Protecting His Mountain Bride (Bear Mountain Baby Daddies Book 2) Read online

  “Why would anyone want the rights to a little spring high up in the mountains?” Jack shrugged his shoulders and picked up his coffee as he listened to the old lady’s story.

  “I asked the same question after I heard what was going on. That spring looks small, but the volume of water that spills from it is enormous and it runs 24 hours a day, every day of the year and it’s been doing that for hundreds of years. By the time it makes its way to the bottom of the mountain, it’s a full-fledged river. And do you know what’s at the bottom of the mountain?”

  Jack stared at her blankly. He had no idea what was down there. He’d come in by helicopter, thanks to his buddy ‘Spider’ and his rescue chopper.

  “The pulp and paper mill. That giant monstrosity of a place was taken over by some foreign investment group a year ago and they use a hell of a lot of water in that plant.”

  Rosie paused and went to a pitcher on the counter and filled a glass with water. She took a long draw, thirsty from her morning of storytelling.

  “Without water, there’s no pulp mill. But their rights were only filed in 2001. So anyone with rights filed before theirs and higher up the mountain can divert or stop the flow of water anytime they like and there’s not a damned thing those bastards down there can do about it.” She smiled at the idea of someone getting one over on the big corporation that had done nothing for the local community other than pollute it.

  “OK, I get all that. But how does them blowing up the spring help them? Doesn’t that mean that eventually they run out of water, putting them out of business?”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But here’s the thing about water rights in these parts, even if you’ve got the oldest filed claim, if you don’t actually use the water to which you have the rights, then the law considers you’ve abandoned your rights. You lose them, in other words.”

  He still didn’t get it.

  “If someone blows up and collapses your well and the water can’t get out. If it can’t get out, then you can’t use it. If you can’t use it…”

  Rosie let it hang like that and waited. Jack’s eyes glimmered with understanding. He finally got it. The pulp and paper mill owners would then have the most recently filed rights to the water.

  “So they want superior water rights so there’s no risk of anyone usurping them. Is that worth trying to kill people for?”

  “We’re talking big business here. There’s no telling what they’ll do to protect their investment. Maybe they don’t even know what’s going on. They might have paid someone to deal with the problem anyway they see fit. They just want results, right? They don’t want to get their hands dirty, do they?”

  Suddenly, Jack’s mind turned to the black truck Cassie had seen leaving her property. The hired guns. The guys who did get their hands dirty. And Cassie was up there all alone and unprotected. She had no idea what was going on or what was at stake.

  He thanked Rosie for her help and for the coffee before scrambling to the door of the diner.

  He hoped he wasn’t too late.

  Chapter 17

  Hoping to keep her mind off Jack, Cassie set about tidying up the cabin and getting things in some kind of order. Slowly, one small area at a time it looked less like a hurricane had blown through and more like her grandma’s old home.

  It wasn’t working. Her thoughts kept returning to the way her skin burned when he touched her. How her legs trembled and lost the ability to hold her upright when he kissed her neck and blew softly in her ear. The way a liquid heat rose between her legs and the exquisite tightening in her belly when his magnificently hard cock brushed against her when he held her close. Then there was the way he made here come. Mind blowing orgasms that curled her toes and left her spent and glowing with satisfaction.

  She felt a stirring in her belly at the very thought of how he pleasured her, selflessly and with an eagerness she’d never before encountered. How dare he do that to her. Make her feel that way, make her reach heights of pleasure beyond her wildest dreams, then snatch it away, so she could never experience anything like it ever again. How did she even let him close enough to do that to her? The whole ‘keep them at bay’ with a frosty demeanor needed more work. He snuck through her defenses.

  Bastard!

  As she swept the dusty floor, she noticed swirls of dust rising from the floor in one corner of the room. The window was closed, so the current of air had to be coming from somewhere else. Curious, she got down on her hands and knees to examine the floor, sweeping a section of it with a cleaning cloth tucked in her pocket.

  A small section of floorboard, set right into the corner, had been cut to form a small hatch. She hadn’t noticed it before because a potted plant had been set atop the hatch, obscuring it. The plant had long since died of neglect, so she’d tossed it out on a growing pile of rubbish during her manic ‘post Jack’ clean-up frenzy.

  There seemed to be no way of opening the trapdoor, though. The craftsmanship was of such a high standard that the gap around the edges was perfectly straight and so narrow that she couldn’t even gain purchase with her finger nails. It simply wouldn’t open. The more she tried the more her curiosity grew. Why would her grandma have a hidden compartment in her cabin like something out of an Indiana Jones movie? It made no sense.

  Finally, her patience, which she had little of at the best of times, ran out. She grabbed a knife from one of the kitchen drawers and began digging at the edges of the hidden opening. Eventually, her efforts began to pay off and little by little the edges of the small trapdoor loosened. With a few more sturdy gouges with the knife the wooden lid to the opening below lifted enough that she could get her fingers under it and lift it away.

  At first she was disappointed. Part of her hoped that something so well concealed and so difficult to open would contain something glamorous and shiny. Instead, it contained what appeared to be an old metal strong box, covered in dirt and dust. She tried to pull the box from its secret bolt hole, but it was too heavy to lift all the way to the floor level.

  Taking the cloth she used earlier, Cassie carefully cleared years of accumulated debris from the top of the box, blowing away the final remnants of dust. She was now looking at a civil war era safe or strong box replete with two solid steel hasps, securely fastened by two ancient and extremely robust padlocks. She’d seen something like this once on History channel, so she knew exactly what she’d found. With no way to remove it from the floor and no keys to open it, the puzzle would remain unsolved for the moment. Her imagination ran wild from a civil war gold shipment to priceless confederate banknotes in pristine condition. She itched to unlock the secrets the old safe held.

  So immersed in the mystery was she that the sound of the approaching vehicle almost escaped her attention. Almost.

  Hurriedly, she slid the panel back in place and did her best to swish the dirt on the floor over it. Her butchery with the butter knife wasn’t going to fool anyone for long, but she hoped nobody would be getting close enough to see the damaged floor, anyway.

  She was wrong.

  Chapter 18

  Jack hadn’t even realized that he’d been holding his breath until he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her car still parked out front of the cabin. It had been an anxious drive from Rosie’s to Cassie’s cabin and he drove as fast as he dared on the treacherous mountain roads. He needn’t have worried. She was still at home and safe. He was relieved beyond words.

  As he approached the door, his sense that something was off began to surface. The front door was ajar and he sensed incongruous odors. Tobacco. Whiskey. Sweat. Nothing good could come out of that combination.

  Drawing his Glock, he shouldered the door all the way open and entered the cabin, gun up and sweeping all four corners.

  The place was completely deserted. Not good. Not good at all.

  Trying not to get ahead of himself, he began to search the room for more than just intruders. He looked for clues. The good news was that there was no blood. She h
adn’t been harmed. At least not here in the cabin.

  A section of floorboard had been pried from the corner of the room. He stepped over to it and looked into the void under the floor. It was empty. Nothing but dirt and the gnarled fingers of tree roots that had sought moisture from the soil under the house.

  Something had been in there, though. There was a smooth, rectangular imprint in the dirt at the bottom of the hole. Fresh, moist dirt. Whatever had been there had been removed recently.

  Holstering his weapon, Jack weighed his options as he thought through the likely scenario. Someone had been there very recently and taken something from under the floor of the cabin. Cassie’s car was still there, but Cassie wasn’t, so someone had taken her from the cabin. He assumed it was against her will. He took a moment to survey the parade of footprints in the dirt leading to the cabin. It looked like he was dealing with at least three hostiles that needed to be tracked and dealt with. But there could be more, he had no way of knowing for sure.

  He didn’t care how many there were. He was going after them and he wouldn’t stop until they had been neutralized and Cassie returned to her home, safe and under his protection. That was his mission.

  With a purposeful and determined stride, Jack walked to his patrol car and made a radio call. He was going to need backup. Regardless of how many there were or where they had taken Cassie, he couldn’t deal with them and get away without some help.

  Holstering his weapon Jack looked down the track he’d just taken to Cassie’s cabin. He hadn’t noticed them before but now they stood out like a beacon. Tire tracks. Tire tracks from a pickup truck. This was his only lead.

  Jack followed the tire tracks until they were swallowed up by a concrete path that branched off the main dirt track. He knew where that path led. He knew in his gut that that’s where they’d taken Cassie.

  He couldn’t afford to be wrong. Cassie’s life might depend on it. Skidding to a stop, Jarrad backed his car into the forest where he hoped it would remain undetected while he made the rest of the journey on foot.

  He needed to hurry.

  She was counting on him.

  Chapter 19

  By the time they removed the fetid, filthy sack from her head, Cassie already had much of the fight taken out of her. She’d struggled with all her might from the time they grabbed her until they offloaded her from the back of the truck, trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey. She had nothing left.

  That didn’t mean she’d given up. The feisty shine in her eyes when they removed the hood should have told them that, although they were too stupid to recognize it.

  There were three of them. Dirty roughnecks all of them with decayed teeth, grimy clothes and a reek of body odor that made her want to gag. One of them had a thinning comb over and a huge boil adorning his already ugly face. With a large hoop earring in each ear, he almost looked like a pirate, but the hoops were too big and they made him look more like a down and out cross dresser.

  Loser.

  The second one was younger, his hair thicker but dirtier and he still had a good dose of acne, as if the rotting, crooked teeth weren’t enough. Cassie just about felt sorry for him. But not sorry enough.

  The third kidnapper had a short, almost nonexistent neck and a head shaped like a bullet. He was clearly the leader, the alpha dog by the way the other two deferred to him almost constantly. He was the one she was going to have to take out first. Hard and fast. If she could do that, there was a good chance the remaining two would be manageable, although she didn’t like the two against one odds, even if they were underlings.

  In the middle of the dirty, disused warehouse sat the old strong box. The three of them had managed to lift it from the hole. It was the central feature of the otherwise empty room, sitting under a bright halogen lamp. Scratched and marked, but still tightly closed. The padlocks showed no sign of yielding.

  They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. Cassie smiled at the frustration they must be feeling. Their impotent efforts to open an old strong box must have really grated on these tough guys who looked like they usually got what they wanted.

  Bullet head gave Cassie a back hander across the face, drawing a small worm of blood from her nose.

  “Think this is funny do ya?” he shouted down at her then raised his hand again. “Not so funny now, is it?” Then he thought better of it. The boss had told him to keep her in good condition in case they still needed her.

  Cassie flinched, but tried to hold firm, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of cowering to his violence.

  Her hands were tied behind her back and her ankles were also restrained. She didn’t like her chances of breaking free of her restraints. She was a strong girl, but not that strong. She was going to have to play it out with these losers a while longer until an opportunity presented itself.

  “Where’s the key?” Bullet Head screamed at her, his face inches from hers, showering her with angry droplets of spittle.

  Cassie spat and shook her head in a vain attempt to rid herself of his saliva.

  “Go fuck yourself in the ear!” she yelled defiantly.

  “Well, well. A fiery one. Just how I like it. Bet a fiesty girl like you could give a guy like me one hell of a ride, hey?” He cackled and made a disgusting snorting sound. “You know what they call me?”

  “Bullet Head?” she retorted.

  His pock marked face flashed crimson with fury. “Bitch!” he spat at her. He wanted to slap her but knew he shouldn’t. The boss wasn’t a tolerant man and he knew what happened to the last one of their gang who stepped out of line. He grimaced at the thought. Who knew bolt cutters could do that much damage to the human body.

  “I’ll show you a thing or two when this is over and we don’t need you or your wise ass mouth anymore.”

  Bolt cutters. That was it.

  Bullet head’s face lit up like he’d actually just had an idea. An evil smirk crossed his lips as he left the warehouse, walking fast like he was on a mission.

  When he returned, he carried with him the largest pair of bolt cutters Cassie had ever seen. He was still smiling.

  This can’t be good. She was out of options and out of time and had no clear means of breaking free or escaping.

  “They call me Don Juan. Because I love the ladeez. You’re just my type and we’re gonna have us some fun when this business is done.” He bent down to remove her shoes. “Which little piggy is gonna get chopped off and sent to market first?” An evil laugh rose from his throat.

  Cassie kicked him with all her might, using the full force of both legs to plant her feet square in Bullet Heads nose. With a satisfying crunch of breaking cartilage, he fell back on his ass and flapped around on the floor like a freshly caught fish. Screaming and spraying blood all over the floor.

  While the other two looked on helplessly in shock or maybe fear, Cassie didn’t much care which, she scooped up the heavy and cumbersome bolt cutters and snapped through the wire securing her ankles. She was then able to wriggle one leg at a time up so that she could thread them through her bound wrists. Eventually, she worked her hands from her back to her front. Holding the bolt cutters open with her feet, she managed to feed the hard plastic between the jaws of the tool and saw it against the blade. Finally, they broke apart, leaving her wrists unbound.

  She rubbed circulation into her swollen wrists as she took stock of the situation. The other two had recovered their wits by now and posed a serious threat as they approached her from opposite sides. They were trying to divide her attention and corner her. It was working, too.

  Then the shit hit the fan.

  Chapter 20

  The crash was deafening. An entire section of timber warehouse wall disintegrated in a hail of splintered wood and a cloud of dirt and dust. Like a bomb had gone off. But it wasn’t a bomb.

  It was Jarrad.

  And he looked positively menacing. He quickly took stock of the situation, including the downed kidnapper. Bullet Head made himself scarce as soon
as the wall exploded. He wasn’t getting paid enough for this shit. He crawled away in the hope of remaining hidden long enough to escape.

  The other stood frightened and defenseless, his gun leaning against the wall on the other side of the warehouse. Who needs guns to guard a zip tied girl, anyway? He was regretting that train of logic and looking around frantically for the fastest escape route. There was only one way out. The problem was that the Jarrad was between him and the escape route, gun drawn.

  Eyes wide with fear, hoping Bullet Head might save his ass he skulked behind the prisoner and used her as a human shield, knowing the sheriff wouldn’t risk shooting her.

  Jarrad sprinted forward with speed and agility that belied his sheer bulk, taking him by surprise. Before she knew what was happening, Cassie was scooped up in his powerful yet surprisingly gentle arms then she was set down to one side, leaving him face to face with pimple face.

  Cassie was stunned and bewildered at the ferocity of Jarrad’s breach of the warehouse. She stepped back involuntarily. That’s when she backed into something unmistakable.

  The cold steel of a gun barrel. A very big gun barrel.

  Chapter 21

  “That’s enough of that heroic display, Sheriff Raven. No need to scare my boys any more than you already have,” the man spoke calmly and without any sign of fear, despite the almost dangerous proximity of an armed sheriff.

  “Before you do anything rash, Mr. Raven,” the man held the gun aloft, “I’m holding a Benelli M4. A Super 90 to be exact. Military spec. I’m holding enough firepower in my hands to stop a man twice your size, so don’t even think about it. I’m surprised a man with your condition managed to gain the upper hand, even against these local losers. Beggars can’t be choosers up in the mountains when it comes to hired guns.”