Page 20 of The Mountain Man's Retribution

“You make me feel good, too, Fawn. Like you were made for my hands and my arms,” the man says, surprising me with his romantic words.

“And your heart?” I add, side-eyeing him.

His warm eyes find mine. “And my heart,” he admits for the first time since our meeting. The happy sentiment hangs in the air for a delicious moment until Bodie says, “I’m thirty-eight. Do you know how old you are, Fawn?”

I straighten, shifting slightly in my seat. I know he doesn’t mean to, but his question hits a place I’d rather not think about. The memories before Big Man, the ones that used to leave me sobbing for hours before I buried them deep like hidden treasure. “Big Man said twenty-three or thereabouts. He took me when I was five.”

“Took you,” Bodie says, gripping the steering wheel so tightly I can hear it groan. “From other mountain people? Or maybe the town?”

“The town,” I whisper so softly that he leans closer. I repeat more loudly, “The town. Where he said my people are.”

“Remember anything about your townspeople?” He grunts with a sideways glance.

Voice shaking, I say, “Pretty woman with kind brown eyes, short hair cut to the shoulders but curly like mine. Handsome man with bright, straight, white teeth. No beard.” I laugh, hardly able to believe the memory.

“Their names?”

I shake my head more firmly, pressing my lips together. “The man seemed grown but with no beard. How is that possible?”

Bodie pulls over on an embankment along the roadside, pushing the console separating us away, unbuckling my seatbelt, and pulling me tightly against him. “God, Fawn,” he whispers, his voice thick with emotion. “I will do whatever it takes to help you find your people in town?—”

I gasp at the word “town,” trying to pull away, but he holds me more tightly, his grip as strong as steel.

“When you’re ready.”

“When I am ready,” I repeat, inhaling his wonderful foresty smell and resting my head on his broad chest. The throb of his powerful heartbeat calms me.

Burying his head in the crook of my neck and showering me in kisses, he teases, “I hope you like older men.”

“I like one older man.” I smile, losing myself in his warm, swirling brown eyes.

I lean closer for a fortifying kiss, melting as his robust lips mate with mine, and his tongue sweeps into my mouth. When I pull back, squeezing his hand, I say, “I feel brave now. Ready to meet your people.”

Bodie smiles, hugging me and kissing the top of my head. “Use the middle seat if you like,” he offers. “You’ll have the answer to your question about men and beards shortly.”

I nod, and he helps me thread the belt over my shoulder and across my waist, clicking it into place. Despite the terrain blurred by speed and seeing more of the world in ten minutes than I have in nearly two decades, I feel confident with the mountain man’s leg pressed against mine.

At the first stop, he pats my hand, saying, “If you prefer to stay in the vehicle at first, that’s fine. But I want you to watch my interactions. That way, you can ease into what we’re doing today.” I notice how he speaks more freely now, his sentences not so short and percussive. I am drawing him out even as he is drawing me out.

I nod, heart in my throat and torn between my need to be by Bodie’s side and my desperation to hide from the world. He smiles a knowing smile, and I will myself to trust.

I watch him greet an elderly man with gray hair and no beard, walking with a cane. I eye the man curiously, amazed by the sight of bare cheeks and the feeling of vindication. My memory was accurate. They speak in curt, choppy sentences and grunts until they head to the back of the truck to barter.

Snippets of their conversation carry inside the truck.

“Pretty girl.”

“My homesteading partner.”

“Hopefully more?”

A timid chuckle from Bodie.

“Bout time to settle down.”

“Agreed. If she’ll have me.” My cheeks burn. How could he doubt my desire?

The visits continue along this same vein until we pull up to a pretty little cabin with a red truck out front. The pickup bed is covered by a hard shell. Bodie rounds the vehicle, opens my door, and offers his hand. “This one, you must come in for.”

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