Page 59 of Snowed In with her Mountain Men
“You shoot?”
She shook her head. “Never.”
“Why not? Are you afraid of guns?”
“No,” she shrugged. “I’ve just never shot one.”
I pulled the Bushmaster from my shoulder, checked it carefully, and chambered a round. “C’mere.”
Camryn didn’t hesitate. She moved to my side, as I transferred the weapon smoothly into her hands.
“In a place like this, shooting isn’t sport; it’s necessity,” I told her. “There are too many things that can come out of those woods, and most of them are bigger than you.”
She nodded, and I began instructing her. Folding into her from behind, I showed her proper stance, sighting, and finger placement. We chose a target; a thick pine fifty yards away, with no branches or obstruction.
“Now relax, and remember there’s going to be a kick. Your shoulder will absorb it, but just know it’s there.”
“Okay.”
I showed her how to breathe, and how to pull through the trigger rather than squeeze it. These were all techniques my father showed me, and that I one day hoped to teach my own children. Even as I instructed Camryn, I felt an unexpected measure of pride in passing them down.
“Now flip off the safety,” I murmured, stepping away. “And take the shot.”
She took her time, which was good. Eventually the shot rang out, and Camryn was rocked gently back by the retort. Her round grazed the tree, about an inch from the right-side edge. But a hit was a hit.
“Not bad,” I grinned.
She handed the rifle back to me quickly, then shivered from head to toe.
“Teach me more,” she said, “when it’s daylight out. And I’m warmly dressed. And I’m wearing my own boots. And—”
I hugged her against me, and kissed her forehead. It felt like putting my lips on an icicle.
“Let’s get you back inside, and feed the fire,” I told her. “I plan on making the house so hot you’ll take offallof your clothes.”
~ 34 ~
CAMRYN
As it turned out, some of Sarge’s biggest paintings were also his worst. These were usually grandiose and campy, and packed with so much in the way of subject matter it destroyed all illusion of perspective and scale.
In short, the more rope you gave him, the easier it became for Sarge to hang himself. Artistically speaking, anyway. As a man, however, I respected him immensely. A shadowbox filled with colorful ribbons and impressive-looking medals hung in his room, installed there by the guys. When I took the time to look them up during a writing break, I was literally floored by how much the man had seen and accomplished over the course of his life.
My admiration ran so deep, I found myself writing Sarge into my story. Not by name of course, but I created a character in his honor and fleshed him out with exactly the kind of larger than life personality I imagined Sarge to be. It was fun, paying homage to this incredible person whose bed I was sometimes sleeping in. A man who I would unfortunately never meet, but who’d unknowingly and inadvertently had such a major influence on my life’s trajectory.
I was three paragraphs into the character’s second appearance when a gravelly voice whispered, no more than an inch from my ear.
“Hey, beautiful.”
I almost jumped out of my chair! Ryder’s arms folded around me before I even knew he was in the room with me. That’s how silent he could move.
“What’cha doing?”
“Ummm… recovering from a heart attack?” I gasped, clutching my chest.
He laughed and kissed my neck. Which of course gave me instant shivers.
“Do that later. You need to come down right now.”
