Introduction - Crushing His Mountain Flower

(where it all began. . . )

Maybe it was the fact that I had never been in love before. Maybe it was something about that sultry summer heat that hung low over the valley, but I knew as soon as I saw Étienne Bastide that no one else could ever compare as long as I lived.

His family the Bastides and my Pinoteaux family split all the territory in our part of the Appalachian Mountains, both of our grandfathers kicked out of France for criminal activity and their descendants now ruling two empires in the lawless mountain territory. There wasn’t a single gun, herb, or illegal car part that came through his lands that my husband didn’t get a cut of.

And I’d heard about him. Heard of the wild Bastide boy that everyone said was reckless, dangerous, arrogant, the one who thought he was gonna run the mountains.

But as a good girl I didn’t get to run with the Bastide boys.

So the first time I saw Étienne he was fighting at a county fair. Tall, with the characteristic Bastide dark, pitch-black hair, deeply tanned skin and cut-glass jawline. He was shirtless, his chest slick with sweat. His opponent, another man who looked about the same age, maybe a year or two older than me, was much broader and for a moment my breath caught in fear that this lanky man with the beautiful harsh eyes might be in danger, as heavy fists landed so close to his face.

I didn’t know enough about fighting to realize that Étienne was only playing with him, taunting him.

The fair grounds, down in a clearing between our two territories, were silent, because our parents and relatives were watching too. In our culture, to be strong was everything. Losing a fight meant losing face.

If you lost face everyone would know it.

And Étienne Bastide did not lose.

As if aware of all the bated breath, his foot shot forward even as he dodged a heavy, brutal blow, and I heard the crack of a kneecap breaking, the fight ending with the other man ground into the dirt and mud.

Étienne was victorious, and I let out a ragged, relieved breath.

He had won. It was right that this man should win, and I could tell by the way my brother looked at my cousins that he had been expected to win, that already he was expected to lead the Bastides.

The other man stood up, red and shame-faced. Now he would have to accept his punishment, and even though I knew what was coming, I still gasped as Étienne put a thumb in the blood from his burst nose and wrote the words on his opponent’s forehead.

Léger

Settle in with a love story.

Head to Lokepub for more romance novels.

Weak

It would have to stay there until it wore off. It could not be washed off or rubbed off. It had to stay as a mark of shame and weakness for all to see.

“That boy is trouble,” my Gran grunted in the big Jeep on our way home.

“Trouble?” I couldn’t help breathing. To me he had been like an untouchable god, and I had trembled as his eyes roamed the crowd.

What would I do if those eyes ever landed on me?

Faint, probably. Or something else equally embarrassing.

“There’s something in him that could never be tamed,” she said. “He’ll be more mountain than man one day, just you mark my words.”

“Oh,” I said, thinking about this. Gran was the smartest and kindest person I knew, so she must be right.

But—was it so wrong that this made me even more intrigued by him?

“How come you didn’t challenge him then?” I asked my brother Réjean. “If you all don’t like him winning so many fights?”

My brother met my eyes briefly in the mirror, then looked away.

“He can’t beat him,” my cousin Margot piped up from beside me. “He’s too scared to try and be shown up in front of everyone.”

“Shut up,” Réjean snarled, and the rest of the trip devolved into shouts and cousin quarrels, but I just looked out the window, back where we had been, like I could see through the heavy forests to the fairgrounds.

The man who couldn’t be beaten. . .when would I see him again?