Page 1 of Savage Ranger Daddy

1

Hazel

I hit publish with a finger that shakes harder than a leaf in a windstorm, and then I just sit there staring at the glowing screen of my laptop like it's about to grow teeth and bite me.

The headline stares back:EXPOSED: The Deadly Smuggling Ring Hiding in Steel Mountain's Shadow.My byline sits right underneath, bold and permanent and completely irreversible. Hazel Lowe, investigative journalist, professional troublemaker, and apparently a woman with a death wish the size of Montana.

I should feel like a total badass right now. I just blew the lid off a multi-million-dollar operation moving illegal weapons and endangered wildlife through the remote passes of the Steel Mountains. I spent six months digging, bribing sources with coffee and terrible jokes, hiking trails that nearly killed my city-girl ankles, and finally getting my hands on the hard proof. Photos. Documents. Names. The shipping manifests from a company called Ridgeline Outfitters that turned out to be nothing but a front for moving crates of assault rifles and cagesof trafficked animals through a trail network my sources called the Spine. The whole smoking gun.

Instead I feel like I just lit a stick of dynamite and then sat on it for fun.

My heart is doing this ridiculous double-time thump that I swear is loud enough for the entire diner to hear. The Timber Creek diner is almost empty this late, just two truckers nursing black coffee at the counter and a waitress who looks like she aged a decade in the last hour. Outside the big front windows, snow falls in fat, lazy flakes that stick to everything they touch. Main Street is already turning into a white postcard. Beyond the little town, the Steel Mountains rise up like a jagged fortress, dark pine-covered ridges cutting against the late-afternoon sky. The peaks look beautiful and completely unforgiving at the same time, the kind of scenery that ends up on calendars right next to the words "Welcome to the wilderness, hope you survive."

I close the laptop and shove it into my battered messenger bag. My hands are still trembling. I flex my fingers a few times, trying to will the jitters away. No luck. Adrenaline is a real jerk sometimes. One minute you're flying high on the rush of a huge scoop, the next you're wondering if today's the day some smuggler with a gun decides you know too much.

Specifically, a man who goes by the name Voss. I never got his real identity pinned down, just the alias that kept showing up in every layer of this operation like a signature on the devil's paperwork. My best source, a retired game warden named Cal Hutchins, told me Voss ran the whole ring from somewhere deep in the range and that no one who got close to identifying him stayed healthy for long. Cal made me memorize a set of GPS coordinates before our last meeting, then stopped answering his phone three days later. I haven't heard from him since.

I grab my half-empty mug of tea and take a big gulp. It's lukewarm and slightly bitter, but it gives me something to do with my mouth so I don't start laughing hysterically. That would be a great look. Local journalist loses her mind right after breaking the biggest story of her career. Front page material for sure.

My phone buzzes on the table. I jump so hard I nearly knock over the sugar shaker. The screen shows an unknown number. Of course it does. My life has officially entered the "unknown number" phase of the thriller novel.

I answer anyway because I'm me and my curiosity has never once chosen the safe option. "Hazel Lowe speaking. If this is about my student loan payments, I already told you people I'm a journalist and therefore broke."

There's a pause on the other end, long enough that I start to wonder if I just insulted a robocaller. Then a voice comes through, so gravelly it feels like it scrapes along my skin.

"Hazel Lowe. This is US Marshal Brock Savage. Pack a bag. I'm coming to get you. Now."

I freeze with the phone pressed to my ear. My free hand tightens around the mug. "I'm sorry, what? Who are you again? Because that sounded a lot like the opening line of every romantic suspense novel I've ever binged on a rainy weekend, and I need you to know I'm not currently dressed for a rescue montage."

Another pause. I can practically hear the man on the other end deciding whether I'm worth the headache.

"I don't do montages, sweetheart. I do extraction. Your story just went live. The people you exposed already know. They'removing. I have a window of maybe twenty minutes before this diner becomes a problem. You have a bag?"

My stomach drops so fast I feel lightheaded. I glance around the diner again. The truckers are still hunched over their plates. The waitress is refilling coffee. No one looks like a smuggler hitman. But then again, hitmen probably don't wear neon signs that say "I'm here to silence the journalist."

"I... yes. I have a bag in my car. How do you even know where I am right now?"

"Because I'm very good at my job. Stay put. Don't leave the building. Don't call anyone. I'll be there in four minutes."

The line goes dead.

I sit there for three full seconds staring at the blank phone screen. Then my brain kicks back into gear with a flood of completely unhelpful thoughts.

Four minutes. A US Marshal named Brock Savage is coming to extract me. My story just made me the most popular target in three counties. And I'm sitting here in a diner wearing a flannel shirt with a coffee stain on the sleeve and jeans that have definitely seen better days. Classic Hazel. Always prepared for the scoop, never prepared for the consequences.

I shove my phone into my pocket and stand up so fast the chair scrapes loudly against the floor. Both truckers glance over. I give them a weak smile and a little wave like that somehow makes me look less like a woman about to bolt. Then I hurry to the register, throw enough cash on the counter to cover the tea and a very generous tip, and head for the door.

The moment I step outside, the cold hits me like a slap. Snowflakes land on my cheeks and melt instantly. The air is sharp and clean, the kind that makes every breath feel like it belongs on a mountain. Main Street is quiet under the fresh snow. Streetlights are just starting to flicker on, casting yellow pools across the white ground. Somewhere up in those mountains, people are moving illegal goods through hidden trails while the rest of the world thinks this place is just pretty scenery.

I dig my keys out of my bag and start walking fast toward the little parking lot beside the diner. My boots crunch through the thin layer of snow. Every sound feels too loud. I keep glancing over my shoulder, half expecting a black SUV full of angry smugglers to come screeching around the corner.

My car, a ten-year-old hatchback I lovingly call The Disaster, sits under a streetlight with a thin dusting of snow on the roof. I pop the trunk, grab the duffel bag I packed this morning "just in case," and slam it shut again. Inside that bag is everything I thought I might need for a few days on the run: clothes, toiletries, my spare notebook, a ridiculous number of protein bars, and the portable charger that has saved my life more times than I can count. Also a thumb drive with every scrap of evidence I didn't publish. Cal's coordinates. The Ridgeline Outfitters manifests. Everything I couldn't fit into one article without putting more people at risk.

I'm just hauling the strap over my shoulder when a big black truck rumbles into the lot and stops right beside me. The engine cuts. The driver's door opens.

And then he steps out.

He's tall. Not just tall. Built like something the mountain decided to carve out of itself and send down to handle problems. Dark hair, thick beard, and eyes that lock onto me the second his boots hit the ground, sharp and assessing. There's a badge clipped to his belt and a gun holstered at his hip. Everything about the way he moves says he could end a situation before most people realized one had started.