Page 7 of Saved By the Mountain Man

Bear nodded slowly, his eyes thoughtful. “Could be.”

I glanced up at him. “I can’t trust her,” I said, frustrated. “What if she’s working for him? What if she’s here to drag me back?”

Bear shook his head. “You really think she’d do that? After all you two went through?”

“After how I left her… I don’t know. I don’t know if he got to her. I don’t know if she was safe when I left. I should have made sure of it, but if I had, he would have caught me before I could get out.” I let out a shuddering breath. “Fuck.”

Bear’s intense eyes bore into my soul. “You’ve been out here a long time, Tanner.”

I nodded. “Not long enough.”

“Maybe running from your past isn’t the answer anymore.”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut. It wasn’t like I could turn around and face it just like that. How could I face a past that had left so many scars? How could I trust anyone, even Rae, when trust had cost me everything?

I turned back to the deer, focusing on the task at hand. Skinning, gutting, preparing. It was something tangible, something I could control. I knew what to do, my hands worked with a rhythm. My body was steady, breathing controlled, hands doing what they’d done for years. Unlike my mind, that raced, driving me crazy.

After a while of sitting in silence, Bear helped me with the deer. We worked as a team. He carefully peeled the skin away from the meat while I carefully removed the guts without puncturing the stomach. We worked in companionable silence, the only sound the rhythmic scraping of knives against flesh.

Bear stood and washed his hands in the trough I kept close by.

The water was icy and would soon freeze over, but I would see to it that I had enough of everything.

Bear walked to me where I still kneeled, clothes bloody, hands stained.

I might not have killed that family myself, but whenever I saw blood on my hands, it felt like it could be theirs.

Bear clapped a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll figure it out, Tanner. You always do.”

I nodded. “Thanks.” I wasn’t so sure.

I watched him disappear into the trees. I stood and washed my hands, too. The meat had to be cut, smoked, dried. The hide had to be tanned.

There was still much to do before winter came, and I was grateful for the work. It was easier to do the simple tasks of surviving than to deal with the complicated matters of the heart.

With Rae back, it reminded me that I had one, and that reminded me that it was a fucking pain.

3

RAE

The sun was already high in the sky by the time I made my way to Garrison’s General Store.

I’d overslept.

The first couple of days here in Silver Ridge, I’d been up at the crack of dawn, fear nipping at my heels, sure that someone would come to get me.

Slowly, as nothing had gone wrong and every day turned out to be okay, I’d started to relax.

And as I relaxed, the incredible exhaustion hit me.

It had been days of running, of fear that Jethro would catch up to me.

I was still worried, but the terror had subsided into a deep concern. I wasn’t paralyzed by it the way I had been for far too long.

Now, I needed money to keep surviving. I was on the last of my savings and I was going to stay here for as long as I could before I moved on.

I needed the shelter for the winter.

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