Epilogue
HOLDEN
The hike up the mountain to where O’Mara Timber is working is enjoyable for a fall day. The sun is shining and the mountain breeze is fragrant with a hint of snow in the air. Clusters of golden yellow leaves from the birch tree forest and soft forest greens from the surrounding pines and aspens make a patchwork quilt of color along the rocky terrain. And the birds are chirping their merry songs.
All is calm until Ambrose’s voice hollers across the mountain, scaring the birds enough to take flight.
“ Goddamnit , Gary! Get off my mountain!”
With a sigh, I come to the clearing where the loggers have been working on felling the dead, dying, and overcrowded trees to allow for new growth on the grounds. I’m not surprised to see Rocky Mountains National Park’s infamous yurt squatter causing havoc with the park’s contracted logging company. Gary has been a bit of a pest over the last year, specifically having a beef with the first-line logging superintendent and co-owner of O’Mara Timber.
Ambrose towers over the scrawny tree hugger with his bolt cutters in his hand. The only reason the logger hasn’t cut Gary loose already is to stop him from running off, allowing me to take Gary into the police station to press charges. As a park ranger, I’m often tasked with having to arrest unruly visitors. Gary is one of my regular problem children, so to speak.
The tree hugger glowers up at the logger from where he’s chained himself to a marked tree for felling, one infested with Mountain Pine Beatles from the looks of it. He sneers at Ambrose. “You don’t scare me, lumberjack .”
The giant logger ducks his face to look eye level with the nature activist. “Be glad I don’t have my axe on me, boy.”
“You may have taken my woman, married her, and knocked her up, but this…” Gary pauses, running his hand affectionately along the crumbling pine bark trunk, “…this you cannot have. She’s mine and she deserves to remain here on this mountain with me. I will not let you kill her.”
“How many times do I need to explain this to you? She,” Ambrose quickly corrects himself, “IT is already dying, Gary. Mountain Pine Beatles. If you love trees so damn much, perhaps you should get yourself an education in natural science to find a cure to stop the little buggers instead of fucking with my logging operation all the time.”
You can see the moment the light bulb in Gary’s weed-riddled brain illuminates. His eyes get all big and his mouth goes slack in the “Eureka!” moment. “Hey. That’s not a bad idea.”
Ambrose turns to me, thumbing toward my suspect. “Genius this one.”
Shaking my head, I take out my cuffs from inside my coat. “Cut him loose.”
Making quick work of cutting the lock and removing the chains, Ambrose holds Gary by the biceps while addressing me. “Do I get to throw him off my work site?”
“No,” I say with a smirk, locking the cuffs on Gary’s wrists. “But I’ll take him into custody. That should buy you a few days before he’s let out of jail.”
Hands on his hips, Ambrose scowls at the tree hugger “Go get yourself educated, Gary. Do something with the few brain cells you have left and do some good, like my wife does every day, working as a field scientist in our logging company.”
Gary nods. “Right. Find a cure for Mountain Pine Beatle infestation, and then Aspen will want me again.”
Ambrose barks a laugh. “Not a chance in hell. Aspen is my woman. I claimed her. I’m building a family with her. Find another woman, Gary.”
Giving a two-finger salute, I escort Gary away from the loggers. Hopefully, Gary takes Ambrose’s advice and stays away from now on.
The hike back to my Bronco is luckily uneventful. Gary sulks in the back seat, staring out the passenger window. It’s an hour’s drive into downtown Fort Collins and it’s spent in comfortable silence.
It’s not until we’re stopped at a red light a block from my favorite little library that Gary perks up in the backseat. “Whoooa!”
I swivel my head to see what it is he’s referencing and freeze.
There, on a park bench reading a book and dressed in an off the shoulder oversized sweater and leggings, is Harper Radley, the prettiest librarian at my local library. She’s also the woman who consumes my every waking thought.
The woman is a natural born tease, constantly flirting with me and calling me a “boy scout” when she sees me in my park ranger uniform each time I come into the library to get a new book.
Boy scout appearance or not, Harper has no clue about the depraved and dirty things I wish to do to her. She’d stop her flirting immediately if she knew how badly I want to defile her pert little body with my filth. The amount of times I’ve wanted to rip off my uniform tie, wrap it around her wrists behind her back, and bend her over her librarian desk to fuck into her is immeasurable.
Harper may flirt like she has bedroom experience, but she’s never experienced someone like me.
As if she can sense my gaze on her, Harper looks up from her book and locks eyes with me. A smile curls the corner of one side of her lips in that flirty way she does. Harper gives me a little wave to let me know she acknowledges me.
Hello, little brat.
My dick turns rock hard in the stiff canvas of my uniform pants, fighting against my zipper. She doesn’t know she’s enticing the devil inside of me. But I can’t have her.
Women like Harper may like the idea of having fun with someone like me until they actually invite a freak into their bed. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. My sexual preferences are dark. Consensual non-con or dub-con aren’t kinks for the light of heart.
No. Harper Scout is off limits.
“She’s gorgeous,” Gary says in a dreamy voice behind me.
“She is,” I agree, my eyes not leaving the auburn hair beauty I long for.
“Who is she?”
Gritting my teeth, I turn my eyes back to the road and gun the engine a little harder than necessary when the light turns green. The more distance I put between myself and Harper, the safer she will be.
“She’s no one to you. Keep your eyes to yourself and we’ll not have problems.”