Kept By The Mountain Man by Gemma Weir
Granger
Fuck, this is her. Her. My woman. Mine. All mine. How is this possible? How can it happen just like that? One glance and I knew, unequivocally knew without any element of doubt that I’m going to make this woman mine, that I’m going to marry her, fill her with my baby and keep her forever.
I really try hard not to watch her leave but I just can’t help myself, Alice is the most curious woman I’ve ever met. She’s tall, her frame slim and almost athletic, with small breasts and narrow hips. Her hair is a shiny blonde, the color of straw on a warm summer day, and it’s long, reaching right down her back in the loose braid she’s got it twisted into.
She’s dressed plainly in simple blue jeans, a long sleeve white t-shirt and brown leather boots. She’d be completely average if you only looked at her from the neck down, because her face is almost angelic. I’m not a fucking poetic guy, but this woman is ethereal. Her features are almost elfin, a tiny nose, high cheek bones and full pouty lips, she’s quite simply the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen in my life.
There doesn’t seem to be a scrap of makeup on her face, nor anything to accentuate her bright green eyes. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone with naturally blonde hair and green eyes before, but on her it’s stunning.
I’ve met a lot of beautiful women, but usually they come complete with a sense of entitlement that’s completely missing from Alice. She doesn’t move like a woman who’s aware of the power of her beauty either. Her steps are long, but she’s not strutting, she’s just trying to get to where she’s going as fast as she can and right now, where she wants to be seems to be away from us.
“Woo, she is—” Bay starts
“Mine,” I snap the word out before I even realize I was thinking it.
“What?”
“Mine,” I say again under my breath. “She’s mine.”
“Do you know her?” Bay asks, his brow furrowed as he looks at me in confusion.
“Nope, met her ten minutes ago, right before I called you.”
“Fuck, that must have been some ten minutes. What the hell did she say to you to make you go all gaga like Beau and Huck?”
“She barely said ten words to me.” I laugh.
“Then…” he trails off.
“I have no fucking clue, but I know she’s mine. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.”
“Do you even know her last name?”
“Nope.”
“Is she even single?”
“Not anymore, she’s mine,” I say single-mindedly.
“You can’t just—”
“I just did,” I interrupt him. “She’s alone, hardly anything in the RV and not wearing a ring, if she has a boyfriend then he’s doing a shitty job looking after her and he doesn’t deserve her. Either way, she’s mine now and I’m keeping her.”
Bay’s chuckle starts off low and quiet, building in volume until he’s straight out laughing. “Fuck, that poor girl.”
I smile to myself, Alice has an aura of sadness around her, but I’ll fix that, she’s mine now, even though it makes very little sense to me how this happened. I should have taken notice when my dad told us about meeting Mom, I should have been less skeptical when first Beau, then Huck fell for their women, because now it’s happening to me. Suddenly, it makes complete sense to feel this way about a woman I don’t know at all, even though it shouldn’t.
If I were in my right mind, I’d get in my car and drive away, but it’s like the moment I saw her, my world narrowed and now all I want is to talk to her, to learn everything there is to know about her.
Something about Alice is calling to my baser instincts, telling me that she needs to be cared for, coddled and protected. Maybe it’s because she wouldn’t look me in the eye, maybe it’s because she almost seemed to be upset with herself for asking me a question, or maybe it’s just the air of hopelessness that seems to be following her. Whatever it is, I want her, need her, need to take care of her in a way I’ve only ever heard my brothers try to explain and now makes perfect sense.
Bay slaps me on the shoulder, still chuckling as he quickly hooks Alice’s clapped out RV to the tow truck. “I take it you’re following me back to the shop?”
“Yep.”
Scoffing, he shakes his head. “We got to start putting bets on who falls next now it’s gotten you. My money’s on Teddy, he’s got hearts in his eyes watching Cora getting bigger with Huck’s baby, I think he’s got the urge to be a daddy, not just an uncle.”
“The mac truck analogy that Daddy, Beau and Huck said, makes total sense now. Don’t say anything to piss off my woman,” I warn, as I walk around the truck, climb back into my car and then pull onto the road after Bay and follow them back to garage.
My mind is spinning at a hundred miles an hour as we drive the short distance into town to my brothers’ shop. Penn and Bay love restoring classic cars, as well as maintaining the town’s mixture of new and ancient vehicles. When Bay backs Alice’s RV into the building, the shit heap of a RV doesn’t look too out of place next to Winston Jones’ farm truck and his wife’s Cadillac, which are both in for their yearly service.
When Bay kills the engine on the tow, his door opens and he frowns at me as he moves to unhook the RV so he can move the tow truck round the back of the shop and out of the way.
“What’s up?” I ask as I close the distance between us.
“She’s not much of a talker, is she? I asked her a few questions and she barely muttered two words to me.”
“Tell me you weren’t a dick to her,” I snarl.
“I wasn’t a dick, I just asked her how long she’d had the RV and where she was headed. You sure she’s the one? She’s pretty, but she’s not exactly a chatty Cathy.”
“Yes, I’m sure. Ever thought she’s just shy?”
He shrugs. “I mean there’s shy and there’s non-communicative.”
“So she doesn’t want to answer a load of questions from a stranger, that’s not that weird. We’re just used to women we meet having known us or at least known of us all our lives. Alice isn’t from here, she’s probably terrified.”
Walking away from Bay before he has a chance to respond, I circle the truck just as Alice is closing the door behind her, her purse clutched to her chest, her eyes downcast and still filled with a sadness that I wish I knew how to eradicate.
“So it’s gonna take a little while for Bay to look over your RV, did you want to come grab some lunch with me?”
She lifts her eyes to me, purses her lips, then shakes her head. “I can just wait here, you don’t need to entertain me.”
“You’ve still got to eat though, I mean it’s lunchtime, and there’s a great little diner just around the corner, I’d enjoy having some company,” I coax, frantically trying to force down the caveman urge that’s telling me to just throw her over my shoulder and take her home with me.
“Don’t you have to go to work?”
Her voice is sweet and low, but I get the feeling she’s making it sound deliberately monotone, like she doesn’t want to sound too interested.
“Nope, joys of running my own business, I can set my own hours. Come on, let’s go eat, I’m starving.” Placing my palm flat against the base of her spine, I guide her forward, not giving her a chance to deliver the rejection to my invite that I can see on the edge of her lips.
She freezes beneath my touch but I don’t move my hand. I want her to get used to me touching her, I want her to want it, to crave it, and that will only come once she gets used to me being around. There’s plenty of people on the sidewalk as I lead her toward Granny Annie’s diner, and despite us not being alone she doesn’t relax, her back taut and ramrod straight even as I push open the door to the diner and let her walk in first.
Annie waves at me from behind the counter, I come into the diner at least a couple of times a week, and Annie was my mama’s friend so she’s known me and my brothers literally our entire lives.
“Granger, take that booth over there, Tasha will be out in just a minute to bring you some coffee.”
“Thanks Annie,” I call, replacing my hand on Alice’s back as I propel her toward a small booth in the middle of the busy restaurant. I gesture for Alice to slide into one side of the booth and I sit opposite her, hating that I’m no longer able to touch her, but glad that I can look her in the face from here.
“Hey Granger,” Tasha our waitress says, pushing the loose strands of dark hair that have fallen from her tight bun behind her ears as she pulls out two menu’s from beneath her arm and hands one to Alice then one to me. Turning the coffee cups that are already set up on the table the right way up, she immediately fills mine. “Coffee?” she asks Alice.
“No, thank you, could I just get some water please?” Alice asks in her soft, quiet voice.
“Sure thing, you take a look at the menu and I’ll be right out with your drink,” Tasha says, flashing Alice a big motherly smile, touching her shoulder as she leaves.
“Not a coffee drinker?”
Shrugging, she lifts the menu in front of her, effectively blocking her from my view.
There’s something adorably childish about the action and I smile at the menu, leaning back in my seat and watching her, waiting for her to drop the cover and see me sitting here staring at her. I wish I knew her better, or at all, then I’d know how to go about making her mine in every way possible. She’s skittish, that much is obvious and I don’t want to scare her off, even if my brother is currently holding her getaway vehicle hostage.
“Here you go, sweetie,” Tasha says, reappearing at the side of the table and placing a large glass of ice water in front of Alice. “You ‘bout ready to order?”
I wait as my girl slowly emerges from behind her menu shield. “I’ll have a ham and mustard on rye please, with a side of fries.”
Tasha nods then turns to me. “Granger?”
“Chili cheese burger, extra fries, extra onion rings please.”
“Any more drinks?”
Both Alice and I shake our heads and Tasha nods, scribbling down on her little pad before taking our menus and scurrying away, taking an order from another table on her way to the kitchen.
“So, you never finished telling me where you’re from,” I say, lifting my coffee mug and taking a sip.
“All over really.”
I wait for her to expand, but she doesn’t and her gaze drops to her hands as she picks at the napkin in front of her.
“So where were you last?”
“Vermont.”
“You drove that RV from Vermont to Montana?” I ask incredulous.
“Yes.”
Another one-word answer. It’s starting to drive me a little crazy.
“What were you doing in Vermont?
“I was working as a walking guide showing the tourists the fall leaves.”
“Is that what you’re hoping to do up in Big Mountain?”
“No, in winter I usually look for work at one of the resorts.”
I try not to look too shocked, even though I think that’s the longest sentence she’s said to me so far. “Were you in Vermont long?”
She shakes her head. “About three months.”
“And before Vermont?”
“I was in the Hampton’s for the summer, working as a waitress.”
“Is that where you’re from then?”
“No, I was just there for the summer.”
“So where’s home?”
For the first time, her gaze lifts and she looks as me quizzically like I’ve asked an odd question. “My RV.”
“No, I mean home home, where your family and friends are.”
“My mom lives in Missouri with her husband, my sister lives in West Virginia with her boyfriend and I’m not sure where my dad is, I haven’t seen him since I was a kid.”
An ache blooms in my chest for the beautiful woman in front of me. She’s telling me where her family live, but it’s clear she doesn’t consider any of those places as home. Does she not have a home? Does she just move aimlessly from place to place living out of a beat up RV with nowhere permanent to put down roots? The thought sickens me. I know not everyone lives in the town they were born in, but Rockhead Point is my home and I can’t ever imagine wanting to be anywhere else. Everything I love is here and even though I went away to college, I never felt settled until I was back here and surrounded by my family.
“So, The Hamptons in the summer, Vermont in fall and Montana in winter, what about spring?”
“Spring, I usually just pick a small city halfway between where I’ve been for the winter and where I plan to go in summer and take whatever job I can find, usually bar work, occasionally in a factory or office, I’m not picky, work’s work.”
“How long have you been living like that? Moving every few months?”
She shrugs again, and I’m starting to hate that dismissive little gesture. “Five years, I guess. I don’t mind moving around, I’ll be on my way again as soon as your brother figures out what’s wrong with my RV this time.”
“This time?”
She laughs and it’s the first real, honest sound she’s made. Her laugh is nothing like her deliberately toned down voice. It’s high and free and real, and my dick twitches in my pants just from the sound.
“The engine’s pretty much shot, but I just keep getting it fixed and it keeps plodding along. I don’t actually know what I’ll do once it dies for good.”
I part my lips to speak just as Tasha arrives with our food. Placing it in front of us, she checks we’re good, then leaves to tend to the rest of her customers. “You could always get a job here, we’re not as big a ski town as Big Mountain, but we have plenty of tourists up here in the winter and I could ask around to see if there’s any jobs going.”
She shakes her head so fast I worry she’s going to give herself whiplash. “No. No, that’s fine, as soon as my RV’s fixed, I’ll be leaving.”
A ball of fear and anger lodges in the center of my chest. She can’t leave, if she does I might never see her again, and now I know she exists there’ll never be anyone for me but her. When she tentatively starts to eat, I slide my cell from my pocket and type out a message to Bay.
Me: I don’t care what you have to do, make sure that RV won’t run. I can’t let her leave.
Lifting my burger, I take a bite, not reacting when my cell buzzes beside me. After a moment, I place my burger back on the plate, wipe my fingers on a napkin, then open my cell, smiling as I read his reply.
Bay: Not a problem, engine’s fucked anyway, could have done a temporary fix to get her going again, but no saying how long it would hold. Best she stay in town and I’ll do a complete overhaul on it. Could take months