Page 22 of Recurve Ridge

Robe stood beside the lithe dancer, his arms folded over his chest. When I expected him to glower at Alan or dress him down, he surprised me by ruffling the younger man’s hair. Footsteps and chatter filled the silence as men clattered up the veranda stairs to the cabin. Three faces peered in at me, two in open curiosity and one in poorly shielded hostility.

My safety net flung wide on the other side of the bar, I stared back, panic reigniting.

—fight flight fight?—

But no enemy appeared for me to fight, and I had no way to escape. The bodies jammed in the doorway who were barring my lone escape route with their combined physical mass saw to that.

All of the men were the same level of dirty, each of them bound in muscle.Henry Cavill, eat your heart out.Their physiques were clearly sculpted by hard labor, not the sort built for show so common in the city. Even beneath weather-worn jackets, their combined bulk was impossible to hide.

Did Robe have a secret fighting ring buried beneath the house? A little private damage club of his own? I half expected Tyler Durden to stride inside the cabin and start mouthing off at the absurd tableau.

Cue the White Rabbit in three, two….

The men fit tight within the confines of the handmade walls, as it turned out. On any regular day, I might have been amused at their size. A low-level angst simmered to boiling point between the men as they all crowded the room, each additional body stealing precious space and air. Robe and Alan seemed to be okay with the constricted oxygen, while I backed up against the bar’s edge.

Jon offered an apologetic smile and grabbed a beer from the fridge. A stocky young man sporting a buzz cut and a permanent scowl stormed through the house. His footsteps cracked whip sharp as he headed into another part of the house I hadn’t discovered yet.

Will, the other young man Alan pointed out earlier, whose sandy fringe flopped over his eyes, watched me with enthusiasm, his cheeks reddening as he checked me out with no hint of apology. His easy, coasting gaze should have been creepy or unnerving, but his open face took the edge away from his assessment. Nor did he approach me with hands outstretched and grabbing?—

I pressed back harder into the bar. The unforgiving border prodded between my shoulder blades as air evacuated from my lungs.

Robe used up the rest of the available oxygen to address Will, jerking his chin at the younger man with the soul-filled eyes. “Grab some firewood? We’re going to need it when night closes in.”

It struck me that the men should have been bantering with each other the way Alan and Robe did in their odd way. My presence silenced every single man inside the cabin’s tight walls, changing their dynamic until they all teetered on edge, pretending a normality none of us felt.

Their combined judgment weighed heavily over my poor attempt at camouflage. I grasped at nothingness, my mouth open to say—something—but then I didn’t need to. Warmth replaced the cold at my back.

I shivered at the abrupt temperature change as Robe shifted. Broad hands clasped my waist in a firm grip. His touch steadied me, let me breathe. I sucked in a fortifying breath as he slid into place at my back. His heart beat a faster tempo than before but then faded to its regular rhythm, taking my breath with it.

“You’re super speedy,” I murmured, sliding my fingers around the tumbler of whiskey Alan pushed back into my hand. I sent him a grateful, if weak, smile.

Dexterous and fast—Everest encompassed all the qualities a mountain man was supposed to possess. In any other place, he might be an oversized curiosity, but Robe Huntingdon’s presence prevented me from screaming myself hoarse every breathing minute. Even in my panicked state, I knew that tearing back down the mountain with an icy night coming on was a bloody stupid idea.

“I try,” Robe murmured, sliding his hand around my stomach and pressing me back to his huge frame.

Even more than his physical form, his sheer presence threatened to engulf me. At the same time, a protective bubble formed around us. Blocking out the rest of the room, Robe dulled the renewed conversation to a blur between my ears.

If I let him whisk me deeper into the mountains, would Mari Merripen cease to exist altogether? A fanciful notion at worst, but my body chose a different reaction to his touch. A jolt of desire shot through me, hot and electric. Submerged in my daydream, I choked on my whiskey. Arousal in my state shouldn’t be possible.

Heat pooled between my thighs as he spread his fingers over my waist, pinning me to him in a gentle but unbreakable hold. Tiny shocks writhed through my system as I reveled in the ability tofeel.

Gideon broke more than my body when he let his friends abuse me. A frigid shiver replaced Robe’s warmth in the cold oblivion of denial. Yet I was attempting to play house with a group of men I didn’t know, struggling to understand my motivations.

There was no way around that not-to-insignificant fact. I didn’t know them at all, and I needed to go home. I had work—well, I used to have a job—friends… a family I spoke to solely on special occasions. Should a missing person’s alert go on my wish list? I snorted into my glass. That was akin to an innocent teen who knew nothing about the world asking,Will you cry at my funeral?

What a morbid creature. My transformation was complete in the wilderness with no one but mountain men to witness my metamorphosis. But I couldn’t go back—not to my apartment in NYC or work. Even the coffee shop between the two where I used to get my morning brew. Gideon knew all those places. And I’d seen faces—knewhisface. Surely that meant home wasn’t safe—nor was my workplace. All the familiar haunts were now off-limits, which left me nowhere to hide except to stay in place, right in Robe’s path.

I knew this man could break me without a single word, just as he could heal me. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

“What is it?” Robe asked, turning me in his arms as if by instinct.

My glass thudded onto the bar behind me, the dregs of golden liquor sloshing around the cut crystal base. Heat hit me on both sides. I twisted my head back to look up at Jon. The giant’s hand hovered over my shoulder, concern transforming his dark eyes to liquid amber.

His warmth seared my body. Once again, rather than the connection attacking my senses in an invasive touch, I accepted it, leaned into him. I nodded once, and his fingers grazed my skin. A broad palm cupped my shoulder in a gentle squeeze.

“Mari.” Despite his proximity, Robe’s voice hit me from a distance too far away for clarity for my drifting mind.

“Robe?”

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