I almost gave “cleanup on aisle nine” a whole new meaning. I was so horny for her I thought I was going to have to take my dick out right then and there and release the pressure that was practically preventing me from walking. I sure couldn’t focus. I don’t even know what I bought this week. Doesn’t matter. I’ll eat in as quickly as I can so I can get back down there next week and see her again.
But next week it’s going to be even harder. I’m already imagining grabbing her and doing her hard right there against the aisles. Her skin is so soft and she looks so young, but it just turns me on even more.
I never had a thing for younger girls, but then again she’s not just a younger girl. She’s wise beyond her age. I can see it.
But what I never see is other people in that shop. Does she work there alone? Is it run by her family?
How hot would it be if I took her right there on the counter while her dad was in the back doing the family business’ paperwork? Then again with the way she’s got me sprung, it would be smarter to just walk back there straight away and ask her father’s permission to have his daughter’s hand in marriage.
Girl like that comes along once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky enough to live a few hundred years.
I know. I’d been surrounded by women my entire life. I was the best delivery doctor in the entire state. “Doctor Delivery,” they used to call me. It was a blessing and a curse. I was damn good at what I did, but what I did also involved staring into certain parts of the female anatomy all day long. Kind of kills your sexual drive when you see what I see day in and day out.
Or what I used to see.
The last delivery. Damn, it’s still stuck in my head. That one hit me hard, so hard I got locked up for what I did afterwards.
Jail. I should be embarrassed, but I’m not. I’m proud of what I did. Sometimes justice needs to be served in different ways, and I was just the guy to deal it out.
And that’s why I moved all the way up here. To get away from it all. I had enough money to live forever. I used to be married to the job. On call 24/7/365. I didn’t even have the time to spend the money if I wanted to, and I never did.
I don’t need much. Just a roof over my head and a place to sleep. That and the joy of handing newborns to their mothers. What a rush that was.
But now that’s all gone. Taken away. Can’t work as a doctor when you have a felony charge levied against you. Guilty or not, you’re already fried in the court of public opinion.
But I don’t need their opinions, when I’ve got my own. And I don’t waver in my beliefs for nothing.
If faced with the same circumstances I would have done the same thing again, even knowing the consequences.
But now there were other consequences I had to deal with. Keep playing this game with that girl at the shop or man up and make her mine.
But who wants to live with a recluse up here in the middle of nowhere?
I’m not about to offer that up to such a beautiful young woman like her. She doesn’t deserve it. Her life’s just getting started like the sunrise over these mountains.
Mine’s like the sunset with no hope of a ray of light in sight.
I might live another forty or fifty years, but since I’m locked away up here by myself I’m already dead to the rest of the world.
But she makes me feel alive, and that’s a problem.
CHAPTER 3
Maple
Three days later
I wasn’t about to wait another four or so days for him to come back down from those cold, isolated hills. I couldn’t.
I had two choices. Live down here surrounded by people that think differently than I do and who I have no time for, or blaze my own trail.
And my trail could only go one direction. Up that windy mountain pass looking for him.
It was a fool’s errand, and I was the perfect fool.
Young. Naive. And with an itch that needed to be scratched more than anything.
But more importantly I was feeling things for him that I’d never felt for anyone before. I had to acknowledge that and at least give myself a chance to meet him where it seems he’s most comfortable. Up in his own element.
I’d gone hiking up that way once or twice as a little girl. I knew it was a long ways up to the top, but I also knew there was only one house up there. I checked Zillow.com and some other real estate sites and couldn’t find a recent title transfer. That didn’t mean much though. The owner had passed away long ago and the family was looking to sell. The problem was there were no buyers in this part of the world. Who wants to live like a hermit up in the middle of nowhere? And those who do probably don’t have the Internet speed or Google skills to locate the kind of place that will do the job.
It’s possible that describes him as well. Maybe he built something up there. The only thing is that I would have noticed trucks carrying up the lumber, unless he chopped the trees down himself. And I never saw him go next door to the hardware store to gather any building supplies.
The odds said he was up in old man Farnsworth’s house, so that’s where I’d start first.
I stepped outside of the modest home I inherited after my mother passed. It was all we had and now it’s just about all I had, next to the rust bucket of a car sitting underneath the tarp underneath the snow covered pine trees in my front yard.
I prayed it would start. I wasn’t about to ask Cory to help me if it didn’t, and I’d never met my dad so I was pretty much out of luck considering I didn’t exactly have many guys in my life…even as friends.
I spent the next fifteen minutes removing snow from the top of the tarp. First with a shovel and then with a broom. I didn’t feel the cold or even consider the absurdity of what I was doing. I was only focused on the end goal…finding him.
I’d move hell or high water to do so and in this case that was precisely what I’d need to do.
The more snow I removed the faster I worked until I finally opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat.
Time for the moment of truth.
I put the key in the ignition and turned it. Nothing. Just a clicking sound. The engine was fast asleep.
I tried again and I heard a light gurgle. It wasn’t much but it was progress.
A third time and ol’ Bessie shook a bit. I laughed to myself, remembering my mom naming her car. She was quite a character and a fighter. If she could battle cancer as courageously as she did for three long years then I could surely battle a little cold weather and a ton of metal, a battery, and some gas.
She hadn’t even told me the first couple years. One day when I was at work she drove all the way into the capital to get checked out at a free clinic. Fortunately they sent her over to a doctor who ran some tests and confirmed her worst fears. She hoped it was just an infection, but it turned out to be much, much worse.
We didn’t have the money to treat it so she just kept it her secret. It was her way. Why raise a fuss if it’s not going to do any good?
I admired that woman more than she ever knew, and I wanted her to admire me now. At least I was going to take a chance and try to leave this small town. She made me promise her I’d leave as soon as I could. Well…today was the start of that journey.
I laughed under my breath thinking that I was finally taking the first step to leave, but in doing so I was going to an even more secluded and remote location. Out of the frying pan and into the fire I guess.
But this wasn’t any frying pan and the fire he’d put inside my belly, and other places, was burning white hot.
I kept turning over the key like a woman possessed. It seemed like the car wanted to come to life a little more with each attempt.
My only fear was flooding the engine.
I stopped and took a deep inhale. Surely I was close to flooding her and then I’d be out of luck for some time.
“Come on ol’ Bess. Just one time for me, girl.”
And then I pulled out the ultimate ask.
“Mom. I know you
’re up there watching me. I hope you’re laughing too, because I’ve absolutely lost my mind here. But I’m trying to do what you made me promise to do, so if there’s anyone you can ask…well…it would mean a lot to me.”
I felt the tear stream down my face. I miss her so much. So much that I was talking to her and asking her favors. Was I crazy? Yeah…I definitely was.
But sometimes it takes a little crazy to make you sane again.
“One…two…three!” I said as I turned the key one final time.
Old Bessie coughed, and gurgled, and basically made about every sound you would expect a bear to make if you woke it on the coldest day of winter in the middle of its hibernation.
But when you poke the bear you better watch out.
And apparently I poked Bess one too many times because the engine turned over and she sprang to life!
I beat my hands on the steering wheel and buried my face in the horn, causing it to go off.
I laughed and then pulled my face back. I looked up.
“Thank you, momma. I’m going to go up there and see what I can do about taking that journey out of here.”
I waited a few minutes for Bess to get warm, using the time to shovel a path out to the road.
A few minutes later my little house was in the rear view and I was on my way to track down the Mountain Man.
CHAPTER 4
Forrest
It’s only been a few days, but I need to go back down that hill and see that girl.
I’ve got my schedule, and this sure breaks it wide open. There’s no way I’m going down there to stock up on food either. She knows there’s no way I could have eaten everything I got the last time this quickly.
Not a chance.
If I go down there it’s for one thing and one thing only.
To go right up to her and tell her how things are going to be from now on. To let her know she’s coming back up that damn hill with me and she’s going to live here with me now. And I know that once she does she’ll see things the way I see them.
She’ll probably think I’m crazy at first and she’ll be right because I’m definitely crazy for her.
I can’t live like this. Not just up here in the middle of nowhere sequestered off from the rest of the world by myself. I’m not even thinking about that anymore. I’m thinking about living without her and it’s driving me crazy. It’s giving me headaches and causing me to miss meals. If just not seeing her hurts this much then there’s no question that what I feel for her is as real as it gets.
But I’m acting like a fraud. I’m not being honest with myself, or with her.
I need to go tell her face to face. Life is short and I’m not about to live with the regret of wondering “what if.” I was sure there’d never be a woman for me, but now I realize my certainty in regards to my romantic life was completely misplaced, because I’m completely certain that she’s it for me.
There’s a reason I came here, and it wasn’t clear at first. I thought I came here to get away from everyone and everything, but the real reason I came here was to find her. I just didn’t know it at the time.
Why are men so clueless sometimes? And how did I become one of those kinds of men?
I never believed in fate or destiny or any of that other cheesy stuff they use to sell romance books and movies and everything else under the sun to women. I always thought it was a cheap ploy to add more dollars to the bottom line.
Until now. Until it happened to me.
Now I understand. The feeling when someone becomes all you think about. When a vision of them consumes your thoughts and every part of you.
I can’t believe I’m even thinking like this, and can’t believe what took me so long to finally come around.
Her.
But there was no “coming around.” That’s not how romance works. There has to be that instigator. That spark. She’s all that and more.
She woke me from my self-imposed exile, my deep slumber. And now I feel more and more alive with each minute that passes.
But each minute that passes just reminds me that I’m not spending it with her.
“Dammit!”
I jump up out of my chair and grab the keys to my truck.
I’m not going to live another second like this. I’m going down there right now and I’m making her mine.
CHAPTER 5
Maple
Even though the car’s heater didn’t work I was plenty warm. The adrenaline was pumping through my veins so hard I could feel my pulse on the side of my neck.
I was hot. So hot I was starting to sweat just above my brow.
The higher I went the more I felt it, and it had nothing to do with the elevation.
The climb was so steep I didn’t even get the car above third gear. I looked at the speedometer. Twenty-three miles per hour. Didn’t Usain Bolt run faster than this in the Olympics?
It didn’t matter. All I knew is that each revolution of the tires got me closer to him.
I feel my tires kick a little and was glad we never took the snow chains off. Since I didn’t usually need the car to get to work so I wasn’t about to get on my back and try and jack up the car and take them on and off a few times a year just for the sake of doing so.
Now it was those chains that helped me up the mountain, and away from the chains of small town life that was trying to hold me back.
When was the last time the state plowed these roads?
I can still see the wide tracks going down in the other lane and back up in mine. They’re his. They can only be his.
But for the first time in years there’s someone else ascending the hill and it’s me. My tracks following his.
It sounds ironic and cheesy, but it’s not. I imagine us doing the same thing on a beautiful white sand beach one day. Each time the waves wash away our tracks, we just make more. Together.
Have I lost my mind?
I’m fantasizing about beaches I’ve never been with a guy I don’t even know.
But it’s not mountain fever. I know it.
I feel the car being pushed left from a sudden gust of wind. I tighten my grip on the cold wheel and compensate to the right just a bit. The conditions are hard enough, I don’t need them to get any more difficult.
It’s a dangerous drive, but strangely enough a peaceful one at that. The way the cold mountains appear out of nowhere as you round a turn. They’re miles off into the distance and the view is breathtaking.
Then you turn another corner and the sun is entirely blocked out by other mountains. You immediately feel the chill and focus harder on the road in front of you. Persistence and the heat from inside drive me to continue.
Then it hits me. What am I going to do when I get there?
Just run up and knock on the door and throw myself into his arms?
He could be crazy for all I know. He might literally be boiling bunnies up here.
I don’t care. Enter with boldness as the saying goes. That’s exactly what I plan on doing.
I feel the car pushed to the left again as I round another corner. What is up with these winds?
My wheels go left of center, but there certainly are no cops up here to write me a ticket. Still I need to stay safe and in the path that he’s already blazed for me.
I bring the steering wheel back to the right and feel the right side of the car drop into the groove, but the drop is bigger than I expected and the road is slick right here. The car slides horizontally and I bring the wheel back to the left, but it’s too late.
The back fishtails around and the wheels spin.
I hit the gas harder, but it only causes the car to rotate and slide down the hill sideways.
“Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!”
I hit the brakes and they lock up. The steering wheel freezes in place as I look out my driver’s side window watching the car slide back down the hill.
“Come on. Come on. Catch on something,” I beg of my wheels.
Still locked.
&nbs
p; I’m sliding toward a bend in the road and there’s no guardrail!
I can open the door, but I can’t jump that direction. I’ll get run over!
I grab for my seatbelt and fumble with it. My nervous thumb finds the button and it releases.
I scramble across the seat for the passenger’s side door.
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