Page 18 of My Mountain Man Stalker
“Why didn’t you?”
“My mother.” Another rumble in his chest, like the growl of an engine held just shy of redline. “She needed someone to keep the roof from falling in.”
“You did that,” I say. “You held it all up.”
His hand flexes where it rests on my hip, like he’s remembering the weight of things he carried.
“Why the military?”
“Because I was good at taking orders.” Dry. Self-aimed. “And I was better at giving them. It paid. It got me out. And the first time I followed a map into a place no one else wanted to be, something in my head got quiet.”
“Quiet how?”
“The kind that lets you hear your own pulse,” he says. “The kind that tells you where the danger is before it shows its face.”
My fingers curl against his chest. “Is it telling you something now?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
His chin tips, just enough that I know he’s looking down at me. “That I should put distance between us.”
I make a little sound. I don’t mean to, it just slips out—half laugh, half plea. “I don’t want distance.”
“I know.”
His voice is careful. The way a man handles a live charge.
“Tell me more,” I say, because if I stop talking, I’ll startmoving. “About my dad. What was he like… with you?”
“The way he was with you.” There’s a warmth in his tone I haven’t heard before. “Better. He made me better, whether I liked it or not. He didn’t have room for excuses. Or fear.”
“He was always braver than me,” I say, the ache familiar and raw.
“You’re braver than you think.”
“Because I ran?” My laugh is thin. “Feels like the opposite.”
“Because you looked. And when you saw something no one wanted to see, you didn’t look away.”
The praise lands like a hand on the inside of my ribs. I swallow against it.
His heartbeat kicks just a little harder under my palm. Mine answers, a syncopation I can feel everywhere. I shift—just a tiny adjustment to get comfortable—and my thigh brushes his. The contact is small. The effect isn’t.
His breath stutters.
“Sorry,” I whisper, not sorry at all.
“Wren.” A warning. Or a prayer.
“I like when you say my name.”
Silence, heavy and charged, gathers above us like storm clouds. I tip my head back so I can see him. The shadows turn his features into angles and hollows, but his eyes are midnight clear, fixed on my mouth like it’s a compass point he can’t ignore.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” I ask.
“That I should get up.” His voice is rough around the edges. “That you should sleep.”
