At the idea of seeing Asher Briggs again, my heart ramped up. I shoved it down. This was ridiculous. I was almost thirty years old. I wasn’t some schoolgirl who had a crush on her bestfriend’s big brother. “I don’t want to take your brother away from his workday.”
Beth waved her arm. “It’s fine. It’s Ash, he won’t care.”
I raised my eyebrows at my friend. “Are you kidding me? You might not remember how much it used to annoy him when he had to drive us all over the place in the summer, but I do.” I chewed on my lower lip. “Maybe you should just call him and give him a heads-up.”
“Don’t be dumb. He’s working from home today. He knows I’m going to bug him at some point.” She grinned. “He’ll be happy I’m just stopping by for keys and not dropping off his niece and nephews like I normally do.”
I winced. “Yikes. How does that go over?”
“He grumbles like you’d expect, but then when I come to pick up the kids, they’ve turned his living room into a fort, he’s got barrettes in his hair, and the last time I went his nails were painted.” Beth smiled affectionately. “You might not have ever noticed that Ash is all bark, but my kids definitely have.”
My chest flipped again, and I placed my palm against it. “Oh, that is so sweet. I can’t imagine your brother letting them do his hair and nails.”
Beth sucked in her lips. “Crap, please don’t tell him I told you that. He likes to act all tough.”
“My lips are sealed.” I might not mention it, but that didn’t mean I’d forget.
“If we cut up the mountain there.” Beth pointed away from the gravel road and into the woods. “Ash’s place is just up there and over a bit. As the crow flies, it’s not too far.”
“Up that hill?” I pointed at the steep, tree-covered mountainside in front of us. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” There was no way I could climb that hill. “Wouldn’t it just be easier to take the car?”
“Oh, come on, where’s your sense of adventure? You used to love hiking when we were kids.” Beth linked her arm with mine and dragged me toward a faint path in the landscape. “Didn’t you say you wanted to get out in nature and spend some time exploring?”
“Well, yeah, but I didn’t mean climbing that,” I grumbled. “I was thinking more like walking down to the river and going for a swim, or seeing if I could find that little lake I remembered being up here somewhere and setting up my chair for the day. Not scaling a mountainside like a goat.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun. Besides, you’re a woman alone in the woods. You need to know how to get to your closest neighbors from all directions—that’s just good safety.”
I huffed out a breath. “Fine.”
Halfway up the hill, I seriously regretted my decision. I danced several hours a day, every day, and climbing this hill was intense. I glanced back at Beth. She looked like I felt.
She shoved her dark hair away from her flushed red face. “I don’t remember it being this steep the last time I did it.”
I snorted. Now she told me. “Well, we aren’t turning around now.” I looked up at the remaining incline and squared my shoulders. I danced on bleeding feet. I sure as heck wasn’t going to be taken out by a steep climb. “Let’s do it.”
It took another several minutes of hiking straight up, but finally we made it. The top. I sucked in a breath as I looked out across the valley. “Oh, wow,” I gasped. “This was so worth the climb.” I looked at Beth, then back out across the expansive forest below. “This is gorgeous.”
“I know, wait till you see the view from Ash’s place. It’s even better than this.”
“I don’t know how that’s possible.”
“Come on.” Beth marched across the ridgetop. In the distance, I saw a log cabin. No. Cabin was definitely not the right wordfor what that was. You could fit several cabins into that log home. The closer we got, the more in awe I was of the house. I don’t think I’d ever seen a more gorgeous log home in my entire life. Solar panels lined the roof. A beautiful wrap-around deck surrounded the home so you could take in the view from every angle.
Beth hopped up the stairs on the side of the deck, and I followed. Lush cushions covered a large sectional sofa that faced out, looking at the valley below. The same view we had while walking up.
“Wait till you see the other side,” Beth said as she rounded the house to the other side of the deck.
I stopped in my tracks as I looked down at a beautiful lake surrounded by forest. “Is that where we swam when we were kids?”
“Mmm hmm, pretty spectacular, isn’t it?”
I leaned my arms along the railing and looked out. “Amazing.”
The sound of a door sliding on its rails drew my attention. Before I could even turn, I heard a growling, deep male voice. “Ever heard of calling?”
I spun and sucked in a breath at my first sight of Ash in almost a decade. Holy cow. If I’d thought Asher Briggs had been impressive at twenty, it was nothing compared to him as a grown man. Every mountain man fantasy I’d ever had seemed to be rolled into one gorgeous package because apparently, I really liked beards. Wow!
His gaze swung to me, and a slow smile curled up the corner of his mouth. “Hey Nat, good to see you.”
