Page 9 of Rescued By the Mountain Man Cowboy
Thank you, he mouths.
I flip him off behind my back where Anna can't see.
He grins.
The drive out to my cabin is fifteen minutes of bad gravel road through timber so thick the sun has to fight to get in. I take it slow. Anna's got one hand braced on the dash and the other twisting the strap of her purse in her lap, and every rut makes her flinch.
I turn the radio off.
She glances at me.
"You don't have to do that."
"Prefer it quiet anyway."
"Oh."
Silence.
A deer crosses the road up ahead, unhurried. I let off the gas. Anna watches it disappear into the ferns.
"How long have you lived out here?" she asks. It comes out thin. Like she's forcing herself to make words.
"Seven years."
"Alone?"
"Yep."
"That's..."
"Yep."
She almost smiles. I catch it in the corner of my eye. A twitch. Gone before it finishes.
We round the last bend.
My cabin sits in a clearing ringed by cedars. One story, cedar siding going silver with weather, a front porch with two chairs nobody ever sits in but me. A rain barrel at the corner. My truck tracks in the dirt that are the only tracks out here. Gabe wasn't kidding. You don't find this place by accident.
I park. Cut the engine.
Anna doesn't move. I get out, come around, and open her door. Offer my hand. She stares at it.
"I don't bite, ma'am."
"Anna."
"What?"
"My name is Anna. Not ma'am."
"Yes, ma'am."
She huffs. Small. Almost annoyed. I'll take annoyed. Annoyed is better than whatever she walked in with.
She takes my hand.
Her fingers are cold. Colder than they should be for the weather. I help her down, and the second her feet hit the dirt, she lets go like my skin burns her.
