Page 5 of Gifting the Mountain Man
seven
Nash
Itry to ignorethe knocking on my front door, but it only gets louder. “Hold your horses. I’ll be there in a minute.”
I turn Cora onto her side, making sure not to wake her. She must be exhausted after I took her three more times during the night. I grab a quilt from the couch, wrap it around my bare body, and stomp to the front door. “This better be an emergency.” I jerk it open, and standing in front of me are my best friend, Blake, and the other woman in the picture I have of Sara — I mean, Cora.
“Where’s Cora?” The pixie-like girl quickly brushes past me, with Blake trailing behind.
“What are you doing in my house?” I bark. A feeling of unease creeps up my spine.
“I’m here for my sister Cora. I can’t let her handle my problems anymore. I’m Sara. I’m your mail-order bride. I agreed to marry you, and I will.”
Blake growls beside her, and she reaches out to touch his cheek. “It’s okay. You’re right. I need to grow up and stop letting my sister fight my battles.”
“I didn’t mean this.” Blake scowls at the girl.
Wait, she’s Sara? Why did Cora let me think she was my bride?
I see red as anger surges through my body. I glance at where I left Cora sleeping by the fireplace. She’s awake now, her emerald green eyes wide, clutching the blanket to her chest.
“I-I can explain," she stammers, holding her hand out to me. When I ignore it, she stands and faces me, wrapping the blanket around her curvy body.
“There’s nothing to explain. You thought you could pull one over on the dumb mountain man.” I stare into her beautiful, lying face and go for the kill. “Was your virginity payment to release Sara from the marriage contract? I mean, your virgin pussy was sweet but hardly worth the price of giving up a bride.”
Cora’s fist hits my jaw, and I nod to Blake. “Come on, Sara, help Cora gather her things so we can leave Nash alone.” Blake guides Sara with a hand on her lower back.
I hear them rushing around the cabin—the bathroom door slamming. Knowing Cora is in there putting on her clothes so she can leave almost guts me.
I watch out the window as the snow melts and drips down the glass. If they don’t leave soon, the roads will turn too muddy to drive, and they’ll be stuck here.
I don’t turn around when I hear my front door open. I can’t. I’m afraid I’ll do something stupid like begging Cora to stay. But how can I trust her after she lied to my face?
“My virginity might not be worth the price of a bride, but I wonder if my heart is worth anything because it’s yours now.” The door clicks shut, leaving me alone. The only sound is the beating of my heart and the ticking of the clock on the wall.
I can’t move. How can she love me after what I said to her? How can I trust her after she lied to me?
eight
Nash
I’ve never been muchof a drinker, which is probably why I’m just staring at a full bottle of Temptation Whiskey instead of drinking my sorrows away. The whiskey was given to me by one of the tourists when my rescue crew found his daughter, who got lost in the mountains last year.
What would it be like to have a wife and a daughter of my own? My heart clenches in my chest. I thought I found that future with Cora. Unfortunately, it was all a game to her and her sister—trading places to fool the simple mountain man, just like Whitney.
The funny thing is, if Cora had told me the truth when she first woke up in my arms, I would have understood. I would have done my best to win Cora’s love, doing everything in my power to make her mine.
A knock on the door pulls me away from my thoughts about Cora and what our future might have been.
I set the unopened bottle of whiskey on the coffee table and head to the front door. My foolish heart believing Cora came back to fight for my sorry ass. It’s already been three days. If she were coming back, she would have done it by now.
I open the front door and come face-to-face with my mother. Her weathered face scrunched with concern, “What are you doing hiding in the mountains when there’s a young woman in town crying her eyes out over your sorry ass?” Mom says, pushing her way into my cabin.
How the hell does she know about Cora? I shut the door and turn to ask her, but the words get stuck in my throat, as I’m transported back to that night so many years ago. Only I never felt this way about Whitney.
Whitney was a mean girl who liked to toy with a naive schoolboy's heart and his obsession with her honey-blonde hair and blue eyes, causing him to feel ashamed of his family.
It might not have taken me long to get past my initial embarrassment about my family’s perceived poverty in Whitney’s eyes. Still, I never got over feeling rejected by Whitney.
