Page 9 of The Mountain Man's Secret Star
"Please," she whispered, her hips moving against me shamelessly.
The kitchen door burst open with enough force to rattle the hinges.
"There you are!" A woman in designer jeans and cashmere coat blew in with a gust of cold air. "I've been looking everywhere for you."
Sadie jerked away from me so quickly she nearly fell off the counter. "Keisha. Hi. I was just—"
"Learning to cook, apparently." Keisha's gaze swept over the apron, then landed on me with assessing eyes. "You must be the famous pie maker."
"Gavin MacLeod." I grabbed my shirt, pulling it back on while trying to look less like I'd been seconds away from stripping Sadie bare on my prep counter.
"Keisha Chen, Sadie's manager." She shook my hand. "We need to discuss the offers that came in this morning. Big ones."
The wordoffershit my stomach like ice water.
"Can it wait?" Sadie asked, but her voice had already changed, taking on careful neutrality. "I was just—"
Keisha's smile was warm but determined. "Nashville won't wait, and neither will these opportunities. The kind we've been working toward for years."
I could feel Sadie pulling away without physically moving, could see her mental walls going up as she shifted back into business mode. Whatever moment we'd been building was evaporating.
"What kind of offers?" Sadie asked, untying her apron.
"The kind we discuss in private." Keisha's gaze flicked to me with polite dismissal. "I'm sure you understand."
I understood plenty. Keisha wasn't just Sadie's manager, she was her best friend, her advocate. Whatever was happening between Sadie and me was a temporary distraction from her real world.
"The label wants an answer by tomorrow," Keisha was saying. "Three-year commitment, but the advance alone would set you up for life. Complete creative control, flexible tour schedule—they want to capture your Silver Ridge authenticity in the studio."
Silver Ridge authenticity.They were already packaging whatever she'd found here, turning her transformation into a marketing strategy.
"I should get back to prep," I said, turning away from their conversation and back to my vegetables. But I could still hear every word as Keisha painted pictures of Sadie's future that stretched far beyond Silver Ridge.
The kitchen door swung shut behind them, leaving me alone with the scent of honey and whiskey and the ghost of Sadie'swarmth against my chest. I picked up my knife and went back to dicing vegetables with mechanical precision, but my mind was spinning.
She was leaving. Of course she was leaving. Women like Sadie Reynolds didn't sacrifice their careers for men they'd known less than a week.
I was halfway through browning the venison when the door opened again.
"Gavin?"
Sadie's voice, soft and uncertain. I set down my spatula and faced her, noting that she'd lost the apron but kept the slightly wild look that came from having her hands in food and flour.
"Forget something?"
"My sanity, maybe." She stepped closer. "That conversation with Keisha—it wasn't supposed to happen like that."
"Seemed straightforward to me. Good opportunities, big money, bright future." I turned back to the stove. "Congratulations."
"Are you angry?"
The question surprised me enough that I looked at her again. She was standing with her arms crossed, defensive but not closed off.
"Should I be?"
"I don't know. Most people get weird when my career comes up."
We stared at each other across the prep station, and I felt that same pull I'd experienced on the mountain—the sense that this woman saw something in me that most people missed.
