Page 1 of Craving the Mountain Man
Chapter One: Cassidy
The tires crunch against gravel as the rental car crawls up the winding dirt road, my hands gripping the wheel like it's going to buck me off. The suspension groans with every pothole, and I swear this road has gotten worse since the last time I was here. That was what, eight years ago? Back when everything was simpler, when the biggest worry in my life was whether my braces would show in photos.
I shouldn't be this nervous. It's just a cabin in the mountains. Just a break and a place to breathe for a while.
Except it's his cabin.
The steering wheel is slick under my palms, and I realize I'm sweating despite the mountain air streaming through the cracked windows. I force myself to loosen my grip and to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The same technique my therapist taught me after the whole David disaster. After I finally admitted that maybe, just maybe, I'd been settling for less than I deserved.
I haven't seen Evan Mills in years. Not since my brother dragged me along to one of his backcountry hikes with them both. I was sixteen and awkward, with braces, bangs, and boobs I didn't know what to do with. Evan was twenty-four and untouchable. All broad shoulders, rough hands, and that deep gravel voice that made my teenage stomach flip in ways I didn't understand yet.
God, I'd had such a crush on him. The kind of desperate, all-consuming infatuation that only happens when you're sixteen and everything feels like the end of the world. I'd practiced conversations in the mirror and imagined scenarios where he'd suddenly notice me as more than just Dylan's annoying little sister. I'd even written his name in my diary with hearts around it. Something I'd rather die than admit now.
But I guess there was that one night. That one kiss when I was in college. But nothing, zero, zilch since.
Now I'm twenty-four. I've grown into the boobs, ditched the bangs, and figured out what I want.
Mostly.
Right now, what I want is space. Space from the city. From the chaos of my ex, who called me boring one too many times before I finally got the spine to kick him out of my bed, and my apartment.
"You're vanilla, Cass," David had said, standing in my doorway with his stupid man-bun and his condescending smile. "You're never going to be enough for someone like me."
Someone like him. A twenty-six-year-old barista who thought reading philosophy made him deep and that sleeping with half of my so-called friends made him a man. I should have slammed the door in his face months ago.
Instead, I'd stood there and let his words burrow under my skin like splinters.
Evan's place is a temporary fix for me though. A week to reset, maybe write a little, hike a lot, and clear the gunk out of my head. My brother, Dylan, had suggested it when I called him, sobbing into the phone about how I was turning into the kind of woman who let men walk all over her.
"Evan's got that place up in the mountains," Dylan suggested. "Remember? You used to ask about it all the time. I’ll let him know you are coming to stay for a week. He owes me a favor so it’s no problem."
I remember my childhood fantasies again. The thought makes my cheeks burn. I'm not sixteen anymore, but apparently, some things never change. The crush I'd buried under years of college boyfriends and career ambitions is still there, lurking just beneath the surface like a barely healed wound.
I try to push away the memory of my boss, Enid's voice from last week. "Your writing has lost its edge, Cassidy. Your last three pieces were safe and forgettable. That's not the writer I hired." The words had stung worse than David's insults, somehow. At least with David, I knew he was an ass. Enid's criticism felt personal.
"Take some time," she'd said, but it sounded more like a threat than kindness. "Figure out what story you actually want to tell. Because right now, you're not telling any story at all."
So here I am, running away to the mountains like some cliché heroine in a romance novel, hoping the thin air will somehow restore whatever spark I've lost. Hoping distance from the city will help me remember who I used to be before life took it’s toll on me.
If I ever get there.
The road curves one last time, until I finally see it. The cabin sits nestled in a grove of towering pines, looking exactly the way I remember it. Maybe a little more weathered, the wood more silvered with age, but still solid. Still his.
I park beside the old pickup that's seen better decades, and step out, brushing off road dust. The air is sharp with pine and clean in a way the city never is. It hits my lungs, and for the first time in months, I feel like I can actually breathe. No exhaust fumes, no noise, no neighbors arguing through paper-thin walls.
The cabin stands solid and strong, with two stories of weathered wood with a wide front porch and forest curling around it. Wind chimes hang from the eaves, singing softly in the breeze.
The screen door creaks open before I make it to the steps, and I freeze.
There he is.
Evan. The man who has dominated my dreams for nearly a decade.
He's even bigger than I remember. Broad chest stretching a thermal shirt, jeans low on his hips, beard thicker, just with a few streaks of silver at the edges. His dark eyes land on me, and I think my panties might melt right off.
The years have been good to him. Better than good. There's a solidness to him that wasn't there before, a confidence that comes from living alone in the mountains, and from knowing exactly who you are and what you want. His hands look rougher now, scarred from years of building and fixing. There's a small scar above his left eyebrow that I don't remember, and I wonder what story it tells.
"Cass?"
