Protective Mountain Man (Hot Mountain Nights 2 #16)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

BECK

The steel wants to curve left.

Every damn time with this billet. Been working it for three hours, folding and hammering layers of high-carbon and nickel into what should become a nine-inch chef's knife for a client in Bozeman who's paying more than my truck is worth.

The forge is running hot, propane hissing steady, and sweat rolls down my spine into the waistband of my jeans.

My forearms are slick with it. The burn scars on the backs of my hands catch the orange glow from the fire, and for a second the ruined skin looks almost beautiful. Almost.

I pull the billet with tongs, lay it on the anvil, and bring the hammer down.

The ring of steel on steel echoes off the stone walls of the forge building and out into the pines.

Nobody around to hear it except Slag, who's sitting on a stack of lumber by the door, cleaning one paw with the kind of focus that suggests he's judging my technique.

"You got notes?" I ask him.

He blinks his one good eye and goes back to grooming.

Fair enough.

The billet cooperates on the next three passes.

Fold, heat, hammer. Fold, heat, hammer. The Damascus pattern is starting to show, those distinctive waves in the metal that happen when the layers twist just right.

This is the part that hooked me twenty-six years ago, standing next to my father while he shaped horseshoes in a barn in rural Montana.

The transformation. You start with raw steel and fire, and if you pay attention, if you're patient and precise, something worth keeping comes out the other side.

My phone buzzes on the workbench.

I ignore it. Whoever it is can wait until this billet cools enough to?—

It buzzes again. Then again.

I set the hammer down, wipe my hands on my canvas apron, and check the screen. Three texts from Tom Parker, Whisper Vale's sheriff.

Got a call from a woman on the pass road. Car broke down, no signal now. Last GPS ping was mile marker 9.

Trail runner found her campsite about two hours ago but she wasn't there. Looks like she tried to hike out.

You're closest. Can you take a look before I send SAR?

Mile marker nine on the pass road puts her about two miles northeast of my property, right where the trail system forks toward Ridgeback Canyon.

In sandal weather. In June. When the temperature drops thirty degrees after sunset and the trail gets swallowed by tree cover so thick your phone flashlight is useless.

City people.

I type back one word. Going.

The billet goes in the quench tank with a hiss.

Apron comes off. I grab my pack from the hook by the forge door.

It's always ready because this happens more than it should.

My property sits at the junction of three popular trails, which means lost hikers show up at my doorstep like stray cats.

I've pulled six people off this mountain in the eight months since I moved here.

Two with hypothermia, one with a broken wrist, and three who just couldn't read a trail map.

None of them were trying to hike out in the dark.

Slag watches me lace up my boots and doesn't follow. Smart cat.

The trail to mile marker nine cuts through dense pine and over a rocky switchback that's tricky in daylight.

At nine thirty at night with a headlamp and a quarter moon, it's slow going.

The temperature has dropped to maybe fifty and the wind's picking up.

Not dangerous yet, but give it two more hours.

I move fast because I know this terrain.

Eight months isn't long but I've walked every trail within five miles of my cabin, mapped the water sources, learned where the soil goes soft after rain.

Muscle memory takes over. Boot placement, breathing, the steady uphill push that doesn't bother me because swinging a four-pound hammer all day keeps a man in shape whether he wants to be or not.

Twenty minutes in, I smell smoke. Wrong kind. Not campfire smoke. More like burning paper.

The smell gets stronger as I crest the switchback and drop into a clearing near the trail fork. My headlamp catches it before my brain processes it.

A campsite. If you can call it that.

There's a car emergency blanket spread over a rock like a picnic cloth.

A designer handbag hanging from a branch.

What looks like the remains of a fashion magazine smoldering in a shallow pit ringed by pebbles the size of marbles, producing more smoke than heat.

A single granola bar wrapper weighted down with a lip gloss.

And about twenty feet past this masterpiece of survival engineering, sitting on a fallen log with one sandal off and her ankle propped on a backpack, is a woman.

She spots my headlamp and scrambles upright so fast she yelps. Weight on the bad ankle. She grabs a stick, holds it out in front of her like a sword.

"Stay back. I have a weapon."

"That's a stick."

"It's a sharp stick."

I stop walking. Pull my headlamp down so it's not blinding her and let the beam hit the ground between us. In the low light, I get my first real look at her.

Honey-blonde hair in what was probably a nice style about six hours ago.

Brown eyes wide and furious. Full mouth pressed into a hard line.

She's wearing a sundress and one platform sandal, which is a sentence I never thought I'd think on a mountain at night.

Curves that the sundress isn't doing much to hide, even bunched and dirty as it is.

She's also shaking. Cold or adrenaline. Probably both.

"Tom Parker sent me," I say. "Sheriff. You called in a breakdown on the pass road."

The stick lowers about two inches. "You're not a ranger."

"No."

"Search and rescue?"

"No."

"Then who are you?"

"Your neighbor. Closest cabin to this trail." I take a step forward and she raises the stick again. I stop. "Beck Craine. I'm a bladesmith. I live about two miles south. Parker texts me when someone gets lost up here because I can get to them faster than his team."

She stares at me. The headlamp catches the sheen of tears she's refusing to let fall. Her ankle is swollen to twice its normal size, purple even in the low light. She's been out here for hours.

"A bladesmith," she repeats.

"I make knives."

"So you're a stranger with knives who lives alone in the mountains and the sheriff just texts you when women are stranded in the woods?"

Put that way, it doesn't sound great.

"I also have water, a first aid kit, and a satellite phone if you want to call Parker yourself and confirm."

She considers this. Looks at the satellite phone I'm holding out. Looks at me. Looks at her ankle.

"Fine." She puts the stick down. "But I'm keeping this within reach."

"Wouldn't expect anything less."

I close the distance and kneel in front of her. Set my pack down. Her ankle is bad. Swollen, hot to the touch when I carefully press two fingers to the outside bone. She sucks in a breath but doesn't pull away.

"Not broken," I tell her. "Probably. Bad sprain. You hiked on this?"

"Half a mile. In sandals. On a mountain. At night." She laughs, and it's the most exhausted sound I've ever heard. "I'm Piper. Piper Langston. My car died on the pass road and my phone lost signal and I thought if I just walked far enough I'd find the highway."

"Highway's fifteen miles east."

"Cool. Great. That's great information to have now."

I wrap her ankle with the compression bandage from my kit. Tight enough to support, loose enough not to cut circulation. She watches my hands work. Watches the scarred skin, the burn marks, the calluses. Most people flinch when they get a good look at my hands. She just watches.

"You can't walk on this tonight," I say. "My cabin's two miles south. I can get you there, get you warm, and Parker can send someone in the morning."

"Two miles."

"I'll carry you if I need to."

Her eyes snap to mine. Brown and bright even in the near dark.

Something hits me square in the chest. A warmth that has nothing to do with the hike and everything to do with the way this woman, filthy and injured and stranded on a mountain in one sandal, looks at me like she's deciding whether I'm worth trusting.

"You're not a serial killer," she says. Not a question.

"No ma'am."

"And you actually make knives for a living."

"Custom blades. Kitchen knives, hunting knives, ironwork."

She lets out a long breath. Nods once.

"Okay, mountain man. Get me off this rock."

I stand up, offer my hand. She takes it.

Her palm is soft. Warm despite the cold. Her fingers close around mine and don't flinch at the scars.

Two miles. That's all. Get her to the cabin, build a fire, wrap the ankle properly. Hand her off to Parker in the morning and go back to my forge.

That's the plan.

She leans into me when she stands, her weight shifting to her good foot. Her shoulder presses into my chest. She smells like something expensive underneath the campfire smoke and pine dirt.

Piper Langston.

Trouble. The kind that shows up in a sundress and platform sandals and tries to fight you with a stick.

Two miles. I can do two miles.