Chapter Five
Brynn
By the third full day of my unplanned captivity, the cabin walls had begun to shrink. Not physically, of course, but that peculiar psychological phenomenon where familiarity breeds either comfort or claustrophobia—in my case, a disorienting mixture of both. Mother Nature continued her relentless assault on the mountains, and rain drummed against the roof in an irregular cadence that somehow heightened rather than dulled my awareness of Mack's presence.
He moved through the cabin with purpose, a man accustomed to solitude and its rhythms. Each morning, he rose before dawn, disappearing outside despite the downpour to tend to whatever chores demanded attention. Each evening, he returned mud-splattered but accomplished, radiating that peculiar satisfaction unique to those who measure their worth through hard labor.
Between these bookends of his day, we navigated an awkward dance of shared space and guarded privacy. Carefully timed bathroom usage. Polite negotiation of kitchen access. Brief, stilted conversations that revealed nothing while somehow acknowledging everything—namely, that we were strangers forced into uncomfortably intimate quarters.
Yet beneath this choreographed distance, questions multiplied in my mind. The medals. The scars. The nightly pacing I pretended not to hear through the thin cabin walls.
So when he returned that afternoon, shaking water from his jacket like some great wolf, I decided to risk a more direct approach.
"You were in the Marines," I said, not a question but a statement of observed fact as I stirred a pot of pasta, testing the tenderness of the noodles. Not quite ready.
Mack paused in the act of removing his boots, his shoulders stiffening beneath his sodden flannel. "Yes."
One syllable, delivered with all the warmth of a stone dropped in snow. Most people would recognize the conversational dead end and retreat. But I'd spent years creating characters who pushed through barriers and took risks in hopes of creating connection. Perhaps it was time I followed their example.
"How long did you serve?" I ventured, keeping my tone light, conversational.
"Eight years." His boots now removed, he straightened, regarding me with wary eyes. "Three tours."
Progress, however minimal. I nodded, acknowledging this crumb of personal history without demanding more. "My cousin joined the Army after high school. Said it changed him. Gave him purpose."
Something flickered across Mack's face. "It does that."
"What do you do now?" The question slipped out before I could consider its potential invasiveness. "I mean, professionally."
His expression shuttered immediately. "Odd jobs. Whatever's needed around Ashwood."
The clipped response suggested I'd overstepped, yet curiosity propelled me forward. My gaze drifted, seemingly involuntarily, to the scarring visible at his neck. "The fire... was it during your service?"
Silence stretched between us, brittle and sharp-edged. Just when I'd convinced myself he wouldn't answer, he gave a curt nod. "IED. Last tour."
An improvised explosive device. Three letters that explained so much—the physical scars, certainly, but perhaps also the invisible ones I glimpsed in his wariness and his restless nights. Did he have nightmares? Was that why he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—sleep?
"I'm sorry," I offered, the words inadequate but sincere.
"Don't be." His voice remained neutral, neither accepting nor rejecting my sympathy. "It was a long time ago."
Three years, according to the medals I'd examined. Not so very long at all in my opinion.
He moved to the kitchen window, gazing out at the drenched landscape, effectively ending that avenue of conversation. But he hadn't withdrawn completely, hadn't gone off to another room or shut down behind a wall of silence. Perhaps that constituted its own form of progress.
"You're not married," I continued, changing tactics. It wasn't really a question—the cabin's stark bachelor simplicity had already provided the answer.
Mack turned, one eyebrow raised in what might have been amusement. "What do you think?"
"Well, no women's clothes in the closet. No photographs. No second toothbrush." I shrugged, stirring the spaghetti noodles again to give my hands something to do. "Unless you're extremely tidy after a breakup."
The ghost of a smile touched the corner of his mouth, so quickly I might have imagined it. "No wife. No girlfriend. No prospects."
"Children?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.
He shook his head once, definitively.
"What about you?" The question caught me off guard, though I should have anticipated it. Conversation, after all, was meant to be reciprocal. "Husband and rugrats waiting back home in Manhattan?"
I laughed, the sound erupting with unexpected force. "God, no. Not even close."
"Boyfriend?"
"Nope." Turning off the stove, I grabbed a couple of rags to use as potholders and lifted the pot from the burner to the strainer I’d strategically placed in the sink. I tipped the boiling pasta into it carefully and watched the liquid drain, avoiding his gaze. "My romantic life could charitably be described as 'non-existent.' At the rate I'm going, I'll be lucky to have kids before I qualify for the senior discount at movie theaters."
"Chosen solitude or circumstance?" His question surprised me with its perception.
I considered deflecting with humor, my usual defense, but something about the moment—perhaps his earlier candor, however minimal—encouraged honesty.
"Both, I guess." I lifted the strainer to dump the steaming pasta back into the pot, buying time to organize my thoughts. "My career keeps me busy. But also, I'm not exactly adept at dating, and the Manhattan scene just seems so intimidating. Hence, I end up avoiding it."
The admission hovered between us, more revealing than I'd intended. I darted a glance at Mack, expecting judgment or perhaps uncomfortable dismissal. Instead, I found him nodding, a look of understanding in his stormy eyes.
"I can relate to being a loner," he said, passing me the jar of marinara with a casualness that belied the significance of our exchange. "Though unlike you, I prefer it that way. No need for complications."
"By complications, you mean love?" The word emerged before I could stop myself.
"Among other things." He shrugged, the movement highlighting the breadth of his shoulders beneath his still-damp shirt. "I'm self-sufficient. Always have been."
"Even before..." I gestured vaguely toward his scars, immediately wondering if I’d gone too far.
Surprisingly, he didn't retreat. "Different reasons then. The military doesn't exactly encourage long-term attachments when you're deploying every eighteen months."
I stirred the red sauce into the pasta, added chunks of cooked chicken breast, chopped tomatoes, green pepper and onion. Finally, I sprinkled dashes of Italian spices into the mix, drizzled olive oil over the top and ladled heaping portions into the bowls he'd set out, contemplating his response. "There's something refreshing about your self-reliance," I admitted, sliding a bowl toward him. "No codependency issues for you."
"Codependency requires someone to depend on in the first place." His voice carried no self-pity, merely pragmatism.
"Still, don't you ever long for more?" I was definitely pushing his boundaries now. "Connection? Companionship? Someone to share all this with?" I gestured toward the cabin, the mountains visible through rain-streaked windows.
His expression hardened, jaw tightening beneath stubble that had grown more pronounced during our days of isolation. Part of me wanted to touch it, to feel the rough texture beneath my fingertips.
"Longing for what you can't hope to have is wasted energy,” he said stoically.
"Can't have, or won't allow yourself to have?"
"Is there a difference?" He held my gaze, challenge evident in the set of his shoulders.
"I think everyone deserves love," I said, abandoning pretense entirely. "I believe in it, even if I haven't experienced it fully myself. Yet."
"That's a luxury belief." Mack took his bowl to the table, effectively distancing himself from the conversation's increasing intimacy. "Safe to maintain when you haven't seen how quickly it can all be taken away."
"Or perhaps hope is most necessary precisely when you've lost everything." I joined him at the table, braver now that we'd ventured into uncharted terrain. "Isn't that when it matters most?"
He didn't answer immediately, spearing a hunk of chicken with his fork instead. When he finally lifted his gaze to mine, something had shifted in those dark eyes—not softening, exactly, but perhaps a offering a window.
"You see the world differently than most people."
"I try to see possibilities rather than limitations," I corrected.
"And what possibilities are you seeing up here on this mountain?" His question carried undertones I couldn't quite decipher—curiosity, perhaps, or skepticism.
Our eyes locked across the weathered table, and for a breathless moment, the cabin seemed to contract around us. The steady drumming of rain faded. The lingering scent of woodsmoke intensified. Heat bloomed in my chest, spreading outward until my fingertips tingled with awareness.
"More than I expected to find," I admitted, my voice barely audible over my thundering pulse.
Something elemental flashed in his eyes—hunger, recognition, connection—before he deliberately looked away, breaking whatever had momentarily formed between us.
We finished the meal in silence, though not the comfortable quiet of the previous evening. This silence vibrated with what was left unsaid. His hand, when it accidentally brushed mine as we cleared the dishes, sent electricity racing up my arm, and the sharp intake of his breath suggested he'd felt it too.
That night, after retreating to the bedroom with mumbled goodnights, I retrieved my notebook from its hiding place beneath the mattress. The pages beckoned, demanding honesty I'd previously withheld from myself if not from them.
Magnetism doesn't require perfection , I wrote, my script more jagged than usual. It demands authenticity. He carries his damage without apology, wears his routine like armor, yet beneath lies a deep well of tenderness I glimpsed when he thought I wasn't looking. The gentleness with which he treats his dog. The careful way he stacked firewood precisely to my height when he noticed me struggling. The coffee already brewed each morning before I wake.
I paused, pen hovering above the page, then continued with reckless honesty:
I've written passionate encounters between countless fictional couples, invented chemical attraction potent enough to convince readers that two strangers could risk everything for one night of passion. But I never understood until now the visceral reality—how proximity creates its own gravity, how awareness of another's body can dominate every conscious thought. How his scarred hands might feel against my skin. How the control he maintains so rigidly might finally, gloriously shatter.
Heat flushed through me, embarrassment mingled with a deeper, more primal response. I'd come to Montana seeking authenticity to infuse my writing. Instead, I'd stumbled into feelings I had no framework to process—desire without narrative structure, attraction without convenient plot resolution.
What would Mack think if he read these pages? If he discovered how I was observing him and taking notes in my journal to use as inspiration for my next brooding hero? Worse still, what would he think if he knew that beyond professional curiosity lay something far more personal—that I, Brynn Ashcroft, bestselling author of scorching romance novels, had never actually experienced the physical intimacy I described in such technical detail?
The irony wasn’t lost on me. Six bestsellers built on research rather than experience. My devoted readers had no idea their favorite steamy scenes came from a woman who'd barely been kissed, let alone lived the encounters that paid for my Manhattan apartment. Now my latest manuscript languished, lacking the spark my publisher demanded. I could still hear Jillian's disappointed tone as she'd slid the pages back across her desk: "Where's that authentic understanding of physical desire your readers expect?" How could I explain that my well of artificial inspiration had run dry?
I closed the notebook with a snap and shoved it under the mattress, flicking off the bedside lamp with more force than necessary. The darkness invited dangerous thoughts as I settled against the pillow that carried traces of Mack's scent. My imagination, always too vivid for my own good, began to paint scenarios in my mind’s eye. Mack, not on the couch but here with me in his bed, the mattress dipping beneath our combined weight. Those strong hands, tracing paths along my skin. The scrape of stubble against my neck, my collarbone, lower still.
Would he be tender, sensing my inexperience? Or would passion override caution, desire eclipsing reason?
More importantly, how would he react to the knowledge that his reluctant houseguest was not only documenting his existence for literary gain but also harboring the secret of imagining him taking her own virginity?
The thought chilled my overheated skin. He'd feel doubly betrayed—by my professional deception and by my personal inadequacy. The wounded warrior and the fraud who exploited him for creative material she wasn't even qualified to write.
I turned onto my side, pulling his pillow against my chest as substitute comfort. Tomorrow, I resolved, I would focus on maintaining appropriate distance. Professional objectivity. Emotional boundaries. I couldn’t let my fantasies run away with me.
But as sleep finally claimed me, my treacherous mind conjured one final image: Mack nestling between my legs, hands cradling my face, his lips a breath away from mine.
And in that dream-state between consciousness and slumber, one undeniable truth crystallized—whatever inspiration I'd sought in Montana's wilderness, I'd found something far more dangerous in its keeper.