Page 19 of Burly and Rugged

I nod along, forcing a smile, but my mind keeps drifting.

Back to The Lodge, to the way Cody’s eyes barely met mine when he handed me my certificate. Back to his stony expression as he watched me drive away but made no move to stop me.

“Okay, so,” Rebecca says suddenly, leaning forward with a wicked grin. “Now that you’ve survived the wilderness and are officially a badass, are you game for another blind date? I know a guy—he’s cute, works in finance, owns a condo. Very stable. I think you’d like him.”

The words hit wrong.

Another date. Another stranger. Another forced conversation where I nod and smile and pretend to be interested in a man who is not interested in me. Rebecca means well, but her idea of a great guy and mine are very different.

I shake and respond quickly. “No.”

Rebecca raises an eyebrow. “That was definitive. Are you okay?”

I swallow, suddenly restless, my fingers tapping against the glass. “I just—” I break off, exhaling slowly. “I don’t want that.”

“What do you want?”

I think about all the dates I’ve been on over the past few years. The polite smiles, the rehearsed small talk, the men who never felt like more than a checklist of what I should want in a man. They all felt like settling.

But Cody?

Cody didn’t feel like settling. Cody felt like everything. The way we made love? It was a deeper connection than I knew was possible to share with another person. Like we fit togetherperfectly despite being so different. I wanted to stay in his arms forever.

Cody is the kind of man I could stand beside, not just settle for. Someone strong enough to hold me, steady enough to love me exactly as I am. The kind of man who doesn’t make me shrink my life but encourages me to be me and be everything I want to be.

For one night, I had him. I thought there was something real and deep between us. Maybe I was wrong about everything.

But my heart doesn’t believe that.

Rebecca nudges me, snapping me back to the moment. “Lindy. Come on. What’s going on?”

I force a smile, shaking my head. “I’m just tired.” The excuse feels thin, even though it’s true. I already know I’m going to sleep like the dead in my bed tonight.

Rebecca’s gaze sharpens, but after a moment, she sighs, picking up her drink. “Fine. I’ll let you off the hook—for now.”

She clinks her glass against mine, and I take a sip of my drink, but I barely taste it.

I don’t want to go back to the way things were. I don’t want to be the woman who settles for a man who checks the “right” boxes but never ignites anything inside me. I don’t want to sit across from some guy in finance who talks about investment portfolios and weekend golf trips to Palm Springs and how he likes to ‘keep things casual.’

I don’t want casual.

I want Cody.

CHAPTER 10

CODY

Cody!”

Jax’s voice pulls me back, cutting through the low murmur of conversation around the table. I blink, dragging my attention from the grain of the wood beneath my hands to where Jax sits at the head of the table, watching me with an impatient look.

“You with us?”

The room falls quiet, eyes turning toward me. I shift in my seat, adjusting my grip on my coffee mug like it can take me back to when Lindy was up on this mountain with me.

“Yeah. Sorry,” I say, forcing myself to keep my voice steady. Nothing about my life has felt steady since Lindy left. “What was the question?”

A few chuckles break out, but Jax doesn’t smile. He just studies me the way he does when he knows something’s off.

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