Page 3 of Rough Hands on the Prairie
A pause.
Then, without a word, he shrugs off the coat and tosses it onto the rocks beside me.
I snatch it up and wrap it around myself, avoiding his gaze.
But I can feel him watching.
And for some reason, I don’t feel afraid.
I feel something else entirely.
CHAPTER 2
Elias
She shakes the water from her hair and cinches my jacket tight at her waist, standing there like some sun-drenched goddess fallen out of the sky.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a woman out here.
Longer than I care to admit.
Not since my sister.
Out in these mountains, women don’t visit unless they’ve got a death wish—or a man worth braving the wild for. Between the mountain lions and the men who act worse than them, there’s danger behind every pine tree.
But this girl? She doesn’t seem scared of me.
She plants her hands on her hips, eyes blazing. Hazel, and catching the sunlight like an acorn still warm from the forest floor.
“Now,” she says, “are you going to tell me who took my pack?”
“…Your pack?”
She rolls her eyes and stabs a finger toward the river. “Yeah. My bag. My phone. My clothes.”
“…Your phone?”
She lets out a breath like she’s counting to ten.
“Look, I get that you’re really deep into character or whatever,” she says, gesturing vaguely at me. “But can you drop the act for a second? I need help. I?—”
“What character do you think I’m playing, exactly?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest.
She presses those full lips together in a hard line. I try not to picture her naked in the water again—but it’s not working. Her skin was wet and glinting, hair dark from the river, those sun-bleached ends clinging to her collarbone.
And even under my coat, her body is all soft curves and heat I haven’t tasted in years.
“What were you doing out here, anyway?” she asks, flustered, waving her arms. “I checked online before I came out, and the trail said?—”
“Online?”
“Oh my God.” She glares at me. “Can you please talk like a normal person?”
I eye her—barefoot, dripping, stubborn as sin—and try to figure out what the hell kind of woman just shows up out here like this. A lot of trappers wouldn’t mind finding her caught in a snare. She looks like something out of a story.
“You really didn’t see anyone else?” she asks. Her teeth graze her bottom lip.
“No, ma’am,” I reply. “Been checking my traps since dawn. You’re the first soul I’ve seen all day.”
