Page 6 of Forsaken Mountain Man
“Take all the time you need,” she murmured, flicking through the portfolio I suspected she had put together from some of my earliest work.
If that wasn’t a long term fan, then I had no idea how else to categorize her.
Pretty, stunning…hypnotic.
I opted to ignore the woman seated at my table, my chest constricting with a significant lack of air as I headed for the door to the cabin that was too small for two people. The mountain’s weight bore over me. The door jammed as I shoved at it. Fuck it, was everything going to break on cue? My boot hit the soft wood on the way out, leaving a fresh dent in the far corner. I swore prolifically at the mark, the door and the woman who had invaded my space.
Cora Welk had no right being out here, away from everything that she knew. Not on my mountain, talking about my art, or near me.
And damn well not being as tough, sassy or as pretty as she was in my living space, not complaining about a damn thing oraccepting me as I was. Dammit, she was too fucking perfect, and I wasn’t fit to breathe the same air as she did for a second more.
I strode down the goat track that circled around the side of the cabin, knowing she’d never find it, and headed as far away from Cora Walk as I could. Hopefully, by the time my head cleared and I returned to the house, she’d have given up and left. And I’d be alone, just like I always planned.
So why did that seem like such a bad idea?
My footfalls reverberated off the mountainside as I stormed deeper into the valley heading for a place I knew would settle the rage inside me. And prayed I’d be wrong when I returned later.
Or not.
CHAPTER FIVE
CORA
I waited exactly three minutes before I followed Bode outside his home.Take all the time you needwas a frame of reference statement, and mine expired with the dregs of my second cup of black coffee.
Mind, I needed that coffee just to stay awake. Negotiating with a block of granite—essentially my job for the day as Bode could be defined asunyielding, unfathomableandfixed pointall at once.
When Bode left the house, he turned a sharp right. Somehow, I suspected that he thought I wouldn’t find the thin track well-worn deep into the mountainside, its entrance hidden beneath a stand of Rocky Mountain Juniper clustered tightly together. He’d snapped a few wayward twigs on his way through, leaving the path clear to me. I sidled between the damaged branches, the sharp cedar-like notes blooming in the crisp air.
I swear this man is a mountain personified.Shaking the thought away I pushed between the shrubby trees, careful not to dislodge a few older bird’s nests higher up, waiting on their owners’ to return next season, maybe. I could imagine whatBode’s home must be like in springtime, teeming with life. Newborns, chirping birds. Maybe a few fawns.
Smiling at the image of the enormous mountain man surrounded by wildlife like a mountain version of Snow White, I made my way along the narrow track cut into the side of the granite, hugging the rock face as best I could. Bode might be used to the instant-death drop on one side, but the idea of plummeting to my fate, albeit a stunning one, wasn’t in my book for today.
A chill wind brushed my bare shoulders. Gooseflesh erupted over my skin beneath my singlet as I continued into the shadows. How Bode made it down the ledge-like path without falling off the edge of the world, I had no idea. The air chilled as I made my way downward, winding across the steep rock face that curved inward. A rushing sound reached me. I wrapped my arms tighter around myself as the granite track thankfully widened out.
Without the constant threat of imminent death from slippage as my fate, I continued on at a slightly faster pace. Another curve, and I swore I'd stare at the inside of the mountain. Instead, I discovered the rushing sound. It wasn’t wind, like I’d thought, but I had found the source of what chilled the air, apart from the breeze rushing through the valley to batter the rock face.
Water droplets splashed me, hanging suspended in the semi-saturated air as I stared into the great cavern partially lit with sunlight that filtered through from a great cathedral ceiling high above.
Almost as high, I guessed, as the base of Bode’s house.
And at the bottom of the cavern sat a pool, though the water wasn’t still. A tall waterfall disturbed its serenity, and beneath its tumbling, endless spray stood the man I sought. Bode’s backfaced me, his chin upturned beneath the force of the unyielding element, almost as unforgiving as the man himself.
“This is where you hide,” I whispered to myself, unable to take my eyes off the naked back presented to me. Where Bode took himself away from the world when even exposure on the mountain's stark face grew too much. And then I knew that before, I hadn't been wrong, but I was now. If exploring Bode’s house had been an invasion of his privacy, then this was something else altogether. “I shouldn't be here.”
I retreated a step, my feet skittering on the path in my haste.
Bode, with his sense of impossibility attuned to everything in this place as remote and unattainable and as forsaken as the mountain man himself, turned beneath the water’s force. His eyes opened as he stared up at me, unflinching, almost as though he had expected me to be here.
Which was impossible, a second time over, as I hadn’t known I'd be here myself. Or had I always known I’d follow him? My feet retreated another step before I could think the motion through.
Bode raised a hand, curling his fingers inward.
Come here.
He didn’t repeat the gesture before he lowered his hand, still standing beneath the water. Those fathomless eyes closed, leaving me alone on the ledge.
Letting me make my own decisions.
