Page 3 of Caught with the Mountain Man

“What about you?” she asked. “When you’re not keeping cabins from burning down, that is.”

“You’re the one who kept the cabin from burning down.”

“I beg to differ. If it weren’t for me, the cabin wouldn’t have filled with smoke in the first place.” She shifted on the couch, repositioning her plate on her lap. “But the fire chief had that safety meeting a few months ago at city hall. He mentioned flour to put out grease fires.”

“Tyler’s a good guy. That’s why I moved here. A few of us served with him in the military. When we heard he’d taken over the fire department here, we came to help him out.”

“You’re a firefighter?” she asked.

“Volunteer.” I shrugged. “Doesn’t really pay the bills. I make my money on construction.”

That wasn’t really how I saw myself, though. I’d been a Navy SEAL for almost a decade. It was so wrapped up in my identity, when I decided to return to civilian life, I’d had a tough time adjusting. I was mildly qualified for a lot of things but deeply qualified for absolutely nothing. Especially in a town like this one where jobs were few and far between.

“Are you helping with the rebuilding at Sugarplum Farms?” she asked.

I nodded. “Plenty of work. And the more we do, the less reason there is for scammers to come to town and take advantage of people.”

She sighed. “It sucks that people do that. I wasn’t here when the tornado hit. I only graduated college in May.”

May. So that could put her as young as twenty-two. She seemed older, though. Maybe it was her fierce intelligence. There was just a sharpness about her, along with a maturity that most women her age didn’t seem to have.

“I wasn’t here for it either,” I said. “And I’m glad to be able to help out where I can. But this town is something else. I can’t imagine leaving it, even after all the work dries up. Want another piece?”

I’d noticed Simone’s plate was empty. She’d just polished off the last of her first slice. I leaned forward and opened the box, reaching out for her plate. She eyed the box, and for a second I thought she might deny herself, but then she took a deep breath and smiled.

“You know what? I deserve it after the day I’ve just had.”

“You deserve it every day,” I said.

Did that come across as flirtatious? Maybe. I didn’t even know what it meant. Just that a woman like her should be spoiled, pampered, treated like a queen. If she were my woman?—

Whenshe was my woman.

That thought flashed through my mind, drowning out everything else. I froze, hand on the slice I was about to pull out for her, and I had to force myself to start moving again. Something had gone haywire in my brain, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

“Rough day, huh?” I asked when she didn’t respond to my comment. “Do you mean with the near-fire?”

Simone had her slice, and now I grabbed mine before shutting the box. I had to drink from my beer just to calm my racing mind, then I settled back on the couch and watched her as she finished chewing and swallowing before answering.

“My boss’s boss is being a jerk,” she said. “He’s had me rewrite this one knowledgebase article seven times, and every time, we have to get on a call while he tells me everything he didn’t like about it.”

I winced. “That has to suck, being criticized like that.”

Something about writing seemed deeply personal. If someone criticized the way I hung a sheet of drywall or painted a baseboard, I’d be annoyed, but it wouldn’t feel personal.

“The tough part is he doesn’t say what he wants,” she said. “He just says he doesn’t like it, and it needs to be redone, so I have to guess, and I guess wrong. Then we start over.”

She took a deep breath and reached for her wineglass. This time, the sip was a little more generous. This guy was literally driving her to drink.

“I know I’m lucky to be able to work from anywhere, and they pay me well,” she said. “I’m paid the same whether I’m writing a new article or redoing an old one for the seventh time. But they also pile new work on me without considering the fact that I’m still doing this. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about work.”

“Let’s talk about something else. Where are you from originally?”

“Carbondale, Illinois,” she said. “But my mom grew up in Nashville. She and her parents came to the Smokies every year for vacation. That’s why they bought this place. I’d never been here before.”

“I’d never been to the Smokies at all before moving here. I’m from the Florida panhandle.”

“From beaches to mountains,” she said. “You know how to pick a home.”

---