Wife for the Lumberjack: A Single Dad Mountain Man Romance Read online

  Wife for the Lumberjack

  Ambrielle Kirk

  Contents

  Story Summary

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Message from Ambrielle Kirk

  Preview: Abducted by the Mountain Man

  Arrow Lake Alphas

  Newsletter

  About the Author

  Story Summary

  I may be losing control but I can’t lose her.

  My name is Kamaz, and I wield a big ax. I live a semi-peaceful life in the mountains with all the resources I’ll ever need.

  * * *

  I’ve built a small fortune.

  * * *

  I’m a single daddy.

  * * *

  And now I need a wife.

  * * *

  I have no intentions to wine and dine anyone. That’s not what this is about. I’ve done all that before. I’ve been betrayed, and I’m not going through that bull crap again. I’m doing this my way now. Or at least that’s what I think.

  * * *

  One snowy night, I catch a beautiful temptress in my office digging around in my business files. She starts a blaze that neither of us are prepared to put out. She claims innocence but I think she deserves a punishment that fits the crime.

  * * *

  After she pays for her mistake with the ultimate price, I can’t deny the pull she has over me. She tests my limits, begs for more, and I give her every single inch.

  * * *

  If I can’t control my hunger, she’ll own my heart.

  Prologue

  Kristene

  “Hey! Stop! Do you need a ride?”

  I didn’t have to glance up to know that the guy who pulled out from the gas station earlier had just rolled up behind me in a bright red muscle car. I thought I made it clear when I exited the convenience shop with my coffee that I wasn’t interested and didn’t need his help.

  I kept my gaze on the sidewalk and quickened my pace, hoping that the person would go away. The bus stop was just a fifteen-minute walk up the road. I could make it there on my own. I’d done so many times before. Only this time, the chilly air seeped into my bones and slowed me down. My calf muscles screamed in discomfort and it felt like my duffle bag, which only held a few days’ worth of clothes and minimal incidentals, was getting heavier with every step I took.

  “Hey girl!”

  This guy was persistent. And rude. I was wearing an oversized men’s sweatshirt, leggings, and a pair of tennis shoes. I knew the clothes swallowed me, making me look smaller and younger than I actually was.

  I rolled my eyes and kept on walking.

  Cars rode past me, sending water splashing out from pothole puddles. I had already dodged a few of them. Snow had fallen last night, but not enough to accumulate, leaving the ground in a muddy mess.

  I stopped just short of a crosswalk and the car came to an abrupt halt as well.

  “Can I give you a lift?” the guy called out, leaning over and opening his passenger side door.

  Like hell! I wasn’t going to hop into a car with an unknown idiot who couldn’t take a hint.

  “No. I don’t need a ride. Thanks for asking, but you can stop following me now.”

  He snorted. “Fine.”

  I walked off. He must have taken the hint this time because the door slammed shut and then tires spun out on the highway and he pulled off.

  I felt the muscles on my shoulders relax as I loosened my grip on the handle of the blade under my shirt. I hadn’t used this thing yet, and I hoped it stayed that way. I didn’t want to end up spending the night in jail again—certainly not over some dweeb who couldn’t take the hint.

  I was eager to get away from Minneapolis for a bit. This was the city where I was born. I thought I’d live here forever, but maybe I was wrong. And with my sister gone, I was lonely. Maybe my Jocelyn had the right idea when she bailed out on me after our argument. She had said she wasn’t mad at me anymore. She said she’d be back, but I should’ve known that was a lie.

  With my free hand, I fished the folded map from the side of my backpack and turned it over, careful not to lose the bus ticket tucked away between the pages. A few hundred miles separated me and my destination, but I was going to get there one way or another.

  I knew where my sister was. At least, I thought I know where she was.

  In less than an hour, I would be on a Greyhound bus headed to the little mountain town of Arrow Lake. Like the creeper in the muscle car, I was very persistent. I had to find her. I needed to know that my sister was okay.

  Chapter One

  Viktor

  I heaved the axe upward and then slammed it down into the wood, splitting the chunk in two. The logs tumbled to the ground. I picked up another thick chunk, setting it on the stone. Fresh snowflakes fluttered down from the sky landing in my hair and on my bare arms. The temperature was near freezing, but I was used to it. Not only was I born during a blizzard, I had weathered many storms out here. The chilly air was a welcomed relief as beads of sweat rolled down my face.

  I hacked into the wood again, severing it down the middle in one chop.

  Up ahead, my six-year-old nephew climbed a tree. He had gotten so big. With a fearless, adventurous side, he reminded me a lot like myself when I was a kid.

  I sighed. “Roy, don’t climb so high,” I warned. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “Okay!”

  The kid yelled back like I was being a pest and continued to lift his little body up through the thickest tree trunks. This kid was a lumberjack in the making, but I wanted Roy to have the freedom to choose his own path. I would never push the family business on him, but when he grew into adulthood and if he decided he wanted this life, I was more than willing to teach him all of it.

  “I’m not going to fall. Promise,” Roy declared.

  With that, he swung out onto a limb like a gymnast, jumped from the tree like Tarzan, and rolled out onto the ground and down a steep hill.

  My heart stopped in my chest. I blew out in relief when Roy bounced back up, grabbed his wooden toy axe and began hacking at the dry air. “Die, snow monsters, die! Rawr.”

  I shook my head. “Oh boy.” This kid would scare me to death before I reached forty.

  Roy had only been living with me for the past several years. He was a good kid and never complained about me working all the time. He seemed to enjoy spending the day with me at my various work sites. But he was active and curious and loved to venture off. I had learned a long time ago to keep a watchful eye on him as he was prone to getting injuries from all the risks he liked to take.

  To the left of me, two employees were working on filling last minute orders. With news of a record-breaking amount of snow drifting in over the next couple of weeks, we had gotten a flood of requests for more firewood. I was a little shorthanded this winter season in the help department, but I was
intent on getting this wood to the folks who needed it.

  I could’ve hung up my axe long ago, but I preferred working just like any other field employee in my company. I’d always been a hands-on type of guy anyway. My employees didn’t seem to mind me coming out to help—in fact, they tended to work even harder when they knew I was around. I rewarded good work and tried not to micro-manage them too much.

  Aside from the on-site lumber yard, I owned dozens of cabins spread across about six hundred acres of private property. The land had been in the Kamaz family for decades. In fact, my great-great-grandfather and family had built all the cabins right around the time Arrow Lake became a hotbed for tourism.

  I’m the great grandson of Cordwood “Jack” Kamaz, and I’m the last Kamaz living in the Arrow Lake region. But unlike the other generations before me, I don’t plan on leaving Arrow Lake. Lumber, forestry, and homebuilding are my life, it’s in my blood. In fact, I like chopping down shit and building it right back up again—Kamaz-style.

  The residents of Arrow Lake who know our history say I take after old-man Cordwood. I’ve never disagreed. For whatever reason, fate decided to intervene, and I inherited Cordwood’s passion for building things. Now I’m the heir and sole owner of Cordwood Industries and Cordwood Cabin rentals.

  “Viktor,” one of the younger guys called out. “I’ve got the batch for the Williamson family bundled and ready to go. I’ve gotta ride past there to go pick up some meat from the butcher. I can get this delivered for ya, that way you won’t have to go out again this evening.”

  I turned around and nodded. “That would be a great help, Fell. Your check for Friday is sitting on my desk. I cut them early. There’s a little something extra for staying late these last few days.”

  Fell tipped his baseball cap. “I appreciate that.”

  “Lock up after you get your stuff. Roy and I are going home after I finish this batch. It’s getting late and I probably won’t see the next wave of customers until early in the morning.”

  “Sure thing,” Fell yelled over his shoulder before walking off to get to the on-site cabin rental office.

  I reached for a towel and scrubbed it down my face. “Roy, are you just about ready to go back inside? It’s going to be getting dark soon.”

  “Maybe,” Roy exclaimed as he propped the handle of the little wooden axe over his shoulder, mimicking my composure. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Hmmm.” I bit into my bottom lip, realizing that I hadn’t taken any meat from the freezer. “What would you like?”

  “Pizza,” he chimed.

  I smiled. “Pizza, it is.”

  I glanced up at the sky. Night was folding in fast, but my work never ended after dinner. I tried not to take my work home in the evenings, but things were piling up on me. But it was all my fault. I had been trying to take on too much lately and recently just accepted a big job to supply lumber to a contractor over the next two years. In addition to seventy-hour work weeks to fill quotas, keeping up with rental tenants, designing the occasional floor plans for local builders, caring for Roy, and maintaining the upkeep on the Kamaz home, there was hardly much time for anything else.

  Retiring and letting someone else handle the big decisions really didn’t seem like the best option for me. I had always envisioned passing certain roles down to my sons. Yes, I once dreamed of getting married and having a house full of kids, but things hadn’t worked out for me. And now that I’ve committed to care for Roy until he no longer needed me, I realized that even if I did have kids of my own, I’d want them to have a choice.

  Roy must have gotten bored and was now within a few feet of me stacking heavy logs one on top of the other, probably building a fort or something. He’d already constructed two of them in the yard behind our estate. Even though Roy wasn’t my biological son, he was my blood. He was a crafty six-year-old. Lumber and building were in his blood too.

  So, my plan was simple. I needed a live-in housekeeper and caretaker for Roy. Someone to help keep my home tidy and cook meals while I was out and about working. Someone to help keep Roy in line and tutor him a few times a week. More importantly, I needed someone that I could trust with all the Kamaz family secrets.

  My buddy, who I shared drinks with at the bar from time to time, said it sounded like I needed a wife. I didn’t doubt that fact at all. And I had tried going on dates in the hopes of finding someone who I would consider wife material, but I could never commit to anyone seriously.

  I just didn’t have time to give anyone my attention right now. Most of the chicks I dated seemed to be more interested in my net worth or testing those rumors about my bedroom stamina. It had gotten to the point where I could read right through them or they hadn’t even bothered to conceal their selfish motives. I’ve been burned before and I would never let that happen again. So, instead of having my heart dropped in a blender and turbo-blasted again, I chose an alternate route.

  Maybe I don’t need a wife. Ever. I just need someone like a wife.

  A full-time live-in housekeeper and caretaker will do.

  About that…

  As if on cue, my cell phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket, not even bothering to check the caller ID. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Kamaz?”

  I recognized the voice as the lady from the agency I hired to find a woman meeting my description.

  This sure as hell beat putting up ads in all the local papers within several hundred miles and coming up with nothing. It seemed like every day I’d get a handful of inquiries to my ad, but the few that I ended up interviewing weren’t a good match.

  The locals thought this was a joke. What woman was going to agree to live with me and play house and not expect something more?

  Several of the male long-time residents had even suggested I take one of their granddaughters’ or daughters’ hand in marriage, in exchange for a healthy sum of money in return, of course. Did anyone even do that shit anymore? Some of the townspeople were certainly old-fashioned in their ways, but I didn’t want some eighteen-year-old virgin who was forced into it by her family for the money. After I refused to take the bait and marry a townie, some were disgruntled by the fact that I would seek a wife elsewhere.

  “Mr. Kamaz, I have good news. Are you available to talk now? I can call you back at another time if not.”

  “Yes, Kathy. I can talk now.”

  “I think I’ve found someone for you. Several actually. Two of them are really strong candidates, matching just about every requirement you have. They’re both willing to do something long-term or short-term depending on what you’ve decided. One of them can even act as a wife for the term of the contract if needed.”

  I looked out through the trees lining my property, watching them sway with the cool breeze. Snowflakes had just begun to accumulate. Before long, the ground would be covered with it. At least, I’d get some peace and quiet for a few days, but it wouldn’t last long with the way the folks out here have been known to bulldoze their way into town seeking supplies, which included firewood to keep warm.

  “Honestly, I need someone who’s willing to be there for me and my nephew and keep up the maintenance,” I started. “I need a woman’s touch around the house…”

  “Of course. You can discuss any private details with the candidate before the contract is signed. As I told you, Mr. Kamaz, we have girls who specialize in these things and we’ll get you one who’ll give you exactly what you want. So, what do you say? Long-term wife or full-charge housekeeper?”

  I swallowed. I wasn’t even sure what to say. I had never been this indecisive. Maybe I’ve been going about this whole thing wrong. Things like this have been done before. I once had an uncle who got him a mail-order bride. They lived in town peacefully until he decided to move to Alaska. Hell, a well-respected lawyer in town even recommended the agency to me, claiming he’d used them once or twice before. But everything about this felt odd to me.

  When I looked out into the trees again, I spotted a sil
ver car coming down the paved road turning into the cul-de-sac that led to my rental cabins.

  “Uncle Vik. Look! Someone’s coming.” Roy pointed as he kneeled down in the grass in front of some logs.

  “I see them, Roy.”

  Who in the hell could that be? I had posted a sign outside the road and written on it as clear as day that we didn’t have any rental units available.

  Kathy continued her sales pitch, “And both of them are good with children. They have teaching certificates. I can tell you’re hesitant about this, Mr. Kamaz. You can take your time to think on it more, but if you want this done sooner rather than later, I suggest you act now. We’re a very busy agency. We have clients all over the U.S., and girls like these get snatched up pretty quickly.”

  “Right…” I mumbled.

  “If we can send someone over the next couple of weeks, that would be ideal. Especially with the storm coming. Or else, we’ll have to wait until road conditions are clear.”

  “I understand.” My attention was still focused on the red car parked out in front of the rent office. There appeared to be only one person inside. The door opened and someone petite rose from the vehicle. They walked right up to the office and up the steps. The person even knocked on the door and proceeded to peek through all the windows.