Page 20 of Forgotten Mountain Man

I winced at the title. “Did you use that name with my father?”

She stalled against me, her chest heaving. “No, actually. I called him by his first name.”

My eyebrows shot into my hairline. “You called him Chaz?”

Faith shrugged. “He asked me to. So why not?” she challenged me. “Was that an attorney-client privilege I shouldn’t have been using, or did you give up your rights when you walked away years before?”

Damn, she was pissed at me. I still didn’t let her go. She smelled too good. Felt good, too, pressed right up against me. I inhaled deeply, running my nose along the length of her throat and buried my face in her neck.

Her body stiffened, but the strangled moan that slipped from her lips was unmissable. I loosened my hold around her stomach and she didn’t pull away.

“You don’t get to ask questions like that, Miss Somerset,” I murmured, licking the shell of her ear while she made more of those sweet little noises for me.

The woman who could be so hard and tough curved her body against mine. Faith went all soft and sweet, so different from the snarky woman she’d been a moment before. I’d learned her body, who she was over the last days, and taken my time understanding what she needed. What scared her. What made her cling to me and beg for more even if she was too fuck-drunk to remember telling me.

“Walker—” she whispered, her voice a bare thread, but I didn’t let her finish.

“I walked away from my father because I could never be who he was. Who everyone expected me to be. Because I couldn’t be him, Precious. I was always the silent version, the ultimate disappointment in his eyes.” I shrugged as she spun in my arms,the fine lines around her eyes tightening. “Surprised I don’t have a better reason for hiding from the world?”For running away?

Her mouth opened and shut twice, and stayed that way.

Faith, speechless? That’s new.

I leaned in and stole a kiss before I could think the better of it. Her hand cupped my cheek, then she shoved me back hard, gasping.

“Hell, no. Not after you pull me out of your house like you did this morning. Fuck you,” she muttered, yanking out of my arms and pivoting to continue climbing the rock pile on her own.

I smirked at her ass wiggling in my face. “Is that what you’re upset about, Precious? You thought you wouldn't get an invitation back?”

Her derisive laughter might have iced my veins if I hadn’t recognized the hurt beneath that tone. “As if I want to risk coming back up your mountain and getting swept away. Again.”

I reached out and placed a hand on her lower back where she slipped, steadying her. “I’ll replace your car with something that can,” I promised her. It wasn’t like my bank account wasn’t overflowing. I took in money from what I earned trading hand crafted goods for Kyle and a few others, and hard labor for Red Hart and a few neighbors. Where the fuck would I spend any of it? “Or something that can’t. Whatever you need. That’s on me for not coming down when I knew you were looking for me years ago.”

She batted my hand away. “Fuck you, Roan.”

“Already did that, Presh.”

She flipped me the bird and landed on the other side of the rock pile with anoof.Then there was nothing but silence.

I frowned. “You okay, Faith?” I waited a beat. “Faith?” I hauled myself over the boulder and landed on the other side on both feet, missing her outspread hand that rested beside her by scant inches. “Shit. Sorry, girl.”

But her attention wasn’t on me or where my boots landed. Her gaze was fixed on what lay to the west beyond where the track turned as she slowly pushed herself up to standing without turning to acknowledge me at all.

Here, the trees opened out, the mountain turning away to present the first look out over Red Hart and the land beyond that scooped down into the wide valley where the ranch house sat.

The river where Eve and Rhys found sapphires ran well below us, far enough I couldn’t hear its rushing, swollen waters after rain. That would be an ass to cross, but we’d manage. Then the forest and the grassy plains on Beaumont land that the twins now owned between them, prime grazing land that bordered on Black Hill land. On the other side of the rise to my west lay trader Kyle’s new family.

I’d come up here to hide away from the world and somehow managed to learn all the politics and family entanglements of the locals thanks to then-two young cowboys who took it upon themselves to help a lonely, heartbroken man because they decided he shouldn’t be left alone after all.

Faith gazed out over the ranch, the work of generations of Trav and Eve’s family. Her long red hair streamed down her back where it had come loose from her top notch hours ago. She swept one hand through the wayward strands and reached back for me absently.

“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered.

It’s beautiful.

She’d said that the first night she stayed at my place, watching the rain crash in sheets against the cliff face, pattering against her bare feet. I’d thought the same thing then, watching the fire and pretending not to watch her, only my thoughts hadn’t been directed to the rain.

“So are you.” I swallowed hard, my voice as thin and thready as hers had been before. Maybe Jude and Trav hadn’t been sowrong all those years ago after all. It just took me all this long to figure it out. “Yeah, it is,” I finally whispered loud enough for her to hear as I slid my fingers around hers and clasped them firmly.

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