Page 10 of Forgotten Mountain Man

“Yeah, I figured that out, but thanks.” She lowered her ankle into the water and gasped. “Okay, I am coming back here tonight.” She glanced back at me, sucking her lower lip between her teeth the way she seemed to do when she was unsure of something. “Is it safe?”

“If I said no would you do it anyway?” I whisked that safety net she thought I provided away just to see what she’d do.

“Probably. This is too tempting.” Faith dragged her foot out, and swirled her fingers through the water. “How did you find this?”

I shrugged. “Trav’s dad, Len, knew this was up here. They owned the land for a long time, knew all its secrets. He sold me a patch under the provision that I wouldn’t change too much or cut off the river that flowed through his land. So, we worked around it.”

“It’s a good change.” She nodded. “Do you use it?”

“A lot of nights after I’ve worked my ass off. It helps–” I cut my words off.

She looked at me. “What hurts, bear boy?”

“Nothing.”

A snort erupted from her. “You’re so full of shit.”

“Potty mouth, Precious. Such a potty mouth.”

“You are talking a lot today.” She smiled prettily as my mouth snapped shut on demand. Blazing red hair flickered out behind her as she sauntered past me.

And all my broken brain could picture was her in the hot water without a stitch on, her hair drifting around her, and my clothes tossed somewhere behind her on the granite.

Shaking my head to clear the vision that did nobody any good, I braced my hands over my head against the cold stone, feeling the weight of the mountain bear down on me. “Come on, Precious. Let’s get you that coffee. Don’t you have a story to tell?”

Faith tossed me a sassy grin over her shoulder like she knew exactly what was on my mind. All the way back into my cabin, I swore her hips swayed a little more.

CHAPTER FIVE

FAITH

Walker Roan was a stubborn man. Plus, his tech was at least a decade out of date, and that didn’t help with anything. I did manage to pull up his father’s will before the internet died for good. I knew he had to have read that, though from the look on his face when I glanced across at him it hadn’t been any time recently, and he may not have read it all the way through to the end.

“Didn’t anyone go through this with you at the time?” I asked gently.

His beard shifted side to side, which I took as ano.

“Okay. Welp. He wanted you to take on the land he left behind.”

“No.”

I sucked in a long breath. We had been over this a dozen times already. Walker listened politely, gave me all his attention and when we got to this point, his answer was the same each time.

No.

No

No.

FuckingNo.

No wonder he never got to the end of the document. I guessed his answer had been the same back then. I also guessed that at some point he got up and left the meeting, and that was when the papers were delivered to me the next day.

That meeting should have been mine, but at the time the firm I worked for decided that one of the partners should handle it because they knew better.

Alsono.

I licked my lips. “Do you understand what will happen to the land if you don’t come to collect on it?”

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