Page 5 of Untamed Mountain Man

“I’m Beau,” I said. “So, you’re a baker?”

“Want to be. I work in a grocery store bakery at home, but everything comes in frozen. We just thaw it out and decorate it.”

“I guess there’s some creativity in the decorating,” I said.

“Not really.” She sighed. “It’s all the same. Rosettes along the edges. ‘Happy birthday, insert name here.’ Don’t misspell the name and box everything up so it doesn’t get damaged on the way home. That’s my life.”

It was clear from the tone in her voice that this wasn’t a life she would have chosen. That was no doubt why she was in Seduction Summit, baking cakes or whatever in a tent at the bottom of a ski slope.

“So, you want to run your own bakery?” I asked. “Or is this more something you’ll do out of your house? Catering?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed and stared dreamily through the windshield. “I like the community of running a bakery, but in a beautiful place like this, not in the suburbs. That’s probably a dumb goal, isn’t it?”

I frowned. Actually, the idea of her running a bakery in my town sounded damn good. I could get to know her, maybe ask her out on a date.

Or would this qualify as a date? It certainly would have when I was a teenager, and it wasn’t like I routinely took women out to fancy restaurants.

But Macy deserved better. She deserved candlelight and roses and tables covered in white tablecloths.

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” I said.

“But bakers need to be where the customers are. Probably not a huge demand for kids’ birthday cakes around here. Are there even weddings…or parties?”

“Yep. Especially at the lodge.”

She seemed to think about that quietly a minute or so before saying, “I’m sure they have their own bakers.”

I knew nothing about that. I’d never seen a baker in this town. I’d definitely seen my fair share of parties in the ski lodge restaurant, though—birthday and otherwise.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” I said. “But there’s a huge tourism industry during the winter months in this town. And not a bakery in sight. If you want doughnuts, you have to come all the way to Adairsville.”

“Really?”

She looked over at me, and the hope in her expression went straight to my heart. I flipped the turn signal to take the road that would lead to the lake and tried to ignore the subtle tug at my heart.

Yes, this woman was getting to me in a way no one had in a long, long time. And if I wasn’t careful, she might just work her way past that concrete block I’d built around my heart.

3

MACY

“Oh my God, this is amazing.”

Flavors exploded in my mouth as I took my first bite of the burger we’d gotten from a roadside food truck. It was in a parking lot attached to a strip mall. All very suburban. I’d expected bland suburban food, but this was next level. This was definitely worth making the drive from the ski lodge.

“I’m five-starring this place online, for sure,” I said.

Beau looked over at me, and that suddenly made me self-conscious about the fuss I was making over my food. Way to be ladylike. I was basically inhaling a messy burger like I hadn’t eaten in six months.

“Sorry,” I said.

But when I looked over at him, something in his expression made my heart beat a little faster. A warmth I hadn’t seen before. Something told me it wasn’t like him at all.

“Glad you’re enjoying it,” he said. “This is my favorite. When I was a teenager, my mom would bring it home on Fridays after work. My little sis and I would share a carton of fries and fight over who was eating too much.”

As if to demonstrate, he reached over and grabbed a fry from the carton he’d set between us. I thought about reaching forward too, but I didn’t want to distract him from the conversation. I wanted to learn more about him.

“Was your house up in the mountains or closer to town?” I asked.

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