Rachel Lee: Rocky Mountain Lawman

SHE WANTED PEACE. INSTEAD SHE FOUND DANGER—AND A REASON TO LIVE AGAIN

When Skylar Jamison heads to the Wyoming Rockies, all the army veteran wants is some rest. But as a stranger warns her away—off public lands—every war-torn nerve she has goes on alert.

The ranger who investigates makes her even more wary, for very different reasons. Smart, good-looking, with an inner calm Sky envies, Craig Stone sparks her interest and wakes all her fears.

Craig didn’t plan on inviting Sky to stay with him. But there are armed strangers in his forest. And Sky—tough, vulnerable, sexy Sky, everything he’s ever wanted—is their target. They are each trained to handle danger. It would take both of them, together, to survive this new threat….

This wasn’t the R & R she’d been hoping for....

She had come out here for peace, quiet and the restorative benefits of painting and solitude. Instead a total stranger had walked her into something that harkened back to Iraq. She really ought to just pack up and go somewhere else.

But she knew she couldn’t, wouldn’t do that. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she had said she would never abandon a fellow soldier, and she meant it. She got the feeling Craig didn’t have a whole lot of help, so unless they found a reason to call in the Feds or ATF or something, she would do what she could to help. She was going to have his back.

She heard Craig draw a breath, as if he were about to say something, when she suddenly realized that the edginess running along her nerve endings no longer had solely to do with him.

“Shh,” she whispered almost inaudibly. “We’re being watched.”

Conard County: The Next Generation

Dear Reader,

This story was born of a confluence of things. It began as a memory of the “water wars” I saw when I sold real estate in the Rocky Mountains. Things like that can get extremely touchy and very litigious and expensive. It can even get dangerous and ugly. But as I toyed with the idea, I needed a reason for the water problem, and I began thinking about all the headaches this could cause the forest service if water was cut off to forest service land.

And voilà, I had my hero, a law enforcement officer with the Forest Service, a man who found his peace and meaning in preserving public lands for the future. And my heroine, a woman with a traumatic past who had come to the mountains to heal and paint. From there it was one easy step from water being the problem, to the guy who was building a militia on his private land.

I hope you enjoy this story of two people melding their very different lives as they face an unexpected threat together.

Rachel

Rocky Mountain Lawman

Rachel Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

RACHEL LEE

was hooked on writing by the age of twelve, and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

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To my dear friend Linda, who helped with research and saved my sanity on more than one occasion. Sometimes we get sisters by birth, and other times we discover them. Thanks, Sis.

Contents

Prologue Prologue Buddy Jackson sat at the fancy dining table his great-grandmother had carted out here from back east almost a century ago, a table that looked out of place amidst the mostly rough-hewn surroundings of the cabin his grandfather had built and his family had added to over the years. His wife and kids were out tending the garden as they should be. The growing season here was short, and there was no time to waste. Across from him sat Cap MacDonald, a guy he’d met last year at a gathering of “Preppers,” as they called themselves, people who were preparing either for the collapse of society or the end of the world. All of them, of course, assumed that they would survive the cataclysm. Buddy had no doubt of it; he was living in the middle of nowhere. Little could reach him here on his mountainside. But Cap had somewhat different ideas, and they appealed to Buddy. Cap didn’t just want to survive, he wanted to win. To be in control afterward. What’s more, he made a good argument for self-protection and keeping the parasites out after the troubles started. Cap had even grander ideas, though. Buddy had been prepping for a long time, and sometimes he got tired of waiting for the moment that would prove the brilliance of his foresight. Cap wasn’t prepared to wait. He spoke of how it was their job to bring it all about. That sounded okay to Buddy most of the time, and the fact that Cap was pulling together a small militia didn’t seem like a problem. If the revolution was coming anyway, what was the point of waiting for it? But something was bothering him now. “You heard,” he said to Cap, “about that hiker they found dead about four miles from here?” Cap shook his head. His hands were busy cleaning the AR-15 he always carried. “What about him?” “He was dead.” Cap shrugged. “People die out here in the wilderness. You aren’t stupid, Buddy.” “No.” Buddy dropped it, but he didn’t stop thinking about it. He knew Cap took his guys out to walk through the national forest that surrounded his land on three sides. Nothing wrong in that. But he also had figured out that Cap was capable of killing. That was one thing Buddy didn’t know about himself, and he’d been glad to have someone join him who wouldn’t hesitate to defend the compound if necessary. But surely that didn’t extend to some hiker wandering around in the woods? Of course not. After a minute or two, he finally stopped thinking about it. The revolution hadn’t begun yet, and Cap couldn’t have had any reason to hurt a hiker, one who wasn’t even prowling this property. No reason at all. Must have just been an accident.

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

Excerpt

Prologue

Buddy Jackson sat at the fancy dining table his great-grandmother had carted out here from back east almost a century ago, a table that looked out of place amidst the mostly rough-hewn surroundings of the cabin his grandfather had built and his family had added to over the years.

His wife and kids were out tending the garden as they should be. The growing season here was short, and there was no time to waste.

Across from him sat Cap MacDonald, a guy he’d met last year at a gathering of “Preppers,” as they called themselves, people who were preparing either for the collapse of society or the end of the world. All of them, of course, assumed that they would survive the cataclysm. Buddy had no doubt of it; he was living in the middle of nowhere. Little could reach him here on his mountainside.

But Cap had somewhat different ideas, and they appealed to Buddy. Cap didn’t just want to survive, he wanted to win. To be in control afterward. What’s more, he made a good argument for self-protection and keeping the parasites out after the troubles started.