Page 2 of Knotted by the Mountain Man Dragon

“Cage?”

“Cage Brannon. Owns the auto shop. Big fella. Keeps that place running like a Swiss watch.”

I nod and try to focus on Dale’s chatter instead of the fact that every mile closer to Blackridge makes my core feel hotter.

We pull into town and I barely register it. One main street. A coffee shop with fogged windows. A tavern. A hardware store. Everything dark and damp under low clouds that sit on the mountains like a lid on a pot. Douglas firs so tall they make the buildings look miniature. Woodsmoke curling from chimneys.

Then Dale turns into a gravel lot and I see the sign.

BRANNON AUTOMOTIVE

The building is old but solid. Clean. A real working garage, not some franchise with fluorescent lights and a waiting room that smells like burnt coffee. Two big bay doors, both closed against the rain. A pickup out front with mud on the wheel wells that looks like it’s been running since before I was born. A chopping block near the side of the building with an axe buried in it. A neat stack of split firewood under a tarp.

Dale backs my car into the lot and starts unhooking.

“Go on in,” he says. “Door’s open.”

I pull my jacket tighter, step into the rain, and run for it.

The side door opens into warmth and the smell of motor oil and grease and metal. But also cedar. Smoke. Something that burns faintly sweet, like a campfire someone built from good wood.

My body responds so violently I almost stumble.

The heat I’ve been fighting for the last hour surges. My stomach drops. The pull in my core becomes a clench. My skin goes electric.

What—

“Be with you in a minute.”

The voice comes from under the hood of a black truck. Deep and flat. The verbal equivalent of someone who does not want to be interrupted and is making that abundantly clear with tone alone.

I see boots first. Heavy, scarred work boots. Then legs in dark jeans, built like someone whose body is a tool he uses every day. Then he straightens up and turns around.

Oh.

Oh.

He’s enormous. Six-five at least, with shoulders so wide they block the truck behind him. Dark hair pushed back from his face, damp with sweat. A black henley with the sleeves shoved up past his forearms, and the forearms are—

I need to not stare at his forearms.

Too late. I’m staring. They’re thick and corded and streaked with grease and there are tattoos climbing up from his wrists, disappearing under the pushed-up fabric. His hands are huge, wrapped around a shop rag, wiping slowly.

His face is hard. Like someone took a rough chisel to granite and said “make it handsome but make it clear he doesn’t want to talk to anybody.” Sharp jaw. Straight nose. Dark stubble.

He is the most aggressively masculine human being I have ever seen in my life.

He is also not smiling.

He turns away, crosses to the utility sink, and scrubs his hands under the faucet. Grease and oil rinse away. He dries off with a shop towel and tosses it aside.

Then he walks toward me.

He glances at me with flat dark eyes and I feel it everywhere.

“Car trouble?” he says, like the dead vehicle currently being unloaded in his parking lot is not sufficient evidence.

“Transmission, I think. It made a—” I gesture vaguely. “A very bad noise. Then steam. Then it died.”