Page 13 of Rescued By the Mountain Man

"Among other things." He shrugged, the movement highlighting the breadth of his shoulders beneath his still-damp shirt. "I'm self-sufficient. Always have been."

"Even before..." I gestured vaguely toward his scars, immediately wondering if I’d gone too far.

Surprisingly, he didn't retreat. "Different reasons then. The military doesn't exactly encourage long-term attachments when you're deploying every eighteen months."

I stirred the red sauce into the pasta, added chunks of cooked chicken breast, chopped tomatoes, green pepper and onion. Finally, I sprinkled dashes of Italian spices into the mix, drizzled olive oil over the top and ladled heaping portions into the bowls he'd set out, contemplating his response. "There's something refreshing about your self-reliance," I admitted, sliding a bowl toward him. "No codependency issues for you."

"Codependency requires someone to depend on in the first place." His voice carried no self-pity, merely pragmatism.

"Still, don't you ever long for more?" I was definitely pushing his boundaries now. "Connection? Companionship? Someone to share all this with?" I gestured toward the cabin, the mountains visible through rain-streaked windows.

His expression hardened, jaw tightening beneath stubble that had grown more pronounced during our days of isolation. Part of me wanted to touch it, to feel the rough texture beneath my fingertips.

"Longing for what you can't hope to have is wasted energy,” he said stoically.

"Can't have, or won't allow yourself to have?"

"Is there a difference?" He held my gaze, challenge evident in the set of his shoulders.

"I think everyone deserves love," I said, abandoning pretense entirely. "I believe in it, even if I haven't experienced it fully myself. Yet."

"That's a luxury belief." Mack took his bowl to the table, effectively distancing himself from the conversation's increasing intimacy. "Safe to maintain when you haven't seen how quickly it can all be taken away."

"Or perhaps hope is most necessary precisely when you've lost everything." I joined him at the table, braver now that we'd ventured into uncharted terrain. "Isn't that when it matters most?"

He didn't answer immediately, spearing a hunk of chicken with his fork instead. When he finally lifted his gaze to mine, something had shifted in those dark eyes—not softening, exactly, but perhaps a offering a window.

"You see the world differently than most people."

"I try to see possibilities rather than limitations," I corrected.

"And what possibilities are you seeing up here on this mountain?" His question carried undertones I couldn't quite decipher—curiosity, perhaps, or skepticism.

Our eyes locked across the weathered table, and for a breathless moment, the cabin seemed to contract around us. The steady drumming of rain faded. The lingering scent of woodsmoke intensified. Heat bloomed in my chest, spreading outward until my fingertips tingled with awareness.

"More than I expected to find," I admitted, my voice barely audible over my thundering pulse.

Something elemental flashed in his eyes—hunger, recognition, connection—before he deliberately looked away, breaking whatever had momentarily formed between us.

We finished the meal in silence, though not the comfortable quiet of the previous evening. This silence vibrated with what was left unsaid. His hand, when it accidentally brushed mine as we cleared the dishes, sent electricity racing up my arm, and the sharp intake of his breath suggested he'd felt it too.

That night, after retreating to the bedroom with mumbled goodnights, I retrieved my notebook from its hiding place beneath the mattress. The pages beckoned, demanding honesty I'd previously withheld from myself if not from them.

Magnetism doesn't require perfection, I wrote, my script more jagged than usual.It demands authenticity. He carries his damage without apology, wears his routine like armor, yet beneath lies a deep well of tenderness I glimpsed when he thought I wasn't looking. The gentleness with which he treats his dog. The careful way he stacked firewood precisely tomy height when he noticed me struggling. The coffee already brewed each morning before I wake.

I paused, pen hovering above the page, then continued with reckless honesty:

I've written passionate encounters between countless fictional couples, invented chemical attraction potent enough to convince readers that two strangers could risk everything for one night of passion. But I never understood until now the visceral reality—how proximity creates its own gravity, how awareness of another's body can dominate every conscious thought. How his scarred hands might feel against my skin. How the control he maintains so rigidly might finally, gloriously shatter.

Heat flushed through me, embarrassment mingled with a deeper, more primal response. I'd come to Montana seeking authenticity to infuse my writing. Instead, I'd stumbled into feelings I had no framework to process—desire without narrative structure, attraction without convenient plot resolution.

What would Mack think if he read these pages? If he discovered how I was observing him and taking notes in my journal to use as inspiration for my next brooding hero? Worse still, what would he think if he knew that beyond professional curiosity lay something far more personal—that I, Brynn Ashcroft, bestselling author of scorching romance novels, had never actually experienced the physical intimacy I described in such technical detail?

The irony wasn’t lost on me. Six bestsellers built on research rather than experience. My devoted readers had noidea their favorite steamy scenes came from a woman who'd barely been kissed, let alone lived the encounters that paid for my Manhattan apartment. Now my latest manuscript languished, lacking the spark my publisher demanded. I could still hear Jillian's disappointed tone as she'd slid the pages back across her desk: "Where's that authentic understanding of physical desire your readers expect?" How could I explain that my well of artificial inspiration had run dry?

I closed the notebook with a snap and shoved it under the mattress, flicking off the bedside lamp with more force than necessary. The darkness invited dangerous thoughts as I settled against the pillow that carried traces of Mack's scent. My imagination, always too vivid for my own good, began to paint scenarios in my mind’s eye. Mack, not on the couch but here with me in his bed, the mattress dipping beneath our combined weight. Those strong hands, tracing paths along my skin. The scrape of stubble against my neck, my collarbone, lower still.

Would he be tender, sensing my inexperience? Or would passion override caution, desire eclipsing reason?

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