Page 14 of The Mountain Man’s Retribution (Summer in the Pines #7)

Chapter Thirteen

BODIE

I lie in the predawn light, wrapped in the warmth of Fawn’s naked body. Her silky hair blankets me, her tits pressed to my chest, her large, round ass cupped in my hand.

Fawn’s dainty fingers grip my cock as always, the dick that pleased her seven ways from Sunday. Everything feels right. Meant to be. All questions and doubts resolved in the heat of our union.

I’m hers to hold, hers to suck, hers to bury in the soft, dark spots of her body. Her soft breath warms my chest, lulling me back to sleep a couple of times before I reluctantly untangle myself.

“Mmm.” She moans, her kissable lips twisting into a pout as she snuggles deeper under the blankets, and I hang my feet over the bed, feeling the cold, hardwood floor.

I scrub my eyes with the heels of my hands, mind racing faster than my body.

Fawn and I indulged again and again in bliss from yesterday afternoon late into the night. Greedy for each other’s flesh and love.

Hell, my body still feels spent, though another part of me hums with a vibrant awakeness I haven’t felt since before joining the Army Rangers and serving my country overseas.

Military training was about numbing my emotions, ignoring my body’s needs, and transforming into a hard, unfeeling warrior who put his comrades before himself. Every time.

I did it without a second thought, desperate for a chance to be a man, prove my self-worth, and distance myself from my posh, spoiled, affectionless upbringing.

I may have grown up in a two-parent household with no material desire left unmet, but I never learned how to stand on my own two feet, put others before myself, sacrifice everything for the right cause. The 75th Battalion changed all that.

It’s been a while since I had a right cause. But I feel it this morning, knowing the axe I have to grind is deadly as hell, sharpened by every recollection from my little Fawn’s mouth … even the unspoken ones haunting her eyes.

I thirst for a showdown with Big Man, if he’s still alive, and most definitely his sons.

I feel it coming. It was written all over Mrs. McCartney’s face and the mysterious closing of the door.

I pressed her on the matter when I went back inside with her payment, forcing her to let me inspect her other bedrooms. She was pissed as hell and vindicated when I didn’t find a soul …

only an open window that had me racing to the truck to make sure Fawn was safe.

I don’t fear this inevitable altercation. I crave it—fully prepared to destroy all three men. But none of them sound remotely honorable, which means it’ll be a cowardly fight. I need the element of surprise, and this morning’s as close as I’m going to get. It’s likely already too late.

The backwoods are deep, impenetrable. And they stretch all the way to the Canadian border, teeming with a thousand deaths that don’t even involve humans. I don’t care. I need those motherfuckers gone to bring a semblance of peace to my life with Fawn.

Over coffee, I review my notes, programming the coordinates of the wildfire into my phone’s GPS app.

It’s a starting point, but the enormity of finding men who don’t want to be found …

who’ve never been found, frustrates me. Maybe I should head to town, ask questions, and snoop around. I could take Fawn with me.

But fuck. If she doesn’t want to go, it’s another wasted day. Another day that could permit Fawn’s backwoods captors to plan their assault. I don’t feel safe leaving her even now. So, I text a fellow Army Ranger, Roscoe, who lives a couple of mountains over, to keep an eye out for my woman.

A cagey fellow locked in a world of hurt, I only recently started trusting the man.

Despite being a Ranger, he carried a despair that shadowed his actions and obscured his motivations.

But ever since he rescued a woman named Ginger from the deep woods, he’s become a new man.

One who’ll understand the desperate pull to keep my woman safe.

I don’t expect a reply. It’s only three-thirty. I kick myself for not texting sooner, but yesterday, I had my hands and my heart full.

My stomach roils as I Google a new search term: girl five abducted from Alpha Ridge Creek early two thousands.

Whereas previous searches with less detail proved misleading and confusing, I stare at an article about a cold case.

The photo of the little girl, in black and white, makes my pulse pound in my temples.

Eighteen years may have passed, but I stare at Fawn from another time and place.

Bethany Marie Dunning. Abducted from Sunday school.

My eyes scan the article, stomach twisting.

One suspect is named: Deacon Jabez Heath.

An upstanding member of the church, whose wife had recently passed, leaving him with two sons.

According to interviews with his acquaintances, he’d grown more radicalized after her death, muttering strange things about the end of the world.

About hiding in the forest to escape the Mark of the Beast, the decay of the Tribulation civilization, and to repopulate the Earth. My stomach knots.

I stare at the black-and-white image of a clean-shaven man with a shifty gaze, searing the evil into my brain.

He has an inordinately long face and the haunting quality of a desperate animal in his eyes.

The article states that the case went cold after he disappeared into thin air, the last sight of him driving through town in his white, beat-up Ford pickup with his sons next to him on the bench seat and a tarp over the truck bed.

From deacon to disappeared overnight, along with his two sons, Malaketh and Kael. There are no photos of the sons, but if they look anything like Big Man, then I’ve got the advantage. Time to go hunting up on the fire-wasted mountain.

I dress quietly in my hunting gear, packing scopes, weapons, and everything that I’ll need for this predawn expedition. I second-guess myself about waking Fawn as I watch her cuddled in the big bed, happily dreaming. But she must be prepared for anything.

“Fawn,” I whisper a couple of times, noting the grumpy fix of her mouth.

“What is it?” she murmurs, yawning.

“I have to go hunting up on the mountains this morning. Leave you alone for a few hours.”

The words barely leave my tongue before she sits up straight as a corn stalk, eyeing me wildly. Panic twists her face and mouth. I croon comforting words, sitting on the edge of the bed and stroking her long mahogany locks.

“You need to stay here and keep calm, okay?”

“I’ll hunt with you,” she declares firmly, crossing her arms over her chest.

I shake my head. “You must stay here.”

She scrutinizes me, and I know I can’t lie to her. She sees right through my hunting alibi. But if law enforcement comes looking for me later, I don’t want her dragged into questioning.

“This Big Man?” I ask, showing her the photo from the article on my phone.

Her eyes narrow, finger tracing the man’s upper face and gaze until her body answers, a tumult of quivering and fast-paced breaths. I’m torn between bringing her with me and leaving her here. But natural instinct tells me to keep her as far away from danger as possible.

Tears slide past her bottom lashes as I lean in to kiss her. She grabs me desperately, clinging to my neck, her whimpers and cries begging me to stay.

I shake my head, forced to deny her, though I hate it.

“Friend coming to keep you safe. Roscoe. Tall, blond, bearded. No worries. He’ll stay in his Jeep, providing security, okay? You don’t have to open the door unless you need help.”

“B-b-but—” she dissolves into sobs. This is why I considered not telling her at all.

Pressing her hand against my chest over the place where my heart beats, I grunt, “Do you trust me, Fawn?”

Her eyes wash over me, too many emotions to read.

“Y-y-yes,” she sobs.

God, I wish I had a cell phone. I make a mental note to get one for her later today. Unless the present business delays me.

“Big Man’s sons look like him?”

She nods, staring at me with pleading eyes.

“Be back shortly. Keep the door locked, and be ready to use this,” I order, handing her a handgun we’ve done some basic target practice with this week.

I kick myself for not showing her how the security cameras around the perimeter of the cabin work.

But operators need a cell phone and an app to access livestreams and recordings.

It was too much to surmount, considering Fawn’s learning curve.

But now I regret not teaching her about them.

“You see bad, you use the gun. Understand?”

She nods, trembling in my arms.

“Everything will be fine, little elf. Probably no game today. But I must get ahead of this hunt.”

“Promise you’ll come back to me,” she whimpers, stroking my beard. “No matter what.”

“Always, Fawn. You’re mine.”

She smiles, fighting back tears.

“Now back to bed,” I scold, trying to sound relaxed and confident. But I’ve got bloodlust and retribution on my mind.

An hour later, I crouch in a charred wasteland, picking through the remnants of a cabin and fire.

Acutely aware I’m on enemy turf, I hunker low to the ground, searching quickly with the ever-present reminder that Big Man or his sons may be close.

Not much remains, mostly ash, but I find a length of charred book spine with a few half-burned pages.

In full stalking mode, I keep low to the ground and quiet, noting a stream near the remnants of the burned-out cabin that fits Fawn’s description. But she’s never talked much about where Big Man’s sons might live. I get the impression she was never permitted to wander far from this property.

In the soft dirt, I find a dainty footprint, tracing the outline with my finger. My blood runs cold as I encounter this moment frozen in time, recognizing it as Fawn’s.

My cell phone vibrates, and I retrieve it, reading:

ROSCOE

OMW. Will let you know when I have eyes on your woman. Description?