CHAPTER ONE
Frankie
My heart did its usual panicked flutter the moment the bell above the door announced Max Wilder’s arrival. It was Thursday at ten in the morning. He came regular as a utility bill and twice as inevitable. And just like a utility bill, looking at him made me want to cry, but for entirely different reasons.
I was behind the counter, pretending to organize a display of drill bits I’d already straightened twice. It was a habit I’d developed on Thursdays — something to do with my hands so they didn’t betray me when he walked in.
He filled the doorway the way he always did. Six-four, built like someone had stacked a mountain on top of another mountain and called it a man. He smelled like sawdust and the sharp scent of the northern pines.
He was dressed in his usual attire, scuffed leather boots, well-worn denim that hugged thick, powerful thighs, a work shirt that looked like it was one deep breath away from giving up the ghost across his shoulders.
He was also, objectively, miles out of my league.
“Morning, Frankie.”
His voice was a deep and low and started a tingle in the soles of my feet that worked its way up to somewhere deeply inconvenient. It was a voice that belonged in a bedroom,whispered words against skin, not in a dusty hardware store at ten in the morning.
Six months of this, and I still turned into a puddle of high-velocity hormones.
“Morning, Max,” I said, my voice surprisingly steady given that my lady bits were currently screaming for attention. I tucked a lock of dark hair behind my ear and tried to ignore the way my nipples peaked against the lace of my bra. Traitors. Absolute traitors. “A pound of lag bolts this morning? Or are we moving on to something more exciting today?”
Oh, how I wished.
His lips didn’t quite move into a smile, but the corner of his eye crinkled—a tiny, devastating tell. He leaned over the counter, his large hands resting on the wood. I noticed a pink new scar across one knuckle and I itched to trace it. With my mouth.
“Storm’s coming in off the north ridge,” he said. “My crews are trying to clear the last stand before the wind picks up.” His gaze dropped to my mouth for half a second — or I imagined it did, because I was clearly a masochist — then returned to my eyes.
My no-filter brain immediately took that microscopic moment and turned it into a full-length, feature film complete with heavy breathing and a checkout counter. Me. On the checkout counter. Him. Between my thick thighs.
“I need to reinforce the roof on the equipment shed. I hope you’ve got everything in stock, Frankie. I don’t want to make a second trip.”
“I could think of worse things,” I murmured, which was what happened when my brain briefly disconnected from my mouth. Honestly, at this point my mouth should’ve come with a parental advisory sticker.
His gaze sharpened. “What was that?”
I swallowed hard under the weight of his attention. For one stupid second, I wanted to believe he wanted me as much as I wanted him. But men like Max—rich and dangerously handsome—did not fall for curvy girls whose thighs rubbed together and worked in a hardware store. They hooked up with women who smelled expensive even when sweating. If they ever sweated.
That didn’t keep me from dreaming though.
“I’ll get your order,” I said briskly. “Won’t be a moment.”
I moved quickly, the way I always did when I needed to stop myself from doing something foolish, like saying something I couldn’t take back. I wrote up his order and walked to the back of the store, handing the slip to the guys at the loading dock, then grabbed the screws he’d need on my way back.
“Here you go.” I set the boxes on the counter but didn’t meet his gaze. “Flashing’s in the back. They’ll load it.”
“Frankie.”
Something in his voice made me go still. It was different — lower, with an edge I didn’t recognize. I looked up, and he was frowning, which wasn’t unusual, but there was something focused about it today, a dark intensity I’d never seen before.
Then the bell above the door gave a sharp, frantic clang, and whatever moment might have existed evaporated.
I heard the heels before I saw her. A sharp, rhythmic click that had no business in a mountain hardware store. Then the perfume hit — expensive, almost aggressive.
Tiffany Lane. Max’s ex-girlfriend. The woman who had allegedly broken his heart before fleeing to the city.
She looked as out of place as a swan in a mud puddle. She was wearing a cream-colored dress and heels that would pay two months’ rent. Her blonde hair perfectly coiffed despite the mountain wind. She looked annoyed — her mouth set in a thin, sour line as she surveyed the store with clear distaste. But she was undeniably beautiful.
Unlike me. Plain curvy Jane in a stained polo shirt.
