Page 3 of Defiant Mountain Man

Three days, minimum, before the roads clear enough to get anyone down safely. Longer if the snow doesn't let up.

"Storm's not moving through tonight," I say, mostly to myself. "Or tomorrow. National Weather Service is calling it a once-in-a-decade system. Roads are already closed further down the mountain."

Her face goes a shade paler.

"How long?"

"Three days if we're lucky. Longer if we're not."

I watch her jaw tighten as she runs the numbers on her supply of insulin against a storm with no guaranteed end date. The way she doesn't fall apart, just squares her shoulders and starts working the problem instead, digs into me.

I don't do this. I don't let people into my space, don't let them see the parts of my life I've spent two years carefully kept mine. I've got exactly one relationship with anybody on this mountain that doesn't involve me being polite for thirty seconds and then leaving, and that's with Betty and her sister, Barb, and even that comes with limits.

But I'm not sending a woman with a limited insulin supply out into a blizzard because I don't like surprises.

"You're not going anywhere tonight," I say.

"I wasn't planning on it."

"You're staying here until that storm breaks."

She looks around at my space, quiet and orderly and exactly the way I like it, and then back at me, something mischievous in her gaze that I don't trust for a second.

"Just so we're clear," she says, "I'm not thrilled about this either."

She sticks her hand out anyway, like this is a business transaction instead of a hostage situation neither of us signed up for.

"Kori."

I look at her hand for a second too long before I take it, and the second our palms touch something settles low and unwelcome in my chest, a warning I steadfastly dismiss.

"Randall."

"Well, Randall." She pulls her hand back first, already turning to survey my kitchen like she's taking inventory. "Looks like we're stuck with each other."

I already know I'm in trouble.

Kori

I've been in this cabin one full day, and I already know exactly how long it takes Randall Anderson to make me forget my own name. About four seconds, give or take, roughly the time it took this morning when he came in from the woodshed, snow dusting his shoulders, forearms flexed under rolled up sleeves like he'd forgotten it was below freezing outside.

I stopped talking mid-sentence.

Something about the pharmacy in Bramble, completely gone from my head the second a drop of melted snow slid down the side of his throat and disappeared under his collar.

I shouldn't be doing this. I should be finishing my screenplay, rationing my insulin like a responsible adult, and counting down the days until this storm clears so I never have to look at those forearms again.

Instead, I'm standing at the kitchen window with a mug gone cold in my hands, watching him split wood in the yard, and my entire body's decided this is the most interesting thing it's ever seen. Every swing of the axe pulls his shirt tight across his back. There's a rhythm to it, lift, swing, crack, reset, and I have zero business finding it as attractive as I do. His jaw's set with the kind of focus most men only bring to things they actually care about, and I catch myself wondering, stupidly, what that focus would feel like turned on me instead of a piece of firewood.

He’s entirely too grumpy but his sour personality doesn’t hinder my physical attraction in the slightest.

Damn the man.

His dark eyes dart up and he catches me staring through the window.

I don't look away fast enough.

By the time he stomps the snow off his boots and comes inside, I've already busied myself with the coffee pot like I wasn't just openly ogling him through glass.