Page 1 of Consumed By The Forbidden Mountain Man

CHAPTER ONE

REID

The Harvest Festival committee meeting ran forty minutes over because Patty Cole has opinions about the placement of the corn hole boards, and I sat through every one of those minutes because I'm an idiot who can't say no to a sixty-seven-year-old woman with muffins.

Now I'm standing in my kitchen at six on a Friday evening, freshly showered, holding a beer I don't want, staring at the house I built for a woman who doesn't live here anymore.

Three years. That's how long I've been sleeping in the guest room of a house I framed, drywalled, plumbed, and wired for a marriage that lasted eleven years and ended with Claire telling me she'd outgrown Whisper Vale. Outgrown small-town life. Outgrown me.

She didn't say the last part. Didn't have to.

My phone buzzes on the counter.

Tony:

Dude. Big favor. Call me.

Tony Caruso. My best friend since fourth grade, back when his family still lived in Whisper Vale. My foreman at Castellano Construction for the last decade. The guy who handed me a beer, a fishing pole, and zero unsolicited advice the night Claire drove to Reno with her stuff in a U-Haul.

I call him.

"What's the favor?"

"Hello to you too, sunshine."

"Tony."

"My sister's coming for the festival. Two weeks. She's staying in the cabin next to yours on my property."

I take a pull of the beer. Tony's family owns a stretch of land on the east side of town. Two cabins, about fifty yards apart through a stand of ponderosa pines. I've been renting the larger one since the divorce because selling the house felt too permanent and living in it felt like punishment.

"Okay," I say. "And?"

"And I'm gonna be in Sacramento helping Marco move that weekend. So I need you to keep an eye on her."

"Keep an eye on her."

"She just quit her job. No plan, no apartment. She's kind of spiraling. I just need somebody to make sure she's eating and not, like, crying into a pillow for two weeks straight."

"You want me to babysit your sister."

"I want you to be a decent human being in her general vicinity. She's twenty-six, Reid. She's not a kid. Just check in on her."

I set the beer on the counter. "When's she getting in?"

"Tomorrow afternoon. Two-ish."

"Fine."

"You're a good man."

"I'm a pushover."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive. Oh, and Reid?"

"What."

"She's my little sister."