Recon Daddy (Timber Creek Daddies #2)
Chapter 1
ONE
EMMA
I really should not be here.
Like, there’s a list somewhere—titled “Things Emma Lincoln Should Definitely Not Do”—and this is written in bold red Sharpie at the very top.
Follow suspicious vans into the Colorado backwoods? Check.
Sneak onto private federal land with nothing but a granola bar and a can of pepper spray? Check.
Get caught doing said sneaking by a six-foot-five wall of tactical muscle with eyes like sniper scopes and the personality of a parking ticket?
…Triple check.
I press myself flat against the icy ground, heart jackhammering as I watch a convoy of black SUVs disappear up a mountain road dusted in snow.
The lead vehicle has tinted windows. The kind that says “don’t ask questions” and “we know where you sleep.” And my idiot instincts? They’re whispering: Follow them.
“You are not Lara Croft,” I mutter to myself, clutching my phone like it’s going to suddenly turn into a weapon. “You teach yoga. You drink oat milk. You have a cat named Beyoncé.”
But I also have a sister who vanished from this county two years ago without a trace.
And I know she was involved with these people.
Which is why I’m currently freezing my ass off on the edge of what looks like a top-secret compound tucked into Wedding Cake Mountain—a place that sounds like it should sell pastries but probably sells… I don’t know. Ammo and secrets?
Movement. A shadow detaches from the trees behind me.
I spin around with a shriek and swing my backpack like a flail, but it barely bumps the wall of a man now looming over me. Tactical black. Scar on his cheek. Arms like he bench presses actual logs for fun. And a voice like midnight gravel.
“Are you insane?”
“I mean, probably?” I squeak. “Depending on who’s asking.”
He stares at me. No blink. No expression. Just the full force of his who the hell is this chick glare drilling into my soul.
“Name,” he demands.
“Emma.” I swallow hard. “Emma Lincoln. Don’t shoot me.”
He doesn’t laugh. Of course he doesn’t. Men like him don’t laugh. They brood. They interrogate. They file paperwork with bloodstains on it.
“I’m not gonna shoot you,” he mutters. “Yet.”
“Comforting.”
He moves fast—too fast—and the next thing I know, I’m on my feet, backpack gone, and he’s patting me down like I’m smuggling nuclear codes in my yoga pants.
“Hey! Boundaries, Rambo!”
“I’m checking for weapons.”
“I have pepper spray. And sarcasm. Both fully loaded.”
Nothing. Not even a twitch of his mouth.
“You’re lucky I saw you first,” he says darkly, glancing toward the trees. “If it had been one of the others...”
“What, I’d be body armor on a snowbank?”
“Something like that.”
Charming.
He pulls out a comm from his vest, low and clipped. “Rhett here. We’ve got a civvy on the ridge.”
Civvy. Like I’m some lost Girl Scout.
“I’m not a civvy,” I snap. “I’m an adult woman conducting an unsanctioned solo investigation. Totally normal.”
“Totally reckless.”
I cross my arms, even as my teeth start to chatter. “You don’t understand. My sister—she was taken. Two years ago. Hanover Falls. This is all connected.”
Something flickers across his face. Recognition? Maybe. Or indigestion. Hard to tell with a man whose emotional range is locked tighter than Fort Knox.
“You’re coming with me,” he says.
“Oh no. I’ve seen this movie. You drag me into your murder cabin and I wind up on a milk carton.”
“I don’t murder civilians,” he growls.
“Cool. Can I get that in writing?”
He grabs my arm—not rough, but firm enough to say stop talking—and starts hauling me back through the woods. I stumble after him, breath puffing white clouds into the air, brain racing.
I don’t know who this guy is. Or what kind of place I just stumbled onto.
But one thing is suddenly, terrifyingly clear:
I’ve officially crossed a line I can’t uncross.
And when we break through the trees and I see the armed men waiting at the perimeter of a camouflaged gate, I realize—
This isn’t just some backwoods security gig.
I’ve walked straight into a war zone.
And someone inside… knows exactly who I am.