Tormented Mountain Man And the Curvy Muse
(2026)(Book 20 in the Sexy Mountain Man Flame series)
A novel by Emily Crescent
He says he couldn't save her. Mrs. Calloway says he let her burn.
Vernon Holland: storm‑gray eyes, workshirt shoulders, a crescent scar at his thumb and hands that know how to fix things — and how to hurt. He watches. He waits. He pins my poem above his bench like someone staking a claim.
He left a carved bookmark under my coffee. He left a stool on my porch. He let me read in his shop and then asked me to stay the night during a storm. He kissed me slow, then pulled back because a town had already made its verdict. The sheriff showed up. Neighbors whispered. Old rumors climbed the rafters.
I should have run. I wanted to run. Instead I read his truth in the quiet between sawdust and confession. He admits the mistakes. He promises therapy, inquest, presence. He promises to stop hiding. My heart wants to believe him. My head remembers the words on other lips.
I choose him. We stand in public, we face questions, we trade silence for honesty. We will build something that stays. But when the sheriff asks the next question, will the truth save us — or burn what we’ve just begun?
Genre: Romance
Vernon Holland: storm‑gray eyes, workshirt shoulders, a crescent scar at his thumb and hands that know how to fix things — and how to hurt. He watches. He waits. He pins my poem above his bench like someone staking a claim.
He left a carved bookmark under my coffee. He left a stool on my porch. He let me read in his shop and then asked me to stay the night during a storm. He kissed me slow, then pulled back because a town had already made its verdict. The sheriff showed up. Neighbors whispered. Old rumors climbed the rafters.
I should have run. I wanted to run. Instead I read his truth in the quiet between sawdust and confession. He admits the mistakes. He promises therapy, inquest, presence. He promises to stop hiding. My heart wants to believe him. My head remembers the words on other lips.
I choose him. We stand in public, we face questions, we trade silence for honesty. We will build something that stays. But when the sheriff asks the next question, will the truth save us — or burn what we’ve just begun?
Genre: Romance