Page 51 of Shared By the Mountain Men

“Oh, okay.”

Ash kept staring at me, and finally his gaze flicked downward. A subtle reminder that I was only wearing panties. My sexiest pair.

“I’m going to, uh…” Without finishing my thought, I hurried upstairs with Noah.

Thankfully, Ash had collected his clothes and was gone by the time I returned downstairs to make breakfast. I was already dying of embarrassment; I didn’t need to make things worse.

Noah was working at the clinic this morning, so I gave him averylong goodbye kiss and then rode Ash’s bike back to my cabin. Jack was outside, pouring a bag of dry cat food into three bowls on his porch.

“I thought you said the cats weren’t yours,” I teased in passing.

“They’re not,” he replied gruffly.

“And yet there you are, feeding them.”

“They keep the rats away,” he said, clearly defensive about it.

I considered teasing him a little more, but I was in my head now after the interaction with Ash that morning, so I left him alone and returned to my cabin.

Everything with Noah wasamazing, but it was Ash that I couldn’t stop thinking about. I was tortured with curiosity about his time in prison. I had to know. Spending ten minutes doing internet research didn’t yield any results, either. And if his friends wouldn’t tell me, then the only way to learn the truth would be to ask him, like Noah had suggested.

But justthinkingabout that made me shiver. No matter what Noah said about him being harmless, he was still the most intimidating man I’d ever met. Suddenly seeing him standing in the kitchen, six-foot-six of pure muscle and tattoos? It was enough to make my knees buckle.

And the way his eyes had moved over my body like a caress…

I shook my head. I should swallow my fear and just talk to him. The worst thing that could happen is if he got angry and told me to fuck off. But even that was enough to give me pause.

I should’ve asked him when I saw him that morning. That was my chance, using the awkward situation as cover to find out his history. Maybe he would’ve taken pity on me.

As the day went on, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. He was compelling, despite his terrifying exterior. I wanted to know his story. I normally liked nice guys like Noah, clean-cut and warm and friendly. But there was something incredibly sexy about Ash’s tattoos, and the danger was also sexy in a weird way.

I laughed to myself. Years ago, my best friend had started dating a guy in a motorcycle gang. I’d ridiculed her at the time, insisting that she was making a huge mistake, but now I kind of understood what she had felt at the time.

But it’s not like I wanted to date Ash or anything. I was just curious. That’s all.

I went to Marlene’s diner for lunch in the hopes of seeing him, then remembered that he said he was working up at the resort that day. The town of Crested Butte was down in the valley, but the ski resort was nestled up at the base of the mountain with the same name. There was no reason for me to go up there and look for him. Besides, I didn’t knowwhathe was doing at the resort.

Maybe I would run into him again. And if not, then perhaps I wasn’t meant to know his felonious secret.

That’s when I passed by a public bulletin board and found the excuse I needed. There were dozens of posted fliers, but one of them jumped out to me:

Mountain Biking Lessons

Tuesday/Thursday

$40/hour

Learn from the best!

I didn’t have any desire to learn how to mountain bike. And I should have been saving up what money I had left for the remainder of my hike through Colorado.

But the poster included a photo of three mountain bikers decked out in gear, two women and one man.

And the man was Ash.

25

Melissa

---