Page 11 of Mountain Man's Longing
My hands shake as I set down my tools. When was the last time a woman made my hands unsteady? Never. Because no woman has ever made me feel the way this one does. As if I’d move heaven and earth for her.
I head back toward the cabin, down the trail from my workshop that sits even farther up the hill, noting wind direction and the deer trail that cuts through the meadow. My cock is already half hard at the thought of tasting her again, but halfway down the path, I pull up short. She’s stepping off my porch, already dressed and heading toward her car.
She’s leaving.
My heart hammers against my ribs. The rational part of my brain notes that she’s not dragging her suitcase. Confirms she’s not fleeing. But the rest of me, the part that left her sleeping peacefully in my bed and has been second-guessing that decision all morning, doesn’t give a damn about logic.
I open my mouth to call out to her, but something stops me. Maybe, the way her gait slows. Or maybe, the uncertainty I still carry about whether she regrets last night.
Halfway across the meadow, she draws to a stop. I freeze, watching as she tilts her face up to the morning sun. From this angle, I see her eyes drift closed. She draws a deep breath that lifts her shoulders, making her sweater stretch across those luscious globes I still taste on my tongue. There’s something reverent in the gesture, as if she’s drinking in the mountain air the same as I want to drink her in.
I know that feeling. Know how these mountains can heal something broken inside you, how the fresh air and endless sky can make you feel human again after the world’s tried to grind you down. When I first came back here, shell-shocked and half-deaf, it was mornings like this that reminded me I was still alive.
For a heartbeat, she looks like she belongs here. Like she’s found something in these hills she didn’t know she was searching for.
But I know better than to hope. Girls like her don’t choose lives like mine.
She continues toward the rental, and I freeze, dread pooling in my stomach. I want to stop her, to close the distance between us and pull her into my arms where she belongs. But what would I say? That I’m already in love with her? That the thought of her leaving makes my hands shake worse than they did in the field hospital?
She’d run. And I wouldn’t blame her.
She pauses at the rental cabin, testing the lock with a quick press of the keypad. The green light flickers—confirmation the power I restored at dawn works perfectly. She steps inside, and it’s like a knife blade twisting in my gut. Is she planning to move into it? To escape from my place?
But a minute later, she exits and locks the door, then she climbs into the driver’s seat of her SUV. The engine turns over, and my heartbeat trips, watching as she backs down the drive and disappears around the muddy bend. The meadow feels hollow without her presence. Even the damn birds have gone quiet.
Back in my cabin, her absence hits me like a physical blow. The air still carries traces of her expensive perfume. Her coffee mug sits next to mine in the sink, and the sight of them together does something stupid to my chest.
But it’s the note she’s left on the kitchen counter that gives me hope.
Gone to town for a few hours. Thank you for last night.
I hope you’re okay.
—B
I hope you’re okay.
I stare at those last five words. She’s worried about me. About whether I’m having second thoughts or regrets. When the truth is, I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life than I am about wanting her.
But wanting and getting are two different things. Especially when, despite the way she clung to me last night, I doubt she wants to be mine. To give up the thousands of men in the city that surely fall over themselves to be with her. Guys her age. Men with money.
I crumple the note then smooth it out again. I fold it carefully and slip it into my pocket.
The silence in my cabin stretches. This place has been my sanctuary for four years. My refuge from a world that asked too much and gave too little. But now, it feels empty without her. Without that innocent smile that filled a void as deep as a crevice and as wide as a canyon.
I pace to the window, stare at the tire tracks in the mud, then return to the kitchen. I could follow her down the mountain, but what would that accomplish? She’s a grown woman with freewill. She’s not mine. Not yet.
The rational thing would be to go back to work. Finish the commission. Get my head on straight for when she returns. But instead, I head to the woodpile and grab a piece of maple—pale and smooth, like her skin in the firelight.
In the workshop, my hands move without conscious thought, sketching rough measurements for a jewelry box. Small enough to fit in her palm, detailed enough to show her what these calloused hands can create.
As I work, muscle memory takes over. The dimensions feel familiar somehow, and it takes me a while to realize why. I’ve been unconsciously shaping it to hold the diamond studs she wore last night. The ones that caught the lantern light when she looked up at me through the rain.
Or a ring.
Christ, I’ve got it bad.
It’s not even half an hour before I’m setting aside the jewelry box and heading for my truck keys. My best friend, Eric, hasbeen on my ass for years to start dating. To find someone. Especially after I turned thirty-nine last year, he can’t help but remind me every few months that I’m wasting my life hiding up here like some kind of hermit.
