Fact or fiction: proposing to your best friend so she can inherit her family business is a great idea.
When Addison “Roe” Monroe tells me she’s going on a husband hunt at the local lumberjack competition so she can inherit her father’s lumberyard, desperate times call for desperate measures.
She’s sworn off romance. Says she’s been through enough tragedy. So I offer myself as an alternative, 'cause that’s what best friends are for.
But my stubborn friend, who would rather drive a forklift than get her nails done, refuses to accept my help, and now I find myself training to become a lumberjack.
I refuse to let Roe hitch her wagon to some hulking ax wielder who might be a serial killer. She means too much to me.
And I swear there are moments where she looks at me like I mean something more to her, too.
On the surface, I’m offering a marriage of convenience to protect her. But the truth is…I’m hopelessly in love with my best friend.
So if I have to marry her and move her up to Fletcher Mountain just to see if she could love me back, so be it.
Because my only regret would be losing her forever, and that’s a fact.
Why You Should Read This Book
Tropes
Trigger Warnings
Honeymoon Phase
“The truth is, Addison, I love you so much I would have just been your friend through all of this if that’s truly all you ever wanted from me. But the past couple weeks have proven we are more. We can be everything to each other if you just allow yourself to love me back.”
“I’m really grateful to you, Jo. I don’t know most of the details of this wedding and I already know it’s going to be one of the best days of my life.”
“I’d rather you saddle yourself with me for a year than put yourself at risk with a stranger, Roe. I will lose my mind worrying about you.”
“I saw you as someone I wasn’t willing to lose, and with who I was back then, if I would have taken you to bed, I would have definitely lost you.”
“Well, the party can’t start until I arrive, so you better be thanking me for gracing you with my presence.”
“It’s like my body is constantly on edge, waiting for an emergency, which makes it impossible for me to fall sleep.”
“I’m not lost at all. I have a growing new business and a girlfriend who tells me she loves me and my cat all the time. I’m in fucking heaven.”
“To elope and not even tell me is unforgivable. I’m heartbroken. If your father were here right now, I would make him kick your sorry ass!”
“Now it feels like if I don’t give it everything I’ve got, I could lose her to someone else and will spend the rest of my life regretting it.”
“I want your answer, Addison. I need to hear you say it, because once you say you want the same thing . . . once I get a taste of you . . .I won’t want to stop.”
“So whether you two are just friends or truly married, this shit is real on some level, she cares about you for some reason I can’t figure out. Which means if you break her heart, I swear to Christ, I will grab my side-by-side shotgun and rain so much buckshot in your ass you won’t be able to shit right for the rest of your life. You got me, boy?”
“You keep me at arm’s length, Roe. You let me in but not all the way. I don’t feel safe with you because I don’t ever know that you’re not going to bolt. I mean, hell, I kissed you and you didn’t look at me for two weeks. You’re paying rent at your apartment in Boulder still because you need to make sure if you want to get away from me, you can. It’s plain as fucking day that if I make one wrong move . . . we’re done.”
“Casual sex with my husband sounds just crazy enough to work. Bring on the loggers!”
“Oh please, you make bread from scratch and run an entire fucking lumberyard of dudes like it’s nothing. You’re ultimate wifey material.”
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you today, but you need to chill the fuck out because I’m going to do what I came here to do and no man—well-meaning or not—is going to stop me.”
“My family is crazy. Your family is crazy. But you and me. We can be good. We can get through all of this as long as we have each other’s back. And I will always have your back.”
“She loves you back. Even if she don’t say it. It’s still a fact.”
“The fact that you even have to ask just proves how big of a fucking wall you still have up between us.”
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