Page 5 of Reuniting with the Mountain Man

It was then that I knew exactly who she was. All hope of her being the same Makenna I’d known all those years ago had flown out the window when Nate told me she was Sierra.

“You’re Makenna,” I said. “Mackie.”

Her mouth spread into a smile. If she was mad that I hadn’t identified her right away, at least she was smiling.

“Mackie,” she said. “I forgot you called me that.”

It had been my nickname for her. We only knew each other for six days, and two of those had been spent admiring each other from afar. Later, I’d regret the time I wasted. I should’ve had the nerve to approach her sooner.

“You’re all grown up,” I commented as she once again started toward me. “And hotter than ever.”

The younger Makenna would’ve averted her gaze and maybe even blushed a little. Not this version of my angel. No, this firecracker was staring me directly in the eye, as though daring me to make a move.

That was one dare I was all too willing to take.

5

MAKENNA

He recognized me. Okay, so I’d had to do a little nudging. Some guy named Nate told him I was Sierra, and apparently that had steered him away from figuring out my true identity.

But now we were facing each other with just a small space between us. A couple more steps from either of us and we’d be within kissing distance.

I wanted him to make the first move. I wanted it more than I wanted my next breath.

“I never forgot about you,” he said. “Coming back here, it was all I could think about. When I saw you behind that desk, I told myself I was imagining things. I was thinking about you, so of course the first person I met in town would remind me of you.”

As he took a step closer toward me, my breath caught. In that moment, I could clearly remember what it was like to kiss him. The woodsy scent of his aftershave, the way his tongue had gently probed my mouth. It wasn’t my first kiss, but it showed me the difference between kissing a teenage boy and kissing a man.

The problem was, I’d struggled to find a kiss like it since.

“I recognized you right away,” I said. “But I did have the benefit of you giving me your last name.” I laughed. “If I hadn’t and someone told me your name was Jack or Bob, I probably would have made the same assumption you did. That it was just my mind playing tricks on me.”

“What are the odds we’d find each other again after all this time?”

I liked the way he worded that. “Find each other” hinted that we might not be temporarily passing through each other’s lives.

But I couldn’t fool myself into thinking that. Whatever happened over the next few days, that was all it would ever be. I had to accept that or not go beyond this point.

“I thought you looked like…you,” he said. “You’re just different enough.”

“My hair is blonde now.” I reached up and touched it, glancing over at the mirror in the process. “And I’ve filled out a little more.”

Maybe I shouldn’t call attention to the fact that I’d gained weight, but it had distributed to all the right places. My hips and ass captured attention everywhere I went. It looked like they’d caught Jesse’s attention for a second time.

I took a step closer to let him know I was down with whatever he wanted to do. As I stared up at him, the intensity in his eyes made my knees go weak. He’d never looked at me like that before. The unbridled desire in his stare was how a man looked at a woman he wanted to ravage.

“You held back when we were together before,” I said. “I don’t want you to do that now. If, you know, you want?—”

“I want you,” he interrupted. “Have since the first day I saw you. You were just so young, and your parents didn’t approve.”

“My parents didn’t approve of anyone I dated,” I said. “They had no idea how old you were.”

And that was the truth. My mom even commented that he was awfully young to own a vacation rental cabin. I didn’t correct her because they were already picking apart the boy next door, looking for an excuse to forbid me from seeing him.

“Are your parents still strict like that?” he asked, reaching out and brushing my hair back over my shoulder.

He settled his hand onto my neck, his thumb sliding over my jawline. My gaze lowered to his mouth, which was even closer to mine now.

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