Hawk Valley Mountain Men Box Set

by Mazzy King

  The dryness in my voice seems to go over her head. “Exactly. You’ll have your pick.” She sounds pleased. “Maybe try that cleanse I told you about before.”

  I screw up my face. “You want me to do that weeklong liquid diet? For what?”

  “You know. To lose a few pounds before the wedding. There’s going to be a lot of rich men there, Stephanie. You want to look your best, don’t you?”

  My mom’s told me I should lose “a few pounds” over the course of my entire life.

  “Let’s go shopping together,” she urges. “For the dress and the cleanse ingredients. But please, Stephanie. I need you to attend the wedding.”

  In case you couldn’t tell, I have a fraught relationship with my mom. I love her—she’s my mother, even though she just can’t seem to accept me for me. I often think about the woman she was before she and my dad had money—resourceful, humble, easygoing. She’s been so busy playing “Keeping up with the Joneses” she’s forgotten who she used to be. I keep hoping I’ll see her again one day.

  “Fine,” I mutter. “I’ll go to the wedding.”

  “Thank you, honey.”

  “But I’m not doing a cleanse. You can forget that.”

  “Well,” she says mildly. “We can talk about that later. When I take you to the designer stores downtown to pick out a dress, you might change your tune.”

  “I need to hop in the shower, Mom. Talk to you later.”

  The call with my mom has dampened that glowy feeling I had this morning. My thoughts turn to Asher. What would he think about all this? I wonder if he’d even go with me. I picture him showing up in his flannel with his beard and his work boots. The look I picture on my mom’s face makes me smile.

  I hop out of the shower, quickly blow my hair dry enough so I won’t catch my death when I go outside, and change into the jeans and sweater I packed. However, it seems I forgot to pack socks.

  Asher won’t mind if I borrow a pair, right?

  And maybe that way, we’ll have to see each other again so I can return them.

  I don’t want it to be just one night. I want more nights with him…so many more. For the first time in a long time, the kind of safe, passionate, all-encompassing love I’ve always wanted seems to be within reach…and now I have to let it go?

  I head to the bureau in his bedroom and open the top drawer. Bingo. I grab a thick cream pair, and when I pull them out, I catch sight of something tucked underneath. It looks like a letter.

  Curious, I pull it out.

  Asher,

  I’m sorry to do this like this, but I couldn’t stay here another moment. I needed to leave, and I needed to do it now. Here’s your ring back to do whatever you want with. Keep it, sell it. It just doesn’t belong to me anymore. I know this has been a longtime coming, and I’m sorry you found out about Chad the way you did, but it’s a blessing in disguise. I have to go back to the city and live my life according to who I really am. I’m sorry to hurt you.

  Beth

  I suck in my breath. I can’t believe what I’ve just read, and moreover, I can’t understand why he’d hold onto something so hurtful to him.

  In disbelief, I read the letter three more times. What a selfish, awful bi—

  “I keep that as a reminder,” a low voice says from the doorway.

  I jump, looking up.

  Asher, dressed in fresh clothes, leans against the doorway. His face is a mask.

  My cheeks heat and I hasten to fold the letter and put it back. “I—I’m so sorry. That was so wrong of me. I went to borrow a pair of socks and I saw it. I just got curious.” I’m babbling, and it’s not helping. I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Asher. I had no right.”

  He holds up his hand, making a “no big deal” face.

  “What do you mean, you keep it as a reminder?” I ask cautiously.

  He studies me, his blue eyes sad and far away. “So I don’t forget who I really am, and the things I don’t want. The things that aren’t good for me.” He steps toward me. “When you were in the bathroom, I came in here to change my clothes. I heard you on the phone with your mother. The wedding. The…eligible bachelors.”

  “Asher,” I say quickly, shaking my head. “That was nothing. I know what you heard, but you don’t know my—”

  “I’m not mad,” he says mildly. “How can I be? You’re not—you’re not mine. It’s just that I realized…you don’t belong up here. You have a whole other life down there, in the city. You have rich parents and go to weddings at the country club. You can have your pick of doctors and lawyers and CEOs and stockbrokers. There’s no place for you up here in the mountains, in a small town with some guy who owns a hardware store and a log cabin. That’s my life. It’s not your life.”

  I shake my head. “That’s not who I am. Those are things my mom wants for me. Asher…I don’t know what’ll happen in the future, but I know I want you in it. Last night, for the first time in so long—maybe forever—you made me feel special. You made me feel the kind of passion I’ve always wanted. You made me feel safe. I don’t want to let that go.”

  He reaches out and takes my hands. “I just…for a moment there, last night with you in my arms, I got distracted. I got caught up thinking maybe we could have more than one night. But listening to your mom… I can’t hold you back from your life. And I can’t watch you walk out of mine. We’ve both had our hearts broken to pieces, and I think I can speak for us both when I say neither one of us wants to do that again.”

  “You’re scared,” I say, my voice shaking, “and I understand that. But you felt something last night, in here.” I jab his chest. “Just like I did. You felt the chance for something real, something deep and meaningful. And fear is making you back away from it now.”

  “I’m scared,” he admits quietly. “I’m scared of giving you my heart exactly like I want to and realizing when it’s too late I can’t give you all the things you need to make you happy. That we’re just too different. I’m a mountain man. And you’re—”

  I stare at him, hurt filling my heart and eyes. “I’m not just a city girl.”

  He stares at me for a long time, his face mirroring the pain I feel. “That’s exactly what the last one said.”

  8

  Asher

  One week later

  My buddy Clay Lowell glances over at me as we sit at the Hawk’s Nest bar. The bar’s run by our friend Forrest Thornton, who also serves as its bartender. It’s a good perk, because he lets me bring Sadie.

  “How you doing over there?” he asks. Sadie sprawls on the ground beneath our stools, her head propped on Clay’s boot. She’s probably had it with my moodiness the past couple days.

  I grunt at my beer, keeping my gaze on the football game playing on the screen over the bar.

  “That good, huh?”

  “What do you want from me, man?” I ask. “I let a woman I could love walk out of my life.”

  “Well, to be fair, you didn’t let her walk out,” he says, grabbing a handful of bar mix from the bowl between us. “You sort of forced her out.”

  I called Clay to take her to Hawk City while I made arrangements for her car to be towed there too. I didn’t want her to have to worry about anything, and I was happy to cover all the bills. I guess I thought it’d make me feel better about walking away from her.

  It didn’t.

  Show of hands—who’s shocked?

  “I did us both a favor,” I mutter.

  “No,” Clay says, shaking his head. “You didn’t. You let your past experience scare you off from a woman who could actually be great for you. She’s nice, Asher, and smart. She might even be funny when she’s not miserable, which she was the whole way back to the city. She was plenty polite but I could tell she didn’t want to talk more than she had to.”

  “And what happens when she realizes mountain life isn’t for her?”

  “That’s a big assumption on your part. Besides, who said you had to live here forever?” Clay says impatient
ly. “Maybe it’s time you go back to the city and remember the good things about it. Hell, maybe you find the right woman and you split your time between here and there. Why’s she got to be the one possibly giving up a career and moving up here?”

  “She doesn’t,” I argue. “I never said that. It’s just that with Beth, she told me she’d be happy living here, and then—”

  “To hell with Beth,” Clay says, waving a hand. Sadie releases a low growl at the sound of her name, like she’s in agreement with Clay. “She’s long gone, living her best life or whatever the kids say these days. What about Stephanie? She deserves a chance, Asher.” He jabs me in the chest. “Just like you.”

  I smack his hand away. “Listen, man, the past few days have sucked. I regret every second sending her away like that, but I did what I thought I had to do. Between me and her, we’ve both had a number done on our hearts by people who were supposed to care about us, and I thought I was saving us heartbreak.”

  “Instead you created more of it,” Clay says bluntly.

  “Even if I wanted to go to her—”

  “Which you obviously do.”

  “—she wouldn’t even speak to me. Why should she?”

  Clay leans toward me. “What I don’t know about women would fill up enough books to line this whole wall of booze. And I don’t have anyone in my life, so I’m far from an expert. But I’ll tell you what I do know—speaking for any woman has never been and never will be a good idea, Asher.”

  I hang my head in defeat, running two frustrated hands through my hair. “I’m all fucked up.”

  “Yeah, you are.” Clay smacks my shoulder as I glare at him. “But you don’t have to be. You need to let go of the past and embrace the future. You owe that to Stephanie, and you owe it to yourself.”

  My frustration gives way to defeat as I study my friend. “And tell me, O Wise One, how do I let go of the past and embrace the future?”

  “Why do I have to do all the work?” he exclaims. “Shit. I don’t even have my own girlfriend, let alone one I could’ve had but went emo on and broke up with before the relationship even started. If I was in your place, I’d be thinking about some seriously grand gestures to make.”

  A grand gesture. I made one before, but it hadn’t—

  No. No more. Let go of the past. Embrace the future.

  And my future is in Hawk City.

  Abruptly, I stand.

  Clay raises his brows. “Someplace to be?”

  I drain my beer, then turn for the door. “Damn right.”

  The ride to Hawk City, normally two hours, takes me two and a half with treacherous road conditions coming out of the mountains. It’s eight by the time I get to where I’m going, but I called ahead, and I know the party’s still underway.

  It’s kind of disturbing how easily a random person can get information about a wedding reception, but fortunately, I’m not interested in crashing the wedding for the booze and food.

  I just need to crash it to get the woman I love.

  If she’ll have you…

  There’s only one country club in Hawk City, and there’s only one wedding reception on its books for today. Before leaving Hawk Valley, I showered, shaved—a tiny bit—and put on something I haven’t worn in…shit. Years.

  A suit.

  When I walk inside, it’s pretty easy to find the room where the reception is, since it’s fairly large and there’s plenty of signage. The country club is predictably upscale, with a lot of Roman architecture influences in the columns, the arched doorways, and the crown molding. It’s nice, but it makes me feel seriously out of place, even in my suit and tie.

  Guests are dressed in cocktail attire, holding drinks as they mill around and mingle. On a raised platform at the back of the room, a small jazz band plays understated music. The bride and groom, still in their wedding finery, sway together on the dancefloor. Every so often, a soft chorus of tink-tinks sound from guests tapping knives on champagne glasses, and the newlywed couple grin and kiss.

  This isn’t my scene. I wouldn’t personally want a wedding like this. This was the kind of wedding Beth wanted to have. But…I sure would love to have the woman I love in my arms, smiling up at me the way the bride smiles up at her husband.

  As if the universe hears my thoughts, a crowd of people to my left part slightly, giving me a view to the bar, and…there she is.

  She wears a blush-pink dress that skims her bountiful, mouth-watering curves, and her long, dark hair is pinned up on one side and cascades down her back. She leans against the bar, absently running a finger around the rim of her champagne glass and looking bored to tears.

  Or maybe it’s the suited-and-booted, cleanshaven punk trying desperately to impress her with something as he stands way too close for my comfort that bores her.

  A flare of male possessiveness lights me up inside. I’m not normally some chest-beating caveman, but dammit, I made Stephanie mine. And I damn sure belong to her. Until she tells me to throw myself off the highest peak of Hawk Valley mountain, I refuse to let him or any other man stand in my way.

  I stride over, my gaze on her and only her.

  “…number of investments,” Wallstreet’s saying to her. “I believe in early retirement. I want to be able to spend my best years playing. And that means I’ll need a playmate.” He gives a little “heh-heh” chuckle.

  Stephanie doesn’t even crack a smile as she looks up at him. “Good luck with that.”

  Wallstreet scratches the back of his head. “I meant—I thought— Well, how do you feel about sailing?”

  “Honey, there you are,” I interrupt, sliding an arm around Stephanie’s waist.

  Her brown eyes go wide and shocked as she stares up at me. “Asher.”

  “I’m so sorry I’m late,” I say. I look at Wallstreet. “And you are?”

  “I’m, uh…” The guy glances at my arm tight around Stephanie’s waist, then back at me. I stare at him, unblinking. “I’m leaving.”

  I nod. “Good choice.”

  When he slinks away, Stephane wriggles out of my hold. “I don’t need your help in getting rid of men. In fact, it seems I don’t need to do anything but simply exist to get rid of men.”

  Ouch. That hurts, but it only hurts because I know she’s hurt, and she doesn’t deserve that. “It didn’t look like you were enjoying his attention. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fight your battle for you.”

  “I wasn’t enjoying him, but that’s beside the point.” She folds arms, her beautiful face set. “What the hell are you doing here, Asher?”

  Damn. Pure ice. I draw in a deep breath. “I came to…say a lot of things to you. I think.”

  She arches a brow. “Say a lot of things?”

  I swallow. “First, I need to apologize to you. I pushed my own shit onto you, and that’s not fair. I was a ball-less, spineless coward, and you deserve better.”

  “Tell me why you were such a ball-less, spineless coward.”

  I draw a deep breath. She’s not making this easy on me, but she doesn’t have to, and I don’t expect her to. It’s not her job. This is all on me. “You were right. About feeling a connection. More than just our physical connection, although that was…” I trail off, feeling warm. I tug at my collar. “I’ve never felt for someone what I feel for you, Stephanie, and that scares the ever-living shit out of me. You know as well as I know what heartbreak feels like. What feeling not good enough feels like, and I was terrified of reliving that all over again. I am terrified of reliving that. But at some point, as a wise friend of mine pointed out, I need to put that crap, every bit of it, behind me. Or else I’m going to be stuck in this place forever. And I don’t want to be here forever.”

  Her beautiful, heart-shaped face softens for a second. “Where do you want to be?”

  I reach for her hand cautiously, relieved when she lets me take it. “With you. That’s where I want to be.”

  Her throat moves as she swallows, and I so badly want to run my lips over i
t. Focus, man!

  “Why should I believe you? Why should I trust you? You aren’t the only one who’s been hurt, Asher. I have too. And I was willing to put my fear aside to try to trust again. To try to…”

  This time, I boldly lift a hand to brush my thumb over her cheek. “Try to what, Stephanie?”

  Her chin trembles slightly, and she looks away quickly, like she’s annoyed with herself.

  “Tell me,” I murmur. “Please.”

  “Try to…love again,” she says in a voice barely above a whisper.

  A burst of warmth ignites my chest. “Stephanie, look at me.”

  Slowly, she shifts her gaze to me.

  “Let me make it up to you,” I say. “Let me make things right. You’re special. So special to me. I don’t want to let you go.”

  “But you’re a mountain man,” she says, a teasing note in her voice as she places a light hand on my chest. “And I’m a city girl.”

  I smile and place my hand over hers. “Maybe…there’s a compromise there. Maybe sometimes I could be the city boy, and you could be the mountain woman. I don’t want to choose, and I don’t want you to choose, either.”

  “We’re two hours apart,” she adds.

  “I have a reliable truck,” I tell her. “And…well, you had a car.”

  Stephanie gives me a lopsided smile. “Got a new one.” She bites her lip. “What about the store?”

  “It’s probably about time I hired some help. It’ll always be mine.” I lower my gaze to her plump lips. “Anything else?”

  She shakes her head slowly. “Fresh out of excuses.”

  “Praise Jesus,” I mutter.

  She leans up on tiptoe and hovers her mouth a breath away from mine. “Can I kiss you now?”

  “You never have to ask,” I say, and tug her to me the rest of the way.

  It’s easy to forget where I am or that I’m even in public with Stephanie in my arms. I kiss her deeply as her fingers grip the lapels of my jacket until she pulls back, just as our tongues have started to get reacquainted.