A Bride For The Mountain Man

Calling out their names once again, he waited to see if they’d show. When they didn’t, Liam shoved his worry to the back burner and returned to his cabin.

He’d built it close to five years ago now, on a secluded plot of land that was situated on an equally secluded area of the mountain. He didn’t have neighbors. He had trees and streams, wildlife and tons of privacy.

Just as he liked it.

Inside, he shrugged off his coat and boots. If the two shepherds weren’t back by the time he was done unpacking his gear, he’d put on his layers of arctic wear and try to track them down. Difficult, maybe impossible, with the current state of the weather, but he would have to try. He wouldn’t be able to relax, otherwise.

Making quick work of the job, Liam hauled the equipment to his office at the back of the cabin, taking care to unpack and organize in his standard methodical fashion.

His rolls of exposed film were in airtight, labeled canisters, which he stacked in the refrigerator he kept in this room for just that purpose. A set of customized shelves sat against the back wall that held moisture-proof containers for his various cameras, along with those meant for other necessary items, such as lenses, straps and memory cards. The longest wall of the room held his desk, computers, monitors and an array of additional storage. Everything had a place.

Liam’s darkroom was attached to the office, but for the moment, he left that door closed. No reason to go in there until he was ready to begin developing his film, which wouldn’t be for another day or two.

With everything more or less put away, he took the stairs two at a time to his bedroom—the only room on the second floor—where he put on the layers of clothing and outerwear appropriate for the howling storm, which was turning into one hell of a blizzard.

Yeah, he had to go after his dogs.

Downstairs, he grabbed a flashlight before opening the front door. Then, having second thoughts, closed it against the torrential slam of wind and snow.

Max and Maggie’s favorite roaming grounds were in the dense cluster of trees directly behind the cabin. They’d go round and round, sniffing out squirrels or rabbits, roughhousing with each other and in warmer temperatures, cooling themselves off in the stream that twisted through the trees. He’d go that route first and hope he could outlast the storm long enough to find them and bring them home.

Exiting through the back door, Liam did his best to ignore the worry gnawing at his gut. This just wasn’t like them. Unless one of them had gotten hurt somehow, maybe a soft spot in the icy stream held one of them captive or...no. He wouldn’t assume worst-case scenario.

They were smart, agile dogs. Excitable and full of energy. Probably, they were happy to be home and, in their canine glee, were ignoring the cold and snow in favor of a frozen romp. Sounded good. Plausible even, to anyone who didn’t know Max and Maggie. Problem was, Liam did know them, and that sort of behavior in this type of weather didn’t ring true.

He’d find them. He had to. They were as much his family as Fiona and Cassie.

Chapter Two

Within minutes of slamming into a cluster of trees, Meredith realized she no longer heard the comforting hum of the car’s engine or felt the warm flow of heat blowing from the vents. She almost turned the key in the ignition to see if the engine would fire again, but had second thoughts. Better to first check out her surroundings and the car’s condition.

Shoving the now-deflated airbag off of her body, she unclasped her seat belt, opened the driver’s side door and stumbled to her feet. Wind-propelled snow slapped at her face, stinging her skin and making her eyes water. The early evening hung in complete darkness, without so much as a single star shining through to offer even the slimmest ray of light.

In her entire life, she had never felt so alone or unprepared.

She walked the perimeter of where she crashed. Since she couldn’t see more than a foot in front of her, she sniffed the air for signs of a fuel leak. Fortunately, if she could trust her nose, she didn’t smell any gas fumes. Assuming the car would start, would she be able to get it back on the road? Maybe. She’d have to be lucky, though. The path out would need to be fairly straightforward, and the car would have to power through the snowy, icy uphill terrain in reverse.

The wall of never-ending wind almost knocked her over, and she had to brace herself to keep standing, had to force her frozen legs to slog through the snow. Again, she was stunned by the saturating, painful depth of the cold. She swore her bones were shivering.

Reaching the back of the car, Meredith tried to gauge how far off the road she’d gone. She couldn’t tell, not from where she stood. But with so many trees, she couldn’t be too far in. Probably, in the light of day, with or without a storm, she’d be able to see the road from here. As it was, however, attempting to blindly maneuver the car seemed a very bad idea.

Okay, then. Her best course of action was huddling in the Accord for the night. So long as the engine would start, she’d have heat. She had plenty of dry clothes in her suitcase. Oh! She even had a bottle of water and a roll of butter rum–flavored Life Savers. Not the most enjoyable way to spend a night, but it could be worse. A lot worse.

She would be fine.

As she fought her way toward the driver’s side door, she suddenly recalled hearing of a woman who—a year or two ago—had died from carbon monoxide poisoning while waiting out a storm in her car. The tailpipes had become clogged with snow, cutting off oxygen. That poor woman had likely also thought she would be safe and sound in the shelter of her car.

Great. Yet another way that Meredith could die tonight.

She retreated again to check the tailpipes. For the moment, the snow wasn’t quite high enough to reach them, thank God. Though, at this rate, with the direction the wind was blowing, it wouldn’t take too much longer. Then what? She’d have to keep checking.

Satisfied that she’d be safe for the next little while, at least, she finally pushed her frozen, wet and shivering body into the driver’s seat. The dry, still somewhat warm interior, even without blowing heat, immediately offered a blessed reprieve. But she’d feel much better with running heat. So, inhaling a large, hopeful breath, she twisted the key in the ignition.

The engine did not rumble to life. Heck, it didn’t even squawk. Or whimper. It did nothing. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed as fervently as she knew how and tried again. Nope. Still nothing. Tears of frustration and fear filled her eyes, but she ignored them.

The good news, she supposed, was that she could cross off carbon monoxide poisoning from tonight’s worry list. But the possibility of freezing to death moved up to number one.

Grabbing her iPhone, Meredith pressed the Home button, hoping that between the crash and now, a miracle had somehow occurred and she’d have a signal. And...no to that, as well. She bit her lip hard to stop the fear from taking complete control and leaving her useless.

“Talk through this,” she said, finding comfort in the sound of her voice. “What are the options?” There weren’t many, so they were easy to count off. “I can stay here, inside the car, out of the storm. Or I can leave and try to find whatever shelter is attached to that light.”

Remaining in the car, shielded from the elements, felt the safer of the two options. She would even bet that was the recommended advice for such a situation. But she didn’t fool herself into thinking another motorist would fatefully come along the exact same path, realize she’d crashed, find her and rescue her or that Rachel would send out help—which, okay, she probably already had, but they wouldn’t begin to know where to look—or even that she could make it until morning if she hung tight. The hours between now and then seemed endless.

If the storm continued with this force, she could be stuck here for longer than overnight. It could be days. Her car could become buried, the brutal winds could cause a tree to fall, shattering her windshield or trapping her inside.

Or worse.

Beyond all those horrific possibilities, the idea of sitting here, merely waiting for the storm to pass and hoping that nothing dire would occur, did not resonate well. It left too much to chance. It took too much out of her control.

Of course, on the other hand, she really did not relish the thought of going back outside.

Leaving the security of the car, no matter how temporary, required her to fight through the storm, that awful cold, the wind and the mounting snow, with the hope of locating a true shelter. She could fall and hit her head or twist an ankle or become even more lost. Even if she escaped those disasters, she would have to be strong enough to keep moving for however long it took to get somewhere safe. Could she do it? Was she that strong?

With a firmness that surprised her, she came to a decision. Her gut insisted that staying in the car would prove to be a mistake, and really, what else could she trust in but her instincts?

She’d find that light, which had to be connected to a house. And it couldn’t be too far away for the glow, as faint as it was, to have made it through the thick, blinding haze of snow.

If she was wrong...no, she wasn’t wrong. She couldn’t be wrong.

In a flurry of adrenaline, Meredith climbed into the back seat and opened her suitcase. She needed dry clothes, layered, something to cover her face, ears and hands. She needed her hiking boots, which would offer a good deal more protection than her perfect-for-traveling, oh-so-cute clogs. And her coat, naturally. On the plus side, she had not packed light.

Sloughing off her wet jeans and sweater—quite the arduous process in the small constraints of the back seat—she put on a pair of leggings she’d planned on sleeping in, followed by one pair of jeans and then another. Over her head, she pulled on a T-shirt, a turtleneck sweater and finally, a long, roomy, extra-thick sweatshirt. Wet socks were replaced with two pairs of warm, dry socks, over which went her hiking boots. Along with her coat, she grabbed another turtleneck, a button-down flannel shirt and two additional pairs of socks.

Before leaving the car, she wrapped the turtleneck around her head and tied the sleeves under her chin. The flannel shirt, she folded and used as a scarf. She hung her purse diagonally over her neck and shoulder, slipped her hands into both pairs of socks and then on top of it all went her coat, which was a struggle of mega proportions to zip.

When all was said and done, she was hot, bulky and uncomfortable, but she thought she’d done a fairly decent job in protecting herself from the elements. Fingers crossed, anyway. As ready as she was going to get, she closed her eyes and breathed. Deeply.

“I will not die out there,” she whispered. Opening her eyes, she stepped once again into the icy maelstrom. “I will be strong. I will find the light, which will be attached to a warm and occupied house, and someday in the future this entire night will be nothing more than an awful, distant memory. A story I will tell over drinks.”

Right. A story and not the end of her life.

Hunching her shoulders against the wind, Meredith trudged away from the car, keeping her head angled downward and focusing on staying upright.

Her pace was slow, almost sluggish, due to the snow and the wind and the layers of clothing she wore weighing her down. While she had no actual sensation of time, it seemed to take forever to break through the trees and reach the road. So long, in fact, she had a moment of chilling fear that perhaps the car had spun again before the collision and she was walking in the exact wrong direction.

Relief centered in the pool of her stomach that this wasn’t the case. Shoving her hands in the pockets of her coat—the socks she’d used as mittens were already wet, leaving her with frozen fingers—she paused to get her bearings. Here, at least, there was zero doubt as to which route to take. Uphill, the way she’d been driving. She’d continue along until she saw that light again. That light would lead her through the storm to safe ground.

Okay. She could do this.

“I am woman, hear me roar,” she said into the wind. Silly, maybe, but the words gave her another bolt of strength, of courage. Of belief in herself. Whatever worked, right?

She started the trek, walking smack-dab in the middle of the road, using every muscle in her body to stay upright, all the while pretending that she didn’t notice how the cold was seeping through her multiple layers of clothing. Or how her thighs were burning from the exertion. Or how her heart pumped faster, harder, with every labored breath. She kept her gaze glued in the direction she’d seen the light, praying she’d see it again with every step.

So far, just unforgivable darkness.

Had she made a mistake in leaving the car? No. Don’t think like that. If she had made a mistake, there wasn’t a darn thing she could do about that now. What she had to do, all she could do, was keep moving. That was her only job, the only “rule” she needed to follow.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop,” she said.

Time melted into a black hole of nothingness. She could’ve been walking for five hours or five days...she no longer knew. For a good while, her mind remained clear and her focus unfettered by the still-worsening weather or the effect it was having on her body.

But when she realized that it seemed she had gone a farther distance uphill on foot than she had in her car, still with no sign of the glowing light, fear and desperation rode in and took control.

Tears that she’d held back rushed her eyes and clogged her throat. Her legs, frozen and unwieldy, gave in to the demands of the wind and buckled at the knees. She tried to catch herself but couldn’t.

Losing her balance, she toppled backward and landed in a heap in the thick, icy snow. She instantly went to stand, but between the weight of her clothes, the ferocious, sharp bite of the wind, the gales of stinging, slashing snow and the unexpected unresponsiveness of her numb limbs, her attempt was met with failure. As were the next three.

She breathed deeply, searched for and found an inner kernel of strength amidst the fear. Of course she could stand. She’d been able to stand for most of her life. It was second nature. It was easy.

She breathed in again, rolled to her knees and planted her hands deep into the snow, until she felt the ground and then, after counting to three, shoved herself up.

She didn’t waste time feeling relief or in congratulating herself. This was bad. Worse, even, than she’d let herself believe when she’d ventured from the Honda. Yes, she quite possibly had erred in judgment.

Now, her decision to tread through the storm instead of staying put, where she would have had protection from the wind and snow, felt ludicrous and shortsighted and...well, stupid. Because no, she still did not see that light.

She had been so sure, but could she have imagined it? Perhaps. Especially with her deep desire to locate shelter, yeah, it was possible.

Meredith stopped. Should she turn around and try to find the car? Did that even make sense? The return trip was sure to be easier, since the wind would blow against her back and push her forward, but she wasn’t positive she’d be able to locate the car again. Confusion swept in, mixing with her exhaustion and panic, making it nearly impossible to form any decision other than to do just as she was: stand in place. And that...well, that would seal her fate.

Right. Keep moving.

She started to walk again, forcing her body through the unyielding storm, her vision once again aimed in the direction she’d seen the light. If it hadn’t been a mirage, she would see it eventually. But she couldn’t stop again. No matter what, she couldn’t stop.

One step. Two steps. Three, four, five and six.

When she reached ten steps, she started over with one. Anything to keep walking. If she stopped again, that would be that. And she was pretty sure if she fell again, she’d curl up in a ball and close her eyes. Because oh, every ounce of her body yearned for rest.

On her third set of ten steps, acceptance that, yes, she might be facing the last moments of her life seeped in.

How was that possible? How could this be it? How could she be done? What had she accomplished and what would she be remembered for? What dreams had she fulfilled? Did even one person on the face of the earth really know her?

The answer to that last part came swiftly. How could anyone else really know her when she didn’t yet know herself? This trip was supposed to be the official, if belated, start of that journey. A time to make sense of all she’d learned, of what she’d thought was true balanced against the real truth. And then, over the next year, the rest of the pieces would fall into place.

That had been the plan. Not this fight for survival.

Until her early twenties, she hadn’t had to fight for much of anything of importance. She and her two brothers were raised in an affluent household. Their parents were strict but attentive. Her childhood was filled with private schools, extensive travel and chauffeur-driven cars. Extracurricular activities were carefully chosen by her parents, and success in school was demanded more than encouraged.

Meredith’s grades were always exemplary. She liked to learn, so that part of the equation came naturally. And yes, there were moments she wished her parents would loosen their will in favor of hers, but mostly she towed the line. She went to the college of their choosing, majoring in business as they expected. She fed her love of art with a class here and there, trips to various museums and devoting hours of nonstudy time to sketching and painting.

During her final year of college, she fell head over heels for a man who did not fit in her parents’ neat and tidy box of expectations for their only daughter.

Alarico—Rico—Lucio worked as a mechanic, but he had big dreams and, she believed, the will to fulfill them. He drew her into his world quickly, so fast her head spun. He came from a large and boisterous family that had made Meredith feel at home the second she met them. They accepted her without question, as one of their own, simply because she was Rico’s girlfriend.

And with love, everything changed. For the first time in Meredith’s life, she had something to fight for. A future she wanted with a man she adored. She hoped that given enough time, her parents would come around and embrace her relationship with Rico, just as his family had.

There was a short period where she believed they tried and that they wanted her to be happy. Rico saw it differently, though, and he worried that eventually, their relationship would cause irreparable harm between her and her parents. He refused to separate Meredith from her family, and he refused to be viewed as a second-class citizen. Two strikes, not three.

But they were brutal strikes.

He ended their relationship, swearing that he would love her forever, and that someday, he would return to her as a man her family would respect and honor. His words were heartfelt, his voice sincere...his decision final.

The best year of her life ended in her greatest heartbreak. She blamed her parents and their unrealistic ideals of perfection for pushing Rico away. She blamed her brothers for their choice in “acceptable” mates, and she blamed the universe.

She missed Rico. Her heart ached for him, but she respected his decision and did not try to contact him. There was some pride there, as well. She’d hoped he’d miss her as much as she missed him, give up on his insistence to wait and come to her. He did not.

After graduation, she found some backbone and instead of going to work for her father as had been the original plan, landed the stager position with little trouble. Surprising, really, since she had a degree in business, but oh, had she been happy. The job paid more than the going rate, which pleased her, and she found a small but nice apartment to live in.

For the next handful of years, she’d worked hard to create a life that she believed was of her own making. She’d been happy, except for missing Rico. She never stopped hoping that one day he would reach whatever level of success he needed and come back to her as he’d promised.

She had waited for him, day in and day out, for...years. Her heart held hostage, her hopes in limbo. And all for nothing. Absolutely nothing. None of it was real.

As it turned out, her job wasn’t real, either. Well, the work was, she supposed, but she hadn’t gotten the job on her own accord. The great and mighty Arthur Jensen had paved the way and was even “helping” with Meredith’s salary. Tidbits of information that a tipsy coworker with loose lips had accidentally slipped at a company get-together less than three weeks ago.

She hadn’t aced the job interview to win the job. She hadn’t earned her bonuses over the years. All she was, all she’d ever been, was the privileged daughter of a successful man who had the leverage and the will to pull the right strings at the right time.

The second she confirmed the information was true, she quit her job. Then, humiliated and angry, resentful, too, she confronted her father. Initially, he’d tried to pacify her, but as their argument grew more heated, he called her “soft and sheltered” and stated that if he hadn’t stepped in, she wouldn’t have survived a year.

In a burst of emotion, she told her father that she was tired of living a life that he deemed appropriate and that due to him, she’d lost Rico. The best man she’d ever known. That it was his fault. Because her father had been blind to her happiness, because all he saw was a man with a blue-collar job who came from a blue-collar family, and wouldn’t that be embarrassing, to have to introduce Rico—a mechanic—as his daughter’s boyfriend? Or worse, as his son-in-law?

Her father wasn’t a warm and cuddly man, but he wasn’t a cruel man, either. No, Arthur Jensen was a decisive man. He formed decisions quickly, based on all available information combined with a high-functioning intuition, and he rarely backed down. Meredith’s words, along with her emotional state, must have hit a nerve. After years of staying silent, her father told her the truth about the man she claimed to love.

Rather than accepting an entry-level position at one of Arthur’s companies—which Meredith hadn’t known was even offered at the time—Rico turned the tables. He promised he would walk out of Meredith’s life, never to return, for the sum of $50,000. Otherwise, he would marry her and within a year, she’d have one child and be pregnant with another.

Disgusted with Rico but seeing the man spoke the truth, her father paid the money, and Rico did exactly as he’d promised. Broke off their relationship and disappeared.

Her father had proof in his safe—the cashed check and a signed statement from Rico—but Meredith did not require that confirmation. Her father wouldn’t lie about something so terrible. Her heart had cracked in agony again as she realized all the emotion, time and energy she’d wasted on Alarico and her ridiculous dreams for the future.

The only love she’d ever known had been false. The job she’d worked hard at for years, had believed she’d earned on her own merits, ranked as another false belief. On their own, these two were enough to swing the pendulum, but when she considered how often she’d followed her parents’ wishes over her own, she was...done. Done being the privileged daughter of a successful man. Done living her life by someone else’s set of expectations and rules.

More arguing ensued before she got what she wanted: zero interference. She also got what she hadn’t asked for in the way of zero contact with her family. For a period of one year. She hadn’t expected that stipulation, and it hurt, but she held her chin high and agreed.

It was time—more than time—to build a life she could trust in.