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  BOONE

  Diamond Ridge Mountain Men- 1

  Brynn Hale

  Copyright © 2019 by Brynn Hale

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contact Brynn at [email protected] for more information.

  Acknowledgment

  Thank you to authors Tarin Lex, Mazzy King, Kali Hart, Kate Tilney, and Lana Dash for making Hemi and this adventure amazing and inspiring. <3 Brynn

  Contents

  Daisy

  Daisy

  Boone

  Boone

  Boone

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Brynn Hale

  Daisy

  I spin in a circle. I swear this is the way I walked in, but nothing looks like I remember. The pine trees and the landscape are one big non-descript canvas in the setting December sun. I lift my phone and it blinks 3% power. Of course.

  Thankfully, Montana was one of the first to implement text-to-911 technology and at this moment, I’m utterly grateful my state had the forethought that an inattentive to the weather city girl like me would get stuck in the middle of nowhere and need rescuing.

  Daisy: This is Daisy F. Parker of 1227 Griffin Street, Helena. I’m lost in Diamond Ridge off of I-15, just west of Great Falls. I have a PLB on me. Registered to same name/address. Please send help.

  I glance at the corner of my phone screen and now it screams “1%.” I jab send and imagine the text is as lost in the text-o-sphere as I am in the Diamond Ridge Mountains. I turn on my personal-locator-beacon—PLB. It was a Christmas gift yesterday from my best friend, Willow, and it’s turning out to be my favorite present, probably ever, after the text-to-911 feature. If it actually went through. The screen is now dark, so I can’t even check the delivered status.

  I brush the snow off of coat arms. I’d consider the massive falling snowflakes beautiful in the setting afternoon sky, if I wasn’t looking at spending the night before Christmas Eve in the wilderness. Alone. Cold. And alone. The thoughts just make the sun seem to dim even faster.

  Before heading out, I’d looked at the forecast for the day. It was supposed to be clear until the late evening. But Mother Nature decided to be a bitch and give me what I deserve for not setting out much earlier in the day to have plenty of light for my hike to get those last few pictures I need for my nature book.

  Leaves rustle far behind me, and I scramble to find my bear spray in my backpack. Black bears are abundant in the area, but they’re usually… usually, but not always… scared of humans. Being mauled to death by a bear would be the cherry on top of this crap sundae of a day.

  I open my fluffy parka jacket and raise my arms to make myself to be as big as I can and I’m not a small woman. If I can’t scare off a bear, nothing probably will.

  The sun has now dipped below the horizon and everything is losing definition and the sky is turning that gray that happens right before black.

  Then I remember last year’s gift from Willow. The woman has impeccable gift giving skills. I lift my keys from my pocket and press the large button on the black teardrop keychain decoration. The following sound is beyond deafening and instantly, I cover my ears with my gloved hands, in the process bringing the personal alarm right to my ear and causing a tinny ringing. I open my clenched eyes and I can see the faint outline of a bear standing on its hind legs. And it confirms every nightmare I’ve ever had about meeting one, it’s massive. Every instinct tells me to run, but everything I’ve read says stay and stand your ground.

  Stay. Go! Stay. Go! The warring factions inside of my head compromise and decide to make me dance around like a total freak.

  I wave frantically while gyrating my bountiful hips like a hula doll. “Go away! I don’t want to meet a bear today. I’m not friendly! I’m not tasty. I’m not good enough to eat!” The sentences in themselves are just fragments of what’s going through my mind, and I’m almost rapping them.

  The dark shape continues toward me and I swear I see…a belt buckle? But my fear won’t let the crazy-woman movements stop. My heart thuds in my chest like I’m running a marathon, and I haven’t run since senior year of high school and that was eight years ago. My eyes start to gloss with tears. This is it. The beautiful pictures of birds and squirrels and an adorable beaver I snapped today will be lost and the PLB around my neck will be consumed by a bear to be tracked all over the Diamond Mountains while I lay dead in the woods.

  I decide to offer up one more plea to leave me alone. I scream, “Listen up, I’m not here to be eaten, you SOB!”

  “Well, that’s a crying shame. I bet you’d taste delicious, sweetheart.”

  Boone

  The young woman stills and then…she faints.

  That wasn’t exactly the response I’d hoped for, but after seeing how her chest was heaving and how shallow she was breathing while doing that mating ritual dance, one of two things were going to happen. Either I was going to be on the receiving end of all that bound up fury and adrenaline, or she was going to hit the forest floor in shock. I guess her body chose option #2.

  I brush a hand over my scraggly red beard, moving some of the errant pieces out of the way so I can see her better. The heap of woman is actually dressed for the conditions, so I give her kudos in my head. But if she can’t get back into her vehicle and on her way in the next few minutes, I’ll be looking at a guest in a one-room cabin with the lumpiest couch to sleep on. That realization only makes me grunt and consider turning on my heels.

  I could let her stay out here, but that flashing beacon she has around her neck tells me someone will come looking for her soon and my footprints leading back to my cabin might be slightly incriminating in these circumstances.

  I only wanted to check on my traps before the blizzard. Nothing more. And now I’m going to be saddled with a possibly mentally unhinged woman for the evening.

  I grab the blaring alarm from the forest floor and turn it off, shoving the keys into a pocket on her backpack. Hell, that noise probably signaled bears that there is food near, instead of scaring them away. At the very least, it would instigate curiosity and that’s never good when it comes to bears.

  I sling her backpack over one shoulder and although I’m used to carrying around massive tools for my job as a diesel engine mechanic, this bag has more weight than I’d expect a woman to carry on a daily basis.

  I draw out my flashlight. I bend down and take a closer look. Her hair is pushed up into a fluffy black beanie, but long, strawberry-blonde tendrils peek out. Her round cheeks tell of a healthy appetite that I can get behind. And speaking of…damn, the woman’s got more to love in all the right places. Silky curves are covered by a dark blue sweater, wrapped with a silver and black scarf and a gray parka.

  She moans low and slow, and after adjusting my hardening cock from the inviting sound, I check her head for any possible signs that she hit it. Nothing I can see. She’s fine, may have a bruise or two from hitting a couple of small branches on the ground, but she’ll recover.

  “Hey, wake up!” I grab her shoulder and give a shake. In seconds, her eyes pop open and in the bright beam of my flashlight her black pupils go from huge to tiny in the middle of her sapphire gems.

  “Get away!” A hand comes from nowhere and I see the misting spray arching in slow motion toward me.

  I grab her hand and direct the bear spray to the front of my coat. “Now, that’s no way to—” I cough as a lingering mist of peppery spray coats the air between us. “That’s no way to treat your rescuer.”

  She yanks her hand from m
y touch like I’m burning her. “What?” She shakes her head. She points to her ears. “I…I can’t hear you. Why can’t I hear you?”

  “It’s that damn alarm you set off.” I grab her keys and jiggle them close enough for her to see. “This. This is why.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I guess that wasn’t a very smart idea,” she yells, not understanding the volume she’s producing. “Are you with the sheriff’s office? Park”—her watering eyes from the spray, trail all over me, taking it all in as I rise holding out a hand—“Ranger?” By now her eyes are huge and her mouth is gaping.

  I huff. “Do I look like I pin a badge to my coat, sweetheart?”

  She refuses my hand and instead scrambles to her knees, then to her feet.

  I shine the flashlight over her body. Her sweater has ridden up on one side, exposing something I hadn’t expected—a cardinal tattoo.

  “So where’s your vehicle?”

  She zips up her coat. “Do you really think I’d be here if I knew? My phone is dead and I’m cold. I just want to go home.” She brushes some leaves off of her snow pants.

  The woman’s strong. That’s clear. But her words grab some tiny space in my chest and act like a crowbar to try to pry it open. “It’ll take rescue crews hours with the snow coming to find you out here.”

  “You’re just going to leave me to freeze out here?” Her voice is loud, but then I remember the alarm and how she basically did this to herself.

  “No, you hardheaded, hearing-impaired woman. You can come back to my cabin and wait.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She seems fine with the idea, which actually worries me slightly. Does she go home with just anyone? “But I don’t know you.”

  There it is.

  I cross my arms and tighten my jaw. “Would you rather stay out here to die?”

  “No, but you’re…you’re…”

  I know what I look like. I know the looks I get in town. I raise my arms and widen my eyes. “Scary?”

  “Yes. And stop that! How do I know you’re not going to just take me to your cabin to do horrible things to me?”

  I look her up and down. My chest pumps warm blood faster through my body and I enjoy the crash of my heart in my ears. This woman is spit and fire and I like how hot she makes me. She’s a woodland nymph and a dangerous siren all in one.

  “I guess you don’t. But at least you’ll stay warm and maybe, maybe if you don’t annoy me too much, you’ll enjoy those horrible things, too.”

  Daisy

  The hulking man’s words send a shiver up my spine, a cross between fear and anticipation.

  He’s not really giving me much of a chance to say no, but I really don’t have many options to say it either. The mountain isn’t safe and after fainting from even thinking I was being approached by a bear, means the next time I’ll probably be a bear snack.

  He turns and I see my backpack flung over his shoulder.

  “Hey, be careful with that. It has my life in it.”

  “Understood.”

  I trip over a small branch and stumble forward. One of his large hands grabs my arm and rights me. The man is sheer muscle and force. I wish I could see his face, but with the sun down now, it’s almost pitch black. How he can see is a miracle. But I’m sure eyes adjust to wherever a person lives. I’ve got way too much city girl in me to be comfortable out here for more than hours. And look what happens when I even try to do that.

  “What were you doing out here?” he asks.

  “I’m a nature photographer and I need a few more pictures for a book I’m doing about Montana wildlife to round it out.”

  “And you thought hours before a snowstorm is going to hit was the time to do it?”

  “Well, yes, Mr. Mountain Man, because as you probably already know, that’s when the animals start making preparations for hunkering down, just like humans. They sense the change and they get ready by getting those last few seeds and last drink of water. They’re not stupid and neither am I.”

  He looks back over his shoulder. “Never said you were.”

  I swear his eyes glow green and I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. I check the beacon and it’s still working.

  They’ll be here any minute. Any minute.

  “Looks like about a good eight inches is coming our way. Do you remember anything about where you parked?”

  “I’m off of I-15, a small jut off road with a tree that looks like Cher.”

  He bursts out laughing. “What?”

  “The singer. It looks like her from the side. Singing.”

  “Women. This!” He motions his thick arm toward me. “This is why I could never figure women out. But seemed none of you could ever figure me out, so I guess we’re even. I’ll tell Sheriff Vacanti to look out for a what? A Mazda Miata near the Cher tree?”

  The man is a hundred percent annoying, but he’s also a hundred percent saving me, so I keep my smart mouth to myself.

  “I drive a white Nissan Pathfinder, four-wheel drive.”

  “White in a snowstorm. Convenient.” His deep voice tingles me in places I don’t want tingled. He takes off at a faster pace and I struggle to keep up with his long strides.

  “What’s your name?” I ask, starting to notice the volume of my voice as my hearing starts to return to normal. “I mean, if I’m going to be spending time with you.”

  “Boone.”

  “Is that your first or last name?”

  “First.”

  “Do you have a last name?”

  “Yes.” He continues walking like that answer will satisfy.

  But a part of me doubts this mountain man has ever left a woman unsatisfied.

  Boone

  Her body might be Venus to my eyes, but her voice is sandpaper to my ears, and it’s not just the volume, that thankfully has subsided. It’s the questions, the conversation, the expected interaction. This is why I live alone. I don’t understand why it’s needed between two people.

  That’s why my father brought us out here after my mother died when I was two. He couldn’t stand to hear another woman’s voice who wasn’t her and he didn’t need any woman telling him what was right and wrong in his life. He already knew. I already know.

  My cabin comes into view and she gasps.

  “What now?”

  She clasps her hands together in front of her. “It’s beautiful.”

  I still. “What?”

  “Your home is an idyllic Christmas card.” She reaches into her backpack, rising to her tiptoes in her boots to do it with my height. She’s not petite, but when you’re 6’3” everyone seems short. Her chest brushes against my arm and I fight all my instincts to wrap her up and pull her close.

  She holds up her camera. “Do you mind?”

  “Fine, but I don’t want to be in any of them.” I turn to her and my chest rises and falls quickly. “Don’t take any pictures of me. Do I make myself clear?”

  The woman cowers slightly but nods. “All right. I won’t photograph you, Boone. Promise.”

  When she sees me in the light, she’ll understand. My work has taken a toll on me and the evidence mars my face like a crater in the moon. Another reason I stick to myself. All their stares and wide eyes make me feel like a monster.

  “Hurry up, woman!” I motion to her camera. She kneels and takes a few pictures from an angle, then shuffles to her right to take a couple more and then farther from me.

  As I watch her, I see her passion for photography, and I admire how light she is on her feet. Her body slinks around and I tell myself to look away, but my gaze is trapped.

  “Okay, okay, enough. You can take more in the light, if you have to.”

  “Hopefully I’m rescued before then.”

  I huff. “Thought I’d already done that.”

  Her lack of gratitude makes me want to put her in the chicken coop for the night. The chickens would appreciate the warmth she provides. Hell, I’d appreciate it, too. I can imagine wrapping her up in my arms and pulling her close in bed.
But imagine is all I’ve ever done when it comes to a woman.

  When I was growing up, I concentrated on taking care of my ailing father. Then when he passed, I concentrated on earning a good living and making this cabin into what I considered an oasis for my comfort away from people. It felt comfortable and easy to ignore how my body longed to be with a woman. And then I got into a routine and those voices of wanting human contact stopped. And that’s how I stayed celibate for thirty-three years.

  But now those voices are back. And screaming like that damn noisemaker she was pressing. Annoying and yet comforting to believe that maybe I’ve been rescued, too.

  As we near the house, she looks up and smiles. Her eyes narrow in on my face, but she doesn’t frown or stare, she climbs the stairs and opens the door like she’s meant to be here.

  This woman has lit a fire in my body that won’t be extinguished until I make her mine.

  Daisy

  I don’t like the way he stares at me, but I need to get warm. My body is shaking under this coat and I can only imagine how it would’ve been waiting in the forest.

  I open the door and if I thought the outside was charming, I feel like I’ve been whisked away to a spa in the Alps on the inside. It’s more contemporary than I would’ve imagined with granite countertops in the small galley kitchen set off by a high-top bar and gleaming maple floors throughout. My gaze narrows on a door in the corner.

  “Is that the restroom?”

  “Help yourself,” he says with his back to me, kicking off his heavy snow boots.

  I throw my coat on the couch and practically run to the room and close the door. My heart pounds fast. Now that I’m inside with him I feel trapped. I had no choice but to accept the help, but now I’m past cautious and into panic. I want to feel safe, but I don’t know this man.