Too Wild to Be Tamed

A retired bull rider. A runaway photographer. And five days in the Kentucky wilderness with nowhere left to hide.

Zoe Kincaid has spent five years outrunning the one night that almost made her stay — a motel room in Cheyenne, a rodeo cowboy who looked at her like she was worth keeping, and a dawn exit she's never stopped second-guessing. Now a last-minute magazine assignment drops her into the Kentucky Appalachians, embedded with a backcountry survival company called Hale Mountain Guide Tours.

The lead guide is Ford Hale. Retired PBR contender. Wilderness expert. The man she left without a word.

Ford built something real after the rodeo circuit. A business carved from sweat equity, a mountain he knows by heart, a life with roots. He remembers everything about that night. He also remembers waking up alone.

When Zoe walks through his door with a camera and a contract and her legal name on the paperwork, it's like taking a bull's horn to the chest. Knocks the air right out of him.

He's not the man who chased eight seconds anymore. But five years of distance disappears in the time it takes her to say his name.

But the mountain has its own agenda. A flash flood. A collapsed crossing. One survival shelter, one sleeping bag, and no exits. Whatever they've been pretending isn't there anymore.

And the threat that followed Zoe from her past won't stay buried much longer.

If you love these, you'll love this book:

* Second Chance Romance

* Forced Proximity

* Grumpy/Sunshine

* Enemies to Lovers

* Fake Professional Distance

* Hidden Identity (she signed under her legal name) ✓

* Competence as Foreplay

* Small Town / Mountain Setting

* Romantic Suspense Elements

Heat Level: Spicy (explicit scenes with emotional weight) Vibes: Slow burn, wilderness survival, second chance tension, protective hero Setting: Kentucky Appalachian mountains / backcountry survival camp

If you've ever wanted to run from the one person who actually sees you... pick up Ford and Zoe's story and find out what happens when the mountain won't let you.