Page 6 of Being with the Mountain Man

“You want Leighton to come? Why?” I asked him, curious at the inner workings of a young child’s mind.

“She pretty.”

I laughed. I mean, he spoke the truth. Plain and simple.

Leighton was more than pretty. She was drop-dead gorgeous. If only my thoughts wouldn’t keep circling back to her, or my child wouldn’t keep asking for her, then maybe I could forget ever seeing her.

Ha, who the hell was I trying to kid?

I used all my best tricks in the book to distract Sammy away from Leighton joining us, but none of them worked.

The only cabin on the road available to rent was the one situated at the very end, and of course, it was on the way to the park, where we often went for our little picnic lunches.

It’d become more of a tradition for the two of us now, something we both looked forward to. With Sammy not having his mom around and mine filling in when she could, I found it helpful to spend one-on-one time with him. After our first picnic lunch, a new tradition was born, and I cherished it.

Maybe that’s why I’m so hesitant to share it with another.

As I walked down the road toward her cabin, Sammy in his pull-along wagon behind me, I grew more and more anxious.

I didn’t want to ask her, afraid she’d say no, afraid I wouldn’t be able to control myself around her.

Because honestly, since I laid eyes on her yesterday in my orchard, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I wanted to taste her, touch her, squeeze her. And it was driving me mad.

I promised myself I wouldn’t open my heart again. It wasn’t worth the risk. Not for me and, most importantly, not for Sammy. He loved big, and while he was still too young to realize his mom wasn’t around, I worried about bringing others into his life who might not stay.

But even more so, I worried I wasn’t enough. Was I cheating him by not giving him the family he deserved?

Was the love we showed him—my parents, Caden and his sister Jolene, and me—enough?

“Da Da! Pretty lady?” Sammy asked.

“Probably just me and you, bud.” I tried one last time.

Instant waterworks.

“No! Pretty lady, Da Da! Pretty lady!” Sammy cried.

“Okay, okay.” I felt horrible seeing my son sad. Instead of passing by the driveway, I walked up it and parked the wagon at the top. “Let’s go ask her.”

“Pretty lady?” Sammy’s tears stopped, and he swatted at his cheeks with his adorable pudgy hands. He climbed out of the wagon and grabbed the picnic basket.

“Yes. Let’s ask her to join us for lunch but leave the basket in the wagon.”

Sammy shook his head and took off for the front door, the basket clutched in his hands. The image of it falling to the ground and the contents spilling out everywhere flashed in my head. But it was no use. Sammy was a fast little bugger, and he was already at the door, still clutching the basket for dear life.

“You’re lucky you’re cute, kid.”

“Da Da. Pretty lady!”

“You’re bossy today, mister,” I said with a laugh and pressed the doorbell.

Here goes nothing.

Sammyand I showed Leighton the park, where we liked to have our picnic lunch under a shady tree, and the small playground Sammy loved to run around in after lunch.

I snuck looks at her every chance I got, admiring the way she was with Sammy, a natural almost, like she had her own children. She kept him entertained with a story, enough so that he actually took more than one bite of his sandwich, and when we played pirates on the playground, Leighton created an entire adventure, taking us along on one of her stories.

Who was this amazing woman?

---