Page 23 of The Minx and the Mountain Man

Reid

The pounding on my front door rattles the walls.

I grunt, pushing up from the chair where I’ve been sitting for the past hour, staring at the fireplace like it holds all the answers. My body is stiff, my head a mess. I don’t want company.

But whoever is on the other side of this door doesn’t give a damn what I want.

“Reid Calloway, you best open this door right now before I freeze my keister off!”

I scrub my hand down my face. Hell.

When I pull open the door, a rush of icy wind cuts through the cabin, sending a sharp chill straight to my bones. Dottie stomps inside like she owns the place, wrapped up in her heavy coat, a thick scarf knotted at her neck, and a scowl aimed directly at me. Snowflakes cling to the loose curls of her graying hair. Her cheeks are flushed red from the cold.

“You took your sweet time,” she huffs, peeling off her gloves. “I nearly turned into a popsicle out there.”

I cross my arms and lean against the doorframe. “You could’ve called.”

She snorts. “Like you’d have answered.”

Fair point.

Dottie yanks off her scarf and levels me with a look that I know too well—the same one she used to give me when I wasa boy with scraped knees, sitting at her kitchen table while she bandaged me up.

It’s the same look my grandmother gave me the day my mama drove away, leaving me behind with nothing but a halfhearted promise to write.

I was ten years old when she left. Sat on the front porch of my grandmother’s house for three damn hours, watching the road, waiting for that old station wagon to turn around.

It never did.

I learned my lesson then and there—people leave. And if you don’t let them get too close in the first place, it doesn’t hurt so bad when they go.

But Sadie got close. She slipped past every wall I built, filled this cold, empty cabin with warmth, and now? Now she’s gone, and I feel like I’m ten years old again, staring at that empty road.

Dottie exhales sharply. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”

I stiffen. “Dottie—”

“No, you listen to me, Reid Calloway.” She marches right up to me, jabbing a gloved finger into my chest. “I’ve let you wallow in your misery long enough, but I will not sit back and watch you make the biggest mistake of your life.”

I grit my teeth. “I don’t—”

“She’s leaving,” Dottie cuts in, eyes sharp. “That sweet girl you married, the one who filled this house with something it hasn’t had in a long time. She’s leaving you, Reid.”

My stomach clenches. I know. Hell, I’ve known since she stood in front of me with tears in her eyes, telling me she loved me, and I just stood there. I just let her walk away.

Dottie sighs, softer this time. “I knew your grandmother, rest her soul, better than anyone. And she would be giving you the same talking-to if she were here.”

I swallow hard, but I don’t say anything.

She shakes her head. “You’re just like her, you know. Stubborn as hell. Always thinking you have to do everything on your own. That you don’t need anybody.”

She’s not talking about my grandmother, even though the description fits her. Dottie is talking about my mom. I clench my jaw and look away.

“But you do need people, Reid,” she continues. “And you don’t just need Sadie. She needs you.”

Something in my chest pulls tight, so tight I can barely breathe.

“She loves you, boy,” Dottie says, her voice gentler now. “And after the way you stood up for her earlier, I know damn well you love her too. But you’re so scared of losing someone that you’re pushing her away before she can leave on her own.”

---