Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

CHRIS

Some days, I was really freaking tired of being boring Chris Winowski.

"Hey, Chris? Can you swap out the Heady? It's running slow." Van set the pint he'd just pulled in front of Norm Avery. "Crowd after the town meeting must've cleaned us out last night."

I straightened from where I'd been unloading a bunch of freshly washed glasses onto a rack under the bar, wiped my damp hands on the leg of my baggy jeans, and pushed up my glasses. "Me? Heck yeah. I'll do it right now!"

Was it ridiculous that my pulse leapt at being asked to change out a keg—a messy job that meant yanking around a container nearly as heavy as me and arguably the worst of all the tasks involved in being a barback?

Low-key yes.

But I'd been working at the Bugle, the centuries-old tavern in Little Pippin Hollow, Vermont, for almost half a year now, and after one teeny, tiny, barely memorable keg-changing incident last spring, I hadn't been asked again, so this almost felt like? —

Van put his gnarled hand on my thin shoulder and squeezed lightly. "I didn't mean you, kiddo."

"Oh." I frowned at him. "But?—"

Crys—aka Crystal, aka Original-Crys, even though she hadn't lived in the Hollow much longer than I had—slouched in from the back room wearing thick boots, cargo pants, and a flannel shirt she'd cropped herself last week with her pocket knife, not to purposely show off her amazing abs but because the extra material was "freaking killing my range of motion, man." Her messy hair, which looked like it had been hacked off with the same knife , framed a pretty face, a friendly smile, and dark eyes that reminded me of a caged tiger I'd seen at the zoo as a kid.

"On it." Crys's voice was confident as she clomped back off to get her tools.

My shoulders slumped, but I could hardly complain. I mean, of the two of us, I'd have given her the job, too.

"Guessing Van doesn't want a repeat of the Great Beer Baptism." Norm gave me a wink. "You remember that, Chris?"

"Yes, sir." I tried to muster a polite smile. "Yep. I was there, so…"

"I thought we were calling it the Keg-tastrophe," old Mrs. Graber teased. "It was like a geyser of beer erupted right here in the bar. Lord, I never saw such a sight in all my born days."

That covers a lot of days , I thought uncharitably, my fingers toying with the frayed blue cuff of my sweater, but I nodded along and kept my smile plastered in place. Nothing worse than a man who can't take a joke, Uncle Danny always said.

"You talking about the Ale-pocalypse?" A man I'd never met before set his empty glass on the edge of the bar and rubbed a hand over his bald head. "I heard about that. The way they tell it over in Keltyville, beer ran down the sidewalk in a wave."

I leaned a hip against the bar and closed my eyes with a sigh. It had taken me less than six months in Vermont to become a small-town urban legend. That had to be some kind of record.

I was fairly certain this wasn't what Uncle Danny had in mind when he'd sent me north to stay with Van to "relax awhile" and "find myself" while helping his old army buddy out.

"Not quite," Van said dryly. He darted a glance at the bright white section of new plaster on the ceiling and patted my shoulder again. "It was a hell of a mess, but it could have happened to anyone. Besides, Ernie's been meaning to replace that ceiling nearly as long as he's owned the place."

I wasn't sure about that. Norm didn't look convinced either.

"I didn't mean to get distracted. I disconnected the old keg, like you showed me," I explained. I could feel my cheeks heating, and though Uncle Danny's voice in my head reminded me that uncontrollable babbling was a really inconvenient stress response, the words kept pouring out. "A-and I started screwing the coupler into the new one. But then the Sunday family came into the bar, and everyone was making toasts to Webb and Luke, and someone was asking if it was true that they'd gotten married, and then… well. It just sort of happened," I finished lamely.

"Sure. Like I said." Van shook my shoulder gently one last time before wandering off to help Crys with the keg.

Mrs. Graber leaned toward me over the bar. "You were thinking about making 'em one of your charcoochie boards, weren't you, sweetheart?" she asked in a sympathetic voice. To the bald stranger, she confided, "Chris does the boards for the Little Pippin Hookers Knit-Ins, you know. They're magnificent . All different themes. So colorful. And so pretty, too! Meats, and cheese balls, and even those… whatjacall'em? Edible flowers? This man does amazing things with a salami."

I felt my face go even hotter and gave her a genuine smile. "Thanks, Mrs. Graber." I felt a little guilty for my unkind thoughts about her earlier, so I picked up her mostly empty glass of seltzer and lime and grabbed the soda nozzle to refill it.

Unfortunately, I couldn't blame charcuterie boards for my distraction the day of the keg incident. It hadn't even been the horde of Sundays that distracted me—though lord knew they were difficult to ignore, especially when gathered in multiples. According to town gossip, four out of the five brothers were gorgeous, green-eyed, gargantuan lumberjacks, even the one who worked in Washington as an accountant or something. I hadn't met them all, but I could say for sure that the ones I had met were capable, kind, and devoted to their family. Webb Sunday in particular gave off a total John Ruffian vibe… and that was not a compliment I gave lightly since I'd been a John Ruffian: Pretender fan since the day the show first aired and could quote nearly every one of its seventy-two episodes from start to finish.

In fact, the day of the incident, I'd seen Webb grin down at his brand-new husband, wrap him up in his beefy arms, and give him a kiss so pure and loving that all my breath had left my body in a sigh… and that had gotten me thinking about the episode where John pretended to run an ice cream factory to save a woman's dairy farm from financial ruin.

After the dairy lady had given him a tearful thank- you, John Ruffian had said, "No need to thank me, baby," in his deep, gruff voice. Then, he'd wrapped one huge hand behind her neck and bent her backward—literally, no kidding, backward —and kissed her like she was the only other human in the universe, a lot like the way Webb had kissed Luke.

Since this was in my top seven all-time John Ruffian kisses, naturally, I'd replayed the whole scene in my head… and then I may possibly have started imagining what it might be like one of these days when I found someone of my own to kiss and wondering whether he'd call me?—

"Chris!" Van yelled a second before I felt a distinct dampness around my ankles.

"Huh?" I blinked down to find that I'd overfilled Mrs. Graber's glass by an ounce or two… or twenty… and the excess had run all over the bar and down my jeans. "Oh, shoot. Oh, frick . Oh, mother-clucking cluckballs. I'm so sorry, Van." I mopped off the lower counter of the bar with a rag and then crouched to mop at the floor. "I, uh… I…"

"Got distracted?" Mrs. Graber suggested from somewhere above me. "Again?"

"Yeah," I admitted.

"Never mind," Van said. "We'll clean it up later."

I continued mopping aggressively.

"Chris," Van sighed in the fond but slightly despairing tone I'd become familiar with. "Leave it. In fact, come on back to the office with me. I need to talk to you."

I stood and swallowed hard, not meeting anyone's eyes as I followed Van through the swinging door to the stockroom and then to his office.

Was I being fired? I'd never been fired before. Of course, that might have been because my only paying job had been working for Uncle Danny at the Cellar—the wine and cheese shop that had once belonged to my nonna.

Danny hadn't seemed too upset that I was occasionally—not often, swear to gosh, just on one or two teeny, tiny, inconsequential occasions — distracted or unobservant. I was a hard worker, he often said. A very hard worker.

Then again, when Uncle Danny had retired last spring, he'd decided to sell the shop rather than let me run it, which wasn't exactly a vote of confidence, so?—

"Lord, I have never needed a vacation more than I do right now," Van muttered. He closed the office door behind us, dropped into the desk chair with a groan, and motioned toward the spindly chair in front of the desk. "Take a load off."

"Please don't fire me, Van," I said in a rush. "I know I get distracted sometimes. I can do better. I will do better. I?—"

"Relax, kiddo. I'm not firing you," Van said.

"You're not?" Relief had me collapsing into the chair.

"Hell no. For one thing, I like you. Customers love you. You're a hoot."

I wasn't sure how to take that, so I nodded.

"For another," Van went on, "your uncle would use my balls as bait if I fired his precious nephew while he was on his fishing sabbatical." Wrinkles creased his tanned face as he smiled. "Don't suppose you've heard from him recently?"

I shook my head and pushed up my glasses. "Not once since he left. I mean, not on the phone or anything. He's sent me a couple postcards, though. Remember I showed you the one with the bluefin tuna, maybe a week and a half ago? He, uh, he did warn me that he wouldn't have any cell service where he was going, and he can only get the postcards out when the resupply planes come by, so…" I shrugged. "I still post pictures a couple times a week on my private Instagram. Someday, when he gets service, he'll be able to catch up on all the stuff I'm doing."

"All the stuff," Van agreed with a little smile. He linked his hands behind his head. "You still worry about him, don't you? I'm sure he's fine, kiddo."

"Yeah! No, yeah, of course he is. Uncle Danny's really strong, and the doctor cleared him to travel almost right away after his heart procedure. I bet he's having a ton of fun. But I, ah… I guess I didn't know he'd be gone quite this long? He didn't really specify, and you know how much he hates it when I ask him a bunch of questions, and I… I miss him, that's all." I rubbed my palms over my jeans and joked, "I'm feeling a little short in the family department temporarily." Even my cousin Nicky had gone radio silent since I left New Jersey.

Not that I'd expected him to call—or even particularly wanted him to, all things considered— but still.

For half a second, when Van inhaled, he looked almost angry, but his expression cleared so quickly I was sure I'd imagined it. "Well, the good news is you're welcome to stay with me for as long as you like." He sat forward. "In fact, you've got the house to yourself for the next couple weeks. I'm heading to Portland for the Brew Fest, and then I'm taking a quick camping trip before leaf-peeping season really gets going around here. I took you off the schedule, too." He nodded to the paper spreadsheet taped to the wall.

"You did?" I blinked. "But… why? Is it because of the spill? Because I really will clean it?—"

Van waved my words away. "It's not that. It's that… Chris, how long have you been on your own since Danny left? And how many places have you explored? "

"Around here?" I frowned. "I guess not a lot? But I'm here to work, Van?—"

"And you do, kiddo. You do. But did you ever think maybe part of the reason you're so distracted is 'cause you… well, you ain't got much of a life outside of work and home?"

"Uh." I pondered this for a second. "No? I also make charcuterie boards for the Hookers and the PTA meetings sometimes, and I helped out at the orchard a couple times too. I know lots about apple varietals—Uncle Danny taught me a lot about gardening, and pollinators like butterflies and bees, and hybridization—and it turns out keeping an orchard's not so different from gardening. Oh, and I helped decorate for the town fair. Ms. Fortnum said I was really good at hanging bunting?—"

Van shook his head. "This is worse than I thought. Kiddo, what have you done that's fun ? You're young. You need to get out and see the world. Run with the wrong crowd for a while. Let folks get to know you. Make some friends."

"I have friends," I protested. But that wasn't really true. I'd made a lot of acquaintances in the Hollow, but no one I really hung out with. No one who called me up and asked me over for dinner. To be honest, I'd never really been good at having those kinds of friends—the couple of times I'd thought I'd found one in the past, they'd sort of drifted away, and Uncle Danny said family was more important than friends, anyway.

"Tell me." Van scratched his cheek. "When was the last time you hooked up with a hot, uh… guy?" he guessed.

I nodded, then shook my head, then pressed a hand to my stomach, where a bunch of pygmy blues were fluttering their wings as if trying to escape. "Guy," I agreed in a small voice. "And it's, um, been a while." I refused to admit that I hadn't dated a guy, let alone hooked up with one, in… let's see, it was a couple weeks until my twenty-fifth birthday, so if I did the math correctly, that meant it had been approximately… twenty-five years?

"Well, there you go. Plenty of hot single guys in this town." He winked broadly. "Have an adventure! Be like the dude in that stup—uh, that really interesting show you're always watching. Hasn't Crys asked you to go out with her crew a couple times now?"

"Oh, well…" I rubbed the back of my neck with the cuff of my sweater. One time, Crys had invited me to go ax throwing. Another time, she'd invited me gorge jumping, which, to my shock, involved jumping into actual gorges . "She might be a little too adventurous for me? And I… you know. I'll be going home once Uncle Danny's ready to come back, so I don't know if I want to put down roots here?—"

"Who said roots? I said sow wild oats," Van said reasonably. "It'll be good for you. You're young. You're sweet. You're a looker, too, underneath those sweaters your nonna knit you back in the day—that's an objective observation, mind you," he added quickly. "Ya ain't my type."

I snorted and tugged the cuffs of my sweater—which, yes, had been hand-knitted by my nonna—further down my hands. "Thanks, Van."

"But be honest: would you even notice if someone tried flirting with you?" Van lifted one bushy eyebrow. "Just yesterday, I heard someone asking Ernie about you—who you hung out with, whether you were dating anyone, and so forth—so it stands to reason?—"

"Someone asked about me? Wait, really? Was it a guy? Do I know them? Were they cute?" The tiny fluttering butterflies became a whole kaleidoscope of giant swallowtails. " What did Ernie say?"

Van scowled. "Jesus, kiddo, I didn't stand around eavesdropping, and I ain't the damn Matchmaker of Little Pippin Hollow. The point is, open your eyes and open your mind." He tapped his temple aggressively. "I know Danny raised you to keep your head down and be responsible and all that. He wasn't wrong… to a point. But your Uncle Danny was also so stressed about work and… other stuff, his heart went wonky at fifty-nine. Part of the reason he sent you here was to figure out what you want your life to look like, right? So next time you get asked to do something—I don't care if it's joining a bread-baking club, or going on a date, or doing one of them psychedelic retreats in Peru—if you're even the smallest bit interested, promise me you'll do it. Don't overthink. Don't ask yourself what Danny would say. Throw caution out the window and leap before you look. Okay?"

"Sure," I agreed. And because it meant so much to me that he cared, I nodded a bit more enthusiastically and promised, "Yes. I'll do that."

"Good man," Van said with a nod. "Now, get outta here. Go home and change. Nobody's adventure ever started with damp jeans, ya feel me?"

Because he was right, when I left the office, I ducked under the pass-through and called a cheery "See you later" to Crys, who was working the bar.

I was surprised when the bald man from earlier stopped me as I headed for the door. "Hey. Chris, right? I wanted to ask you about those, ah, charcuterie things? My wife's a sucker for 'em. Don't suppose you have a business card?" He gave me a hopeful little smile.

"Me? Oh." I shook my head. "No. I only do it for fun. Nobody's gonna pay somebody to arrange their cheese into—" I stopped.

That was cautious Uncle Danny talking, right there, after I'd promised Van I wouldn't second-guess myself that way. And after all, what was the harm in making a little cash on the side and helping this man do a nice thing for his wife?

I cleared my throat. "You know what? I'm going to print up some business cards." I grinned. "If you're around tomorrow, I'll give you one."

"I'll be here," he agreed.

It did feel good to do something a little… risky, I realized as I stepped out onto the sidewalk and pulled my jacket tight against the chilly twilight air. Really, refreshingly good. Maybe Van had a point about the whole adventure thing. Maybe he was right that good things would happen if I went a little wild.

So when a sporty little black car pulled up alongside me halfway down the block and the passenger's window rolled down, I didn't ignore it or walk faster the way I might usually have done.

"Chris?" The driver of the car had a voice so deep—so John Ruffian deep—I stopped in my tracks, sure I hadn't heard right.

"Um. Yes?" I peered into the open window

In the weak, golden glow of the dome light, I saw that he was tall and broad and bearded and plaid-flannel-shirted and—holy shoot, holy freaking shoot—he had the same bright green eyes as the Sunday brothers.

"Thank fuck," the missing Sunday said in a voice that—pinky swear—was the sexiest single sound I'd ever heard. "Get in. I've been waiting for you."

"Get in," I repeated inanely. "In…" I swallowed hard. "…your car?"

"Yeah." He frowned like this should be obvious, and probably, it was .

I pushed my glasses up, then ran my hand through my hair, hoping that for the first time in my existence, I could pull off "effortlessly cool," but it was no use. The idea that this man—this lumberjack, this Sunday— had been waiting for me had dumped my brain into a blender and hit the smoothie button. I could barely make my mouth form words.

"Oh. Um. Does Webb need something at the orchard? Or…" My voice trailed off as I sifted through the slurry of my brain, trying and failing to come up with any other plausible reason why this gorgeous man would be looking for me. "Does someone need an emergency charcuterie?"

"What the hell is an emergency char—? Never mind." He glanced up and down the mostly deserted street, seeming agitated. Almost kind of… nervous? It made my chest go warm in sympathy, which somehow reconnected my brain to my mouth.

"Try taking a deep breath," I suggested. "That sometimes helps me."

"I think what would help is not doing this here," he muttered. "Where the trees have eyes and every busybody has an opinion. But here we are."

The poor guy didn't seem any better at making sense when he was nervous than I was, but I nodded encouragingly.

He pushed an impatient hand through his hair, managing to look far sexier than I did with that move. "Let's start over. I'm Sunday. " He gave me a meaningful look.

"I figured." I gestured from my own dull, brown eyes to his gorgeous ones. "Dead giveaway."

"Right. Okay. So?" He nodded toward the car.

I still wasn't sure what he wanted, and I hated to presume. " So…?"

He huffed out a frustrated breath. "This isn't my usual MO, okay? When I'm picking someone up, I like to arrange things in advance. But the Powers that Be threw you into my path with zero warning?—"

My jaw dropped. Had he… had he really said when I'm picking someone up?

Did that mean…?

Was I the someone ?

I'd never been picked up before. I didn't go to bars and clubs much—or, okay, ever —since they weren't my scene, and when I'd tried Grindr just to see how it worked, I hadn't even uploaded a profile picture before five messages popped up, four demanding dick pics and one inviting me to a nearby stranger's home to "rail his horny ass through the mattress." I'd panic-deleted the app instantly.

But now, unless I was very much mistaken—always a possibility—this bristly-jawed man with forearms of pure muscle was standing in front of me and honest to gosh talking about picking me up because the Powers that Be had thrown me into his path.

My lungs worked, but I wasn't sure they were actually sucking in air. Could a person drown on their own lust?

"Yup. I didn't even know what you looked like until this time yesterday—" His wry grin obliterated my past, present, and future composure.

Yesterday? Where had I been this time yesterday? How had I not noticed him noticing me? Oh, man, what had I been wearing? Because that was now going to be my forever-and-ever favorite outfit?—

"—and, in fact, it's only thanks to Ernie York that I even knew where to find you?—"

"Ernie," I breathed, the facts slotting together in my mind.

Oh my gosh. Oh my flipping gosh.

This hottest of all the incredibly hot Sundays had been the person asking Ernie about me? I was suddenly, wildly glad Van hadn't divulged this information, or I might have melted into a pile of incredulous goo back in his office and missed this whole interaction.

"Yeah. Ernie mentioned you'd be working tonight." He rolled his eyes. "Small towns, man. Everybody knows everything. On the one hand, useful for finding the guy you're looking for. On the other…" He darted another glance up and down the street, then shrugged. "Anyway. I usually prefer things done in a more controlled and orderly fashion?—"

I nodded like a bobblehead. I loved things to be neat and orderly, too! Gosh, we had so much in common already.

"—but that doesn't mean I'm not a hundred percent committed here." He pressed one large hand to his dazzlingly thick pectoral and said earnestly, "I am."

"Oh. Well. Th-thank you?" I bit my lip.

Was I hallucinating? Was I misinterpreting what he was saying? There was nothing worse than thinking someone liked you and wanted to get to know you, only to realize, when they stopped talking to you at school or stopped coming in to the Cellar during your shift, that you must have been wrong about them. I'd been wrong like that both as a kid and as an adult, and I really, desperately didn't want to be wrong now.

But… what else could he mean? He'd said he was trying to pick me up. And he was a Sunday—a member of the kindest, friendliest, most upstanding family in all of Little Pippin Hollow—which meant he had to be sincere… didn't he?

"Now that all that's out of the way." He leaned over the passenger's seat and popped the door open. "You ready to go?"

My heart rate kicked up, and then up again. I could hear Van's voice in my head telling me not to overthink, to sow my oats or whatever, but there was going wild and there was going wild . I was barely ready for the adventure bunny slope, still reciting, "French fry, pizza slice," to remember how to navigate on my adventure skis. Meanwhile, this man—this sexy, sexy man with his intense eyes and his serious expression and his shirt rolled up to his elbows—had triple black-diamond-level adventure written all over him.

"Just so I'm clear, exactly what's going to happen after I get in the car?" I asked because I needed to be sure.

He sighed impatiently, and I cursed myself for asking.

What if he thought I was being too difficult? What if I was too much trouble? What if he had the same philosophy as Uncle Danny? You ask too many questions, Christoforo, and you ruin life's surprises. Don't argue. Be calm .

"I've got a place—a house—that's private and secure. Once we get there…" He shrugged. "What happens then is really up to you. But you'll be safe, that much I can promise." He dropped his voice so it was warm and liquid, like sliding into a bubble bath. "I don't blame you for being nervous, but you can trust me to take care of you, Chris. I swear it."

My jaw dropped. How could someone I'd never met before know exactly, exactly , what I hadn't known I needed to hear? I didn't even mind—or, okay, not much—that he seemed to realize I was an utter, absolute, never-been-kissed, twenty-four-year-old virgin in need of reassurance. The way he looked at me, the way my name sounded on his lips, made it impossible for me to be embarrassed or worried in the slightest .

It was no John Ruffian calling me "baby"… It was even better .

I was getting picked up by the hottest man I'd ever seen.

So I didn't overthink it. Heck, from that moment on, I didn't think at all. I slid my ass into the passenger's seat, shut the door, and bid boring old Chris Winowski goodbye forever.

And as the car peeled away from the curb, my first thought was that Van had been wrong. Apparently, some adventures did start with damp jeans.