Page 48 of Snowed In With the Mountain Man
She shrugged. “A mountain man who can catch his own dinnerandcook it? You’re a talented man.”
“Correction: you caught this dinner.” He winked as she rolled her eyes.
She’d caught two fish, yes. But he’d caught even more than that, and she’d needed his help to reel hers in. “We’ll both take the credit.”
He chuckled. “Sounds fair.”
After a while she leapt up again. “I’m not very good at sitting still while other people work,” she explained as she reached his side.
“You don’t say,” he teased.
“Show me what you’re doing?”
He turned his body slightly and showed her what he was up to. “Gutting fish was not exactly on the agenda for our date.”
She grinned. “What? Gutting fish isn’t romantic?”
“Some people don’t think so.” He feigned confusion. “Can you believe that Lizzy didn’t think ice fishing was romantic?”
She gasped. “She didn’t?”
They shared a laughing smile before he held up his knife for her perusal. “First lesson. You need the right tools for a job like this.”
She nodded, resting her hip against the counter as he continued, walking her through every step of the process, including the equipment and the unfamiliar terms.
“You must have done a lot of fishing growing up,” she said. “You’re a pro.”
“Fishing, yes. Ice fishing, that’s been a new endeavor.”
She tilted her head to the side as she studied him. “Where did you grow up?”
“South Carolina.”
That was it. She waited a second for him to fill the silence with more. Most people would say where in South Carolina, or make a mention of the family that was still there.
But he didn’t, and Dahlia knew better than to pry. She hated it when people asked her about her upbringing. Even JJ’s mention earlier of his mother shouting from the porch steps had made her uneasy as she’d waited for it. Those well-intentioned questions that people thought were small talk.
What are your parents like? Where do they live?
All should have been easy questions… but they weren’t for Dahlia. They never had been.
She couldn’t say if she was just projecting her own dislike for those sorts of topics or was picking up on something from him, but either way she shelved the questions that popped up as she watched him work.
Who taught you how to cook? Why did you leave South Carolina?
Instead, she kept her questions to the task at hand. And when it was time to sit and eat, she laughed as he told her stories of his first failed attempts at catching his own dinner.
“That was amazing,” she said with a sigh when her plate was empty.
His eyes were glittering with what looked like joy as he leaned forward on his elbows. “You were amazing.”
She arched her brows, ready to laugh at the teasing. But he grew earnest. “Honestly, Dahlia, I’m not sure when I last enjoyed a fishing trip so much.”
Her smile wobbled, and her insides seemed to shake.
She wasn’t used to this sort of sincerity, and she couldn’t quite meet his gaze. “I had fun too,” she murmured, her voice made soft by the unexpected nerves jittering through her.
Truthfully, she didn’t want the date to end. There was a big part of her that wanted to stick around even after she finished helping him with the dishes. A part of her that was so much more comfortable here in this little bunkhouse with him than with her own flesh and blood at the main house. Or… anywhere, really.
