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On the fourth day, Nancy noticed that she was running out of supplies for her hikes and her in-room cooking. She decided it would be nice to get away from the lodge for awhile.
She left Maxine sleeping in the room while she went down to the general store to find something different to eat rather than ramen noodles, microwave pasta, and the less than four star dinners the lodge served every night.
Of course, a trip to the general store also meant another opportunity to talk with Sasha, the woman who had filled her dreams for the past three nights.
* * *
There was no one in sight when she stepped through the front doors of the store. She called out a few times, but got no answer. She noticed a handwritten note taped to the checkout counter that read, “On break. Help yourself. Leave the money on the counter.”
“How trusting,” she said to herself as she walked through the store. She assumed there wasn’t much of a shoplifting problem during stick season.
A quick check of the back room, where freshly made sandwiches were sold from behind a miniature deli counter, led Nancy to the back door, which she cautiously went through. It was getting a little creepy in there with no one around.
“Nancy!” a familiar voice rang out.
Sasha was sitting in a small scenic area right behind the general store, perched atop a natural stone wall that overlooked a babbling brook that had not been visible from the road.
She was sipping something out of a tall bottle, which she tried to hide behind her thigh as she waved.
Nancy smirked. “I’m not the health inspector. I don’t care if you’re drinking on the job.”
Sasha gave a nervous little chuckle and picked up the bottle again, admiring its label. “We get this specialty craft beer in once every two weeks. It always comes in on a Thursday, and it’s gone by Friday. The locals love it and visitors drive hours over the mountains just to get in line for some of it. I like it, too, so yesterday I hid a personal stash for myself. Want one?”
“Why not?” said Nancy, gazing up at the noon sunlight that was dappled through the leaves of the surrounding trees. “It’s five o’clock somewhere, right?”
“Atta girl,” Sasha said. She hopped down from the wall, went to a cooler that was hidden behind a small outcropping of stone, and grabbed another bottle. Cracking it open, she handed it over. “Cheers?”
“Cheers,” said Nancy.
She swigged the drink. She’d never been one to care much for craft beers, and this pale ale didn’t exactly taste like anything she would drive hours to buy every two weeks, but she put on a brave face and told a little white lie. “Delicious.”
“So what brings you back down here?” Sasha asked, perching herself on the corner of a bench that looked out over the brook. “Don’t tell me you’re leaving already.”
Nancy scooted up next to her. “I was going mad up there. There are only so many times I can chitchat with the cleaning crew or listen to the desk clerk’s same old jokes.”
Sasha snorted a laugh into her drink. “So you came down here looking for some excitement? I’m afraid there’s nobody in town. I think the owner of the bed and breakfast would probably cook for you, though. She’s bored out of her mind, too.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Nancy murmured.
Her gaze had drifted from the beauty of the nature all around her to the gorgeous skin of Sasha’s bare legs. She was wearing a pair of cute denim shorts that, while not super-short, were plenty short enough to show off the muscles and perfect curve of her calves and thighs.
Her skin wasn’t dark, but it was naturally tanned—Nancy assumed that came from working the large garden to one side of the general store.
Sasha was barefooted (something else the health inspector probably wouldn’t have appreciated) and even her feet were the perfect shape and size.
When Nancy cleared her thoughts enough to look back at Sasha’s face, the other woman was smiling coyly. “Like what you see?” she said.
“I didn’t mean to—“
“It’s okay,” said Sasha. “Stare away. I like the attention. Believe me, I get a lot of it from people who stop in on their way to someplace else, think I’m a hot backwoods country
girl, flirt a little and then move along. They like to look, but they’re too scared to touch.”
“Why would anybody be scared to touch you?” Nancy was feeling bold from the near half a bottle of the craft beer she had downed quickly in an attempt not to taste it.
Distantly, she wondered how much alcohol was in it. Weren’t pale beers supposed to be light on that? But it must have been enough to make her act a little crazy. Before she could stop herself, she reached over and slid a hand over Sasha’s thigh, moving her palm so that it rested just inside the other woman’s leg. She gave it a little squeeze. “You are so toned.”
“I do a lot of hiking,” Sasha said with a smile that told Nancy to keep doing what she was doing. She nodded own at Nancy’s hand, still on her leg. “You’ve got a lot of guts, coming on to a country girl like me.”
