Page 25 of S'more Mountain Man

"It's not about fear."

"No, it's about you being too stubborn to try." Mandy's expression softened slightly. "Look, I don't know what your deal is. Why you live alone in the woods like some sexy hermit—"

"Sexy hermit?"

"—but Skye is special. She doesn't connect with people easily, not really. She talks a lot, sure, but that’s because she’s covering. Letting someone in? That's rare." She gestured toward the lodge. "And for some reason I can't fathom, she's let you in. So if you walk away from that because it might be complicated, then yeah, you're an idiot."

With that, she turned and strode back toward camp, leaving me with thoughts I didn't want to examine too closely.

I finished loading my gear into the Jeep, moving on autopilot. This was the right decision. The sensible decision. Skye deserved a guy who could give her a normal life, like some nice accountant or software engineer. Not a man like me.

I knew better than to think this could work. I knew better than to kiss her in the first place. But I'd kissed her anyway and made a mess of things for us both. Leaving was the right thing to do before I fucked things up even worse.

I climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine. The familiar rumble was comforting, grounding. I could be back at my cabin by noon.

As I pulled away from the campground, I caught a glimpse of Skye through the lodge window. She was laughing at something one of the kids had said, her head thrown back, utterly uninhibited in her joy. The sight hit me like a physical ache in my chest.

"Damn it," I swore, slamming my palm against the steering wheel. "Damn it all to hell."

Chapter Seven

“Maybe I got lost for a reason..”

Skye

Two weeks after my wilderness adventure, I'd almost convinced myself I was fine.

My apartment was back to its usual state of organized chaos—star charts pinned to walls, half-graded papers spread across the coffee table, and three mugs of partially consumed tea forgotten on various surfaces. Summer session classes started in a week, and I'd thrown myself into lesson planning with the kind of manic energy usually reserved for doomsday preppers stocking their bunkers.

"The difference between asteroid, meteor, and meteorite," I muttered, typing furiously on my laptop. "Include actual meteorite sample from university collection if Professor Hendricks ever returns my emails. Add joke about space rocks being out of this world—too cheesy? Definitely too cheesy."

My phone buzzed on the table beside me. Mandy's face appeared on the screen, her expression caught mid-laugh atsome long-forgotten party. I briefly considered ignoring it, then sighed and picked up.

"If you're calling to tell me about another emergency teaching gig, the answer is no," I said by way of greeting. "I've filled my near-death experience quota for the summer, thanks."

"Hello to you too, sunshine." Mandy's voice was as cheerful as ever. "And no, I'm not calling about a job. I'm calling because you've been dodging my texts for days, and I want to know if you're actually alive or if you've been replaced by a very productive robot version of yourself."

I glanced at my phone's notification bar, which did indeed show eight unread messages from Mandy. Oops.

"Sorry. I've been busy. Summer session prep and all that."

"Uh-huh." Her tone made it clear she wasn't buying it. "So, you finally had tent sex with a lumber-beast, and now you're ghosting the forest?"

I nearly choked on my tea. "I am not ghosting the forest. That's not even a thing."

"You're ghosting me, and I'm the closest thing to a forest representative you've got, so yes, you are."

"I've been busy," I repeated.

"Star Babe, you've probably created six new PowerPoint presentations in two weeks. For classes that don't start until next month. That's not busy. That's avoidance."

She wasn't wrong. I'd been filling every waking moment with work to avoid thinking about a certain green-eyed wilderness guide with hands that—

Nope. Not going there.

"Fine," I conceded. "Maybe I have been avoiding things. But what exactly am I supposed to do? Call him? He doesn't have a phone. Send a carrier pigeon? Smoke signals?"

"You could drive out there."

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