Chapter 1

1

SLOANE

B eing a rule follower sucked.

Especially today. Being a rule follower meant I was standing in a long line outside a trailer waiting for a work assignment that wouldn't help me reach my goal at all.

My friends and I had known we weren't being original by traveling three hours to the town of Rosewood Ridge based on a viral video of a hot mountain man. Not until I saw this line of hopeful women did I realize we weren't original at all. In fact, we were the epitome of unoriginal.

"I heard Jax isn't even in there," a woman farther up the line told her friend.

The woman in line in front of me let out a groan. I felt a little bad for her. She, like some of the others, had dressed for the occasion with her short shorts and super-tight tank top. Even the ones dressed appropriately were clearly trying to impress. I saw far too much makeup than would be typical for a disaster recovery operation.

Okay, so I'd put a little too much time into my makeup and hair too. But like the friends who traveled here with me, I'd taken extra pains to make it look like I wasn't trying all that hard. My hair was in a messy bun and I wore sweatpants cut off into shorts with a T-shirt. The T-shirt had the name of a local gym printed across the chest.

"You want to go look for him?" the woman in line in front of me asked her friend.

They looked around, including a glance at me. I quickly lowered my gaze to my phone, pretending I'd been looking at it all along.

And then they were gone, as were a few others up the line. I couldn't help but notice the woman who'd made the comment stayed in place, though. That made me feel a little better about my decision not to follow those other women. It could be a trick designed to scare off competition.

The door to the trailer opened, and I, like so many others in line, strained to see inside. No luck, but people started filing inside.

With a sigh, I pocketed the phone and moved up several steps. Then several more. With each person who was sucked into that trailer, I grew a little closer to being inside. I made it to the steps—up one, two, three steps—and then I was on the little landing area just before the threshold. As the woman in front of me walked through the door, I braced myself to follow her, only to have the door suddenly slam in my face.

"What the hell?" I asked.

I turned, planning to commiserate with the other people who'd been shut out at the last minute, but nobody was behind me. Nobody. And that hadn't been the case just minutes earlier.

"What the hell?" I repeated, looking around.

Was I losing my mind? Had everyone behind me given up on getting inside? Maybe they saw the writing on the wall. As far as the eye could see, there wasn't another living soul.

Oh, wait. Way off in the distance, something was moving. Something tall and big. It was too big to be a fangirl here looking for her mountain man. It was too big to be human, actually. I couldn't help but think of the mythical creatures that people said roamed mountains like these. Maybe one had come down looking for humans to eat.

Did Sasquatches eat humans? Hell if I knew.

I looked around, weighing the odds that I could outrun this creature. If I let him get any closer, I'd be trapped. Could Sasquatches climb stairs? Maybe the landing area would be too confined.

When I looked back in the direction of the creature, something had changed. The sunlight was no longer blinding me, which meant I couldn't make out more than the outline. No, this wasn't a mythological creature. It wasn't even a verified animal like a bear or chimpanzee. A man was walking toward me, and he was huge.

"I'm armed," I yelled out, suddenly filled with panic.

Men could be more dangerous than Sasquatches. And bears. Definitely more dangerous than chimpanzees.

But it was clear I wasn't armed. I didn't even have a purse on me. Just my cell phone, which contained my credit card and driver's license.

But how could the guy know I didn't have pepper spray in my bra or something? If the threat of being sprayed scared him, he didn't show it. Not that it mattered. I didn't have pepper spray, and I wasn't scared enough to feel like I needed it. Something about this guy told me I was safer now that he was here.

"You going in?" he asked, pointing to the door behind me.

He stopped several feet from the steps and crossed his arms over his chest, legs slightly spread. With that stance, he looked like a bouncer at a bar. Or like a celebrity's bodyguard.

I hitched my thumb toward the door, then crossed my own arms over my chest. "I didn't make the cut."

That made me sound like a loser, like someone in line at a casting call on Broadway, not someone who'd driven three hours with her three closest friends to work for free, helping out after a tornado.

I took a deep breath and tried again. "There was a long line when I got here," I said. "I was at the very end. They let in everyone but me."

Did that sound whiny? I was hardly a suburban brat. I came from a rough background, but I'd worked hard. I got a bunch of grants and loans to go to college and now I was having a tough time finding a job that paid more than I made in tips at the fancy steak restaurant I'd worked at since high school.

But a guy like this one wouldn't see it that way. Some twenty-three-year-old had shown up in town with three of her best friends, who were once sorority sisters. He'd take one look at my highlighted hair—done at home with a product I bought at the grocery store—and assume I was some city girl with loaded parents.

"You here to volunteer?" the guy asked. "Or are you like the others?"

My eyebrows arched, and I wondered if they showed over my oversized sunglasses. "Like the others?"

He gestured toward the trailer. "All these other women who showed up looking for—what is it you all call him? The Cyclone Stud?"

I was suddenly aware that my jaw had dropped at those words. I was gawking at him, open mouthed. I hadn't prepared to answer a question like that. What did I say?

"I'm here to help with disaster recovery," I said. "I heard someone say Jax isn't even in there, and that sent some of the women that way."

I pointed toward the neighborhood. The trailer was only about a quarter of a mile away on property someone said would be used for selling Christmas trees later in the year. Apparently, this was some kind of farm.

"Look out," the man said.

The words were barely out of his mouth when the door behind me whooshed open, revealing a group of women clumped in front of it. They were ready to move forward, and I was blocking the way.

"Hey, there's a guy out here," one of the women said.

"Is it Jax?" someone else asked.

I checked out the scene behind me, then turned back around. The guy I'd briefly seen as dangerous suddenly looked like the only guy who could save me from this mob. But his expression reminded me of a deer caught in the headlights, a look I was pretty sure was on my face as well.

Fear that I might be trampled urged me down the stairs and across to where he was standing. "Let's go," I said.

Then I did something completely uncharacteristic of me. I grabbed the guy's hand and tugged as I walked. He twisted around and fell into step beside me, letting go of my hand in the process. He was the one who initiated the contact this time, wrapping his much larger hand around mine and even giving it a little squeeze as we started walking.

If the group of man-hungry women behind us followed, I couldn't tell. I didn't dare look back. I was too busy enjoying holding this hot guy's hand to care, anyway. He might not be Jax, but he was the best-looking thing I'd ever seen.