Page 8 of The Mountain Man's Flame

“I know it is,” he answers, pressing a soft kiss to my knuckles. “A man would be fuckin’ insane to walk away from you.”

I blow out a breath and tell him, “Marriage and commitment, they’re not jokes to me. They don’t represent something good or beautiful or wonderful. They’re empty promises and broken dreams and coming home to a dark house because mom is working two jobs now.”

“That will not be our story,” he says. “I won’t let it be.”

I stare into his deep gaze as I realize he really believes this. “You think we’re going to get married?”

5

AIDEN

Nova doesn’t hidethe doubt from her voice, but that’s OK. I can believe for both of us. I can bear the weight of her past and speak life over the cracked, aching places of her heart. In time, she will trust me with all of the broken pieces, and my love will mend them back together again.

“I know we’re going to have a beautiful marriage,” I reassure her. “It won’t be easy. There will be hard days and moments when we don’t see eye to eye. I’ll make stupid mistakes and I’ll beg your forgiveness each time. But I will never, ever leave you.”

She laughs then. It’s a full belly sound but there’s no amusement in it. “It’s easy to say those words but living them out. I’ve been around the men that don’t. It’s too hard.”

“I get that, angel. I do. What you’ve seen has told you this is impossible. But what I’ve seen gives me faith.” I smile then as I think of my childhood. It was so different from hers that it makes me ache for her.

“My dad took me and my brothers hunting and fishing every week as a kid. He had me working in the garden when I was knee high. I thought it was just because my dad liked to do these things. It wasn’t until I got older that I understood that if we didn’t hunt and garden, we were going to go hungry.”

She squeezes my hand. “I’m sorry.”

I shake my head. “Don’t be. I never realized how rough things were because of my father. To hear him talk, we were rich as kings. He was always pointing out the good things we had in life. He embraced the simple pleasures and loved me and my brothers fiercely.”

“He sounds wonderful.” There’s a note of wistfulness mixed in with the happiness in her tone. She wishes she had what I had, and I plan to give it to her.

“Despite how poor we were, we got one birthday present every year and it was always the same thing. A new pair of leather boots, the nice kind that were waterproof.” I pause there, not wanting to share all of the story but knowing that it matters. “When I was about ten, I threw a fit over getting new boots. I had wanted this really cool science kit and I didn’t get it. My dad looked at me. I’ll never forget the gentle sound of his voice when he told me that part of being a man is accepting things whether good or bad with grace.”

I take a deep breath. “My dad always wore sandwich bags on his feet and taped his boots together. It took me years to realize I got new boots every year, but he never did. He’s that kind of man. He put everything—his whole heart and soul—into loving his wife and raising his boys. That’s the kind of husband and father I’ll be.”

I send him new boots on his birthday each year. He calls and bitches at me, telling me I shouldn’t waste the money on him. I just ignore it and tell him I love him. He never says it back. But all I have to do is picture those taped up boots to know that he has said it to me every day for years.

Nova shivers and I realize how cold it is in the main area of the library. With the open space and the high ceilings, it’s not exactly easy to heat the old building. “Let’s go back to the employee’s lounge.”

She nods and says, “Can I borrow your phone? I want to call my brother. He was expecting to hear from me tonight.”

I pass it to her before I stand and stretch. I sense she needs some time to process our conversation. “Sure, I’ll get the space heater running.”

Nova

I watch Aiden walk away,my thoughts circling in my head. I’ve never really talked to anyone about my dad. Most of the townspeople watched me grow up. They know the story.

But having Aiden say my dad was ashamed helped me see it differently. For the first time, that little voice in my head that tells me I’m not good enough is silent.

I try to call my brother twice, but the call doesn’t go through. The cell towers must already be down in the storm.

Even though I shouldn’t snoop, I pull up the audio books on Aiden’s phone. He has a lot of books on marriage and fatherhood that he’s listened to. But it’s his most recent one that catches my eye. It’s basically a primer on pleasing a woman complete with fascinating facts about female anatomy.

The book is written by a man, but I’m pretty sure I’m learning new things about my body as I listen. I squeeze my thighs together and imagine Aiden when the author talks about the right way to go down on a woman.

“Pretty interesting stuff, yeah?” Aiden’s voice is deep.

I startle. “I didn’t hear you come back out.” My face flames as the narrator continues to describe how a woman’s clit functions. I smash the pause button and toss his phone into the seat beside me.

“I gathered that much,” his voice is still low and for a moment, I wonder if he’s mad at me. He told me I could call my brother. He didn’t say I could look through his phone or go through his reading history.

“I shouldn’t have snooped,” I confess as I stand. I feel guilty about it but only a little bit. After what I’ve seen and heard, I know that Aiden is going to make some woman a very lucky and satisfied wife. The idea that it might not be me makes my heart ache.

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