Page 2 of Fighting for the Mountain Man

Did that sound whiny? I was hardly a suburban brat. I came from a rough background, but I’d worked hard. I got a bunch of grants and loans to go to college and now I was having a tough time finding a job that paid more than I made in tips at the fancy steak restaurant I’d worked at since high school.

But a guy like this one wouldn’t see it that way. Some twenty-three-year-old had shown up in town with three of her best friends, who were once sorority sisters. He’d take one look at my highlighted hair—done at home with a product I bought at the grocery store—and assume I was some city girl with loaded parents.

“You here to volunteer?” the guy asked. “Or are you like the others?”

My eyebrows arched, and I wondered if they showed over my oversized sunglasses. “Like the others?”

He gestured toward the trailer. “All these other women who showed up looking for—what is it you all call him? The Cyclone Stud?”

I was suddenly aware that my jaw had dropped at those words. I was gawking at him, open mouthed. I hadn’t prepared to answer a question like that. What did I say?

“I’m here to help with disaster recovery,” I said. “I heard someone say Jax isn’t even in there, and that sent some of the women that way.”

I pointed toward the neighborhood. The trailer was only about a quarter of a mile away on property someone said would be used for selling Christmas trees later in the year. Apparently, this was some kind of farm.

“Look out,” the man said.

The words were barely out of his mouth when the door behind me whooshed open, revealing a group of women clumped in front of it. They were ready to move forward, and I was blocking the way.

“Hey, there’s a guy out here,” one of the women said.

“Is it Jax?” someone else asked.

I checked out the scene behind me, then turned back around. The guy I’d briefly seen as dangerous suddenly looked like the only guy who could save me from this mob. But his expression reminded me of a deer caught in the headlights, a look I was pretty sure was on my face as well.

Fear that I might be trampled urged me down the stairs and across to where he was standing. “Let’s go,” I said.

Then I did something completely uncharacteristic of me. I grabbed the guy’s hand and tugged as I walked. He twisted around and fell into step beside me, letting go of my hand in the process. He was the one who initiated the contact this time, wrapping his much larger hand around mine and even giving it a little squeeze as we started walking.

If the group of man-hungry women behind us followed, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t dare look back. I was too busy enjoying holding this hot guy’s hand to care, anyway. He might not be Jax, but he was the best-looking thing I’d ever seen.

2

BRYCE

My plan was to hide out in one of the houses. It was the one closest to the trailer.

It was one of the houses that went unscathed after the tornado blew through. The owner’s son was on our construction crew and had agreed to let us use it when we needed some air conditioning or another place to meet. This morning, they were using it to provide coffee and pastries to locals who were volunteering.

“They aren’t following us, are they?” the woman asked.

I glanced back over my shoulder. The women were gathered in a large clump near where I’d been standing only seconds earlier.

One of the volunteers was filling in for me since I was running late. But the truth was, I was running late on purpose. When I saw the long line at the trailer, I couldn’t bring myself to be eyed like a piece of meat while being asked a thousand times where Jax was.

So I’d headed off to grab some coffee and a pastry instead. And that was where we were headed now.

“All clear,” I said.

My gaze skimmed across her as I returned my attention to our destination. This woman was gorgeous. I’d spotted her facing the door and checked out that fine ass and those long, shapely legs. I’d gotten hard just looking at her.

And then she turned around and my heart seemed to stop. She wasn’t just the sexiest, most beautiful sight I’d ever seen. She was the one. The woman I’d been looking for all my life.

That thought had slammed into me as I forced myself to make conversation. But now, here I was, holding her hand as we reached the edge of the farm property and stepped onto the front lawn of the breakfast house.

There was a whole story behind the family who originally owned all this property. The neighborhood was called Sugarplum Farms because, for years, the owners had grown Christmas trees and sold them. Most of that was gone now, although they still sold trees every year on the part of the property that still belonged to them.

“I guess we can stop pretending to be a couple now,” she said, tugging on her hand.

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