Page 56 of His One True Wish

Her eyes didn’t leave mine. Her chest rose and fell, and my body responded with a wave of heat. My dick hardened so fast I wondered if I was in danger of passing out from a head rush.

“Fine,” she said. Her breath froze in puffs in front of her bow lips. Her cheeks pink, the tip of her nose was red, making her look like a gorgeous woodland elf.

I walked around her, glad she couldn’t see the bulge in my pants.

We walked toward the rushing river, treading carefully on the slope. I anchored each of my footsteps, digging the tip of my snowshoe deep into the snow to make an icy step. The trail opened up onto a snowy bank. The water wasn’t frozen. The river was too wide and the water moving too fast.

“Look at those rapids,” Billie said, moving beside me. She crossed her arms and stared at the river.

“Yeah, the path is not looking good,” I said.

The normal path was buried under snow. Our snowshoes were too risky here. One wrong move and we could tumble into the icy waters.

“I really wanted to call my Mom,” Billie said, softly, looking at the whitewater. “She’ll be so worried.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Seems like this mountain doesn’t want me to leave.” Billie turned and looked up at me. There was a pause in her voice and an expectation in her eyes that made me think she was looking for a specific comment from me. “I guess I can make a wish.” She shrugged.

“You can’t wish on a river,” I said.

“Yes, you can, and I will. I grew up wishing on this river.

“Fine, wish! Go ahead!”

Billie took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “I wish that Mom could come see me in Smoke River and that we can all go home.”

Billie was a woman who believed in wishes, and maybe it was true that Smoke River didn’t want Billie to leave. The question was, what did I want? When I didn’t answer, she walked away without a word.

CHAPTER 16

BILLIE

Well, I felt stupid. I opened up a bit to Axl on the banks of the river, and he looked straight through me. “I guess the mountain wants me to be here?” I cringed thinking about how dumb that sounded. What did I expect?

He liked sex. I liked sex. We had sex together. Was it a mistake? Probably. Did it matter? Probably not.

I walked a few paces ahead of him the entire way back to the cabin, wrapping my arms around my waist. I lowered my guard and tumbled into his green eyes only to find him staring at me blankly.

I shouldn’t have been disappointed in his non-answer. We made a deal. What happened in Smoke River stayed in Smoke River, and we’d been tipsy and trapped and one thing led to another. That was it. Besides, I wasn’t looking for a relationship, so why was I feeling all weird anyway? Axl was hot and a good cook, and he knew how to make an amazing hot toddy, and his dick felt like a magic wand, but we’d had our fun, and it was done now. I needed to stop thinking about how it felt to wake up in front of the fire in his arms and think more about getting home.

I was a Prescott woman, and we did not need help from anyone,especially a man. I felt a renewed sense of resiliency as I retreated to the house.

As I approached the cabin, I saw Cam’s black-and-white nose fiddling with the shutters. Damn that dog was cute.

My body was hot from walking up the hillside. I almost felt like I was overheating when I pushed myself back in through the door.

“Hey,” Axl called when I outpaced him. “Billie?”

“I’m good,” I said, calling to him over my shoulder. “I need to pee.” I lied.

“Pee outside,” he said.

“No, no thank you,” I said, nodding to the cabin. “I’ll make it back inside.”

I didn’t want him to know that he’d hurt my feelings. I was trapped here with him and had allowed myself to daydream and imagine that there’d been more between us than just a hard dick and our bodies responding to each other.

I closed the door and kicked the snow off my boots. Cam greeted me at the door, paws extended. She nudged me and followed me into the great room.

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