Page 11 of Relentless Mountain Man

Two hours into our weekly poker game, one thing was clear. I was going to need a ride home.

I was on my fifth beer, and that was following the gin and tonic I’d poured myself when I first arrived at Carter’s house. He was hosting this week’s game at his kick-ass bachelor pad.

Just a week ago, I admired the guy. He was living his best life. No woman required. That was the life I thought I wanted to live.

Now I wasn’t so sure.

“Let’s take a break,” Carter said when things got a little too heated between the overly competitive Josiah and Hunter. “Quinn, step outside with me. I want to show you something.”

I was frowning as I grabbed my beer and followed him out to his patio. It was kick-ass too. It was covered, with a big screen TV on one side and cushy lounge chairs on the other. In front of us was a lap pool, lit up blue, and all of it overlooked a pond.

This guy had money that came from somewhere besides the military and the logging crew, which was where my money came from. His home wasn’t quite as fancy as the gigantic cabins at thetop of the mountain, but he had enough to afford a badass truck and an in-ground pool in his backyard.

“You’ve gone to the dark side,” Carter said as soon as the patio door closed behind me.

I was still staring out at the view, so his statement was like an ice bucket dumped over my head. “What do you mean?”

“All these other guys—they meet a woman, and they go all soft. I thought you were with me. We were standing our ground.”

He had a point. We weren’t the only two single guys on the logging crew, but we’d both been the most vocal about it. Up until two days ago, that was, when I met Rachel.

“I’m just in a funk,” I said, shaking my head as though I could shake it off. “It’ll pass.”

“The funk is called withdrawals,” he said. “The guys told me. Sounds like some woman did a number on you.”

“Nah.” I shook my head. “She just kind of reminded me what I was missing out on.”

That wasn’t true at all. Shehaddone a number on me, but I wouldn’t admit that to any of these guys. Hell, I was having trouble even admitting it to myself.

“What one woman can do to a guy.” He laughed. “But I’ll be the first to say, if I met someone who lit me up, I would definitely give up my bachelor days for good.”

I looked at him. Maybe it was the alcohol, but that didn’t make much sense to me.

“So, you’re saying you’d give all this up for the right woman?” I asked.

He laughed. “I wouldn’t give it up. I mean, the perfect woman wouldn’t make me give it up. She’d be fine with a lap pool with a view in her backyard.”

Yeah, I couldn’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t be fine with that. But some women might have a tough time with the foosball table in the living room.

“All I’m saying is the right woman won’t walk out of your life,” Carter said. “She won’t have you in this funk.”

But she was the right woman. I knew that much. Why she’d rushed out of town was beyond me. I’d woken up the next morning—after a mostly sleepless night—to find the driveway next door empty. I’d asked Hunter to get the scoop. Maybe that had been a mistake, but at least it’d given me answers.

Rachel had to go back to Nashville for work. That was the line I was being fed, anyway. I had a feeling she’d left town for one reason, and one reason only. She was running from me.

“I’ve racked my brain over what I might have done wrong,” I said.

Carter laughed. “Who knows with women? I learned from a young age, they’ll rip out your heart and stomp on it at the first chance.”

I eyed my new buddy. He’d only been on the crew for a few months, having left the military a lot later than the rest of us. But the guy had a story. And now I had a feeling it involved a woman. But no, he’d said “from a young age,” so it sounded like it had been a while since he let a woman get close to him.

“Look, man, I suck at relationships, obviously,” he said. “But if you want her… Well, you don’t strike me as someone who gives up easily.”

I shook my head. “I’ve always been called stubborn.”

He smiled. “My mom would say relentless. You know what you want, and you go after it.”

He was right. When it came to relationships, though, it wasn’t that easy. Being relentless could get you labeled a stalker pretty quickly.

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