Page 5 of Forsaken Mountain Man
BODE
“No.”
I stared at the pretty little sprite seated across the table from me. My gaze flickered down to the portfolio that displayed pictures of nearly every carving I'd ever sold to Trader Kyle over the past ten years, and back to her determined, chocolate eyes.
Fuck, she was too pretty for this. Maybe that was why her boss sent her up my mountain. He sure as fuck knew what he was doing. A girl who could survive the walk in, negotiate like she just did and look at me as pretty as that across the table?
I had one word for Cora Welk:
Bait.
“No.” I repeated the single syllable when she didn’t so much as react. Pushing my chair back, still staring at her, because I couldn’t take my eyes off the way her lips curled when I denied her, I itched to see what she looked like when she really smiled. “No.”
“I want you to say it again.”
Cora—dammit, I couldn't get enough of her name on my tongue, even if I wasn’t saying it—leaned forward. Her armscrossed beneath her breasts under her singlet top that clung to every curve. I’d been right; what she wore hiking were the only clothes she’d brought with her.
Fuck, if she hadn’t been sexy as all get out before, then that sealed the deal. The girl before me was tough as hell, and damn intelligent on top of all that.
Everything I wanted in a woman.
I should have turned her around and sent her on her way an hour ago, despite that the unseasonal cloud burst heralded worse weather on its way and fast. So why was she still sitting at my table, and why was I entertaining the idea of giving her everything she wanted?
Cora’s eyes sparkled like she knew she had me, and fuck if I didn’t lean back in my chair, waiting for her to sell me what the hell ever she came all the way out here to say.
Again.
Because we’d been around this bear trap a few times already. But sayingnoto this woman was just a warm up for her, it seemed. I swallowed back a mouthful of scalding black coffee and waited.
“I want your art. The shop where I work in White Cap would like your art. But, Bode,” she pronounced my name correctly this time. I’d fixed that after my thirdno. And she still hadn’t backed down. My respect grew for the woman who both irritated me and blew me away with every word. “Seriously, these pieces never last more than a few days in their glass cases. I’ve been selling your pieces for years. We should be collecting them in a gallery. You have no idea.”
I frowned at her. That was taking it a bit far. Sure, I got that the gems were stunning, and I appreciated that someone else liked my version of art. That actually felt good for about half a second before I quashed the idea with a solid bout of impostersyndrome. Hell, it was part of the reason I chose a bank of mountains between me and the rest of the world.
Walker Roan got that, the man who helped me build this place around the curve in the mountainside when I first walked past his cabin set back in the mountain behind Red Hart Ranch years ago. He helped me drag tools out once I’d settled on a place and drew up the contract with Len Beaumont. That was back when the old man was still the owner of Red Hart, before his son, Travis, took over. And Eve. Another spitfire of a woman, though I’d heard she had her own Ranger to tame.
“I’m not putting anything in a gallery,” I said tersely, drawing my attention back to Cora and the problem she presented to my present. Namely, that she was in my house, asking for something I didn’t want to give her.
But why not?
“That’s four.” She drained her mug and rose, managing not to scrape her chair on the granite floor that formed half my mountain. “Would you like a top up?”
“You’re not leaving?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to go, or was impressed by her tenacity to stay despite my not so subtle hints to the contrary.
Cora’s laugh filled my kitchen as she liberated my mug and sashayed across my house. “No, Bode Hunter. I’m not leaving until you agree to let me stock some of your carvings. Or everything that you have.” She shrugged, her back to me as she refilled her mug and mine with my shitty, stale instant coffee that was likely several years out of date. Not a single word of complaint from this woman, though. Unlike?—
I cleared my throat in an attempt to dispel the old memories that still haunted me whenever I allowed them in. “And if I refuse to give you anything to stock from here on in?”
Fucking Kyle.I hadn’t figured the trader was selling my art to anyone other than a few ranches or families. I’d have a fewwords with the younger man with a silver tongue the next time I saw him, though I suspected he’d make himself scarce in the coming months.
“You won’t.”
Cora returned to the table with a pair of matching, steaming mugs. I stared at them, unable to remember the last time I sat with a woman to talk, shared a cup of coffee with her.
Lie.
That memory shattered in a swirl of steam that rose between us, obscuring Cora’s pretty face. Suddenly, it was all too close, the years I’d been here too few.
My teeth ground together as I shoved my chair back at the same time as Cora sat her perfectly proportioned tush down in a chair that I’d made from scratch myself.
