Tate (Mountain Men 3)

What kind of a fucking arse cheats on his wedding day? My ex, that’s who.

I nursed my wounds for a very long time. I couldn’t write. Who could write romance stories with happily ever afters when their own dreams had been dashed to smithereens? Sigh.

I told myself that the entire male population was at fault for my troubles. I told myself I needed no man, that my battery-operated vibrator would work just fine, and he’d never cheat on me. Ever.

Pathetic, I know.

It was so long that I went without writing, that I began to wonder if I’d ever write again.

But writing pays the bills, and I had a story to tell. The story of Mac and Bryn Cowen.

When someone doesn't have a moral compass, they can't help but admire someone who does. And now that I'm older, and I know that the moral compass of the Cowen Clan isn't the standard one? I still accept it as viable and honorable, because it was the first one I ever knew.

I could write their code clearer than they could, because it's something they might live, but it's something that I aspire to.

Fierce loyalty, steadfast protection, the ties of family and friends that are damn near unbreakable.

I mean, look what they did last night. Who cracks their head on a fucking tree, and ends up being taken care of? I don't think just anyone would welcome someone into their home to care for them. But they did. For me.

And if I'm really honest? A part of me hoped that telling their story would actually make them seem a little more human. The stories are written in the present tense, and I don't skirt the issues of real human frailty and weakness, but in every single book they overcome the circumstances they're in. Someone gets a happily ever after.

That was all just how it started, though. Now I need the bloody money.

I think I fancied myself a sort of a liaison between the Cowen family and the rest of the world. If they could fall in love with the men in these books, with the characters in these books, maybe they would see that humans are flawed, that they make mistakes, and that even people who live by a different code of conduct are still humans. Still worthy of respect.

Or maybe I’ve just thought too highly of myself.

And I never imagined that the Cowen family brothers would actually be concerned! Now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn’t have kept them quite so realistic… I could've put them on a fucking beach somewhere. I had to put them in the snowy mountains, didn't I? Oh God.

What will they do if they find out I’m the writer?

Last year, I had an inside spy. Aisla was the one who would take down notes, tell me what was going on, feed me information with sordid, gritty details that made the perfect fodder for my books. She took copious notes, provided them to me, and of course I paid her well.

I never dreamed that she'd actually be apprehended by them, that they would suspect that she had anything to do with the novels that I was writing…

Thank God she got away. I wish I knew how.

At first, I imagined that they thought she was the writer of the books. She wasn't, of course. She was only my inside source.

I was preparing for a wedding and had no idea that she'd been apprehended by them. I found out later she’d been rescued the same night. I guess people would assume that someone rescued her from her precarious position, but it definitely wasn't me. I actually have no idea who it was and haven't been able to get in touch with her since.

I do know that she probably would be in major trouble with the Clan if they found her. And I do feel a little guilty about that, but I've gotten accustomed to living with guilt, it's just kind of something that I deal with.

Now what the hell am I going to do?

How am I going to get him off the trail? Pretending I don’t know anything about the books isn’t a smart idea, I know it isn’t. If he finds out…

“How’s your pain?” Tate asks, as we head outside. He extends his arm for me to take, and I do so reluctantly. I don’t like how attracted I am to him, how my skin feels like it’s on fire when we touch. It feels as if he has control over me, like my body has a mind of its own when he touches me.

Damn it.

The truth is, my pain level’s terrible. My head’s smacking, the pain’s throbbing, the skin’s tender to the touch, and it feels like someone's put a hot air balloon inside my skull.

“It’s fine," I lie.