Page 11 of Trapped with the Mountain Man

More silence.

“Listen, I’m not very good at one-night stands,” I finally say with a defeated sigh.

“Obviously,” he retorts.

There’s that grizzly bear. Suddenly I don’t regret not sleeping with him at all. I wash down my knee-jerk reaction with a long sip from my coffee cup, swallowing my acrid words and trying to come up with something slightly sweeter. I force myself to remember that I’m an intruder here, and I just need to get along with this man until the storm clears up. Then I can go back to town, back to my life in Portland, and spend the rest of my life trying to forget the embarrassment of this entire situation.

I take a deep breath and look up at Hunter.

“I know I gave you mixed signals last night, but it really didn’t have anything to do with you. In fact, I was about to apologize for letting my personal issues get the better of me in the middle of the night, but I’m feeling much less inclined to offer any sort of apology or explanation if you’re going to be an asshole about it.”

Okay, so notsweet, exactly…but something about the man in front of me riles me up in every way imaginable.

I pick up on the glint in Hunter’s eye just as it disappears, giving way to a wide-eyed expression. He pushes off from the counter and takes a step toward me, palms out as if to surrender.

“Whoa, Abby, I was kidding.” He stops short of reaching out to touch me. His hand finds the back of his neck, presumably to rub away the endless stream of tension I seem to be causing him. “I just meant that we didn’t actually have sex, so it wasn’t really a one-night stand. It was a bad joke.”

“Oh.” It’s all I can manage. We may not have fumbled through the messing around part, but we sure seem to fumble everything else. “Sorry,” I add quietly.

“Don’t be.” He repeats his words from last night, sending a little shiver through me again. “It was a really bad joke.”

Regret floods back over me as he flashes a brief but charming smile and directs his attention back to the window. Hedoeshave dimples. My research is complete.

Breakfast is scrambled eggs and toast. We eat quietly at the table while watching the rain come down outside. I’m already starting to forget what the forest looked like before the storm settled in and cast its gray shadow over everything. The first few days of my hike were sunny and bright. The afternoons were almost too warm, especially during long, uphill stretches of the trail. It’s hard to imagine that warmth now.

A burst of static interrupts our meal. I jump, immediately cursing my nerves for consistently betraying me. Hunter studies me for a second before traipsing across the room toward the desk.

The second blast of noise is clearer. A male voice repeats, “Shaw? You there?”

Hunter grips the receiver in one hand. His posture is stiff and his tone irritable as he answers. “Yeah, I’m here. Go ahead.”

“We’re getting some reports of a hiker trapped in the storm.”

“Yeah, I brought her in yesterday. She’s here at the station with me now.” Hunter glances over at me as he speaks.

“No, this is a different hiker – a man. The family called it in just this morning. He’s southbound. Last spotted at the Cosby Knob Shelter a couple of days ago. He should be in your neck of the woods by now. Think you could take a look around, try to locate him?”

“Shit,” Hunter mumbles before pressing the button on the receiver again. His hand hooks on his hip and his gaze peels away from me and settles on the sheets of rain coating the nearby window. “You got a description?”

Annoyance leeches out of Hunter as he speaks to this person, proving that whatever irritation he feels towards me pales in comparison to what he feels for the man on the other end of the radio.

“It’s a male in his early 40s, about six-foot-one, slender build with light brown hair. He’s an experienced hiker, according to the family. He’d be traveling with a large pack and making good time up until the storm hit.”

“Alright, I’ll head out now and call into the main station once I get back.”

Hunter slams the radio back into its cradle. His head falls back as he breathes out another cuss word. Before I can ask any questions, he marches across the room and grabs a uniform out of the coat closet. The shirt is sage green with long sleeves and a patch on the shoulder. He shrugs it on and starts buttoning up the front. I’m watching him because there’s nowhere else to look and nothing else to do. And also because I’m oddly fascinated by the way his long fingers work the buttons.

The roll of thunder disrupts the constant drizzle outside. It groans on and on overhead.

“You’re going out there? Is that safe?” I finally ask.

“No, it’s not safe; that’s why I have to go. If there’s someone else stuck in this storm, I need to bring them in.”

Bring them in? Here? How many people are we going to cram inside this cabin? I’m already running low on chastity pillows and well past my limit on grumpy men.

“What if something happens to you?” I ask.

Hunter unfastens his jeans and slides them off, quickly replacing them with dark olive green pants. I try not to stare. When he finally answers me, he keeps his eyes down as he tucks in his shirt.

---