Page 22 of Curves for the Mountain Man

“It’s okay, Sweetness. I’ve got this.”

Blackness and smoke fill the cave, and Ginger hacks and coughs next to me. “Why all the smoke?”

“Wood’s wet. But it’ll still keep the cat away.”

Another cry pierces the night, closer still.

“Get the fuck out of here!” I holler into the unending darkness of night. “Ginger, I need you to make noise, too. We don’t want it thinking it can barge in here to protect its den.”

“We’re in a mountain lion’s den?” she hisses in exasperated tones, but the woman does her best to speak loudly.

“Yeah, it was the best I could do at the time,” I reply, my voice hollow. None of this is even close to the best I could do for her if I hadn’t had my head stuck up my ass earlier. I’ll never forgive myself for this night and what I’ve needlessly put Ginger through.

“Get the fuck out of here!” I scream again toward the entrance of the cave.

“But what if the man who took me hears us?” Ginger suddenly asks. Her voice has a hysterical strain to it, one I’ve heard before from soldiers dealing with PTSD. One I’ve heard coming from my own mouth. It doesn’t help that her body temperature has spiked from hypothermic to feverish in less than twenty-four hours.

“Even if he’s out here, Ginger, which I highly doubt, he’s not going to stumble into an actively vocalizing mountain lion’s territory unless he’s got a serious death wish.”

“Oh, you mean, like us?” The words come out hurriedly, followed by a long, heavy pause.

She means, like you.

The wet wood smothers the fire out completely now. Not what I was going for. I feel around the cave, working in pitch-black to remove the wettest branches from the rock ring and replace them with drier wood.

I strike another spark into a nest of kindling using my necklace, operating completely in the dark. I work quickly and efficiently, having mastered this aspect of bushcraft with my eyes closed. After all, fire is often most needed when sight can’t be relied on.

After the fourth try, a glowing ember lights in the kindling nest, like a ray of hope in the sudden heaviness of the night. Cradling the nest in my hands, I blow on it, fostering and cultivating it with my breath until flames shoot upwards, licking ravenously past the dried twigs and leaves surrounding it. I place it gently beneath the sloppy tree branch tepee I staked in the dark, watching with satisfaction as the blaze takes off. The puma’s cries fall silent, and the cave fills with an interminable quiet.

We sit in silence, mesmerized by the flames.

After some time, Ginger’s voice pierces the quiet. “I’m sorry about what I said.”

“Which part?”

“About the death wish.”

I grunt. Her words remind me of why I can’t keep her. I can’t force this woman to spend her whole life walking on eggshells because I’m a fucking headcase. It’s not fair to her. It isn’t what she deserves.

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I know you didn’t mean it that way. The only thing that hurt me wasn’t something you said at all…” I’ve never been this open or vulnerable with anyone.

“What was that?” she asks almost inaudibly, her attention still focused on the ambient sounds encircling us…as if her whole body strains in anticipation of another sound from the puma.

Clearing my throat and trying not to sound as butthurt as I feel, I explain, “Now that we’ve got the fire back up, it won’t be back.” Unless it’s got rabies. I leave the last caveat out because it’s highly unlikely, and it’s a worry Ginger doesn’t need.

“Thank God,” she says, relief tinging her voice. After a few moments of silence, she prompts, “You were going to tell me what I did to hurt you…”

I level my gaze on her, delighting in the way the firelight licks and kisses her flesh, illuminating her in shades of gold and tempting me to kiss every inch of her. But my words feel inordinately heavy as I confess, “You doubted my ability to keep you safe from the mountain lion and that fucking lowlife kidnapper. I know, I know. It’s dumb on my part. The fragile male ego coming out in me, but if there’s one thing I want you to trust about me, it’s my ability to keep you safe. It may be the only thing I can ultimately offer you.”

Her gorgeous blue eyes pierce me as she licks her lower lip, inflaming me some more. She moves closer to the fire, rustling the boughs and filling the air with the scent of evergreens. Every inch of her curvy softness, I devour with my eyes.Will I ever get enough of her?

Raising her chin defiantly, she says, “I don’t doubt for one minute your ability to keep me safe … when I think about it rationally. But I’m not like you, Roscoe. I’ve spent my whole life trying to do everything right so nothing would ever go wrong.”

“Some things are outside of our control, no matter what we do.” My eyes flicker towards Ginger, annoyed she sits apart from me. I’ve lost my fucking mind. These aren’t rational thoughts.

Awkward silence engulfs us. Minutes tick by. Finally, she asks quietly, “Roscoe, why aren’t you holding me?”

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