Alpha Mountain: Hero: Book 1, page 1
Alpha Mountain: Hero
Book 1
Vanessa Vale
Renee Rose
Alpha Mountain: Hero
Copyright © 2022 by Bridger Media and Wilrose Dream Ventures LLC
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from both authors, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Cover design: Bridger Media
Cover graphic: Deposit Photos: Fourleaflovers, appalachianview
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Contents
Untitled
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Also by Renee Rose
Also By Vanessa Vale
About Renee Rose
About Vanessa Vale
ALPHA MOUNTAIN: HERO
A Mountain Man Mercenary Romance
* * *
She’s my best friend’s sister. Off-limits.
Before he died, I promised I’d never touch her.
After years in the military, I’m back in Montana determined to clear his name.
A mercenary set on revenge. No one’s hero—just a mountain man.
Now, I owe it to my friend to protect his sister.
Except being near her shreds my resolve. She tempts me at every turn.
Each day is a brutal torment, and my honor and willpower
…are about to snap.
* * *
Welcome to Alpha Mountain, the powerful new series by USA Today bestselling authors Vanessa Vale and Renee Rose. Where strong, alpha men will move mountains to protect and claim their women.
Prologue
FORD
* * *
Buck and I carried the empty keg between us.
Here in Sparks, there was no war. No enemy. The only chance of being killed tonight was from alcohol poisoning or getting eaten by a bear.
We were used to moving around under the cover of darkness, but that was to evade the enemy, not to cut across a field beneath a Montana black night sky.
Neither of us had been home for over sixteen months, and I’d forgotten how dark it got. No big cities anywhere nearby. No desert either. We weren’t wearing our fatigues, and we weren’t carrying multiple weapons.
“Did you hear Lee Landers is taking over his dad’s mechanic shop?” Buck asked.
“I know. The most exotic thing he’ll see of the world is the undercarriage of a sixty-seven GTO.” I took a deep breath.
Fuck, I missed that scent. The tang of pine and damp earth was as much a reminder of home as Gram and Gramps. Or the twenty or so friends from high school who had just finished off this keg, listening to music, fooling around and having fun in the back forty behind us.
“The undercarriage I want to see is that of Kenzie Michelson. She was hot in high school, but did you see her tonight? Were her tits always that big?” Buck held up his hands to show how big he thought they were as he grinned.
“Why the hell are you helping me carry this keg when you could be helping Kenzie out of her panties?”
Our long legs ate up the distance between the party and the truck. The get-together was in the usual party spot by the creek, originally chosen so my grandparents wouldn’t know about any of the late night get-togethers. Of course, I’d been stupid to think that. They’d been pissed back in the day when they’d learned of them, but now? I was twenty-three. I’d had hair on my balls for years, but I’d also become a SEAL and gone to war. Neither of them gave a shit if I wanted to get drunk with a few old friends. Hell, they were content I was in one piece. And home.
They were off on a trip to a nearby casino for two nights, having their own kind of good time.
“She’s not port pussy,” Buck countered, stopping when we got to the truck. He leaned against the back end. “Still, I get the feeling she wants me to be her ride out of town.”
I remembered Kenzie, big tits and all. I’d been cautious where I stuck my dick in high school because I had plans. Plans that didn’t involve a surprise baby and wife at eighteen. I’d wanted out of Sparks, to follow in Gramps’ footsteps in the military. So I understood where Buck was coming from. We both might be up for a fun fuck but nothing more than that.
I pulled down the tailgate and jumped into the bed. Fuck, I loved this truck. I’d bought it when I was sixteen after spending the summer working at the seed and feed lugging sacks of grain, bales of hay and every other piece of heavy farming shit. It’d helped me get into shape for basic training and eventually BUD/S.
That had been hell, but I had Buck to tell me to stop being a pussy whenever I had an inkling of quitting. Now it seemed I had to give him a pep talk to get laid or at least blow his load. There wasn’t any chance for it deployed.
“Get her to suck you off,” I told him. “She won’t get pregnant from that.”
There. Problem solved.
“Think we’ll ever fit back in here?” Buck wondered, glancing around, Kenzie forgotten. The only thing visible in the dark was the backside of the house and a hint of Gramps’ workshop beyond.
“Who the hell knows. I didn’t survive drown-proofing to plant wheat and drive a fucking tractor for a living.”
“Do you miss it?” Buck cocked his head with the usual tilt.
The back stoop light cast a glow across his face. His blond hair was cut military short. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, but he still couldn’t grow a damn beard. Not even a mustache. An inch taller than me, Buck was leaner. He was a faster swimmer, but I had him in hand-to-hand combat. Not that anyone from around here understood anything about what our lives entailed. What we endured, so they could fuck beside a bonfire.
“Sparks?” I ran my hand over the back of my neck. It was late August and summer was still hanging on. Barely. The air was cool, and this was Montana. We had another week to go before we were due back in San Diego, but the chance for the weather to turn was always a possibility this far north and at this higher altitude. “I miss snow.”
Buck sighed. “I don’t think I can ever go on a beach vacation. Shit, I hate sand.”
I had to laugh. Afghanistan was hot as hell and a fucking sandbox. That shit got everywhere. In places I never thought possible.
“I got this,” I told him. “I can carry the keg by myself. Go have fun with Kenzie.” I had no intention of cock blocking my best friend. We were on fucking leave. Our commanding officers expected us to unwind and fuck.
“What about you?” he asked.
I lifted the keg from the tub, ice sloshing, and sat it in the bed beside me. “What about me?”
“There any pussy around here you want to tap?”
Yeah, there definitely was. Indigo. Buck’s sister. His smart, gorgeous, barely eighteen sister. The one who’d followed us around when she’d been a kid. Who’d done shit all to get her big brother’s attention. When we left for boot camp, she’d been thirteen. But now?
Holy fuck. Indi wasn’t a little kid any longer. She was a beauty. Blonde hair down her back that she no longer wore in two braids. A toned, curvy body with full, high tits. An ass that could probably crack walnuts. Smart and funny and familiar in that coming-home sort of way. How did I know all this?
The Buchanans had had me over for dinner a few nights ago, and there she was. All tanned skin. Full lips. Bold blue eyes that tracked my every move.
I’d gotten one look at her, and my dick had gone instantly hard.
For Buck’s little sister.
He’d seen the way I’d stared. Maybe a second too long because he gave me a look. An I’m going to cut your dick off and feed it to you before you even know what happened glare.
I’d never dealt with the bro code before because, hell, I didn’t lust after jailbait. But Indi wasn’t little or a girl any longer. She was perfect.
Perfectly off-limits.
So I answered my best friend the only way I could so as not to lose my dick. “Nah.”
He tipped his
I glanced that way and saw a lacy white bra dangling from the screen door handle.
He grinned. “I don’t need to speak five languages to understand that’s for you.”
I hopped down from the bed, my boots hitting the dirt of the driveway. I pulled the keg onto the tailgate, then slid it toward him.
“Here. I’ll go see what’s going on inside.”
I was fine with one-night stands. In fact, that was the only kind of sex I had. It wasn’t like a SEAL led the nine-to-five lifestyle. Girlfriends and wives didn’t know when their men would come walking through the door. Or if they would ever again.
I knew the chances of survival being in the military, especially being a SEAL. I took it on voluntarily. Even my grandparents understood the risks since Gramps had been in Vietnam. But I wasn’t putting a woman through that fuckery. It wasn’t fair to her.
The bra on the screen door? Whoever it belonged to was in my house. Uninvited. Even if she was—very obviously—requesting sex. I didn’t like being surprised. Ambushed, even with pussy. Because I’d been trained to stay alive. To watch out for shit like this.
But this wasn’t war, and the woman not wearing a bra? She sure as hell wasn’t my enemy. Since my dick was also on vacation, it got hard at what was being offered.
Buck slapped me on the back. “Have fun.”
He hoisted the dripping keg up onto his shoulder and hoofed it back toward the bonfire. He disappeared into the darkness, and I went to snag the bra off the door. Based on the size of the cups, the woman who’d discarded it had a nice handful. Perfect.
I went into the familiar kitchen. The house was quiet, only the light over the stove was on. After peeking into the family room and finding it empty, I went up the back steps to my bedroom. A sliver of light seeped out from beneath the closed door. I took a second to adjust my now-hard dick before turning the doorknob.
Holy fucking hell.
It was Indi, and she was naked.
In my bed.
“Hey, Ford.”
Chapter
One
Nine Years Later
* * *
INDIGO
* * *
The heel of my hiking boot skidded ten feet down the slick embankment before I managed to stop. At least I stayed on my feet—oof. I slipped a second time and slid another six feet on my ass, which was now muddy and soaked.
Great. Just perfect.
I lurched back to standing. A bolt of lightning followed instantly by a crack of thunder meant being exposed. Cold rain pelted my head and shoulders, and every drop registered through my hooded, waterproof jacket. The sudden summer cloudburst turned the already muddy soil of the mountain to the consistency of a soggy bar of soap. The kind that slid out of grasp and had to be chased around the tub while leaving slick remains in its wake.
I needed to find a place to take cover until the storm passed. There were trees taller than me to get hit by lightning, but I wasn’t stupid. I needed shelter and now. The trouble was the closest place belonged to Ford Ledger.
God, Ford. The guy I’d been stupid over when I was eighteen. Who’d embarrassed me. No, I’d done a really impressive job of that all on my own. My own tattered pride was the reason I was debating whether to step foot on his land, even in a flash storm.
Yeah, it had been that bad. He was the extremely hot but jerky best friend of my brother, David. Or better known by his friends as Buck. Ford was the last guy on Earth I wanted to ask for or accept help from. His grandmother might be there. She’d let me in with open arms and dry clothes, but I couldn’t risk it. Not if it meant seeing or dealing with Ford. So there was no chance in hell I’d show up at his door. Not even if the mountain turned into a volcano and erupted.
Sparks was a small town, but somehow I’d managed to avoid Ford in the months since he retired from combat to do God-knows-what on his land. That was because I would’ve rather frozen to death than have a one-on-one conversation with him. I didn’t need to be told off and turned away. Again.
Yeesh—ack!
I slid again. I was completely off-trail now, and getting back to the path and following it probably wasn’t my best bet. It was a ninety-minute hike without any cover to the trailhead where I parked. Not even a rocky outcropping to shelter beneath.
I looked down the mountainside toward Ford’s property through the pouring rain. It was hard to see, but there was an old greenhouse, one I never remembered. Although the one time I’d been to his house, I’d been more interested in his bedroom than anywhere else on the huge property. I could hole up in the greenhouse until the storm passed. I wasn’t the first Montanan to seek refuge from a neighbor.
I hunched my shoulders against the wind and rain and changed the angle of my descent, picking my footholds carefully to avoid more sliding and slipping. A lot of good it did me. I spilled three more times before I reached the property line. The barbed wire on the low fence looked new and aggressive like it was built for more than just keeping stray cattle in or out. Going to the nearest post, I braced on it as I climbed the strands of taut wire. Even taking great care, I ripped my pants climbing over it.
“Fuck,” I muttered, wiping rain off my nose and setting off again.
I made it to the greenhouse—which was also in better repair than I expected—and tested the door. It was locked.
“Seriously?” I said to no one.
Who locked a greenhouse? I might hate the guy, but I’d known Ford my whole life. Sure, the only time I’d seen him since that fateful, naked night years ago was at Buck’s memorial. Pot was legal to grow now, but I couldn’t imagine Ford or his grandmother cultivating plants that had to be kept safe from theft. What was the guy up to? A lock only meant one thing. He was shady. Like Buck, whose last actions as a SEAL were supposedly less than heroic. Hell, they said he’d murdered someone.
I pushed that thought away like usual because I didn’t want to think about the shit that we were told about my brother. The things he couldn’t answer. Because he was dead.
Dropping my backpack on the ground, I grabbed the multipurpose tool I always carried. I tried to jimmy the lock, but after several frustrating attempts, I gave up. Finding a rock, I smashed a low window and used it to clear the remaining shards. Grabbing my bag and shoving it through the opening, I then hoisted myself through next and tumbled inside.
Christ, I was wet.
I left a puddle which only grew larger as I shook like a Golden Retriever to get the water off my jacket. My hiking pants were soaked through, despite being made of water-wicking material. They were no competition against this rainstorm. My boots, well, they were at least five pounds heavier than normal and caked with mud.
I was a mountain guide, used to things like this, but it didn’t make being soggy and cold any more pleasant. Thankfully, I didn’t have to paste on a smile for paying tourists. Tell them that a little rain made a vacation more memorable. I glanced around. “What the hell?” I whispered to myself.
There weren’t any plants. The space had been converted into a gym. A gym like at a fancy hotel. Two treadmills and a rowing machine were at one end. Racks held free weights, and in the corner were neatly placed kettlebells. The floor wasn’t concrete but a grid of cushioning rubber. A giant punching bag hung over the mats on one end.
I glanced up at the glass ceiling, and all I saw was pounding rain. Who knew how long this spring storm would last. I had no intention of putting in a few miles on a treadmill; I had the wilderness outside for that. Except I couldn’t sit here in my wet clothes while I waited for the weather to pass. Before the front came in, it had been in the high seventies, and thankfully, the glass kept the space balmy. I sighed, then shivered, even though it was warm.
