by Em Petrova
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved
Something About a Mountain Man
Wild West Series 4
Copyright Em Petrova 2018
Ebook Edition
Electronic book publication 2018
All rights reserved. Any violation of this will be prosecuted by the law.
More in this series:
Something About a Lawman book 1
Something About a Sheriff book 2
Something About a Bounty Hunter book 3
Ryan Stone was once called a leader of men. But since leaving the military minus two fingers and a good chunk of his thigh, he’s barely seen or spoken to a human in nearly a year. In the mountains of Wyoming, he’s more than happy with his solitary, off-the-grid lifestyle. So when a certain interfering and crazy-hot photojournalist drops back into his life, he’s shaken by memories of another time and place.
Livvy has survived under extreme conditions to capture the best stories on film. But one battle-zone moment haunts her the most, and she has no choice but to track down the Marine who saved her life. Knocking on the door of his Wyoming cabin to make sure he’s alive is the right thing to do after no one’s heard from him in a year. Not even a glimpse of the recluse’s tangled hair and beard will drive her off the mountain, especially after she finds he could use some rescuing too—from himself.
The last thing Ryan needs is a woman who wants a piece of his future when he doesn’t even have a grip on his past. If she isn’t making him pack up the mountain to rescue a struggling homesteading family, she’s tormenting him with her good cooking… and curves. One thing’s certain, both are too stubborn to give up or give in. And that could just manifest as his worst fear—that nobody else could be so right for him.
Something About a Mountain Man
by
Em Petrova
Prologue
“Livvy, don’t move. Don’t. Even. Fucking. Breathe.”
The harsh tone of Sergeant Ryan Stone normally sent a shockwave of excitement through Livvy’s senses, but not this time. Icy terror froze her in place. She stared straight ahead but saw Stone from the corner of her eye, racing at her.
It seemed like half a minute passed, but she didn’t even have time to blink before his body slammed her, throwing them. She hit the ground first, tasted the sour Afghanistan dirt. Ryan flattened her under his bulk as the explosion rocked them both.
Sand washed over them, scouring what skin she had exposed—face, hands, forearms.
First thing that came to mind was she was deaf. There was total silence, but she knew from witnessing other blasts that grenades were not silent weapons. The blast, so close, had most likely burst her eardrums.
Second thought was, where the hell was her camera? She had a backup, but she’d been using her favorite equipment to photograph the living history of soldiers at war when—
Those fuckers tried to blow me up.
On the heels of that was the fact that Stone was still pinning her to the earth, his weight crushing her so much she couldn’t even draw a breath of the dust-thick air.
He was dead. He had to be dead.
A warm, sticky liquid pooled between them, some under her cheek. Blood—they were both bleeding. Injured. Stone probably dead after taking the brunt of the explosion and saving her life.
As these memories circulated through her mind, just as real as they’d been a year ago, Livvy raised a hand to the scarf knotted at her throat.
Some people called it post traumatic stress disorder, but she called it being human. No one could live through an experience like she had and not recall it daily.
Especially when the jagged scar running down her throat was a constant reminder. After the event, she’d worn bandages and then transitioned to a scarf, which had become part of her daily uniform.
Every time she recalled the moment when Stone had saved her, she told herself how lucky she was. The scar on her throat from landing on shrapnel had been small in comparison to what he’d endured. When someone had finally hauled his unconscious body off her and she’d seen all the blood… Well, she was damn lucky a man like Stone had been there.
Of course, that was what made him a Marine—his ability to put himself in the line of fire.
She ran her fingers over the silk scarf as she stared at the photographs lining the walls of her darkroom. She did a fair amount of work in digital photography, but she preferred the old-fashioned way a picture emerged through the chemical baths, letting her see if she’d captured the moment as she’d seen it in real life.
Some of the images made it into the historical accountings she was hired to take them for, and others ended up taped to the walls of her apartment. One photograph could have gone either way, but she’d selfishly kept it off her boss’s desk.
She stood back and stared at the image of Ryan Stone. Stacked with muscle, bulked out by gear, face grim, weapon in hand as he crossed the camp where they’d all stayed on his way to a sortie. His platoon had become like her family and she’d captured so many moments of their lives, both good and bad.
Thankfully, she had no visual proof of what had gone on that last day she’d seen Stone. After he’d been triaged out and flown home, she’d never seen or heard from him again.
Then she’d been relocated to the jungles of South America. After that, a jungle fever had landed her in a Stateside hospital for months and she was just now getting her stamina back to go on shoot in a month.
She reached up and touched the photo of Stone. Where was he now? She’d spent a fair share of her time searching for him while in the hospital recovering. But the man seemed to have fallen off the planet. Nobody knew his whereabouts. Was he even alive?
The thought of him succumbing to the injuries he’d received in saving her made a lump form in her throat. But no, he’d survived his wounds, at least she was told.
Now that she was back in the States and well enough to travel, it was time to locate him. To thank him and close the book on that chapter of her life so she could move on.
Trailing her finger across the photo of the strong, proud warrior she’d come to know in Afghanistan, she whispered, “Where the hell are you, Stone?”
Chapter One
If the mountain didn’t claim a man by way of a blizzard or bears, starvation would do the trick. Ryan was damn hungry—all the time. Hunting, fishing and trapping was a constant need up here in the Wyoming mountains, when he wasn’t tending his small homestead in the Big Horns, that was.
Amidst his animals he had a solid horse to get out of the mountains, not that he ever wanted to. A pair of goats for milk, a handful of chickens and twelve pigs. Soon to be more, since a sow was brooding. If he didn’t get a shed built for her right quick, and some heat pumped into it, the piglets would end up being claimed by the mountain too. Freezing nighttime temperatures weren’t kind to young.
Torn between leaving the small plot of land he called his own to hunt and satisfy his gnawing hunger and staying right here and getting a start on the shed was making Ryan grouchy.
Well, grouchier than usual.
He dropped onto a makeshift stool he’d created with his own two hands—maimed as they were with the two missing fingers on his right. He picked up a branch and started shaving curls of wood onto the cold ashes of t
he fire.
Fire was just as essential as a good pair of boots and a rifle in these parts. Besides providing warmth and cooking his food, it kept predators away from his homestead.
The knife rasping on the branch was the only sound he heard besides birds and squirrels playing in the underbrush. The whisper of the mountain air was a constant music, and it sure beat the noise of gunfire.
He shifted on the stool, and the joints strained under his weight. Then he heard it.
A whine, soft but clear. He went dead still like he’d been spotted by an enemy sniper, straining to hear it again.
There. He dropped the branch and snapped his knife shut, on his feet and moving toward the noise, grabbing his gun on the way. If it was another bear in his animal pen, he’d be eating good without leaving the homestead.
As he neared the chicken coop, he stopped walking and extended his senses. Hearing the heartbeat of the mountain and underneath that, the same whine.
A chicken squawked and something darted away from the fence, rolling as if it’d been shot. But Ryan hadn’t even raised his rifle.
The brown and white critter didn’t make it two steps before Ryan lunged, clamping it firmly by the scruff. Thinking it an odd-colored coon, he held it up.
“A puppy.” His voice cracked with disuse. What was a friggin’ puppy doing on the mountain—his mountain? There wasn’t anybody on the east face besides him. Nobody was stupid enough to hike up this way either, not with the spring weather still so sporadic.
The pup squirmed in his hold and he drew it closer to his chest to examine it. Couldn’t be a wild dog either—he’d never seen any up here. It was possibly a coyote pup, though it looked nothing like those animals.
“How’d you get here?”
The animal’s stubby tail wiggled to and fro so fast the whole body vibrated with it. Ryan shook his head. A damn dog. He couldn’t eat a dog.
He set it on the ground. Now that it was on all fours, he saw it was lankier than he’d originally thought when it was scrambling in fright away from the chickens. Perhaps four or five months old, with longer legs that promised it would get much bigger if fed up right.
That was the trouble—it looked hungrier than him.
He watched it for a minute as it sniffed the perimeter of the fence protecting the chickens. The rooster, used to scaring off predators and protecting his harem, ran at the pup flapping his wings.
Another whine and the puppy shied away.
“Damn.” Ryan’s voice wasn’t even getting warmed up. After all, he’d only spoken a few words in a month or so, and he liked it that way.
The pup turned from the coop and rushed Ryan’s boots, pouncing at the lace. He caught the loop in his sharp puppy teeth and tugged.
“Get off, you little shit.” The words came out as a grumble, but he heard something in his own tone that startled him.
Amusement.
When was the last time he’d laughed?
The answer was easy—back with his platoon. Jennings had cracked a joke about one of the corporals that had made Ryan chuckle. Then that same hour, they’d been geared up and rolling toward the village that was under heavy fire. And that fucking photojournalist was in the thick of it.
Livvy.
He slammed the door on the mental image her name conjured and stared down at the nuisance at his feet.
“C’mon, dumbass. Let’s find you something to eat before you cut through my bootlace.” He took off toward the cabin, a one-room structure of rough-hewn wood. The door was sturdy enough to keep predators out and what little he kept inside safe.
The pup stood at the open door, looking up at him.
“Suit yourself,” he said, not sure if he liked hearing his vocal cords beginning to smooth out with the practice of speaking.
He turned for the small kitchen area he’d rigged with a basin for use as a sink and a single cupboard nailed to the wall above. It hung a little crooked, but he’d only noticed after the fact and hadn’t bothered adjusting it.
The sole window in the place, a skylight in the center of the ceiling, cast light on the cupboard. Inside was a cloth sack containing the only food he had left in the world—three thin chunks of meat dried to a tooth-breaking toughness. Emergency rations.
Somehow feeding the pup wasn’t what he’d consider an emergency, but he couldn’t let an animal starve, now could he? He was considered a stern asshole among his fellow Marines and a moody fucker by those he’d encountered after getting blown up in Afghanistan.
But he was still human enough to have a heart, even if it was gray and shriveled.
He grabbed two pieces of jerky and walked to the door. He tossed one at the puppy, and he scampered to get it, clamping it in his jaws and shaking it.
Ryan snorted. “You don’t gotta kill it. It’s already dead, believe me.” The meat was tougher than puppy teeth could probably manage, too. God knew Ryan’d about broken his jaw on the last piece.
The puppy plopped into the dirt, and bracing the meat between its paws, began to work the sinew until he was able to soften it enough to swallow.
Ryan watched him for a while before tossing him the second piece. The pup’s face was spotted white and brown and reminded him of a dog he’d had as a kid called Freckles. What was he supposed to do with a dog? He couldn’t turn it out onto the mountain—it would die. Even if it was able to catch a squirrel or a rabbit, hunting was hard in these parts.
He could take the animal down the mountain into the nearest town. Someone would take it in—people were always on the lookout for good dogs. But that meant taking days away from his own livestock and besides, he had traps to check.
Not to mention he had no desire to step foot in town anytime soon, though if he wanted to put in that garden that would make his winters easier, he’d need seeds. The post office didn’t send men up the mountain to deliver mail to recluses.
The only person he’d seen in nearly a year was his old military buddy Aiden Roshannon. The man refused to let Ryan go without a visit every few months, but luckily Aiden didn’t make him talk about his time in the military. Neither of them had a desire to discuss that.
That was the second time his mind had touched on the military and the sun hadn’t completely cracked over the ridge yet. Days like this were never fun.
He closed the cabin door and returned to making his fire. In seconds he had orange flames leaping. He breathed in the scent of wood smoke and sighed at the calm it gave him. The scent meant he was alone. He was okay. Far from anybody he could harm.
Livvy.
He shook her off.
Sitting on the stool was making his thigh cramp, and he couldn’t afford for the old injury to flare up, not when he had to walk the trap line today. He stood and stretched. The pup jumped at his boot again and released a growling bark that wouldn’t scare a flea off his own skinny back.
“If you’re sticking around, you’d better learn to leave my bootlace alone.” He considered the pup. Just when did he decide the animal was sticking around?
Ryan got a pot of water boiling and used it to wash, stripping down to the skin and splashing the water over his back and then scrubbing his face and the nastier parts. About once a week he bathed in the creek, but he didn’t have anyone to impress and he’d been far dirtier in some of his Afghanistan days.
What had that sweet little photojournalist called the war? The war that never ended and no longer had a mission. That about summed it up.
Dammit, that was the third time she’d popped into his mind. Stupid of him, when she sure as hell wasn’t sitting around thinking about him. But Livvy ranked up there with his momma, rest her soul, how much his leg ached and his growling belly as things that he could never stop thinking about.
At least he’d stopped caring about his missing fingers. The pinky and ring fingers weren’t as necessary as he’d once thought—he could still pull a trigger fine.
Yeah, the mountain was the best place for him. But now he had the added dile
mma of feeding a dog with no name.
He didn’t like to butcher his livestock at this time of year when wildlife was so plentiful. He’d save the livestock for later in the season after they were fattened by foraging on the sweet grasses growing at the base of the east face of the mountain. The chickens were in some funk, though, and hadn’t been laying eggs consistently.
“First thing’s first. I get a real breakfast because no way am I gnawing on that last piece of jerky.” After standing around naked, the cool mountain air had dried his skin. He dressed and strode to the coop. The pup trotted at his heels. He tossed a look over his shoulder.
Yeah, the dog looked a lot like the one he had as a boy.
“Well, Freckles, if my hens are lucky, they left me a couple eggs to fry. Otherwise, we’ll have fire-roasted chicken wings for breakfast.”
* * * * *
Damn, it felt good to be out with her camera again. The past weeks cooped up in the hospital had just about driven her crazy. She’d begged her boss, who’d come to visit her, to bring her camera, but he’d refused, telling her that she needed to recuperate so she could take the next big assignment. An Alaskan adventure following a fishing fleet. Dangerous stuff, but no more dangerous than her year spent in Afghanistan.
She adjusted a setting on her equipment and took a still shot of the tree line that abruptly cut off on the mountain slope, the last bit of vegetation before the conditions were too high and harsh to support life.
And this was where Ryan Stone had been hiding all these months.
She prided herself on her outdoors skills and could navigate almost anywhere in the world with nothing more than some latitude and longitude coordinates and a compass. So finding one ornery Marine who didn’t want to be found was right in her wheelhouse.
Although she had to admit he’d done a hell of a job camouflaging himself this time. It had taken at least twenty phone calls to his old buddies and platoon sergeants to try to locate him. Finally, she’d gotten a tip from someone to call a Wyoming lawman by the name of Roshannon.
