Page 3 of Savage Ranger Daddy

And a tiny, traitorous part of me is already looking forward to it.

2

Brock

I keep both hands on the wheel and force my eyes to stay on the snow-slick road climbing into the Steel Mountains, but every damn second of the drive my attention keeps sliding sideways to the woman in my passenger seat.

Hazel Lowe. Journalist. Trouble wrapped in a flannel shirt and the kind of smart mouth that already has me grinding my teeth to keep from smiling. She hasn't shut up for more than thirty seconds since I shoved her into my truck, and every quip that comes out of her is somehow both annoying as hell and the most interesting thing I've heard in months.

She's small next to me. Not fragile. Just compact. Dark hair messy from the wind and snow, cheeks pink from the cold, bright eyes that keep darting around like she's cataloging every pine tree and rock face for some future article. Her duffel bag sits between her boots, scuffed and overstuffed, and she keeps fidgeting with the strap like her hands need something to do. She's chaos in cute packaging, and the attraction hit me like a gutpunch the second she climbed into my truck and waved at me like we were meeting for coffee instead of a federal extraction.

That's a problem I don't need right now.

I check the rearview mirror. No headlights. I check the side mirrors. Nothing but the dark tunnel of pines closing behind us and the road disappearing into white. Good. I've been checking every thirty seconds since we pulled out of Timber Creek, because the people she just exposed don't operate like amateurs. I've spent seven months tracking fragments of this ring through my mountains. Unmarked crates dropped at trailheads. Shell casings in clearings that don't see legal hunters. GPS pings from encrypted sat phones bouncing off towers that shouldn't be carrying traffic at three in the morning. I've been building a file on them piece by piece, and then this woman went and kicked the whole hornet's nest with one article.

What worries me isn't the foot soldiers. It's what I don't know about the top. Her article named mid-level players and exposed the routes, but whoever's actually running this operation stayed invisible. No name. No face. Just a shadow pulling strings through layers of cutouts and shell companies. Her piece mentioned a front called Ridgeline Outfitters, and I've seen that name before. On a shipping label in a burned-out cabin six months ago. On a fuel receipt at a supply depot near the north ridge. Whoever owns Ridgeline has infrastructure in these mountains that goes deeper than a smuggling side hustle. That's the part that keeps nagging at me. This feels bigger than weapons and wildlife. It feels organized in a way that means money, reach, and the kind of connections that can make problems disappear.

Including journalists who publish the wrong story.

I glance at Hazel again. She's twisted toward me now, one boot tucked under her thigh on the seat. The motion makes her flannel ride up and I force my gaze back to the road before I do something stupid.

"You always talk this much when people are trying to kill you, or am I special?" I ask.

"Oh, you're definitely special," she says, voice light and a little breathless from the altitude already. "Most people don't show up looking like they wrestle grizzlies for fun and then order me into a truck like I'm already theirs. I'm just trying to keep the panic at a manageable level by using my words. It's either that or I start humming show tunes, and trust me, nobody wants that."

A chuckle escapes me before I can lock it down. She's funny. And brave in that reckless way that gets people killed if they don't have someone watching their six.

I adjust my grip on the wheel as the road narrows and the snow thickens. Tall pines crowd both sides now, their branches heavy with white, creating a tunnel of dark green and silver. The headlights cut through swirling flakes. Rock outcroppings rise on the left, jagged and black. On the right the mountain drops away into a valley filled with trees and the occasional flash of a frozen creek. I'm watching all of it. Every pull-off. Every stand of trees thick enough to hide a vehicle. Every place where the road bends blind and someone with a rifle could set up with time and a clear sightline.

This is what I do. I read terrain like other people read newspapers. Twelve years in Special Forces taught me that the ground tells you everything if you know how to listen. And right now the ground is telling me we're exposed on this road for another twenty minutes and I don't like it.

"We're thirty minutes out," I tell her. "My outpost sits higher. One road in. Solar and generator. Stocked for weeks. You'll be safe there."

She goes quiet for a beat, staring out at the wilderness. When she speaks again her voice is softer, still wry but with a thread of real fear underneath.

"Safe. Right. With the growly marshal who already decided I take the only bed. Do you practice that whole protective thing in the mirror, or does it just come naturally?"

I glance at her. Hold her gaze for a second longer than I should.

"Naturally. And I don't practice anything. When I say you're taking the bed, you're taking the bed. My job is keeping you alive. Everything else is secondary."

She bites her lower lip and looks away, but not before I catch the spark of heat in her eyes.

I reach for the sat phone mounted in the center console and key in Mason's direct line. He picks up on the first ring.

"Savage. Status."

"I've got the package. En route to the outpost. No tails. Roads are getting heavy with snow, might be looking at a storm system by morning." I keep my voice even, professional, the same voice I've used on a hundred extraction calls. "I need you to run something for me. Ridgeline Outfitters. It showed up in her article as a front company, but I've seen that name on my end too. Shipping label at the Harker Creek burn site last spring. Fuel receipt near the north ridge depot. If that company has a paper trail, I want to see all of it."

Mason's quiet for a second. I can hear him writing it down. "Ridgeline Outfitters. Got it. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Her article blew up the mid-level guys, but whoever's actually running this thing isn't in her story. No name, no alias, nothing. That means the top is still out there and they're going to be pissed and looking for someone to blame. I want a threat assessment on every known associate of the ring within a hundred miles. And I want to know if anyone's been asking about her. Phone records, tip lines, anything."

"Copy. I'll have something for you by morning. Keep her locked down, Brock. This one's got heat on it."

"I know." I end the call and set the phone back in the cradle.

Hazel is watching me with those sharp eyes. "That sounded very official. Should I be more scared or less scared?"