The cowboy blinks again. Then reaches up and lifts his sunglasses—and sweet mercy, those eyes. Moss green with flecks of gold and a permanent squint like he’s either laughing at you or trying to solve a mystery involving fence posts.
“I’m Chase,” he says slowly. “Gavin’s sister?”
I nod.
He crosses his arms. “And you walked up the access road with two suitcases, a cooler, and… is that a NutriBullet?”
“It has sentimental value.”
His mouth twitches.
I narrow my eyes. “Are you judging me?”
“No, ma’am. I’m just wondering how long it’ll take before that wheel falls off and you start cussing in Southern.”
As if on cue, the wheel of my suitcase gives a tragic little whimper and pops clean off.
“I hate this place,” I whisper.
Chase chuckles. “Come on. Load up. I’ll take you the rest of the way.”
“I don’t normally get into trucks with strange men.”
“I’m not a stranger. I’m your brother’s friend.”
“Friend, huh?” I smirk, then immediately regret it when his jaw flexes.
He picks up my suitcase like it weighs nothing and throws it in the bed of the truck. “Let’s go, Trouble.”
“Did you just give me a nickname?”
He slams the tailgate. “Fits, doesn’t it?”
It does.
But I don’t say that. I just climb into the cab, catching a whiff of leather, pine, and something dangerously masculine. Chase rounds the truck, hops in, and starts the engine with one hand on the wheel and the other on the gearshift.
We start driving.
“So,” I say, to fill the silence, “do all the men at Haven 7 look like they were carved from mountain rock and dipped in testosterone? Or is it just you?”
He side-eyes me.
I grin. “Just asking. For my journal.”
He doesn’t answer. But the corner of his mouth lifts just a little, and I feel it like a jolt straight to my solar plexus.
Uh-oh.
I came to the mountains to heal. To reset. To find peace.
I didn’t come to get distracted by a cowboy with a smirk and a jawline that could slice salami.
And yet…
As we wind higher up the road, the forest thick around us and the peaks glowing golden in the late afternoon sun, I can’t help but think one very dangerous thought:
Maybe this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.