Mountain Man's Secret Baby: An Older Man Younger Woman Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 41) Read online

  MOUNTAIN MAN’S SECRET BABY

  AN OLDER MAN YOUNGER WOMAN ROMANCE

  _______________________

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS, 41

  FLORA FERRARI

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  A Man Who Knows What He Wants Series

  Mountain Man's Secret Baby

  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

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue – Winter

  Extended Epilogue - Winter

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright © 2018 by Flora Ferrari.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS

  Book 1: Baby Lust

  Book 2: Veteran

  Book 3: Built

  Book 4: Bambino

  Book 5: Rescued

  Book 6: Leader

  Book 7: Professor

  Book 8: Burned

  Book 9: Worldly

  Book 10: Pistol

  Book 11: Policed

  Book 12: Driven

  Book 13: Lucky 13

  Book 14: Lumberjacked

  Book 15: Protector

  Book 16: Carpenter

  Book 17: Italian Stallion

  Book 18: Gardener

  Book 19: Budapest Billionaire’s Virgin

  Book 20: Billionaire’s Babysitter

  Book 21: Cocky CFO

  Book 22: Fireman’s Filthy 4th

  Book 23: Mechanic

  Book 24: SEAL’s Secret

  Book 25: Police, Pooch, and Smooch

  Book 26: Fireman’s Fake Fiancée

  Book 27: Billionaire’s Virgin Ballerina

  Book 28: Bitcoin Billionaire’s Babysitter

  Book 29: Veterans Day Daddy

  Book 30: Cowboy’s Christmas Carol

  Book 31: Police Officer’s Princess

  Book 32: Statham

  Book 33: Bodyguard

  Book 34: Greek God

  Book 35: Billionaire Single Dad's Babysitter

  Book 36: Mountain Man

  Book 37: SEAL’s Justice

  Book 38: Royal Romance

  Book 39: Doctor Mountain Man’s Special Delivery

  Book 40: Crocodile Dan D

  Book 41: Mountain Man’s Secret Baby

  Book 42: Doctor Bad Boy’s Secret Baby

  Book 43: Cop’s Babysitter

  MOUNTAIN MAN’S SECRET BABY

  I’m a mountain man. A recluse. A loner.

  I avoid people by choice. If what happened to me happened to you you would too.

  But once a year I make the two-day trek for my only glimpse of humanity, but this year I never expected I’d lay my eyes on someone as beautiful her.

  She’s young, innocent, and she might just be the light to my darkness, but I can see there’s so much more to her than meets the eye.

  And when we meet sparks fly, but she leaves early the next morning without a trace.

  I’m going to search high and low for her even if it takes me until the end of time. I know she’s going to be surprised to see me the moment I finally do find her and to see that I won’t ever give up when it comes to her.

  But will she have a surprise of her own?

  *Mountain Man’s Secret Baby is a standalone insta-everything older man younger woman romance with an HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

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  CHAPTER 1

  Jason

  “Who is that?”

  I squeeze my eyes tight and then open them again. I need to make sure they’re not playing tricks on me.

  I’ve been walking through the cold, icy wilderness the past forty-eight hours and there’s a chance I might be hallucinating.

  It wouldn’t be the first time.

  And that’s exactly why I’m here. At least one of the reasons.

  For each of the past eight years I’ve made the trek from my fortress of solitude up in the mountains to down here into this little mountain town for their annual parade to honor military veterans.

  You’d have to stretch all the way out to the county line to find thirty-five hundred people living here. Shoot, there are probably more species of animals in these parts than there are people. I know. I’ve come across most of 'em up by my cabin. The one I built by hand. The one that’s not on any maps and never will be.

  Even if you were crazy enough to take a helicopter out to the peaceful patch of land that I call my own, you wouldn’t see me. I’ve got the roof covered in moss so from overhead you wouldn’t notice a thing.

  You learn little tricks like these when you’ve been in the kinds of third world nightmares I’ve been in. You find out ways to avoid detection and stay alive for another day.

  But some days I wonder why I’m still here at all. I should have died over there in Afghanistan. And if it weren’t for the heroics of another patriotic freedom fighter I sure would have.

  And how do I repay the ultimate display of generosity he bestowed upon me?

  By avoiding everything and everyone.

  He died so I could live and now I live in a way most people would consider death.

  Cut off from the world entirely.

  But once a year I come down here to remember. To pay my respects. To show that I’m grateful and that I’ll never ever forget.

  But this year is different.

  Much, much different.

  Because of her.

  I’ve never seen her around these parts.

  Maybe that’s because she looks so young. I’d put her between eighteen and twenty-two. I can hardly guess the ages of kids these days. Another sign that I’m getting older.

  Maybe she’s been here before and I just never noticed her although I strongly doubt that.

  Maybe she hit a growth spurt and she’s a lot different than she was last year. It’s not like I’d forget that face and it’s not like I miss a single one when I come down here.

  I just take my perch up here at the top of the hill and survey the entire parade. Something about my training kicks in whenever I’m around crowds of people, especially a lot of innocent women and children. I can’t help but to scan. I’m still looking for faces that are just a little too inte
nse. I’m watching for small body language tells that give away those who are up to no good. And I’m always thinking about how I can put a stop to them immediately without anyone getting harmed, and preferably without anyone knowing.

  In and out. Save the day before anyone even knows there was even a threat. My rewards are internal. I do my job so no one notices a thing, except the fool who dares to think he’s going to cause chaos and bedlam on my watch.

  But right now I can’t stop watching her.

  I pull out my government issue binoculars from my backpack for a closer look.

  One look at that silky smooth skin of hers and that soft innocence of her expression and I already know this is the kind of girl I’ve always dreamed of.

  And my cargo pants suddenly feel tighter in the crotch letting me know I’m thinking about her with both heads.

  But that’s not the kind of girl you just enjoy the physical with. No sir. That’s the kind of girl you make love to.

  Not that I would know anything about that. I can’t even remember the last time I felt myself get hard, but I do know I was trained to read people better than just about anyone in the world and she’s giving me all the signs of an angel.

  A thought flashes through my mind. I take her up to my cabin and lock her away from the rest of the world. Just her and I and a bunch of babies forever.

  Just up there doing our own thing. Living off the clean, pure land and teaching our kids the lessons of the wild. No wars. No television. No distractions.

  Only focused on each other. Our little house on the prairie, except this one would be up in the mountains.

  She’d never want for anything. I’d give her anything and everything in the world. Most important of which are the things you can’t buy.

  I’ve got some money, but it’s darn near worthless where I live. If it got much colder I’d burn it to stay warm, but there’s no need. I chop down enough firewood each fall to easily last through the winter.

  I’m prepared. Always prepared.

  But I wasn’t prepared for her.

  I wasn’t expecting this. Not now. Not ever.

  I already know how this parade finishes. It’s the same each and every year.

  If I want to make a move it’s now or never.

  Go down there and say something to her or live for the next year wondering “what if.”

  But what young woman wants to live in the middle of nowhere with a damaged man like me?

  Yeah, I’m in great physical shape, if you look past the shrapnel scars. It’s the mental that still needs some work. Just when I think I’ve got it whipped the dreams come back.

  But she’s gonna give me a whole different type of dreams.

  The kind you wake up in the middle of the night with where you can’t sleep because your groin is so sore. Where you need a release, but you know you can’t. Not thinking about a girl like that.

  She’s not a release. She’s a keeper for life.

  Just not for an old man like me.

  Thirty-three isn’t exactly old, but when you’ve lived the kind of life I have it’s more than enough. I’m thirty-three going on sixty-three. I’ve seen too much. Felt too much pain. And now here I am.

  But there’s one thing about me that no-one will ever be able to change.

  Make that two.

  I don’t always make the smartest decisions, but the decisions I do make are always made from the heart. And when I see something I want I go for it with everything I’ve got.

  And if there’s one thing I know it’s that I want her more than life itself.

  I shove the binoculars in my backpack and march right down that hill to introduce myself to that angel before she up and flies away.

  CHAPTER 2

  Winter

  I watch as the two Marines fire their weapons for the fallen and it sends chills up my spine.

  I want to cry, but I can’t.

  He taught me that. “Never let them see your weaknesses. Never expose them. And before long you won’t have any.”

  I miss that man so much.

  I still remember the first time I saw him. He came into the foster home I was in and walked right over to me.

  He was a very big man, especially considering I was only five years old.

  I should have been scared of him, but I wasn’t. He was very calm, exceptionally polite, and soft-spoken.

  I found out later that he’d asked for an entire day to meet the children who might be good candidates for adoption.

  Less than twenty minutes later he was completing and submitting my adoption papers even though I wasn’t on the list of available candidates.

  I always hated that word. It was like I was in the running to win something or something ridiculous like that. Like us kids were all competing for the love of someone who we weren’t even sure was really willing to love us back.

  Especially me. I was considered damaged goods…beyond repair.

  But he saw something in me I didn’t even see in myself.

  And three months later all the paperwork was approved and I was living with him.

  I remember the Marine Corps doing everything in its power to stop him from adopting. It made no sense from their point of view or almost everyone else.

  It only made sense to the two of us and that’s all that mattered.

  I still remember the assignment. He was to go to Afghanistan for just one week and then he’d be back. In the meantime he’d hired a babysitter to watch me, even though he didn’t have the money to do so.

  And she was the one who gave me the news that he wasn’t ever coming back.

  But the least I can do is come back to his hometown each and every year and honor the young woman he made me.

  We only had seven years together. From age five to age twelve. In the grand scheme of things it seems like nothing, but to me it was everything.

  I went from being completely off the rails to getting my life on track. He was firm but fair. He didn’t accept excuses from me and certainly not from himself.

  He taught me accountability and how to watch out for myself.

  And watching out for myself was something I was doing right now.

  From high on the hill I caught the sight of a big man. He wasn’t particularly difficult for me to spot.

  He was wearing a olive green T-shirt in the cold of winter and I could see the ink running up and down his arm. The T-shirt was tight, but it wasn’t one of those compression shirts like professional athletes wear. It was one of the basic issue types they give out to those in the military. But the cut and color I’d guess he was a Marine, or at least that’s who his shirt was designed for.

  But there’s no way it wasn’t his. It fit like a glove, hugging his well-defined physique from his shoulders all the way down to his waist where it tucked into his V-shaped tapered like it was custom made.

  The thing that threw me off was his beard that was fit for a lumberjack. Then again I know special operators wear them abroad quite often in order to fit in. Maybe he was one in the past and he just grew comfortable with it.

  He certainly didn’t look like the militia type that lives in remote areas and trains for doomsday or acts of vigilante justice. He looks too calm for that, although it’s hard to tell exactly from this distance.

  But now he’s closing the distance, or at least I think so.

  I watch as he walks down the hill further before blending in with the crowd.

  I could almost swear he had those binoculars he pulled out of his backpack a minute ago focused on me.

  Did he know my father? How would he even know about me? My father never told anyone on base about me, refusing to receive the additional family pay. He supported both of us off the minimum salary. “Do the most with what you’ve got,” he often said.

  Well, I needed to follow that advice right now.

  I wasn’t prepared for anything unusual up here today. And there’s no way I’m ready to take on a guy of that size and who I’m guessing has had
some serious training.

  It was time to pull back and regroup, not to retreat. I hate that word as it implies fear and running and running in the animal kingdom is the quickest way to become prey.

  I take three deep breaths to fill my body with oxygen and then turn to leave the area.

  I’m barely halfway turned around when I realize I’m face to face with…him!

  CHAPTER 3

  Jason

  A left jab comes straight at my chest but I grab it in mid-flight.

  She drops to a knee and attempts a one-leg takedown, but I use her momentum against her as I spin her through her kick using her trapped hand for leverage.