This city is bullshit. Yellow taxis sit like ducks in a row and I’m tired of biding my time in this muggy backseat. I either need to be the driver behind the wheel or walking on my own two feet. I’m over this. Handing the driver a twenty, I step out of the cab. Grabbing my rucksack, I sling it over my shoulder and look up at the sky.

There are hints of blue between the massive skyscrapers, reaching the heights of a mountain, but not coming anywhere close to the majesty. Hell no, this place is a concrete jungle and I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to be.

Horns honk at me, drivers yelling for me to move, but no one is gonna tell me what to do.

Looking down at the map in my hand, I head down the block, take a left, then a right, side-stepping pigeon poop and the rancid remains of overflowing trash cans. Besides the litter, car exhaust mixes with the pungent smell of urine, reminding me I’m really fucking far from home.

After a few turns, I find myself in front of what is to be my lodging for the next six weeks. I told the mayor to give me a room at a small hotel. I may have agreed to come to this city for the job he commissioned me for, but I’m sure as hell not going to support a corporate chain.

As I stop in front of The Mid-Manhattan Hotel, a young man on his phone yells at me to move because stopping on the sidewalk is apparently against the law. I just stare back at him. I’ve seen scarier chipmunks. He swallows hard, dips his head, and walks around me.

I shake my head at all the jackasses in a hurry around me. Guys like them are missing the point of everything. If you can’t slow down and look someone in the eye when you speak to them, you have your priorities all screwed up.

Ignoring the women giving me a second look and catcalling me like I’m a hooker––“Hey baby, I know where you could put that beard.” ––I take in the view.

The hotel is tucked between two massive buildings and it looks like it was carved from a fairy tale. Gingerbread trim and flower baskets, not to mention, it’s set back from the road with a small courtyard in front that has a tiny patch of green grass; the first I’ve seen in the city.

I find that my frown, the one that’s been splayed across my face since I landed at JFK, is diminishing. The mayor may have done all right when he set me up here. Pushing past the wrought iron gate, I open the front door. It’s mid-morning, but the lobby is full of people. There’s a couple having coffee, a few young children darting between the legs of their parents and a group of women wearing lanyards identifying themselves as attendees of a business conference.

“Can I help you?” a young woman standing behind the reception desk asks, reaching for a pencil in the bun atop her head. It’s hard to answer the question though, because hell, if I thought this hotel was carved from a fucking fairy tale, then she stepped straight out of it.

She has curves, dark hair, and big green eyes. Snow White has nothing on her; they may both have lips painted red, but this woman’s smile is something no one’s ever written about. Her face is bright as if she believes in happily-ever-after.

I run my hand over my beard as she considers me, probably thinking I don’t know how to talk. Damn straight, she just stole my power of speech.

Stepping closer to her at the front desk, I finally manage to raise an eyebrow and speak. “I’d like to check in.” I pull out my wallet from the back pocket of my jeans.

She licks her lips. Hell, she shouldn’t do things like that in public. It makes me want to do something to her, in private. I look around, collecting myself, trying to adapt to this hotel, feeling like it’s some portal in the Upper East Side to a time and place that still knows what it means to slow down and smell the fucking roses.

The wax polish on the floor reminds me of my grandmother’s house and the fresh cut flowers take me home. Nothing like what lies outside the doors of this hotel.

Maybe this gig isn’t going to be so bad. Especially if this woman works here. She’s beautiful. Her black hair falls over her shoulders, now free from the pencil bun, and it frames her face in a natural, unpretentious way. Her cheeks are rosy, but it’s her eyes that have me spellbound. They’re deep green like a pine tree and cloaked with long lashes. Like the boughs of a branch, they draw me to her, taking me back to my mountain in the Colorado Rockies with every glance.

She doesn’t seem to notice that she’s got me hook, line, and sinker.

“Well, let me be the first to welcome you,” she says warmly. “What’s your name?” Her fingers begin clicking on a keyboard and the noise brings me back to reality.

“Ford. Ford Thatcher.”

“Let’s see here.” She taps on the keys some more, then tilts her head to the side, ever so slightly, and looks from the screen to me with interest. “Ford Thatcher? You’re the guy who saved the mayor’s son?”

I nod, jaw clenching. I don’t want any attention for saving that teenager’s life, even though I know I’d never be here right now, standing before this woman, if I hadn’t. She may be trying to look proper in her smart black dress and string of pearls, but her messy hair tells me this outfit she has on is just a uniform. And when she leans over the counter, the strap of her leopard-print bra peeks out, and I know she isn’t a white cotton panties kind of girl. She’s more than meets the eye.

Which is saying something, because those eyes promise a hell of a lot.

“Well, on behalf of The Mid-Manhattan Hotel, thank you for what you did. When the mayor’s secretary called and booked your room, we felt honored to host such a VIP guest during your extended stay in the city. How exciting it must be to install a piece of art in Central Park.”

I hate this sort of thing. Attention.

It reminds me of what I didn’t do.

What I should have done.

The biggest regret and saddest day of my life, all mixed into one.

Talk about fucking baggage.

Shrugging, I notice her name tag. “Well, anyway, thanks, Mia. But really, it was nothing.”

“Nothing?” She shakes her head, irritated. “You saved Luke Gustavo’s life. That’s not nothing. Especially not to his family.”

She’s hit a nerve close to home. God knows I understand the difference between life and death.

I raise my hands in defeat. “I’m just glad I was there and could help.”

“Oh, so you’re the modest type? That’s refreshing.” She laughs to herself. “I’m betting you haven’t spent much time in the city?”

I shake my head. “Hell, no. I’ve only been here an hour and traffic was a bitch, not to mention the trash on the street, the noise coming from every which way. It’s a clusterfuck out there, don’t understand how anyone can put up with it.”

She smiles, taking in my soliloquy, and teases, “Careful there, Mr. Thatcher. People might mistake you for a grumpy old man.”

I smirk. “Is there a problem with that?”

She laughs. “Well considering you’re what, thirty years old, I’m guessing it’s not the reputation you want.”

“I don’t give a damn about reputations.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Oh, I see. You’re one of those guys.”

I scoff. “One of which guys?”

She rolls her eyes. “A caveman.”

I grin. “No, Mia. I’m not a caveman. I’m a mountain man, and it’s time you learned the difference.”