Page 3 of The Mountain Man Lumberjack’s Claimed Bride

She doesn't flinch. Doesn't step back. Doesn't do any of the things people typically do when they encounter a man who looks like the forest itself decided to take human form and have a bad day.

Instead, she reaches into the passenger side of the rental and pulls out a folded piece of paper. Crosses the gravel toward me with the steady, unhurried stride of a woman who has already made every decision that matters and is now simply carrying them out.

She stops six feet away. Close enough for me to see the freckles across the bridge of her nose and the way the mountain light turns her eyes from brown to something warmer, something that reminds me of late sun through bourbon.

"Hunter Marsh?"

My name in her mouth sounds different than it should. Like a word I forgot I knew.

"Who's asking?"

A small smile. Not nervous. Not performative. The kind of smile a person gives when they've been traveling for a long time and have finally found the right door.

"Nora Chambers." She holds up the letter. "Your agency matched us. I'm told you're looking for a wife."

The letter flutters slightly in the mountain breeze. Behind her, the last of the morning mist is burning off the valley, and the peaks to the west are catching light that turns them gold and rose and impossible.

"I'm not looking for anything."

The smile doesn't waver.

"That's okay," she says. "I wasn't looking for a mountain. And here we are."

CHAPTER TWO

NORA

The man standing in front of me is not what the profile described.

The profile said:Quiet. Hardworking. Values self-sufficiency. Owns and operates a sustainable timber business in rural Montana. Enjoys solitude.

What the profile failed to mention is that Hunter Marsh looks like God took a mountain, gave it a jaw, dressed it in flannel, and told it to scowl at anything that moved.

Six foot four. Shoulders broad enough to block out the tree line behind him. Dark hair that's too long at the collar, a beard that he clearly trims when he remembers to, which doesn't appear to be often. Hazel eyes shifting between green and gold in the morning light, narrowed at me with an expression that suggests my presence on his driveway is roughly as welcome as a forest fire.

Sawdust clings to his forearms. His hands are enormous, scarred, wrapped around nothing but still tense with the kindof restless energy that comes from working physical labor since dawn. A scar runs across the back of his left hand. Old. Healed white. The sort of thing that has a story nobody has asked about in years.

"I'm not looking for anything," he says, and his voice matches the rest of him. Low. Rough. Like gravel under boots.

My smile holds. "That's okay. I wasn't looking for a mountain. And here we are."

Something shifts in those hazel eyes. Not softening. More like reassessment. The way a man looks at a locked gate when he realizes the lock is different from what he expected.

"There's been a mistake." He says it flatly. No anger, no apology. Just a man stating what he considers to be a fact. "My sister submitted that profile without my knowledge. I didn't agree to any of this."

The mountain air is sharp and clean against my face, carrying pine and wood smoke and something darker underneath. Soil. Cold stone. The smell of a place that doesn't care whether you stay or go.

"Your sister," I repeat.

"Bette. She's..." He searches for a word. Gives up. "She did this without asking."

"So you didn't write the profile."

"No."

"Didn't approve it."

"No."