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
“That’s my future wife you’re gaping at, so I’d appreciate it if you look the fuck away.”
“It’s climbing a fucking pole. How hard can it be?”
“The marriage is real for me, by the way. I don’t want out. It’s real and it always has been for me. I don’t think it’s the same for your daughter, but I’ll be whatever she needs me to be because that’s how much I love her . . . for whatever that’s worth to you.”
“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!”
“I told you, Wyatt. He didn’t close the deal before he married her and now he’s got to live with a woman who would rather bake bread than fuck him.”
“When I forgave you for not showing up and we started hanging out again, I realized that’s what love is. It’s tolerating things you might not like from someone you care about because you know their essence. You know them at their best and their worst and you love them through it.”
“Well, the party can’t start until I arrive, so you better be thanking me for gracing you with my presence.”
“You’re my husband and I want to feel all of you.”
“It’s fucking exhausting to live with the what-ifs.”
“The fact that you even have to ask just proves how big of a fucking wall you still have up between us.”
“For better or worse, Addison Monroe . . . I got you.”
“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?”
“Looking at me like that will only get you fucked.”
“It’s like my body is constantly on edge, waiting for an emergency, which makes it impossible for me to fall sleep.”
“Oh please, you make bread from scratch and run an entire fucking lumberyard of dudes like it’s nothing. You’re ultimate wifey material.”
“Friends don’t let friends soap up alone.”
“It might be weird to have a pet cock but at least I’m not strapping him to my chest and taking him for walks through the woods like Calder and his cat, Milkshake. Weird fuck.”
“Because you don’t have the opportunity to fight. This is for you, little bro.”
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