Page 7 of Fierce Mountain Man

“No idea,” he said. “Do you have someone you could call and ask? A stepparent, or whoever adopted you?”

“Nobody adopted me.”

There. It was out. I’d said it. And it felt damn good. If he judged me, so what?

He wasn’t going to judge me, though. I knew that even before he looked up at me with an interested expression. He wanted to know more about me. The hottest guy I’d ever seen wanted to know more about me.

“Growing up I was shuffled from one foster home to another,” I said. “A lot of people sign up to be foster parents for the wrong reasons. Anyway, you don’t want to hear my story.”

“I actually do,” he said. “I know we just met, but you’re the most interesting woman I’ve ever spoken to.”

He said all that without looking at me. Instead, he busied himself with my boot. It wasn’t easy to get on. There were straps that had to be tightened, and that was after I wiggled my foot into it.

“You’re pretty interesting yourself,” I said while he worked. “I can’t believe I met a real-life mountain man in an alley in the middle of town.”

“I’d hardly call that construction site an alley. It was an empty lot with a bunch of trees just a few months ago. But yeah, I guess I qualify as a mountain man. I live in the mountains in a cabin. I have electricity and running water, though, as you can see.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I actually assumed all you guys were crapping in outhouses and pumping water out of wells. Isn’t that what mountain men do?”

I had actually just used the words “crapping in outhouses” in front of this man. Yes, I had. I was mortified. What was wrong with me?

But when he looked up at me, he wore a big smile.

“No outhouse here,” he said. “I don’t think anybody lives like that. Not in these mountains, anyway. If so, I haven’t met them.”

I sucked in a deep breath, gave a nod, and said, “Let’s see if I can walk around on this thing.”

And with that, I moved to push myself to my feet. He rocked back on his heels a little to give me space.

This was it. I’d get up and walk around. He’d determine I was fine, then he’d drop me off at my car and go on with his life.

Walking on the boot wasn’t easy, though. In fact, I almost toppled over. But then I felt his hands on my arms, steadying me, and warmth spread through my body. He’d stood at some point when I was busy trying to put one foot in front of the other, and now he was behind me.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said. “But you can keep your hands there.”

I clamped my mouth shut when I realized those words had actually come out. How did I explain them?

We’d both frozen. That meant we were standing there with his hands on me. Yeah, he could definitely keep touching me.

“It might take a little walking around for you to get your balance,” he said. “But I’ll stay with you.”

That wasn’t why I wanted him to keep his hands on me. But he’d just given me a free pass on my awkward comment.

I began walking, and he stayed behind me. It had to be weird for him, but he managed to keep his hands on my arms as I moved around his living room. When I turned, his arms fell to his sides. I missed his touch immediately.

“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been so helpful. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t heard me scream.”

“I didn’t hear you scream,” he said.

We were looking at each other now and standing far closer than we ever had. Up close, I could see the gold flecks in his brown eyes. They were subtle, but they made him even more interesting.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

The air between us had suddenly gotten extremely thick with tension. But it was a good kind of tension, and I didn’t even mind the way it stole my breath. Everything hinged on his next words.

“I saw you standing by that barricade while I was driving by,” he said. “I stopped to tell you that you weren’t supposed to be back there. But it was only because I wanted to meet you.” He shrugged. “And that’s my confession.”

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