Page 22 of S'more Mountain Man

Right?

Chapter Six

“I knew better. I kissed her anyway.”

Leif

I woke to birdsong and emptiness. The space beside me in the sleeping bag was still warm, but vacant. Skye's scent lingered—but she was gone.

For a moment, I lay still, listening. The camp was quiet, dawn barely breaking over the eastern ridge. Too early for the kids to be up. Too early for normal people to be awake at all, but I'd never kept normal hours, not even before the fire.

The flap of the tent was unzipped, letting in a sliver of pale morning light. I sat up, running a hand through my hair, and reached for my jeans. Her clothes were gone, but her small duffel remained in the corner of the tent.

So she hadn't run far.

I stepped out into the cool morning air, barefoot and shirtless. Dew soaked the grass, cold against my feet. The world was painted in shades of gray and blue, the sun not yet high enough to burn through the morning mist that clung to themeadow. Thin tendrils of fog wrapped around the pine trunks like ghostly fingers.

I found her sitting on a log by the fire ring, arms wrapped around her knees, staring at the sky as it lightened from black to indigo. She looked small and vulnerable in the half-light, her thick hair loose around her shoulders, her profile etched against the brightening horizon. She didn't turn when I approached, though she must have heard me.

"Hey," I said, keeping my distance.

"Hey." She didn't look at me. "Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't."

Silence stretched between us, broken only by the call of a mourning dove somewhere in the forest. I waited, sensing she had something to say.

"Last night was..." She finally glanced at me, then quickly away. "It was amazing."

"But?" I could hear it hovering in her voice.

She laughed softly, but there was no humor in it. "Is it that obvious?"

"You're sitting out here alone at dawn looking like you're solving complex equations in your head. So yeah, a little obvious."

Another silence. I settled onto the log beside her, not touching, giving her space. The charred remains of last night's fire lay cold in the ring, black against the gray ash.

"I don't do this," she said finally. "The one-night thing. I mean, I have, obviously, but it's not... it's not usually my style."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak yet.

"And I know it's stupid to even be thinking about this. We just met. You live in the actual wilderness by choice. I have a life in Missoula. Students. Friends. A flat that needs to be paid for." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a nervous gesture I was starting to recognize. "But last night felt like... I don't know. Something more than just two people who happened to be in the same place at the same time."

"It was," I said, the words emerging rougher than intended.

She looked at me then, really looked at me, her eyes searching mine. "Was it?"

"Yes."

"Then what is this, Leif? What are we doing here?"

The direct question caught me off guard, though it shouldn't have. Skye wasn't the type to dance around things. It was one of the things I found most disarming about her.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I didn't plan this."

"Neither did I." She sighed, looking back at the sky. "I don't want to be a fling, Leif. Some story you tell yourself about the crazy city girl who got lost in your woods. And I don't want you to be my vacation hookup, either."

"That's not what last night was."

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