I stand back and survey my handiwork.
I’m very pleased with myself. I’ve covered every inch of Easton Wilder’s work cube with sticky notes. His computer, his keyboard, his desk, the walls of the cube, the front of the desk. Six colors, many patterns (the computer screen is a smiley face)—it’s basically art.
Today is Easton’s birthday, and my sticky-note “gift” is payback for his last birthday “present” to me, which was replacing the contents of my deep bottom file drawer with a fish tank. Colored stones, little plastic plants, live fish.
Some people might call our pranks mean, but Easton and I, we’ve always been like this. Finding ways to make each other’s lives… more colorful. More interesting. And yeah, sometimes a little more difficult—but in the best possible way.
I do a happy jiggle to celebrate my own brilliance. Easton’s gonna love it. Or hate it, which is more or less the same thing when it comes to lifetime frenemies.
The door to Wilder headquarters squeaks open behind me, and I freeze.
“You must be Bear,” Easton’s voice says. “I’m Easton Wilder.”
Oh! I forgot. It’s not just Easton’s birthday but also Bear Warden’s first day of work.
“Ah, right, you’re the water guy,” says a deep, rumbly voice—exactly the kind you’d expect to hear from a man whose nickname is “Bear.”
“That’s right—rafting, kayaking, and canoeing.”
There’s a moment of silence. I picture the two mountain men clasping and shaking big meaty paws.
Apparently, they haven’t seen me yet, which makes sense, because I left the door locked and the lights and heat off when I came in, in the hopes of carrying out my mission undetected.
“Hey, look,” Easton says. “We’re all super glad to have you here this spring.”
“Feeling’s mutual,” Bear says. “It’s definitely an I-scratch-your-backs-you-scratch-mine situation. My viewers are going to really dig meeting five new mountain man brothers.”
“And I know we’ll get an insane number of new trip signups off this, above and beyond the people you bring in for your spring workshops.” Easton clears his throat and says, “Hey, Bear?”
He sounds nervous and a little confessional. Now would be the right moment for me to unfreeze and say hi, but something about Easton’s tone stops me. I can’t remember the last time Easton sounded uncertain about anything.
“Yeah?” Bear asks.
“Rumor has it you’re in the market for a partner.”
Wait, what?
“Rumor’s right,” Bear rumbles.
“I’d love to be on your radar screen for that.”
Whoa.
Whoa!
Easton—Easton Wilder, baby brother of the newly kick-ass Wilder Adventures business, loyal member of the family business—is chasing a job outside of Wilder.
Leaving Wilder.
Leaving.
My hands are cold. Probably because I never turned on the lights or the heat. Definitely because of that. It’s probably barely sixty degrees in here.
“Absolutely,” Bear responds. “I don’t have anyone yet that I’m all-in on, so I’d be happy to consider you. I like what you’re doing with the Wilder TikTok and YouTube—that’s new, right?”
“Yeah. Insta didn’t feel like enough for what we were trying to do.”
“No, no, it’s absolutely not—your instincts are dead on. I’ll take a closer look, but I did like what I saw. You know I need two co-leaders for this spring, right?”
“That’s why I’m bringing this up now. I’d like to be one of them.”
Oh. No. Apart from the deep weirdness of learning that Easton might be leaving, it’s inconvenient that he wants to be a co-leader on Bear’s trip, because I also wanted to be one of them. And Easton and I don’t get assigned to stuff together. Gabe—our boss and Easton’s oldest brother—will basically do anything to avoid having us work together. Something about squabbling like four-year-olds.
He’s not wrong.
Easton continues, “If you liked what you saw on TikTok and YouTube, and you could mention that to Gabe, it’ll give him a prod to make me one of the co-leaders.”
“I can do that.”
I can’t stand here any longer, hiding in plain sight. I have to turn around and reveal to Easton that I’ve overheard his whole conversation, that I know that he’s leaving.
For one thing, it’s wrong to eavesdrop.
For another, this is an opportunity to make Easton squirm I can’t pass up.
So I turn around, intending to say, “Easton Wilder, wait till your big brother hears about this!”
Of course I won’t actually tell Gabe. I give Easton shit for sport, but that doesn’t mean I want him to get taken apart molecule by molecule by his boss and sibling.
But whatever I was planning or not planning to say, it’s moot. The words dry up on my tongue.
Standing next to Easton is the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on.
He’s probably six foot four. Broad as a barn, but not the Wilder brothers’ molded-from-marble version. Softer, more dad-bodied—if your dad was a grizzly bear. He’s built like a chef, which makes perfect sense, because that’s how he got his start, and that’s what he still is—a celebrity survivalist chef. That’s why Wilder hired him, to teach our clients to forage for food and then cook it in the woods over open flame, just like Bear does on his wildly successful YouTube channel.
Bear Warden in the flesh has reddish-brown hair and a thick but impeccably trimmed coppery beard, and full lips and bright blue eyes.
Something has happened to my brain.
Well, really, to my body.
As in, my body—specifically, my vagina—hijacked all the blood from my brain.
When I recover the power of speech, I’ve completely borked my stick-it-to-Easton entrance, and I just say, “Hey. I’m Hanna Hott.” And I extend my hand.
“Very nice to meet you, Hanna,” Bear says, taking my hand in his. His dwarfs mine, and I am, a) not a small woman, and, b) used to outsized men. “It’s always a delight to meet women who love the woods.”
I leave my hand in his a beat too long, enjoying the giantness of his, and the warmth, and the way his eyes are locked onto mine. I’m not sure anyone has ever delivered quite so much eye contact over a handshake, and I’m… fucking loving it.
“I’m a huge fan of yours,” I manage, in a voice that I think I successfully hold steady.
Bear beams. “I’m flattered,” he says, all grizzly gruff. I swear I can feel the bass tones of his voice in my underpants. That’s a thing, right?
I’m not sure what to say next, because there are no words in my brain.
I should have done my homework. If I’d watched his YouTube channel like I was supposed to in preparation for his arrival, I would have had time to steel myself against his size and good looks and and not be quite so breathless now.
“Bear,” Easton says, “you’ll have to excuse us for a moment. Hanna and I have to settle a quick work-related issue before the team meeting starts.” And he grabs my arm and hustles me toward the front of the building.
My eyes, still on Bear, are quite likely the last part of me to leave headquarters before Easton yanks me out into the watery Oregon spring sunshine.
“Hanna,” he says. “What did you hear?”
“Everything.”
His eyes get even bigger. I’ve known Easton my whole life, and it’s not easy to throw him off his game. I think that’s part of what’s so fun about giving him a hard time; it’s like hitting a Weeble. It wobbles, but it always bounces back.
Even in this case. It takes him a beat longer than usual, but he finds his feet. I can tell because he shutters the panic behind his eyes and gives me a classic Easton smirk. “I know you won’t tell Gabe, though,” he says. “Because this is your perfect opportunity to get rid of me. If I work for Bear, even if I don’t move to Colorado, I won’t be around Wilder headquarters nearly as much.”
That cold feeling returns to my hands. And spreads, infecting my arms and then my chest.
“So you might move to Colorado?” I ask. My voice sounds normal, despite the creeping sense of icing over.
“Wouldn’t that be your dream?” he teases, eyebrow raised. “Just think of how much more peaceful your life would be.”
I have questions. So many questions. Why does he want the Bear job? Does he think he’ll get it? Does he think it would really require him to move to Colorado? How often would he visit if he did?
Because as much hell as Easton and I give each other, at the bottom of it all, he’s probably the biggest certainty of my life, after death and taxes. And the idea of him leaving doesn’t sit at all nicely in the pit of my stomach.
That said, no fucking way I’m going to tell him that.
“It is my dream,” I say. “This is like Christmas and Halloween and my birthday all in one. What can I do to help you get the job?”
“Well, first off, don’t tell Gabe,” he says. “And do whatever you can to help me convince Gabe I should be one of the two co-leaders.”
I frown. “About that. I don’t think that’s in my best interest.”
Easton scowls. “What do you mean, not in your best interest?”
“I mean, I want to be one of the co-leaders. And Gabe’s never going to put both of us on the same trip, because—well, you know how he feels about what happened last time.”
“Why do you want to be a co-leader?” Easton demands. “Is it just to thwart my plans?”
“Hey! Do you really think I’m that vicious?” I hold up a hand. “Never mind, don’t answer that. This has nothing to do with you, you egotist. It’s because Gabe is phasing out winter trips.”
“What? I know he was getting rid of skiing, but not winter trips in general.”
“Yeah, well, none of the stuff we put in place to replace it has been a winner. And with my business unit partner finding himself with his whole photography thing…”
A pained expression crosses Easton’s face at this characterization of his brother Kane, but he just nods.
“…basically, I need to find a new niche for myself. My plan is to see if I can learn as much as I can from Bear this spring and then add foraging and cooking to the glamping and Gilderness trips.”
Easton squints. “So… what you’re saying is … we both want to be a co-leader, and there’s no way Gabe’s going to let us do it together, so it’s… what, a fight to the death?”
“Basically.”
He crosses his arms. “You can’t just let me have it because it’s important to me, and I want it?”
“I could ask you the same question,” I point out to him.
The corner of his mouth turns up, and he flattens it down so I won’t see him smiling. I savor his struggle.
“Yup,” I say. “Fight to the death.”
He shakes his head in disgust, but he’s still trying not to smile.
Need more? Want to know what happens when Hanna blackmails Easton into helping her win Bear’s heart? You can preorder WILDER AT LAST now and it’ll drop onto your e-reader as soon as it’s available!
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