Page 3 of Untamed Mountain Man

I opened my mouth with plans to drop a goodbye. I was even gearing my body up to head toward the door.

Instead, though, when I opened my mouth, what came out was, “Can you get me out of here? Just for a few hours. I need a break.”

2

BEAU

Did this count as kidnapping? In a town full of people looking for a reason to criminalize me, I was pretty sure it did, even if she was a willing passenger in my full-size pickup.

“There’s a diner here in town,” I said. “But if you really want to escape, we should head to Adairsville. That’s the next town over.”

I didn’t look at her, just kept my face forward. My left hand gripped the steering wheel so hard, my knuckles were white.

“Let’s go to Adairsville,” she said. “I need a glass of wine and I’m told your town doesn’t have it.”

“I wouldn’t call this my town.”

She looked over at me then, and I resisted the urge to return her stare. “You don’t live here?”

“Oh, I live here,” I said. “I’ve lived in Seduction Summit all my life. Pretty much got kicked out of town as a teenager. Joined the military. One of my neighbors on the base told me a bunch of vets were relocating to my hometown for logging work. I can operate equipment and chop wood with the best of them.”

So here I was, back at home, where I couldn’t walk into a building without people whispering. I was the guy who stole a pack of cigarettes from the gas station near the exit ramp more than two decades ago. I’d been thirteen at the time, and it was a dare from one of my buddies, but it didn’t matter. I was basically a criminal who’d never lived down that reputation, even after graduating high school and doing two tours overseas.

“No liquor in Seduction Summit,” I said. “Well, except for the lodge.”

“I could’ve gotten my glass of wine there. I just can’t handle the vibe.”

The vibe. Apparently, that was a thing now. As my coworkers had begun coupling up with younger women, that saying had spread through our still-developing logging crew. I wasn’t really sure what it meant, but I could guess.

“You won, though,” I said. “Don’t you want to celebrate?”

“The problem is, only three of us are finalists and the rest have to stick around and watch us celebrate. That kind of sucks, right?”

I narrowed my eyes but continued to stare out the windshield. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It sounded like she felt guilty for actually reaching her goal.

“I know I shouldn’t worry about what other people think,” she said. “It’s just awkward, you know? We’ve all worked equally hard to get where we are. No one is more deserving than anyone else. And I may not even win tomorrow. I could come in third, at which point I’ll feel like crap on a stick.”

She let out a sigh, and the silence stretched between us. I should say something here, but I wasn’t exactly known for my people skills.

Normally, I was decent at getting women into bed if I set my mind to it, but I’d gotten bored with that. I needed a connection—a woman who wanted to get to know me rather than just get me naked.

That went both ways. I wanted a woman like the one in my passenger seat. One who got my dick hard just looking at her but also interested me. I couldn’t say why, but when this woman talked, I wanted her to keep talking. I couldn’t seem to get enough.

“I was watching you,” I said.

Wait, that sounded stalker-ish. The truth was, I’d homed in on her from the first time I saw her sitting at the big table in the restaurant with a bunch of other women. Nobody at that table—or in the entire restaurant—existed as soon as I saw her. I’d watched from the bar, where I grabbed dinner every night after work.

I’d thought about her last night as I lay in bed, my erection growing as I remembered the generous swell of her breasts under that black sweater. I’d come twice thinking of her—once before bed and once in the shower this morning.

That was why it had been such a shock to see her in the lift ticket building the logging crew used for the bathrooms. It was like she’d stepped right out of my fantasies.

“I saw your group,” I corrected when I noticed her once again watching me. “There were a lot of you.”

“Just a dozen bakers.” She laughed. “A baker’s dozen. But only twelve of us. The judges are staying at a different hotel to avoid mixing with everyone. They want their decision to be based only on our baking, not on how we acted at dinner or on a conversation they might have with us in the elevator.”

“Makes sense,” I said.

Truth be told, I hadn’t heard much of what she just said. My mind had drifted to the way she’d looked in that lift ticket building, her cheeks still red from the outside chill, that long skirt tapering to pink snow boots that matched her pink coat…

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