Page 1 of Roaring Heat
PROLOGUE
ANABETH
The road to Redwood Rise is one of those winding, mist-shrouded things that looks like a drunk cartographer drew it with a grudge against straight lines. It curls through towering redwoods like a secret whispered by the earth itself, the trees so tall and dense they swallow sound. Or maybe that’s just my brain staging a quiet protest.
I should be terrified. Instead, I’m humming. It’s a silly, habitual tune—one I don’t even realize I’m doing until I catch myself mid-note.
Humming is what I do when I’m trying not to think too hard. About the cottage that might not have running water. About the way my ex-husband said, 'You won’t last a week without Wi-Fi or some kind of validation from somebody... maybe even a bear.' About how many ways this could all go wrong.
But humming is safer than spiraling. Humming means motion, means forward. It’s my way of bluffing confidence I don’t quite feel, which, according to my sister, is what I do right before making a terrible life decision.
The Forestry Department job offer came out of nowhere. I’d been aiming for Yellowstone. Big name, big project, big break. What I got instead was a late-night email from a sleepy-voicedwoman named Elsie Talbot asking if I was still interested in the Redwood project.
I had never heard of the Redwood project. But she didn't know that, so I said yes, anyway.
Call it a glitch in the system or fate or divine spite, but I traded a Denver condo for an off-grid research beach cottage on the edge of nowhere. Now I’m driving up an unmarked road toward a town that barely exists on Google Maps and doesn’t at all on Waze. The GPS gave up twenty minutes ago, and even my cell signal has waved a white flag.
The only things keeping me company are a bobblehead moose on the dash and the increasingly smug voice in my head whispering, You did it. You finally left him. You finally chose you. You chose silence over shouting matches. You chose breathing room over walking on eggshells. You chose belief in your own worth over being constantly measured against someone else's ego.
This isn't just a road through redwoods—it's the start of a life that’s mine. Though part of me is terrified, the louder part whispers: About damn time.
"Well," I mutter to myself, turning down the last stretch toward the welcome sign, "you also chose no cell service, zero friends, and a place that probably doesn't stock oat milk."
Redwood Rise. Population: who knows? Elevation: high enough that my ears popped three curves ago. Motto: Let the land shape you, which sounds poetic until you consider what mountains and time do to stone.
The general store is the first building I see—a weathered structure with a crooked front porch, an old-time gas pump out front, and a carved bear statue holding a "WELCOME" sign. The carved bear looks slightly menacing, but maybe that’s just the fog and the fact that it was probably carved out of a log with a chainsaw.
I park, tug on my raincoat, and step out into air so thick and damp it feels like walking through breath. My lungs seize for a beat, adjusting to the sudden weight of moisture, and goosebumps rise along my arms despite the mild temperature. The scent of moss and rain clings to everything, grounding and unsettling me at the same time.
It’s beautiful, but it hums with the kind of stillness that makes you feel watched. My boots scuff against the damp, pebbled drive, each step grinding grit underfoot like a quiet challenge, and every step feels like a commitment I can’t take back.
Inside, the store is all pine shelves and cozy chaos. Mugs with bear puns. Homemade candles. A wall of survival gear. A rack of keys behind the counter.
Behind that counter is a woman with white hair in a long braid, a weathered denim shirt, and a sharp gaze that tells me she can skin a trout and a liar with the same knife.
"Anabeth Cole?" she asks before I can speak.
I blink. "That obvious?"
"You're new. We don't get a lot of new around here. You look like someone who packed anxiety and trail mix in the same bag."
Fair.
"I'm Elsie Talbot," she adds, reaching for a key on the wall. "Welcome to Redwood Rise. The cottage is ready. It ain't fancy, but it'll keep you warm. Don’t mind the creaks. Or the mist. It rolls in like clockwork."
"Thanks. This place is... gorgeous. A little eerie. But gorgeous."
Elsie gives a knowing smile. "Most good things are."
I'm about to ask her more when the door opens behind me, the tiny brass bell above it chiming a warning.
And that’s when I see him. Six-foot-something of lean, rough-cut muscle and rumpled charm. Grease-smudged jeans, athermal shirt clinging to a chest that looks like it could bench press my Jeep, and a slow, assessing gaze that hits me square in the solar plexus.
My brain goes full tilt. Not because of the way his shoulders fill the doorway—though they definitely do. No, it's the way my breath stutters, my pulse stumbles, and my inner compass spins like it’s lost true north. I hate that he lands so squarely on my radar. I didn’t come here to ogle the local lumberjack population; I came to do a job. And yet, here I am, gawking like a teenager in heat. Not even because his eyes that look like a storm has touched them don’t just look at me. They land on me and seem to stare into my soul.
It’s because something in me—inexplicably, irrationally, ridiculously—settles.
Like I’ve just arrived somewhere I didn’t know I was missing.
