Page 3 of Falling for the Mountain Man

Ryder

The first day was easy. Both women were exhausted from their travels, so they did nothing but hog up the space in the living room. Today, they’ve got more energy, happy to help me in the kitchen as we throw together an attempt at a feast for Thanksgiving.

I might not have a full-on turkey, but neither of them complains about the sliced deli I have with their names all over it.

They’re used to my ways. Typically, unless they’re here, I spend most of my time at the fire station. Not like I want to spend my time up here alone if I can avoid it. The quiet gets too heavy, the walls too close. This cabin was built for more than just one.

My eyes drag to Zaria without meaning to, a habit I’ve never been able to break. I watch her pull out a box of instant mashed potatoes, and I stifle a chuckle when she sniffs it to make sure it’s edible. I’m not that bad. But I like watching her figure my life out, piece by piece.

“You’ll probably find a packet of gravy in there, too, somewhere.

Can’t guarantee it’ll be the best kind, but it’ll work out.

” Approaching her, I reach up, easily grabbing the packets I know she’d have to stretch to reach.

My shoulder brushes the shelf, and I catch the faint scent of her—pumpkin pie, thanks to whatever holiday-themed lotion Kallie insisted on bringing with her. “How about you pick?”

As she sets down the box in her hands, her fingers brush mine as she looks through the selection.

The touch is a tiny spark, a jolt of static that travels straight up my arm and settles somewhere deep in my chest. Her nose instantly scrunches, and I have to look away before I do something stupid, like tuck the stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“In two years, once you two graduate, we’ll celebrate properly. That is, if you guys decide to stay at home.” I murmur the last part, knowing Kallie’s got big dreams. She’ll want to live in a heavily populated city, surrounded by people.

The complete opposite of Zaria. She’s a creature of quiet spaces and soft light. She fits here, in the worn grain of my wooden counters and the view of the pines through the window.

It’s like my cabin is her dream home, but that’s just the dangerous part of me talking, the part that’s already penciled her into the empty chair at my table for the next fifty years. It’s me wanting her in my life even after they’ve figured out what they’re going to do with their lives.

Either way, they’re going to have to leave the house they’re staying in eventually.

They already know my cabin has a room for them.

Her room. I’ve already pictured it a thousand times—her canvases leaning against the wall, the smell of turpentine and oil paint mixing with the pine, her quiet presence filling the hall.

Zaria chews on her lip, and she’s staring hard now, like she’s no longer thinking about what option goes best with the potatoes.

Will she want to keep tagging along with Kallie after graduation, or will she drift off somewhere she can follow her artistic heart? Some coastal town with good light, a place with no room for a lonely firefighter and his too-quiet cabin.

I haven’t considered that she might not want to keep coming back once she’s back to running things solo. The thought is a physical blow, a cold knot tightening in my gut.

Now that the thought’s in my head, I’m fighting the urge to grimace, to reach out and anchor her here with a touch. The idea of this place without the possibility of her—it just makes the walls feel like they’re closing in again.

“I feel like it’s been ages since I’ve had turkey.

” Kallie groans as she throws together a cookie mix that has a questionable amount of dust collecting on the directions on the back of the box.

“You used to bake it just right. I miss that so much. Promise me that kind of dinner, and you bet I’ll be here. ”

Zaria finally nods, settling on country gravy. “Yeah, that sounds good. Celebrating the holidays wouldn’t feel right if I’m not here with you two.”

The words land in my chest, a warm, precious weight.

With you two. My selfish heart homes in on two words in particular.

With you. Even if they’re only coming for the holidays, I’ll take whatever I can get.

I’ll learn to roast a perfect turkey. I’ll impress their taste buds if it means she keeps choosing to come back.

With a tray of cookies ready to go inside, Kallie slips around us to shove it inside the oven. Lingering near the oven, she shivers and groans about how cold the kitchen is. She didn’t pack accordingly at all. Should’ve picked a sweater out on her way here.

“Go grab something from my closet. I’m sure you’ll find something warmer in there.” I jerk my chin toward the door. “Or, throw another log in the fire. Probably needs to be poked around a bit.”

Her nose scrunches like I’ve asked her to do hard labor. “Do you want anything?” She’s looking at Zaria, not at me, to ask for permission. “You’ve got to be freezing, too. I can snag something while I hunt for one myself.”

I scoff, but the sound gets me nowhere. Eyes drifting toward Zaria, I catch the way her skin pinkens. It’s a subtle flush that starts at the base of her throat and creeps up, and my mind instantly, traitorously, supplies the reason.

The thought of wearing my clothes. She’s thinking about it.

All at once, I’m picturing one hellish sight in my head.

The soft, worn gray cotton of my favorite flannel swallowing her frame, the collar slipping to reveal the delicate curve of her shoulder.

The hem would be a cruel tease, hitting her mid-thigh, leaving miles of smooth skin to the imagination.

That’s about it. She doesn’t need anything else to stay warm, not with the way this fantasy is burning me up from the inside out.

It’s a good fantasy, but it’s one I can only want. A secret I have to lock down tight.

“No, I’m alright.” The refusal is soft, and it feels like a door clicking shut.

Denying the chance to let me see what she looks like in something of mine, an opportunity that hasn’t come across our path before, I’m left swallowing down a groan that’s equal parts frustration and raw want. My knuckles go white where I’m gripping the counter’s edge.

Maybe once the winter rolls around and they come back, I’ll offer something next time. Fuck, I want to see her in my shirts, see her small hands lost in the cuffs, smell my scent on her skin after she gives it back.

As Kallie shrugs her shoulders and drifts out of the space, leaving just the two of us, the air in the kitchen shifts. It grows thicker, charged with every unspoken thing between us.

I find myself watching her work, mesmerized by the simple, efficient way she moves, the quiet concentration on her face. Realizing I’m not being of much help here, I try to find something to go with sandwiches, my movements clumsy.

“This has to be the worst holiday dinner I’ve ever thrown.” I sigh and search my fridge, seeing nothing but condiments and a lone beer. “Worse than last year.”

I’d heated pizzas and we had milkshakes after. They didn’t complain at all, not until I brought out the board games. Then Kallie was ready to drown me in her complaints because competition runs thick in our blood.

She laughs softly, easing the tight knot of worry growing in me. “I’ll admit, it’s strange, but I wouldn’t ask you to change anything.”

When I look her way, I catch the slight smile on her lips. Her eyes meet mine, and for a second, the world narrows to nothing but the space between us, as limited as it is.

“This is perfect.”

Before Kallie introduced me to Zaria, she’d warned me that the woman had a hard time trusting and leaning on people. Her foster-care experience must’ve been hard during times like these.

Now look at her, vibrant as can be, a flush on her cheeks and a softness in her eyes that she only ever shows here. It’s a trust I feel like I’ve been given, a fragile, precious thing.

It’s a sight for sore eyes. One I don’t ever want to give up, even with the future being so murky.

I need her to know that she doesn’t ever have to worry about being alone.

She’ll always have me and my terrible dinners.

The thought of her out in the world, untethered, is a physical ache under my ribs.

“You know you’re free to come here, right?” Keeping my voice even is a strenuous effort; I don’t want her to hear the raw, pleading need behind my words. “You’re one of us. So, if there ever comes a time when you need somewhere to go, and Kallie isn’t around, my home is always open to you.”

Her eyes grow wide, and I realize why. It’s always my daughter who’s saying these words on repeat, but I’ve never openly given her the offer myself. This is from me. Just me.

“I don’t want to be a bother.” She turns away, busying her hands with throwing the gravy together.

Her fingers have a little tremble to them.

It’s a tiny, vulnerable tell that undoes me.

It’s a miracle she doesn’t drop the dish in her hands when she pops it in the microwave to cook.

“We still have two more years left before graduation. Who knows where we’ll be by then? ”

I know where I want her. Right here. Fuck, I don’t like the thought of losing her. The idea is a cold void, a hollowed-out future in this cabin.

Reaching out, I stop her with a light graze of my hand.

A barely-there brush against her arm, but her body acts like she’s run into a wall.

She freezes, a sharp, quiet intake of breath hissing between her lips.

She catches her bottom lip between her teeth, worrying the soft flesh, and the sight sends a jolt of pure heat straight to my gut. She looks nervous. Aroused. Something.

Shit, it’s because I’m pushing. I’m coming off too rough. But I can’t make myself pull back.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to put you on the spot there. I just…care for you.” The words come out choppy, a pathetic understatement for the storm she unleashes in me. “Plus, it gets a little lonely up here. I enjoy the company.” Her company.

If I keep at it, I might as well spell it out to her how I feel. How I lie awake at night imagining the weight of her in my bed, the sound of her breathing in the dark. At that point, something tells me she won’t consider coming back. She’d run.

Her cheeks grow pinker, a deep, blooming rose color, but she doesn’t pull away from my touch.

Rather, she leans into it, a subtle arch of her spine pressing her cool skin more firmly against my fingertips.

Her body is cold, and it’s like she’s seeping the heat from my hand, drawing the fire out of me.

I don’t realize my touch is drifting up, my thumb stroking a slow, absent circle on her skin, until I’ve reached the delicate curve of her shoulder.

“Won’t it be a little weird? I mean, we’re…” Her eyes fall as she searches for the right word. Her voice is a husky whisper, scraping over my nerves.

I don’t see Zaria as another daughter. The mere idea is obscene. From the way she’s leaning into my touch, her pulse fluttering like a trapped bird under my thumb, I’m hoping she sees me as I want her to. As a man.

A man who aches with a longing so deep it feels like a permanent part of his skeleton.

“We’re two adults, Zaria.” The words come out soft, low, with a hunger I’m no longer trying to hide. My gaze drops to her mouth. “I’d never ask for anything in return, you know that.” I’d beg. I’d get on my fucking knees if I thought it would get her to stay.

Just having her near me is a torment I’ve willingly signed up for. I’ll convince myself that I’m satisfied by just having her by my side, even if it kills me.

Her eyes lift, wide and dark, the pupils swallowing the brownish-green. Something flashes past her eyes. A mix of surprise and something much deeper, hotter. Recognition. Longing. Answering need.

“I…” She leans in, just a fraction, blinking up at me. Her lips are slightly parted. “I would really like that.”

Fuck. Can’t she see what she’s doing to me? My blood is roaring in my ears, my every muscle pulled taut. My free hand fists at my side to keep from cupping her face, from pulling her against my body so she can feel exactly what her words do to me.

Does she even have a clue?

Pull away, idiot.

But I don’t. Instead, I trace the curve of her bottom lip with my eyes and wonder if her mouth is as soft as it looks. I wonder what sound she’d make if I closed the distance between us and found out.

The microwave beeps, a shrill, mundane interruption from a world that has completely ceased to exist. Neither of us rush to pull out the gravy. We’ve completely forgotten to start the mashed potatoes.

“I should get that.” Ever so softly, she says the right words, but her feet don’t move. Instead, she’s taking in my face like I’m taking in hers—my eyes, my mouth, the desperate set of my jaw. Her gaze is a physical caress.

It’s like she wants me, too. The realization is a dizzying, dangerous high.

Whatever this force is pulling us closer and closer together is suddenly put at a halt at the sound of Kallie’s return, her footsteps a careless thunder in the hall.

“So, I stole a pair of your socks, just a heads up. Oh, and I found this long sleeve that’s missing a few buttons—”

Zaria jerks away from my touch as if burned, turning her back to the both of us after only one frantic, guilty glance at my daughter.

Without a word, she shuffles toward the microwave, her ears and the back of her neck the same shade as ripe strawberries.

The space where my hand was feels cold and abandoned.

Kallie looks between us, a slip of confusion forming before she’s smiling, like she didn’t just almost catch us in the act of doing something we shouldn’t be. “You forget how to sew?”

Clearing my throat, I try to remember how to form words, how to breathe like a normal man and not one who just had his every fantasy dangled inches from his grasp. The ghost of her skin is still on my fingertips. “Lost my needle and thread ages ago. Still a good shirt.”

Not that it matters. I can’t fix a shirt, let alone know where to start to fix whatever the result of crossing the line.