Page 7 of Mountain Man Claimed (Hard Timber Mountain Men #4)

DANE

The printer chugged along, spitting out each piece of paper in turn.

I stacked them up: the stormwater plan, fixture cut sheets, ADA path detail with the dogleg, the public notice template, and the new insurance certificate with the courts named and the town listed as additional insured.

The vending machine clicked and hummed in the next room.

Somewhere down the block, Main Street was still riding the sugar high from Sabrina’s grand opening.

I sent an email to Rowan first. Every document was scanned, labeled, and attached just like she’d wanted them. Then I slid the hard copies into a manila folder and walked out to the back lot with the public notice and a roll of tape.

The fence was cool under my forearms while I smoothed the notice flat.

It felt good to put something where everyone could see it.

No shortcuts. No begging for favors. Just the sign, right where the sun would hit it in the morning like Nellie said.

I stepped back and read the words a second time even though I already knew them by heart: the proposed recreational use, public comment window, and meeting date.

I pictured kids pressing their noses to the chain link to read it, then the old boys from the Tap pretending they hadn’t.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

Holt: You alive?

Me: Posting the notice. Packet’s done.

Holt: Good. Don’t forget Lane’s soccer practice at five tomorrow.

Me: Wouldn’t miss it.

Holt: Proud of you, little bro.

Me: Don’t start.

I grinned at the sign on the fence. My good mood stuck around when I went back inside.

The morning rush had died down, and I got busy gathering used towels and starting a load of laundry in the office.

It was still quiet enough that I heard the front door open and close.

I wiped my hands on a towel and stepped into the lobby.

Rowan stood at the desk. She’d swapped the cardigan from yesterday for a light jacket. Even on a Saturday, her bun looked as tight as ever. The clipboard wasn’t in sight, but I assumed it lurked somewhere within reach.

“Hey,” I said.

She looked over, took in my dusty T-shirt, the chalk on my forearm I hadn’t bothered to scrub, and the packet on the counter.

“You sent the email,” she said. “I came for the hard copies. Gillian told me to tell you she bet the council would faint if you turned a full packet in early. I said I’d bring smelling salts. ”

“Good timing.” I slid the folder toward her. “Insurance certificate’s on top. Section three filled in, itemized.”

She opened it and scanned the page. Her finger tracked line by line, precise as a level. Her mouth did the smallest thing when she reached the rider that named the town. It wasn’t a smile. It was the absence of resistance.

“Thank you,” she said.

“I posted the notice,” I said. “It’s on the back fence. I put it at eye level for the kids.”

“That’s where it belongs.” She closed the folder and held it against her chest. “Do you have a minute to confirm the adjusted path length from the fence to the pad? I’d rather not discover a two-inch problem at the meeting.”

“Sure,” I said, and grabbed the measuring tape.

We stepped out into the lot. I anchored the hook on the stake and walked the line while Rowan read off numbers. “Thirty-six to the bend,” she said. “Forty-eight to the edge.”

“Dogleg adds two feet,” I said. “Still within ADA.”

She nodded. “As long as the slope stays shallow, and the surface is uniform.”

“So no river rock.” I shook my head.

“No river rock,” she said, but the corner of her mouth gave a little.

We checked the setback against the fence and the width at the pinch point near the drain. She didn’t waste words. I didn’t either. It felt like moving weights with someone who knew when to spot and when to step back.

When we finished, I left the tape hooked to the stake and grabbed two sodas from the cooler inside. I returned with the cans and offered one to her. She actually took it instead of looking at me like I was trying to buy a favor with a can of cherry cola.

We sat on the back steps with our shoulders almost touching and our knees pointed toward the lot. The sunlight caught the laminated notice and created a glare. For a long minute we didn’t say anything, just sat in the silence.

“You work a lot,” she said.

“Today needed it.”

“And tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow probably will too,” I said. “Until the courts are open.”

She tipped her head like she was thinking about what I said. “Most people prefer shortcuts.”

“Most people don’t color-code their tabs.”

She made a soft sound that could have been a laugh. “Tabs save time.”

“Steps save people,” I said, then winced at how earnest it sounded out loud. “I mean, on a court. And off it. Repetition gets you where you want to go.”

She looked at the notice again, then at the chalk dust I’d missed on my forearm. “Words are easy,” she said. “Anyone can promise follow-through.”

“Not anyone,” I said. “And not for long.”

We sat with that for a bit while crickets chirped somewhere beyond the fence.

“Yesterday,” I started, before I could talk myself out of it, “when those women called me The Butterfly… it didn’t bounce off.”

Rowan didn’t move. “I noticed.”

“It stings,” I admitted. “Not because it isn’t based on something real .

I’ve dropped things before—left a half-built climbing wall in an old apartment when the lease was up, ran a pop-up gear shop for two weekends and vanished, and even tried to start a ‘Thorne Brothers Fitness Collective’ before I had a plan.

But none of that has anything to do with the gym.

” I balanced the can against my knee until it stopped wobbling.

“I want people to stop waiting for me to give up.”

The seconds stretched while she watched me, her brown eyes evaluating me through her glasses like she wasn’t sure if I was worth the effort. “Why did you open the gym?”

“Because I kept seeing kids get pushed toward trouble when the sun went down,” I said. “Because I watched Harvey keep moving after surgery and thought maybe I could help other people do the same. Because I wanted a place to be at the end of the day that wasn’t a bar stool.”

My answer kind of surprised me and based on the way Rowan’s brows arched, it must have surprised her too. Her eyes softened, not much, but just enough that I noticed.

“And the courts?” she asked.

“Because people need reasons to show up,” I said. “Seniors who want to stay steady. Kids who need somewhere to burn the edge off after school. It’s a game that lets you laugh while you work, and sometimes that’s the only way the work sticks.”

She looked back at the fence. The notice rustled once in a light breeze and settled again. “You could have said ‘fun’ and left it there,” she said.

“I could,” I said. “But it’s more than that for me now.”

She took another drink and set the can between her hands. “The nickname,” she said after a moment. “You said it stings because it’s close enough to true.”

“Used to be,” I said. “The part about not staying.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m tired of leaving things half-built,” I said. “I don’t want to be the story people tell at The Knotty Tap about the guy who almost did something.”

The quiet held. I didn’t push it. The old version of me would have tried to fill the silence with jokes to make the weight go away. I let it sit instead.

“People don’t change,” she said. The words were soft, but her voice didn’t waver. “Not really. They just get better at hiding the same impulses.”

I turned my head. “Is that what you think of me?”

“It’s what I think of people.” She kept her gaze on the lot, on the chalk line and the posts and the space where we both pictured courts that weren’t there yet. “We are who we are. Our files stay thick.”

“I’m not asking you to rewrite my file,” I said. “I’m asking you to add a page.”

Her mouth made that almost-smile again. “One hard copy. Two signatures.”

“Three,” I said. “I’ll bring lemon bars to the meeting.”

She shook her head, and this time it was a laugh, quiet and real. “I told you, food won’t influence approvals.”

“Right. But correct documentation does,” I said. The words landed easy in the space between us.

I kept my hands on the can as I remembered how close I had leaned in the studio and how she had pulled back with her spine still straight. Out here, with no one but the birds to bear witness, I’d let her decide the distance.

“Thank you for dancing with Harvey,” I said. “He was trying to be casual about it, but it mattered. He wants to stand up straight at the Founders Festival.”

“For himself,” she said.

“For himself,” I agreed. “And maybe for Nellie.”

“He’ll need practice.”

“He’s coming in again on Sunday at seven,” I said. “If you happen to be in the neighborhood…”

“I’ve got too much to do,” she said. “But I appreciate the invitation.”

As she got up, she tucked a stray hair behind her ear, then seemed irritated with herself for doing anything that might be considered soft.

“I should go,” she said. “I have three packets to prep before the agenda closes.”

“Thanks for coming by,” I said.

“I was already out. It wasn’t a big deal.”

We walked back through the gym. In the lobby, she set the folder on the counter long enough to pull a pen from her jacket. She wrote something small on the top page, then paused and added a second line.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A note to myself,” she said. “So the minutes reflect the timing of your submission.”

“Do the minutes care?”

“They do when I write them,” she said.

I liked that about her. The ownership. The steadiness. The refusal to hand anything over to luck.

At the door, I reached for the handle and stopped. “Rowan.”

She looked up.

“It wasn’t nothing in that room,” I said. “The dancing. I’m not asking for an answer. I just want you to know I felt it.”

Her breath shortened in a way most people wouldn’t notice. “I don’t make decisions based on feelings.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s one of the reasons I like you. It’s also the reason I’m going to keep showing up until my actions are louder than whatever you’re afraid of. ”

That knocked something loose behind her eyes. Not a crack, but a small shift.

“See you later, Mr. Thorne.” She moved past me onto the step.

“Are you going to the fundraiser at The Knotty Tap later on tonight?”

Her nod pulled a surprised smile out of me.

“I’ll see you there,” I said. “And stop calling me Mr. Thorne. It’s just Dane.”

She paused, the corner of her mouth catching. “Okay then, just Dane.”

The lot was still. She crossed to her car and didn’t look back. I watched her taillights until they slipped past the trees.

Inside, the gym felt quieter without her in it. I wiped down the counter, put the tape back in its drawer, and stood for a second with my palms pressed flat against the wood. The man I used to be would’ve chased the next distraction, started a new project, anything to outrun the quiet.

But the man I wanted to be? He picked up the list.

Harvey at seven. Order the surface sample sheets. Confirm slope tolerances. Print the bulletin notice for inside because not everyone checks fences. Build the damn courts the right way.

I grabbed the packet, tucked it under my arm, and stepped back outside. The sun was still high, spotlighting the stakes in the dirt. That posted notice fluttered in the breeze, bright as a flag.

It didn’t look like a delay. It looked like a promise.

A place to land.

Tomorrow, I’d show up again. And the next day after that.

And every day it took to make this town stop betting against me.

Because somewhere between a chalkboard sketch and a borrowed dance, I’d started wanting more than courts and clean permits.

I wanted Rowan to trust me. I wanted Rowan, period—and I was starting to fall.