Page 2 of Longing for the Mountain Man

Normally, I wouldn’t care if this guy didn’t approve, but for a brief second, I did care. I wanted him to find me attractive. I would have been devastated to find out he didn’t. It was the first time I had felt that way about a guy, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“You’re talking about people trying to make a living,” I said. “Our offices are just twenty minutes from here, and my boss thought people might need help.”

The guy tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at me. “If you really wanted to help, you wouldn’t be here trying to make money off people who’ve lost everything. Let me ask you this. Are you discounting your rates for tornado victims?”

As he waited for an answer, I tried my best to swallow around the lump that had formed in my throat. No, we weren’t discounting. In fact, the price sheet in my tote bag was a ten percent across-the-board increase over our normal prices.

I should lie. It was what I’d trained to do. In any other circumstance, I would find a way to at least pretty up the truth. But for some reason, looking at this guy, the words that spilled out of my mouth directly opposed my training.

“My boss calls it surge pricing,” I said, gripping the strap of my tote bag. “People want to get their houses back to normal as soon as possible.” I shrugged. “We help.”

“You can give your boss a message from me and the entire town of Rosewood Ridge,” he said.

The warmth I’d glimpsed in his eyes earlier was gone. It had been replaced by an iciness that chilled me to the core.

“What’s that?” I was almost afraid to ask.

“Fuck off.”

2

TRACE

Iwanted to hate the woman in the pinkish blouse and dark blue jeans, especially when she showed up on Sugarplum Lane just two hours after I told her to fuck off.

Actually, those words had been for her boss. I would never say them to any woman, let alone someone who looked like her.

“Hel-lo!” my buddy Rob said when he spotted her talking to the neighbors.

We’d been helping Bryce all morning. His uncle, Walker, was a buddy of mine. Bryce’s small house had been a complete loss, but we were sorting through the rubble, pulling out anything we could grab for him.

The neighbor’s house was still standing, though. Weird how tornadoes worked. It was as if it came across the sky, dropped down and struck one house, then hopped back up again before striking a couple of miles down the road. In the meantime, it left plenty of damaged roofs and windows, not to mention all the downed trees and debris strewn everywhere.

“Don’t be fooled by the hot bod and gorgeous face,” I told Rob. “She’s here to prey on tornado victims. She was at the courthouse just a couple of hours ago. I told her to get lost.”

I hadn’t actually said that. She politely left after I gave her my message for her boss.

“I thought she left town.” I sighed. “I guess I was wrong.”

“Uh-oh,” Rob said. “She’s looking this way.”

I dared to glance over again and found the homeowner she’d been speaking to pointing at us. I wanted to turn and walk away, but I stood frozen as she began walking this way.

Damn, she was beautiful. Not just beautiful—captivating. I didn’t usually use four-syllable words. It seemed a waste of time when one or two syllables could get the job done. But that was the word that came to mind as I stared at her.

“Hi again,” she said.

Her eyes were on me as she approached wearing a big smile. It was as though our earlier meeting had never happened. Or maybe she’d forgotten about it.

Fat chance of that. The F-word tended to stick in someone’s mind.

“My boss wants to buy lunch for all the volunteers,” she said. “Is there a way to round everyone up?”

When I just stared at her, she shifted her attention to Rob, who probably still had that goofy grin on his face. He got like that when a hot woman was nearby. It wasn’t something that happened often around these parts, so I couldn’t blame him.

“What kind of food are we talking?” Rob asked. “I’m starving. How about you?”

He nudged me in the arm, and I gave him a hard look. It was a look that said, “Did you not hear what I said just a couple of minutes ago?”

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