Page 24 of Forgotten Mountain Man

Waking up with her wrapped around me this morning…that had been its own moment to treasure. Her glorious red hair spread across us both, her legs tangled around mine, my hand curved over the swell over her ass.

Everything I hadn’t realized I missed from my life, because I hated being around people.

Or maybe I just wanted one.

Her.

“I wish we could start today again.” She echoed my thoughts to perfection.

“Could do,” I murmured against her lips, drawing back to look into her color change eyes. Here, away from the mountain, the greens were dulled. “You gonna take me out to see the land later on?”

Her eyes flared wide, and a flush rose up her cheeks. “Walker? Something you need to tell me?”

I swallowed hard and nodded. “You wanna tell me why my father’s favorite tea is lined along your office back wall?” It wasn’t just his favorite tea. My father had five favorite tea brands. More than that, actually. He had an obsession with tea. And I spotted every single one of them on her back wall in a neat line, like she'd ranked them. And right at the end were the ones that contained…

I drew my finger in a line across the fancy tins and stopped at the end without saying a word.

She filled in the blanks for me. “Bergamot.” Faith wrinkled her nose. “Chaz hated the ones with bergamot hidden in them.”

“He did. How often was he in here?”

“Monthly. Usually when he came into town. Not that home was far away but you know, ten minutes is far in White Cap. When he stopped being able to come in and he was confined at home, I took the tea to him.”

I held onto her tight. “What did you talk about?”

My father talked to everyone, including me. I just… I was never able to talk back. I tried, but I couldn't. It was like a barrier formed between us, impossible to cross. Knowing he had someone he connected with eased some of the guilt weighing on my heart.

“Town. Gossip. Police. Politics. International, local. Your father was interested in?—”

“Everything,” I finished for her. “I never could keep up.”

Her head tipped to one side. “I don't think that’s true, Walker. You keep up with me just fine. I think you were scared you might disappoint a man you looked up to, someone you emulated. Your dad was your hero. But you know what?”

Her words rang true. Too true. I swallowed hard. “What?”

She smiled. “You were his hero, too. He was so proud of his boy for going off to the Army. That was something few others here did. You were the one who left. You didn’t need anyone else. He used to say that everyone else in White Cap was stuck here. Right here in this town where they were born with nowhere to go and only the wind of the next house to listen to them chatter. You, Walker? You got up. You ignored everyone else, and you did your own thing. He was so proud of you for leaving. Then you came back, and you made your way up the mountain on your own. He was proud of that, too. I think because he couldn’t bring himself to leave, either.”

My heart clenched down hard in my chest. I pressed my lips to the top of her head and rested my cheek there as she wrapped her arms around my waist and held on.

“Ovvvuuu,” she mumbled into my chest.

I frowned. “Huh?”

“I love you,” Walker Roan,” she whispered.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

“Bless you,” she said, pointedly.

“Sorry, Precious.. Just…you can’t blindside a man like that.” I turned her face up to mine and kissed her hard. “You gave me everything I needed from my dad, and then told me you loved me when I thought I was gonna have to walk away from you today and leave you right here and never see you again. Am I gonna have to do that?”

She shook her head. “Not unless that’s what you want.”

I watched her eyes, the ones that were dulled a moment before but flared bright with a rainbow of greens and browns now, all the colors of my mountain.

“Fuck, no. I love you too, Faith. Let’s see that land and work out what in the hell to do with it.”

She sent me the first shy smile I’d ever seen in her. “I have some ideas.”

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