Page 1 of Jealous Mountain Man (Seduction Summit Trails #5)

LARSEN

P eople sucked. That was why I was out here, miles away from another living soul, on my morning off. I’d had a particularly rough week, dealing with customers at the moonshine distillery where I worked, and I just needed some time out in nature.

This trail led to a pond, or so the map said. I didn’t trust the cell service out here, so I downloaded the map, old-school style, and saved it to my phone.

But I was starting to get that sinking feeling. The one that came when I was pretty sure I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Thwack.

The sound caused me to gasp as my footsteps sped up. I should be stopping altogether, but instead, I moved closer toward whatever that noise was.

What if it was a murderer, sharpening his knife? All the guys up here were loggers, so he was more likely to be sharpening his axe.

I should turn back. But what if I was lost? If this map hadn’t gotten me here reliably, I doubted it could get me back. I was directionally challenged to begin with.

Why had I come out here? At the very least, I should have bought one of those fancy GPS devices that worked without cell service. But it wasn’t like I was made of money. I barely scraped by on the hourly wage my uncle paid me at the distillery.

There it was again. Now my footsteps really did come to a stop. It sounded like it was coming from the other side of those trees. Maybe I could quietly creep forward and see what was going on.

I did just that, certain every sound echoed through the air around me. I stepped on a limb, and it broke with a loud snap. At that point, I became so fixated on watching where I walked, I forgot my destination. But another resounding thwack snapped my attention up from the ground.

It was happening just on the other side of this line of trees. Holding my breath, I crept forward. My mind was screaming for me to go back. Run. I’d seen this horror movie, and it didn’t end well.

The second I spotted what was on the other side, I grabbed a tree and tried my best to hide behind it. The guy wasn’t looking in this direction, but the risk of him catching me watching him like a stalker freaked me out so much, I wanted to be invisible.

This couldn’t be real. It had to be a dream. In front of me stood a guy wielding an axe, but he wasn’t a murderer. At least, not as far as I could tell. No, this guy was the most mouthwatering chunk of eye candy I’d ever seen.

There was only one thing to do. I grabbed my phone from my back pocket, fired up the camera, and started shooting video. A smile spread over my face as his half-naked body filled my screen.

Oh, yeah. This could definitely go viral. I’d been trying to become a book influencer, but despite daily reels spread across three different platforms, I never could manage to get past a couple hundred views.

Maybe it wasn’t my face on the screen readers wanted. A super-hot shirtless guy chopping wood with an axe as sweat glistened in the sunlight? Yeah. That should definitely get me noticed.

Thwack.

How long should I shoot? I would only use a minute or two of this. But the more footage I shot, the more I could edit for the perfect clip.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

As the clip rolled on, though, one thing became clear to me. Nobody wanted to watch a guy chop wood through the trees. Tree trunks blocked part of the view.

I had to get closer. But I had to do it without being spotted.

Thwack. Thwack.

I had to be careful about this. I looked around, figured out the best view, and waited until he was busy swinging to take a step back, then to the right.

Finally, I got to a pretty decent clearing and stepped into place, stopping the recording and starting over. Yes, this clip was the one that would do it. This clip would help me eventually start bringing in some money.