Page 6 of Mountain Man's Mail Order Runaway
I followed him into the main room, where he began setting things on the kitchen counter. A stack of warm foil containers, a brown paper bag full of chips, and a plastic container of salsa so fresh I could see chunks of tomato and bright green cilantro through the lid.
And beside it all was the tequila bottle. Big and heavy, like a party waiting to happen.
My chest tightened. That bottle might as well have been a loaded weapon based on the way I’d been raised. Alcohol was the root of all evil. I’d never so much as sipped a wine cooler. Drinking was for “the world.” For outsiders. For lost souls. That was what they taught us. Over and over.
But now? Now I was one of those outsiders.
I stood at the counter, staring at the bottle. My fingers curled against the edge, the cool granite pressing into my skin. He wasrummaging through drawers, looking for something, giving me the space to decide.
This was it. A crossroads.
The old version of me—the girl with her head bowed and her hands folded, saying no even when everything inside her whispered yes—she would walk away. She’d say, “No thank you. I don’t drink.” She’d feel pride in that, the kind of self-denial we were praised for.
But I wasn’t her anymore. And if I was ever going to take control of my life, why not start here?
“I’ll have a margarita,” I said, barely recognizing my own voice.
He looked up, his eyebrows lifting a little. “You sure?”
I nodded. “I’ve never had one. But I want to.”
He gave me a small smile. Not smug. Not even surprised. Just warm and quiet, like he understood this was more than a drink to me.
He mixed them right there on the counter, his forearms flexing as he shook the cocktail shaker like he’d done it a hundred times. He poured the drinks into mismatched glasses—one mason jar, one actual margarita glass—and handed me the mason jar with a grin.
“Ladies first.”
The rim was crusted with salt, a wedge of lime hanging off the side like a wink. I took it with both hands, lifted it to my lips, and took a sip.
It was sweet, tart, and cold. A little like freedom. That thought made me laugh—a laugh that bubbled up from somewhere deep inside.
“That good?” he asked.
“It tastes…naughty.”
He chuckled and clinked his glass against mine. “Then cheers to naughtiness.”
We moved to the sofa, balancing our plates on our laps. He turned on some low music from a speaker tucked behind a lamp—something twangy and easygoing—and I curled my bare legs beneath me as I bit into my first taco.
Food on the couch. That was another thing we couldn’t do back home. Meals belonged at the table. With structure. With rules.
Here? I was eating tacos and drinking a margarita on a plush couch in an oversized T-shirt that smelled like the man sitting beside me.
It wasn’t just good. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted. And maybe, just maybe, this was what it felt like to start living.
4
LOGAN
She’d barely touched her margarita. That didn’t surprise me. After the first few sips, I’d assumed she was just too caught up in her food to drink, but when I hopped up to grab a glass of water, she asked for one too. And she’d been drinking generously from that cup.
Finally, she sat back, hand on her stomach, T-shirt drifting higher up her thigh—only a couple of inches between the hem and her knee, but it was plenty for me.
“Thank you,” she said.
The words drew my attention away from her body. I’d been admiring her out of the corner of my eye, so hopefully she hadn’t noticed me ogling her. That was the last thing she needed after what she’d been through.
“So, do you want to talk about it?” I asked. “You don’t have to. Just let me know if someone’s going to come pounding on this door looking for you.”
