Chapter 1: Five Men, One Cabin, Zero Warning

I drove two thousand miles for a job with a family.

I got a mountain.

Five men. One bathroom. Zero shirts.

A little girl on the stairs who hadn't spoken in eighteen months.

And the biggest man in Montana looking at me like I'd kicked in his front door.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Ivy," I said. "I live here now."

"No," he said. "You don't."

I checked my phone for the ninth time. Hawthorne Ridge Lodge, County Road 9, Cold Fork, Montana. Green roof. Dead porch swing. The listing had said live-in housekeeper and cook, room and board included, Hollis household.

Household. I'd pictured a mom. A minivan. A normal, boring, safe kitchen where nobody could find me.

Inside, something was burning. A dog the size of a bear cub was eating a boot. There was a coil of climbing rope hanging on the wall where a family photo should be.

A guy with a mouth full of frozen pizza pointed his slice at me. "Wait. Wait. You're Ian Calder?"

"Ivy. My application says I. Calder."

He spun around, eyes enormous. "Boys. Ian's a girl."

Four heads appeared in the hallway at once. Four. Plus the tall one still filling the doorway like a bouncer with a jawline.

Pizza recovered first. "Den Marsh. My mother owns this lodge, which technically makes me the man of the house." He wiped his hand on his shirt and offered it. "That's Aiden — K9 handler, cries at dog food commercials. Kel — flies the drones, menace to society. Tuck — rope tech, sleeps eleven hours a day."

"And him?" I nodded at the wall of muscle in the door.

"That's Cade Hollis. Captain of Ridge Search and Rescue. He doesn't talk. Ever."

Cade talked. "She can't stay."

Something in me went hot. Thirty-one hours of driving. A car full of everything I owned. An entire life left behind in Chicago — my apartment, my job, my name on a hospital badge, and one specific reason I could never go back.

My hands were shaking. From the coffee. From the road. From the thing I never let anyone see.

"Watch me," I said.

He didn't blink. "This is a rescue station. Five men, three trucks, an avalanche dog, and a callout at any hour of the night. You'll hate it here by Friday."

"Then I'll hate it here from my room."

Den was already on the phone with his mother. I watched his face collapse in real time.

"Ma— Ma, no— Ma, it's five dudes and one shower—" He lowered the phone. His voice came out very small. "She says if Ivy goes, we all go. Her lodge. Her rules. We'd be sleeping in the trucks by Sunday."

Silence.

Kel raised his hand. "I vote we keep her. She smells like a gas station, but she smells better than Tuck."

"Rude," said Tuck.

Then something touched my hand.

The little girl had come down the stairs without a sound. Six years old, maybe. Wild dark hair, a stuffed rabbit with one ear, socks that didn't match. She curled two fingers around my pinky and looked up at me and didn't say a single word.

Every man in that room went absolutely still.

"That's Wren," Aiden said quietly. "Cade's daughter. She, uh." He cleared his throat. "She doesn't talk. Not since her mom."

I crouched down. "Hi, Wren."

She stared at me. Then she pressed the one-eared rabbit against my chest like she was handing me something important, and turned and walked back up the stairs.

Cade's whole face had changed. Not softer. Just — cracked, somewhere behind the eyes.

"Fine," he said flatly. "But the only room in this building with a lock is mine."

I looked up at him. Six-foot-four of pure inconvenience. A scar through one eyebrow. Eyes the gray of a storm that hasn't decided anything yet.

"I'm not taking your room."

"Yes, you are." He was already walking away. "You're a woman alone in a house with five men you've known for four minutes. You take the lock."

That was the first time Cade Hollis made my stomach drop.

He hauled his duffel into the bunk room without a word. Didn't say goodnight. Didn't say welcome. Just left me in a room that smelled like cedar and clean laundry and him, with a bare mattress and a window looking out at a black wall of pines.

I unpacked at midnight. Taped my mother's photo to the mirror. Told myself: new state, new start, nobody up here knows what happened.

Then someone knocked on the front door.

One in the morning. Forty miles from the nearest town.

I opened it because I'm an idiot, and there was nobody on the porch.

Just a small white box on the mat.

With my name on it.

Not I. Calder. Not Ian.

Ivy.

Handwritten. Black ink. Handwriting I would have recognized anywhere, if my hands hadn't been shaking too hard to look.

I had been in Montana for exactly seven hours.

And I hadn't given this address to a single living soul.