Page 57 of Mountain Man’s Mystic Touch

“I pay attention.”

Rocco places one of the covered cups beside my sandwich. The scent of coffee rises through the opening in the lid.

He sits across from me with a sandwich containing enough meat to feed two people. For a few minutes, we eat without speaking. The silence is comfortable now that I have chosen it rather than fallen into it.

My gaze moves around the cabin while I drink the coffee. The room reveals very little about the man occupying it. His boots are lined beside the door. A dark jacket hangs from a wooden peg. The kitchen counter holds only a coffeemaker, two clean mugs, and a bowl containing three apples.

Everything has a purpose. Nothing asks to be noticed.

A worn green duffel rests beneath the far end of the table. The letters printed along one side have faded, but I can still make out a last name.

BLACKRIDGE.

A small insignia appears beneath it.

I look at Rocco. “Were you in the Army?”

His hand stops halfway to his cup.

I point toward the duffel. “I’m not receiving secret knowledge. Your name is printed on government-issued luggage.”

His gaze follows mine. “Eight years.”

The answer explains something I have sensed since the first time he stepped into my booth. The watchfulness. The way he positions himself between people and an open path. The efficiency that turns even making tea into a task completed according to instructions.

“What did you do?”

“Military police.”

“That suits you.”

“Most people say that.”

“Do they mean it as a compliment?”

“Not always.”

I smile, but he does not. His attention drops to the cup between his hands.

“You don’t have to tell me anything else,” I say.

“I know.”

It’s quiet for a moment. I feel the questions waiting inside me, but I resist asking. Curiosity does not entitle me to the private pieces of another person.

Rocco leans back in the chair. “The Army wasn’t originally my idea.”

I remain still and listen, sensing he’s choosing to share.

“When I was seventeen and eighteen, I spent time with people who believed boredom justified almost anything. We drank. Used whatever someone brought to a party. Drove when we shouldn’t have.”

A shadow crosses his face.

“Did someone get hurt?”

“No. We were lucky. One night, we went onto a construction site after drinking,” he continues. “No plan to steal anything. We were making noise, breaking bottles, being idiots. One of the others had pills in his vehicle. Enough for possession charges to become part of the situation when the police arrived.”

“And you were arrested.”