Page 2 of Loyal to the Mountain Man

Suddenly, he jerked his gaze from mine and turned his full attention to the dog at his feet. “Is this the dog everyone’s looking for?”

I should’ve breathed a big sigh of relief at that question. It answered all of my own questions. The dog was lost, and her owner was looking for her.

But instead of relief, my full attention was on the man standing in front of me. And the way my body had instantly heated up at the sight of him.

“Hey, buddy,” the guy said.

As if he couldn’t get any hotter, he knelt and began petting the dog. His entire expression softened.

Beneath that crusty exterior, the guy was a big teddy bear. Was there anything sexier?

“She was just in the middle of the campground,” I said. “I tried to find her owner, but?—”

I managed to force all that out only because the guy wasn’t looking at me. When he lifted his head and shifted his gaze toward me, my words abruptly cut off.

God, this guy’s stare was intense. All he had to do was look at me, and my knees felt like they might buckle.

His gaze scanned my body on the way back down to Maggie’s face, and I did a quick mental inventory of what I was wearing. I was dressed for the sessions, not the humid outdoor temperatures of this time of year. I wore a thin but long-sleeved button-down blouse and a knee-length skirt made of stretchy material. The whole getup probably looked impractical to him, but I wore ballet flats, not heels. This was about as practical as I got it in my work attire.

“Someone at the front desk called and said there was a dog missing,” the guy said as he scooped up Maggie, hiking her under his left arm like she weighed no more than an empty cardboard box. “My boss is up on the trails looking for her. If you hold her, I’ll call him and let him know.”

He stepped toward me, and my heart rate tripled. It got even worse when his eyes met mine. He was standing close—so, so close—and all I could think about was what it would be like to kiss him.

Was he thinking it too? Was it possible this gorgeous man felt the same zing of attraction I did?

“Sure,” I said.

Was that as delayed a response as it seemed? It felt like hours had passed since he handed the dog over to me.

Even though our hands didn’t touch, there was something about the handoff that made my heart skip a beat. He stepped back, pulled his phone out of one of the pockets of his shorts, and started tapping on the screen. His gaze connected with mine again as he moved the phone to his ear and waited.

It should feel awkward staring at each other this long, but it didn’t. In fact, I didn’t want to look at anything else for the rest of my life. Just that gorgeous face.

With a sigh, he pulled the phone away and tapped on the screen again. “I guess he’s out of range,” he said, looking toward the campground. “Why don’t you let the front desk know the dog has been found, and I’ll head up the trail and see if I can find my boss?”

He breezed past me again, coming close enough that I could hardly think straight. I felt like a teenager fangirling over a rock star as he blasted by me, not even glancing in my direction.

Yeah, this was definitely a one-sided attraction.

Once he was gone, I looked down at Maggie. “He’s pretty cute, isn’t he?”

Maggie looked up at me with those sweet little eyes, and my heart melted. Maybe that was what I needed—a dog. A dog wouldn’t reject you because you didn’t look like a swimsuit model. Dogs loved you for who you were inside. And my insides could rival any of those swimsuit models, any day.

2

ZACHARY

Good God almighty, that woman was hot. So hot, I made it halfway up the trail before I realized I hadn’t called out once.

I’d been trudging along, thinking about the way those breasts strained the buttons of that blouse. Throughout our interaction, I hoped and prayed one of those buttons would pop off, giving me a mouth-watering glimpse of cleavage.

“Owen!” I finally yelled, my voice echoing through the trees around me.

The only response came from the birds, chirping along like nothing was out of the ordinary. I kept walking and shouting, but that face clouded my vision—it was all I could see. Those light blue eyes, that perfectly perky nose, that hair with just a hint of red mixed in with blonde. Strawberry blonde, I think they called it.

She was, hands-down, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. But it wasn’t just that. There was something about her. I was drawn to her in a way I’d never been drawn to a woman before.

This was it. The woman I was meant to be with. The woman who should have my babies and sleep in my bed every night.

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