Page 4 of On the Mountain

On the mountain for months on end? And other than that, only coming down once a month? I…couldn’t imagine that, didn’t know if I thought he was nuts for doing it or if I was jealous he had that life and I didn’t.

My gaze found the post office again, and I wondered what the mountain man was doing inside. Most likely checking his mail or sending something out, but what was it? I didn’t figure his bills came that way. But then, hell, did he even have internet? Electricity?

“Does he have power up there?” He had to, right? It was impossible to live without it.

“Yeah. He’s on the very edge of how far up he can go and still have power. He’s still secluded, though. Some of us went up there after the cult cleared out. It was weird as shit. I think they were Satanists.”

“I heard they were witches.” The second guy took a drag of his cigarette. “The guy is batshit crazy. Doesn’t even fuckin’ speak.”

“He’s mute?”

They both shrugged, but then the first man said, “I don’t know what the fuck it is. I just know he doesn’t talk. I think there’s something wrong with him.”

I thought there was something wrong with them, talking about him the way they did. It was always so damn easy for people to judge others if they didn’t live the exact same way they did, to judge people for addiction or mental illness or, hell, the color of their skin or who they loved. I’d seen it a million times. I wasn’t surprised anymore. All it did was make me feel even more intensely this heaviness that lived inside my bones.

I tuned them out as they talked about the mountain man. My eyes were riveted on the door until he came out, my breath catching in my throat. He put a bag into the cab of his truck, then walked down the street until he disappeared.

I wanted to know more about him. Why he was alone, and why he didn’t speak. If it was a choice or if he couldn’t. I wanted to know why he’d gone back up that mountain after his own dad tried to kill him. I wanted to know what it was like to be secluded that way.

None of this made any sense. I shouldn’t be curious about a man like him, but I couldn’t stop the feeling from growing inside me.

He didn’t come back before I had to go inside for my shift. I stocked and worked the register, whatever they needed me to do. Half an hour after clocking in, the mountain man was still on my mind. We were slow, the other employee stocking now while I manned the register, waiting for someone to need me. The bell over the door dinged.

“Hi,” I said automatically. “Welcome to—” My gaze connected with the mountain man’s. He was…fuck, he was even bigger up close. I wasn’t a short guy at six feet, but he probably had at least three inches on me. His dark-brown gaze snapped to mine, something wild and feral about it.

This man was dangerous. One look at him was all it took to know that. The wildness radiated off him like heat from a furnace.

He took slow, measured steps toward one of the aisles, his stare never leaving me. My breath was trapped in my lungs. My heart had stopped beating. I couldn’t figure out why he had this effect on me. He was gorgeous, that much was obvious, but I’d seen a hundred hot guys in my life, and this, looking at him, had nothing to do with sex appeal.

He looks as lonely as I feel.

Maybe lonelier.

It was stupid to think I could see that in him. I didn’t know this man. But I sensed his fierceness, his detachment from the world, and while that should push me away, all it did was draw me in.

While he walked around, he kept gazing at me from under hooded eyes framed by thick, dark lashes. The moment he stepped around the corner, right before he was gone from my view, I was pretty sure the left side of his mouth had kicked up just slightly…in a snarl? A half-smile? I had no idea. He knew I was watching him. Knew I was afraid of him. And maybe he liked that.

For the first time in a long time, maybe since I’d snorted coke up my nose or shot heroin into my veins those initial times, I was interested in something, felt something other than emptiness.

My feet were rooted to the floor. I couldn’t move, despite the urge to follow him, to approach him and…do what? Ask him if he needed any help?

A customer came to the counter, not giving me any choice but to stay where I was.

“Did you find everything you were looking for?” I asked, gaze shooting toward the aisles running the length of the store, hoping for a glimpse at the mountain man.

The customer rambled on and on, and honestly, I tuned her out. Hopefully she didn’t say anything I needed to respond to because my brain had taken a road trip and was with the man—with Crow.

When I finished, she said goodbye, and I immediately stepped around the counter to look for him. It was wrong of me to want to gawk at him, to treat him like he was some kind of show, but I didn’t know how to tamp down my newfound curiosity.

I went down one of the rows but didn’t see him. What if he came to the check-out counter and my coworker got to him before I did? At least if I stayed at the register, I was guaranteed to see him again. Even if he didn’t buy anything, he’d have to walk by me to leave.

I pretended to straighten up the candy while I waited for him. Fear made the back of my neck tingle, but entwined with that was being intrigued by him, wanting to know how he made it work, living away from people, and if he was happy, but he couldn’t be, could he? Not if what I’d seen in his gaze was real.

I was obsessing over him. I’d never done this with a person before, but I’d done it with feelings or experiences. I was known to be hot or cold with people and about things, but when I was hot, I was scorching. While I knew it wasn’t healthy, I still wanted to chase down the feeling.

A few minutes later I felt someone looming behind me, felt a blast of warmth and a hot stare on that spot on my nape where the hairs stood on end. I turned around, knowing it was him. He pinned me with his intense gaze, with those wild eyes that almost didn’t look real.

I wasn’t proud over the fact that I gasped and took a step backward, only to be stopped by the counter. Crow just stood there watching me, the hair on his left side pushed behind his ear, but on the right, it hung down, shielding part of his face.

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