Chapter One

Sloane Middleson forced a smile at the man who held the door open for her.

Truth be told, she'd just had a good cry-session in her car before she'd made herself follow through with her plan and come in here to Moosey's BBQ, where she would eat lunch at a table for one, be around actual people, and start moving forward with her life.

Ruger should be with her.

Just the thought of him had her closing her eyes and counting to five to steady out before she walked to the line to order food. This was the right thing to do. She'd made the right decision. It was right. Right. Right.

Sometimes being a good human got a person hurt.

She looked around the restaurant and took it all in. She'd heard nothing but good things about this place from everyone she'd talked to since she'd moved back to the area last month. If heaven sold barbecue, it would probably smell like this place. Her mouth was already watering. When was the last time she'd had a meal other than a TV dinner? A week? Two weeks?

She blinked hard and huffed a self-deprecating laugh. She'd made a goal to be more forgiving on herself. It had been a long damn year, and she was doing her best.

There were two women working the check-out counter, and a couple of younger men who looked to be high-school age gathering food for the two families putting in their orders.

On the back wall behind the counters, there was a row of smokers with vents to the outside. One was open and had rows of foil-wrapped meats steaming away. Sloane was staring at the steam, off in la-la land, when an enormous man covered her view of it.

Holy moly, his shoulders were as broad as a barn. He was tall, perhaps six foot five, and wore a pitmaster apron that tied at the waist and accentuated the deep V of his muscular torso. Probably lived in a gym outside of this job. Strike one. She'd dated a gym rat before, and his entire focus had been on himself and the other women in the gym. He turned and barked out orders to one of the high-school kids. The boy looked scared, scrambling to do his bidding and check a smoker of ribs. Strike two. She didn't like the way he scared the young man. He'd probably been a bully growing up.

When he turned to say something to one of the cashiers, recognition struck Sloane like lightning. Her mouth fell open.

Holy. Shit.

She knew him. Strike three.

Captain Walker had grown into a behemoth of a man, and his chiseled jaw sported a three-day beard. He wore his hair different now and had just given her a flash of his profile, but that was him…right?

"Hello? I can take you down here!" the pretty brunette cashier called out.

Oh crap, the family was already done ordering and were completely gone. She'd probably been standing and staring at Captain way too long.

She should leave. She should turn around and walk right out that door and not have this moment with him.

"Miss?" the cashier asked, looking concerned.

Shoot. She was starving.

Captain said something curt to the high-school kid and then disappeared around the corner. Okay, she could do this. She just needed to order fast.

"Hey, hi, hello," Sloane greeted the cashier as she scrambled to the counter. She stumbled through her greeting as she dug around her oversized purse for a pair of sunglasses to place over her face and hide from her high-school crush. "I need a meat. Some meat."

"What kind of meat?" the cashier asked.

Where were her freaking sunglasses? Had she left them in the truck?

"Good meat. Um, do you have any recommendations?" she whispered as she hunched down to eye level with the counter and looked around the register to see if Captain was back.

The pretty cashier arched her eyebrows, leaned forward, and looked down at her. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. Yep. Absolutely yes. I just saw someone I knew a hundred years ago, and I need to order really fast," she said quietly.

The cashier scrunched up her face. "Was it Captain?"

"Shhhh, he's a shifter. He can hear you," she huffed out on a breath. "Let me get…" She scanned the menu and shook her head, flustered. "Brisket sandwich, extra barbecue sauce, and lots of pickles. Fried okra, and a couple of pork ribs? Is that good?"

"Great choices. Anything else?" she asked, and bless that cashier, she was talking quietly and seemed to be helping block her from the view of the smokers. Girl code. This woman got it!

"Is the mud pie good?"

"It's even better than our banana pudding, and that stuff wins awards."

"Can I have two?" she whispered, her hand still in her purse feeling around for the dang sunglasses.

"I've got you," the cashier said low. She told Sloane the total, and she fumbled shoving her credit card in the machine.

"Here you go," a gruff, growly voice said from behind the cashier, and there he was. The man who had revisited her memories every time she thought about her high-school years.

Captain Walker, all-American shifter football team, honor roll, knew everyone, friend to a million, Mr. Popular, oozing confidence always, and the very first boy who ever took her out on a date.

He set two containers of mud pie on the counter beside the cashier and nodded his head cooly to Sloane, then turned and went back to work.

Captain Walker, who absolutely hadn't recognized her.

Strike. Freaking. Four.

Sloane straightened her spine and watched him disappear around the corner again. It was the cashier that interrupted her thoughts. "You don't have to feel bad at whatever happened."

"Huh?" Sloane asked.

The cashier—Hallie, her name tag read—gave her a pitying smile. "He's a mess with women. Whatever it was, it was his fault, not yours."

She didn't know why that meant so much to her. Perhaps it was because of what she'd been going through with her ex, or maybe it was the move and all of the overwhelming memories that came along with moving back to a small town after so many years away. Or maybe it was just not feeling validated in her feelings for so long, but Hallie saying something…anything…wasn't her fault felt so damn important.

She tried to smile, but her lip trembled. "Thank you," she forced out.

Hallie canted her head, and her eyes were so full of understanding. "Don't let his presence chase you off. You should eat here. Absorb all the good mojo of this place. If you sit outside, you won't even see his dumb ass again."

Sloane nodded. "I'll sit outside then. Thanks."

"Attagirl," Hallie said as the other workers were filling a red tray with her order. Hallie reached under the counter, pulled up a beer, and popped the top with a red, metal beer bottle opener with a bear paw cutout in it. "This one is on me, as an apology for whatever dumb shit that man did to you."

"You know him well?" she asked.

"I'm his Crewmate," Hallie said.

And when she admitted that, Sloane put it together. The too-bright eyes and the ease with which she gave her back to that massive grizzly shifter behind her. Hallie was a shifter too.

Sloane smiled and lifted the frosty beer bottle up in a cheers. "I haven't had one of these in a while. Thank you for it."

"Sure thing," Hallie said with a wink. "And don't worry. You'll move on to someone better than Captain. He sets the bar real low."

Sloane huffed a laugh and nodded. Hallie was easy to chat with, and if they were better friends, she would explain she had actually somehow downgraded after she'd moved away from here. An easy smiler like Hallie would probably be able to see the humor in her journey.

She didn't know her though, and they weren't friends, so she thanked her again and told her to, "Have a nice day." Sloane made her way straight outside and around the corner to an empty picnic table to eat out of view of the man she'd had such a huge crush on once upon a time. And now he didn't even recognize her? It stung, and was a little embarrassing, but you know? She wasn't the girl she used to be.

Hell, some days, she didn't even recognize herself.

It made sense that he didn't either.

Perhaps the edge of Damon's Mountains would be where she would find herself again.