Page 5 of Shared By the Mountain Men

He removed his helmet, revealing a face full of hard lines and flat planes. His eyes were as hard as stone, eyes that glanced at Jack before settling on me with just a hint of curiosity. I was suddenly glad Jack had an ax, although I doubted it would be enough of a defense against this behemoth of a human.

“About time you caught up to us,” Jack said.

The mountain biking titan grunted.

“You know him?” I squeaked out.

“This is my buddy, Ash,” Jack explained.

I felt some of the tension escape my body. Some.

“Hi,” I said.

Ash—what kind of a name was that?—nodded at me in greeting.

“She fucked up her ankle, so I offered her a ride into town,” Jack said. “We’ve been limping along as best we can.”

Ash glanced at his Garmin. “Not much time,” he said in a voice so deep it sounded like it came from a subwoofer.

There was something about him that excited me, despite how dangerous he looked. Maybebecauseof how he looked. The tattoos, the hard lines of his face, the way his massive palm gripped the biking helmet. His masculine presence was… something else.

“I’m moving as fast as I can,” I said. “It’s getting better, but I can still barely put any weight on it.”

Ash grunted unhappily. “I’ve got work tonight.”

“Got a better idea to get her down faster?” Jack asked him.

I tried not to seem intimidated as I looked up at the big man. “I’m done being stubborn. I’ll take whatever help I can get.”

Ash looked at me, looked at his bike, and then nodded. Before I knew what was happening, he bent towards me ever so slightly, wrapped both arms around my waist, and picked me up, throwing me over one shoulder like I was a bag of potatoes. With his other hand, he gripped the handlebar of his bike and hoisted it up like it was a toy.

Then he started trudging down the mountain, movingwayfaster than I had been going with Jack’s help. The intimidation I felt melted away, replaced by a primal cavewoman-being-carried-away sense of excitement.

I was too grateful to be offended.

3

Jack

I steered my Jeep around the mountain pass, heading downhill toward the town of Montrose. The windows and Jeep top were down, and the crisp air blew through my hair in a way that always made me feel free. We had another two hours ahead of us before we reached Crested Butte, and the sun was falling heavily to the west.

I glanced over my shoulder. The girl—Melissa—was curled up in the back seat, wheezing softly. She’d fallen asleep the moment the car started moving.

“Don’t think she’s gotten much sleep,” I said. “She’s thru-hiking the Colorado Trail.”

Ash glanced at me. “Seriously?”

“Apparently so. She didn’t get very far.”

Ash looked back at Melissa, and then snorted a laugh.

We’d seen plenty of her kind before. People who dreamed of doing a big hike, like the Appalachian Trail or Pacific Crest Trail, without having any experience in the woods or mountains. Most failed. We called themthru-quitters. They made it a few days, got sick of shitting in the woods, and then found a quiet mountain town where they could get drunk.

Because that was the thing about people who did these extended hikes: they usually had issues to work through. You didn’t quit your job and run into the mountain wilderness for two months unless you were having some sort of crisis in your life.

I glanced back at Melissa and wondered what her crisis was.

As someone who knew these mountains as well as I knew my own cock, my first instinct was to help anyone who was in trouble. A twisted ankle didn’t seem like a huge deal, but you could freeze in the mountains if you weren’t careful. People made stupid decisions when their brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen at altitude, and hypothermia was sneaky. Especially once the sun went down.

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