Mountain Wild. Stacey Kayne

A full beard covered most of his face, but didn’t hide three long scars twisting through his cheek.

      Maggie gasped and scrambled back until she bumped into something. Fingers twisting into her hair, popping strands at the root, reminding her she faced a greater threat—her own brother.

      “Who are you?” Nathan demanded.

      The beastly man stared at her a moment before he glanced at her brother. “Trapper.”

      “You’re trespassing on my property.”

      “I come to trade.”

      The trapper looked directly at her. Maggie shivered, his vacant brown eyes increasing her fear. She was scraped, bruised and bloody, one of her braids had unraveled, yet he stared as though her brother held a dog by a leash.

      “You want her?” Nathan asked, laughter in his voice.

      The trapper’s shoulder shifted and a bound clump of fur landed on the ground beside her. “Give you six beaver pelts. Fair trade.”

      Maggie gasped in horror. She couldn’t be sold! “Nathan.” She tried to stand, shaking her head despite the pain in her scalp. Her brother wrenched his hold. Pain pierced her scalp, forcing her back onto her knees with a sharp cry.

      “You live around here?” he asked.

      “No,” the trapper answered, his gaze fixed on her. “I follow the rivers.”

      “You can’t sell me!” she shouted. “I’m your sister!”

      He released her hair. Pain exploded across her back as he kicked her into the dirt. “Take her.”

      Long, grimy fingers reached for her. Maggie screamed as she was hoisted up and tossed over the giant’s shoulder.

      “No! Nathan!”

      She kicked and screamed as the trapper carried her deeper into the woods. Her thrashing didn’t slow his strides. He broke from the trees and ran across a wide clearing. Reaching the other side, he stopped and swung her forward, pinning her against the rough bark of a tree.

      Fear choked her. Her breaths came in short gasps.

      “Hush your mouth, lest you want to die,” he said in a harsh whisper.

      She stared at the jagged scars rippling across his cheek and into his thick beard.

      “I seen lots of death, little miss. That man has killin’ in his eyes.”

      He lowered her to the ground and steadied her. “You want to live?”

      Tears burned hot against her cheeks as she nodded.

      “Then you bes’ move fast and keep quiet. He may not be finished with us yet.”

      Her mind reeled as he tucked her against his side, his gaze scanning the ground he’d just covered.

      He was afraid. Afraid her brother would come after them.

      “Goddamn cowards on that ranch,” he murmured. “Even wolves defend their young. Goes to show why I don’t trust my back to no one.”

      Maggie gazed up at his tawny, withered face and the matted brown hair poking out from beneath his battered hat. He smelled bad and was old, but not so old that his hair had grayed like her daddy’s.

      “I done my good deeds in this life,” he muttered, taking a step back. Fisted hands twice the size of her brother’s slammed onto his hips. His angry dark eyes narrowed.

      Maggie stumbled back, beyond his reach.

      “I got a mule a half mile from here. We’re headed north. You can go my way or find your own way. It ain’t my worry.”

      Find her own way? “I—I’m only thirteen.”

      “Only two ages in this world that matter. Either you old enough to survive or you ain’t.” He held his hand out to her.

      Maggie stared at his large, filthy palm then glanced at her own scraped hands. Twigs and leaves clung to dirty pink satin and the frazzled black hair draped over her shoulders. She was suddenly aware of the ache in her swollen lips, the burning in her eyes.

      Her daddy was dead. Her brother had tried to kill her.

      “You old enough, Margaret Grace?”

      Only Nathan called her by her first and middle name.

      “My name is Maggie,” she said, taking the trapper’s hand.

      “I’m Ira.”

      Low murmurs carried across the meadow, drawing his gaze. Ira’s fingers tightened over hers, tugging her after him.

      “Run, Maggie.”

       Chapter One

       Central Wyoming Territory—Fall, 1889

      She moved with the caution of a doe caught grazing in an open meadow. Her dirt-stained fingers quickly secured a rope behind her saddle, binding her supplies as she discreetly watched the men filing out of the newly constructed town hall.

      Following a roomful of grumbling cattlemen out onto the boardwalk, Garret Daines spotted the woman they called Mad Mag the moment he stepped into the crisp evening air. Her mangy bearskin coat and battered brown hat was hard to miss in the fading light of an otherwise deserted street. Murmurs of recognition and surprise rumbled through the crowd of men.

      Garret had seen the mountain recluse in a town only one other time in the eight years he’d lived in these Wyoming hills, some years back in a settlement further north. The bushel of tangled black hair beneath her hat suggested she could still benefit from a lesson or two in hygiene. Known for having a temperament on the far side of crazy, Mad Mag tended to avoid folks altogether. She obviously hadn’t expected all the cattlemen within fifty miles to spill out onto the streets of Bitterroot Springs at five o’clock in the evening. He glanced around at the men watching her with an equal measure of curiosity and caution.

      “What’s the plan?” Duce asked, clapping a hand on Garret’s shoulder as he stepped beside him.

      Garret glanced over at his business partner, the man’s wide grin striking him as a pure wonder. The past two hours of heated debates and near brawls, two of which had included Garret, left an ache in his shoulders, the frustration winding inside him still burning for release. In the fourteen years he’d been riding with Duce the wiry cowpuncher had never known a sour mood.

      He doesn’t handle the account books, he silently retorted. Duce had signed on as his partner in name only, refusing to take a cut or responsibility for a business he hadn’t funded. At the age of forty-two, Duce still lived for Saturday nights and blowing his paycheck on weekend benders. In the past six years of running his cattle ranch, Garret had come to envy Duce’s carefree attitude and figured the past few winters had closed the wide gap in their ages.

      Garret felt old. Nothing like a failed marriage and Old Man Winter cramming his boot up your behind to age a man.

      He glanced out at a pink-streaked sky. “Sun’s about down. Might as well spend the night.”

      Duce gave a nod. He raked his fingers through his bushy red hair glowing bright beneath a streetlamp then tugged on his hat. “Think I’ll head over to the Gilded Lady. Winter snow will be piling up soon and my girls are bound to miss me. Care to come along?”

      “Not in the mood.” He shook his head, a weary sigh breaking from his chest. “I feel like I’ve just been ambushed by seven cattle barons.”

      Duce chuckled.

      Garret didn’t share his humor. To secure his place in the stockyards come spring he’d signed over a small fortune to the wealthy bandits of the newly appointed Cattlemen’s Association. They’d seemed rather disappointed in his ability to meet their demands. He wasn’t about to be pushed off his land. He’d