Page 6 of Guarded By the Mountain Man

She's fast and capable, the talent in her movements obvious, even to someone with no cooking skills like me. This is what she looks like when she isn't on the run or scared, and she’s beautiful, in her element, her eyes lighting up.

The rolls go in and Juliette pipes a test rose of buttercream on parchment, studies it, stirs again, then pipes another one that could win a county fair.

“Where'd you train?” Nora asks, pushing her glasses up on her head.

“Our…” Juliette stops. “There was a chef where I grew up. Monique. She let me help in the kitchen when nobody was paying attention. Then helped me with some classes to get my diploma, later on, I did them online.”

Nora doesn't ask about why Juliette would want to take pastry classes in secret. She unties her apron, takes it off, and smiles.

“I open at six. Pay in cash, and my coffee machine hates strangers so you're on ovens till you learn it. Can you start tomorrow?”

Juliette looks at me. I keep my face expressionless, because this is hers to decide. But inside, I’m hoping she’s going to agree.

“Yes. I can start tomorrow.”

The bell over the door rings out as Mary from the inn comes in for her afternoon coffee, and it all goes wrong.

“Well!” Mary’s voice is delighted. “You must be the bride.”

Juliette wraps her arms around her body. I put myself between her and Mary without even thinking about it, an old positioning habit, shielding her in case of trouble.

“Ted Farley said there was a girl in a wedding gown getting in your truck when he drove past, Holt. It's the most exciting thing that's happened here since that elk got into the market. Bettina’s going to put it in the church newsletter. Was there a wedding?”

“Her car broke down on the pass,” I say. “Costume party in the valley… you know how they get down there.”

Mary's face says she doesn't believe a word of it, but she smiles politely. She sails out with her coffee, and Nora looks at me across the pastry case with her eyebrows raised.

Nora shakes her head. “Church newsletter? That's six hundred mailboxes, in case you're counting.”

People talk. That old adrenaline rises in me; I’ve got to keep her safe. Whoever bruised her wrist is going to come looking for her, sooner rather than later. And they’ll be looking for any trace of her. A newsletter will be like a flashing sign to point her out.

Juliette laughs at something Nora says, and I have to remind myself she’s not mine. I can’t keep her here if she wants to go.

We drive home with a test batch of the cinnamon rolls, at Nora’s insistence. Juliette chatters about Nora’s ovens and the pastry-to-cinnamon ratio. At the cabin she hops down before I can get her door, and stops. Her big green eyes look up at me and I have to remember to breathe for a second.

“In the market. You’d already figured me out… about the cash, the paper trail. You said that thing about professionals. What did you do, Holt? Before the mountain?"

Six waits by the porch steps, looking between us.

“Security; I was a bodyguard. I kept people safe… most of them.” I take the grocery bags inside before she can ask what happened to the rest.

Chapter Five

JULIETTE

I've never cooked dinner for a man before.

That’s not to say that I haven’t sat beside random men at expensive dinners, time after time, at tables three times the size of Holt's tiny kitchen. But this is the first time I’ve stood at an unfamiliar stove making food for a guy because I wanted to. The memory of Monique’s cozy kitchen brings with it a pang of sadness; it was the one place I felt like I belonged. Mother put a stop to that and fired Monique when she found out about the diploma.

Holt's refrigerator is like a bachelor's museum piece: eggs, bacon, a giant brick of cheddar, multiple bottles of hot sauce, and enough elk sausage to survive a siege. I raid it along with the grocery bags and build a skillet dinner. I fry up the sausage, potatoes and onions and add a pan of drop biscuits in the oven, along with some gravy.

Six supervises by lying half-in, half out of the kitchen, his nose twitching at the smells. Holt comes in from the woodshed and raises his eyebrows. I hold up his plate, the butter melting on the biscuits. It's simple food, I hope he likes it.

“You cooked?”

“I did.” I pull out my chair before he can decide whether pulling it out for me is allowed. “Sit down and eat.”

Holt eats fast, clearing his plate. Then he has three more biscuits, and I feel like I've won a prize or something. Nobody in my family has ever eaten anything I made. Mother was always watching her weight and my father thought cooking was a servant’s job. Monique used to smuggle my cakes out to the gardeners.