Page 5 of Rescued By the Mountain Guide

My eyelids grow heavy, the deadly comfort of sleep beckoning.

Through increasingly unfocused vision, something moves in the blizzard above me. A hallucination, surely—my oxygen-deprived brain conjuring hope where none exists.

But then it comes again—a flash of color against the white.

And then, impossibly—a rope drops beside me, slicing through the thick white haze like judgment itself, the end swinging in the violent wind before thudding against the ground, inches from my frozen hand.

I stare at it for one beat, and then I know with absolute certainty who my rescuer is.

Of course.

Of course, it’shim.

Jackson fucking Hart.

Heat surges beneath my cold-soaked skin—not from relief but fury. Embarrassment. Shame that tastes like blood in the back of my throat.

He was right.

About the storm.

About the trail.

But not about me.

I’m not some reckless idiot. I’ve hiked harder terrain than this. I’ve summited peaks he’s probably only flown over. But none of that matters now—not when I’m half-sliding down a mountain, and he’s throwing me a lifeline.

He’s going to think I’m exactly what he warned me not to be—just another foolish, unprepared city girl who wandered too far past the guardrails.

My pride screams at me not to take it.

But my fingers close around the rope—frozen, stiff, furious.

Because survival comes first.

And proving Jackson Hart wrong will have to wait.

Chapter2

Rescued

The rope swaysin the howling wind, my salvation only inches from my numb fingers. Through the blinding snow, a dark shape materializes above—a man anchored against the blizzard's fury.

"Grab it! Now!" The voice cuts through the storm, commanding and unmistakable.

Jackson fucking Hart.

My frozen muscles scream in protest as I reach for the lifeline. The rough fibers scrape against my raw palms, but the pain barely registers against the burning cold. My fingers, clumsy and stiff, struggle to grip.

"I can't—" The words catch in my throat, raspy from the frigid air.

"You can." His voice leaves no room for weakness. "Wrap it around your wrist. Do it now."

Something in his tone bypasses my frozen brain, triggering instinctive obedience. My right hand clutches the rope, winding it once, twice around my wrist. The rope bites into my skin, an anchor to consciousness.

Jackson's face appears at the ledge's edge, snow crusting his dark beard and eyebrows. His expression is carved from granite—all sharp angles and controlled fury.

“Harness coming down.” His voice cuts through the wind, impersonal and clipped. A moment later, a climbing harness thuds into the snow beside me. “Step into it. Legs first, then secure it around your waist.”

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