He’s spent years being called a monster. She’s the first person stubborn enough to look closer.

Athena Gilbert doesn’t scare easily—at least that’s what she tells herself when she drives into a remote Idaho mountain town where everyone warns her to stay away from the man on the ridge. The podcaster came chasing a story, but one look at the scarred, silent blacksmith and she knows the town has it all wrong.

Mars Kilburn hasn’t explained himself to anyone in years. The reclusive blacksmith crafts blades by firelight and keeps the world at arm’s length—especially nosy women who show up at his forge demanding answers he has no intention of giving. When she refuses to leave until he talks, he figures the mountain will drive her off soon enough.

It doesn’t. Instead, she follows him into terrain she has no business navigating and takes a bad fall that leaves her hurt and stuck in his cabin until she can leave.

Forced proximity reveals surprising truths. She’s not the gossip-chasing outsider he assumed—she’s a woman who knows what it’s like to be misjudged, fighting to rebuild a career after a scandal that wasn’t her fault. He’s not the dangerous recluse the townspeople whisper about—he’s a man with scarred hands and a gentle heart, blamed for something he didn’t do simply because he’s easier to fear than understand.

As the days stretch on and the heat between them becomes impossible to ignore, Mars lets her closer than anyone’s been in years. Athena sees the protector beneath his silence, and for the first time, someone looks at him without flinching.

But the past that made Mars a pariah isn’t as buried as he thought. And when old secrets threaten to surface, Athena has to decide what matters more—the story that could save her career, or the mountain man who’s already saved her heart.

Can a man forged in isolation learn to let someone in? And will she choose the truth the world wants—or the man the world told her to fear?

A steamy standalone mountain man romance featuring:

• Forced proximity after she injures herself on his mountain
• Grumpy blacksmith meets stubborn, determined heroine
• Misunderstood hero blamed for something he didn’t do
• Scarred hands, gentle heart, protective alpha energy
• Forge scenes with sparks flying (literally and otherwise)
• Small-town gossip and outsider heroine
• He lets her see what no one else has
• Remote Idaho mountain setting
• HEA guaranteed with emotional depth

This is Book 5 in the Timber Falls Mountain Men series. Each book is a complete standalone with its own HEA.