Page 3 of Consumed By The Forbidden Mountain Man

"Right. I forgot. The biggest threat here is a rogue elk."

My mouth twitches. I kill it. "You need help with your bags?"

"I've got two suitcases and a box of stuff I grabbed from my apartment before the lease ended. So yes, actually, if you're offering."

I follow her to the car. She pops the trunk. Two rolling suitcases, a banker's box full of notebooks and what looks like art supplies, and a pillow with a floral pillowcase that's seen better days.

"This is everything?"

She pulls the pillow out and tucks it under her arm. "I didn't have a lot worth keeping."

Something about the way she says it makes me look at her more carefully. Under the energy and the rapid-fire commentary, there's a tightness around her eyes. Tired. She looks tired.

I grab both suitcases and the box. She follows me through the pines to her cabin. It's small but clean. One bedroom, a kitchenette, a bathroom with a shower that takes three minutes to warm up. Tony keeps it maintained because he's Tony.

I set her bags inside the bedroom door. She's already in the kitchen, opening cabinets.

"Tony stocked the fridge. There's pasta, eggs, coffee. You need anything else, general store's on Main."

"I know where the general store is." She closes a cabinet and looks at me. "I've been here before. I used to visit Tony every summer when I was a teenager."

Right. I remember now. Skinny girl with a ponytail, always reading on Tony's porch.

That girl is gone. Replaced by the woman leaning against the counter with her arms crossed and a look on her face that's half grateful, half defensive.

"Well," she says. "Thanks for the help, Reid. You can report back to Tony that I'm fed and housed and not crying into a pillow."

"Wasn't gonna report anything."

"Sure you weren't." She's smiling, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "He worries. It's his thing."

"He cares about you."

"I know." She picks at a thread on her sweater sleeve. "That's the annoying part."

I should leave. This is the point where I walk back to my cabin, crack another beer, eat leftover pasta, and forget about Tony's sister in the cabin fifty yards away.

Instead I hear myself say, "I'm grilling steaks tonight. If you're hungry."

Her head comes up. The real smile this time. Deep dimples, warm eyes, a smile that rearranges the air in a room.

"I'm starving, actually."

"Seven o'clock. My porch."

"Can I bring anything?"

"No."

"I'm bringing wine."

"I said no."

"And I said wine. See you at seven, old man."

She walks me to the door of the cabin and closes it behind me with a little wave through the window. I stand in the pines between our cabins for a full ten seconds, looking at the closed door, before I turn and walk back to my porch.

I pick up the hammer.