Page 2 of The Mountain Man's Christmas Bride
From the porch of my cabin, Shadow barks, the sound of her nails clicking against the wood making me look up. Her tail wags with excitement, yet despite her age, she’s still got some fight in her.
Her dark fur glints in the sunlight as she makes her way off the porch to the gravel driveway. Finally, I take a moment to wipe my brow and follow her line of sight. She’s trotting slowly in the direction of some brush at the edge of the forest. Theleaves move, not from the breeze but from the small critter living in it.
I whistle once, stopping Shadow in her tracks. Her ears lift and she cocks her head in my direction, as if askingare you really stopping me from hunting?
“Come.” The ears drop, and Shadow waltzes over to me. I can’t have her disrupting the wildlife. She’s usually pretty good at keeping to herself, but the other animal must be a little too close for her comfort.
With Shadow at my side, I gather the logs and start for the cabin. My arms ache with the exertion and weight. Maybe from age. But I’ve been out here over a decade, so I’m used to the work that comes with maintaining this part of my land.
Kicking the cabin door open, I glance around my space. It’s everything I need, and it’s perfectly quiet. Shadow trots over to the old, leather recliner in front of the fireplace and curls up on her blanket while I unload the logs onto the pile sitting nearby.
Winter is here in full force, snow falling through the night and completely changing the landscape around me. At this rate, I’ll be burning through the stores I have left.
I wipe my hands of splinters and dirt before turning to Shadow, who rests her head on her paws. “You ready for another winter?”
Her soft whines are neither a yes nor a no. I know her old bones are probably protesting another storm, but she’s got at least another two in her.
At least I hope she does.
She’s all I have left.
I swallow hard and glance away from my old girl and scrub a hand over my face. I try not to consider the repercussions of losing her and instead focus on my internal checklist. I’ve got client papers to send off, a video-appointment in about threehours, and time to kill before I need to be in front of that damned screen.
But this is my life. The one I choose. I don’t get to bitch about it anymore. In the early years of living up here, it’d taken a while to adjust. The quiet was the worst. It was thick like molasses, and any sound that deviated from it did more than just wake me up. I’d say I was a bloody mess during that first year.
Then I got used to it. I had to. I sank everything I had into getting the land. And the cabin...It’s small and cosy now, but back then it’d been nothing more than a shack, maybe used every so often by hunters.
Shaking my head, I go through the motions as I prepare for a long afternoon. The computer might run—slowly—but it takes a while to boot up and connect to the internet. My assistant, Aaron, hates the lag, but he’s grown used to it. Our clients have, too. They have to if they want the best—and they know I am.
The paperwork is what takes the longest. There are at least four yellow mailing satchels full of them. Fucking hell. Aaron wasn’t kidding. These are all things I need to look over before sending them back to Denver for Aaron to go over again with our legal team.
I should have started these yesterday. I forgot how demanding the work is. Not being right there in the city, I just...
I got used to the peace. And it’s coming back to bite me in the ass.
At least Aaron made sure to note which package was priority one.
And that’s why he’s not just my assistant.He’s pretty much the reason why I get to isolate myself in Willow Ridge. He handles everything in the city, while I make sure what needs to be done on my end gets done.
My hand cramps by the three hour mark, but at least the first file of paperwork is done. My cell pings with an email fromAaron, warning me we’re in the ten minute grace period before the meeting. Which means I have to go from mountain man to businessman.
I stopped worrying about that a long time ago, but there are too many people—too many families—relying on me, their boss, to actually show up and lead the team.
It takes me less than five to change into a suit jacket and dress shirt. My beard is trimmed and neat, but I have to brush and tie my hair back from my face. In the five minutes before the meeting, I’m already in a video-call room with Aaron, quietly running over the plans for the meeting.
There’s a routine to these things, one I rely on maybe too heavily. I make the presentation, I answer the questions, and then I sit there, the face of the company and hope that it’s enough. That my contribution these days gives my contractors, my legal team, my secretaries, Aaron—everyone who works for Hayes Construction—what they need.
And by the end of it, I remember why the hell I’m up here in the first place. Why I prefer my isolation—my seclusion.
I used to be a people person, used to enjoy getting to know my clients, my workers.
But it fell apart, and now I remind myself why I can’t let myself open up again. Why I can’t do more than just sit here in my cabin, hidden away on a mountain in a small town no one knows about.
Why I can’thavemore than this place and Shadow.
I broke when I was Rhett Hayes, the owner of my company, the man everyone looked up to—who they relied on. And when that happened, I failed a whole lot of people.
I can’t let that happen again.
