Page 5 of Forgotten Mountain Man

“Coffee, Faith. How do you take your coffee?”

“Black, please. Sugar if you have it. None if you don’t. I’m not fussy.”

His beard twitched again. “So it seems.”

I didn’t know what to make of that cryptic comment, so I followed him away from the stunning vista and into the small kitchen where he planted me on one side of the short bench on a single stool while he headed into the walk around pantry at the back.

“You made this place yourself, didn’t you?”

“With the help of Travis and Jude, the summer that Jude first turned up at Red Hart. The year?—”

“Your father kicked you out,” I finished for him softly.

Walker reappeared with a large tin of powdered coffee that didn’t actually dwarf his hands. His lips, even beneath his beard,seemed set in a tight line. “That’s right. You know my history as well as I do, don’t you?”

I swallowed hard. “It’s a good thing that everything I had with me that fell off the side of your mountain is also backed up on this.” I extracted my phone out of my pocket and waved it at him.

He eyed the device like he might snatch it from my hand and toss it off the cliff face himself. “Better shut that off,” he said abruptly.

“Why, because you don’t want to face your past?” I raised an eyebrow.

Instantly, I felt shitty that I’d come back with a snap when here he was trying to make me feel better. I wouldn’t even be in this situation, invading his space and stuck if I hadn’t done what the Red Hart boys recommended in the first place and stayed at the bottom of his mountain.

Not that I’d admit to that.

Walker watched me for a long, silent moment. Finally, he shook his head. “There’s no reception here, Faith. If you leave that on, it’ll be flat in a few hours. I don’t have a charger for anything new and I don’t imagine you have one stuffed into those skin tight pants.”

His gaze drifted over my body, what he could see of me tucked away behind the bench, then jerked his attention back to my face.

My mouth hung open. “Oh.” Was MisterI-don’t-do-people-on-my-mountainjust checking me out?

A second sneaky look back at his face caught his gaze coasting over mine and settling on my lips.He was.Game changer. Now I knew where we stood. I could play by those rules, because Walker Roan was a different kind of eye candy, but he was eye candy, nonetheless. And he wasn’t my client, so I wasn't breaking any rules…yet.

I frowned, trying to figure out what we had been talking about before we dropped into accidental flirt mode because that was safer and I wasn't ready for this…not quite yet. My mind needed caffeine to activate, apparently. I recounted what I knew about Red Hart’s history.

“Jude and Travis must have been young.” Jude had his own stories to tell.

“They were. Fifteen. Too much energy, randy, gangly as hell, about ten years younger than me. But I needed the assist, and they needed direction for a summer. Just not from Trav’s Pa back then, rest his soul.”

I bit my lip and nodded. Red Hart's land was laced with its own tragedy.

Walker stopped talking, his voice dry and raspy. He coughed more than once as he made coffee for us both and pushed one large, chipped mug across to me. I ran my fingers across the rough clay surface, then looked down at the rug.

“These are all local, traded things. Aren’t they?” I looked back at him.

Walker shrugged, as if to saywhat of it?He seemed to be done talking for the time being. He ran his hand across the edge of the thick wood benchtop where his arms rested, and I recalled the wood he’d been chopping when I arrived earlier. Maybe he traded heavy hand crafts with Kyle, or did custom jobs. Those paid well, and he seemed to have decent skill with wood.

I risked another glance at him, but Walker was definitely done talking for now. I didn’t blame him in the least. I’d invaded his home, stayed longer by far already than I ever intended, and I hadn’t even broached the topic I was supposed to be talking about.

I did, however, take his advice, and turn off my phone. If he thought my device would be flat in a few hours without charge, then I’d be here for much longer. Which begged the question…how much longer? A quick glance outside showed thick gray clouds with no sign of the rain abating.

“It’ll be a while, huh?” I looked back at Walker when he didn’t talk.

He just watched me and when I stared at him, my panic rising, he reached across and pressed my mug into my hands.

I looked down at my forgotten black coffee, surprised. Grateful for the distraction, I picked up the cup of cheap black ambrosia and took a sip. Sweet, thick liquid scalded my throat. I took another, using the quick burst of pain to ease my panic until a rumble from across the bench indicated Walker’s approval.

“Thank you,” I whispered, more than a little horrified when tears stung my eyes. I blinked rapidly, looking out at the rain instead. It wasn’t like I should be looking anywhere else. Certainly not at the tattooed, wild man behemoth who saw way too much right now. “Is the house likely to follow my car on its slide down the mountain? At least it would make it a quick trip back to the big house at Red Hart,” I said lightly.

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