Mountain Fighter (Made for the Mountain Man #6)

Chapter 1

MEGHAN

Iwas going to freeze to death in someone else’s house.

The thought kept circling through my mind as I pulled Mrs. Norris’s afghan tighter around my shoulders. The power had flickered twice before going out completely about an hour ago, taking the heat with it.

Now the temperature inside the house was dropping fast, and the snow piled against the doors made it impossible to dig my way out. I’d already tried. I’d shoved my shoulder against the back door until it bruised, but the drift on the other side wasn’t budging.

The front door was even worse. Through the window, I could see my car buried under what looked like two feet of snow, and it was still coming down hard.

This was supposed to be easy money. Mrs. Norris had gone on a cruise with her sister, and all I had to do was water her plants, bring in her mail, and make sure the pipes didn’t freeze. She’d even said I could use her Wi-Fi to work on my online classes while I was here.

Instead, I was huddled on her couch in the dark, watching my breath form little clouds in the air.

I called the fire station about twenty minutes ago. The man who answered—Conner, he’d said his name was—had been reassuring. Someone was on the way. Help was coming. But as the minutes ticked by and the house grew colder, I started to wonder if anyone could actually get through this mess.

My phone buzzed, and I fumbled for it with numb fingers. A text from my roommate Teddie.

You okay over there? Heard the power’s out all over.

I typed back quickly. Firefighter supposedly on the way. Freezing my butt off.

Keep me posted. Love you.

Love you too.

I set the phone down and pulled my knees to my chest, trying to conserve body heat.

Teddie and I had been best friends since kindergarten, and when we’d finally gotten our own place together last year, it had felt like the start of something.

Independence. Adulthood. All those things we’d been dreaming about since we were kids, making plans in her treehouse.

But our little cabin didn’t pay for itself, and neither did my online classes. So when Mrs. Norris offered me two hundred dollars to house-sit for a week, I jumped at the chance. I could study here just as easily as at home, and the extra money would cover my textbooks for next semester.

Now I was regretting every decision that had led me to this frozen living room.

Headlights cut through the white outside, and I scrambled off the couch so fast I nearly tripped over the afghan. A massive truck was pushing through the drifts in the driveway, its engine growling like some kind of beast fighting its way through the storm.

I pressed my face to the window, my breath fogging the glass.

The truck stopped, and a figure climbed out.

Even through the swirling snow, I could tell he was big.

Really big. Broad shoulders, heavy coat, and a beard that made him look like he’d stepped out of some old photograph of frontier settlers.

He didn’t head for the front door. Instead, he trudged around the side of the house, disappearing from view. I stood there, confused, until I heard something banging against the back of the house.

The back door. He was clearing the snow from the back door.

I rushed through the dark house, nearly running into the kitchen table in my haste. By the time I reached the door, I could hear him on the other side, the scrape of a shovel against concrete. A few minutes later, the door pushed open, and there he was.

He was even bigger up close. Tall enough that he had to duck slightly to step inside, with dark hair dusted with snow and a beard that covered most of his jaw. His eyes swept over me once—assessing, not leering—before moving past me to scan the kitchen.

“Power’s out,” he said.

His voice was deep, a low rumble that matched the rest of him.

“Yes. And the heat.” I pulled the afghan tighter, suddenly very aware of how ridiculous I must look. “Thank you for coming. I’m Meghan.”

He gave a short nod but didn’t offer his name. Instead, he moved past me into the house, his boots leaving wet prints on Mrs. Norris’s linoleum.

I followed him, not sure what else to do.

He walked through the kitchen and into the living room, then stopped in front of the fireplace.

It was one of those old stone ones—the kind that looked like it hadn’t been used in years.

Mrs. Norris had a decorative screen in front of it and some dried flowers arranged on the hearth.

“Does this work?” he asked, gesturing at it.

“I think so. I mean, I assume so. I’m just house sitting. I don’t actually live here.”

He was already moving the screen aside, pulling out the dried flowers and setting them on the coffee table. Then he crouched down and looked up into the flue, doing something I couldn’t see.

“There’s wood outside,” he said. “Stacked against the shed.”

“I saw it, but I couldn’t get to it. The snow—”

“I’ll get it.”

And then he was gone, back out into the storm like it was nothing. I stood in the dark living room, listening to my own breathing and wondering who the hell this guy was.

He made four trips, each time coming back with his arms full of split logs. He stacked them neatly beside the fireplace, then knelt and started building a fire like he’d done it a thousand times. By the looks of him, he’d done exactly that.

Within minutes, flames were licking at the kindling, and a few minutes after that, a real fire was crackling in the hearth. The heat was immediate, washing over me like a wave. I actually felt tears prick at my eyes from the relief of it.

“Thank you,” I said. “Really. I don’t know what I would have done.”

He stood, brushing off his knees, and finally looked at me. Actually looked at me, not just that quick assessment from before. His eyes were dark, nearly black in the firelight, and there was something in them I couldn’t quite read.

“You know how to manage a fire?” he asked.

I blinked. “I mean…I can add wood when it gets low?”

He shook his head once. “It’s not that simple. Fire like this needs tending every few hours. You let it burn down too far, you’ll have trouble getting it going again. And if it goes out while you’re sleeping…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

“Oh.” I looked at the flames, suddenly aware of how much I didn’t know. “I guess I didn’t think about that.”

He moved to the window and looked out at the snow still falling in thick curtains. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

“I’m not leaving you here alone,” he said. “Not with no power, no heat source you know how to use. That’s not how this works.”

The words hung in the air between us. I processed them slowly, my cold-numbed brain struggling to catch up.

He was staying. This silent, bearded stranger was going to be here with me until…when? Until the power came back? Until the storm passed?

“You don’t have to do that,” I said, even though the thought of being alone in this dark, cold house made my stomach clench. “I’m sure you have better things to do than babysit some girl who got stuck in a snowstorm.”

He turned from the window. That unreadable expression was still there, but something flickered in his eyes. Just for a second, so fast I might have imagined it.

“Not babysitting,” he said. “It’s protocol. We don’t leave people in situations like this.”

Protocol. Right. He was just doing his job. I didn’t know why that thought made me feel slightly deflated.

He shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the back of a kitchen chair. Underneath, he wore a simple flannel shirt that strained across his shoulders. Then he walked past me toward the kitchen, and I heard him opening cabinets, then the sound of water running.

I moved closer to the fire and sank onto the floor in front of it, letting the heat soak into my bones. My hands were still shaking, partly from the cold and partly from something else. Nerves, maybe. Or just the strangeness of the whole situation.

Through the doorway, I could see him moving around the kitchen. He’d found some candles and was lighting them, placing them on the counter. In the flickering light, his profile was sharp and serious. He had the look of someone who didn’t smile much.

I wondered what his story was. The firefighters who came into the roadhouse were usually friendly—loud, laughing, always joking around with each other.

But this one had barely looked at me since he arrived, barely spoken two words.

He’d just shown up, done what needed to be done, and now he was rattling around in a stranger’s kitchen like I wasn’t even here.

He came back into the living room with two mugs and handed one to me. I took it, grateful for the warmth against my skin.

“Found some instant coffee,” he said. “Water’s still working. For now.”

“Thank you.” I took a sip. It was bitter and not very good, but it was hot, and that was all that mattered. “I don’t even know your name.”

He settled into the armchair across from me, his big frame making it look like furniture for children. “Wolfe.”

“Wolfe,” I repeated. It suited him somehow. “I’m Meghan. But I guess you already knew that from the call.”

He gave a short nod but didn’t elaborate. He held his own mug without drinking from it, simply staring into the fire with that distant expression.

The silence stretched between us, filled only by the crackle of the flames and the howl of the wind outside. I wanted to say something, to fill the quiet, but every time I opened my mouth, the words died in my throat.

He didn’t seem bothered by the silence at all. If anything, he seemed more comfortable in it than he had been when I was talking.

Who was this man? And why did I get the feeling there was something more going on behind those dark eyes than he was letting on?

I pulled the afghan around my shoulders and settled in for what was going to be a very long night.