Secrets on the Mountain: The Hart Family of Moonshine Ridge (Moonshine Ridge Mountain Men Book 16)

Chapter 1

Hart”s Gulch Gold Camp.

The sign points to a dirt road veering off to the right.

I follow the well-maintained dirt and gravel road as it leads me into the mountains. Past the fence, through a wide gate with a high sign overhead. There”s signage on the side of the road with a rudimentary map etched in wood that shows the location of an office, visitors centers, mess hall, and amphitheater.

A quick glance in the rear-view mirror shows Don in his booster seat behind me, still engrossed in the pack of stickers that the ladies at the museum in town gave him where we stopped for directions.

He slept most of the way up here, and before we stopped in Moonshine Ridge to ask around, he”d started asking questions again. Ones I don”t know how to answer. So I”m grateful for the old ladies that gave him the activity packet that”s kept him busy for this last leg of our journey.

Please-- I pray silently-- please let Cane be here and let us get this over with quickly.

I wish I hadn”t had to bring Donner with me but there was no one I could leave him with for over a week while I made this trip. If Cane doesn”t like it, he should have responded to my attorney”s attempts to do this without having to track him down in person.

A few buildings come into view and I pull into the lot in front of a wooden sign that says ”administration.”

”Are we here?” Donner”s voice is all excitement at the prospect of exploring something new as he climbs out of the booster seat. Immediately, he”s a whirlwind of four-year-old energy, spinning circles in the gravel lot and making what I assume are airplane noises.

Out on the dirt road, a two-tone, classic pick-up barrels past, leaving a cloud of dust billowing behind it before coming to a stop that has it locking up the brakes and skidding several feet along the gravel before making a sharp U-turn back to us.

”Ma”am? You looking for Hayle maybe?”

The man that climbs out of the cab looks so much like Hurricane; my breath catches in my throat before I”m able to answer with a shake of my head.

”Cane,” I clarify, ”I”m looking for Hurricane.”

This man”s eyes flicker over me, then onto Donner where they stay even as he arches an eyebrow and shakes his head as if he didn”t hear me right.

”Raine.” He extends his arm and gives me a cautious smile, eyes still following Don.

”June,” I answer, taking his hand for a brief shake. ”The ladies at the museum in town said I”d find Cane up here. Do you know where he is?”

My memory scrambles to connect dots. Raine Hart is far from the scrawny kid his brother always spoke about. The man in front of me now isn”t built like Cane, but he”s far from scrawny and not a kid at all.

There”s a gold band on his left hand and when he pulls his phone out of his back pocket, I catch a photo of him with his arms around a blonde woman before he opens an app and starts typing.

”And who are you, big man?” Raine asks as Donner studies the stranger with a look that leaves me unsettled.

”Donner, like thunder.” Don does his famous hand gesture for thunder. I don”t know where he got that, but I”ve rarely seen him introduce himself without including it. I guess I”m glad he”s proud of his name, I”ve often wondered if I made a mistake by keeping a family tradition for a family he”d never know.

”Ooh, German. Very cool. Well, my name is Raine, so we kinda go together, I guess.”

Raine squats on his haunches to get on eye level with my son. This time, it”s me that Raine”s eyes keep moving to.

”Cane”s in the office,” he tells me, his voice switching back to the talking-to-another-adult tone as he gets back to his feet. ”You, uh--” his eyes drop down to Don, ”want some privacy?”

”Thank you.”

I”m so grateful for the implied offer, I can”t stop shaking my head. Or maybe I”m just shaking.

”Hey, buddy, you like horses?”

”Yeah! Are there horses here?”

Raine smiles down at Don. ”Yup, we got about twelve of them right now, wanna go see ”em?”

Donner”s already two steps ahead of his new friend, waiting impatiently for a clue which direction he should be headed in.

”Through there,” Raine turns to me and points at an open space between two buildings, ”there”s a door on your left marked ”private” but it”s not locked, the top of the stairs. Says ”office” on the door.”

He gives me a nod and then points ahead to give Donner a direction to head. A few steps and then Raine stops and looks back at me.

”The stables are just over there,” he hooks a thumb toward a roof in the distance. ”We”ll be in hollering distance.”

* * *

Hurricane

The paperworkhere in the office doesn”t usually get to me. Since I got back to Moonshine Ridge and took over running the gold camp for Gran, it”s been the one thing that”s kept me sane. Normally, I find it easy to get lost in the spreadsheets, keeps the noise in my head down to a dull roar.

Lately it”s been a lot harder for me to stay in the present, and that dull roar isn”t the distant white noise that my past should be.

Maybe it”s Raine. My kid brother; married and expecting a kid of his own next spring has me feeling some ways for sure.

He grew up while I was off the mountain. He”d been a lanky teenager: ditching school, fixing up that old truck, and chasing girls.

He was on the right path to end up just like our older brother when I left to go off to college.

Of course, at the time, Hayle was holding his shit together, stepping up to the plate after we lost dad and grandpa both at the same time. That”s the only reason I took the scholarship, knowing I could count on my big brother to be back here, taking care of our family.

It”s been five years now since I got back home.

They all think I left the league because Hayle went MIA. What they don”t know is that I left because playing ball meant selling my soul. And, since it had already cost me the only thing worth making that trade for, I didn”t see the point.

It wasn”t until I got back to the Ridge that I even found out Hayle had walked away. Left Gran to run the camp on her own, left Mom to raise our baby sister on her own, left our kid brother to fill shoes he was still too damn young to wear, left everything and everyone in pieces for me to have to pick up as soon as I got back when all I”d wanted to do was crawl back into my cave and lick my own wounds.

Instead, our big brother started a bar fight he deserved to lose, tucked his tail between his legs, and disappeared. Left his house in the Gulch exactly the way it had been the night Cedar McAllister broke his nose.

Now my baby sister is worrying about whether or not her big brother is going to show up in time to keep his promise and walk her down the aisle at her wedding next year, and all I can think is that if that fucker ever does show up, I”m going to break his nose again.

The restlessness finally gets to me. Trips down memory lane never end up in a good neighborhood, and if I don”t get some fresh air, I”m likely to smash something that”ll take more time to replace than I have patience for.

Leaving the office unlocked, I stomp down the stairs and throw the door down there open with more force than it was built to handle.

By the time I make the turn to follow the narrow space between the buildings, I”m about to break into a run, feeling the anxiety building, I know old demons are catching up to me again.

Something stops me cold in my tracks. I might as well have run face first into a brick wall for the way the air gets pushed out of my lungs.

Because standing right in front of me is the last person I ever thought I”d see again.

She looks different. Different than she does in my memories or the dreams I like to pretend I don”t still see her in. Different than I thought she would if I ever found her.

Her curves have filled out, plush and ripe and not hidden at all under the loose-fitting tunic blouse that hangs long over a pair of leggings. Her hair”s pulled back tight. No-nonsense, in a clip that hides the rich chocolate color that doesn”t show the blonde highlights I recall, and gives no hint to the length it is now. A few strands of gray highlight the fine hairs near her ears.

There”s not a trace of make up on her face.

She doesn”t look much like the woman I last saw, sitting beside a hospital bed in a post-op surgery center. But those sea-glass green eyes are unmistakable.

There”s only one reason I can think of why Junie would be here and the fool I am doesn”t question it.

Sweeping her into my arms, I pull her in for the kiss I”ve waited five and a half years for.

The woman in my arms stands stiff, her lips cold and sealed against mine. Such a contrast to the eager warmth that I remember that it jars me back to the present and I remember that”s not us anymore. But not before Junie melts against me, opening for me and letting me in. Returning the kiss with a hunger that has me forgiving her everything.

”Cane.”

Small hands push against my chest, my name throaty and breathless on her voice.

”Cane,” she says my name again but all I hear is God granting me absolution.

”Stop. Cane, I--”

”Mom!”

A child”s voice cuts her off and it only takes Junie half a second to put enough distance between us that no one would guess we were more than casual acquaintances.

”Mom, you gotta come see the horses with me!”

There”s a photo on mom”s mantle of me as a kid: I”m holding Raine when he was just a baby. I must have been about four when that photo was taken. I see it every time I visit my mom.

Right now, I”m staring at a boy who”s talking a mile a minute at a silent June as he runs toward us.

It”s like looking at myself if I”d stepped right out of that photo from Mom”s mantle.

The way Raine eyes me as he and the kid get closer tells me my brother sees it too.