Chapter 3
3
EVE
M y friends weren’t responding to my texts. That was no surprise. They were probably three sheets to the wind by now. They might have even met guys.
I sent a group text letting them know I wouldn’t be back to the room that night. Then I climbed into Hayden’s truck and waited in his driveway while he went inside and got his tent.
Was I really doing this? Was I really agreeing to spend the night in the woods with a total stranger?
But Hayden wasn’t a total stranger. We’d spent more than an hour getting to know each other at the lodge bar. Yeah, an hour wasn’t long, but instinct told me this guy was a good one. Not only was he former military, but he had the kindest eyes I’d ever seen. When he looked at me, I felt like the most beautiful woman on Earth.
But more importantly, he was appealing to my sense of adventure. For a long time, I’d been stuck in a rut. Yes, I’d just graduated college, but living in our busy suburban town, I was starting to see my future, and it wasn’t one I really wanted.
My friends would each marry tech bros and live a life of being called “babe” in a clipped tone in between important meetings and phone calls. That would leave them to bear the brunt of raising the kids and keeping the household going while also working. No, this life with fresh air and a man who knew how to start a campfire—I was starting to think it was what I’d never realized I’d always wanted.
My heart sped up as Hayden approached, arms loaded with stuff. I’d offered to go in with him, but he politely insisted I stay there. It made me wonder if his house wasn’t really guest-ready.
I tried to calm myself as he loaded up the back of the SUV. It was him. He did it to me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get on that airplane Monday and let it separate us by thousands of miles.
“Ready?” he asked as he climbed in, buckling his seatbelt.
I took a deep breath and nodded. Maybe he’d mistake my nervousness for excitement over camping out, not him.
“You’ll keep me safe from bears?” I asked.
He shifted into reverse and smiled. “I’ll do my best. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve spent a lot of time in these here mountains, and I’ve not once seen a bear.”
“But what if you do? Do you carry pepper spray?”
He tossed a look over at me before shifting into drive to start toward the main road.
“Pepper spray wouldn’t do much. I don’t even know if a taser gun would stop?—”
He broke off mid-sentence, probably realizing his words weren’t making me less afraid of bears. I didn’t even realize I was gripping my thighs until his right hand settled on top of my left hand.
“Sorry,” he said. “We’ll be safe in our tents. Unless we leave trash out or something, they won’t come near us.”
I couldn’t process his words—not with his hand on top of mine. Every cell in my being was focused on that and only that.
“Wait,” I said, frowning. “You said tents, plural. We’re staying in separate tents?”
“I figured that’s how you’d want it. I have my big tent and a few older ones that I’ve used since moving here. I picked out the best of those few. It’s rainproof, so I don’t know if that matters.”
I didn’t want to stay in a separate tent, although I definitely should. I bit my lip, trying to figure out a way to say that. Yes, I’d just met this man, so it was understandable I might want some privacy, but the idea of sleeping alone in a tent while no-telling-what lurked outside—bears, rabid raccoons, serial killers—terrified me.
Maybe I wasn’t as adventurous as I’d thought.
“You can sleep in my tent, of course,” he said. “I brought a couple of sleeping bags. It’s big enough that you’d have your own space. I could even erect some kind of partition.”
Erect. That word stuck in my head. It made me think of other things. Things I didn’t normally think about.
“Let’s do that,” I said, shoving thoughts of erections to the back of my mind.
He flipped on his turn signal and glanced in his rearview mirror before turning onto a narrow road. Trees created a tunnel over us, giving the drive an even spookier feel.
After a quarter mile or so, the road dumped out into the most beautiful patch of dirt I’d ever seen. It overlooked a vast expanse of land and was lit only by stars and moonlight.
He parked on the dirt patch, which was where I figured the camping happened. But over to the left of it was grass, and that was where he began erecting the tent.
Erecting the tent. I repeated the word silently to myself while I helped him unload. He tapped stakes into the ground just a few feet away. Yes, this was definitely the kind of guy who could start a campfire. We wouldn’t need one tonight—it was hot as hell— but we could come back and camp in the fall. And when we had kids…
That thought brought my footsteps to a halt. Was I actually thinking that? That was probably the definition of na?veté. Did I think that just because this guy wanted to camp with me, he was my happily ever after? Ridiculous.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I realized then that he’d stood, the tent fully in place. I’d been so caught up in my thoughts as I shuffled back and forth, unloading things, that I hadn’t noticed how much progress he was making.
“Fine,” I said. “Got distracted by the view.”
I gestured toward the area in front of me, hoping he didn’t notice I wasn’t even looking in that direction. My attention had been on the SUV and him and nothing else. Right now, though, I was avoiding dropping my gaze to his lower body. The word “erection” just would not leave my mind.
“I’ll load all this stuff into the tent and then we can sit and enjoy that view,” he said.
We worked side by side, moving items into the tent. That meant brushing up against each other more than a couple of times. In every single instance, I felt a little lightheaded. Was that the definition of getting swoony over a guy? I’d read about it. But I’d never had it actually happen to me.
Finally, he picked up the last bag—a small soft-sided cooler—and carried it over to a patch of grass close to the edge of the mountain. I followed, not sure exactly what to do. I was so self-conscious around him.
I cared what he thought. I wanted him to like me as much as I liked him. It definitely wasn’t the first time I’d felt that way around a guy, but it was the first time that feeling had been so intense.
“I just grabbed a few drinks from my fridge,” he said. “And I had this cooler handy.”
I sat down on the other side of the cooler and took the bottled water he was holding out to me. Our fingers brushed in the transfer and my heart leapt into double time again.
“The only other thing I had was beer,” he said. “I brought extra if you want one of those. Maybe we should have stopped by the grocery store.”
I shook my head. “This is perfect.”
He opened a beer while I screwed off the cap on the water bottle and took a generous drink. I hadn’t even realized I was thirsty until now.
“This is what it’s all about,” he said. “I can’t imagine being cooped up in an office all day. I get to work outside. Breathe fresh air three hundred sixty-five days a year.”
“The cold days would be the toughest.”
“It’s not as bad as you think. I guess we work so hard, it keeps us warm. But… yeah, if weather conditions get really rough, we?—”
“Get the week off, paid?”
He laughed. “No, but the pay is good enough that it makes up for it.”
“If I worked from home, I wouldn’t have to be trapped in an office. I could bring my laptop here.”
“You’d need internet.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and looked at the screen. Sure enough, there was only one bar. Cell service would be too spotty to even use a hotspot.
I sighed and set the phone on the ground next to me. “Well, I guess I’d just have to have a really nice outdoor area wherever I lived so I could work on the back patio or something.”
“So, you’re thinking about it?”
His question pulled me back to the conversation. I’d been daydreaming for a second there about a nice little patio with a view of the mountains. I’d plant colorful flowers in the yard to make the view even better.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Living somewhere like this.”
Somewhere like this. I was specifically thinking about living in this very town.
“I grew up in San Francisco,” I said. “I never imagined living anywhere else. It’s a beautiful city with access to everything, and as far as cities go, it’s not bad. There are plenty of outdoor activities, but it’s nothing like this.” I gestured to indicate the view in front of us.
“Home is where the heart is. I guess that’s a cliché.”
“It’s true, though. It doesn’t really matter what town or state you live in. It’s all about the home you make for yourself. We’re straight out of a greeting card, aren’t we?”
He didn’t say anything. The silence stretched out between us, and I was surprised to find I actually enjoyed it. I’d been nervous about impressing him before, but somehow, in the past few minutes, I’d become more comfortable with him.
“What about your friends?” he asked. “You think they’ll all stay in San Francisco?”
My friends? I hadn’t even thought about them since I texted them. They apparently hadn’t thought about me either, going by the total lack of vibrations indicating incoming texts.
“I know it sounds weird, but I think I’ve outgrown them,” I said, speaking as much to myself as to him.
“Why is that weird?”
“I just graduated college. I can’t possibly have outgrown them already. But something’s shifted.”
The shift had happened today. Actually, maybe it happened last night, at the ski lodge restaurant, when they’d displayed a level of immaturity I hadn’t noticed before. That had probably flown by just fine in college, but we were adults now. It was time to act like it.
“I’d just have to find someone to pick up my part of the lease,” I said. “But I could pack up and be moved here in less than a month.”
I was saying all that mostly for my own benefit. I could do it. It would be my biggest adventure of all. I’d just need to find some kind of decent-paying hourly job until I could find a position in my degree—business administration—that I could do remotely.
“That’s kind of what I did,” he said. “I made the decision at the last minute. I was all mapped out to go home immediately after discharge. The more I thought of it, the more this just made sense.”
“Where’s home?”
“Nashville. It’s great, but it’s changed a lot since I left. It doesn’t really have the small-town feel I got used to on the military base. I like the fact that someday I’ll know everyone around here by name.”
“What does your family think of you moving here?” I asked.
I was thinking of my own parents, who wouldn’t like it at all. I only saw them once a month or so, but if I told them I’d suddenly decided to move to a mountain town in North Carolina, they’d think I’d lost my mind.
“It’s just my mom now,” he said. “And she got used to me not being around. I have a feeling the guys around here are going to become my family, though. That’s just how it is here in Seduction Summit.”
I liked the sound of that. I was an only child, so I never had siblings. My college friends had become my family. We were there for each other through all the college stuff.
But things had changed since graduation. We were all starting to go our separate ways. Amber and Sammie were still in school, and Catherine had landed an internship in Silicon Valley that had her super busy. She’d tried to get me on, but she was making less than I was making as a barista, and since my parents didn’t have the money to bankroll my lifestyle, I had to stick with what I already had until I could find something better.
“It just sucks, that’s all,” he said.
Once again, I’d gotten distracted by my own thoughts. “What sucks?”
He paused, seeming to weigh his words before he finally spoke. “I finally meet the woman of my dreams, and she lives all the way on the other side of the country.”
I opened my mouth to blurt out the first question that came to my mind. Who? He couldn’t possibly be talking about me. But no, he was obviously talking about me. I lived on the other side of the country, and he’d just met me. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to piece it together.
“I’m the woman of your dreams?” I asked, interrupting my own thoughts.
“I couldn’t have even dreamed someone as perfect as you. You’re beautiful. Smart. And you know what you want out of life.”
I almost laughed out loud at that. I thought I knew what I wanted out of life but today had changed all of that.
“You’re the man of my dreams too. Hot as hell. Smart. Interesting. And you live in the most beautiful town I’ve ever seen.”
He was looking at me by the time I reached the end of that. I felt the weight of his stare actually warm me from head to toe.
“So, what are we going to do about it?” he asked.
In the silence that followed, I knew one thing for sure. We were definitely going to do something about it. Maybe not tonight, but soon. I couldn’t leave this town until I figured out if this was where I was supposed to be.