Page 1 of Merciless Mountain Man

1

CASSADY

It was a great day to be alive. Spring had finally arrived, and my boss had sent me to check on one of the rental cabins. That meant I was surrounded by the breathtaking views that the retired military vets and tourists enjoyed every day.

“Memory Lane,” I said, reading the sign as I turned right.

I’d never visited this particular cabin before. Most of my work focused on the group of cabins near the lodge, but High Peak Properties had begun buying up cabins farther up the mountains and turning them into rentals. This cabin on Memory Lane was one of them.

Growing up in Seduction Summit, I spent plenty of time up here, even though our house had been near the city line, where we didn’t even have a view of all this. The mountains were for hanging out with friends on weekends or going on picnics with my sister and parents on lazy Sunday afternoons.

But then, none of this had been here when I was a kid. The main road was now lined with cabins. Some were older. Those were the ones the vets had built to get away from everyone.Gradually, the spaces in between filled up with rental cabins and second homes for North Carolina’s super-wealthy.

The mountain men had to hate all of this, but most were making a living either in construction or on the logging crews that knocked down all the trees to build this stuff. So they had to have expected it.

The GPS took me straight to the driveway. That was something that had improved too. Cell phone service up here used to suck, but enough wealthy people had moved in, and now I rarely even saw a glitch.

I stopped just in front of the garage and pulled up the list of instructions on my phone.Go in through the front door and use this key code, they read. I grabbed my keys and my phone and got out, locking my door. That was probably unnecessary, but with so many tourists around, you never knew.

My job was to do a quick run-through of the place and make sure it was ready for the first guest arriving that day. This cabin had just gone on the market, and my boss, Jacob, who owned this property management business, was worried about a negative review.

I got to the front door and frowned. No keypad. I looked down at my phone and compared the address at the top of the instructions to the numbers on the door in front of me. It was the right cabin. Someone must have forgotten to put the keypad on.

That was a problem. Problems were what I’d been sent here to spot.

I reached for the doorknob, expecting it to be locked. At that point, I’d have to call my boss and ask him to come up here with a key. In fact, I was hoping this would go pretty quickly. I had lunch plans with my group of girls at our favorite Mexican restaurant in town.

Much to my surprise, the handle turned easily under my touch. My first instinct was to second-guess going inside, butthen I reminded myself this wasn’t someone’s house. This was a rental cabin, and my boss owned it. It was like entering a hotel room between guests.

As I walked in, I inhaled deeply, taking in the aroma of a newly built house. I loved that smell more than anything. My old apartment didn’t even come close to that smell, but I got plenty of it at work.

But then my eyes adjusted to the indoor lighting, and a frown settled over my face. Something wasn’t right here. This place was in no way ready for a vacation renter to show up.

Closing the door behind me, I pulled my phone from my back pocket, prepared to dial the cleaning service we used for our cabins. If I could clear all of this up on my own, that would be ideal. My boss did not like me bothering him with little things. And yeah, this wasn’t such a little thing, but that would make it even more impressive if I got it all ironed out myself.

Still, the clothing piled on the couch made no sense. I realized that as I pulled up the number for the cleaning service.

I paused before tapping the button to start the call. The only thing worse than bothering my boss with trivial things would be calling up the cleaning service when I didn’t have the full picture. I probably should take a look around.

I breezed through the open-plan main room and around the bar that separated the kitchen from the rest of the space. Sure enough, the kitchen was a mess. Dishes filled the sink, and a coffee cup sat on the counter.

My blood ran cold. What if this was one of those squatter situations? A criminal had come up here to the mountains to hide out, found this door unlocked, and taken up residence. Maybe I should call the police. Seduction Summit didn’t have a police department, so they would have to come all the way from Adairsville.

I could sneak out, get in my SUV, and head back to the office. If the police needed to talk to me, they could stop by there. I wasn’t going to wait around to be murdered by some escaped prisoner or bank robber.

I flipped around and started toward the door, wincing at every creak of the floorboards. It was quiet in here. Too quiet. But I swore my feet weren’t the only ones making noises. The pops of wood made me wonder if someone else was walking around in here, maybe behind one of those two closed doors.

Suddenly, one of the doors swung open, revealing a man. A naked man. And he definitely looked like he might murder me.

Okay, he was hot. But there was also something dangerous about him. Maybe it was that beard or the way his eyes seemed to blast right through me. He was no doubt just as confused as I was about not being alone.

Or maybe he realized he’d been busted. I couldn’t tell from his expression. All I knew was he looked angry. And giant men with angry faces were usually not good news.

“I left my underwear out here,” he said.

That was when I realized I wasn’t breathing. I was holding my breath and trying my damnedest not to look at that massive part of his anatomy. All of him was huge, but that one particular part was something I’d never seen before. Not in real life, anyway.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

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