Page 15 of Running to the Mountain Man

Barrett hums in the shower, as if everything is right with the world.

As if he didn’t burst into my life and accuse me of murdering my husband before introducing himself.

My god. All that, and his pecker hanging out like that’s perfectly normal.

“What do I do now? I certainly cannot just go back to sleep.”

Sitting on the bed, alone, I try to think what my mom and grandmother would do in this situation, even though they are both certifiably brainwashed.

I guess what I do now is cook the man some food as a peace offering.

Seems only proper after I got such a fine education in anatomy while being interrogated.

Opening the fridge, I realize what a dummy I am. If I’d looked here when I first entered the premises, it would have been abundantly clear from all the perishables that this cabin is currently in use, and I was liable to get caught using it at any moment. The fridge has cheese, eggs, milk, meat, and crisper drawers full of greens and apples.

I’m not as good a cook as Olivia, but I can make a mean ham and cheese omelet. This Barrett is a big boy, so I make it a four-egg concoction with cheddar, sausage, and chives, toasting some bread on the side and even buttering the toast for him. Who knows if this is what he wanted, but if someone doesn’t like breakfast at all times of the day, we cannot be friends.

Are we friends? No, but I would like to explore this weird tingling below my navel some more. It’s pesky as hell and nags at me every time that man makes eye contact.

It got more intense when he sat down next to me on the bed in those sweatpants. He smelled ripe. Dirty. Like he’d been swimming in the creek all day. And I enjoyed that smell. So help me god, I lapped it up.

When I turn around, Barrett stands in the kitchen, staring at me.

I gasp. “How long have you been standing there?”

He looks me up and down, and I’m suddenly feeling very self-conscious about my bare legs. “Long enough to notice you stole my shirt, too.”

This room is huge, and yet he overwhelms the space.

“It’s so soft, I couldn’t resist. You can have it back when I leave,” I say, placing the breakfast plate on the oak table. Barrett eyes the omelet topped with chives and black pepper.

“Keep it. Looks better on you,” he says as the wooden chair legs scrape against the plank floor. Barrett sits. I stare.

After a beat, he looks up at me, his eyes trained on my thighs. “You gonna join me?”

I shrug. “I’m not hungry.”

“Didn’t ask if you were hungry,” he says. Next to me, the chair opposite Barrett slides out on its own. It takes half a second to realize he pushed it out from under the table with his foot. He wants me to sit; I guess I’m sitting.

Barrett digs into the omelet and takes a huge bite. “’S’good,” he slurs.

“I appreciate the feedback.”

He slows down and begins to talk more clearly as he cuts up his omelette. “Enough small talk. How about you tell me where you came from and how you ended up breaking and entering?”

Ah. The interrogation continues.

Too tired to lie, I start from the beginning. Well, not from the pioneer days. He’s not interested in any of that. I simply tell him I ran away from the Celestial Order of Covenant Kinship, the compound that bought up a bunch of land in the valley not far from here. How I was forced to marry Peter yesterday, and then how I made a break for it before the wedding night.

Barrett sets his fork down and makes a time-out gesture. “Hold on. You said his name is Peter?”

I nod.

“Well, that’s not the dead dude. The one I found in the creek yesterday was named Trace…something.”

I sit back and blink at him. This news deals me a blow to the chest.

“That name means something to you?”

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