Page 2 of Rugged Mountain Man (Cold Mountain Nights #1)

Chapter two

Cormac

I froze with my hand on the door knob and the cold wind at my back.

There was a woman in my cabin. Staring at me with wide eyes, mostly hidden in shadow, and armed with a fire poker.

Silence hung in the air, thick with tension.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded, even though her voice cracked.

I arched an eyebrow.

“I should be the one asking you that question.”

A bruise colored her cheekbone, like a purple and blue crescent moon. Her throat worked as she swallowed hard. When she didn’t say anything for several seconds, she rocked back on her heels, wariness in her eyes.

“How did you get the shiner?” I added.

She licked her lips, deliberating.

“Car door,” she replied. “Smacked myself in the face with it.”

I huffed at the lie. Shaking my head, I let my rucksack slide off my shoulder.

“Try again. Be a little more convincing this time.”

She pressed her lips together, stubborn.

Fine. If she didn’t want to tell me, I didn’t need to know details. But that black eye was no accident. Someone gave it to her. And if I had to take a wild guess, that’s probably the reason why she was hiding out here in the first place.

“Are you running from someone?” I prompted.

“None of your business,” she muttered, sullen.

Fair enough. Couldn’t argue with that. I didn’t like people butting into my personal affairs either. That’s why I built this cabin. To get away, to disappear. I gestured at the fire poker in her hands.

“Are you going to take a swing at me or not?”

Uncertainty flickered in her eyes. She shifted in place, skittish as a wild animal. I fished a candy bar out of my rucksack and tossed it to her. She caught it with a hungry gleam in her gaze.

I studied her as she peeled back the wrapper and bit off a corner of the chocolate.

She was probably somewhere in her twenties, significantly younger than my forty-two years of life. Her cheeks were rosy, from the cold or the fire’s warmth, I couldn’t tell. Maybe both.

Hidden beneath all those layers she wore seemed to be a plump, pear-shaped figure. And those observant, solemn brown eyes of hers never stopped watching every move I made.

“Do you have a name?” I asked. “Or are you going to lie about that too?”

“I’m not here to make friends,” she said.

“Obviously.” I pointedly glanced down at her sneakers. “You’re not here for hiking in snowy mountain terrain either.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“I don’t think your wife would appreciate that you’re in this cabin alone with another woman.”

I winced at the mention of my wife. Moving slowly and deliberately across the cabin so I didn’t startle her, I set my rucksack on the counter and began unloading the contents—food, extra clothes, a first aid kit, toiletries. Everything I would need for a week of solitude.

“I don’t have a wife,” I replied. “She divorced me ten years ago.”

“Oh,” came the quiet reply.

I rubbed at my sternum, feeling the familiar hollow ache in my chest all over again. When I found out Jaida had been cheating on me, my world had gone careening off its axis, tilting wildly until everything was topsy-turvy. A decade later, I still couldn’t quite catch my breath.

I heard through the grapevine that Jaida was married now, with two kids, and a husband who brought home a six-figure salary. Meanwhile, I was…here. A hermit who had given up on being a proper, functioning member of society. I did odd jobs when I needed cash. Otherwise, I kept to myself.

I wasn’t entirely alone though. I had a brother and a handful of friends in town, but I didn’t stay in touch as often as I should.

“Look, KitKat, it’s late, I’m tired and hungry and I wasn’t planning on entertaining guests,” I said. “So I’ll make you a deal.”

“KitKat?”

I gestured to the candy bar in her hand.

“I need to call you something.”

The woman eyed me, skeptical, but she didn’t argue against it.

“What kind of deal did you have in mind?”

“Promise you won’t whack me on the head as soon as I turn my back,” I said. “And I’ll toast some bread and cheese over the fire.”

She faltered, torn between the offer of food and the urge to protect herself.

“No.”

“Why not?”

KitKat brandished the fire poker at me.

“I don’t know you, Mr. Big Scary Mountain Man. You came out of nowhere in the middle of the night to this rundown shack and bribed me with chocolate. I have to defend myself somehow when this turns into some grisly slasher horror film.”

I raised my eyebrows with amusement. I was twice her size.

I could easily disarm her if I really wanted to.

But that wasn’t the point. If she didn’t feel safe with me, I wouldn’t give her reasons to make that fear worse.

Especially since it seemed someone else had already caused more than enough damage to her safety.

“Does that mean we’re locked in this stand-off until sunrise then?” I countered.

KitKat opened her mouth then closed it again with a huff of frustration. I could practically see the wheels spinning in her head.

“You toast the bread and cheese,” she said. “I’ll keep my weapon.”

“Are you bossing me around in my own cabin, KitKat?”

Her bravado quailed, just for a moment. Her knuckles went white on the fire poker. She clutched that damn thing like her life depended on it.

I didn’t know if she had the guts to swing, but I wasn’t about to find out. I’ve learned from personal experience that a scared animal was unpredictable and capable of anything when it was cornered, desperate to survive.

“Whoever he was,” I said, my voice pitched low. “I’m not him. I won’t raise a hand to you.”

“He told me the same thing,” she replied. “They’re just empty words. It’s easy to break a promise.”

I clenched my teeth, stifling a growl of frustration because that’s not how promises were supposed to work. Slowly, I moved away from the kitchen table and out the back door. Using a pen light from my coat pocket, I found a stick in the yard, stripped it of twigs, and returned to the cabin.

KitKat and I regarded each other warily as I approached the fireplace, closing the distance between us. She skittered back, staying out of reach. I knelt by the fire, slotted a piece of bread on the end of my stick, and rotated it slowly over the flames to get it evenly browned.

Neither of us spoke. KitKat lingered on her feet, and she showed no interest in sitting down or relaxing. At least not while I was around.

When the bread was finished, I touched the crust gingerly to make sure it wasn’t too hot. Then I offered it to her.

KitKat took it, sinking her teeth into the bread with a pleased sound.

“Good?” I asked.

She nodded, brushing crumbs away from the corner of her mouth.

“Would you like to sit down?” I suggested.

She shook her head.

Well, okay then. At least she was eating. I would take that as a win.

“Why did you come up here anyway?” KitKat asked after a moment, gulping down the last of her bread.

I shrugged, turning the cheese above the flames.

“It’s my cabin. If I want to camp out for a few days, I can do that.”

She grumbled and looked away. Guilt stabbed between my ribs for being prickly. This is what happens when you don’t spend much time around people—you forget how to socialize like a decent human being.

“It’s my ex-wife’s birthday this week,” I said. “I visit the cabin when I don’t…want to remember. Birthdays, wedding anniversaries, holidays, you name it.”

“Does it help?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” I replied, offering the toasted cheese to her. “Although not very much, if I’m honest. I loved her, but she didn’t love me in return. Some people can bounce back from that. I never did.”

KitKat reached out and plucked the toasted cheese from the stick with a contemplative look on her face. She was quiet for nearly a full minute before she spoke again.

“Mika.”

I paused as I selected another slice of bread from the loaf, turning to look at her.

“What?”

“My name,” she said. “It’s Mika. And that’s the truth.”

I studied her face, her dark brown eyes, so serious, filled with a mournful expression. I detected no hint of a lie.

“I’m Cormac," I said. "My brother calls me Mac. But he’s also a little shit, so I wouldn’t recommend following in his footsteps.”

The ghost of a smile flickered at the corner of Mika’s lips. She cautiously circled around the couch and perched on the edge of the cushions. Even though she didn’t let go of that damn fire poker, she didn’t seem as skittish as she was before.

“Are the two of you close?” she asked. "You and your brother?"

I shrugged.

“We don't talk as much as we used to when we were kids. I got busy with work and my marriage. He joined the military. Life happened, took us in different directions.”

“I always thought it would be fun to have a brother or sister,” Mika replied.

I turned to glance at her, hearing the longing in her voice. Seated on the couch, shoulders curled forward, dark circles shadowing her eyes, she seemed so…lost. Vulnerable. Set adrift in the world like a dandelion seed on the wind.

I offered her another slice of toast. She smiled softly and accepted it with a faint murmur of appreciation.

“You’re very kind for a grumpy mountain man,” she said.

“Yeah, well, let’s just say you could put the fear of God into anyone while you’re waving that fire poker around like a madwoman,” I replied.