BIG MOUNTAIN

by Penny Wylder

  She swallows hard. Holds my gaze steady, eyes shining a little too brightly in the lamplight. For a moment, those full, lush lips of hers part, and I think she’s about to say something. About to tell me I’m right, or that she understands now, maybe.

  Instead, she twists away from me, and gently tugs her hands from mine. “This is too much, Gil, too fast.” She crosses her arms again, retreats to a safe distance away. “I came back here to help identify the murderer. That’s all. I’m going to give the police whatever else they need—the photos they asked from me, and any more interviews they want. Then that’s it. I need to go back home.”

  “Jenna, I’m not leaving you. I’m not going to abandon you and our child.”

  “You said it yourself, Gil.” She flings an arm at the cabin around us. “There’s nothing out here but trees and potential murderers. I can’t stay here; we can’t raise a kid in this village.”

  “Whatever we decide, we do it together, Jenna. I’m going to protect you. Keep you safe.”

  She runs a hand through her hair. Her gaze drifts to the windows. They’ve gone dark, since it’s well into the evening now.

  “At least stay here tonight,” I say. “It’s not safe to be walking around this village late at night. God knows poor Bradley Myers found that out already.”

  She grimaces and shuts her eyes, pressing a hand to her temple for a moment. “I’ll stay tonight.” Then she opens her eyes again, catches my eye, and shakes her head. “That’s all, though, Gil. I’m not promising anything more. Not right now.”

  “Okay,” I say, slowly. “I can deal with that. Gives me one night to prove myself to you.”

  She lets out a huff that’s somewhere between a sigh of exasperation and a laugh of amusement. “How can you be so passionate about this? How can you be so quick to give up your whole way of life, everything you had planned for yourself?”

  “Because when life hands you a plate of gold, you don’t throw that plate back in life’s face,” I say simply. Because to me, it is that simple. I didn’t know if I wanted a wife and kids—I didn’t know if I could handle it. I’d never pictured myself staying with any one woman that long.

  Until Jenna. Until now. Until she showed up in town carrying my baby, and the whole world shifted beneath my feet. Because I suddenly realize, it doesn’t matter if I’m ready. I have to handle it. For her. For both of us. For our child.

  And because if I don’t, for the rest of my life, I’ll regret letting her walk away.

  Jenna is running that hand through her hair again, and I try not to get distracted by the way her breasts shift when she raises one arm to run her fingertips through that silky hair of hers. Hair I want to grab again, as I pull her in for another of our scorching hot kisses. “Well, I’m glad one of us is sure how to feel,” Jenna finally replies, almost laughing. “Because I sure don’t. I mean, I only just found out about this baby, and it’s so early yet, things could… I mean, who knows what will happen with the pregnancy, let alone… anything else.” She lets her hand drop with a groan. “And we barely know each other, Gil.”

  “We know we have chemistry,” I point out. “That’s a start.”

  “Chemistry can’t sustain a whole relationship,” she counters.

  “We know we both trust one another. The way you defended me to Merill at the hotel… you didn’t have to guard my back like that, Jenna. You did it because you believe me, when half the people in my own town don’t.” I move toward her again, unable to stop myself.

  She drifts toward me, too, drawn in the same way I am. We’re irresistible to each other. And I for one am sick of fighting our magnetism. I’d much rather just enjoy the fuck out of it. But, “What were you really doing that night, Gil?” she whispers, and I catch her gaze, hold it.

  “I told you, Jenna. I was looking for you. I saw you watching me earlier, when I was talking to customers. I watched you pretend to hide behind your camera, but I knew what you were doing. And I wanted you, too, from that moment on.” This time, when I raise a hand to caress her cheek, she lifts hers to tangle her fingers in mine. “And, when I saw you heading off into the forest by yourself, I’ll admit, I was worried about you. I didn’t want you to get lost or hurt. These woods can be unforgiving, even to locals like me who have grown up running around in them. You weren’t from around here; you were in even more danger.”

  “More danger than you even guessed,” Jenna murmurs, her gaze shifting for a moment, going distant. “Like that poor tourist guy.”

  “Like that.” I grimace. “Jenna, I know this is a lot to take in. And you’re right, this is all happening very fast.” I tilt forward until our foreheads touch, so I can gaze into her eyes from an inch away. “If you don’t believe I’m a good man, that’s all right. But at least give me the chance to prove it to you. Let me prove I can take care of you, that I can protect you and this baby both. Give us a chance to be a family.”

  She closes her eyes.

  My heart leaps into my throat, as I wait for an answer. I need her to agree. I need to prove myself. A chance, that’s all I need. There’s no way I’m going to fuck this up, not with a woman like her. Not with our baby on the way.

  Finally, her eyes open again, and fix on me, as gorgeous and distracting as ever. “We’ll see how it goes,” is all she says, though. Then she approaches me once more, leans up to kiss me on the lips, quick and light, not with our usual searing fire. “Just give me time, Gil,” she murmurs. “Please.”

  “Okay,” I reply. Then she brushes past me into the bathroom, and I’m left alone in the bedroom, staring at the walls, wondering where on earth I go from here.

  14

  Gil

  We don’t talk much after that. I offer to sleep on the couch tonight, but she stares at me like I’m crazy. “Don’t be ridiculous, it’s your house,” she says. “If anything, I should be the one on the sofa.”

  Now it’s my turn to stare. “Jenna, you’re pregnant. And even if you weren’t, what kind of man lets a woman sleep on the couch while he takes up the whole bed?”

  The corners of her mouth twitch. She almost smiled there, I know she did. But all she does is sigh in defeat and retreat into the bedroom. “Sleep in the bed with me, if you’re so adamant I can’t handle one night on couch cushions, then,” she calls over her shoulder.

  But after everything we talked about, I’m not ready to sleep just yet. My head is still buzzing, still wide awake, running through scenario after scenario. Ways I can prove how much I want this with her. How to show her that I’m the right man for her; that I’ll be whatever she needs me to be, both for her and for our child.

  “I’ll be in later,” I call to her. Then I push through the back door of my cabin and stride out into the yard. I cross it, into the only place where I’m always able to think straight. My workroom.

  On the bench sit the pieces of the table I was supposed to begin assembling tonight. So much for that. I stare at the wooden pieces, legs and a flat plane to make the base of the table, while I pace back and forth through the workroom.

  I know Jenna and I only just met recently. And no wonder she has reservations about pursuing something serious with me, given the impression I gave her last time. But that was before. Before I knew she was pregnant, before I knew this was a real tangible possibility.

  Hell, even I wouldn’t have guessed I’d react like this.

  I sit down at my workbench and stare around the shed. For years now, this has been my whole life. Building furniture, making things for the locals and the out-of-towners who order from me online or at the festival each year. And I’ve been happy with that. It’s not like I was sitting around here feeling like my life was empty and meaningless. I loved it.

  But until Jenna came along and struck me with this lightning bolt, I didn’t realize that I’m ready for a change. I’m ready for the next phase of life. I’m ready to build more than just tables and chairs and furniture.

  I’m ready to build a family.

  W
ithout Jenna, without this happy accident, I don’t know if I ever would have realized that. I would have continued plugging along here, in the same old life I’d always lived, happily ignorant of how much I was missing, how much more there could be to life than just work, and hiking, and weekend drinks with the guys at the local watering hole downtown, or pulling cute girls who are up in the village for a weekend retreat.

  Without Jenna, that would’ve been my whole future. The rest of my days.

  Now… Now, there’s so much more ahead of me. A baby to care for, a woman to call my own, to build a life around. Fuck. How the hell did a guy like me get so damn lucky?

  The only thing I need to do is find some way to prove to Jenna that I’m serious about this. To show her, instead of just telling her, how much I care.

  I continue staring around my work shed like an idiot for at least another half an hour before it hits me. Inspiration. How did I not think of this sooner? I look around again, with new eyes, at all the wood I have stacked around, the supplies I’d stocked up on in preparation to get started on this commissioned table.

  And as I study all the pieces, an idea begins to form…

  15

  Jenna

  Gil and I spend the next couple of days together. We hit a strange balance—whenever we’re in bed with one another, it’s fucking fire. Or, honestly, whenever we’re fucking anywhere, since we’ve by now made sure to desecrate his living room (when he fucked me on the couch one evening, as we sat watching old movies and getting more and more handsy like a couple of horny teenagers, before we couldn’t fucking take it anymore); the kitchen (when he bent me over the table one morning as I cooked him the usual eggs and bacon while wearing a cooking apron and nothing else); the shower (just about every night, we get dirtier than we do clean); even the little closet off his main entryway, because he got creative one afternoon and slung a tie around the coat rack to tie my hands up before he went down on me.

  The man loves eating pussy almost as much as I love sucking dick. It’s a match made in sexual chemistry heaven.

  But in between the sex, that’s when things get awkward. Because he keeps talking about a future, keeps telling me how much he wants me in his life, and I keep holding my breath, wondering when the other shoe will drop. When he’ll change his mind and realize he was right earlier, that a kid is too much of a burden and he doesn’t really want this family life.

  It just seems too fucking good to be true that he could be this sure, this into me, this excited about the idea of raising a baby together, given the way he talked when we first met. And given how long the odds are on finding a guy who’d be gung-ho about having a baby he conceived with a one-night stand in the first place, too, I guess.

  I also have other things on my mind, to be fair. Between the murder investigation and my boss taking his sweet time to send me back all the original photo files I gave him when I first handed in my assignment, I’ve had my hands full. After I got those, I had to flip through every single picture (some 1,500+ images) and weed out any that were grainy or just too crappy to see anything going on. I pulled out the ones I took in the woods that night and tried my best to enhance them, but in the end I just decide to turn them over to the detective in the best format I could work them into.

  Maybe she’s right, maybe some of her forensic imaging partners can help enhance the image better than I can.

  I’m back at my hotel when I finally decide I have the pictures in the best shape I’ll be able to whip them into myself. I call the station and ask for Stacey. The front desk guy, that creepy cop who Gil told off last time, tells me Stacey’s out, but she’ll be back soon if I want to bring the files by for her.

  He also makes sure to tell me what a sexy sounding voice I have, at which point I hang up on him, scowling. What a creep.

  Still, Stacey needs those files as soon as I can get them to her. So I get ready, making sure to take my sweet time. I figure if I stall long enough, it’ll give Stacey time to return, so I can hand this package to her and not Mr. Creepy.

  I make sure, while I’m getting ready, to dress in my least appealing outfit, to fend off any more unwanted advances from this guy, and prepare to head down to the station. By that point, it’s been a couple hours since I spoke to Creepy, so I figure Stacey must be back from lunch or wherever it was she was off to.

  But in the elevator on the way down, my stomach lurches. I wind up having to bolt for the public toilet on the ground floor the second the doors ping open, which is embarrassing as hell. As I lie there, wrapped around the toilet, I touch my belly, and remember all over again the night this happened. The look of ecstasy on Gil’s face as he came inside me. The way he made me feel—like there was nobody else in the world, like I was the best sex he’d ever had.

  I felt the same way about him. Could this really work? Could we give this baby a real family, a life with us?

  Could we build a life, the two of us? My stomach tingles thinking about it. My heart screams yes. My head, on the other hand, urges me to be cautious. I’ve gotten my heart bruised before, and that was with guys I didn’t feel half this many confusing, conflicted, crazy emotions about. How much worse would it be if Gil decided he didn’t want me?

  I finish cleaning myself up and head into the hotel lobby. “You okay?” calls a familiar voice.

  I look up to find the hotel receptionist, Merill, I think Gil called him, watching me with concern written all over his features. “Fine,” I answer, forcing a smile. “Just a little nauseous.”

  “If you ever need anything, just let us know,” he tells me, looking worried.

  “Don’t worry, I will,” I promise, as I start to head out of the lobby.

  “Should you be walking around?” he asks, then, with a glance toward my belly. “I mean, in your state…”

  My cheeks go red. How fast do rumors spread in this damn town? “I’m fine,” I repeat, a little more forcefully this time. “I’m just running some files over to the station. Detective Hartman is waiting for me.”

  His frown deepens. “Are you sure about that?”

  I blink. “She’s anxious to get her hands on these, I know that.” I glance down at my purse, and the memory drives inside it.

  “The station’s shut right now,” Merill says. “There’s a fire that started about an hour ago, out in the forest near where the bonfire event was. The whole force is out there trying to contain it.” He gestures to something on his desk—a radio, I realize, which is just now crackling with the sounds of a local news station. “They just put out a BOLO asking for anyone with information on who started the fire to call in. But you won’t find the detective or the cops at the station; it’ll just be someone manning the house—what are you doing?” He shouts the last after me, because the moment he said fire, my heart sank.

  And the more details he kept giving, the more the panic started to claw through my veins.

  Gil.

  His house is out there. Right on the edge of the forest. Near the spot where Merill says this fire started. All I can think about is his wooden cabin, the wooden shed out back, all the firewood he has stacked everywhere inside. The whole place is a tinderbox waiting to go up.

  I have to find him. I have to make sure he’s okay.

  That’s the only thought in my mind as I race out of the hotel. Outside, I can see billowing black clouds of smoke on the horizon. It’s easy to figure out which direction to run—the same direction everyone is staring in. It’s like the whole town is out here, for the dark flip-side version of their festival. This time they’ve come to watch the forest they enjoyed so much just a few weeks ago burn.

  I slip between gaping older ladies, past a gaggle of men cursing at the flames, and toward the younger crowd, who seem to be trying their best to help. I spy a few people running bucket-passing chains—one person working a pump at the back of a house near the edge of the forest, filling bucket after bucket, while others run them into the forest, and still more people jog back to return them.r />
  In the distance, I catch the sound of sirens wailing, and see flashes through the trees of fire trucks with their lights blazing, hoses on full.

  How did I not hear any of this back in my room? I was way too distracted, caught up in my own problems, my own thoughts.

  A deafening whir sounds overhead, and I stare upward, mouth open in shock, as a helicopter swoops past toward the flames. A moment later, its water canons turn on, dousing the trees.

  I’m still staring at it, panic filling my belly, wondering how on earth I’m going to find Gil through all this mess, when a hand touches my shoulder.

  “Jenna.”

  Then he’s there, beside me, and I reach for him, unable to explain, not understanding the fear or relief that choke up my throat now, as he wraps his warm, strong arms around me and holds me safe.

  16

  Gil

  “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Jenna.” I tilt her head up and smile down at her in reassurance. Then I dip to kiss the tears streaming down her face, wiping the rest away with my thumb. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “What happened?” Her voice shoots up an octave. She gestures over her shoulder wildly. “There’s a huge freaking fire in the woods, right by your house, and you ask what happened? I thought…” She hiccups, then swallows hard, and takes a deep breath, clearly trying to calm herself.