Knuckle's Knockout

She had four men handled before he ever threw a punch. He stayed anyway — and now the man who burns down her enemies is the one she can't send home.

June Whitlock runs a hunting guide service alone on sixty acres of Tennessee timber, and she's been dropping trouble at gunpoint since before she could drive. When a smuggling family decides her land is the bottleneck in their corridor, she tells them no. Three times.

Then they put hands on her.

The man who steps out of the truck doesn't hurry. Doesn't reach for a weapon. Knuckle, bare-knuckle enforcer for the Memphis Marauders, just breaks four jaws and hands June back her rifle — because a woman who drops poachers doesn't need rescuing. She needed her rifle back.

Knuckle thinks in straight lines: problem, fist, solution. His hands are failing and he knows it. But the Tillmans burned the wrong woman's shed, and the fighter with the broken hands has decided June Whitlock is his to protect.

She doesn't need a protector. She needs a partner who'll haul timber and stand his ground.

Turns out he's both.

Some men solve problems with their fists. Some build something worth keeping with the same hands.