Page 2 of Making a Mountain Man (Summer in the Pines #16)

Wesley

“ D on’t feed ducks bread, it makes them sick. You’re supposed to feed them frozen peas.” Franny had told me this before, but I nodded anyway.

Agnes, Bill, Franny and Henry, who I thought of affectionately as the Fab Four, were sitting on their usual bench and feeding the birds while I prepped my tools for the repairs I needed to do on the seniors center.

Today it was replacing some drywall after a pipe burst in the kitchen.

It was basic grunt work and the pay wasn’t great.

But after my life had imploded last year, I was grateful for the breadcrumbs – or frozen peas - of work that were thrown my way.

“Wesley, when are you going to meet my Rosie? She’s a good girl. You’d like her,” Franny said.

“Rosie is too old for him. What about that nice librarian at the public library? Joan? No, Joy?” Agnes asked.

“No librarians. We’re at the library all the time. What if it doesn’t work out? You don’t crap where you eat!” Henry grumbled.

Agnes threw a pea at him.

“I appreciate your match making skills, as always. But I’m fine on my own.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing, son,” Bill said.

“Oh, leave him alone.” Unlike Bill, Henry was a lifelong bachelor and always came to my rescue when these conversations got too personal.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to meet someone.

I did.

But after the dreaded selfie-gate incident, I had a hard time trusting people. Besides, my life was a mess.

“A man needs a wife, and he can’t use the interwebs to find one. He needs our help,” Agnes told the group. She had all of the energy and pull of a cult leader without the resources.

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be hearing this part of the conversation, so I went inside to get started on my repairs. I’d had my own plumbing business before I became public enemy number one. Once my story hit the news, no one wanted their house repaired by the suck my cock guy.

My picture had been posted next to a text that said: there are plenty of fish in the sea, but this is the fish , and men wonder why women don’t want to get married.

The writing had been on the wall, so I’d sold my company and started over in my hometown of Springwood.

I first moved to Vancouver when I was in my teens to live with my mom. I still got along with my dad, but he had remarried and was busy with a new baby.

When I’d moved to Vancouver, I’d started using my moms last name.

Mom said it made school paperwork easier and nosey people asked fewer questions.

Really, I think it was about her ego. My parents fought hard over custody of me, but it felt like it was more about winning than about wanting me around.

When I came back to Springwood, hiding from the media, I went back to my dad’s last name. So far, between the name change, keeping my hat pulled low and my mouth shut, very few people knew who I was.

Eventually, I told Nick, my boss at Springwood Contracting .

He’d wanted to call past jobs for a reference before giving me too much work, so I’d had to spill the beans.

He’d been understanding. His brother in law was now married to Rosalind Huxley, the former heiress to the Huxley Entertainment fortune and renowned media trouble maker.

So, he understood how different perception and reality could be.

The ragtag band of seniors, led by Agnes, had figured it out on their own.

They were always up on the news, not to mention total gossip hounds.

They had sworn themselves to secrecy, and I couldn’t have appreciated that more.

The better I got to know them, the more protective of me they became.

I didn’t envy any person who let my name cross their lips.

Of course, my entire love life was open to scrutiny by them.

I’d sworn off social media as soon as I’d issued my public apology.

Being cut off from modern society wasn’t all bad.

I had enough practical skills to get handyman jobs through word of mouth.

My flip phone was way cheaper than the smartphone I’d gotten rid of.

Besides, the seniors at the center weren’t big into technology anyway.

They were reminding me how to live like it was the nineties.

Or, like I was in my nineties.

Eventually, the story died down. I had quietly slipped away from the big city where I’d lived.

The cabin I bought wasn’t big or fancy. It wasn’t even in very good condition.

I’d slowly been working on making it my own.

My neighbors didn’t seem to mind that I kept to myself.

No one built a cabin on the side of a mountain because they wanted to be social.

I had met three of my neighbors, Ash, Flynt and Clay – all part of the Strawberry Hill Search and Rescue – in passing.

The other cabins seemed to be vacant. Most of the time it was just me and the trees.

Yep, nothing sad about that at all.