Page 7 of Trapped with the Forest Ranger
That was a command.
And every unholy, unhinged fantasy I’ve entertained in this cabin—the ones where he pins me against rough wood and tells me what to do with that voice—just stood up and cheered.
Okay. I may have a problem.
But I follow him into the cold anyway, boots crunching through slush, jacket flapping behind me like I’m chasing something I don’t fully understand.
Because even as wind slices across my cheeks and branches creak above us, I’m not thinking about fallen trees.
I’m thinking about the way he said coming.
And how badly I want to be.
The fallen tree sprawls across the path like nature’s version of don’t even think about it—a massive barricade of gnarled bark and brute defiance. The trunk is easily four feet thick, its surface splintered as if it had been mauled by a myth. It’s not just down—it’s ruined, torn from the earth like the mountain had a tantrum.
Caleb circles it in silence, steps sure and unhurried, eyes scanning the damage with that low-burn intensity he wears like armor. His presence hums like pressure before a storm—quiet, but charged.
“Ground’s too saturated.” He kneels, pressing thick fingers into the soft, torn soil around the exposed root ball. “The water line runs through here to the shed. Need to check if it’s cracked.”
“What can I do?”
He glances up, clearly not expecting the offer. For half a second, something shifts in those eyes—green and stormy and focused squarely on me. The weight of his gaze presses into my skin like a fingerprint. Then he straightens and hands me a flashlight, grip firm and efficient.
“Hold this. Shine it where I’m working.”
Roger that, mountain man. Keep the orders coming.
And I do. For the next hour, I become his loyal assistant-slash-human workbench-slash-lust-stricken idiot with a flashlight. I hold things. Fetch things. Brace things. Occasionally, I hand him tools I don’t know the name of.
Mostly, though, I stare.
Not obviously. Not in a way that would get me slapped in an HR seminar.
But… oh, I stare.
The way his flannel stretches across his back when he bends over? That shirt has no right doing the Lord’s work like that. Every time it rides up, exposing that sliver of taut lower back, I lose another year off my life. His jeans cling to his thighs like sin wrapped in denim, and every shovel drag sends his shoulder blades flexing like some kind of erotic Morse code.
He works in clean, economical movements. No fuss. No wasted effort. Just pure, grounded strength that seems to rise straight from the mountain beneath us. It’s quiet except for the scrape of tools and the occasional muttered assessment. Not once does he speak to fill the silence. Not once does he look bored, rushed, or uncertain.
And his hands. God, those hands.
Big and callused and competent. The kind of hands that don’t just fix things—they know things. The kind that press in deep and don’t flinch at what they find. Every time his fingers curl around a pipe wrench or slide into the dirt,I have to bite the inside of my cheek.
Because I’m not thinking about water lines anymore.
I’m thinking about those hands on my hips. Around my throat. Between my thighs.
And when he leans back on his heels and glances up at me again, jaw shadowed, brow damp, muscles taut beneath sweat-dampened flannel?—
I nearly drop the damn flashlight.
And then there’s his face.
That sharp, brooding edge carved into his features like it was etched by wind and grit. That stubborn little line between his brows—always furrowed like he’s trying to solve some eternal problem—sometimes it softens. Just for a blink. When he’s deep in focus, when his whole body is tuned into the work in front of him, it slips. That hard edge melts, and for half a second, he looks… human. Vulnerable, almost.
It undoes me.
I want to reach out, press my thumb to that crease, and smooth it away. Maybe follow it with my lips, to see if the rest of his scowl will follow. Or, if I can steal that softness for myself.
