Page 1 of Restored By the Mountain Man
CHAPTER 1
EZRA
“Promise me, Ezra,” Elizabeth squeezes my hand that lies on her seven-month pregnant belly. “I’m not giving up.” Her voice is fierce.
“But if something happens–,”
I shake my head, anger and fear suffocating me.
“Honey,” she waits for my eyes. “Promise, you will choose to save our little Rosie.”
Her voice echoes. One second, she’s in our bed, in my arms, and the next…blood, everywhere. I’m in the delivery room where it’s too soon for little Rosie to enter the world.
“Get him out of the room!” a doctor yells.
My eyes take in the blood pouring out of my wife’s lifeless body. Arms are pulling me out of the room, but I fight them.
“I told you to save her!” I charge the doctor. “I chose her. You better save her!” Crying, spit flies out of my mouth as I make demands, watching our baby girl being taken out of my wife’s body. Both eerily still.
I’m on my knees, a guttural sob hurting my throat. “I killed them both. I chose her for nothing. I killed them both.”
My body jerks. Reality shifts. My chest heaves broken breaths. Blinking the haunting nightmare away, I focus on the ceiling. I find the hairline crack to the left. Counting breaths, I follow the jagged line across the room, waiting for the numbness that aids my existence to cloak me.
Every morning.
At first, I allowed it to choke me. I sank deep into self-hatred. The desperate concern in my brothers’ eyes woke me up one day. They don’t deserve this. Another loss. I decided that day that I’d learn to mask it all. Enough to appear functional. The truth? Well, that is far from their cautious hope.
I pull my body up, sitting at the edge. Never fails feeling like lifting lead. Sighing, I finally get to my feet and take care of my morning routine. In silence, I let the scorching flow from the shower burn. For as long as my skin can take it. I dress, I set the coffee maker to brew, and I pause, every time, at the locked door.
The third bedroom to the left. Her craft room. Elizabeth spent months getting it just right with all her creative tools. The nursery, I took a bat to it the week I killed them. A year later, Asher came over and cleared it out. Nash painted it. Today, it sits empty. But Liz’s craft room…it smells of her. It was a bright and colorful mess. I couldn’t erase her. So, I locked it and haven’t opened it since.
Staring at the back door, sipping coffee, I go over my list for today, feeling a strange tension and knowing. Potential new hire. One, I feel pressure to help out since she’s my brother’s girl, Laurel’s best friend.
I shake my head. Grayson with a fucking woman. Committed to one. How the hell does this keep happening? What the hell is in the air? I love my brothers. With my whole fucking soul, so, of course, I want to see them happy. But a small, selfish voice taunts me. Tells me, this is karma, shoving in my face what I could’ve had. My constant ghosts. Until my time comes.
My new hire, Zoe Diaz. I push thoughts of her aside. Ignoring that her name echoes my thoughts at the most inopportune moments. I drive to the distillery before everyone arrives.
The sun hasn’t crested over the mountains yet. That quiet as dawn approaches is the closest to peace I know. Entering Hunter Distillery, the familiar scents of charred oak, sweet mash, and drying grain are thick in the facility. I check the fermentation tanks and review last night’s logs. I adjust the flow rates on the stills and check that the condenser is performing optimally, so every drop that falls is smooth, smoky, and carries the Hunter signature.
When our employees begin to filter in and settle into their roles, I walk over to the barrel house. Hundreds of barrels, quietly aging as they draw flavor from the oak, the weather, and time, feel like a religion. I inhale deeply, leaning in a hidden corner no one ever finds me in. Here, I can think. Here, I don’t pretend. I let my shoulders fall. I entertain the demons.
My phone’s alarm softly chimes. Time to interview Zoe Diaz. The woman whose brown eyes sparkle with trouble. Her warm, dark skin looks too soft, too unreal to touch. All I saw was a few seconds from a laptop screen. Laurel took down that filthy shit, Andrew Dane, with her girl manning the camera so Grayson could witness the truth. Remembering how he violated her and my brother has my blood boiling again. But I brace myself instead. Not sure why. Intuition just tells me that encountering the full force of Zoe Diaz, face to face, is an experience I’m not prepared for.
I need a neutral setting and not my office. I call Cynthia over the radio and ask to have Gus direct Ms. Diaz to the main room. I’ll be at the still, calibrating.
Their voices softly carry. Her distinct, high-energy city speech is the clearest. But I feel them before I hear them. Taking a discreet deep breath, I come face to face with her. Taller thanI expected. Professional, in a navy dress that hits a couple of inches above her knee, and a matching blazer.
My eyes briefly trace the curves at her hips, further up, the way the structured dress can’t hide the fullness of her breasts.
I lock my frame imperceptibly.
The fuck.
Guilt, so thick I can taste its acrid coating, hits me. Since when have I noticed, hell, reacted to another woman’s body since…Shit.
The war wages internally, but I’m an expert at appearing unfazed. I’m not just nicknamed Ghost for my talent to disappear physically. I embody the name, down to my soul.
“Good morning, Ms. Diaz.” I keep my hands held behind my back.
