Page 3 of Trapped with the Forest Ranger (Angel’s Peak #5)

I jolt upright, adrenaline kicking in before thought can catch up. Caleb’s already moving—fast, precise, like his body registered the threat before the sound even finished echoing. He crosses to the window with long, purposeful strides, muscles flexing beneath his shirt like coiled rope.

“What was that?” I follow him, breath tight, pulse ricocheting.

He points through the fogged glass. “Tree down.”

And there it is—downhill, just past the clearing.

A massive pine lies uprooted, as if the mountain itself coughed it out.

The earth’s been torn open, roots twisted and raw, limbs shattered, needles scattered like nature’s confetti after some violent celebration.

The trunk angles toward the shed, too close for comfort.

“Too close to the water line,” Caleb mutters, jaw locked tight.

He’s already in motion, grabbing a tool belt, sliding into a canvas jacket, all muscle memory and zero hesitation. At the door, he pauses—just briefly—and looks over his shoulder.

“Coming?”

Two syllables. Not warm. Not a question. Just a flick of authority that wraps around my spine and yanks.

I leap to my feet, snag my coat, and shove my arms through the sleeves, breath already fogging in the cool air because that wasn’t a request.

That was a command.

And every unholy, unhinged fantasy I’ve entertained in this cabin—the ones where he pins me against rough wood and tells me what to do with that voice—just stood up and cheered.

Okay. I may have a problem.

But I follow him into the cold anyway, boots crunching through slush, jacket flapping behind me like I’m chasing something I don’t fully understand.

Because even as wind slices across my cheeks and branches creak above us, I’m not thinking about fallen trees.

I’m thinking about the way he said coming.

And how badly I want to be.

The fallen tree sprawls across the path like nature’s version of don’t even think about it—a massive barricade of gnarled bark and brute defiance.

The trunk is easily four feet thick, its surface splintered as if it had been mauled by a myth.

It’s not just down—it’s ruined, torn from the earth like the mountain had a tantrum.

Caleb circles it in silence, steps sure and unhurried, eyes scanning the damage with that low-burn intensity he wears like armor. His presence hums like pressure before a storm—quiet, but charged.

“Ground’s too saturated.” He kneels, pressing thick fingers into the soft, torn soil around the exposed root ball. “The water line runs through here to the shed. Need to check if it’s cracked.”

“What can I do? ”

He glances up, clearly not expecting the offer. For half a second, something shifts in those eyes—green and stormy and focused squarely on me. The weight of his gaze presses into my skin like a fingerprint. Then he straightens and hands me a flashlight, grip firm and efficient.

“Hold this. Shine it where I’m working.”

Roger that, mountain man. Keep the orders coming.

And I do. For the next hour, I become his loyal assistant-slash-human workbench-slash-lust-stricken idiot with a flashlight. I hold things. Fetch things. Brace things. Occasionally, I hand him tools I don’t know the name of.

Mostly, though, I stare.

Not obviously. Not in a way that would get me slapped in an HR seminar.

But… oh, I stare.

The way his flannel stretches across his back when he bends over?

That shirt has no right doing the Lord’s work like that.

Every time it rides up, exposing that sliver of taut lower back, I lose another year off my life.

His jeans cling to his thighs like sin wrapped in denim, and every shovel drag sends his shoulder blades flexing like some kind of erotic Morse code.

He works in clean, economical movements.

No fuss. No wasted effort. Just pure, grounded strength that seems to rise straight from the mountain beneath us.

It’s quiet except for the scrape of tools and the occasional muttered assessment.

Not once does he speak to fill the silence.

Not once does he look bored, rushed, or uncertain.

And his hands. God, those hands.

Big and callused and competent. The kind of hands that don’t just fix things—they know things. The kind that press in deep and don’t flinch at what they find. Every time his fingers curl around a pipe wrench or slide into the dirt, I have to bite the inside of my cheek.

Because I’m not thinking about water lines anymore.

I’m thinking about those hands on my hips. Around my throat. Between my thighs.

And when he leans back on his heels and glances up at me again, jaw shadowed, brow damp, muscles taut beneath sweat-dampened flannel?—

I nearly drop the damn flashlight.

And then there’s his face.

That sharp, brooding edge carved into his features like it was etched by wind and grit.

That stubborn little line between his brows—always furrowed like he’s trying to solve some eternal problem—sometimes it softens.

Just for a blink. When he’s deep in focus, when his whole body is tuned into the work in front of him, it slips.

That hard edge melts, and for half a second, he looks… human. Vulnerable, almost.

It undoes me.

I want to reach out, press my thumb to that crease, and smooth it away. Maybe follow it with my lips, to see if the rest of his scowl will follow. Or, if I can steal that softness for myself.

Not that I need to touch him to feel him. His presence fills the space between us like smoke. Like heat. He doesn’t talk much, but he doesn’t have to. His body speaks in a language older than words—muscle and intent, purpose and restraint. Every movement is its own declaration.

And I’m listening.

Loud. And. Clear.

God help me, I might be in full-blown lust with a human brick wall. One who smells like pine needles, woodsmoke, clean sweat, and something darker. Something rough and inevitable. Like the forest conjured him to prove a point.

“Flashlight,” he says, holding out his hand without looking up.

I jolt like I’ve just been caught mid-orgasm. Because in my head? I absolutely was. Mouth, hands, hips—every inch of me busy worshipping the mountain god in front of me.

“Right. Sorry.” My voice comes out too fast, too breathy, and I shove the flashlight into his palm like it might burn me if I linger. My cheeks blaze.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t tease. Just takes it, adjusting the angle with those big, capable hands that deserve their own Greek myth. The fingers are all rough grip and precise control—surgeon meets lumberjack—and they know exactly what they’re doing.

And I keep watching because I am so far past the point of pretending I’m not.

“Pipe cutter.” His hand stretches out again, palm up, commanding and calm. He doesn’t even glance at me.

Like he just knows I’ll be there.

Like I’m already a part of his rhythm. A tool in his hand. A fixture in his world.

The touch is brief. Our fingers barely graze when I pass it over. But it’s enough to light me up from the inside, a static charge crawling up my arm, blooming beneath my skin. My breath catches, traitorous and loud in the quiet.

Oh no. No, no, no. We are not doing the slow-motion, eye-locking, accidental-electric-touch scene from a cheesy rom-com.

Except apparently my body didn’t get the memo, because my pulse is doing Olympic-level gymnastics, and my knees are threatening to give out on their own.

And then he does look at me.

Those eyes—God, those eyes—lift to mine. Moss and stormclouds. Hard to read. Harder to look away from. They pin me in place, silent and searching. A pause. A flicker of something unspoken.

Then he turns back to the trench like nothing happened.

But I’m not breathing right. And I can’t feel my hands.

And now every fantasy I’ve had since stepping foot in this cabin—every filthy, dominant, woodsmoke-and-command-laced daydream—is stacking like firewood behind my ribs.

I am so screwed.

“Almost done.” He slots the pipe into a fitting with practiced ease, hands steady, sure, like he was born with a wrench in one fist and the wilderness in the other.

“Try the pump switch.”

The graze of his fingers from a moment ago is still sizzling on my skin like a phantom touch, but I force my feet to move. I head for the shed, doing everything in my power not to let the whole damn scene scramble my neurons.

My boots crunch over pine needles. The air tastes like wet bark and oncoming rain. When I flip the switch, the pump kicks on with a hum and a satisfying gurgle of water rushing through the pipes—like the mountain itself just exhaled.

“No leaks.” I call out, already smiling.

He grunts. That’s it. One syllable. No celebration. Meanwhile, I’m three stanzas deep into an internal poem about the way his biceps flexed when he twisted the coupling.

Caleb rises from the trench in one fluid motion.

His jeans are soaked, molding to his thighs like second skin—tree-trunk thick, muscular, carved by function, not vanity.

There’s a smear of dirt across one sharp cheekbone, and the whole damn image is so rugged and feral it short-circuits something vital in my brain.

“You’re good at that,” I say, gesturing at the fixed pipe like it’s a masterpiece and not just, you know, functioning plumbing. “Very… capable.”

Brilliant. Because what better compliment than “capable” when your ovaries are doing a synchronized floor routine.

His gaze flickers toward me, unreadable. For half a second, I think—hope—I catch the faintest flush climbing his neck. But it’s gone before I can confirm, swallowed up by that stoic wall he wears like armor.

“Basic maintenance,” he mutters, wiping his hands on a rag. “Part of the job.”

Of course. Just a man. Doing man things. With man hands. In man pants. Fixing things. Looking like a wilderness-dwelling fever dream brought to life by the sheer force of my suppressed libido.

Totally normal.

We start collecting tools. I follow his lead, pretending not to catalog every brush of muscle beneath damp flannel.

The wind shifts as we work, sharp and biting, knifing through the trees.

It carries the metallic tang of more rain, mixing with pine and cold soil.

Caleb pauses, face tilted to the clouds, jaw tight, reading the sky like it’s speaking just to him.

“Another system moving in.”

I glance upward, the clouds bruised and hanging low, thick as smoke. “Seems like this mountain makes its own rules.”

“It does,” he says, and something in his voice softens. Just a shade. Like the storm stirred something awake. “Angel’s Peak creates a microclimate. Western slope gets twice the rainfall of the eastern.”

I blink. Did I just unlock a hidden bonus level? Caleb, Storm Whisperer edition?

“Well, look at that,” I murmur. “A man of weather and few words.”

He doesn’t answer, just hands me a wrench and brushes past, close enough that the heat of his body trails behind like a promise. And I’m suddenly, painfully aware that I am wet.

Not from the rain.

From wanting him.

From standing too close to a living, breathing contradiction— rough hands and quiet knowledge, brutal strength and gentle restraint.

God help me, I want him to snap. Just once. Just for me.

I open my mouth to tease him, maybe nudge that faint spark of interest into an actual conversation, but a fat raindrop splats square between my eyes.

“Inside.” He doesn’t wait for my response—just scoops up the remaining tools and jogs toward the cabin, and somehow I’m running after him like we’re starring in some rugged outdoorsy rom-com.