Page 20 of The Mountain Man Lumberjack’s Claimed Bride

And underneath all of it, an arrangement. Terms. Money changing hands. A case number that reduces whatever I felt last night, her body against mine, her voice sayingyours, to a transaction with a ninety-day window and a contingency plan.

The back door opens an hour later. Boots on the porch. The sound of her humming before she steps inside, cheeks flushed from the ridge, work gloves tucked into her back pocket.

She'sin the kitchen when the humming stops. My flannel. Bare feet now, boots kicked off at the door. Hair twisted up in that clip that never holds, loose strands falling across her neck. Her eyes find me at the table, find the letter, find my face.

The smile fades.

"What's wrong?"

The letter slides across the table toward her. Not thrown. Placed. Carefully, the way I do everything, because control is the only thing keeping the rest of this from going sideways.

"The agency wrote."

Her gaze drops to the envelope. The color leaves her cheeks. "Hunter?—"

"Five thousand dollar relocation stipend. Eighty-five hundred placement fee. Ninety-day window. Your ex-fiancé has called them three times trying to find you." Each fact lands with the weight of a marked tree falling. Measured. Precise. Devastating. "Were you going to tell me any of that?"

"The stipend is standard. Every match has one. It's a safety net so women aren't stranded if the placement doesn't work. I didn't bring it up because I have no intention of using it."

"And Kevin?"

Her jaw tightens. The dough sits forgotten on the counter, half shaped, flour settling. "Kevin is my past. He doesn't know where I am. The agency hasn't told him anything."

"He's looking for you."

"That's Kevin's problem. Not mine. Not ours."

"You said it was over."

"It is over."

"A man who calls an agency three times doesn't think it's over."

Something flashes in her eyes. Not guilt. Something sharper. Hurt. "So because my ex-fiancé can't take no for an answer, that means I'm, what? Running a con? Playing a long game to get access to your timber fortune?" Her voice rises. Not shouting. Controlled heat. "I gave up my apartment, Hunter. My job. My city. Everything I had. For this. For you. Not for a stipend. Not for a ninety-day arrangement. For the man who grinds hisown coffee and reads by candlelight and touched my face on a mountain like it cost him something."

"Beth said similar things."

The words come out before I can stop them. Cold. Precise. The worst thing I could have said, and I know it the moment the air changes.

Nora goes still. Not frozen. Still in that particular way she has, the way she stood in the driveway on day one, completely present, completely aware, choosing her next move with the patience of a woman who knows that what she says next matters.

"Don't do that." Quiet. Steady. More dangerous than shouting. "Don't compare me to the woman who left you. I'm standing right here. I've been standing right here for ten days, and if you can't see that I'm not her, then the problem isn't the agency letter or Kevin Thorne or a relocation stipend I didn't ask for."

"Then what's the problem?"

"You." Her chin lifts. Eyes bright. Not crying. Not close to crying. Furious. "You're so terrified of being left again that you're looking for proof that I'm going to do it. You found a piece of paper with terms and conditions and you turned it into evidence that this isn't real, because if it isn't real, you don't have to risk anything."

The kitchen is six steps wide. The table sits between us. Bread dough cooling on the counter. Two coffee mugs in the drying rack from this morning, when the world was still the shape it was when I woke up with her hair on my chest and her heartbeat against my ribs.

"Maybe I need to think."

"About what?"

"About whether I know what's real here and what's an arrangement."

The silence that follows is the loudest thing I've ever heard in this cabin. Louder than the chainsaw. Louder than the storm. Louder than the sound of Beth's car pulling down the access road seven years ago, getting smaller until it disappeared.

Nora pulls the work gloves from her back pocket. Sets them on the counter next to the dough she'd started before heading out this morning. Each movement is careful, precise, the economy of a woman who is holding herself together by sheer force of will.