Chapter 1
ALLIE FAIRCHILD STARED out her windshield at the ramshackle cabin.
Please tell me I have the wrong address.
Scrambling for the MapQuest printout amid the fast-food bags and other evidence that she had blown her diet once again, she read the directions over and over. Finally, sure that she hadn’t misinterpreted them, she looked up at what had been described to her as “charming and rustic.” She was pretty sure it had been the setting for her favorite horror movie, The Cabin in the Woods.
In fact, she half expected to see flesh-eating zombies pop out from behind the thick pine trees surrounding it. When her landlord, Dex Belmont, had warned her that they were a few miles outside of Bear Mountain, Montana, he had definitely been bending the truth a bit. According to her car’s odometer, she was a good ten miles from the town limits on a curvy road that had made her stomach queasy ….
And in the middle of the freaking forests of Narnia.
Leaning her head on the steering wheel of her Jetta, she groaned in defeat. After thirty-two years, she had thought that she was making a solid choice for once. She’d planned to come to small-town Montana to turn a poorly run trauma center into one of the best in the country, and therefore erase all of the potholes in life she’d been unable to avoid thus far.
“Hoooooooooooowwwwwllll!”
Allie jumped a foot in the air, shrieking. Outside her window was a huge hound with its mouth practically pressed to the glass, vibrating her door with its deep bellow.
“Bluebell!” a deep voice said loudly, out of sight. The car-shaking sound stopped and the dog sat, its hot breath fogging her window. Allie’s hand gripped the front of her blouse, sure her heart was going to pound its way right out of her chest.
Suddenly, her passenger door opened and a man peeked in.
“Sorry if she scared you. She likes to be the welcoming committee.”
Allie blinked, taking in a head of tousled, sun-streaked brown hair and green eyes set in a tanned, gorgeous face. The man’s smile was wide and boyish, completely dispelling her previous surprise and terror. The muscles of his shoulders stretched the lightweight T-shirt he was wearing, and the brief flash of a tattoo beneath the sleeve tempted her to reach out to get a better look.
“Do you always spring out at people like a serial killer?”
His golden eyebrows rose, but he didn’t lose that smile. “Not usually, but we’ve been waiting for you.”
Clearing her throat, she said unconvincingly, “Yeah, that isn’t helping your whole stalker vibe.”
He held his hand out to her, hovering over the center console. “I’m Dex Belmont. Allie, right?”
This guy was her landlord? Taking his hand hesitantly, she tried to ignore the pleasant warmth of his palm against hers. He had lured her out to his property with a bunch of misleading photos, after all. None of the shots of this cabin had shown an iffy-looking roof or a porch that was missing a sturdy railing.
“Yeah, I’m Allie, and I have a bone to pick with you—”
“Hang on, before you start picking, why don’t I come around and get your door?”
“I can get my own door, thank you very”—he slammed her passenger side door before she finished and was coming around the front—“much.”
She reached for the handle at the same time he did, and when he pulled it open, she practically fell out on her face, putting her nose-to-nose with his dog. Big, droopy brown eyes stared at her from inches away, and then a large, wet tongue smothered her nose with slobber.
Mustering whatever dignity she had left, she started to climb to her feet, shaking off his hands as he attempted to help. Swiping at her nose with her arm, she glared up at him. Wow, he was tall. She liked tall.
She shook away her thoughts and said, “This is not at all what you promised me. You told me that the cabin was ‘cozy’—”
“Look, I may have tweaked the truth a bit, but you’re also here two weeks earlier than I was expecting.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest, and Allie tried to ignore the way the muscles flexed as he scowled down at her as if she were the one who had bait-and-switched him. “So, before you start throwing a walleyed fit, how about you take a look inside and I’ll tell you about all the improvements I’ll be making?”
If Allie was smart, she’d get her butt back in her car and hightail it out of there, but this had been the only place for rent, according to the realtor she’d spoken to over the phone. She could buy a place, but she hadn’t been ready for that kind of commitment. She wanted to take a few months and get used to Bear Mountain before she actually bought something.
And the few motels she’d passed hadn’t looked better than this.
“Fine. Lead the way, McDuff.”
That smile was back in place, doing crazy things to her insides, although her outsides were freezing. She rubbed the arms of her lightweight sweater. “How are you only wearing a T-shirt? I wasn’t expecting it to be so cold already.”
“We start getting snow around mid-October, but so far we’ve been storm-free.” He glanced back at her over his shoulder and she finally understood exactly what the word smolder meant. “And as to my attire, my temperature runs hot. Wanna feel?”
“Get real.”
Dex chuckled as he climbed up onto the porch. “You never told me why you decided to move from New York to Bear Mountain. I can’t imagine it was for the culture.”
Allie hesitated in answering when the first porch step squeaked loudly under her foot. “Are you sure I’m not going to fall through here?”
“Front porches squeak, I promise. The first thing I did was start on the porch, so I’ve already reinforced and replaced a lot of it.” He stood at the top of the steps and held his hand down to her. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Despite the temptation, she ignored his hand and walked past him, her shoulder brushing the front of his shirt. She snuck a glance at the hard outline of his chest, swallowing.
“You were just going to tell me why you left home?”
“I needed a fresh start and figured rural Montana was as good a place as any for a change.”
“What exactly will you be doing here?” he asked, holding the front door open for her.
“I’m running Bear Mountain Memorial Hospital.”
He seemed skeptical. “You’re awfully young to take on such a big job.”
“If I’d wanted to work in a state-of-the-art hospital, I could have, but I wanted to go where I could really help people.” She didn’t want to throw charity events or expensive dinners just to “Save the Otters,” like her parents did. “As for my qualifications, I have a double major in business and nursing, with a master’s degree in hospital administration. I may look young, but I have experience. I know what I’m doing, Mr. Belmont.”
When she turned back toward the door, his arm shot out, blocking her way. He leaned down until their faces were only a few inches apart, and her palms started sweating as her heart thumped.
“Why don’t you just call me Dex?”