Page 9 of Rescued By the Mountain Man

Now I knew he was screwing with me.

“Great,” I said. “Now that I know you live like cavemen, I promise I won’t slurp my soup, nor eat with my hands, and I will use a napkin most of the time. It might be the one time you see some civility. I can even provide character references if you want.”

I didn’t know where this was coming from. I damn well knew I wasn’t flirting. I knew that…but teasing? Now and again, I saw an emotion flicker over his face that looked scarily enough like attraction, but it didn’t make me feel any better than I had earlier.

Maybe he wasn’t quite as annoying as I’d first thought. He’d been almost kind, and he’d opened up by telling me a part about his unfortunate past. I could not think of what it felt like to have your dream, the passion of your life, the one thing that got you up in the morning, to die right before your eyes.

Can’t you? If the FBI and cops cannot catch the man who tried to kill you in your bed, you’ll never step foot into the newspaper office again. You’ll be running for the rest of your life.

Unbidden, I touched my throat where the man’s thumbs had sunk into my windpipe, cutting off my air and making fear lance through my body like greased lightning. The memory of those hard green-blue eyes cutting into me through the holes of a black ski mask temporarily wiped out the hunger I’d just felt.

“Miss Harrington?” His rumbly voice had me snatching my hand from my throat. His brows were down, and I wondered if he felt true concern. “Are you all right?”

I scrambled for an appropriate lie. “I’m fine. My er…throat feels gritty from the fairgrounds. Like I’d swallowed a bucket of dirt.”

His eyes dipped into the glass of water beside me as if to say, well, there you go. I held back a huff.

What a jerkface.

Sipping the water, I asked, “How did you go from rodeo champion to rancher?”

“I was born here,” he said while Miss Betty came with a tray of food. “It’s my family’s ranch.”

He didn’t offer any more information after that, but I accepted it. I didn’t think he was in the mood to outline his whole family tree to me. Dipping my spoon in my soup, I ate quietly, then remembered that I needed to get a phone.

“Miss Laura told me I could get a phone at the local all-goods store,” I said. “I need to get one today if possible.”

“The phones Hank’s got are all beepers,” he said, portioning his massive burger into fours. “Don’t you need one of those with Facebook and all those social media apps or something?”

“Why do you sound like I’m twelve?” I asked. “You cannot be that much older than I am.”

“I’m thirty-four,” he replied. “Your paperwork says you are twenty-seven.”

“I am, but you’re acting like you’re in your fifties,” I replied. “You cannot be so…isolated that you’ve aged yourself twice your true age. I mean, you do look the part of a mountain man, but I refuse to accept that you’re back in the stone age.”

“Time is not the only thing that can age you,” he replied. His solemn tone made a resonant pang go off in my chest, and I decided to keep quiet for the rest of the meal.

“If anything, I can wait until tomorrow,” I said while digging into my chicken and mash. Holy shit, it was delicious. It melted in my mouth.

“I’m heading to Helena in a couple of days,” he said. “If you want to wait that long, you can get a better range of options there.”

A twinge of apprehension twisted my belly at being in the open. The lead operator of the FBI, Lewis Clark, who had set me up with my new identity, told me to lie low.

They gave me another car, new plates, and a new identity. Is it even possible that someone could have followed me here? I made sure to avoid the toll roads and took the back ones….

“Okay,” I replied.

Biscuits and gravy were the most delicious things I’d ever tasted, and I wondered why I’d never truly immersed myself in southern cooking before in New York. We finished eating, left a tip, and headed back to the inn.

“Do you have a laptop or something for me to put these into a spreadsheet?” I asked. “And who is going to shower first?”

“I have a laptop in a cupboard in the bedroom, and I would appreciate a long bath, so you may shower first,” he replied.

“Sure,” I replied as we entered the cabin. While I turned on the kettle, Warrick removed his jacket and hat, unlaced his boots, and set them aside.

He headed into the room and returned with the MacBook. “There’s no password, so you can go on and use it.”

“Thank you.” I dipped into the room, grabbed a few things, then headed to the bathroom to quickly shower.

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