Baby For The Mountain Man

by Nicole Elliot

  My stomach growled at the scents. Bacon and ham, eggs with cheese and buttered toast. I smelled jams and peanut butter, coffee was brewing and orange juice was fluttering above it all. I quickly pulled my clothes on and strode for the kitchen, gawking at the sight of the massive breakfast Travis had cooked for us.

  For me.

  “Hope you’re hungry,” he said.

  His back was bare to me, flexing with his movements at the stove as I licked my lips

  “Oh yes,” I said. “Very hungry.”

  “Then sit. I’ve got some vegetables I’m frying up to add to the eggs, then I’ll grab the pot of coffee.”

  “Want me to do anything?” I asked.

  “Yes. I want you to sit and enjoy yourself.”

  The two of us sat down at the table and began to eat. I tried to make conversation with him, but every time I took a bite of food I moaned. It cut off every sentence I tried to make as the grin on Travis’ face grew, and soon I gave up conversation altogether in favor of eating.

  “I take it everything’s good?” he asked.

  “Hell yeah, it is,” I said.

  “What’s your favorite?”

  “Those vegetables in the eggs, for sure.”

  “Next time, I’ll make us some homemade pancakes. I can do chocolate chips in them, or blueberries, or swirl it with cinnamon and top it with cinnamon roll icing.”

  “Keep talking like that and I won’t go,” I said.

  “Keep threatening that and I’ll keep talking,” he said.

  My eyes panned up towards him as I took a bite of my toast. His beautiful gaze was locked onto mine, reflecting the sunrise streaming through the cabin windows. His chest was strong and luscious. Glistening in the light of the morning sun as his forearms perched on the table. If I concentrated hard enough, I could still smell him. I could smell his skin and feel his lips against my neck. Goosebumps rose up on my arms as I remembered the swell of his chest against mine. The way his hips locked perfectly between my legs. The way his lips wrapped around my nipples and the way his beard tickled the insides of my thighs.

  I shook myself from my trance and took another bite of my eggs.

  “I need this recipe,” I said.

  “Just some vegetables sauteed with some garlic, pepper, and salt,” he said.

  “That easy, huh?” I asked.

  “There might be another ingredient, but if I told you I’d have to kill you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear you. It’s fabulous either way, so go you.”

  “Go me,” he said with a chuckle.

  We finished our breakfast and I helped him clear the table. We washed dishes side by side, him scrubbing and me drying. I wiped down the table as he put the dishes away as the looming deadline of my leaving crept up on us. Soon, there would be nothing else for either of us to do and I would have to leave his cabin.

  “You drive safe, okay? And you can come back anytime you want,” Travis said.

  “I know. I’ll be back soon. I just… have things I have to straighten out there. I can’t just abandon my family. An adult doesn’t do that.”

  “No,” he said. “No they don’t. Just keep yourself safe. Guard yourself. Don’t let yourself slip.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  I stood there on his porch, debating on what to do next. The tension was palpable between us. I could see it rising his cock. It started to press against his pajama pants, tenting them slightly as my nipples puckered. I wanted to press my hands into his bare chest and slam him to the floor. I wanted to connect my lips with his and taste the sweetness of his coffee-tainted breath.

  But I knew I had to get home. I knew I still had unfinished business.

  “Talk to you later,” I said as I turned to go.

  Travis, however, reached out for my arm and twirled me back around. Our lips collided together as he pulled me close, my hands pressing into the beauty of his skin. They snaked around his neck, my back arching my body into him as our tongues wrapped together. I shook in his arms as my knees grew weak, his body holding me up when I could no longer hold my own weight.

  The kiss left me breathlessly as he sat me back down onto my feet.

  “Drive safe,” Travis said.

  The entire ride home, I thought of him. Of that kiss. Of his body. Of the way it was so easy to talk with him. I smiled at the memories we were creating as I pulled up into my home, but the presence of my parents on the porch poured dread over my entire body. I saw my brothers standing at the window, gazing out over the spectacle with worry and anger boiling over their faces.

  Something had happened.

  Something had taken place while I was gone.

  I got out of the car while it was still running and approached my parents on the porch. My mother had her eyes pointed to her feet as my father’s eyes penetrated to my soul. I reached out for my mother, wanting to take her hand just so she would look at me.

  I’d seen this a few times before, and I knew it wasn’t going to be good. No matter what was about to happen, my mother was wracked with guilt.

  The last time I saw her like this was when my father had denied me the right to a proper education in favor of getting me to date and marry the first time.

  “Since you already have your bags packed and in your car, then this will be quick,” my father said.

  “What will be quick?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure what in the world has gotten into you, but I know someone who can sort it out. My sister does wonders for the women in our family. I’ve placed a call to her.”

  “You called Aunt Myrtle?” I asked.

  “She’s expecting you,” he said. “The family is headed back to Seattle in a few days, but you will be heading to Spokane.”

  “I’m not going to Aunt Myrtle’s,” I said.

  “Well, you’re most certainly not coming home with us. My sister will be able to figure out what in the world has gotten into my beautiful daughter, and when she corrects it she will send you home.”

  “There’s nothing to be corrected. You’re just pissed that I have my own free will and I’m finally discovering it.”

  “That is enough. I am your father and those clothes on your back are mine. I have provided you with everything. A home. A room. Food. An education. Suitable men who could’ve loved you had you given them the chance and the ability to free yourself of the working class. I gave you a life of ease and luxury, and it turned you into a petulant, selfish child.”

  “There’s no need for name calling,” my mother said.

  “You will do well to stay silent during this,” my father said. “Part of this lies on your shoulders. On how you were so hell bent on shielding her from me when I could’ve corrected this before it ever escalated to this point. You failed your daughter. I suggest you start coping with that.”

  “You don’t get to talk to her that way, she has nothing to do with this,” I said.

  “All daughters get their dispositions from their mothers,” he said.

  “No, they don’t. And you can’t force me to go anywhere,” I said.

  “I can, and I will. Aunt Myrtle put Bernard on the road an hour and a half ago. He will be here any second to follow you to their home.”

  “Uncle Bernard is going to tail me all the way to Spokane,” I said.

  “He will. Once you learn to clean up your act and become the respectful and obedient daughter I know I raised-”

  “Mother raised me. You had nothing to do with it.”

  “Then you will be permitted to come home and take your rightful place within this family.”

  I heard a car rumbling up the driveway and my stomach sank. My brothers were standing in the window, their eyes dripping with anger. I turned around and saw my uncle getting out of the car, a stern expression on his face as he walked towards us.

  “Are you ready?” my uncle asked me.

  “Yep. I was just leaving,” I said.

  I stormed off to my car as tears crested my e
yes. What the fuck was happening? How the hell had things gotten so screwed up? I slammed myself into my car and waited, watching as my father and my uncle interacted briefly. My mother’s head rose from the porch, her eyes locking with mine as a redness crossed her cheeks.

  I couldn’t blame her for what was going on. No matter how much the childish side of me wanted to. I knew I was going to face obstacles if I stood up to my father. I knew I was going to encounter terrible tasks I’d have to accomplish in order to be freed. And while the prospect of spending time with Aunt Myrtle terrified me, I knew I could do this.

  This was the escape I had been looking for, even though it was hard to see past the hell I would be in once I got to Spokane. My aunt was a stickler for tradition. So much so that she used old school techniques to get people to fall in line. Corporal punishment was something she stirred into her morning tea, but it was almost hypocritical in a way. Everyone knew that Aunt Myrtle ran her household, even though she was ‘just a wife and mother’. All of my cousins had fallen in line and led perfect lives because of how she had raised them, but I knew they were all secretly terrified of her.

  But getting out from underneath her meant I had already gotten out from underneath my parents. If my father was desperate enough to send me away to a house like hers, then it meant he had run out of options. In an odd way, I had defeated my parents. I had pushed them to their limits and this was their way of washing their hands of my future.

  Now, all I had to do was make sure Aunt Myrtle did the same.

  Twenty-Two

  Travis

  It has been six weeks since I had heard anything from Ava. Not that she could have called me-- she had no way to-- but she hadn't come over. I ventured into town more often to see if I could run into her accidentally, but she was nowhere to be found. She wasn't at the coffee shop she frequented, she wasn't at the library, and after talking with an old woman there and figuring out where she lived, I figured out she was no longer at her home.

  I wasn't sure what I was expecting and I wasn't sure what would have been easier to stomach. I didn't know if I wanted the house to be deserted or if I wanted the house to be full of life. Deserted meant that she had left me like I knew she would. Just a fling for her to get her rocks off and feel like an adult for a little bit. But deserted also meant her father had swung her back into his traps, and that worried me. But if her home was full of life, that meant she was intentionally shooting me down. She was intentionally dodging me, which only reinforced the idea of my being an escape for her.

  Either way, it was the same situation as before.

  I drove past the massive compound Ava apparently called home in Kettle as a feeling of loneliness washed over me. I found myself in the same situation I had endured years ago and I felt my chest being crushed. Her house was completely deserted, not an ounce of life in sight. The garage was empty, the yard was eerily quiet, and there wasn’t a light on in the house to denote any sign that someone was still there.

  I had been left behind by a woman who had greater intentions than me for her life. Ava had left me, deserted and alone after promising me she would come back. After telling me she would make sure to come visit me once she worked things out with her parents. Once again, a woman had promised me the world before leaving me in her dust, and it made me sick.

  The property was eerily vacant. Like no one had been there to begin with.

  I sped back to my cabin that same day and tried to erase all memories of her in my home. I washed all of my sheets, I vacuumed all the carpets, and I disinfected all of the surfaces I had taken her body against. I threw out the chair I had pulled up to her body that night when I feasted on the depths between her thighs and I bleached the shower she had cleaned herself in multiple times. I had someone come in and deep-clean all my furniture to try and rid her smell from the cabin.

  I even scrubbed my skin red for days, trying to remove the memory of her lips upon my skin.

  Nothing, however, could rid my mind of her memory when I closed my eyes.

  She was gone and there was nothing I could do about it. Just like I had stood at the altar, helpless and confused, I wandered around my cabin wallowing in my own self-pity. At least when I have been alone before, I had gotten used to it. Loneliness had become a way of life for me, and I had forced myself to make my bed in it. I had put enough time between myself and my ex-fiance for me to forget what it felt like to have someone at my side. I had nothing to compare the loneliness to, and that somehow made it easier to bear.

  But having Ava in my arms, having her in my bed, having her in this cabin... it gave me something to compare it to. Gave me a juxtaposition that brought to light how lonely I had truly become. And now, her absence hurt. I laid down in my bed at night and would roll over to see if she was there, and my soul would be broken all over again. I knew it was ridiculous. I knew I was going crazy. I hardly knew anything about this woman. In the back of my mind, I knew I had only known her a few weeks at best. Maybe even a shorter time period than that. But she had touched a part of me I had allowed myself to ignore and forget for years.

  And I didn’t know how to shut it off.

  So, I did the only thing I knew how to do. I threw myself into work. That was what I did when I was stood up at my own wedding and that was the only thing I had now. Breathline Energies was still breathing down our necks about the property we owned in Kettle, which meant I had more meetings with my lawyer to figure out what we can do. They had stopped the threats of government intervention, but they were bringing up valid points about the way we did business in the mountains. And they were points that had me worried.

  Every year, my father wrote off our property in the mountains as a business expense. He could get away with that because we purchased it for environmental purposes and sometimes had to take a chunk of money from the company just to help with the property taxes. We took out licenses for the land and were working to get it permanently protected in the State of Washington. My father was trying to get it nationally recognized as a park because the mountains held a couple of species of animals that were closely considered to being extinct.

  But, we did run a few seasonal businesses out of the mountains. Hunting and the camps, specifically.

  Breathline Energies was threatening to sue us under the assumption that we were writing this land off wrong on our taxes. Which would bring the IRS down on our back. Even if the judge sided with us, we would be so inundated with paperwork to prove ourselves to the tax department, and I could see that mound of paperwork forcing my father to sell the land just to get rid of the headache. I was beginning to get nervous and I threw all my energy into making sure Breathline Energies didn’t strongarm my father into selling our land.

  We pulled all the documents we could and did all of the research we knew we needed to. We began to build a case against Ava’s father’s company once they served us with official paperwork. They were taking us to court under the prospect of fraudulent tax write-offs, and I knew we had to prepare ourselves. And so far, our lawyer thought we had a strong case.

  Because the licenses and the camps did not provide my father's company any sort of profit, the lawyer was going to argue that they were only set up to help us pay the yearly property taxes on owning the land. During some years, we could even prove that my father had to chip in money from the company just to make the tax payments as well as to make sure the camps were kept up to legal standards set forth by the state.

  That gave us the ability to not only argue the environmental aspect of us owning the land, but it gave us an avenue to argue non-profitability.

  The lawyer believed if we played our cards right and got in front of the right judge, they would not only favor our case, but they would push through the Environmental Protections we were seeking for the land. We could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, so I set my sights on that goal. It was a lofty goal, yes, but it was a goal that helped to take my mind off Ava.

  I knew she had been too good to
be true. I knew that a woman like her, with the spunk and the fire she held in her soul, could never be confined to a lonely cabin like mine. I knew I would never be able to offer her the life she was dreaming of. The freedom and the exploration of the world she craved. She had fires that burned in her gut that had died in me long ago. I was content with staying on my mountain, only venturing into town when I had to. When it was necessary. When I had to interact with people to get food or supplies for my home.

  But a woman like Ava could never be confined to a lifestyle like this.

  No matter how hard I worked, there was always something reminding me of her. A voice that sounded like hers or someone walking around town that had her same hairstyle. Everywhere I turned, I could see her in something. I could hear her laughter echoing through the crowd of people in the grocery store. I could see her every time I picked up a bottle of dried spices. Memories of her would drown me whenever I drank a mug of coffee in the mornings, and soon I found myself not eating breakfast to rid my memory of her for just a moment.

  Just a second’s peace without being inundated with a mesmerizing woman that had never been mine.

  The case against my family’s company was mounting and tensions were rising. I was losing sleep and slipping on my duties to the company. My father and mother had to come back from Florida early to make sure the case was stable. And to make matters worse, Jasper and Leo started taking it upon themselves to check in on me. They knew something was wrong, even if I wasn’t talking, and that was never good. That meant Mom and Dad knew something was wrong, and I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.

  I wasn’t ready to admit to them that I had made the same mistake twice.

  Every once in awhile, my twin brothers would knock on my door and for a split second, my heart would slam in my chest. I would convince myself it was Ava until I opened the door, taking in the sight of my brothers standing there. Disappointment would pool in my chest as they peppered me with questions, and all it did was bring Ava back to the forefront of my mind.