Page 21 of The One With the Mountain Man

A redhead pushed out of the kitchen with a notepad and pencil. "Welcome to The Green Door! I'm Annie and I'll be serving you today. What can I get you?"

"What's good?"

Annie reached past me to the menus stacked behind the napkin holder. "We've got fresh trout that's always good. The hot honey chicken never disappoints. All our soups and salads are made fresh with as many local ingredients as possible. But if I'm being honest, there's just something special about the burger today. It's what I'm having later."

"Burger it is then."

"Fries?"

"Why not. And can I get a side salad?"

Annie grinned. "Get those veggies where you can. Not a problem. House dressing all right?"

"Sounds perfect." Annie looked up as the door squeaked open for another customer. "Hey Huk!"

I froze.My neighbor.Well at least I would get to meet him under normal circumstances. If I was being honest, the idea of running into him on the road kind of creeped me out. I just didn't want to invite him to eat with me. I didn't want to spend this time in awkward silence or even more awkward small talk with a perfect stranger.

Hopefully Huk understood that I wanted to be left alone on the mountainandat the café.

But then my heart dropped into my stomach and I forgot how to breathe when he spoke.

"Hey Annie," a very familiar voice replied.

It was the voice that came out of the darkness to calm me down, the voice that starred in one of my dreams just last night. It was the voice that belonged to the cowboy I was never supposed to see again.

And yet I still couldn't believe it when Jackson slid into my booth with a grin and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. The cowboy hat was gone. In its place was a ball cap with Bigfoot on it. He pulled it off and set it on the bench beside him, just like he'd done with his cowboy hat. He had on a similar outfit. Soft green t-shirt, worn jeans, and boots. The only real difference was the hat, but I would have sworn there was something else. Something more. The energy that came off him was bigger. It took up all the air, sucking it from my lungs, not unlike the panic attack, but this time a lot more pleasurable.

"Fancy running into you again, Marley." His light eyes danced as they took me in. This time they seemed more green than blue. His smile was almost wide enough for that sexy dimple to make an appearance.

Jackson was here in Lost Creek. In my booth. And he looked really happy to see me.

And I was happy to see him too, but my fight-or-flight instinct kicked into gear out of habit. His sudden appearance was too similar to all the times some fan slid into my booth to tell me how excited they were to meet me, then tell me how disappointed they were that I wasn't writing.

It reminded me of all the times my stalker appeared out of nowhere.

My hands gripped the bench seat as I tried to convince my nervous system that Jackson wasn't a stalker. It helped that the rest of my body was equally—if not more so—excited to be near the cowboy again.

"Jackson!" I squeaked out his name in a combination of surprise and longing. It was like I had no control over myself simply because he was near. And when he smiled at me like that?

I wasn't so sure I wanted my control back.

Eight

Jackson

Local boy sits down with town's newest stranger for lunch.

News at eleven?

"You could takemy 1pm hike tomorrow," Red offered. Outdoor Experiences of Lost Creek, or ODX as we usually called it, was his outfit. Alfred "Red" Jackson gave us our first summer jobs and often served as the man we could always turn to when we needed help. Whenever I hit Lost Creek for a few days, he inevitably tried to get me to take a shift or two, hoping it would lure me back home.

"I definitely can't do afternoons any time soon. I have to be able to get Gus." So far Karis was holding up beautifully in public, but last night after Gus was down, she cried for half an hour. She wanted to do everything on her own even though I kept reminding her that the whole reason I was here was to help.

Needless to say, we were still figuring this whole thing out.

"Then how about the 9am? Travis loves to sleep in when he can, thanks to all those late nights of his." He shot Travis a pointed look.

Travis flicked him off. "I've barely had a late night in months thanks to all the extra snow the mountains got this winter."

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