I shook that feeling off like a dog coming in from the rain because I was a dog for having those kinds of thoughts.
She made a noise of surprise, her arms tightening around my neck. “What are you doing?”
“Preventing you from doing a header against river rocks.”
“I can walk.”
“The evidence suggests otherwise.”
“She started it,” she murmured, but I caught it.
“She?”
“The river. Bodies of water are usually female.”
“That explains a lot,” I grunted.
She looked up at me like I was a fascinating something she had never seen before. Like the mythical Bigfoot she had accused me of being.
“The shipwrecks. The Sirens. Hurricanes used to be named exclusively after women until men decided that was unfair. I never understood that. Did being named for destructive events make us more powerful somehow?”
She was cute. Annoyingly cute despite her penchant for talking. I did not do cute. Cute led to attachment. Attachment led to complications. Complications led to people leaving or dying or both if life wanted to get creative.
So, no. I did not do cute.
I shifted her higher against my chest as the trail steepened. I’d made Lone Mountain my home after retiring from the military on a medical discharge. I’d busted my knee during my last tour of duty and couldn’t get medical clearance to stay in because it still had the tendency to go out on me.
Race Gentry owned most of the mountain, but he sold off pieces here and there to men like me who wanted to make a home here. He was like the rest of us, ex-military and fucked up as shit.
Or he had been. He’d gotten married a few years ago. Now he tried to rescue more men. He’d sold me twenty acres that had included a run-down log cabin. I’d fixed it up but it was only big enough for one person. I looked down at the woman in my arms.
I chose this solitary life. I didn’t want to be surrounded by noise or people. Mostly people. I had enough to live on. Enough to see me through the years. As for women? I scratched the itch when it was necessary. I didn’t need to play savior to a chaotic, chattering woman who fit against my chest like she’d been measured for it.
“You’re scowling again,” she said.
“I always scowl.”
“I noticed.” She adjusted slightly in my arms, and I tightened my grip again. “Honestly, it’s impressive. Your face has committed fully to the lifestyle.”
Everything about her was dramatic. The flailing in the river. The shrieking. The way she’d yelled at the rapids like they were behaving that way just to piss her off. And God help me, I’d almost laughed when she screamed rude after smacking the rock. Almost. Then she’d disappeared under the water for three terrifying seconds.
My jaw tightened at the memory. Three seconds wasn’t long. Except it was. Long enough for every instinct in my body to go feral. Long enough for adrenaline to punch hard through my chest while I stepped into that river without a single conscious thought.
Instinct had taken over the moment I spotted her in the water. Pull her out. Get her warm. Keep her close. The instructions had been simple and absolute and I’d followed them without question. The same way I knew when a tree was about to come down the wrong way.
Those instincts had saved me more than once.
The sight of her resurfacing — sputtering, panicked, alive — had hit me somewhere low and dangerous. Which was ridiculous. I didn’t know her. Didn’t want to know her.
Women came up to Lone Mountain looking for adventure and left the second reality got uncomfortable. I preferred the mountain. The mountain didn’t make promises.
“You keep squirming like that and I’m dropping you back in.”
“You wouldn’t.” She looked absurdly confident about it. “You’re too responsible. And you secretly like me.”
Absolutely not, I wanted to say. It would have been a lie. I did like her, and I’d known her for less than half an hour.
“Besides, I’m cold.”
