Page 11 of Naughty With The Mountain Man
“Noted.” She grins. “Want cocoa? Or are you strictly coffee and grit?”
“Whiskey,” I say before I think better of it.
She arches a brow. “Two fingers?”
“Three,” I hear myself say.
Evening settles early, as winter likes to do. The storm loosens its grip, but only enough to show more gray. We sit near the fire with twin glasses, Ranger stretched between us like a line we haven’t crossed.
She asks about the channel, not like a fan, like a person trying to understand. I tell her about building the cabin one paycheck at a time, about learning to fix what other people threw away, about how the solitude got addictive after a while. She listens without trying to fix it.
“You don’t get lonely?” she asks.
I watch the flames leaf through a knot of wood. “I’ve got the dog,” I say, and it’s almost a joke. Almost. “I talk to the camera. Then I turn it off.”
She nods, thoughtful. “I’m around people all day, laughing with customers, hyping products, wrapping orders. Then I go home and there’s no one to ask how it went. No one to say, ‘You were funny today.’ Or, ‘You look tired. Sit down.’”
I glance at her, the curve of her cheek in the firelight, the honesty worn like a favorite sweater. “You were funny today,” I say finally.
She smiles into her glass. “You look tired.”
She says it with a softness that makes me feel anything but.
The heat of the fire, the whiskey, and her presence combine into something that feels like I’ve been out in the cold longer than I admitted. She tucks her feet under her, closer to Ranger’s warmth. He sighs, pleased with all of us.
“About earlier,” I say. “On the snowmobile.”
She waits.
“That was … not terrible,” I finish.
“High praise.” Her eyes lift to mine. It’s an invitation to laugh, but we don’t. We just look. And the look says everything we’re not going to.
The attraction sits there, uncomplicated as gravity. It wants what it wants. I’m not nineteen. I know what happens when you open doors you can’t close.
I take a slow sip and set the glass down, deliberately. “I don’t do complications,” I tell the fire, which is easier than telling her. “Storms pass. People go home.”
For a moment, I think I’ve ruined it. Then she nods, like she respects the rules even if she doesn’t agree.
“Okay,” she says softly. “Then we won’t be complicated.”
The problem is, nothing about her is simple. Not the way she laughs, not the way she calmed the internet with a candy cane, not the way Ranger has claimed her feet like they were always his.
Later, when I check the laptop, the comment section looks…better. Still loud, but warmer. A handful of regulars defend her. A few women say they’re ready to shop. The algorithm gods love a scandal. They might love an honest one more.
I close the lid and bank the fire. On my way down the hall, I pause at the office door. The couch is neat. The blankets folded. The peppermint-bow disaster is gone.
“Night, Ruby,” I say, low.
“Night, Beckett.”
Ranger hesitates, then follows me. Traitor. Or maybe he knows what I’m trying to pretend -- that this is temporary. That it’s safer that way.
I lie in the dark and tell myself to sleep. I tell myself storms pass. I tell myself I don’t do complications. The problem is, my cabin doesn’t feel complicated right now.
It feels alive.
Chapter 7
