Page 24 of Protected By the Mountain Man

“You keep saying that word,” Mac says with a smirk. “It doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means.”

“She’s not yours,” I say, voice a heavy rumble in my chest.She’s mine, I want to say, to shout from the damn rooftops. But I don’t because even though I want Mariah to be mine, she first belongs to herself.

My words seem to shock Ryan to silence. He stares at me, eyes wide, before turning away.

Mac relaxes slightly at my side, but I’m standing ready when Ryan rounds back on me with a leer, sending his fist careening toward my face. I take his punch on the cheek, but a second later I’ve got his arm behind his back as his knees crash into the pavement.

“This isn’t a fight you can win,” I growl into the man’s ear. I hold him immobilized as he struggles against my grip. “Walk away.”

“You really should listen, but what do I know?” Mac sighs idly, as if he doesn’t really care — as if he’s looking for a reason to lock an asshole up. He doesn’t get many opportunities to do that in a quiet town like Heartwood.

“She’smine,” Ryan whines, struggling harder.

I open my mouth to snap back, but a clear voice from behind me beats me to it.

“I was never yours. The only way you got me was by tricking me, and even then you couldn’t keep me.”

I turn to see Mariah striding down the stairs, head high and eyes blazing.

My heart feels like it might burst at the sight because when she’d shown up here only a couple of days ago, she’d looked so tired and so scared. Still strong, still brave, but worn down.

That Mariah is gone. In her place stands a powerhouse, a warrioresss who knows that this battle’s victory belongs to her.

She’s come to face her abuser, and I’m so damn proud of her.

Ryan seizes the opportunity of my distraction and twists out of my grip. I’m too slow to catch him again, and Mac also misses him as he steals his freedom.

“You’re mine, bitch, and you’ll never not be,” Ryan spits as he stalks toward Mariah.

Mariah pales but does not back down “No, Ryan. I’m really,reallynot.”

“You are,” he screams, raising a fist. “And I’m going to make you see that if it’s the last thing I do.”

Ryan sends his fist flying toward Mariah’s face. For the first time, she flinches, ducking to protect her head with her arms, but it won’t save her from the bruises he’ll leave on her exposed limbs.

I’m there before he can lay a finger on her, standing between Ryan and Mariah. With a single palm, I catch the punch he intended for her and twist, hearing the sick sound of tendon and bone pulled past where they should be.

Ryan crumples, and I’m tempted to come down hard on him with my own fists. But then Mariah is there, catching hold of my face between her palms, turning me to look at her as she speaks my name.

The sound of her voice comes as if from far away. For a moment if it feels like I’m back in the Middle East, having just learned that the woman I’d loved had fallen prey to the worst sort of man.

A man like Ryan.

I can’t let another man like him harm another woman I care about.

I have to protect Mariah and Billy.

I try to turn back to Ryan, but Mariah tugs me back around to face her once more, and now tears are running down her cheeks.

It’s the tears that stop me more than anything. I lift a hand to her face, trace a tear down her face with a thumb, and am surprised to see how much my hand trembles.

Then her gaze shifts to something over my shoulder, and her eyes fly wide as her hands drop from my cheeks. I whirl around, expecting to see Ryan advancing on us — onher— once more.

But it’s Graham, running toward us waving his cell phone. “I got it!” he’s yelling, and now my hearing rushes back to full volume. “I got it all on video! He doesn’t stand a chance in court now.”

I follow the nod of Graham’s chin toward Ryan. Pivoting, I raise the axe I’m somehow still holding, ready for anything — ready todoanything to protect the woman I love.

But all I see is Mac leaning over a cowering Ryan, clicking handcuffs into place. “I told you,” Mac says, shaking his head at Ryan but wearing a broad grin. His set of handcuffs probably gets only slightly more use than Heartwood’s single jail cell. “You really should have listened.”

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