Page 3 of Guarded By the Mountain Man

“There isn’t one… I mean, there was meant to be one but I fixed it.”

“Good,” I say, and I mean it. More than I have any business to, considering I've only known this girl for five minutes. I was going to ask her name, but I give her some space and concentrate on the road instead.

A few miles later, Wildwood emerges from the gloom. The lights strung down the main road look for all the world like somebody hung lanterns in a fish tank. It’s late enough that most places are shut; the Sugar Moon Bakery and Latte Da! are both dark, chairs up on the tables.

“There's the inn,” I say, pulling toward the end of the block. Every window upstairs is lit, and there's a U-Haul and a bunch of cars with out-of-state plates jammed into the lot. The O’Connor family reunion party, of course; half of Wildwood's been baking for it all week.

“No vacancy… of course.” The girl reads the sign, her tired voice suggesting that she’s spent all her adrenaline and is now running on fumes. She moves the blanket from around her shoulders. “Is there a bus, or even a gas station? I can wait somewhere until morning; I just need it to have a roof.”

Shaking my head, I wave at the dark streets. “Nothing's open.”

I should call Mary; she’d find her a cot in the back office. But Mary would also have the whole story out to most of the church by eight tomorrow. She wouldn’t be able to resist spreading the gossip, and this girl's got somebody behind her she's running from. Small towns aren’t good at keeping secrets.

She's looking out the window at the dark street, biting her lip and trying to think of a plan.

“Look, I've got a cabin up the ridge. A guest bedroom, if I move some of my mountain gear off the bed.”

She turns and studies me, and I keep both hands on the wheel where she can see them.

“Why?” she asks. Her voice is curious, mixed with a little fear.

“It's forty degrees outside and dropping, everything in town is shut, and my dog seems to think you won’t murder me in the night.” Six thumps his tail, right on cue. “And because whoever put that mark on your wrist might chase you. Even if there was a vacancy, the inn keeps a guest register. I don't.”

She lets out a long, slow breath. “Okay, thank you.”

I turn the truck up the ridge road. She watches the town lights disappear behind us with a blank face. Either her instincts are good or everything behind her is worse. Both, probably.

“It's not going to be comfortable, my place is built for me and the dog.”

“Neither was where I came from,” she says to the window. “Comfortable, I mean. And that place had marble bathrooms with gold taps.”

I pull through the gate to my property and the outline of the cabin rises up against the dark fir trees. I catch myself running a perimeter check: sight lines, up to the single road in and out, the gravel around the house so nobody can enter without me or Six hearing it.

Old habits. That's all it is.

Chapter Three

JULIETTE

The mountain man’s doormat is plain and functional. My dress drips on it as I stand there thinking about the polished console table in our entry hall. The same carefully chosen orchid will get swapped out by the florist every week, straight into the trash, blooms and all, before they have a chance to wilt.

There’s a big wood stove ticking in the corner and a couch with a quilt thrown over it to disguise its shabbiness. A large bookshelf is filled with paperbacks. It's warm. Despite needing to keep my guard up and be wary of this stranger, my muscles relax into the warmth.

He carries the groceries past me and sets them on the counter. He’s at least a foot taller than me, with broad shoulders and hard muscles. “Go through that arch, you’ll find the bathroom through there… clean towels on the shelf. I'll get you something dry to put on and leave it outside the door.”

“Thank you.” My voice is weirdly squeaky. “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask your name. I’ve been in your truck for half an hour and now I’m here, but I don’t know who you are.”

He rests one of his large hands on a cupboard door. “Holt.” He meets my eyes and there’s a jolt of electricity that travels from the tip of my head down to my core. His eyes are a silver-gray, a contrast to his deeply tan skin and black hair.

He goes into a room off the back, and from behind the wall comes the scrape of a heavy object being dragged off a bed. My shoulders tense again. As much as I’m pretty sure he’s not a serial killer, I’m in a strange man’s home with no idea what’s in the next room.

And he never asked me for my name. I think he was going to, back on the road, it was like the question was coming, and then he checked himself and didn’t ask me. Like he knew I’d make something up. He let it go and drove. I try to think sensibly about what fake name I could tell him when he does ask, but I'm shaking and stupid with cold.

It’s like the wedding dress is fighting me trying to take it off. I fiddle with the long column of tiny buttons down the back. It feels like months ago, but it was only this morning that my mother's seamstress buttoned them up while my mother chattered about napkin colors. I get about three undone before my cold fingers stop working. So I rip the rest of them, popping them one after the other, as the tiny pearl buttons bounce across the tiles.

I have a rush of relief, before I get down on my knees and fish buttons out from behind the toilet. Six shoulders the door open and sniffs at a couple as I scoop them out. I usher him outside, then lock the door and turn on the shower. The water is hot and blissful, as I soap myself clean, borrowing some of Holt’s shampoo to get the hairspray out of my hair.

The clothes Holt leaves outside the door are his. There’s a big red-and-black flannel shirt, washed so many times the fabric is butter soft, and a pair of sweatpants I have to roll at the waist so they don’t drag across the floor. A thick pair of socks. I look at myself in the small mirror over the sink: hair drying in ropes and a scrubbed clean face. Nobody in my old life has ever seen me like this.