by Tarin Lex
Wylder Bluffs Mountain Men
The Complete Short-Story Collection
By Tarin Lex
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2020 by Tarin Lex.
No part of this work may be transmitted or reproduced by any means without the express written permission of the author/publisher, except for brief excerpts in the form of a book review.
Published by Tarin Lex.
“Wylder Bluffs Mountain Men” is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, and events are products of the author’s imaginations, or used in a fictitious manner. Any similarities to real-life persons or situations are entirely coincidental.
Proofread by Stephany Renfrow.
Cover by DesignRans.
Tarin Lex writes short, sexy, romantic stories. She lives in the Big City but she’s a country girl at heart. Tarin’s a sucker for the misunderstood Bad Boy—preferably of the hardworking, tattooed, blue-collar variety—and the sweet, curvy women who tame them.
Meet the mountain men of Wylder Bluffs, Idaho!
Steele
The one where the heroine shoots the hero.
Asher
The one with the wedding crasher.
Hale
The one where she’s older.
Ren
The one with her dad’s best friend.
Want more? Read the Wylder Bluffs Fire Dept. series next!
Contents
1 | Steele
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Epilogue
2 | Asher
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Epilogue
3 | Hale
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Epilogue
4 | Ren
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Epilogue
Bonus Material! Sneak Peek of Sawyer (Wylder Bluffs Fire Dept. Book 1)!
One
Two
1 | Steele
To the pain. See it, say it. Let it go.
One
Elsa
If my sister had to insist on marrying him, the least she could do was plan their wedding someplace warm. Sunny and sea level would’ve been nice. A tropical cruise. A beachy resort. If it were my wedding there’d be sand in my toes and frosted drinks with hoity-toity umbrellas in them. And maybe a prince.
A girl can dream. But fairytale weddings are just that…reserved for princesses and make-believe.
In real life, I’m currently driving mountainside through a hundred thousand feet of snow in a bargain rental I’d swear was built by Little Tikes. I don’t even like my destination. Ari’s wedding marks the end of an era for us. She’s always been my twinsie, my bestie, my girl—and now the jerk of the century is stealing her from me.
I hate this.
What I don’t hate is food. I’ve been driving for two hours, officially lost in the tall, densely forested mountains of Wylder Bluffs, Idaho—fifteen hundred miles from my Dallas apartment—and officially hangry, as the winds and snow pick up around me. It’s a deadly steep drop off the side of the mountain. If an oncoming car came, how would it pass without one of us falling right off? There’s no telling. There’s no cell signal or Wi-Fi up here, so I really have no idea where I am or if I’m still headed the right direction, no way to find the Texas-sized cheeseburger I’m craving right now. At least I have cookies. A smart woman always has cookies.
I’m shoving them into my mouth, full-on stress-eating, as the winter storm descends so heavily over me and my Cozy Coupe that outside visibility drops to zero.
Zee-row. Zilch. Like the number of bars on my cell.
I slow the toy car to a careful stop.
My heart does its best Eric Kretz impression as I stare at the windshield, shrouded in a bright white blizzard at the very precarious edge of what I am certain is planet Earth’s most remote mountain range. It always seemed to me that stranded was a figure of speech. There’s always someone to call, someplace to go—that’s just the world we live in now. All of us connected, all the time. Right?
Wrong.
I’m lost, cold, stranded, hungry, losing my sister… I could die like this. My breathing becomes hard to manage, taut, like the string of a bow pulled all the way back.
Just as my thoughts and nerves ratchet up to a level one million, there’s a sudden, loud rat tat tat against my driver’s side window. It makes me jump. The bowstring in my chest releases and my heart flies to my throat.
Even pressed against the glass, the figure that made the noise is hard to make out. It’s either Sasquatch outside the car—I hear he eats people, especially early-twenties blondish-brunettes with curves for miles?—or a big, brusque man as formidable as Everest. I don’t really have a preference.
“Go away!” I shout, but he rat tat tats again, followed by the deepest masculine voice I’ve ever heard in real life.
“Get out of the vehicle. Now.”
Like hell I will. I can’t exactly drive away in nil visibility while practically hanging off the side of a mountain. Think. Think. Yes. I should’ve listened to Dad when he told me to ride with him, but at least I heeded some of his sage advice. I reach inside my purse on the passenger’s seat and gingerly retrieve my airweight .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. I may be a city girl, but I’m a Texan. I’m not venturing through wilderness without packing heat.
“I’m warning you!” I try to roar, but it comes out like young Simba.
Even as the wind whooshes, I hear the man-beast rumble a low, irritated growl, much more impressive than mine, and the vibrating sound zips straight to the apex of my thighs. Down, girl. This monster is trying to kill you.
“Ma’am, I do not want to break your window to retrieve you. Get. Out.”
Retrieve me? “Go. Away!”
And then he does exactly what he said he would. Raises his big gloved hand and with one swing smashes the driver’s side window as I scuttle into the passenger’s seat. My champagne-colored maid-of-honor dress is covered in chocolate-chip cookie crumbs and hiked up to my thighs when I lower my face between my knees to protect it from shattered glass and the beast-man’s impending assault. When Sasquatch breaks all the way into the car, practically dislodging the driver door, I’m pretty sure he can see…everything.
This could not get any worse.
Yes it can.
I gaze into his blue eyes for half a breath as I lift the revolver, my own breath held in tight, thumb back the hammer and… fire.
Two
Steele
“You shot me?”
This stubborn woman. Here I am trying to rescue her, and she just fuckin’ shot me.
“Yes. S-sorry,” she mutters. She’s wearing some sort of formal gown but the way she’s crouched in the corner of the cardboard box she’s driving, it shows a glimpse of her smooth inner thighs and bright pink thong.
Not what I was expecting before I busted into the car.
I tear my gaze away and lock eyes with her dazzling greenish-gray ones as she lowers the damned revolver, her eyes wide and feral with what I imagine is fear, and possibly some regret. Good. I can feel the bullet lodged inside my shoulde
r. Doesn’t feel like it shattered bone or severed the artery—and I would know—but I won’t lie and say it doesn’t hurt like a motherfucker. At this range it wasn’t a terrible shot, unless she was aiming for anything else.
“Next time just open the goddamn door,” I curse.
“Next time?”
I growl in reply and kick out the driver’s side door as I reach for her, gathering her coat over her shoulders. The woman protests, loudly and with more than just her mouth, as I pull her out of the car and thrust her over my shoulder—my good shoulder.
“Where are you taking me? Stop that!”
“You are making this difficult.”
“Let me go!” she grieves. “You think I won’t shoot you again?”
The handgun. She’s still holding it, not very securely. I reach for it and chuck it over the edge of Wylder Peak.
“You did not just! Oh my god. Are you out of your mind?”
“Who shot who?” I counter. “You’re coming with me.”
“Arrghh!”
I don’t reply. We’re losing time and I need to get us both safely up to the crest of the hill and inside my truck before this angry blizzard buries us both. But the hot, aggravating sensation shooting down my right arm and up my neck—not to mention the writhing aggravation shouting profanities next to my ear—makes the trek more difficult. Very difficult.
I don’t give up halfway there; my shoulder does.
I set her down. “You’ll have to walk the rest of the way.” I have to yell over the howling wind.
“Like hell. You can’t make me.” She crosses her arms.
I lay a gloved hand over my shoulder. Fuck it’s really starting to hurt. She could also use some gloves, and boots, and at least two more thick layers between her dress and her long coat. “Then you can die here.” I’d really hate it if she died. She’s cute as hell, and gutsy. She looks cold. I know she’s only scared for good reasons.
But I can’t make her come with me any more than I’ve already tried.
I turn to go and her little brown booties stamp forward in the snow as she catches up.
“At least tell me where we’re going.”
“See that big truck up there?” I point.
She pauses. “No.”
Right. That’s how lucky she is that I saw her.
“Well, it’s there.” I take another look at her. She’s shivering like an earthquake. “Here.” I take off my gloves and coat and hand them to her; there’s a hole and a russet stain in the shoulder where the bullet tore through. She accepts it with a wary thank you in her eyes but no words. Then I take off my bomber hat and place it on her head, and dammit if my heart doesn’t stop for how adorable she looks in it, her light-brown waves the same color as its fuzzy lining, framing her cheeks and falling just past her cute round chin.
“Oh you don’t have to—”
“You’ll want to save your breath for this,” I say, surveying the hidden route as best I can.
I’m stunned but grateful she at least submits to that. We go quiet and stay that way as we trudge away from the main road, up the steep hill, against heavy snow and winds howling from seemingly every direction. I know better. The winds will gather the snowfall right on top of us, piling at least six feet by tomorrow morning. It’s only worse up ahead.
We get to the truck and climb inside and she looks at me with a question mark on her face.
“Um, aren’t you gonna turn on the heat? I’m freezing.”
I shake my head. “’Fraid not. I can’t turn on the truck with the exhaust pipe halfway buried. Uncovering it would be futile. Snow’s coming in too fast.”
“Then how are we supposed to get out of here?”
“We’ll have to try to dig out tomorrow morning.” I look out at the gnarly storm. It’s too treacherous to pass over the hill now anyway, even if there were some visibility, and less snow packed.
“But… My sister’s getting married tonight!”
Ah, that explains the sparkly gown. Maybe a bridesmaid’s dress. “Sorry, Trigger.”
Her face wans, even more than it already was. Makes me want to touch her cheeks. Or graze my thumb along her lip. I’m not sure if the biting cold brought tears to her eyes, or if she did.
I would extend a warm smile but I don’t do sympathy all that well. I look away and start to remove my layers of clothing. It’s only a few degrees warmer in here, but I do need to check out the wound. See about getting the bullet out.
I see her mouth gape wider from the corner of my eye.
“So…we’re just…staying here?” she mumbles in disbelief and defeat and something else I can’t put a pin on.
“That’s right, Trigger. Might as well get comfortable.”
Three
Elsa
“I’m Steele, by the way.”
I think he’s just being funny—Man of Steel kind of thing—as he starts to undress. He doesn’t appear all that affected by the gunshot, so maybe he hides it well. But he doesn’t laugh. Too bad, I’d sort of hoped to keep calling him Sasquatch.
Steele quirks a thick, black eyebrow, and his blue eyes glow as he halfway grins. “And you are?”
…staring.
“Elsa.” I gulp.
“El-sa.” I’ve heard my name said a trillion or so times before, but never with the warm, rolling timbre of a voice like Steele’s. “Nice,” he adds.
Still might actually be trying to kill you.
“You live out here?” I ask. If he doesn’t murder me first, then we’re about to spend a lot of time together. And there’s little chance I’ll sleep tonight. Might as well do as he said…get comfortable. Get to know each other.
“For now,” he says, flicking his hair out of his face as he works the buttons on his flannel layer. Steele has this to-die-for tousled hair, eyes like the sky at dawn, and a scruffy beard I’m tempted to put my fingers on. And—
No, forget what I was about to say, because holy spirit he just took off his white undershirt along with the flannel. And the beast-man is all brawn—rolling, rigid muscle from the nape of his neck to the hard, tapered ‘V’ below his navel. I’m weird about bellybuttons, and Steele’s makes a perfect circular indent against his tan, washboard abs, right above a thatch of hair that thickens as my gaze lowers and my panties dissolve.
Stop that, Els!
Sigh. I school my gaze up to meet his… Oh, shit.
“Steele! You’re bleeding!”
He slides me a look. “Very good.”
“Are you trying to bleed to death?” It’s not a little bit of blood. It’s a lot of blood that’s profusing down his thick arm and smudged over his tattooed neck and hands as he tries to…I don’t know what the hell he’s trying to do.
“Just need to find the bullet. No big deal,” he says with a wince. “Almost there. I think I see it.”
Oh my god—men!
“We need to stop the blood first. Here.” I grab his white cotton shirt, tear off a swatch, and hand it to him. “Press this firmly against the wound.”
“The wound,” he deadpans. “You mean the carnage exacted by your vile little thirty-eight?”
“Whatever. Just keep applying pressure there.” I rip a longer measure off his shirt and start twining it to make it stronger, but I’ll need something else, something sticklike to hold in place. There’s nothing obvious in the front seat, so I look back and would you believe…there is a dog in the back seat. The creature hasn’t made a peep. He’s every shade of black, blue, and tan, with dark brown eyes and one flopped-over ear. A blue heeler. He looks at me with a squint. I smile.
Doggy has one of those long cylindrical rawhide bones sandwiched between his front paws.
“That’s Rhett.” Steele’s voice comes out strained.
I let the young-looking blue heeler sniff my hand in greeting. He seems to like me, gives me a lick. He is the quietest pup in the world until I swipe the chewy from his grasp and he snarls in protest.
“Don’t growl at me
, Rhett. I’m saving your daddy’s life.” I turn to Steele and hold his bicep carefully, for all the reasons, and start to wrap the makeshift tourniquet.
“What are you doing?”
“Stopping the blood flow.” I can’t help but giggle at Steele’s bemused expression. “You live all the way out here in the boonies, and you don’t know how to fashion a tourniquet?”
“I live alone to lower my odds of getting shot in the shoulder. Least of all by a gorgeous, pain-in-my-ass city girl.”
The word ‘alone’ gives me pause. The rest of his statement gives me cardiac arrest. So he’s not married. I’m not sure why that matters. Because it doesn’t.
It totally doesn’t matter to me.
“That’s not why.”
“Pardon?” he says.
“Why do you really live out here, all alone? Without Wi-Fi. Doesn’t it get…lonely?”
“Yes.”
Satisfied with the tourniquet, I tighten one more knot and lift my gaze, only to find him still looking at me. It’s unsettling, how much I like looking into his eyes. He’s lonely?
Rhett breaks our staring contest with a quick bark of impatience.
“He’s pissed you took his bone,” Steele quips.
“He should be happy his master’s not going to bleed to death.” I manage a smile, but my heart is skipping rocks in my chest. The dog seems sweet, and that says something about Steele, I think. I lower my guard a fraction more. “You can let go of that pressure now.”
“Ah. Good.” Steele lowers the swatch and I use the rest of his torn-up shirt to bandage the entrance wound. “Thanks for fixing me up,” he says.
I just shrug. “It’s the least I could do.”
“There’s definitely more you could do,” he murmurs in an even-lower baritone. I can’t meet his gaze. The velvet pitch and his words send pangs of lust and worry through me.
“What’s that?” I dare to ask.
He leans back in the driver’s seat, turning his face slowly toward me to proffer a look that could pulverize diamonds. All at once it feels warm in here.
