Page 5 of Mountain Man Book Boyfriend's Holiday Treat

But I keep going. Because I need to find her. It’s a song in my blood right now. A feeling that something special is coming if only I can find her.

I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with me. I’m not a fanciful guy. That’s one of the things that Angie didn’t like about me. I am just a plain guy with plain feelings. I’m not romantic or fussy. I’m just me.

And that wasn’t enough for her.

Will it be enough for another woman? I don’t know. But I just want someone to come along and realize that I’m a loyal, loving man and I’m desperate to find a woman who’s basically a damn golden retriever like me.

Minutes pass into what feels like hours and then finally I see a shadow leaning against a tree in front of me. I push forward even faster, practically jogging through the snowy mess around us.

“Hey! Ashleigh is that you? Are you alright? Hello?”

She whips around and my breath catches in my throat when I catch my first face to face with her.

“Holy shit!” I breathe. She’s more beautiful than any woman I’ve ever met in my life. She’s got a face like a goddess. Full pink lips, rose red cheeks and dark eyes that I can’t quite see in the dark. But I see enough to know that she’s got perfectly-arched brows and her long silken hair tumbles down her back in a curtain of brown.

Her body is so damn tiny that I can’t help but think she’s a fucking doll. So tiny and beautiful. So perfectly-proportioned.

“Hello, Ashleigh,” I murmur softly. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Truer words have never been spoken. I just didn’t know what or who I was looking for. Now I do.

Her. It’s always been her.

CHAPTER 4

Ashleigh

“Reese?” I whisper, my voice raspy. I’ve been hollering for what feels like hours.

But nobody came. Until now. And now I’m face to face with the mountain man I was coming here to meet. And just from what I can see of him, he’s a damn god. He’s what it would look like if Captain America and Wonder Woman had a baby. Too damn beautiful to look upon without shielding your eyes from the perfection glowing off of them.

I clear my throat and manage a little stronger, “Reese?”

“Yeah.” He smiles so damn big that it looks like a Cheshire-cat grin. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it.”

I chuckle happily now that I know I’m not about to die out here. “I almost didn’t.”

He sobers up immediately. “That’s all my fault. I should have looked at the damn weather before I suggested this meeting. And right before Christmas? I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You were thinking you wanted to not be lonely this holiday. I get it. I don’t want to be either.”

He holds out a big hand and I slip my own inside it, almost flinching at the warmth of his gloves on my cold skin. I lost my gloves somewhere in a grove of trees that caught on my coat.

He groans and then glares at me. “Where the hell are your gloves, woman?”

I stand up straight and glare right back. “Excuse me, I’ve been lost in the woods and I lost them somewhere in a bunch of trees.”

He shakes his head and mumbles something under his breath that I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know what it was. Then he hands me his gloves. “Here. Put these on. You’re gonna get frostbite.”

I shake my head stubbornly. “No way. They’re yours. I don’t want you to get frostbite either.”

“I’m not getting anything. But we need to get back to my place. You were kinda going into the exact wrong direction. So we’re gonna have to backtrack.”

I shove them back at him. “I’m not wearing your gloves. You wear them!” I cringe inside and wonder what the hell is going on! I’ve never talked to a man like this. I can’t believe I’m doing it now.

But I’m not scared of him for some reason and I don’t want him to think I’m weak or something. Or an idiot that can’t take care of herself.

He towers over me, a dark, forbidding shape in the hellscape of snow, ice and wind.

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