Redeeming Her Mountain Man: Bear's Tooth Mountain Men, #3

By Cameron Hart

All I want is to live a quiet life in my cabin. I have a solid job, a sister who loves me, and a best friend I would do anything for. I'm just trying to be a better man, get back the years I lost when I was being stupid and selfish. 

 

But then I found my little pixie, all curled up in the back of a truck in my shop. Her hood fell back, revealing indigo eyes, lily-white skin, and hair as black as midnight. She was other-worldly. Fey and feral. Fierce and fragile. 

 

I'll never forget looking into her impossibly beautiful eyes and seeing the absolute terror there. I may have wanted a quiet life of penance, but now I know my purpose is to protect her. I hope she's ready for a mountain man like me. My pixie just might be my redemption.

 

What to expect from a Cameron Hart book: Curvy heroines, protective alphas, lots of heat, and plenty of sweet. No cheating, safe, guaranteed HEA!

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cameron Hart
• Release date: Nov 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215505304

Cameron Hart

Hello. I'm Cameron Hart, and I write sweet steamy romances. I’m a USA Today Bestselling author with over forty books available. I write romance with lots of heat, plenty of sweet, and just enough drama to keep things interesting. I graduated from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop in 2012 with a degree in creative writing. When I’m not working on my next book, I can be found reading, crocheting, doing yoga, and chasing around my grumpy cats. **What to expect from a Cameron Hart book: Lots of heat, plenty of sweet, and just enough drama to keep things interesting. No cheating, safe, guaranteed HEA!**

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One look at the stunning waitress carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, and I’m a goner. I wasn’t looking for a sweet little thing with auburn hair and more baggage than I can fit on the back of my bike, but there’s no going back now. She’s mine. I’ll prove to her I’m more than capable of handling her past and making her feel safe again.

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Chapter 1

Gunnar

Are you still glad you offered to take over the shop while Drake is gone? my best friend, Ryker, asks. He’s chuckling and shaking his head at me and the stacks of paper on my desk.

I don't know what you're talking about. I love paperwork. Live and breathe the stuff. That's why I wanted to be a mechanic, after all, I say sarcastically.

Drake, the owner of the one and only garage in our tiny mountain town of Bear’s Tooth, Montana, is out traveling the world with his newly retired parents. He left me in charge for an entire year. At the time, I was excited about the opportunity. Two months in, and I’m starting to have my doubts.

There’s just so much...paperwork. Budgeting, ordering parts, signing off on timecards, managing the weekly schedules of the guys who work here; it’s a lot. I had no idea Drake did all of this behind the scenes work himself. Don’t most people have a secretary or office admin person for stuff like that?

Ryker’s rumbling laugh pulls me from my thoughts. Can I help you with anything? This will be like the third night you’ve stayed late to finish up.

No, man. You better get home to Brooklyn. She hates when I keep you late. I don’t want to be the cause of a fight.

Well, there is one advantage to getting in a fight with Brooklyn, Ryker says, raising an eyebrow.

I wait for him to continue.

The makeup se—

"Oh my fucking god, do not talk about having sex with my sister!" I yell, throwing my pen at him.

Ryker cracks up and I throw more things at him. He lifts his hands in surrender as he backs out of the door and spins on his heel out of the shop. I’m truly happy for my little sister, Brooklyn, and Ryker. I’ll admit, I was pissed off at first, but I’ve seen them together now for six months. They are good for each other in a sickeningly sweet way.

I, on the other hand, have not been so lucky in my love life as of late. Or, really, ever. I slept around when I was younger, no relationships to speak of. Then, my parents died unexpectedly in a car accident when I was twenty-one. Suddenly, I was responsible for my fifteen-year-old sister. I didn’t handle any of that very well. The grief, the responsibility...it was too much.

I went down a dark path for a long time. Drugs, alcohol, you name it. I was a selfish son of a bitch who abandoned the only family I had left. The first and last relationship I was in ended over two years ago. The chick had been cheating on me for six out of the eight months we were together. Finding that out sent me right back down to that dark place of addiction I had only recently dug my way out of.

My life is better now. I’ve been sober for the last year and a half. I’ve been keeping my head down, working hard, and trying to make up for those lost years. I want to be a better brother to Brooklyn, a better friend to Ryker, a better member of the community. I want to be a better man, the kind of man my parents would be proud of.

Something breaks me out of my reverie.

Shit, how have two hours gone by already?

Then I hear it again, a rustling coming from the bay where we keep the cars we’re working on. I silently make my way out of my office and look around the front desk and waiting area. It’s dark and quiet as I tiptoe my way towards the door to the bay. I hear the rustling again. It must be an animal or something that got caught inside when we shut the garage doors.

I’m about to flip on the lights when I hear a car door close. That’s no animal. It’s a person. A person trying to steal one of the cars.

Oh hell no. Not on my watch, punk.

I flip on the lights, swing the door open, and grab the first heavy tool I can find in case I need to incapacitate the thief. I’m expecting to see some shit head trying to hotwire one of the four cars we have in here at the moment, but I don’t see anything. 

I make my way over to the cars, winding my way around one and then another, peeking inside the windows to catch whoever is trying to fuck with my shop.

But I've got nothing. There's no one in any of the cars or trucks we have in here. I double-check, even opening the doors and peeking inside each car.

And then I hear it.

The tiniest little sneeze.

My head whips over to the 2015 Chevy Silverado truck. More specifically, the blue tarp in the bed of the truck that just shook ever so slightly. The car door sound must have been the tailgate closing.

Gotcha, I say under my breath.

I grip the large ratchet in my right hand. I don’t want to use it, but I will if I have to defend myself or the cars that are in my care. I’m not going to fuck up Drake’s shop. He’s been too good to me over the years. It’d kill me if he were disappointed in me.

My movements are slow and calculated as I make my way towards the truck. When I'm an arm's length away, I reach out and rip the tarp off whoever is hiding back there. I have no time to react before the person lunges forward and punches me in the throat, causing me to choke and stumble backward. This gives my assailant room to leap out of the truck bed.

It’s then I notice it’s a woman. Even in an oversized hoodie, I can tell she’s a tiny little thing. I grab her arm as she’s making her escape, trying to make sense of this whole situation. She tries to twist out of my grasp, the hood of her sweatshirt covering most of her face. I have a firm grip on her arm, but it’s not hard enough to bruise. I don’t want to hurt her; I just want to ask her what the hell she’s doing sneaking into the shop this late at night.

When I don’t let go, she comes at me again in full force. She kicks at my kneecap and grinds the heel of her other foot down on my big toe. It’s surprisingly painful, but I don’t let go. The little wildcat claws my chest, which gives me wicked ideas of getting her into my bed so she can leave her marks all over me.

What the fuck? That’s totally inappropriate. I can’t remember the last time I was with someone. Haven’t even thought about it, but now is the time my libido decides to step in?

I don’t get to dwell on that for long. The woman tries to headbutt me, but I have to be a foot taller than her, so she just ends up smacking her head against my chest.

I let go of my grip on her bicep just long enough to wrap my arms around her, pinning her arms down so I can try to contain her movements. I think she’s hurting herself and her little fists more than she’s hurting me, though it’s clear she’s had some formal training when it comes to fighting.

Calm down, I just want to talk.

She doesn’t calm down. In fact, she starts thrashing in my arms and kicking her tiny feet against my shins. She hooks her leg behind my knee and smashes her heel down, causing my knee to buckle. I teeter off balance and I know we’re about to go down.

Without thinking, I move one hand out in front of me to brace our fall, and the other hand cups her head and presses it into my chest in an attempt to protect her from the impact. It all happens in less than a second, and then I have her pinned beneath me.

Her hood falls back and all the air escapes my lungs. My heart stops and then throws itself against my ribcage trying to break free and join the beautiful creature I have underneath me.

She has indigo eyes, lily-white skin, and hair as black as midnight. She is otherworldly. Fey and feral. Fierce and fragile.

I trail my gaze over her lovely face, taking in her little upturned nose, her delicate cheekbones, her soft, pink lips. I look into her impossibly beautiful eyes again. My stomach drops seeing the absolute terror there. I swear I can feel the jagged edges of her soul puncturing my heart the longer I look at her.

You’re okay, I’m not gonna hurt you, I tell her, trying to make my voice as calm and non-threatening as possible.

Then it dawns on me that I might actually be hurting her, seeing as my huge body is currently crushing her into the cement ground. I lift myself off of her, praying I didn’t do any damage. As soon as my weight is lifted, she scrambles away. I quickly stand up the rest of the way and offer her my hand to help her up. She recoils as if I were going to strike her, and then bolts towards the back door.

I chase after her, but by the time I get to the door, she’s long gone. The back of the shop opens up into the woods, and it’s already dark outside. I stand outside