Page 5 of Canadian Wild: Love

So it’s me. I must not be able to have kids and that is one of the reasons I took this whole thing so hard.

He’s got the love of his life and I’m alone and always will be. I will never be able to trust another man. I can’t have a family.

The cheating bastard got it all and I got nothing.

The guide reaches over and his warm hand covers mine, making me flush when his dark blue eyes search mine. “I’ll wait for you. Don’t worry, Lizzie.”

It feels like there’s more meaning in what he says but I pull my hand away, nodding and clearing my throat.

“Thank you.”

“You’re in my group. We’ll be waiting.” He stands up and that warm hand briefly caresses my shoulder, making me jump and flush.

He smiles and walks away and I watch his perfect bubble butt twitch in his tight, heavy canvas pants.

Shaking my head, I push my food away, my appetite gone. Anxiety trickles through my body but I push it down. I’m reading this all wrong.

I pick up my coffee and take a swig, standing and picking up my walking stick after I throw my pack on.

I step outside and find all the groups gone except mine. The dark-haired guide smiles at me and then claps his hands. “Let’s hit the trails, people!”

I slip to the back of the group, trying to blend in, needing a little bit of space. Needing to feel more at peace.

Needing to forget the man’s eyes on me. I don’t want a man. I don’t need a man.

All I need is this beautiful day and the silent majesty of the forest and mountains around me.

CHAPTER 4

Emile

Iswing the ax again, grunting with the effort. Sweat drips from my brow and down onto my shirt and I growl under my breath when the cooling sweat makes my shirt stick to my body.

“Fuck this shit,” I snarl and rip the shirt off over my head, shivering when the air hits my warm skin. But after a few more swings of the ax, I barely feel the cool air anymore. The sweat continues to drip down my chest and splatter on my arms until I’m a sopping wet mess of disgusting man odor but it doesn’t stop me.

I need the wood to keep my little cabin warm for the winter. Oh sure, I could buy it. But that’s not what I’m here for. I forage for my food for the most part, hunting and trapping to eat. Anything I feel like I can’t use, I sell it to put a little money away for a rainy day.

I have a greenhouse that has a stock of vegetables and even some strawberry plants and a potted apple tree. Everything is something that I can use to sustain myself and keep from having to go anywhere near people. I don’t have anything to say to anybody out there so it’s just me and the wind around here. I don’t even have a cell phone. Too much trouble. If someoneneeds to get a message to me, either send a letter or use the sat phone which I have strictly for emergencies. Some people even choose to drop by. Like if they need help tracking someone who’s missing. The bed and breakfast that’s a little ways down the mountain sometimes pays me to go hunt up one of their guests if they get lost. I’m the best in these parts so it makes sense to hire the best.

The peace and quiet is what I’m craving. Being alone fills a need that I never thought I’d have to just disappear from the face of the earth. But after all the people I worked with giving me sympathetic looks and the pats on the back when I made it back after my run and it had already gotten around that the bitch had cleaned me out to take care of her little man whore, I found myself the object of a shitload of pity that I didn’t want. Pity that made it actually fucking hurt to even go into work. To see all those people staring and talking behind their hands and know that it was probably about me. That they all felt so damn sorry for the dumbass sap that couldn’t manage to keep his woman happy.

Ugh. Fucking annoying.

I stop and wipe my hand across my brow, eyes going up to the sky. There’s barely a sliver of sun left and it looks like there’s a storm moving in. There’s only about thirty minutes of daylight left but it looks like the storm is going to hit before that. We don’t get a lot of them but when we do, they can be real doozies.

I hear a vehicle coming and shade my eyes with my hand, grunting when I see the head guide from the bed and breakfast on Carter Creek.

Pacing up to his SUV when he stops, I grunt a greeting. He jumps out and runs up to me, slapping my hand. “Hey man! Thank fuck you’re here. I’ve got a real problem and I think you’re about the only one that can handle it.”

“What’s wrong?” I grunt, hoping that it isn’t what I think it is. I’m not in the mood to get soaking wet tonight looking for a lost tourist from the inn.

No such luck though. “One of our guests got lost when we were out on our hike today. I don’t even know how it happened because I was trying to keep an eye on her but she just kept ducking out of sight until I realized that I hadn’t seen her for quite awhile. By then it must have been at least an hour. So we backtracked and tried to pick up her trail but it looks like she wandered completely off the trail for some reason.”

“Right,” I sigh and grab my shirt from the ground, throwing it on and stalking back to my cabin. “I’ll take my sat phone with me and let you know if I find her. Send me the GPS coordinates for where you were when you figured out she was lost and the trail that you were on. But with the storm moving in the way that it is, we may have to hunker down someplace unpleasant for awhile.”

He nods his dark head at me. “Just do your best to find her and please…when you do, take good care of her.”

I eye him as I pause on the steps. “She your girl or something?”

---