Page 7 of Dangerous Mountain Man

I pointed at him. “That is how you can pay me back for the ride. Let the deer live.”

But from the look on his face, I knew he wasn’t going to give up his wildlife hunting easily. And maybe I was wrong for trying to stop him. It might end up being the one thing we couldn’t agree on. But for now, I’d enjoy being able to spend time with him.

4

MEMPHIS

Time to go to work.

I grabbed my tumbler of coffee and my lunch pail and headed toward the door. I stopped midway across the living room, eyeing the rifle propped against the wall. Damn it. If not for my truck breaking down, I would have grabbed that rifle and headed out to hunt that morning.

My beautiful neighbor didn’t want me to shoot deer. And despite the urge I had to fulfill my obligations, I couldn’t bring myself to go against her wishes. Not just yet, anyway.

Her white sedan sat in the driveway, empty. I couldn’t tell from the house itself whether she was up or not. What if she wasn’t? What if she accidentally slept in?

Maybe I could creep inside the cabin and sneak into bed with her. That would definitely be worth being late to work again.

Once I was on her porch, I shifted my lunch pail to the hand that held my thermos, knocked on the door, and stepped back. This cabin really should have a storm door. She was safe up here, of course, but nothing was guaranteed.

Whoever owned this cabin had her staying here for a reason. What if he thought someone might break in and stealsomething? What if I was the guy the cabin owner thought might do something to it?

It wouldn’t surprise me. I’d been getting the side-eye around this town since I arrived. Shaving and cleaning up my look might have an impact on that. It was too soon to know for sure.

The door suddenly flew open, and the brunette’s smiling face was on the other side. “Hi…” I paused. “We haven’t introduced ourselves. I’m Memphis.”

It was something that had been bugging me. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, but I didn’t know her name.

“I know,” she said. Then she squeezed her eyes closed and smiled. “I mean, my best friend told me. She’s dating someone on your crew.”

I frowned. “Who’s your best friend dating?”

“Her name’s Cassady, and she’s dating Dane.”

Dane. I didn’t say anything, but he was the guy I’d run into at the bar a couple of weeks ago. He’d been acting weird all day at work, and then I saw him ordering a sweet tea. Not a gin and tonic or dirty martini but a freakingsweet tea.

He’d opened up—as much as any of us opened up to each other—about his woman troubles, and I told him they weren’t worth it. None of them. But the one standing in front of me might be. She just might be.

And she’d asked her friend about me. Did that mean she was interested in me? It had to, right?

“Mallorie,” she said.

I stared at her, unblinking, trying to place the word she’d just blurted. Mallard? Was she talking about the ducks she always wore on her robe? Maybe she was really into ducks. Mallards.

Those weren’t mallards on her robe, though. And she wasn’t wearing it right now anyway. She wore jeans and a pink sweatshirt that bore the name of a state college. Her hair was in a ponytail, and her face was freshly scrubbed.

She looked like a college girl. But she was in law school, she’d said, so she had to at least have an undergrad degree. That would make her twenty-two at the youngest. I was thirty-five. Was twenty-two too young?

“Mallorie’s my name,” she said, probably noticing the confusion on my face. “My friend Cassady is the one dating Dane. She works for the guy who rents these vacation cabins. We met when her boss sent her over to pick up a contract for a property he’d just bought from us.”

Mallorie was in law school and worked full time. Or was it part-time? I had so many questions. Luckily, we had a ten-minute drive to the worksite and dinner tonight to get to know each other better.

“Let me just grab my coffee,” she said. “Come on in.”

That last part was added almost as an afterthought. That made me wonder if I should just stay on the porch. But she left the door standing wide open as she turned to rush back inside, and it wasn’t like I couldn’t see everything from where I stood anyway. No harm, no foul.

I shut the door almost all the way as I stepped inside and stood politely in the doorway. There was a slight chill outside, like yesterday morning when I went out to hunt, but today I wasn’t wearing a jacket. Our work kept us moving around so much, I’d warm up pretty quickly anyway.

“Got it,” she said, rushing back across the floor.

---