Blazing Mountain Man

She was one storm away from finally leaving. He was one snowdrift away from finally staying.

ELYSE
I dispatch every soul on this mountain and I never go anywhere myself. That’s the job. Everybody moves through my shuttle office on their way to somewhere better, and I pin their postcards on the wall and hold the desk.
Then a man walked in off the last guiding job of the day. Broad enough to fill the doorframe, snow on his shoulders, flame ink up both forearms, asking if he’d missed the last run down. A drifter. Gone before the lifts spin, he told me himself. I clocked it and filed it and my stomach flipped anyway.
I didn’t have time to talk myself out of him. A hiker went missing on the ridge, the storm came in hard, and the only man who could go up after him was standing at my counter. So I drove him up the pass. I don’t send people into danger and stay behind the glass—not that night.
The storm closed the road behind us. Snowed in on my own shuttle, one warm cab and a whole night with nowhere to run, he finally told me the truth: about the partner he lost, the rope he swore he’d never put another life on, the reason a man keeps moving so the stillness can’t catch him.
I told him mine back. Same wound. We just stand on different sides of it.
He’s the man who never stays. And when the road opened, he didn’t go.

Blazing Mountain Man is part of the Cold Mountain Nights series, featuring books from some of your favorite steamy instalove authors. Check out the entire series.