Getting Wet with the Mountain Man (Mountain Man Summer 2026 #16)

Chapter One

Aaron

Ah, the sweet sound of silence… is what I would be saying if the serene mountain air wasn’t filled with screaming.

I can’t catch a fucking break.

I slammed the door of my truck and took off running towards the lake, where the screaming was coming from. This was supposed to be a vacation from my search and rescue job, but if the yelling was anything to go by, my break hadn’t started yet.

My feet smacked against the packed gravel trail as I sprinted toward the dock.

As I came around the corner, there were two heads in the water, one with blonde hair and one with black. The distinct fluorescent orange of a life jacket surrounded the black haired one. The blonde one disappeared under the surface, reappeared only to go under again.

Fuck.

I had to act fast.

I was a strong swimmer, but I still paused long enough to toe off my shoes before running off the end of the dock and diving into the water. The heavy denim of my jeans threatened to pull me under but I wouldn’t let it.

The blonde had gone under again while I was running, but resurfaced, raising their hand above their head just as I reached them.

I grabbed the victim by the shoulders and side-stroked towards the dock, keeping her head above water.

“Hey, what the fuck?” the person I was attempting to save said.

She turned around in my arms and I immediately recognized the face.

“Skye?” I said, panting, water running down my face.

“Aaron? The hell are you doing here?”

“Well, I’m… I thought I was saving two people from drowning. I could hear you screaming all the way from the parking lot.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re always so dramatic. I was screaming because I accidentally dropped my brand-new camera in the lake.” She nodded to the camera in her hand. “When I jumped in to get it, Kyle jumped in after me. He’s still learning to swim.”

“Who the hell is Kyle?”

She pointed towards what I had originally taken for a black-haired person in a life jacket.

It was a cat.

A cat wearing a fucking life jacket.

Just paddling around as if any of this made sense.

I realized I was still holding on to her and let go… reluctantly.

Not because I liked her. She was my best friend, Cliff’s sister so wanting to touch her was ten shades of wrong.

I just didn’t want her to drown.

The adrenaline had begun to wane and my anger had started to rise. I pulled myself up on the dock, my jeans and t-shirt soaked through and tried to catch my breath. My skin was chilled from the lake water and the rough wooden dock bit into my palms.

“Start from the beginning,” I barked.

She set the camera on the dock beside me, then swam towards her cat.

“I’m here to write an article on tourism in the area. While I was taking pictures I accidentally dropped my new camera in the lake. When I jumped in to get it, Kyle—”

“Kyle being the cat in the life jacket,” I interrupted.

She nodded without a hint of irony. “He jumped in after me. He’s wearing his life jacket, but you know things can still happen.”

I did know that.

How did she know that?

“I was diving under to grab the camera when you came barreling down here.”

“I thought you were fucking drowning with the way you were screaming.” I ran my hand through my wet hair and took a deep breath. “So you’re staying in one of these cabins, I take it?”

She nodded. “Yeah, me and Kyle in Cabin Two.”

Great.

I was in Cabin One.

This was 100% not going to be the vacation I wanted it to be.

“Is the camera going to survive at least?”

Skye swam closer to the dock, and pulled herself out of the water, before examining the camera with her lips pursed.

I was only half paying attention because Skye—my best friend’s sister, who I was not crushing on—was wearing a barely-there red bikini and sitting close enough her hips touched mine.

“Are you still watching Kyle?” she asked as she drained water out of the battery compartment.

I glanced back towards the lake where Kyle hadn’t moved.

“Yeah, he’s fine.”

When the cat doggy-paddled closer to the dock I grabbed hold of the back of his life jacket and brought him to sit beside us.

The cat was either sedated or the most chill creature ever. He just sat there in the stupid orange life jacket while Skye in her sexy little bikini fiddled with her camera.

“So, what are you doing up here, anyway?” she asked as she pressed a couple of buttons.

I sighed deeply. “I’m supposed to be on vacation.”

“What do you mean by supposed to be?” she asked, looking at me, squinting in the sun. She had a smattering of freckles across her cheeks and the touch of a sunburn on the bridge of her nose.

“Supposed to be, because as soon as I got here I had to jump in the water and save your ass.”

“Save my ass?” she laughed.

Skye wasn’t the type to laugh politely or to let out a little chuckle. If she laughed, it was with her entire body, and I tried very hard not to look at her chest as she did it.

“Why are you laughing?”

“You didn’t have to save me, Aaron. You overreacted. Classic search and rescue guy response. Cliff would have done the same thing. You run into every situation assuming no one can handle it, except you. You always have, even when we were kids.”

“I didn’t know you when I was a kid.”

“Your mom told Cliff about it.”

I scowled at her. “I got out of my truck and the first thing I heard was screaming. What was I supposed to think except that someone was in trouble?”

She laughed again, that full body laugh. “You’re at a place where people go to have fun. Did you stop to think that maybe they were shrieks of laughter?”

I hadn’t, and I hated that she was pointing it out.

“Next time, just wear a life jacket and don’t drop your camera in the water, okay? Not like your cat here is going to save you.”

She reached over and petted Kyle’s wet head. The cat leaned into her touch.

I wasn’t about to admit I was jealous of the cat… because I wasn’t. But the cat looked pretty pleased with himself as she ran her hand over his wet ears.

I pushed myself to my feet, more stressed than when I’d left work. At least there was some structure at work.

“Where are you going?” she asked, looking up at me, squinting into the sun again.

I looked down at her for a second too long. Her long limbs, the wrinkle in her brow, that teeny little bikini… and then tore my gaze away.

“I’m going to get out of these wet jeans. And then I’m going to start my vacation.”