Mountain Man Read online

  Mountain Man

  Men of Lake Tahoe

  Jules Barnard

  MOUNTAIN MAN

  Copyright © Jules Barnard 2014

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Are Reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form is forbidden without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover Design © Cover Couture

  Cover Photograph © Regina Wamba Photography

  Digital ISBN: 978-0-9915604-1-7

  Print ISBN: 978-0-9915604-3-1

  Contents

  Also by Jules Barnard

  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

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  PREVIEW Rebound Roommate

  Author’s Notes

  Also by Jules Barnard

  About the Author

  Also by Jules Barnard

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  Men of Lake Tahoe Series

  Off Limits (Book 1)

  Mountain Man (Book 2)

  Rebound Roommate (Book 3)

  Hookup Master (Book 4)

  Cocky Prince (Book 5)

  * * *

  Cade Brothers Series

  Tempting Levi (Book 1)

  Daring Wes (Book 2)

  Seducing Bran (Book 3)

  Reforming Hunt (Book 4)

  * * *

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  Chapter One

  I yank up the bustier that shows more boob than I’ve ever revealed in my life. “This uniform sucks.”

  My best friend Cali peers innocently from across the aisle of the Blue Casino locker room. “You look good in that uniform. You should be thanking me.”

  The plan after college is to work at Blue Casino and save up as much money as possible before graduate school in the fall. Cali says she didn’t know what the uniforms looked like, but she knew.

  Cali grew up near the Lake Tahoe casinos. She could have warned me and I’d have chosen a different position, like, say, dealer. Instead, I became a cocktail waitress, convinced it would be less center-of-attention.

  Given that my nipples are an inch from greeting the world, I’m thinking, not so incognito.

  Cali’s been trying to get me back out there since I broke up with my cheating ex-boyfriend. I thought she meant emotionally, but Jesus, this is out there.

  Waitresses and female dealers swarm the lockers, stripping and pulling on fresh uniforms allocated by the casino at the start of every shift. Some prepare to take to the casino floor; others are finished for the day and dressing for home.

  The woman next to me shimmies into a gold lamé skinny dress and stilettos.

  Clearly, some people have bigger plans than me tonight. I tug on my jeans and slip on black flats.

  “Heads up,” Cali calls.

  The Milestone Pod that tracks running distance flies through the air.

  Cali had a two-second hankering for exercise this week. She ran a quarter of a mile and gave up. Apparently, she decided now was a good time to use her nonathletic skills to return my device.

  The Milestone Pod veers several feet to the right. I lunge and flatten my stomach to the bench, catching it with my fingertips before it crashes to the ground.

  I look up, exasperated. “Jesus, you’re like two feet away. Were you even aiming for me?”

  “What? I’m making sure your reflexes are in working order.” She shuts her locker and swings a low-slung purse over her shoulder. “How was your night?”

  I grab a few more items and close my locker as well. “They started calling me Snow White.”

  No need to elaborate on who “they” are. While Cali lives the high life of a dealer in cushy training sessions, I’ve been slaving away, slinging drinks in three-inch heels and trying to keep up with the veteran waitresses. For some reason, they’ve chosen to haze me out of the dozen new seasonal waitresses.

  Cali gazes up, her mouth twisting as if she’s actually considering the nickname.

  I drop my voice as we pass workers on our way out of the casino’s basement. “I do not look like a princess.”

  She pinches her thumb and forefinger together. “A little. But with a huge rack.”

  I open the door to the casino floor and raise my voice to be heard above the clanging and buzzing of slots. The sound is only slightly below deafening levels at this time of night. “They’re not that big. I’m sporty. Athletes can’t have big boobs.”

  She looks at me skeptically. “You need to be proud of those babies. Like me.” She grins and sticks out her Victoria’s Secret-enhanced breasts.

  There’s a chance I inherited my rack, as Cali puts it, from my mother, who does have impressive boobs. I might also have inherited her looks, only her hair is a few shades lighter than my nearly black locks and she has true green eyes. Mine are hazel, less obvious. I like my eyes.

  I’m sure the Snow White nickname has something to do with my dark hair and pale coloring. I’m equally certain the veteran waitresses think I’m young and naïve and not tough enough.

  I deliver ten drinks to their twenty, because I can’t freakin’ find my customers. The crazy patrons move around the casino floor like they’re pollinating slot machines. I’m spatially oriented; if people aren’t where I left them, I can’t find them. So yes, some of the hazing is warranted. But if the other waitresses think I’m naïve, they don’t know me very well.

  No one raised by Chantell Dubois could remain innocent. The woman changed her name to something that sounds like a French bordello, for Christ’s sake. I’m Genevieve, or Gen as my friends call me, but in spite of my mom’s fetish for anything French, I’ve kept her maiden name of Tierney—a hundred-percent Irish surname.

  As much as my mom wishes it, there are no Frenchmen in our bloodline.

  Technically, I could be French on my father’s side, but since I have no idea who he is, the point is moot.

  What I haven’t mentioned to Cali, because it seems like a shitty thing to say to someone who’s struggling with money, is that my mother offered to pay my way through graduate school. I don’t technically need this job. I just refuse to take any more of my mother’s money.

  My mom doesn’t work, nor do we have rich relatives. I assume she gets by with the help of the wealthy men that have flitted in and out of our lives for
as far back as I can remember. Which is why I’m determined to earn my way through graduate school and create a healthy distance from it all.

  Cali takes in the look on my face. “That sucks they’re calling you names, even if you do look like Snow White.” I frown, which she ignores. “Tell them to back the eff off. Better yet, I’ll do it for you.” She cranes her head and glances around. “Which waitress started it?”

  Ah, shit, now I’ve done it.

  “Cali, do not say anything.” She would too; Cali’s great like that. But sometimes her eagerness to help gets me in trouble. “The person who started it is my supervisor. You’ll make it worse.”

  She shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

  We pass the last bank of slots before the sports bar, and a waitress I chitchatted with throughout my shift sees me and smiles this large, wide smile I’m beginning to associate with her.

  Nessa is petite at about five foot three inches—the extra three courtesy of black pumps to match our cocktail uniform’s midnight satin hot pants and electric-blue sequined bustier. Compared to her, I’m like an Amazon at five foot ten—over six feet in my work heels.

  I wave as we make our way past.

  “Who’s that?” Cali asks.

  “Nessa. She invited us to the dinner party tonight. Tacos. Yummy.”

  I’m not entirely comfortable around strangers, but it would be nice to have another friend in town.

  Cali shakes her head. “I can’t go, remember? I have a Skype date with Eric. But you should go. It would be good for you to get out.”

  Oh God, I forgot about the Skype call. Cali’s right about me going, but not for the reason she’s thinking.

  The cottage we rented for the summer has thin walls. I’d rather not be around for the sex-Skyping. And Cali’s boyfriend is on my shit list. He hit on me a couple of weeks ago, which transferred him from absentminded, annoying-boyfriend-of-my-best-friend to a creeper.

  If I go to this dinner party with Nessa, it’ll kill two birds with one stone. Cali will think I’m getting out and recovering from my ex, dubbed the A-hole, and I won’t have to plug my ears at the moans vibrating through the walls. Win-win.

  And there’s no reason to worry about guys bugging me the way they do when I’m at work in my skimpy uniform. This is a small, casual get-together—not to mention I’ve got blinders on to the male sex. I’m all good.

  Pulling up to the Al Tahoe neighborhood in my dented sedan, I take in the houses with rounded eaves and shutters with pine tree cutouts.

  The knockoff Swiss Alps look, I decide. Nessa’s friend’s place even has an A-frame porch roof that extends all the way to the ground, giving it the Swiss chalet effect.

  I walk up to the front and lift my hand to knock, claustrophobically aware of the roof inches from my face, when the door swings open.

  The scent of chiles and grease smacks me in the face, and Nessa is standing there grinning, her straight black hair draped over one shoulder. “I saw you pull up.”

  Shouts erupt from behind her and I peer over her head, because she’s short and I can. My gaze lands on a guy with a baseball hat turned backward pounding his fist on a table.

  Nessa ushers me through the door, taking my coat and purse and walking them down a hallway. I fidget for a moment and stare down the hall where she disappeared, glancing every few seconds at the two people across the room.

  Nessa returns a minute later. “What can I get you to drink?” she says. “Zach has Coronas in the fridge and I made a batch of margaritas.” She waggles her eyebrows.

  Margaritas sound awesome, but I’m driving. “Water would be great.”

  We enter the kitchen and Nessa fills me a glass from the sink near the food simmering on the stove that has my mouth salivating. She hands me the cup and we make our way over to the others.

  The guy with the baseball hat lifts his hands in exasperation at the attractive brunette sitting beside him. “You call that a gulp? Come on, Mira. That’s a baby bird sip. Quit being a girl and drink it like a man.”

  A few coins glimmer on the table and a shallow glass sits in the center.

  My heart gives a little flutter in my chest. Quarters is one of my favorite drinking games.

  I’ve been drinking since I was twelve. My mom thought it would make me worldlier to have wine with dinner—something to do with her French fetish. As a result, my tolerance for alcohol is high. Add good hand-eye coordination that did not come from her—her precision is as good as Cali’s, which is to say nonexistent—and I pretty much dominate at Quarters.

  “Zach,” Nessa says. The guy with the baseball hat looks up and smiles at her. Wow, kind of an adoring smile if I’m reading it correctly, though Nessa never mentioned a boyfriend. “This is the friend I told you about. Gen is a cocktail waitress at Blue for the summer.”

  I recognize Zach as one of the dealers in the blackjack pit. “The food smells amazing,” I say.

  He grins. “Glad you could make it. This is Mira.”

  The girl beside him gives me a weak smile and takes a sip of her drink.

  “They’re Washoe,” Nessa adds, elbowing me in the side. “Mira and Zach go way back. Their families have known each other for, like, a hundred generations.”

  Zach adjusts his hat and scratches his forehead, his thick brown hair peeking through the hole of his backward ball cap. “Why do you always refer to us as Washoe?”

  “It’s interesting.” Nessa shoves him playfully and walks back into the kitchen.

  He shakes his head at her retreating figure, but there’s appreciation in his eyes.

  Zach empties the Quarters glass. “Join us, Gen. Have you played before?”

  “I have, but I’m driving. You mind that I’m not drinking?”

  “Nope,” he says. “You can help me get Mira toasted. She isn’t nice until she’s had a few.”

  His comment receives a scowl from Mira that resembles a runway pout, because the girl’s face is stunning. Her dark-chocolate hair hits mid-back and tapers around a face that’s not quite heart-shaped, not quite oval. It’s symmetrical and interesting, and I’m seriously jealous of her defined cheekbones.

  I sit in one of the granny-style wooden dining chairs, and Zach slides a quarter my way. Holding it between my thumb and forefinger, I glance at the cup in the center. I line up my shot, and slam the side of my palm onto the high-gloss wooden surface.

  The quarter bounces off the table and sinks into the empty juice glass.

  “Nice!” Zach smirks in Mira’s direction. “We have a ringer.”

  In college, we used a wide-rimmed cup to catch as many quarters as possible—hence, getting people drunk quickly. The small, respectable glass in the center of Zach’s table is so sophisticated. I feel very grown up.

  He hands me another coin, and I prepare my next shot. “So, Washoe? You’re Native American?” The next quarter lands in the cup as well, and I gesture for Mira to take a drink.

  She shoots me a look that burns my corneas. For someone so pretty, she has a hell of an evil eye. I hope Zach is right about her demeanor improving with liquor.

  He nods. “We’re all part Washoe, the local tribe, including Lewis, who’s running late. Mira’s the only true blood. Both her parents came from the Dresslerville reservation. Though I’m sure somewhere along the line one of Mira’s relatives hooked up with an outsider.” He winks at Mira and she rolls her eyes.

  “Whatever,” she says. “You wish you were full-blooded.”

  Zach looks at me and shakes his head as if to say, You see what I’m dealing with?

  He frowns at the full margarita on ice in Mira’s hand. “If Gen lands the next three in a row, you drain your girly drink.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Make it five.”

  Five? Child’s play.

  Mira is stunningly beautiful. Guys wouldn’t notice other girls with Mira in the room. She’d be the perfect buffer at parties, and since I’m all about hiding from the opposite sex after my last boyfriend, that sounds exce
llent. But crap, the girl needs to smile a little.

  Mira huffs out a sigh. “Lewis is such a workaholic.” The first of my five quarters sinks in the glass. Yes. “I can’t believe he’s not here yet,” she says.

  Zach glances at the time on his phone. “He’ll come.” Ping. Quarter number two goes down. Three more left. “He doesn’t leave the office until now.”

  My highest sequential quarter dunking was seventeen—and I was half drunk that night. I slam my fist on the table, and the third coin lands in the cup. I’m just getting warmed up.

  Mira frowns at Zach. “That’s not funny. He said he’d be here.”

  Is she pouting? Lewis must be Mira’s boyfriend—and number four drops in the empty glass.

  “His dad’s gotta be happy.” Zach looks at me, and I pause before tossing in the ringer. “Lewis works for his dad’s construction business. Practically runs it for him now that he’s back in town.”

  I raise my hand for my final shot, but the sound of the front door creaking draws my attention. A guy nearly as tall as the doorjamb enters the house.

  “Speak of the devil,” Zach says. “Gen, this is Lewis.”

  For a split second my mind scatters.

  Lewis closes the front door, broad shoulders filling out a plaid shirt, the sleeves rolled and shoved above his elbows. His shirt hem gapes on one side, as if he tucked it in the front in haste. He has high cheekbones, a square jaw, and dark brown hair that looks like it’s been fingered back.