Page 4 of Guarded By the Mountain Man

I like the way I look, for once. There’s no pretense: I’m just me, like the rain washed all of my family’s expectations clean away.

Six is waiting patiently outside the bathroom. He escorts me to the guest bedroom and sits in the doorway. There’s a freshly made-up single bed and some stacked mountaineering equipment under the window. On the nightstand there’s a mug of tea and some cookies, and beside it the key to the door.

I wrap my hands around the mug and go to stand in the doorway, petting Six’s rough head.

“Lock it if it helps you feel safer, I’m not offended,” Holt says from the main room. He’s not looking at me; he's crouched at the stove feeding it a log. “I'll be up early. And don't let the dog talk you into feeding him, he lies about it with those mournful eyes.”

I hold the key up. “Okay, thank you for this.”

He looks over then. Just for a second, gray eyes in a hard, weathered face, and I can't read anything in them. “Get some sleep.”

I close and lock the door. After ten minutes, I unlock it again, because Six is making a wounded noise from the other side. When I open it he pushes his snout in and then lies down across the threshold, like he’s guarding me.

The pillow smells like cedar smoke, but the bed is surprisingly comfortable. I lie in the dark listening to Holt move around the cabin: opening the stove door, running water in the sink and then the couch creaking as it takes his weight. Then there’s nothing but rain on the roof and Six’s steady breathing.

I wait for the wave of fear and anxiety to come. It’s always worst at night, when the world is still and I have time to think about everything. Ever since February, when the merger papers were finalized and Corbin laid his hand territorially on my knee under his desk for the first time. Instead what comes is the memory of Holt's voice saying ‘good’ when I told him there was no groom. He meant it.

That helps me to fall asleep.

In the middle of the night I jolt awake to the sound of a truck engine on the road below, my entire body tense and ready to spring. It's them; my father’s people. I'm certain of it, the same way I used to be back home when a car door slammed after lights-out and I knew they'd sent someone to get me. I lie with my fists balled up, waiting for the dance of headlights across the ceiling, but they never come. The engine fades away and I release my breath.

Six shifts on the floor, rearranging his long body. Next door, the bedsprings creak; Holt heard it too. He's awake, exactly like I am, and for some reason that makes me feel better. He’s listening for trouble, so I don’t have to.

Daylight, and there’s the sound of an axe outside when I wake up. Hot coffee’s on the stove in a dented aluminum pot. I pour a mug of what's in there, finding some milk in the refrigerator to dilute the strength.

I find Holt out back splitting wood. He’s only wearing a t-shirt, despite the cool September air. I stop in the doorway with my mug of coffee and stare. Last night it was dark and he was impressively big. This morning he’s huge. Massive shoulders that make the axe look small, threads of silver-gray coming in at the temples of his thick, black hair. He must be near forty.

He doesn’t have a polished, symmetrical handsomeness; his nose has been broken, and there's a scar through one eyebrow. But his jaw and cheekbones remind me of the statues in the museums we visited at school; sculpted and strong. When he swings the axe there's nothing showy about it, and the log falls apart in two clean halves, as if it’s effortless. A pang of need flows up from my core and my heart races in my chest.

I want him to look at me with the same protectiveness that was in his face when he saw the bruises on my wrist last night; like I mattered to him.

This is stupid. I barely know him. I slip back inside as quietly as I can before he notices me gawking at him.

Holt comes in with an armful of wood. “My friend Bobby called… he towed your cousin's car in this morning.”

“He did?”

“Yes. He does repairs out of his back lot when he's in the mood.” He stacks the wood by the stove. “The fuel pump's shot and there's a cracked hose behind it. He’ll order it in for you. Maybe by the end of the week, he says.”

My stomach drops. “That's five days.”

He straightens up, dusting off his forearms, and looks straight at me. “There's a bus twice a day from down in the valley. I'm happy to drive you down whenever you want… you want to call someone?”

He's giving me an exit. I should take the bus. And keep running before anybody catches up with me. But I don't want to.

Nobody is watching me here. For every day of my twenty-four years I've been supervised by nannies and maids. My own mother reads my mail, my father makes decisions for me. What I have now is freedom and I’m not ready to give it up yet.

“I can't abandon the car. It's my cousin Daisy’s… she’d kill me.”

It's true, but it’s not the real reason. He raises a thick eyebrow, like he knows it.

“Okay,” he nods.

“Holt, I'll pay you for the room. I have cash.”

He shakes his head and turns to the stove, opening it. “Bobby will call when the part's in. Until then, you're welcome here, you don’t have to pay.”

In my father's house, welcome is a word for donors and photographers.