by Mazzy King
Hawk Valley Mountain Men
The Full 5-Book Collection
Mazzy King
MZK Publishing
Copyright © 2020 by Mazzy King
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover by RebecaCovers.
Proofread by Jenny Hanson.
Contents
1 | ASHER
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue
2 | CLAY
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue
3 | FORREST
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue
4 | LOCH
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue
5 | STONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Epilogue
The Hawk Valley Mountain Men Epilogues
1 | Asher & Stephanie
2 | Clay & Savannah
3 | Forrest & Leila
4 | Loch & Ava
5 | Stone & Evelyn
About the Author
Other Series By Mazzy King
1 | ASHER
1
Stephanie Ramirez
“So,” my mother’s voice cuts into my ear, “are you coming to the wedding next weekend?”
I sigh, keeping my gaze on the road ahead of me and both hands firmly on the wheel. My mom has impeccable timing when it comes to calling me—the moment she chose today is while I’m trying to navigate my Honda SUV through the early stages of a snowstorm to get to the log cabin I’m staying in for a long, peaceful weekend in the mountains away from busy Hawk City behind me.
“I don’t know, Mom. It’s not really my scene.” Her second cousin’s daughter or something is getting married at the hoity-toity country club in the city. I won’t call my mom a snob, but her side of the family tends to look down on others who don’t share their same lifestyle, and that includes schoolteachers.
“What do you mean, it’s not your scene? This is family. You should be there for your family.”
“I hardly know Chrystal,” I protest, glancing at the GPS on the built-in screen in the dashboard. I make the right turn it tells me to. “I’ve met her, like, three times in my life. And I certainly have no idea about the guy she’s marrying.”
“She’ll be disappointed if you don’t come.”
“Mom, she doesn’t even know who I am,” I say flatly. “Besides, the country club isn’t my favorite place to be, anyway.”
“You know your father and I have been proud members for years,” Mom replies. “Your presence there is important. Just stop giving me a hard time and come, Stephanie. You can bring Brent.”
A flash of anger blazes through me at the mention of that name. “You know Brent and I broke up six months ago.” It was only the worst several months of my life—not counting the three miserable years I spent with him trying to get him to love me, convinced if I held on just a little longer he would come to appreciate me—but, nah, Mom, don’t sweat it.
“Then bring someone else. I don’t care who. Don’t make me look bad, Stephanie.”
My mom’s biggest fear in life is “looking bad.” She and my dad didn’t have shit when they got married thirty-five years ago. Eventually, he got a great job as a business analyst about fifteen years ago with a fledgling company and made partner when I was in undergrad. As a way to stick it in the faces of the family members who gave her a hard time for being “poor” before, my mom insisted on joining the country club. I’m happy they’re doing well, but my mom has turned into one of the most pretentious people I know.
“…bring…look…look good. Just…okay?”
“Mom, I’m driving,” I tell her, unsure if she can hear me. “I’ll call you later.” I hang up before she can say anything else.
For a long few moments, I focus hard on the road. Up in the mountains, predictably, the weather is even worse. My cell phone’s signal fades in and out as I guide my Honda higher into the mountains. My confidence in taking this trip by myself, however, went offline about an hour ago.
Fat, wet flakes smack the windshield and I crank the wipers up to the next speed, fearing they’re going to fly off my car. The snow started thirty minutes ago. I was supposed to have been tucked into my friend Lisa’s parents’ cabin by then in a cozy sweater in front of the fireplace with a glass of wine in hand, but one wrong turn became four, and now it’s dark and the forecasted storm—that was supposed to be the backdrop for my long weekend of solitude and confidence-building—is upon me, the small town of Hawk Valley, and the mountains.
“Please just let me get there,” I whisper into the repetitive squeal of the windshield wiper blades and the low roar of the SUV’s heater, which is on full blast to ensure the snow melts on the windshield on contact. “If I can just get there, everything’ll be fine.”
Oh, really? a sarcastic voice in my head replies. Just like everything was fine after Brent tried to control your life, made you feel like you were helpless without him, and then wound up cheating on you for the last eight months?
“Shut up,” I mutter. I can be a real asshole to myself sometimes. Admittedly, too much. I’m hard on myself, but the breakup with my ex has made things even worse. He’s been out of my life for the past six months but rebuilding my life and my heart in the aftermath has been so much harder. It’s not that I miss him—I sure as hell don’t. At least, not anymore. But when someone convinces you you’re less than nothing without them in your life dictating every step, every decision, and bending you to their will when you’re not looking, the damage is devastating and hits harder than you really know in the moment.
The past six months of getting over everything have been one long, rickety ride to healing where every so often I find a new problem with the raggedy cart leading me along—a broken axel here, a rusty spoke there, and a huge hole in the bottom that’s steadily been spilling all the supplies I need to stay alive.
Lisa and I made these plans to take a long best-friends weekend here. Her well-to-do folks winter in Florida, and their cabin stands idle most of the year except Christmas, when their whole family gathers. Lisa invited me, said we’d watch our favorite non-romantic movies, drink as much wine as we could stand, and eat our weight in charcuterie. She’s a therapist, so I knew an unofficial, off-the-books session was going to be on the agenda for me as well. I despise opening up and talking about my emotions—probably because Brent criticized me for having any for basically the entire duration of our relationship and made me feel as though they were a nuisance to him—but…growth! Confidence! Change!
My tire hits a slick patch on the winding mountain road and skids a little, even though I’m craw
ling along. There are no other cars in sight, but the snowfall is so heavy I doubt I would have been able to see another vehicle, anyway. Somehow my death grip on the wheel tightens even more as I quickly correct the car, and my heart pounds hard in my ears. What am I doing?
I passed through the town of Hawk Valley right before the snow started. I told myself I could get to the cabin in time. But now I think I’m hopelessly lost.
Should I just pull over? I slow the car to a stop and gnaw my lip. I try to think of the right thing to do, but all I can hear is the awful squelch-squelch of the windshield wipers and get lost in the hypnotizing rhythm.
“Snap out of it!” I say sharply out loud. I rest my forehead on the wheel, trying not to panic and failing.
Lisa cancelled on me this afternoon. Her young son came down with the flu at school, and her husband is on the other side of the world for business. “You should still go,” she said firmly. “Enjoy the cabin all to yourself this weekend. It’s so peaceful and still. I made sure to stock the fridge, so there’s plenty of food to cook or heat.”
I got so lost in a fantasy of taking a hot bubble bath in the huge Jacuzzi tub in the master bath with a glass of wine that I agreed to go without her. Why shouldn’t I? I have a long weekend due to a day off at the public school where I teach fifth grade literature. I couldn’t do much outside, but a cozy, relaxing weekend was just what I needed.
It would just be a little snow, I told myself that afternoon when I jauntily packed the car. What could go wrong?
I’ve come too far to go back now. I’m getting low on gas and—like an idiot—I didn’t bring any real food with me. I got coffee and a pastry before hitting the road, and that was it. The map on my cell phone tells me I only have a couple more miles to go until I reach the cabin, where a stocked fridge awaits me.
I can do this. I have to do this.
I creep forward, a new flood of determination coursing through me.
Brent would have laughed at me and told me there was no way I was intelligent or resourceful enough to figure out how to get there on my own. “You’re just going to screw this up,” he’d say with scorn. No, wait. Actually, he would have forbidden me to go in the first place. He and Lisa never got along well anyway, and he would have blown up at me for even suggesting a thing like this. I got so used to asking his permission for every little thing.
Thinking of it now makes me want to cry with shame.
Get angry, my inner voice tells me.
“Fuck you, Brent!” I scream into the car, then tap the gas pedal. I’ll never be that woman ever again, and now’s the time to prove it.
I tap the pedal with a little too much rage, and this time, all of my tires hit all of the slick patches covering the road. I turn the wheel, then turn it again, then completely lose control.
The last thing I see is my headlights illuminating a large tree right before I plow into it.
2
Asher Hillsong
“Here you go, Mrs. Morris,” I say, handing the older woman her change. “Need some help with that?”
She hesitates, pursing her lips as she sizes up the new ladder she’s just bought. Her dark brown hair is streaked with gray, and her dark eyes are lined with crow’s feet, but those are the only indications of her age. She’s as strong as someone years younger, and she’s stubborn as hell. Accepting my assistance with anything is not a simple thing.
“Getting pretty slick out there,” I add, nodding toward the window. My brindle pit bull mix, Sadie, whines in agreement as she paces back and forth in front of my hardware store’s window. “If anyone’s gonna take a spill putting that ladder in the back of your truck, I’d much rather it be me.”
“Afraid I’ll sue you, Asher?” Mrs. Morris says, lifting an amused brow.
“You’ll take me for everything I have, plus my shirt and pants,” I reply, lifting my hands.
She eyes me. “I’m a married woman, Asher. Much as any woman in this town would love to relieve you of your shirt and pants, I’d rather you kept them.”
I release a hearty chuckle. Mrs. Morris is a no-nonsense type of woman, but she’s got a little wicked streak that makes an appearance every now and then. She’s also one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. When my ex-fiancée decided the small-town mountain life wasn’t for her after I gave her the ring and after she found herself a city boy she much preferred to me, Mrs. Morris and her husband, as well as several other people in town, quietly offered their support and caring in subtle, non-intrusive ways. Mrs. Morris would often show up at the store several times a week with “a spare casserole” she “needed” me to take off her hands. Mr. Morris would pop up on Friday evenings with a six-pack of the excellent lager he makes to “set me up good” for the weekend. Dog biscuits and toys for Sadie would appear on the checkout counter inside the store. When I came back to church after needing almost a year of solitude to myself, the congregation welcomed me back in with open arms like I’d never left. I’m not an overly religious man, but there’s something about being in the same space with a whole bunch of people full of love and kindness to help heal a man’s broken heart.
That, and the beauty of the mountains.
I spent my summers here in Hawk Valley as a kid, and despite going away for college and working in the city, I never forgot the call of the wind in the range, the fresh, clean air way up high, or the feeling of peace and contentment that comes from standing on top of a ridge looking down at the town, at nature, at the beauty of creation. The hardware store was my grandfather’s, and he worked it until the month before his death. The cancer took him swiftly. My parents have been gone since I graduated college twelve years ago, and there was no one else Grandpa trusted to run the place, which is why he left it to me in his will. I left my six-figure corporate job, took my dog and the woman I thought I was going to marry, and moved to the mountains.
I loved it. Sadie loved it. Beth did not.
I bundle up quickly and carry the ladder out to Mrs. Morris’s truck. In the covered bed are a bunch of cloth bags full of groceries. I assume she, along with pretty much everyone else in town, hit up the market to load up on supplies to get ahead of the storm. Normally I don’t close until seven on weekdays, but as the first flakes start to fall, I realize shutting down an hour early would be the wisest decision.
As if reading my mind, Mrs. Morris turns to me with a sharp expression as I shut the back hatch of her truck bed. “You’d better get on home, Asher. That road up to your cabin is tricky on a good day, and this snow is fixing to come down hard all weekend.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say with an obedient nod. “Sadie and I’ll be locking up and heading out shortly.”
“Have you got enough food?”
“Just went grocery shopping yesterday.”
“You didn’t buy all that junk, did you? You got vegetables?”
My lips twist. I’m thirty-four, in case you were wondering. Mrs. Morris seems to believe I’m forever a nineteen-year-old college student.
“I’ve got plenty of nutritious food, Mrs. Morris. I thought I’d whip up a big batch of your beef stew and cornbread, actually.”
She gives me a terse nod. “I was going to suggest it myself. Something nice and hot to fill you, and you can eat on it for damn near a week. Freezes well too.” She pats my cheek. “Well, get on home, then. Don’t worry about the store. Everyone’s expecting it to be closed all weekend for the weather.”
I step back and wave as she starts off in her truck. I did a lot of business over the past couple of days. People stocked up on shovels and snowblowers and ice melt and gloves. Bad weather always tends to bring in lots of sales. Plus, I’ve basically got the weekend off, which I can’t complain about.
I whistle to Sadie where she’s frolicking in a mound of snow down the street as I step back inside the store. “C’mon, girl. Let’s go home and have some stew.”
She gives me an excited yelp and tears down the street toward me. I grin. She’s the light of my life
, and I should’ve known when Beth asked me to keep Sadie in a kennel right before we split we were doomed. Actually, I should’ve known from the first moment they met we were doomed. Sadie is the friendliest girl in the world, but with Beth, she slunk around like she’d been kicked and always kept her distance whenever Beth was around. But I was too blinded by “love” to see the warnings my best friend was trying to give me. And ever since Beth and I called it quits, Sadie has blossomed.
I lock up the store, set the alarm, and Sadie and I exit out the back. My truck purrs to life and heat flows from the vents. Sadie leaps into the passenger seat and settles back, panting a big doggy smile. I put the belt across her and then myself, hit the wipers, and start off slowly.
“Getting bad fast,” I murmur, frowning out the windshield. The snow’s coming down in wild swirls, and it’s the heavy kind that suggests it’s going to stick around for a good, long while.
Sadie whines in agreement.
I take the road well under the speed limit. The truck has great brakes and four-wheel drive, and I keep it in tip-top condition. The road is already getting extremely slick. If I hadn’t already decided to close down the shop for the weekend, these roads would cement the decision for me.