lexie opened a cabin door and looked at me with those big blue eyes, all soft curves and sunshine sweetness, and that was the end of that.
Now I’ve got a ring on my finger, a wife in my bed, and a house that stopped being mine alone so fast I barely had time to notice it happening.
Not that I’m complaining.
I built her a whole new wing onto the cabin two months after she moved in. Big windows. Shelves for her books. A proper desk facing the mountains. Space for all the notebooks and mugs and little things she swore she did not need and now uses every day.
She tried to argue with me about it.
Said the kitchen table worked fine. Or the porch. Or the couch.
It didn’t.
My girl needed room to build what was hers.
And she has.
Her blog started with mountain mornings and little stories about Lovestone Ridge matchmakers and the charitable biker club, and somehow turned into a full damn career. Now she’s got people reading from all over, brands asking to work with her, comments piling up by the minute, and women coming through town because Lexie made them fall in love with this place through a screen.
She writes in the mornings, a little crease between her brows when she’s focused, honey-colored hair falling over one shoulder while her fingers fly across the keys.
I could watch that woman work for the rest of my life and never get tired of it.
Same goes for damn near everything else she does.
I hear the back door open and turn in the grass just in time to see her step outside.
My wife.
Three years later, and that word still hits me hard.
She’s wearing one of those little sundresses that ride up her thighs every time the summer breeze catches them, and her hair is loose down her back, honey-gold in the late light. Bare feet in the grass. Phone in one hand. Smile on her lips. Soft, curvy body wrapped in thin summer cotton that doesn’t hide nearly enough for a man who still hasn’t gotten over her.
Mine.
The whole town likes to joke that Lexie tamed me.
Say Lovestone Ridge’s grumpiest lumberjack finally went domestic.
They’re not wrong.
Before her, I was planning on dying stubborn and single with a woodpile out back and nobody telling me I needed flower boxes on the porch.
Now I’ve got the flower boxes.
And the porch pillows.
And lemon soap by the sink.
And a wife who curls into my side every night, smiles in her sleep, and makes this whole place feel like something worth coming home to.
