Saved By The Mountain Man (Ozark Mountain Men Temptations #1)

Chapter 1

Hall

I stepped back as the pine trunk groaned in surrender.

Forty years of growth, gone in minutes. The tree fell exactly where I’d planned, crashing through the underbrush with a sound like thunder rolling down the mountain.

“Clean drop,” Colt called from behind me. “You make it look easy.”

I killed the chainsaw and set it down, rolling my shoulders against the ache that had settled there hours ago. My arms were heavy and my back tight, but it was the good kind of tired. The kind that meant I’d earned my rest.

We’d been at it since dawn. Thirty-six trees down, limbed, and ready for transport. Colt must be pleased. He was my boss, and he didn’t oversee my logging runs often.

I wiped sawdust from my face with the back of my glove and surveyed the clearing we’d made today. Good work. Honest work.

The kind that didn’t require much talking.

“Come on,” Amos said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Beers at the Bear Den. You’re buying.”

“I bought last time,” I grunted.

“Yeah, and you’ll buy this time too. Consider it payment for my sparkling company.”

I snorted. Amos had been my best friend since we were kids throwing rocks at each other across the creek. He talked enough for both of us, which suited me fine. But I wasn’t in the mood for company tonight.

“Naw. Not this time. You go out. I’ll see you tomorrow, man.”

I raised a hand goodbye as I headed to my truck. The noise of the logging site faded as I climbed into my pickup, and I felt my shoulders drop for the first time in hours.

The drive out to my place was as familiar as breathing. I effortlessly shifted my truck over every curve and pothole as the headlights cut through the growing dusk. As I got closer to home, the trees closed in around me like old friends.

My window was cracked open, letting in the cool mountain air as I drove, and I thrummed my fingers on the steering wheel in rhythm to the music coming from my stereo.

And then I was home, my respite from the world.

The cabin was dark when I pulled up, but it didn’t feel empty. It felt like mine.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough for me. I’d built it with my own hands and only built what I needed. One room for sleeping and another for living. Plus a kitchen and a bathroom that were more afterthought than design.

But it was solid. And quiet.

I heated up leftover stew on the stove and ate standing at the counter, not bothering with a plate. The food was fuel, nothing more. I’d never learned to cook anything fancy, and I’d never seen the point in trying. A man living alone didn’t need garnishes.

After I washed the pot and set it to dry, I grabbed the Kit-Kat from the cabinet where I kept my small stash of indulgences and headed out back. I let myself have one bar a night. My only real vice.

Outside, the air had a light, crisp bite that meant winter was leaving and spring was on its way.

I lowered myself into the old porch chair that lived on my deck while the mountains rose around me, shadowed shapes against the dark sky. Somewhere an owl called, singing into the night.

This is how I spent my evenings, looking out where the trees opened up. The whole valley spread out below like a painting I’d never get tired of looking at.

The telescope sat beside me, same as always. I’d bought it years ago on a whim during one of my rare trips to Fernwood. The stars had always fascinated me. Looking up at all that space made my problems feel small.

The stars turned my loneliness into just another kind of quiet.

I unwrapped the Kit-Kat and broke off a piece, letting the chocolate melt on my tongue as I tilted my head back.

The sky was clear tonight. The Milky Way smeared across the darkness like someone had spilled cream across black velvet.

I could pick out Orion, the Big Dipper, and Cassiopeia.

Old friends who never asked me questions I couldn’t answer.

This was my ritual. Had been for years. After dinner it was just me, the stars, and silence. It was the one time of day I could be myself with no one trying to pull words out of me. I always reveled in the comfortable weight of being alone.

I finished the Kit-Kat and folded the wrapper into my pocket, then leaned forward to adjust the telescope. Force of habit, really. I’d mapped most of the visible sky by now and knew where to find the planets on any given night.

But my eye caught something else as I scanned the valley below.

A light.

I frowned and adjusted the focus.

The old farmhouse down in the valley had been empty for as long as I could remember. It was an abandoned property, falling apart more every year. I’d watched it slowly surrender to the mountain, the way everything did eventually.

But tonight, there was a warm yellow light in the windows. Like someone had breathed life back into the place.

Curiosity got the better of me. I swung the telescope down from the sky and trained it on the farmhouse.

Through the lens, I could see movement. A woman. She was walking past a window, her shape soft and indistinct through the old glass. She paused, seemed to look out at something, then moved on.

Just living her life. Whoever she was.

I pulled back from the telescope, something strange turning over in my chest. Somehow, the mountain didn’t feel quite so empty anymore.

I told myself I wouldn’t make a habit of it, but the next night I checked, anyway. Just to see if the light was still on. Just to confirm someone was really living there.

It was. She was.

The night after that, I checked again. And the night after that.

Weeks passed. Then months. The seasons shifted, autumn bleeding into the first hints of winter. Snow dusted the peaks, and the air grew sharp enough to sting. Then winter faded as spring came forward again, the first riot of daffodils claiming their spots in the cool mountain sun.

And every night, I sat in my chair with my Kit-Kat and my telescope, and I looked at the stars. But somewhere along the way, I started looking at the farmhouse first.

I learned her rhythms without meaning to. She kept late hours. Moved through the house in patterns I came to recognize. Sometimes she’d stand at the window for long minutes, and I’d wonder what she was looking at. If she ever looked up at the mountain. If she ever felt watched.

I wasn’t watching her. Not really. I was just… hell, I wasn’t sure what I was doing. I just liked knowing that someone else down there, living their life like I was living mine.

It became the quiet highlight of my day. Coming home to the cabin, eating my simple dinner, and settling into my chair. Then waiting for that first glimpse of warm light in the valley below.

I didn’t know her name or anything about her. But somehow, she’d become part of my routine.

Tonight, when I stared down into the valley, the light was on.

But so was… fire.

I straightened in my chair and swung the telescope down, pressing it to my eye. Black smoke billowed from the back of the farmhouse. Then I spotted flames licking at the edge of a window, orange and hungry against the night sky.

Fire.

It was definitely fire. My heart hammered in my chest.

She’s in there.

I was on my feet before I made the conscious decision to move. The chair clattered to the ground behind me, but I didn’t stop to pick it up. I was already running, crashing through the underbrush, not even taking time to put on my boots.

My feet found purchase on terrain I intimately knew.

The mountain was steep and treacherous in the dark. But I’d been running these slopes since I was a boy. My body knew the path even when my eyes couldn’t see it. I caught tree trunks as I flew past, using them to slow my descent, bark scraping my palms raw.

Faster. I have to go faster.

You can run quickly down a mountain if you grew up in them. As a country boy, I’d run down Red Oak Mountain with friends for fun. But it had been years since I’d done it.

The last time I’d run down a mountain was when a bear had been chasing me out at a logging run. This time the consequences were just as real. Someone’s life was on the line.

The smoke was thicker now, visible even through the trees. I could smell it, acrid and wrong, burning my throat with every gasping breath. My legs pumped harder, muscles screaming, my lungs on fire.

Please let her be okay. Please let me get there in time.

I didn’t know this woman. Didn’t know her name, her story, anything beyond the shape of her shadow moving past windows at night.

But I knew I had to save her.