Page 14 of Marked By the Mountain Man
“What are you doing?” Knox groans. “Where are you going? We’re done with ghosts for the day.”
Ignoring him, I swing open the cabin door and step out onto the porch, the bear standing in the woods like he’s been waiting for me all along.
The wind bites through my sleeves as I move. I suck in a breath, sharp and pine-sweet, the cold pressing against my cheeks. The bear doesn’t move, just watches. Its eyes are dark, ancient, knowing.
I step off the porch and toward something unknown, yet familiar.I’m probably going to be committed if I make it through this.
Knox’s footsteps thud behind me. “Juniper,” he warns, voice low and fraying, “get your ass back here.”
He couldn’t stop me if he tried. Ineedto know what message is waiting for me.
The bear turns slowly and disappears into the trees like a shadow melting into dusk… and I follow. Branches whip past my shoulders as my boots crunch over frost-hardened leaves.
Knox is behind me, cursing under his breath, but the bear is still lumbering forward. I don’t stop. I can’t.
The wind shifts, carrying the scent of something electric, and I think of my dad, of the stories he used to tell of restless spirits. Knox is right. He wasn’t a spiritual man, but he believed in the land and the way it held onto things like scars beneath the surface.
Standing here now, with the wind humming like a live wire and the bear vanishing into the shadows, I know he was right.
Something’s waking up.
I stumble into a clearing and stop. The bear is gone and there’s nothing here but frostbitten grass, a few broken branches, and the hush of trees standing watch.
I turn slowly, heart hammering as my eyes meet Knox’s. He crashes in, breath ragged, gaze wild, looking at me with a downturned expression that lets me know he thinks I’ve lost my mind.
“There’s nothing here,” he says, a frustrated sense of concern carrying in his tone. “What are you doing?”
I shake my head. “The bear was here. He wanted me to follow him.”
Knox steps closer, his massive hands on my arms, holding me close as though he’s afraid I’ll run off again. “You scared the hell out of me,” he growls.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Jesus Christ,” he murmurs, swiping his hand over his beard. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
I look up at him, and the ache in my chest comes back again. “You act like I held a knife to your throat and made you follow me. I can do this on my own. I don’t need a babysitter.”
His jaw flexes. “Juniper.”
“What?” I say defiantly. “You’re the one acting like wanting me is some kind of curse.”
He doesn’t answer. He just stares at me like he’s trying not to feel it but is losing the fight.
Then he moves with the force of an unexpected blizzard. One hand grabs my waist, the other buries in my jacket, and I’m on the ground before I can blink, his body pressing me into the cold earth, his mouth crashing into mine like he’s punishing us both.
It’s not gentle. It’s not clean. It’s all heat, all hunger.
His breath is ragged against my cheek, and I feel his arms tremble as though his restraint is unraveling.
I arch beneath him, the cold seeping through my clothes as his hand fists the fabric at my hip.
“You think I don’t want this,” he mutters against my mouth, voice rough and wrecked, “but I do. God fucking help me, I do.”
I drag my fingers through his hair, tugging just enough to make him growl. “Then stop acting like it’s a sin.”
His mouth trails down my jaw, rough and reverent, like he’s trying to kiss away everything we shouldn’t be as his hand slides under my shirt, his palm rough and warm against my stomach.
“You don’t know,” he murmurs, lips brushing my collarbone. “You don’t know what it means… you being here.”
