Page 4 of Untamed Mountain Man

I’d never seen a woman like her, and I was pretty sure I never would again. I had to find a way to keep her in my life.

That thought shocked me. It wasn’t like me at all. The last thing I wanted was someone permanently in my life. I was a loner. I kept my distance from people. Even my logging crew buddies. I’d joke around and do what it took to get the job done, but if they wanted to pal around after work, I was not their guy.

If you trusted people, they let you down. I learned that lesson early in my life.

“You were at the bar,” she said. “I saw you.”

Now, I looked over at her. It was the first time I’d taken my eyes off the road, even though I knew these streets like the back of my hand. I could probably close my eyes and drive it if there weren’t other vehicles on the road.

“Yeah, I have dinner at the bar every night,” I said. “Beats going home and…”

I didn’t finish that sentence, suddenly aware how pathetic it made me sound. Going home and eating a warmed-up frozen dinner or leftover pizza in front of the TV wasn’t something to be proud of. It’d never bothered me before, but all of a sudden, it did.

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t as much a loner as I thought. I didn’t want to let people in, but I also didn’t want to be completely cut off from the rest of the population.

“Welcome to Adairsville,” she read as we sped past the sign. “I’ve lived in Boone all my life. You ever been there?”

“Nope,” I said. “Heard of it, but I’ve never been.”

She looked over at me again and my heart did a little jump. That was a first. Well, maybe not the first time in my life, but the first time a female had brought that reaction in me since my teenage years.

Was that what this was? Some sort of adolescent crush? But I was a grown man, so that didn’t make sense.

“You know what I could go for?” she asked.

She reached down and unzipped each of her boots, then removed them, baring her socked feet. They were thick socks, and bright pink like her coat and her boots. The weird thing was, she didn’t seem like the type of person who’d be all that into hot pink. She seemed down to earth. Chill. Hot pink was for overly cheerful women like cheerleaders and the employees at the ski lodge.

“What’s that?” I asked, distracted by her bare feet.

Why was the sight of her in socks doing things to me? I definitely wasn’t a foot man, but with this woman, I could be into just about anything.

“A burger and some fries from one of those stands,” she said.

“Stands?”

“You know, like a hot dog stand, but with burgers.”

I’d been running through a mental checklist of the nice restaurants in town, figuring a woman like this deserved to be treated to a gourmet meal. Burgers and hot dogs were definitely more my speed, though, so I wasn’t going to talk her into a fancy restaurant to impress her.

“I know just the place,” I said.

A few minutes later, my pickup was parked in front of The Patty Shack. It wasn’t anything fancy—it was really more food truck than burger stand—but I’d stopped by here more times than I could count over the course of my lifetime.

“Two Shack Stack burgers,” I announced as I climbed back into the truck, a bag with two foam containers in my left hand. “It’s their best. Double burger, loaded with all the good stuff.”

I handed the bag to her and started up the truck, hightailing it out of there before someone from Seduction Summit could see me.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Somewhere that will let us enjoy these burgers in peace.”

She’d been staring straight ahead, but now she looked over at me. I saw it out of the corner of my eye. She was wondering what I meant, but no way was I going to tell her my destination was a place I’d taken girls to make out when I was a teenager.

Yes, being a bad boy hadn’t hurt me when it came to dating. I just had to deal with most girls sneaking around behind their parents’ back to do it.

“I’m Macy, by the way,” she said. “I guess we haven’t even introduced ourselves yet.”

Macy. A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. And yeah, we hadn’t even introduced ourselves. I was usually a gentleman, but social conventions tended to pass me by.

---