Claimed By The Mountain Man Protector (Mountain Man Bodyguard Protector #2)

Chapter 1

GRAYSON

The mountain road spits gravel under my tires as I take the last switchback too fast. Muscle memory from places I don't think about anymore.

My phone buzzes on the passenger seat. Marcus again. Third time in an hour.

I let it ring.

The cabin comes into view around the bend, tucked into a shoulder of pine and granite like it's trying to disappear.

Two stories of dark log, wraparound deck, generator shed out back.

Isolated enough that the nearest neighbor is a forty-minute drive and a rough one at that.

Owner's a buddy of Marcus from his Navy days.

Safe house, as far as safe houses go in the Crimson Hollow area.

I kill the engine and sit there a minute, watching the tree line.

Habit. Old habit. The kind that doesn't leave you even when the job's done and the desert's six years behind you and the only threat on this mountain is a pissed-off black bear looking for trash.

My phone lights up again. I pick it up.

"Tell me you're there."

"I'm here."

"She lands at Kelowna in about two hours. Driver's bringing her up. You'll meet her at the cabin."

"Marcus."

"Gray."

"I said yes to a weekend. Quiet cabin, keep an eye on the road, don't let her do anything stupid. That's it."

"That's it."

"So why do you sound like you're about to tell me something I'm not gonna like."

A pause. I know the shape of Marcus's pauses. This one's got weight to it.

"She's stubborn, man. Just. Heads up."

"Stubborn how."

"Stubborn like our mama. Stubborn like she doesn't think she needs protection because she's been taking care of herself since she was sixteen. Stubborn like if you tell her to stay put, she'll walk out the door just to prove a point."

I pinch the bridge of my nose.

"Marcus."

"I know."

"You said weekend. Perimeter checks. Bad coffee."

"And you'll get all of that. Plus my sister. Who I love more than anything. Which is why I'm asking you and not one of those corporate security clowns who'd hold her purse and call it protection."

I let out a slow breath through my teeth.

The last time I took a personal detail, a woman named Aisha Khoury died in my arms on a dirt road outside Amman. Journalist. Thirty-four. Two kids. She'd been asking the wrong people the right questions and I was supposed to get her to the embassy. We made it four miles.

I don't do personal details.

I told Marcus that. I told him I was done. I told him I was out in the mountains fixing fences and cutting firewood and not getting attached to anything with a pulse.

He said, Please, brother. She's all I've got.

And here I am.

"How bad's the threat."

"Bad enough that her editor pulled her off the story and her paper put her on forced leave. Some politician's son. Laundering operation. Threats started as emails. Moved to her apartment building. Dead bird on her doorstep last Tuesday."

"Jesus."

"Yeah."

"She know I'm ex-Special Forces?"

"She knows you're my buddy. She thinks you're letting her crash at your place because I asked nice."

"You want me to tell her."

"I want you to use your judgment."

That's Marcus. Always leaving the hard calls to the person on the ground.

"Fine."

"Gray."

"What."

"Don't let her die."

He hangs up.

I sit in the truck a long moment, phone in my lap, watching a hawk trace a slow circle over the ridge.

I do a walk of the property before I unload.

Tree line to the north, maybe sixty yards of open ground between the porch and cover.

Rough. Means someone would need optics or a patient approach.

No vehicle access except the one road in.

Cell service is spotty which is good because it means any bad actor can't coordinate easily and bad because it means I can't either.

Propane tank's full. Woodpile's stocked. Generator kicked over on the first pull.

I check the sight lines from the upstairs windows. Good enough. Lock all the downstairs shutters anyway. Habit.

The kitchen's small. Coffee maker that's seen better decades. I put beans in the grinder and let the noise fill the space for a second, because the quiet up here gets loud if you let it.

My hands are steady. That's the thing people don't understand. They were steady in Amman too. Steady all the way through.

Steady doesn't fix anything.

I hear the SUV before I see it.

Forty minutes out, engine climbing through the lower switchbacks. I'm on the porch with my coffee and my sidearm tucked in the small of my back under the flannel, because I don't care how quiet Marcus says this threat is, I learned a long time ago that quiet is just loud that hasn't arrived yet.

The vehicle rounds the last bend. Black Suburban. Tinted windows. Driver's a contractor Marcus uses, guy named Ben, good enough.

They roll to a stop twenty feet from the porch. Dust settles.

The passenger door opens.

And the first thing I think, God help me, is oh no.

She steps out in a pair of jeans that were not designed for federal witness protection and a thin sweater the color of bourbon. Hair in two thick braids down her back. Big gold hoops. Boots that are cute and completely useless for mountain terrain.

She's got one of those faces you don't look away from easy. Full mouth. Sharp cheekbones. Brown skin warm against the afternoon light. And she's looking at me like I'm a piece of furniture she's deciding whether to rearrange.

"You must be Grayson."

Her voice is honey and bourbon and something else I don't have a word for yet.

"Mercer. Gray."

"Simone." She slings a duffel over one shoulder like it weighs nothing. "My brother says a lot of things about you. Most of them grunts."

"Sounds about right."

Ben gets out, hands me a second duffel and a backpack, gives me a nod.

"All clear on the route?" I ask.

"Tail-free. Stopped twice, clean both times."

"Good. Get back safe."

He does a three-point turn and rolls out. I watch the dust plume until it's gone.

When I turn back, Simone is standing at the foot of the porch steps looking up at me. Arms crossed. Chin tipped.

"So," she says. "You gonna stare at the road all day or you gonna show me where I'm sleeping for the next seventy-two hours."

"Forty-eight."

"What?"

"Seventy-two hours was the original ask. Marcus got you an extra day because the paper's threat assessment team wants more time."

Her jaw tightens.

"He told you that before he told me."

"Yeah."

"Of course he did."

She breezes past me up the steps and I get a hit of whatever she's wearing, warm and clean like the air after rain, and my body registers it before my brain has a chance to shut that down.

I clear my throat.

"Rules," I say.

She turns on the porch. One eyebrow up.

"Excuse me?"

"You stay in the cabin unless I say otherwise. You don't use your phone without checking with me first. You tell me before you open any door, including the bathroom."

She laughs.

Actually laughs.

"Oh, sweetheart," she says. "This is gonna be a long weekend for you."

She walks inside like she owns the place.

I stand there with my hand still on the doorframe, watching her go, my heartbeat doing something it hasn't done in a long, long time.

Trouble.

Forty-eight hours of trouble in bourbon-colored sweaters and useless boots.

I close the door behind us and lock it.