Page 11 of Mountain Man Claimed (Hard Timber Mountain Men #4)

DANE

Thursday’s meeting came and went. Rowan hadn’t looked at me once the entire time.

She’d sat three rows down at the council table while I presented the packet she’d shepherded into shape.

She’d asked questions, listened without expression, and recommended approval with conditions.

Her voice was steady, but her eyes never met mine.

The resolution passed. I shook hands. I walked out of the meeting with a stamped packet and an ache under my ribs that no piece of paper could soothe.

It had been over a week since I’d seen her. I’d tried to do everything right, but still managed to fuck it up. The only reason I wasn’t wallowing in the bottom of a bucket of beer was because Founders’ Festival required all hands on deck, and I refused to let the town down.

From sunrise on Saturday, the festival swallowed Hard Timber whole.

By eight, Main Street was barricaded, and the town looked like it had been dipped in flannel and cinnamon.

Booths went up in neat rows. The lumberjack crew unloaded saw horses and crosscut saws at the park, the buzz of a small generator mixing with the clack of folding tables and the sound of multiple bands warming up their instruments.

I’d been up since before dawn. Trace and I hauled hay bales to ring the dance square.

Harlan muscled a stack of pop-up tents into place like they didn’t weigh eighty pounds apiece.

I wrangled extension cords for the band shell and argued with a delivery driver who decided the center of the street was the best spot to park his truck for thirty minutes.

“Five minutes,” he said, one leg already up on the bumper.

“Two,” I said. “And if you block Sabrina’s milk delivery, she’ll turn you into compost.”

By ten, the parade floats had lined up. There were fire trucks, a 4-H float with a collection of kids and nervous farm animals, the elementary school band in shirts two sizes too big, and the Timber Mill Inn’s wagon with a vintage trunk stacked high in the back.

When the parade finally started, I jogged next to a pickup piled with pumpkins and a banner that read FOUNDERS’ FALL FESTIVAL.

For all the prep work, the whole thing only lasted about a half hour.

When the last float cleared the square, I helped Thatcher move sawhorses to open the street and checked the cable run to the stage one more time.

He handed me a spare zip tie without looking. “You good?”

“Fine.” I cinched the tie and leaned back on my heels. “Have you seen Holt?”

“He’s talking to Calla near the kids’ games. Ridge is somewhere around.”

Sabrina walked up with a tray balanced on one hand and a permanent grin. “Festival fuel, gentlemen. Don’t pretend you don’t need it.”

I took two to-go cups, handed one to Thatcher, and tipped the lid off mine. The smell wrapped around me like a warm hug full of coffee, maple, and a hint of spice. “Thanks. Can you put it on my tab?”

“It’s on the house,” she said before turning away to offer her special festival fuel to some other volunteers.

By noon, the booths were four people deep and a huge knot had settled between my shoulder blades. I kept moving . If I moved, I didn’t think about how Rowan had iced me out with polite, perfect texts.

“Quit brooding.” Thatcher thumped a coil of rope at my feet. “You look like Ridge.”

“Don’t insult me.” Ridge’s voice came from behind us. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else than right in the thick of the Founders’ Festival. He wasn’t leaving, though. That wasn’t his style. He hung back and watched like a man guarding a line nobody else could see.

“There’s a guy by the bandstand asking if you’ll design a mountain bike park up near Lost Elk,” Thatcher added. “Said it’d be perfect for your brand.”

“Tell him no,” I said without thinking.

Thatcher paused. “Since when do you say no to something new and shiny?”

“Since her,” I muttered. I wasn’t running off after the next thing. Not this time. Not if it took the next ten years to get her to respond to a single one of my texts.

“Are you sticking around tonight?” I asked Ridge.

He shrugged one shoulder. “The band isn’t terrible. Sabrina’s new dark roast is decent. I guess that’s enough.”

“And the podcaster?” Thatcher jerked his chin toward the Timber Mill Inn. The guy had made the porch his stage again. Even from over a hundred yards away, I could see the way he pitched his body so the light liked him.

“The podcaster is a reason to keep a lid on your temper,” Thatcher said. “Ridge.”

Ridge’s mouth went thin. “I know the difference between a match and a forest fire.”

“Good,” Thatcher said.

I drained the last of my coffee and promised myself I wouldn’t get close enough to let the man record even a second of my voice.

The day shifted, the sun dipping low and painting the brick-fronted buildings in gold.

Lanterns strung over the street blinked on one by one while the band tested the speakers with a run of chords that made the hair on my arms lift.

The little kids had been taken home and put to bed.

As the stars appeared in the dark night sky overhead, the mayor got ready to light the bonfire in the middle of the square.

I grabbed a beer from the Knotty Tap booth and took a minute to breathe the scene in.

This was the part I loved—the collective inhale before the party started.

Neighbors tapped their toes in time to the music in their good boots.

Old timers in caps leaned their elbows on the rail, ready to judge whoever tried the first two-step.

“Good evening, son.” Harvey eased up beside me, looking all gussied up in a plaid shirt and boots polished to a shine. He held the cane, but he wasn’t leaning on it hard. Pride seemed to be propping him up tonight.

“You look sharp,” I said.

He tugged at his collar like it was strangling him. “I figured I’d give myself every advantage tonight.”

I followed his gaze across the square. Nellie stood at The Huckleberry Café booth, her cheeks pink, hair pinned back, and smile shining under the lanterns. She was handing a slice to my brother Holt with both hands like she didn’t trust him not to drop it.

“Have you asked her yet?” I asked.

“Not until I can stand up for three minutes without looking like a sapling in a windstorm.” He swallowed and squared his shoulders.

“You will,” I said. “And she’ll say yes.”

He cut me a look like the words helped and he didn’t want me to know it.

The band slid into a slow waltz, and the square stirred. Couples drifted into the open, their fingers lacing, faces turned toward each other with that look people get when the music gives them permission to be honest.

Harvey took in a breath like he was about to head off to battle. “Wish me luck.”

“You don’t need it,” I said, but I squeezed his shoulder, anyway. “Go get her.”

He crossed the square like a man who’d practiced every step from his porch to that pie booth multiple times.

Nellie saw him coming. Surprise flashed, then joy flowed in behind it like the tide.

He bowed, and she laughed. When he held out his hand, she took it.

They moved onto the square, and he left his cane leaning against the table.

I grinned so wide my cheeks hurt. This was why I wanted those courts. Not for headlines. For moments like this when a steady beat and steady hands turned fear into joy.

That was when I spotted Rowan at one side of the square. She had her clipboard in one hand and her phone pressed to her ear. Gillian hovered next to her like she was waiting for instructions.

I walked toward them, ready to take my shot.

“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” Gillian whispered as I passed.

“I’m not giving up,” I said. Gillian smirked like she didn’t quite believe me, but she stepped to the side, anyway.

Rowan ended her call, slid her phone into her bag, and checked something off her clipboard . Her shoulders were locked tight, like she’d bolted them down.

I moved toward her before I could overthink it.

“Dance with me.” I held out my hand.

Her brows tilted. “I don’t?—”

“Yes,” I said, my voice soft. “You do. I remember.”

Her mouth parted. The studio. The box step. The way her shoulder had softened beneath my hand. She remembered too.

“I’m not asking for forever,” I said. “Just one dance.”

Her gaze dropped to my hand. Past me, Harvey turned Nellie in a slow circle, and she laughed. Rowan’s shoulder lowered a notch, and she slid her hand into mine.

My focus narrowed to the woman in front of me. I set my palm on the small of her back. She went still for a second, then let the rhythm catch her.

“Left,” I murmured. “Together. Side.”

She followed my lead. Careful at first, then steadier.

“You’re good at this,” I said.

“I told you I don’t dance.”

“Then you’re doing a very convincing impression.”

Her lips wanted to curve, but she wouldn’t let them. That fierce control was there—the lines, the order—but under it something moved.

“I meant what I said,” I told her, keeping my voice low. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Her eyes flickered like I’d said the wrong thing. Like she was already building distance.

So I shut up and held her. I matched the pressure of her palm, light when she needed space, sure when she wavered. It was a simple thing, a box and a turn, but I had the wild thought that maybe this was all love was: one person steadying the other through a beat they didn’t trust yet.

Around us, the town did what towns do. Thatcher swung Joely in a wide arc, more laugh than dance.

Holt moved in crisp steps with Calla, both of them pretending not to be good at it and failing.

Harlan clapped on the wrong count on purpose with Jessa by his side, making the kids who hadn’t been whisked off to bed laugh and join in.

Trace tried to spin Sabrina, and Ridge watched from the shadow of a lamppost, catching the threads that ran through the square like lines on a map.