Page 1 of Ensnared By the Mountain Man

1

MORGAN

The first batch of scones comes out of the oven at 5:14 a.m., and I already know how the rest of my morning is going to go.

Mrs. Kimball will be here at 6:05 for her cinnamon raisin scone and her decaf with two sugars. She’ll tell me about her cat’s latest vet appointment, and I’ll ask if Biscuit is feeling better even though Biscuit has been feeling better for three weeks now. She just likes to talk about him.

Dave Thacker will come in at 6:20 for his black coffee, no food, and lean on the counter to talk about whatever the weather is doing like it’s a personal inconvenience. If it’s raining, he’ll shake his head and say, “What are you gonna do.” Not a question. Never a question.

Around 6:30, the morning rush starts. Regulars mostly. I know their names, their orders, their kids. I know who just got a promotion and who just got dumped and who’s been trying to quit sugar but always caves on Fridays. I like knowing. I like being the person who remembers, the one who makes people feel like someone in this town is paying attention to the small details of their lives.

I pull the second tray out and start plating. My hands move on autopilot. Tongs, parchment, display case. The same motions I’ve done every morning for the past year and a half—so familiar now that my body does them while my brain drifts.

Wildwood is the kind of town where people stay. Not because they’re stuck, but because the mountains hold onto you. Three thousand people tucked into a valley in Oregon, surrounded by evergreens and trails and the kind of quiet that makes city people nervous.

I moved here from Colorado Springs after my lease ran out. My roommate moved in with her boyfriend, and I realized I didn’t have a single person who would notice if I disappeared for a week. Not anymore. That was a heavy thought at twenty-one.

At twenty-three, I’ve built something different. I know people here and they know me. I’m the girl at the bakery who remembers your order and asks about your dog and says yes when you need help with something.

Always yes.

The bell above the door chimes at 6:45, and every nerve in my body snaps to attention before my brain catches up.

Elias Riggs.

He comes in at the same time every morning. Same order. Black coffee, blueberry muffin. He doesn’t say much, doesn’t smile, doesn’t linger the way other people do. He’s tall, broad in the shoulders, and built like someone who does hard physical work and doesn’t think about it. Dark hair that’s always a little too long, jaw that looks like it was cut from the same granite as the mountains outside. He wears his department T-shirt most days, the fabric stretched across his chest in a way I’ve trained myself not to stare at.

I’ve failed at that training. Repeatedly.

“Morning,” I say.

He nods. That’s it. That’s the whole conversation, and it has been for months. He comes in, I pour his coffee, I bag his muffin, our fingers brush when I hand it over, and I pretend my heart doesn’t stutter every single time.

He doesn’t lean on the counter or tell me about his weekend. I don’t even know if he has weekends. He works at the fire station and he lives somewhere up the mountain. That’s the full extent of what I know about Elias Riggs.

I don’t push. Something about him tells me that pushing would be the fastest way to lose him, and I’m not willing to test that theory. So I say, “same as always?” and he nods and I pour his coffee and bag his muffin. Then he leaves, the bell chiming behind him, and the bakery feels a little bigger without him in it.

Today, though… Today, he pauses. It’s barely anything—a half-second where his hand is still on the bag and his eyes are on my face and I swear his mouth opens like he’s about to say something. My breath catches. The whole bakery goes still, or maybe that’s just my imagination filling in what I want to be true.

Then he nods again. And he leaves.

I busy myself rearranging the scone display even though it doesn’t need rearranging. Anything to give my body something to do besides react to a man who barely said a word.

My coworker Alicia bumps my hip with hers on her way to the register, and I nearly knock over the scone display. “You’re blushing.”

“I’m not blushing,” I say. “It’s the ovens.”

She gives me a look that says she doesn’t believe me for a second, but she knows better than to push. She grabs a rag and starts wiping down the espresso machine, and I let the noise of it settle over me.

The morning rush comes and goes. I pour coffee and plate pastries and ask about kids and dogs and jobs, and by 10:30, the bakery has gone quiet. I’m wiping down tables when my phone buzzes.

It’s a text from Linda Marshall. She had shoulder surgery back in the spring, and I made the mistake of offering to help her with groceries one time. One time turned into every week, and every week turned into whatever else Linda needs done. Today it’s boxes in the garage. Her daughter is away at school, and she’s been trying to clear the space out for weeks. She wants to know if I could come up after my shift and help carry them to her truck.

I stare at the text. It’s my only afternoon off this week. I was going to take a bath and read and do absolutely nothing, which is something I never do because there’s always someone who needs something.

I type back, Of course. I’ll be there by two.

Linda’s house is on the far edge of town, where the road gets steep and the trees get thick. Her garage is a disaster, and that’s not a judgment—it’s an objective assessment based on the seventeen boxes I carry from the back wall to her truck over the next hour and a half.