Page 61 of Mountain Refuge

“I need you out there drumming up fresh produce. Don’t hit the same town as before, though. Mix it up. One or two girls here, one or two there. By the time you score, I’ll have a place to put them. Until then, the barn will do. I want them as innocent as you can find without having to wait too long. Time is money.”

“Yes, sir.” Jason backed from the room.

Boss returned his attention outside. Spring approached quickly, warming the air. In the distance, storm clouds gathered. So far, he had yet to experience a tornado and hoped it would stay that way. But, if not, he hoped one hit before he had a barnful of merchandise. He didn’t need the walls blown down and girls escaping to give him away. Not again.

No one got the best of The Boss. No one.

Chapter Five

Ryan hadn’t spokento Taya in over a week. That didn’t mean he didn’t check on her from the protection of the trees once or twice a day. Even then, he still had no idea what made her so afraid.

Once, he’d arrived to check on her only to see her vehicle gone. Just when he started to worry, she arrived with her niece, Betty, and several grocery bags. Another time she moved from the SUV to her makeshift home with an armful of books, most likely from the library, which meant she’d given an address. Did the old hunter’s cabin even have one?

Today, Taya split firewood like a lumberjack, her strong arms glistening with perspiration as she raised the axe and let it fall with a thunk. She might be beautiful with a head of mahogany-colored hair and eyes the color of a spring meadow, but she definitely wasn’t soft. In fact she was unlike any of the women he’d ever met.

His gaze fell on the rifle propped against the house. She rarely let the weapon more than an arm’s reach away. When her dog stepped onto the porch and glanced toward where he hid, he melted back into the trees and headed home feeling every bit the stalker.

As he cut across the meadow in back of his rental, he sniffed the air. Smoke. He glanced around for the dogs. Not seeing or hearing them, he strolled toward a small rise.

Not too far in the distance, a plume of smoke rose. Hunters or campers, most likely. While he rarely saw anyone this high up, he did run across the occasional camper. Since it wasn’t hunting season, he hoped he wouldn’t find poachers that he would legally have to turn in.

The solitude was what had drawn him to the top of Misty Mountain. That and the view as the sun came up and mist filled the valley below. Now, with Taya and these new, yet unidentified people, that very privacy was threatened. At this rate, he’d never finish his book.

Keeping his rear in the chair hadn’t worked. His mind went blank every time he stared at the screen. Why had he lost his muse? His publisher emailed once a week asking for an update. At the rate Ryan was going, he’d be asked to pay back his advance.

He whistled for the dogs and headed toward the smoke rising above the trees and realized he was procrastinating again. The dogs caught up to him. Together, the three of them approached the area where Ryan could now hear voices.

He motioned for the dogs to stay and be quiet before peering through the foliage. Two men, both with backpacks and semi-automatic rifles, huddled around a fire despite the warming temperature. They were definitely not hunters. Not with those type of weapons.

“I’m telling you she’s around here somewhere. The Boss said she bought a vehicle.” One of them held a hot dog on a stick over the fire.

“Yeah, well, I don’t like nature. This traipsing around, living out of a sleeping bag, is for the animals. We’d better find her and the girl quick, or I’m taking off.”

“Sure, you will. The Boss will hunt you down like the cowardly dog you are.” The man holding the stick cursed as his hot dog fell into the fire.

Ryan moved back, inch-by-inch, taking extra care not to step on a twig or make too loud of a rustle. Those men could only be talking about Taya and Tracy. Now that he’d stumbled across her reason for hiding, he needed to warn her that those looking for her were on the mountain.

As he rushed to her cabin, his mind spun with ways he could help her—ways he could keep her safe. He wrote about these types of situations. Yes, he could come up with something, couldn’t he? Something she’d agree to?

Astro and Boris sniffed the area as Ryan made haste back to Taya’s. If she said she didn’t want his help, if she said she’d run, what would he do? He’d have no choice but to let her go. Maybe he could convince her to talk to Sheriff Westbrook. He seemed like a reasonable man.

Taya was still chopping wood when he stepped into the opening. One look at his face and she stuck the axe in a block of wood. “What?”

“Huh? There appears to be a couple of men looking for you on behalf of someone called The Boss.” He swallowed past the boulder in his throat as she paled to the color of a cloud in an azure sky.

“How do you know this?”

“I saw smoke and followed it. Two men were sitting around a campfire. I overheard them talking about a woman and a child. I want to help you.”

She reached for her rifle. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“Sure, there is. They’re looking for a woman and a girl, not a family. You can pretend to be my wife and Tracy my daughter.” It would work if they didn’t know what she looked like.

She laughed. “You spend too much time in a fictional world, Ryan.”

“At least talk to the sheriff. He might know what to do. The sheriff’s ex-FBI. He’ll have connections.”

She faced him, her smile gone. “No one can. Not yet, anyway. Tracy and I will move on.”

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