Page 2 of Matched with the Small Town Chef
Lightning flashes—an electric slash across the sky. Thunder crashes an instant later, so loud and close it punches through me. I flinch, pulse spiking. The storm is right above us now, turning the greenhouse into a cocoon of trembling glass and humid breath.
“We’re not supposed to have visitors back here.”
The voice cuts through the air behind me—low, rough, and so close it skates down my spine like the slide of a palm beneath my shirt. I spin, breath caught somewhere between ribs and throat.
He stands framed in the doorway, rain dripping from the edge of the roof behind him. Tall. Too tall for the narrow frame, he ducks slightly as he steps in, his wet shirt clinging to shoulders broad enough to block out half the storm behind him. Dark hair curls damply at his temples. A faint sheen of water slicks his throat. Stubble traces the edge of a jawline sharp enough to draw blood.
But it’s his eyes that snare me—clear green-gold, like filtered sunlight through pine needles. Wild. Unsettling. And locked on me with a kind of quiet focus that turns the breath in my lungs to steam.
My mouth moves before my brain can catch up. “I—The door was open. I didn’t think anyone— The storm…”
“Caught you off guard?”
The corner of his mouth curves, just barely. That half-smile. Jesus.
“Mountain weather.” He moves past me, close enough that I catch the scent of him—rain, earth, something warm and mineral—and my stomach flips. “Zero to sixty in under a minute.”
He rolls up his sleeves, slow and efficient. Muscles flex beneath tanned skin as he rinses his hands in the basin, the motion simple, unhurried. Powerful. That body doesn’t belong behind a desk. It belongs outdoors. Or pressed against?—
I swallow hard, heat blooming low in my abdomen. Get a grip.
I gesture to the rows of vibrant green, trying not to stare at the veins flexing beneath his forearms. “This is… impressive. Do you work for the lodge?”
“Something like that.”
He reaches overhead, retrieving a dark bottle and two squat glasses from a shelf above the workbench. His shirt stretches across his back as he moves, rainwater still clinging to him in a way that makes it hard to look away.
“Since neither of us is going anywhere until this passes…” He glances toward the sheets of water blurring the world outside. “Might as well get comfortable. Bourbon?”
I should say no. Should thank him and head back to the lodge with whatever grace I can still gather.
But I nod.
He pours the amber liquid, catching the faint light like wildfire, and his fingers brush mine as he hands me the glass. Barely a touch. But it’s enough. A pulse of heat skims along my skin, sinking deep. I pretend not to notice. But I do. God, I do.
“To shelter.”
He lifts his glass. I mirror him, and the toast hums between us like a shared secret.
The bourbon goes down like liquid gold—sweet and smoky, and hot enough to make me exhale through my nose. It sears a path down my throat, pooling low. But it’s the way he watches me that really sets the fire: over the rim of his glass, eyes half-lidded, the faintest curve to his lips like he already knows exactly what I’m feeling.
No one has looked at me like that in longer than I want to admit. Not with heat and hunger, like this man. Not like I’m a puzzle they want to solve with their hands.
He sets his glass on the workbench, leaning against it. Casual, but every inch of him radiates heat and unspoken strength. His broad chest rises and falls, the damp shirt clinging as if it might never come off.
“What brings you to Angel’s Peak?” His voice is low, pulling me back from where my mind’s already drifting. “Not exactly on the tourist map.”
“Work. Sort of. A working vacation.” I grip the glass a little tighter.
The half-truth feels too light for the weight in the air.
“A change of scenery?”
I nod. “From New York. The restaurant scene there is…” I catch myself before I say cutthroat. “Intense.”
That glint in his eyes sharpens. A flicker of genuine interest behind the slow-burn flirtation.
“You’re in the industry?”
