Page 4 of Trick or Treat with the Mountain Man
Wind whipped through the forest, going straight through my skin and into my bones. It was still fall, but you could feel winter nipping on its heels tonight. I didn’t want to stand outside in the cold any longer. Not in late October in the Ozarks. I wasn’t wearing enough for extended outdoor time on the mountain.
The door creaked open.
Just enough for me to see a man in flannel sleep pants and no shirt with a shotgun in his hands. But the thing that caught my eye was his dark, thick beard that matched his piercing eyes. That and his muscles, which I valiantly tried not to ogle.
Who has abs like that?They should be outlawed.
“Are you going to shoot me or eat my cookies?” I joked, nodding towards the shotgun in his hands.
He was holding it in a ready-alert position. Notaimedat me necessarily, but it was definitely pointed in my direction.
It was almost as though my mention of it reminded him that he was pointing a gun at me. He shifted the barrel in the other direction, still gripping it tightly.
“Why did you bring me chocolate chip cookies on Halloween night, Ava?”
Abby forgot to tell me how handsome he is.
He was older than me, and now that I was looking closer, I noticed some salt-and-pepper in his beard.
He’s probably late thirties or early forties.
I always liked an older man, and all of my womanly nerve endings woke up and stood at attention.
There was instant heat between us, and I felt a pleasurable frisson roll through me.
But I was getting side-tracked from my mission.
Shrugging a shoulder, I said, “Just trying to welcome you to the mountain. And, uh, my friends are having a party,” I gestured out their way. You could just see the light of the bonfire where it brightened the night sky on the other side of a hill. “Abby and Silas are your neighbors.Lovelypeople. Really friendly. Low-key. And they, we, I meanIwould just die to have you come over tonight and meet everyone.”
His expression hardened. “Look. I get that you’re some kind of neighborhood welcome committee, but I don’tneeda welcome. I’ll take the cookies, and you can go.”
He leaned the gun against his living room wall, then snatched the cookies from my hands, leaving the rest of the candy behind. I’d brought him a dozen cookies. I’d eaten one, so he still had eleven left.
His skin felt coarse where it had scraped across my hand. The friction sent a thrill of something unexpected through me. Like sparks had just come to life.
Clearing my throat, I worked to get us back on track. “Let’s start over. Happy Halloween! I’m Ava, nice to meet you. And you are?”
If I could just get a name out of him, it would be a start. I could tell already he was going to be like one of those wild animals that’s not quite ready for human contact. So I needed to go slowly.
He furrowed his brow and rumbled, “It doesn’t matter who I am. You gave me the cookies. I took them. What more do you want?”
I pointed back over the hill in the direction of my friend’s house. “Well… there’s the party. Do you feel like coming? We’d love to have you there. You can meet everyone who lives around here.”
Fireworks lit up the sky again, and I noticed him reflexively draw back.
Huh.
He growled out, “I don’t want to go to their party. I don’t like noise. It’s loud enough over here as it is.”
“Because of the fireworks?”
“And thepeople.”
“What do you mean?”
He let out an impatient breath. “Listen.”
At first, I thought that was an introduction to whatever else he was going to say. But he got quiet and stood there with his arms crossed over his bare chest, leaning on the doorjamb with the most serious expression on his face.
