Page 72 of Fake Date with the Mountain Man

I dial Marlow’s number while sipping my coffee and cramming a handful of cereal in my mouth.

“Hi,” she answers curtly.

“Hey, is this a bad time?” I ask, thrown off by her tone.

“No, it’s fine. How are you?”

There’s a strange air of formality in her tone, like she’s reciting lines.

“Groggy. I slept pretty hard, just woke up.” She doesn’t say anything, so I keep talking. “Sorry I missed your text. There was no service up there and my phone’s been dead most of the night.”

“That’s okay.”

Then there is a long silence. I expect her to invite me over or at least ask what I’m doing today. We always spend the entire weekend together, and we’re already getting a late start.

“Want to grab some lunch?” I ask as I stare into the meager offerings of my pantry.

“Sure, I guess.”

It’s getting hard to ignore her clipped replies. I can’t figure out if she’s annoyed that I didn’t text her back last night or if it’s something else that’s bothering her.

“I could grab some Thai from that place you like and bring it over if you don’t feel like going out,” I offer instead.

“That’s fine, I’ll see you soon.”

Okay, so I guess I’ll just decide what to order for her.

An hour later, I’m standing at her door holding two orders of pad Thai. Marlow takes a minute to open the door and gives me a weak smile when she sees me. There’s no hug or kiss as I enter, but after I set the bag down on the counter, I reach out to kiss her. It’s stiff and hesitant then she pulls away quickly.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“Yeah, rough night, but I’m alright.”

She nods and starts dishing up the food.

“Are you okay?” I repeat back to her. “You seem upset.”

“No, I’m fine. I was just worried about you.”

“You sure?”

“Yep,” she says without a shred of conviction.

Even when we’re sitting directly across from each other in her small dining room, she avoids looking at me. Marlow barely touches her food. She stares down at her plate, twirling her noodles on her fork over and over. That’s when I notice that her hand is shaking.

“Marlow, what’s wrong?” I ask again, dropping my fork. “You gotta give me something to work with here.”

Her expression deflates. When she finally looks up at me, there is moisture welling up in the corners of her eyes. My switch flips from curiosity to concern. What could have possibly happened in the one night that I was gone that made her so upset?

Marlow sucks in an unsteady breath and releases it slowly.

“Emmett needed to blow off some steam when he got back to the ranger station, so we left work early and went to the bar. And, um…something happened.”

Something happened between her and Emmett? I like the kid – correction,likedthe kid – but I’m going to beat the shit out of him if he touched Marlow. But Marlow isn’t the type to cheat, and the look on her face isn’t guilt…it’s anger.

“What happened?” I ask impatiently.

“There was this woman there. She was talking to the bartender, and she mentioned you.”

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