Page 4 of Dangerous Mountain Man

A sputtering sound told me she had one of those single-cup coffeemakers. Mine was the old-school kind of coffee pot with a carafe and cheap grounds I bought at the grocery store on my weekly trip to town.

“Black is fine,” I said. “Don’t need nothing fancy.”

Creamer was hardly fancy. Way to show how backwoods I was. She might be surprised to learn that I’d traveled the world and seen things she’d never imagined. But in the process, I’d learned to survive on the bare minimum. Food was for fuel. Coffee was for fuel too. My only vice was a beer at the end of a long, hard day.

She turned toward me, and for the first time, I got an up-close look at her. Her eyes were a light greenish-blue color—at least, that’s what I saw when she stepped within inches of me to hand me a coffee cup. Then she stepped back and leaned against the counter, propping one socked foot on top of the other.

She’d taken off her shoes when she came inside. Should I have done the same?

“So, how did you get nominated to kill all the deer in town?” she asked.

“Not all of them,” I said. “And I volunteered. I’m not the only one. Several of us are doing it.”

I cringed inwardly as the words came out of my mouth. They made me sound cold, heartless. That wasn’t me. I volunteered because it was a duty—something that needed to be done.

It was a dirty job, but it didn’t seem all that dirty to me. I had a way of dehumanizing humans when they were the enemy. The same went for sweet little deer. I hadn’t even thought of them that way until she said it. They were more like rodents that needed to be removed.

“They leave piles of poop everywhere,” she said.

Those words pulled me out of my thoughts. I’d started to take a sip of coffee, but the second it touched my lips, I knew it was too hot, so I’d lowered the cup again, and now I was just staring at her.

“Poop?” I asked.

“Piles of deer crap, or whatever you want to call it. A couple of neighbors in the last cabin where I stayed were fighting because one was sure the other’s dog was pooping in her yard. Someone had to point out to her that it was deer poop.” She laughed. “I guess the woman didn’t realize wildlife doesn’t care about common courtesy.”

I attempted another sip of my coffee. If I was careful, I could get just enough in to not scald my throat. I didn’t want to blow on it. That’d be a pussy move.

“Deer overpopulation’s a real problem,” I said. “There was a twenty-minute presentation on it at the last city council meeting.”

Her eyebrows raised, and I swore I saw her checking out my body. Her gaze lowered just a fraction of a second before rising back to my face.

Did she find me attractive? I sure as hell found her attractive. She wore jeans that did very little to conceal her beautiful curves. And those lips—full, pink, and ready to be kissed. What wouldshe do if I set down this coffee mug and grabbed her, pulling her against me?

“They bring ticks,” she said. “And ticks have diseases.”

“And they eat all the plants,” I added. “Of course, the biggest issue is that they run out in front of cars. It causes deaths every year. Human deaths.”

I clarified that last part in case she thought I was talking about the deer. She probably could piece that together, though.

“In Seduction Summit?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Everywhere. They had statistics for North Carolina. They didn’t break it down by city. I’m guessing Seduction Summit has never had a death because of deer. We would have definitely heard about that.”

“Front page news,” she said. “Well, if we had a newspaper, it would be.”

She grabbed her coffee mug and walked back toward the coffeemaker. I was disappointed for a moment, sure she was going to stay over there, but instead, she picked up her coffee mug and returned, resuming her position only a few inches from where she’d stood seconds earlier.

“You’re former military, aren’t you?” she asked.

I had been taking a sip from my coffee—it was now cool enough to drink without scalding myself—but I lowered my mug and stared at her. “How can you tell?”

My arm bore a gigantic Marine Corps emblem, but she couldn’t see that under my T-shirt. My hair once again bore the military haircut—as of yesterday. When I first moved up here, I’d let my beard grow out and neglected my hair. For a solid seven months, I’d skipped haircuts. Finally, yesterday, I’d taken care of it myself using some basic scissors and a trimmer. Then I’d shaved, and for the first time in seven months, felt truly like myself.

She shrugged. “Something about you. Am I right?”

“Marines,” I said with a nod. “A lot of the guys around here are Army. A couple are Navy, but I think I’m the only Marine. My high school buddy told me about this place, and I moved up here a few years ago.”

Was I telling the woman my life story? She didn’t want to hear all that. I never opened up to anyone, but oddly, this woman I’d just met had me wanting to bare all. I wouldn’t do it, of course. I never let anybody get that close to me.

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