Page 6 of Forgotten Mountain Man

Walker rumbled again, a noise I took for his laughter. “No,” he said quietly. I thought he was finished talking, but then he surprised me, reaching across the benchtop to close work calloused hands over mine where they clasped my mug. “You’re safe here, Faith.”

With me.

He didn’t say it, but then, he didn’t need to. After that, we drank coffee in his kitchen while the rain poured down and didn’t talk at all.

And my panic never returned.

Walker Roan’s cabin contained exactly six rooms which was three more than I expected: A living area, a kitchen, plus pantry, which I counted as one space. His bedroom, his bathroom, and a spare room right across the short hall from where he slept.

That was where he left me when the light faded for good for the night, and he set a fire in the living area, sitting quietly in his rocker as he stared pensively into the flames. Unwilling to disturb Walker’s quiet mindset that seemed to be his normal, I sat on the veranda hardwood floor a few feet away from him. My arms wrapped around my knees as I watched the rain that showed no sign of letting up, much in the same manner as he did the fire.

And the silence, interspersed with its white noise that seemed held at a distance by the darkness that didn’t dare to enter his space while he was inside it, and constant crackles from the fireplace, wasn’t deafening or uncomfortable at all.

Somehow, with Walker Roan at my back, our combined arm’s reach distance away from each other, I wasn’t half as scared as I thought I might be in this place. A world away from anything where he was a kind of mountain god, perched in this place so far from everyone and everything by choice.

When the night air grew cold and my light shivers stopped, my arms numbing, he seemed to notice my discomfort, or lack thereof. A heavy blanket that smelled of sharp spruce and spicy male and leather scents dropped around my shoulders. His hands pressed down, then lifted me up.

I gasped at the ease he lifted me in his arms, sweeping the blanket beneath me so his arms never contacted bare skin. Suddenly I was looking at the inside of his beard, my cheek resting over the vicinity of his heart, through the thick weave of the blanket that broke the space between us.

I frowned, butting my cheek against his covered shoulder until he coughed a laugh.

“Are you right there, Precious?” Dark eyes watched me, reflecting starlight the rain obscured.

I blinked up, white noise blocking out everything else but him. “What, are you giving me a stripper name, now?”

“Do you need one?” He raised an eyebrow. “Let’s get you to bed.” My breath hitched. He sighed. “Your bed, Presh. Not mine.”

“Such a disappointment.”

My feet hit the floor. I scrabbled for a moment as pins and needles shot up my legs after having them folded for so long. His arm gripped mine—through the blanket, of course. I clung to the offensive but warm piece around me.

“Thank you for offering me your place and not sending me off down the hill.” I tried to recover.

“I wouldn’t do that.” He looked affronted even as his voice strained. A hand raked through his beard. “Come on. I won’t sleep if you’re wandering about the place on your own tonight.”

“Just tonight?” I closed my mouth with a snap when he shot me a sharp glance. “Sorry. I’m not used to watching what I have to say,” I apologized.

“You shouldn’t have to,” he said gruffly. “A woman should speak her mind.”

I stared at his back. “You’re the only one of your species who thinks that,” I said softly.

Walker didn’t stop moving in his retreat along the hallway toward the bedrooms, but his shoulders did flex beneath his chequered shirt, so I knew he heard me. He didn’t stop walking until he reached the spare room that I guessed I would be calling home until the rain stopped and either we went down the mountain or Jude and Travis made it up somehow to collect me.

I still winced internally that I’d gone against their suggestions and hadn’t listened, but I was here now, and the damage had been done. I’d wear their combined glowers whenI returned to ground level, whenever that happened. Eventually. I just had to survive until then, in the company of a somewhat grumpy mountain man, and try not to let my outspoken lawyer ass impeach on his space too much.

“I can help out around the place a bit,” I blurted as he began to turn back to me. “I can sew, a bit, if you need stuff fixed. And I can cook. If you need legal things done while I’m here, apart from what I came up here to do—” I wasn’t letting him off the hookthatdamn easily. “—then I can work on that, too. I have a full business back at White Cap and if you do have other internet connectivity or tech, then I’ll log in through that. I work my own accounts?—”

“You don’t have to pay your way, Faith. I’m happy to have you here.” A muscle flexing in his jaw beneath the edge of his beard smattered where the deep brown smattered with a few red and silver hairs told the truth of his lie.

I swallowed. “Okay,” I whispered, not knowing where to go from there.

He nodded. “This is you. Take the blanket with you. It gets cold. There’s my spare clothes in the drawers. They’ll be too big for you, but you can sleep in them until we clean yours, alright?”

Tears stung the back of my eyes at his kindness, but I refused to let them fall before this mountain of a man who let me into his home without a single objection so far.

“Thank you. I’m sorry…” I bit my lip. He had said not to apologize. “Thank you,” I repeated again, and turned into the bedroom lit with its lamp. The light flickered as I crossed the threshold and went out.

I froze in place, my breaths coming short as pitch darkness encompassed me. Suddenly the rain sounded louder, and the wind seemed to rock the log cabin in its place where it became all too obvious that we were perched on the edge of the mountain. I wanted nothing more than to run back to the false protection ofthe fireplace in Walker's all too exposed living area and huddle before the open flames and their faux protection.

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