The Mountain Man’s Mail Order Employee (Mountain Man Sanctuary Season 2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

DANE

The corporate group from Scottsdale quit on mile six.

Not all of them. Just the loudest one. The guy who spent the first three miles telling everyone about his CrossFit box and his cold plunge routine and how he once did a Tough Mudder in under two hours.

He's sitting on a boulder now with his head between his knees while his buddy pours water over the back of his neck.

"How much farther?" the buddy asks.

"Seven miles."

CrossFit groans.

I adjust the straps on Hatchet's pack frame and let the mule drink from the creek. Hatchet gives me a look that says what I'm thinking, which is that these men paid four thousand dollars for a three-day wilderness immersion experience and none of them brought adequate footwear.

"We could camp here," the quiet one suggests. He's been keeping pace without complaining, which puts him ahead of the other three by a wide margin.

"We could." I scan the ridgeline. Clouds stacking up from the west, moving fast. "Storm's coming in by four. This creek bed floods in hard rain. We push to the plateau or we turn back."

CrossFit lifts his head. "Turn back?"

"Your call."

They push. They always push. Nobody drives to middle-of-nowhere Nevada and hires an antisocial outfitter to lead them into the backcountry just to quit at mile six. The ego won't allow it.

By the time I get them set up at the plateau camp, show them how to hang their food, build a fire that won't signal every predator in a ten-mile radius, and listen to CrossFit explain that the altitude is "different from sea-level cardio," it's past seven.

The storm rolled through at four fifteen, exactly when I said it would.

They huddled under the tarp I rigged while I stood in the rain checking the perimeter because that's what they're paying me for.

Three days of this. Then I hike them out, collect the balance, and go home to my cabin where the only voice I hear is Hatchet's occasional bray of judgment.

Good life. Quiet life. The one I built on purpose after eight years in the Army taught me that most problems come from having too many people in too small a space.

And then Mace Hunter had to open his mouth.

Six weeks ago. Town supply run. I'm loading propane tanks into the truck bed at the Whisper Vale general store when Mace comes out of the hardware section with a box of lag bolts and that particular grin he gets right before he says something I'm going to regret.

"When's the last time you talked to a woman, Wilder?"

"I talk to women."

"Clients don't count."

"Patty Cole brought me muffins last Tuesday."

"Patty Cole is sixty-seven and trying to marry off every single man in this county. When's the last time you had a conversation with a woman where you weren't being paid or fed out of pity?"

I didn't answer because the answer was embarrassing.

Mace pulled out his phone. "Mountain Match.

Old-fashioned matchmaking service. Pairs rugged rural men with women looking to leave city life behind.

" He read this off the screen like it was a mission briefing.

"Two-week trial. She comes to you. You show her your life.

If it works, it works. If it doesn't, she goes home. "

"No."

"You fill out a profile. They match you based on compatibility."

"Absolutely not."

"Dare you."

And because I am, apparently, a thirty-six-year-old man who still responds to dares from his buddy like a teenager responding to a double-dog, I filled out the profile.

Answered the questions honestly. Occupation: wilderness outfitter.

Location: remote cabin, no cell service, nearest neighbor four miles.

Hobbies: hunting, fishing, existing in silence.

Looking for: someone who doesn't need me to talk all the time.

Figured nobody would pick the antisocial guy in middle-of-nowhere Nevada.

Noelle Sharpe picked me.

Her application came through the service's coordinator three weeks ago.

Paper file, because Mountain Match operates like it's 1985 and proud of it.

Photo clipped to the front. Brown hair, gray-green eyes, a smile that looked like it was costing her something.

The form said she wanted a fresh start somewhere remote.

Somewhere she could work. Somewhere quiet.

Somewhere no one would think to look for her.

That last part wasn't on the form. But I've spent twenty years reading terrain, weather, animal behavior. Reading people isn't that different. The emergency contact line said N/A. The previous address was left blank. Under "reason for seeking rural placement," she wrote: I need to start over.

People who need to start over are running from something. I know this because I needed to start over once, and I was running from a deployment that took three men from my unit and left me with a scar on my forearm and a deep suspicion of crowded rooms.

The coordinator called my satellite phone yesterday. Noelle's bus arrives in Whisper Vale at two o'clock today. I'm supposed to pick her up, bring her to the guest cabin on my property, and spend two weeks getting to know each other. No pressure.

I haven't had a guest in my cabin since I built the place.

The corporate group hikes out on day three sunburned, dehydrated, and already planning a return trip. CrossFit shakes my hand at the trailhead and calls me "brother," which I let slide because he's tipping well. The quiet one hangs back.

"Thanks," he says. "For not making it easy."

That's the only kind of compliment that means anything.

I unload Hatchet, brush him down, check his hooves. Give him extra oats because he carried those idiots' glamping gear for three days without complaint. The mule watches me change into a clean henley and run a hand through my hair, which needs cutting. His expression is skeptical.

"Don't start."

Hatchet chews his oats and judges me.

The drive into Whisper Vale takes forty minutes. My truck smells like pine sap and horse sweat and the leather of my knife belt, which I left on the passenger seat because I forgot to take it off. I move it to the back and then feel stupid for caring what the passenger seat looks like.

I park outside the general store at one fifty. The bus comes through at two. Whisper Vale doesn't have a station. Just a bench outside the post office where the regional line drops passengers who are either locals coming back from Reno or tourists who got very, very lost.

At two oh four, a dusty bus pulls to the curb. The door opens. An older woman gets off carrying a cat in a ventilated bag. A teenager with headphones. A man with a fishing rod case.

Then her.

Two suitcases. New hiking boots that still have the tags on the laces. Chestnut brown hair pulled back but coming loose around her face. She's taller than I expected. Curvy in a way her stiff posture is trying to minimize, shoulders drawn up like she's bracing for impact.

Gray-green eyes sweep the street. Calculating.

She spots my truck. Then me, leaning against it. Her gaze takes inventory. Beard, boots, the knife belt I forgot I moved. The scar on my forearm where I pushed my sleeves up because it's July in Nevada and pretending I'm not sweating seemed pointless.

Her smile comes on like a lamp being turned up manually.

"Dane Wilder?"

"Yeah."

She extends her hand. Her grip is firm, her fingers cold despite the heat. "Noelle Sharpe. I believe you're expecting me."

Those gray-green eyes hold mine for exactly long enough to be polite and not one second longer. Practiced. Deliberate. Like a woman who's spent years in rooms full of people who watch for weakness.

I pick up both her suitcases because they're right there and my hands are free. She starts to protest, then stops herself. Files it away somewhere behind that calibrated smile.

"Guest cabin's about forty minutes up the mountain," I tell her. "No cell service past mile marker twelve. Satellite phone for emergencies."

"Perfect."

Most people hear "no cell service" and flinch. She says perfect like she means it. Like she's been waiting to hear those words for a long time.

I load her bags. Open the passenger door. She climbs in without hesitation, tucks her purse between her feet, and faces forward.

Hatchet brays from the trailer behind us.

"That's the mule," I say. "Hatchet. He's opinionated."

The controlled smile cracks. Just a fraction. Just enough to show me something real underneath.

"I like opinionated."

I pull onto the road toward the mountain, and the woman beside me watches Whisper Vale disappear in the side mirror like she's memorizing the route. Not for directions.

For escape.