Bonfire with the Mountain Man

A steamy mountain man romance featuring a distiller who resurrects everything the world throws away, an orchardist who’s convinced she’s one more thing nobody fought to keep, and a half-ton of apples that gives them exactly two days before the fruit turns and she drives back up the pass alone.

She walked in braced for a no. He said yes before she finished asking.

I priced the load to lose. That’s what you do when you’re the seconds nobody wanted—you make yourself cheap enough that saying no isn’t worth the trouble.

I’d been driving my dad’s old flatbed down the pass every October for three years, dropping fruit in the dark before the town woke up, back before anybody said good morning. The grocer canceled my contract two days ago and went with the resort’s distributor. Half a ton of apples on the truck and nowhere to take them.

So I walked into the distillery on Prospect Street with a pitch I’d rehearsed the whole way down, and I started talking him out of it before he could talk me down. Bruised fruit. Scabbed skin. Seconds, mostly. I was three sentences in when he said yes.

I kept pitching. I didn’t trust the yes. People don’t buy the whole load before you finish the first paragraph—the grocer made me beg every fall for three years. But this man named a price a third higher than mine and told me I’d underpriced it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Then he said the apples would turn in two days, and we’d press them tonight and tomorrow, and would I stay.

I stayed.

I told myself it was the money. Full number plus the premium he insisted on, and labor on top. I told myself I’d press the fruit, take the check, and make it back up the pass before the catch showed up, because there’s always a catch.

But he lit a fire out back where the locals drink, and he poured me a brandy he’d made from apples exactly like mine, and he kept setting my scabbed Jonathans in the keep pile instead of the mash. And somewhere past midnight, in a barrel room that smelled like oak and cold air, I chose something for the first time in my life. Start to finish. Mine.

I thought I was a load he took in because it was going cheap.

I didn’t know he’d been watching my truck come down that pass for three years.

Click Read Now or Buy Now to fall for the mountain man distiller who kept what everyone else gave up on—and finally chose the one thing he’d been too afraid to say out loud. One canceled contract, two days to save the fruit, and one barrel room after midnight turn a half-ton of seconds into the realest thing either of them has ever had.

Featuring these tropes:

Mountain man distiller who keeps what the world throws away
Orchardist who’s sure she’s nobody’s first choice
He fell first—three years before she walked in
Forced proximity with a two-day clock
Virgin heroine, experienced hero

GENRE: Contemporary Small-Town Mountain Man Romance
TROPES: instalove, he fell first, forced proximity, small-town, secret admirer, virgin heroine, grumpy-sunshine adjacent
TONE: quiet certainty, autumn warmth, mountain heat, emotional honesty
HEAT LEVEL: steamy open-door, first-time chemistry, possessive alpha heat
COMPS: Copper Peak Sparks firefighter romance, mountain man instalove, small-town forced proximity, fall/autumn cozy romance HEA