Protector of Hollow Peak (Hollow Peak Mountain Men #1)

1. Acacia

ACACIA

T he heater in my rusted-out SUV hums a pathetic, wheezing tune that barely cuts through the mountain chill. Outside, the world is a blur of aggressive white. A thick, blinding sheet of snow turns the jagged pines of Colorado into ghostly silhouettes.

I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turn as white as the snow drifts piling up on the shoulder. Just a few more miles, Acacia, I whisper to myself, my breath hitching in the cold air. Hollow Peak is just over this ridge.

Hollow Peak. The name sounds like a sanctuary, or maybe a tomb.

At twenty-two, I am already running away from a life that felt like a slow-motion suffocating act.

Back in the city, I was told I was too loud, too curvy, too emotional, and yet somehow never enough for the high-pressure marketing firm where I’ve spent my days fetching coffee for people who don’t know my name.

It’s bad enough when your boss and co-workers make you feel both out of place and somehow invisible at the same time. But after a lifetime of my parents treating me the same way, I woke up one morning and just… knew. I had to get out.

I want more. I’ve always wanted more. I want a life that feels as substantial as the mountains. I want to wake up to the smell of pine instead of exhaust, and I want to build a life where I don’t have to shrink myself to fit in.

If my heart, soul, and plus-sized body are all too much to fit into the big city, then I’ll go out and find somewhere else to live and breathe, goddamnit.

The obvious next step was to spend my entire savings on a tiny, dilapidated cottage on the edge of Hollow Peak, a place where I can finally breathe.

My only hurdle now is getting there.

Icy snow pellets make a ting-ting-ting sound as they bounce off my car, bringing me back into the present moment.

Wind whips the snow around, making it harder and harder to see until the road vanishes completely.

One second, I’m following the faint grey slush of a tire track, and the next, the world tilts.

It isn’t a sudden crash. It’s a sickening, graceful slide. I feel the tires lose their bite, the gut-wrenching whoosh of gravity taking over as the heavy SUV pivots toward the ravine. I scream, the sound trapped in the small cabin of my car as I slam on the brakes - a useless, instinctive gesture.

The car plunges.

Crunch. The sound of metal screaming against rock and ancient timber is deafening. The airbag doesn't deploy, but the seatbelt snaps taut against my chest, knocking the wind out of me. I’m jolted violently to the side, my head bouncing off the window glass.

Then, silence.

The engine gives one final, pathetic sputter and dies.

The only sound left is the rhythmic tink-tink-tink of cooling metal and the muffled roar of the wind outside.

I am tilted at a sharp forty-five-degree angle, the passenger side buried in a snowbank, the driver’s side door jammed against a massive hemlock tree.

I blink a few times, trying to get my blurry vision to focus.

The side of my head radiates with a sharp, throbbing pain in time with my racing heartbeat.

I do a quick body scan, and I don’t think I have any major injuries.

I can wiggle my fingers and toes, and the only pain is coming from my head wound.

"Help," I croak. My voice is a thin, fragile thing.

I try the door. It won’t budge. I try to reach for my phone, but it has flown into the footwell, buried under a pile of books and blankets I’ve packed for the move. Panic, cold and sharp as an icicle, begins to pierce through the shock.

I am going to die here.

The realization hits me with the force of a physical blow.

I’ve tried to start over, tried to find a life worth living, and instead, I’ve driven myself into a snowy grave.

Nobody knows exactly where I am. I’ve burned my bridges, deleted my social media, and told my landlord I’m gone for good.

I’ll be a frozen statue by morning, just another cautionary tale about city girls who thought they could handle the mountain.

The cold isn't just a temperature anymore; it’s a physical weight pressing against the glass, trying to find a way inside.

I shiver violently, my teeth chattering so hard it hurts my jaw.

To distract myself from the creeping numbness in my feet, I let my mind drift back to the brilliant plan I had before this freak blizzard in May ripped it to shreds.

Hollow Peak was supposed to be the place where I could be as loud as I wanted.

I’d spent hours scrolling through photos of the area, the jagged, snow-capped peaks that look like the teeth of the earth, the deep green of the old-growth forests, and the promise of a town where people knew your name because they actually cared, not because they wanted something from you.

I had imagined myself in that cottage, flour on my cheeks as I kneaded dough for the bakery I’ve always wanted to open.

I could almost smell the cinnamon and yeast.

But as the wind howls through the cracks in my door, that dream feels like a cruel joke.

"Please," I sob, the tears hot on my freezing cheeks. "Please, I don't want to die alone."

While my limbs and appendages work, they still feel like heavy lead weights.

The tilted angle of the SUV means all my blood is rushing to one side, and the ache in my head has bloomed into stabbing pain behind my eyes where I hit the glass.

Every time I close my eyes, the darkness feels a little more inviting, a little warmer than the reality outside.

Don't sleep, I tell myself. If you sleep, you won't wake up.

I think about my mom. She’d told me I was crazy to move out here alone. "A girl like you needs a man to protect her in a place like that," she’d said. I’d rolled my eyes and told her I could protect myself. Ironic, considering I can’t even open a car door right now.

The silence of the mountain is terrifying.

It’s not a peaceful quiet; it’s the silence of a predator waiting for its prey to stop twitching.

I watch a single snowflake drift onto the dashboard, perfectly intricate and cold.

I feel like that snowflake, beautiful in my own way, but so easily crushed by the world around me.

I close my eyes, the cold beginning to seep through the floorboards, numbing my toes and fingers. My vision starts to swim, the darkness of the ravine closing in. I feel so small. So incredibly, terrifyingly small.

I start to pray to a God I haven't spoken to in years. I promise to be better, to be braver, to finally bake that perfect sourdough starter if He just lets me see the sun again. The panic starts to ebb away, replaced by a strange, floating sensation. Is this what it feels like at the end? It’s almost peaceful.

Then, the world shifts.

The car doesn't just shake, it groans under the pressure of something massive. I struggle to open my eyes, my lashes heavy with frost. Through the distorted, ice-covered windshield, I see a shape that defies logic. It’s too big to be a man, but too upright to be a bear.

It’s a shadow carved out of the storm, moving with a terrifying, singular purpose.

When the hand slams against the glass, I don't even have the energy to scream anymore. I just watch, mesmerized, as the metal of my solid, reinforced steel door begins to buckle and scream.

He’s not using a tool. He’s using himself.

With a sound like a gunshot, the door hinge snaps. The man flings the door aside like it’s made of cardboard, and the freezing air hits me, syphoning the air from my lungs. But then he leans in, and the cold doesn't matter anymore.

He’s an absolute mountain of a man. His shoulders fill the entire frame of the door, blocking out the wind and the snow.

He smells of deep forest and something sharp, like ozone before a lightning strike.

When he looks at me, his blue eyes don't show pity.

They show a terrifying, primal sort of relief.

"You're okay," he growls. The voice isn’t just deep, it’s a physical vibration that settles in my marrow. It’s the sound of granite shifting. "I’ve got you, little bird."

He doesn’t ask if I can move. He simply reaches in, his enormous hands ripping the seatbelt off like it’s made of paper. He tucks one arm under my knees and the other behind my back, lifting me out of the wreckage as if I weigh nothing at all.

The moment my body hits his chest, the panic vanishes.

He is a furnace. The heat radiating from him is intoxicating, a wall of solid muscle and wool.

He holds me tucked against his heart, shielding me from the wind with his own massive frame.

For the first time in my life, I don't feel like too much.

Against him, I feel delicate. Cherished, even.

"I've got you," he says. The stranger’s voice is a low rumble that I feel in my chest more than I hear with my ears. "Rest," he commands softly, his grip tightening just a fraction. It’s a possessive gesture that makes a strange thrill run through my tired body. "You're mine to care for now."

As he pulls me against his chest, the last of my strength leaves me.

I don't need it anymore. I should be terrified of a stranger claiming me in the middle of a wilderness. But as I bury my face into the crook of his neck, feeling the steady, powerful thrum of his heartbeat against my ear, I know. I’m not lost anymore. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

The world goes black, safe and warm in the arms of my mountain beast.