Page 7 of Tension with the Mountain Man (Silver Ridge Mountain Men #2)

seven

Tucker

The taste of regret is worse than the sawdust coating my throat.

It's been a week since I told Sally we were a mistake, and I've been miserable every damn day. I thought I was doing the right thing—protecting her from my baggage, freeing her to pursue the career she deserves. Instead, I've been walking around feeling like I ripped my own heart out.

Which is exactly what I deserve.

The accident investigation is complete. Equipment failure combined with unpredictable wind patterns.

It was nobody's fault, according to the official report.

But that doesn't make the guilt any easier to bear.

I should have been there. Should have spotted the danger signs, evacuated the area before that tree came down.

The fact that my absence was due to being wrapped up in Sally only makes it worse.

"Boss?" Danny appears in the doorway of my cabin, where I've been hiding out since the accident. He's sporting a spectacular black eye and moving carefully, but he's alive and healing. "There's someone here to see you."

I look up from the safety reports I've been pretending to read. "If it's another insurance investigator tell them to shove it."

"It's Dr. Jacobson."

My heart does something stupid in my chest, hope and terror warring for dominance. "Tell her I'm busy."

"Tell her yourself," Sally says, pushing past Danny into my living room. "We need to talk."

Danny wisely disappears, leaving us alone in the space where we made love just over a week ago. Sally looks professional in her scrubs and white coat, but I can see the fire in her green eyes. She's magnificent when she's angry, and right now she looks ready to commit violence.

"You've been avoiding everyone," she says without preamble.

"I've been working."

"Bullshit." She closes the door behind her and moves closer, and I have to fight every instinct I possess not to reach for her. "You've been wallowing in guilt and self-pity, pushing away anyone who might actually care about you."

"Sally," I sigh.

"I didn't take the Vancouver job."

The words hit me like a fallen tree, crashing down all at once. "What?"

"I turned them down. This morning." She crosses her arms, defiant and beautiful and absolutely determined. "So your noble sacrifice was for nothing."

I stand slowly, trying to process what she's telling me. "Why would you do that?"

"Because Silver Ridge is where I belong.

Because the work I do here matters, even if it's not prestigious or challenging in the way Vancouver would be.

" She takes another step closer, and I catch her scent—clean and warm and everything I've been missing.

"And because I'm in love with a stubborn logger who thinks he doesn't deserve good things. "

The breath leaves my lungs in a rush. "Sally, you can't."

"Can't what? Love you? Too late." Her voice softens slightly, but her gaze remains fierce. "I fell for you that first night in your cabin, Tucker. Maybe even before that, when you sat perfectly still while I stitched you up and didn't try to impress me with war stories."

"You're making a mistake." The words feel like ash in my mouth. "I'm not good for you."

"Why? Because you blame yourself for accidents that aren't your fault?

Because you carry the weight of your brother's death even though you were barely older than a kid yourself?

" She's close enough to touch now, but she doesn't. Instead, she stands there like a warrior prepared for battle.

"You think guilt makes you unworthy of love, but it just makes you human. "

I want to reach for her so badly it physically hurts. "I can't lose you too."

"You already did. When you pushed me away, when you decided what was best for me without asking what I wanted." Her eyes are bright with unshed tears, but her voice remains steady. "But you don't have to keep losing me. That's a choice you're making."

"Sally."

"I know you're scared. I'm scared too. But fear isn't a good enough reason to throw away something this real.

" She steps closer, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from her body.

"What we have doesn't come along every day, Tucker.

Most people spend their whole lives looking for what we found in a week. "

She's right. God help me, she's absolutely right. I've been so terrified of losing her that I pushed her away preemptively, convinced myself it was noble when it was really just cowardice.

"I don't know how to do this," I admit. "How to let someone in, how to build something that isn't defined by guilt and responsibility."

"We figure it out together." She reaches for my hands, linking our fingers, and the contact sends electricity shooting up my arms. "That's what people do when they love each other. They figure it out as they go."

"I’m sorry. I hurt you," I say, squeezing her hands like a lifeline. "When I told you to leave."

"Yes, you did. And if you ever make decisions for me again without consulting me, I'll use my medical training to cause you very specific, very painful injuries." The threat is delivered with a sweetness that makes it somehow more terrifying. "Are we clear?"

Despite everything, I find myself smiling. "Crystal."

"Good." She rises on her toes and kisses me, soft and forgiving and full of promise. "Now, are you going to keep punishing yourself for being human, or are you going to come home with me and let me show you how much I missed you?"

The heat in her voice makes my blood sing, but I need to say something first. "Sally, I’m so sorry."

"No more apologies," she interrupts. "No more guilt. No more pushing me away to 'protect' me. Just you and me, building something real together."

"You're sure? Even knowing what you're getting into? The job, the danger, the fact that I'll probably always carry Jake's death with me?"

"I'm sure." Her smile is radiant, transforming her entire face. "I've never been more sure of anything. I love all of you, Tucker Reeves. The good, the bad, the guilty, the protective. All of it."

That's when I break. All my carefully constructed walls crumble at once, and I haul her against me, crushing my mouth to hers with desperate relief. She melts into me like she was made to fit there, her arms winding around my neck, her body soft and yielding against mine.

"I missed you," I growl against her lips. "Christ, Sally, I missed you so much."

"Show me," she demands, her voice breathless with want. "Show me how much."

I don't need to be told twice. I lift her easily, her legs wrapping around my waist as I carry her to the bedroom. But when I try to set her down gently, she stops me.

"No," she says, her voice rough with need. "I don't want to be gentle right now. I want you to claim me, mark me, make me yours in every way possible."

The raw honesty in her words nearly brings me to my knees.

"I spent a week thinking I'd lost you. A week wondering if you'd ever want me again." Her hands are already working on my shirt, desperate and impatient. "I need to feel how much you want me. I need it to be real, overwhelming, impossible to doubt."

I understand. The past week has been hell for both of us, and gentle won't erase that pain. Only passion will, only the kind of claiming that leaves marks and steals breath and makes it impossible to think about anything except each other.

I strip her efficiently, my mouth following the path of my hands, nipping and sucking hard enough to leave marks. She gasps and arches against me, her nails digging into my shoulders.

"Mine," I growl against her throat, the word torn from someplace primal and possessive. "You're mine, Sally. Completely, absolutely mine."

"Yours," she agrees breathlessly, helping me out of my own clothes with shaking hands. "Only yours. Forever yours."

When we're both naked, I take a moment to just look at her—flushed and beautiful and so obviously mine that it makes my chest tight with emotion.

"I love you," I tell her, framing her face with my hands. "More than I thought possible. More than I knew I was capable of."

"Show me," she whispers. "Make me feel it."

I worship her with my hands and mouth, working her with my fingers and tongue until she's writhing on the bed, fisting the sheets.

"Tucker, please," she gasps. "I need you inside me."

When I push into her, we both groan. She's so wet, so hot, so tight around me that I have to pause to keep from losing it immediately.

"Move," she demands, digging her heels into my back. "God, please move."

I pull almost all the way out, then thrust back in hard. She cries out, her nails scoring my shoulders.

"Yes, like that," she pants. "Don't hold back."

I don't. I fuck her hard and deep, the bed creaking with every thrust. She meets me stroke for stroke, lifting her hips to take me deeper.

"Never pushing you away again," I tell her between thrusts. "You're staying right here."

"Promise me," she gasps when I reach between us to rub her clit. "Promise you won't run."

"I promise," I growl, feeling her start to tighten around me. "I'm not going anywhere."

She comes with a sharp cry, clenching around me so hard I can barely move. I follow immediately, groaning as I empty myself inside her.

We collapse together, both of us sweaty and breathless. I roll us so she's on top, still inside her, not ready to separate yet. Her hair falls around us like a curtain as she looks down at me.

"I meant it," I tell her. "I'm sorry. And I’m never letting you go again."

She's quiet for a long moment, tracing patterns on my chest with her fingertip. "Tucker?"

"Mmm?"

She leans down to kiss me, soft and sweet and full of promise. "I love you, Tucker Reeves. I love your dedication, your protective instincts, your quiet strength. I love the way you see solutions instead of just problems."

"I love you too, Sally Jacobson. Your brilliance, your compassion, your stubborn refusal to give up on people." I pull her down for another kiss. "Even when they don't deserve it."

"You deserve it," she says firmly. "You deserve love, happiness, a future that isn't defined by the past."

"I'm starting to believe that," I admit. "Thanks to you."

I hold her close, marveling at how completely my life has changed. A week ago, I was a lonely man defined by loss and guilt. Now I'm a man in love, planning a future with the most incredible woman I've ever met.

"John would have liked you," I say quietly.

"You think so?"

"I know so. He always said life was too short to waste time on fear." I press a kiss to her hair. "He would have told me I was an idiot for almost letting you go."

"Good thing you came to your senses."

"Good thing you didn't give up on me."

"Never," she says firmly. "I told you, you're stuck with me."

Six months later, we break ground on both the Silver Ridge Safety Training Center and the expanded medical facility. Sally secures federal funding for the remote trauma center, I design comprehensive safety curricula, and together we build something that will serve communities across the region.

But that's not the only thing we're building.

On a crisp fall morning, as we stand watching construction crews pour the foundation for our shared dream, Sally takes my hand and places it on her still-flat stomach.

"Really?" I breathe, hardly daring to believe it.

"Really." Her smile could power the entire town. "Baby Reeves will be here just in time for the training center's grand opening."

I kiss her then, pouring all my love and gratitude and wonder into the connection between us. We're creating a new life while building something that will save countless others.

John would have been so proud. Not just of the safety center or the medical facility, but of the man I've become because of Sally. The man who finally learned that honoring the dead doesn't mean refusing to live.

"I love you," I tell her against her lips.

"I love you too," she whispers back. "All of us."

The future stretches before us, bright with possibility. Our child will grow up in a community where safety and healing go hand in hand, where prevention and care work together, where love builds lasting legacies.

Some endings are really beginnings. And this is the best beginning I could have ever imagined.