Page 7 of Ten Mountain Men

You know how you always see women running through the woods in movies and they do it like they’re gazelles or something, effortlessly bounding and darting over roots and fallen limbs?

Yeah, that’s not real life.

Real life is tripping and stumbling and branches to the face. And I have to keep looking over my shoulder to see if they’re gaining ground. Which is stupid and impossible, because in real life, there are stumps and roots that seem to pop up out of nowhere like nature’s booby traps, bound and determined to send me flying onto my ass.

Dead meat.

I am dead meat.

“Rose-Gold, I can hear you gasping for breath. Baby, are you okay? Did you go back to that spin class?”

“Not okay. I’m dead meat. I have to call you back later. Sorry about Clive!”

The grunts and snarls are getting closer, and then, to my astonishment, one shouts, “Get her!” in perfect English.

My Sasquatches speak English!

So, I could stop and explain to them that, you know, as far as I know, we’re still in the United States where murder is illegal.

I glance back in a moment of contemplation, just to see if the English-speaking Bigfoot could—

BAM!

Pain catches me in the forehead and radiates all the way down to my blistered toes, and I lose all the wind in my lungs from the impact. Even my scream gets caught in my chest as my body ricochets off what must be an enormous tree and my feet fly out from under me, my ankle doing something I’m pretty sure is not normal for an ankle to do, as I’m knocked on my ass.

Chapter 3

Luke

“Damn every last one of my brothers,” I mutter under my breath, frustration building with every one of my steps as I trudge along the path into the forest. “Damn them all.”

“Be back by lunch,”I told them, my tone letting them know just how damn serious I was.“If you aren’t back by lunch, I’m eating without you and I’m eating your food. All of it!”

And yet here we are on the same damn hamster wheel. Every day, we do this, following the same frustrating routine. Every day—even though I swear I won’t—I retrieve them from wherever they’re off dillydallying, completely oblivious that it’s noon. Then it’s a mad dash back home to hopefully get them to the table so we can eat before our meal is cold.

I hate cold food, a trait I remember sharing with Dad. And I hate dillydallying, a trait I know comes from Ma. But seriously, we eat at the same time every day. It’s not that hard to keep track of the time, now is it? It’s not like they’re children. The youngest of us, Rusty, is twenty now. Grown-ass men, the lot of them, and I shouldn’t have to—

I stop in my tracks as I hear a feminine shriek, followed by a hell of a lot of shouting.

“What the hell?” I mutter.

Then she bursts through the trees, a vision of wild beauty.

I blink, stupefied for a second. Part of me thinks,Holy shit, she’s gorgeous,and the rest of me thinks,Who is this woman and what the actual fuck is she doing on my mountain?

She’s running toward me, looking back over her shoulder. I follow her fearful, desperate gaze and watch as one, two, three, four, five, six, seven—sevenof my dumbass brothers stumble and lurch out onto the path behind her.

All of them are naked as the day they were born, hauling ass after her, their hollering breaking through the trees with a discordant echo.

No wonder she’s running. The sight and sound is truly terrifying. It makes me want to turn around and haul ass too, to be honest.

But I stand, frozen, watching the scene in front of me play out, as if it’s not damn obvious I’m unfortunately about to become a part of it. Before I can even step out of the way, she closes in, picking up speed, glancing backward, not noticing either me or the sloppy patch of mud on the path between us.

“Watch out!” one of the guys—Hunter, I think—calls to her or to me or maybe the pair of us.

She doesn’t notice. In a burst, she hurtles toward me, her ridiculously impractical boots skidding in the mud. Something hard gets me right in the knees, and then she’s falling backward. My eyes water as if I took a direct hit to the nuts. She flails. She reaches out, presumably trying to catch hold of something to steady herself. I don’t have the good sense to move, so what she catches hold of is me, grabbing onto my shins. It’s just enough to make me off-balance, and down I go, into the mud, right along with her.

Damn.

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