Page 10 of Seeking the Mountain Man

“Nothing,” I said. “Just women.”

Granger laughed. “I can’t complain on that front.”

I tossed Granger a look as we both threw a pile of brush onto the burn pile. Finally, I said, “Yeah, you’re partly to blame.”

Granger frowned at me. “How’s that?”

“Because of that article your girlfriend wrote.” I planned to say nothing more. But I couldn’t just throw that out there and not explain. “This chick came to town, claiming she’s starting up a matchmaking service.”

“Heartfelt Matches,” Granger said as he walked back to get more branches.

“You know about it?”

I followed, pretty much chasing him down. How did he know the name on the business card that had been by my bed for almost a full week?

“I heard Phoenix Carter bitching about it to Bo at the bar,” Granger said. “Apparently, this matchmaker woman has found him a bride.”

This was more than I needed to hear right now. My soul was starved for every piece of information I could get about Kenzie, but my curiosity about Phoenix was definitely piqued.

“Wait, I thought you said Phoenix was bitching about finding a woman,” I said, coming around to the other side of the pile and snatching up a gigantic branch. “Why’s he complaining about that?”

“Got me. It sounds like a mail-order bride sort of situation. I thought that stuff fell by the wayside sometime around the eighteen hundreds.”

“You think Phoenix is going to bother dating a woman and trying to win her over?” Granger laughed. “Good luck with that. So this matchmaker found you a woman too?”

That was a reasonable enough thing to assume, but it wasn’t nearly that simple. “No, it was the matchmaker herself,” I said, starting back toward the burn pile with two arms full. “I thought we had a thing. I spent the night with her and got up the next morning to grab some of Edna’s famous crullers—”

“Whoa! Edna’s baked goods. It must have been serious.”

I dumped the brush and stepped back, wiping the sweat from my brow. “I guess it wasn’t. When I got back with the doughnuts, she was gone.”

Granger narrowed his eyes at me. “So, you had a woman at your cabin who escaped while you were away?”

“We stayed in her hotel room.” I hated the defensiveness in my voice. “When I walked into the lobby, Jonathan Butler’s teenager was at the front desk. Said she checked out.”

Not only did I have my heart shattered into a million pieces, but one of the town teenagers had witnessed her sneaking out on me. No telling what would happen with that piece of information.

“You had a good time, no strings attached.” Granger shrugged. “Sounds like a good thing to me.”

My lack of a response probably revealed a little too much. Granger took a couple of steps closer, really stared me down.

“You’ve got to go get her, man,” he said. “I’ve never seen you this serious about someone before.”

We’d known each other going all the way back to boot camp. Granger had talked me into moving here. Having a buddy for a neighbor meant always having someone to look out for you. Someone you could talk to when the woman of your dreams skipped town, leaving only a business card behind.

“I’m sure it wasn’t me,” I said. The same thing I’d told myself a million times. “It’s a big commitment, dating someone who lives all the way up here. It’s not like she can just uproot her life and leave Charlotte for a dinky town like this one.”

“Oh, man.” Granger shook his head. “Charlotte’s got nothing on Blackbear Bluff. You go chase that woman down and tell her how you feel. If she still wants nothing to do with you, at least you know you tried.”

No way would I do that. My pride wouldn’t let me. But as we headed inside for a cold beer, his words were working their way into my mind.

Maybe I had to go find Kenzie. If not, would I regret it for the rest of my life?

8

KENZIE

Cherry Estes was talking my ear off. She was a nervous wreck, so I got it, but with everything going on right now, I was having a hard time concentrating.

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