Spice for the Mountain Man (Fall for a Mountain Man #15)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

DENVER

Morning starts before dawn. Chipped stoneware mug filled with steaming coffee, ebony as the darkest part of night. Orange and black flannel against the cold. Northern Idaho running wild through my veins.

Thunk! Thunk!

Axe against wood, hollow, purposeful. Hands calloused and resilient, years of muscle memory roping up my arms to my shoulders, where my back strains with the work.

A life carved from the wilderness. It’s changed me in too many ways to count.

Bear waits patiently, harness hitched to his wooden cart. Built it myself with my own two hands. Like my cabin. Like my life. No one can take that from me.

The Bernese mountain dog’s thick coat was made for this chill.

Black across most of his body with white at the top of his tail, like he dabbed it in paint.

A big, friendly face, tongue lolling. More white echoed around his eyes and the tips of his paws with brown in between.

Never met a stick he didn’t like or a squirrel he wouldn’t seek.

I pile the cart with wood, conscious to keep it light. A little bit every day. Building a buttress against the winter to come rather than waiting until the last minute to cut it all in one dramatic sweep of effort. That’s what makes me different now from the Denver before.

Back then, procrastinator, immature, distracted. Pursuing everything all at once and nothing that mattered.

Only when fate showed me the ephemeral nature of it all—the superficiality I walked away from—did I eschew noise for solitude, people for nature. The kind of quiet that steadies my soul.

Spark to flame. Money burned. Life torn down with wrecking ball precision. The material made immaterial by one random stroke of fate, and then its consequences. Consequences I still live with. The real weight of existence.

The forest holds a dark weightiness so close to first light, pregnant with potential and danger. What lurks behind the shadows? Far less than what city-dwellers’ imaginations would say. At least, that’s been my experience. Far more than they could ever fathom. Or probably want to experience.

The cart rolls wobbly, a slight hiss as the wheels grate along the forest floor.

Bear smiles at the work, pulling it with a proud gait.

A gait bred into him since time immemorial.

White mist clings to the forest floor around the cabin.

The kind I chop through with my axe—steady, rhythmic. Like my day.

Orderly, repetitive, habitual.

Each trip brings us back to the cabin where I pile wood.

Already enough to get through three winters.

Yet, never enough out here. Like food, clean water.

Basics distilled down to the essence of survival.

No room for error or mistakes. I lose count of the trips—satisfied only when wood kisses the bottom of the window frame.

I pat Bear’s head. “Good boy. Better friend.” All I need out here. Talking to him helps when the silence feels too loud.

The cart comes off, and his big tail wags as he darts between saplings and blueberry bushes, nose to the ground, smelling the morning. He loves nothing more than chasing his own shadow. Wish I could be so easily entertained. Out here, I run from mine.

It hits me like a wave. Iron and twisted metal. I feel the phantom ache low in my ribs. Lights too bright against a dark cold I didn’t know how to survive. Maybe I didn’t.

Bear scrambles up to me, bobs his head under my hand. Chases my shadows, too. He’s the best defense against my past. Best defense against big predators—cats, grizzlies, wolves. I grab a big wooden basket. Time to collect nature’s gifts.

He knows the routine. Keeps me sane. Harnessed back to the cart, now with tools to one side, a sturdy basket to the other. We check fences, fixing weak areas, new holes, and places where animals have tried to crawl under. We maintain the solar array. Won’t do much until the sun burns mist away.

I examine the chicken coop with care, absorbed in finding disruptions in the usual pattern. Points of disturbance, areas predators could take advantage of.

“There,” I grunt, pointing. Bear cocks his head. A fresh pile of dirt, claw marks, and a depression. “Likely fox or raccoon.” I pause, kneeling down carefully. “Maybe coyotes.”

They were active last night. Wailing into the inky ether with their otherworldly cries and chatter. Had Bear on edge, pacing by the front door.

I fill the new hole with river rocks and dirt.

The bottom of the coop is lined with hardware cloth.

Still, it can fail quickly, especially sunk deep in the rich, wet soil, rusting.

Something I wish I’d known before. Could’ve saved myself some work and hassle.

But not an unforgivable mistake, thankfully.

In a place where there are no second chances, moments for hesitation, doing wrong out here means one thing most of the time—death. I’m okay with that, too.

I croon to the preening, gossiping girls. Brown feathers warm and thick. Mahogany with black tips. Buckeyes. A heritage breed created to withstand cold. Good mousers, too. Better than cats some say, though I have yet to see that in any significant way.

Even-tempered, curious, friendly hens, they run up to the wire, greet Bear and me like old friends.

“Scratch coming later, ladies. Safety first.”

Not the best egg layers but resilient. Now, I scope out six big brown eggs, mouthwatering, still warm against my palm. Breakfast of champions. “Much obliged.”

I poise the treasure in the basket, move on to the rabbits.

Bam! Bam!

The bucks’ back legs thump the bottoms of their cages, warning against Bear. They’re not nearly as friendly as the chickens. But then, Bear was raised around chicks, would never hurt one. Rabbits? A decidedly different story.

Inside their enclosure, I check the nesting boxes in the hutches.

Great piles of fur move in the wood chips beneath.

The sign of healthy babies. All well, all warm.

Sometimes, they get too feisty, wander from the warmth of their mother’s nest. Then, I have to warm them on my chest or in my hands.

Bring seemingly cold, dead babies back to life. Like a miracle.

Next, I check the hügelkultur mounds sloping in the distance. Corn, beans, squash. Three Sisters crops, my staples. The tall, papery, yellow husks still bear hidden treasures. Cobs that will continue drying in the warm persistence of each late autumnal afternoon.

But now, the focus is on cold-weather greens. Hardy vegetables like arugula, Swiss chard, kale. They thrive on the cooler, northern slopes of the mound. Root vegetables, too—carrots, beets, radishes, onions.

I grab a few tender clumps of kale and sorrel, taking the sour with the earthy. A handful of green onions and a few small yellow potatoes, like gems.

With the salt pork from last year, I’ve got a feast in the making.

Good, sturdy breakfast. I can already hear the sizzle in the pan, the pop of bacon grease and smoke.

Next to the greens, I add a clump of vibrant orange carrots.

A treat for the does and bucks in the rabbit hutch on my way back to the cabin. The hens get the frilled, green tops.

A happy morning, a good morning with everything I could ever want. Balance between comfort and survival is a blade’s fine edge. Enough to keep me sharpened. Focused. Grateful for abundance, true abundance. Not the paper I chased in my twenties.

The woods go still first. Even the birds know when something unnatural comes creeping.

Golden light seeps through the mist and the shadow of the tall pines. Day begins to warm, the cold edge leaving the forest when I see it. A bright light in the distance. Disembodied, harsh, human.

We stalk down to the edge of my property. My stomach knots, fearful of the break in my silence, life from another place seeping into my carefully curated world.

Hot pink yoga pants. A mound of mahogany-highlighted, ebony curls piled in a messy bun, rich as the earth where I grow vegetables.

Almond-shaped eyes, acorn brown skin, high cheekbones, sculpted lips.

Curves for fucking days. The kind that could make me want more than I should.

The kind that could disrupt my life, make tranquility, seclusion unsatisfactory.

She laughs into the stillness of the air. Light, airy, like blades of sun slicing through the dark forest. My pulse trips, traitorous. That sound doesn’t belong in these woods, yet it hooks something inside, tugs at the hollow ache in my chest.

I draw closer. She has no clue I’m here. No self or situational awareness. No sense of the natural world or her place in it. At the bottom of the damn food chain out here. I could be a mountain lion, a grizzly, a pack of wolves. She’d never see me coming.

She stands in front of a tripod, bites her bottom lip, hands shaking, white plume threading her words.

Coaches herself to turn the camera on with a small remote.

Then, she smiles large. Ring light on, straining against gloom.

A camera where her instincts should be. Lord help me.

Another city dreamer chasing “peace and purpose.” Never lasts.

They all say they’re finding themselves out here—most just end up lost.

“Day three of my cabin restoration project—”

I clear my throat, and Bear whines, tail wagging, walking towards her.

“Oh,” the woman gasps, eyes round and panicked. Then, a smile hits her lips, artless, brilliant. She’s sunshine in a place that eats it alive. “Hi.”

I grunt. Frown at the lovely woman who puts fire in my blood, squatting down and lavishing Bear in affection. Lucky dog. I whistle for him. He’s reluctant to respond, loving the feel of her dainty hands buried in his coat. Can’t blame him.

“He’s pulling a cart?” she beams. “Well, aren’t you adorable?” she says to him without waiting for my response.

I frown, though something inside my chest starts warming. A something better left cold. She must be staying in the neighboring old Wheeler cabin. Good luck with that.

I call him again, gruffer this time. He wheels toward me, head down.

“Hey!” she says louder, like I might have a hearing problem.

I shrug, flip back around with Bear at my side, cart raking along the dirt trail. Making large strides back toward my property, heavy-hearted at the break in my peace. Not enough rocks and dirt to fill this intrusion.

“You don’t talk much, huh?” she calls after me, voice as sweet as the bird song overhead.

Not when all I have is news she doesn’t want to hear. This little experiment of hers. Whatever she intends to do will only end one way. In tears—or worse. And damn me, I’ll probably be the one who has to save her.