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Tossing the abandoned change in the tip jar, I gaze out the front window. Watching Butch get into his big-ass black truck wrapped in his company’s name written in a bold steel andyellow:Montgomery Logging. He pulls out and heads down the road toward the mountain, the same as every day.
“Asshole,” I curse.
Two.
Butch
She rolled her eyesat me again today.
That’s three days straight, our new record. Wonder if she even knows it.
But hell, if she didn’t look beautiful today as always. Those snug black yoga pants, the oversized beige Cup O’ Joe work shirt she has to tie in the back just so it doesn’t hang droopy around her. And fuck—those curves.
She’s got a perfect hourglass figure with an ass that pops. And compared to my broad stature, she can’t be more than five-foot-four. Her brown hair, always up in a messy top bun with bits hanging down to frame her face. Those stunning deep blue eyes that I could stare into for eternity under thick black lashes. Plump lips framing a perfect smile—butgod, those eyes.
Everything about her has me stumbling, I can’t even look her in the eye half the fuckin’ time. She’s drop-dead gorgeous, and either she knows it or has no clue.
Cassidy Clark. The only woman who wants nothing to do with me, and the only one I seem to have eyes for ever since she came back from college three years ago. She’s ten years younger than me, one of the many reasons I don’t stand a chance. She probably gets men groveling at her feet on the daily.
I’ve watched her date a few punks around town, but it never seems to last or get serious. And in our small town—population: five thousand, three hundred twenty-seven—word gets aroundquick. It’s never long before everyone knows who screwed who, who lost their job, who died, who’s pregnant, who cheated on who.
It’s why I’ve been single for the last five years.
Yup, the good ol’ grapevine told me my ex was sleeping with some jack-off from a few towns over when she’d go visit “family.” Not even a quick fuck outside a fifty-mile radius could stop the gossiping Bettys from catching wind of the scorching hot tea and pouring it all over me.
Bitch broke my heart, so I tossed the ring I got her in the woodchipper.
Burn me once…shame on you, me, and the money wasted.
Montgomery Logging is the company I built from the ground up. Went from nothing to something, and I’m damn proud of it. It got me my property where I built my dream home with my own bare hands, my custom detailed truck, and a solid bank account. One every gold digger in town seems to want to get a piece of. Another prime reason why I’m single.
And it’s probably why I want my shot at Cassidy.
She’s not like the rest. She left this town, got an education, and only came back when her father got sick and died of cancer a few years back. The gossip line says her mother ran off to Californiawith some tourist she met passing through and no one’s heard a word from her since.
Cassidy stayed for her older brother, Garrett. He’s a punk himself—drunk as a skunk twenty-four-seven. And while I may be the town asshole, he’s the town drunk.
Garrett and I…well, you could say we’ve had a few quarrels in the past and present. A mutual hate is the kind of relationship we have. He and I have a routine bar fight every few months when he slumps into the pits of his own hell. I swear the first time I was only trying to help the guy out, but it didn’t end up that way. He took a shot at me, so I busted his nose and knocked his ass out cold.
Another reason added to the list of:I don’t stand a chance.
Pulling up to one of my three current logging site locations on the various surrounding mountains of Montana, I park my truck and hop out. Striding over to my crew of half a dozen for this site.
“Morning, boss,” Stan, my head foreman and best friend since high school, yawns in greeting.
I grunt, not in the mood in the slightest this morning for friendly banter. I get straight to it, barking out orders and running through the schedule for today. Who’s where and who’s running what. I take a sip of my coffee, and out of nowhere, Stan bursts out a laugh.
I scowl. “What the fuck is so funny?”
The idiot starts wheezing with laughter as he keels over. My remaining men turn away, starting to snicker to themselves.
“What?” I bark out.
Stan coughs, pointing to my cup in hand. I look it over, and when I lift the cup to check the bottom—I see it.Smile, Assholeis written in perfect cursive with a little heart over the ‘I’ in smile.
I keep my expression stern, but on the inside, I may or may not be smiling.
It’s been nearly six months since I made the mistake of talkin’ out my ass about Cassidy’s flower-doodled cup. The woman can hold a grudge, that’s for sure.
