Chapter 2
Jameson
She’d caught me staring, that sweet city vixen.
I hadn’t even tried to pretend I wasn’t. I’d just let out a low laugh and shook my head as she turned back around and kept walking.
Her hips swayed with each step down the rocky trail, and I watched until she disappeared around the next bend, that wild giggle of hers still echoing in my ears.
Don’t fuck the tourists.
The rule had served me well for fifteen years. It was the foundation of everything Boone and I had built together, and I wasn’t about to throw it away just because some curvy city girl with soft pale skin had wandered into my path looking like every fantasy I’d never let myself have before.
She was on vacation and still not a hair out of place.
I bet she spent an hour getting ready this morning. Maybe two.
A woman like that, as gorgeous as she was, would be high maintenance.
Lucky for me, I was single for life.
I lifted the chainsaw and got back to work.
The fallen oak was a big one. It probably came down in last week’s storm along with half the trees in the county. I’d already limbed it, cutting away the smaller branches and tossing them to the side of the trail where they’d decompose back into the forest floor.
Now I worked on bucking the main trunk, cutting it into sections small enough for hikers to have a clear path down the trail.
The saw bit into the wood, sending up a spray of sawdust that stuck to my hair and settled in my beard. I braced my legs, keeping my weight balanced as the blade worked through the dense heartwood.
The trick was letting the saw do the work, not forcing it, just guiding it steady and true while the chain teeth chewed through fiber and grain.
It was easy to get a chainsaw blade trapped if you didn’t know what you were doing. And once the wood had a grip on it, it never wanted to let go.
But I worked with the skilled confidence of someone who’d grown up with a chainsaw in their hands. My dad had believed in treating us like small adults instead of children growing up. Which meant I knew how to do everything he knew how to do.
My mind wandered back to the curvy tourist while my hands stayed busy.
I wonder if she’s a natural redhead?
Yep, I decided as I finished the cut and repositioned for the next. Has to be.
The thought led to other thoughts, the kind I had no business entertaining about a woman I’d exchanged less than twenty words with.
Would she have freckles on her shoulders too? Across her chest? What about down her soft stomach to where those leggings hugged her hips?
My cock gave a hearty attempt to get me to go find out. But I just focused on the cut.
A woman like that wouldn’t have time for me. And even if she did, what would that accomplish?
I’d learned a long time ago that one-night stands didn’t satisfy me.
Sure, there was some pleasure involved, but it was fleeting. And inevitably, whoever I bedded would start to hope for ‘something more’.
The only ‘something more’ in my life was my business with my best friend, Boone. That kept me busy enough.
The second section fell away, and I killed the saw to roll the log off the trail.
My shoulders burned with the effort, but it was a good burn, the kind that reminded me I was alive and capable and didn’t need anything more than this.
The mountain was my life, my home, and my business.
And I was so attuned to it that I could sense the rain coming before it fell. I had another hour or so to get some cutting in.
I packed up my gear and headed for the side trail I’d marked earlier, where another downed tree was blocking the path to the old trapper’s cabin. This one was smaller, a young maple that had snapped in the wind, and it only took me twenty minutes to clear.
By the time I finished, the light had changed.
The shadows had grown long and purple, stretching across the forest floor. The wind had picked up too, carrying that particular scent of moisture and ozone that meant rain was almost here.
I’d been so lost in my work and my thoughts about a certain redhead that I’d lost track of time.
Shit.
Tucker would be locking the gate soon, but I still had time to get there if I hurried. Otherwise I’d have to hop the fence and call a buddy to come give me a ride home.
I started up the trail at a quick pace, my boots finding the familiar footholds without conscious thought.
The birds had gone silent, and the small forest critters had retreated into their dens. A storm was definitely rolling in.
Mist, which had been lightly gathering in the air, came down faster now, and the first raindrops of the night landed on me at random intervals.
That beautiful stranger was probably long gone by now. The thought hit me harder than it should.
I should have asked for her number. Or at least offered to guide her down to the spring.
The trail wasn’t dangerous, not really, but it could be a lot for someone who wasn’t used to this kind of terrain. And the way she’d been breathing when she’d stopped to talk to me, flushed and a little winded, told me she didn’t spend much time outdoors.
It was odd that she kept lingering in my thoughts.
Leah. I rolled her name around in my mind, liking the sound of it.
Women didn’t usually catch my eye these days, but there’d been something behind her pretty green eyes that had caught my attention. A depth to her that I wasn’t used to seeing.
She was a woman with her head on her shoulders. A fine woman.
Plus, it had almost felt like there’d been a spark between us. And I’d never felt anything like that before in my life. I wasn’t sure what it meant.
I wonder which hotel she’s staying at? Maybe I could just… run into her there.
And then what? I snorted. We’d live happily ever after?
That didn’t exist outside of fairy tales. My own life proved that.
I picked up my pace as regret flowed through me. But I shook that feeling off.
It had probably just been too long since I’d been laid.