Page 2 of Summer with the Mountain Man (Mountain Man Summer #16)
Chapter Two
Luca
“When did you get back?” Damon Riggs grips my hand in a fierce shake. “You here for long?”
I flick my big brother a look. “You didn’t tell them?”
Ethan shakes his head, grinning. “Only the captain knows.”
Riggs tosses a curious look between us and then settles it on me. “Knows what?”
“Luca’s back for good,” Ethan answers, clapping me on the shoulder. “Decided the big smoke isn’t for him and came home.”
My gut clenches. It’s as close to the truth as I’ll let Ethan go. Truth is, there are too many cars in Sydney. And I’m slammed with a memory every time one rushes past. My brother knows the real reason I’m back, but he’s keeping my PTSD to himself.
“Had to come back,” I declare with a laugh. “I feared you buggers would let the whole town burn down if I didn’t.”
After two years based at Station 001 in the heart of Sydney, here I am back in the Ridge. I’m okay with it. So okay that I placed a deposit on a cabin up on Talisman Peak this morning. I’m done being elsewhere. Hartley Ridge is home.
Riggs snorts. “You’ve picked the right time to return. This heatwave is stirring up all sorts of trouble. Got suspicious spot fires popping up all around the place. We can do with all the hands we can get.”
“Happy to be here.” I slide a look past the engine and out through the open roller door.
Where did she go?
An image of a woman flitters through my head. I saw her getting off the bus from Sydney as I was climbing off my Ducati. Her long hair, the burnished copper of sunsets, and her exquisite curves had caught my attention.
“Do you need a brushup on anything?” Riggs asks, dragging my thoughts away from those curves. “I know fighting fires in Sydney is a little different from fighting fires up here.”
“Let me go dump my stuff at Ethan’s place first.” I arch a grin at my big brother. “You don’t know this yet, but I’m crashing on your sofa for a while.”
He groans. “Great. With how loud you snore, I’ll never get any sleep.”
“At least you’ll have a decent meal for a while,” I shoot back. “You can’t cook to save yourself.”
Riggs rolls his eyes. “I forgot what you two are like together.”
Ethan tosses me his keys. “Here. Watch out for Reggie when you get there. He’s got free range of the house today.”
“Reggie loves me,” I say. Reggie, Ethan’s pet cockatoo, does indeed love me. “I might go buy him a treat from the café before I head up there. Does Doreen still make those muesli cookies?”
“Yep,” Riggs confirms.
Ethan groans again. “You’re going to spoil my bird, aren’t you?”
“Hey, who else am I going to shower my affections on?”
An image of the woman from the bus tickles my mind again, but I ignore it. I’m back in the Ridge to get my shit together. To try to address the PTSD from the car accident that almost killed me three years ago.
The accident that did kill?—
I shut the memory down, grip Ethan’s keys, and start for the door. “Gotta go.” I don’t like being around people when my brain tries to make me relive that accident.
Footsteps follow, and Ethan catches up with me on the sidewalk. “You okay?”
I stop, dragging a hand through my hair. The sun blasts down on us, an indifferent torturer. “Yeah. Just my brain not being my friend. Being back here is what I need. It’ll help.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He doesn’t look convinced. But he’s always been my biggest protector.
When the driver of the car that slammed into me on the outskirts of the Ridge three years ago tried to run away after being freed from his wrecked car with the Jaws of Life, Ethan not only took him down, he dragged him back to the accident and made him watch Riggs and Jake Conroy cut me out of mine.
He narrated the procedure in graphic detail, including the carnage caused by a part of my car piercing my ribcage.
“He put you through hell,” Ethan had said when I was told about it in the hospital. “So I put him through hell as well.”
He studies me now for a heartbeat and then nods. “Take your time. Reggie will be happy to see you.”
I stand motionless as he heads back into the station house, then I pull in a slow, deep breath of hot air and turn and head for Ranger’s Brew. I might grab a biscuit or two for myself as well. Perhaps a cup of tea, a biscuit, and the sounds of the bush are all I need to calm my mind?
Or maybe a distraction?
The image of the woman from the bus fills my head again, bringing with her an unexpected pressure in my groin. Just as the unmistakable sound of grinding gears gouges at the quiet air.
I wince in sympathy for the poor car whose gearbox is being tortured and watch Ivan Whitmore’s old Ford coupe utility come bunny-hopping around the corner.
On the wrong side of the road.
What the hell?
“Hey?” I shout, watching the ute shudder and jerk forward. I throw a look down the street. Thank God, there’s no one else on the road. Who the hell is behind the wheel? I look back at the ute, squinting into the glaring sun bouncing off its side window.
“ Hey! ” I shout louder. Whoever is driving has to be giving themselves whiplash. “ You’re on the wrong side of the road! ”
“Damn it.” Dorreen rushes out of the café, stare fixed on the ute. “I knew I should have reminded her we drive on the left side of the road here.”
The ute coasts to a lurching halt, sitting like a rusted lump in the middle of the right lane, gears grinding.
Down the block, a bright-green Honda Civic turns onto the street, heading—in the correct lane—on a collision course with Whitmore’s ute. My stomach clenches. Cold sweat breaks out over my skin. “Get out of the?—”
The ute bunny-hops again and again. Just as the green Honda hits the horn, the ute swerves into the left lane and, with a gun of the engine, zooms away, giving me a teasing glimpse of copper-red hair behind the wheel.