Stone Heart_A Single Mom & Mountain Man Romance

by Rye Hart

  The fire roared behind me, taunting my skin with its heat. It whispered to me with its flames licking up the chimney of the cabin and I could hear it whispering the truth that vibrated between us.

  She’s stronger than you. Stronger. Stronger than you.

  And the flames were right. Her boss breached a line and she was presented with a choice: stick to her morals or cave. It was the same choice I was presented with. I could’ve stuck to my morals and died with dignity, or I could’ve caved.

  She stuck to her morals and I caved.

  “Liam?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

  I suddenly couldn’t be around her anymore. We were no longer on an even footing. She might understand the need to protect secrets but she was also greater than me. Better than me. And I didn’t want my cowardice rubbing off on her.

  It was why I was alone. It was why I needed to stay that way.

  “Get some rest,” I said as I made my way to the hallway. “I’ll make dinner for us tonight.”

  Then, I disappeared down the hallway and made my way back to my room.

  She needed to rest and I needed to be alone.

  CHAPTER 10

  WHITNEY

  I woke up the next morning to decadent smells coming from the kitchen. I stretched, feeling my ankle shoot searing pain up my leg. I bit down on my lip and whimpered, trying to keep my emotions at bay. I could hear things sizzling in pans while the smells wafted around me and I didn’t want to bother the cook in the kitchen.

  “Whitney?” Liam asked.

  “Morning,” I said.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Just a bit of pain.”

  In an instant, he was at my side. His fingertips were peeling back the blankets I had wrapped around my body before he carefully picked up my ankle. He unwrapped it to survey the damage and I could see the knowledge he possessed at work behind his eyes. His fingertips were careful and his touch was warm and, as I watched him slowly try to move my ankle, I felt his thumb feeling for something.

  “Your foot’s tightening up a bit because of the swelling,” he said. “Let’s keep the bandage off for a little while and let the swelling dissipate.”

  He looked up at me and I nodded before he went back to the kitchen. I swung my legs around the couch and pressed my foot to the floor. The pain was still there, shooting right up into my shin as I tried to stand up.

  “Doesn’t mean you can try to walk,” Liam said.

  “The food smells wonderful,” I said. “What are you making?”

  “Omelets and hash browns,” he said.

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  “Coffee, sweet tea, or juice?” he asked.

  “You must’ve grown up in the South if sweet tea is a replacement for water,” I said, grinning.

  He didn’t respond.

  Instead, he walked over with a plate and handed it to me. He set down a mug of coffee in front of me and I smiled up at him before he disappeared again. He might’ve been closed off and quiet but he was a fabulous caretaker and I wanted to see if he would let me do something to repay him.

  I picked up my fork and took a bite of the food, moaning as it melted in my mouth. Liam came and sat down in the chair beside me while I continued to groan over the taste of my breakfast. By the time I was done with my omelet, I felt like I could think straight again. The pain was subsiding and the fog from sleep was clearing, so I turned my gaze to him and smiled.

  “Thank you for taking care of me,” I said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “No really. You’ve been wonderful and I appreciate it.”

  “No problem,” he said.

  “And this food is fabulous,” I said. “Have you always been such a good cook?”

  At my question, he fell silent again.

  I had learned a few things from observing him over the last two days. He was a cautious man—very cautious—and didn’t give away too much about himself. He liked to be in control, not because he wanted to lord power over me but because it seemed to keep him calm to call the shots. He suffered from nightmares, which I could only guess were from something he’d experienced while in the service, and, when he didn’t answer a question, it wasn’t because he was trying to be a dick. He obviously lived up here all alone for a reason and so far he had handled having an unexpected houseguest a lot better than most people would have.

  “It’s beautiful up here,” I said. “Even through the snow I got caught in, I could see it. I understand why you’re drawn to it. I’ve always been that way, too.”

  Liam nodded but he didn’t say anything. I found that I didn’t care. I hadn’t spoken to anyone new in a very long time. When I quit my job, I got rid of all but one person I talked with on a regular basis. It was nice talking to someone else.

  Even if that someone didn’t want to talk back.

  “I’ve always preferred the mountains over the beach,” I said. “I don’t like the way the beach makes me feel so exposed. Both mentally and physically. I don’t want to actively go somewhere where it’s a requirement to strip down to something akin to colorful underwear.”

  I giggled and could’ve sworn I saw his lips tick up into a grin. I really couldn't tell underneath all that hair.

  “Plus, the sunsets are better out here,” I said. “Gwen would like them. That’s my best friend back home. She’s a hairdresser and she’s about to open her own business. You know, she’s wanted to do that ever since she was a little girl. We went to grade school together.”

  Memories upon memories came flooding back to me as I put my plate down. I picked up my coffee mug and brought it to my lips. I thought back to my middle school years and how Gwen and I used to spend hours walking around the mall, buying ice cream cones with our allowance like we were hot stuff. We’d spend time during class passing notes back and forth like the teacher couldn’t see us and we’d have entire weekend sleepovers where we’d stay up too late and gossip about all the boys in school.

  Life seemed so much simpler back during those days.

  I looked over and saw Liam staring at me with his peridot eyes. He seemed to be softening just a bit. His eyes didn’t seem as stern and the sounds he did make didn’t seem as edgy. Instead of his shoulders being rolled back, they were relaxed, like he was settling in for a story he was intent on listening to.

  It was the first time I’d ever seen him this way and, I had to admit, it was nice.

  “I have a friend like that,” Liam said.

  “You do?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Callen.”

  “Was he in the Navy with you?” I asked.

  “Still is,” he said.

  “Is he a medic too?”

  I saw that tension creeping back into his body and I wasn’t ready to let him go just yet. I wasn’t ready to go back to the way things had been at the beginning, where he was annoyed at my presence and I felt like nothing more than an intrusion.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just trying to make conversation.”

  His eyes flickered back to me with their soft blue notes and I heard him sigh through the thick hair on his face before he sank back into his chair.

  “Nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “I just don’t get many visitors.”

  “Or you don’t want them,” I said. “Which is okay, too. I can relate.”

  He didn’t answer but his eyes were trained on me again.

  “Outside of Gwen and one of my former colleagues, I don’t talk with anyone. It’s just easier that way.”

  I brought my coffee mug back to my lips and my eyes hooked onto the roaring fireplace. For once in my life, my mind was at a complete standstill. In the silence of this cabin, with nothing but the fire crackling, I was really able to take stock of my life. I was able to actually get away from it all, take a hard look at my life, and figure out where in the world I was going to go from here.

  “Was it hard?” I asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “Being a medic,” I said.r />
  I turned my gaze back toward him and I saw his eyes grow icy and defensive.

  “All I meant was, doctors take an oath to do no harm to people, right? But that seems a bit counterintuitive to being at war. Like me helping guilty people get off scot-free as a lawyer. Did you struggle with it? I did.”

  I was trying to find common ground. I was trying to find a way to relate to this man. I watched him get up from his seat and tear his eyes from me before he headed toward the hallway but I wasn’t letting him go this time.

  Not without at least trying to get him back.

  “Please talk to me,” I said. “I just want to get to know you a little more. To thank you for taking care of me.”

  “Then you can stop broaching subjects you know nothing about,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I saved more people than I should have, Whitney. And that’s all you need to know.”

  His words knocked the breath from my lungs before he started back down the hallway again. I sat there, my cup of coffee in my lap, and listened to his footsteps retreat. He shut a door behind him and I sighed. All I wanted to do was get to know the man behind the beard. All I wanted to do was try to make conversation. To learn a little more about him. I wanted to know what made this burly man tick. I wanted to know why he felt the need to be so closed off.

  I wanted to know what his nightmare was about a couple of nights ago.

  I didn’t know what was going on or what he had witnessed but I wasn’t going to give up on him. I felt he was a kindred spirit, like he understood a part of me I still didn't quite understand myself. I leaned into the couch and sipped my coffee, racking my mind as to how I could penetrate through the steel walls this man had so expertly thrown up.

  CHAPTER 11

  LIAM

  The gunfire around me was heavy. My face was planted to the ground and the stench of urine filled my nostrils. I clawed my fingernails into the dirt, trying to get to the sound of someone screaming. I could feel my skin on fire while my blood chilled like ice. But then I tugged on my restraints and realized I couldn’t go anywhere.

  I jerked awake when my phone started ringing. How in the world was a phone call getting through during weather like this? I picked up the phone and put it to my ear while sweat trickled down the back of my neck.

  “Canter! My man. How are you?”

  “Hey there, Paxton,” I said.

  “Dude. You still asleep? It’s almost eleven in the morning.”

  “What?” I asked.

  I held my phone out and took a look at the time. Never in my life had I ever slept this late, not even when I was a teenager. My nightmare must’ve pulled me into a deep, dark recess because I could still feel my fingertips tingling from the residual phantom pains of that deployment.

  “You good?” Paxton asked.

  “Uh, yeah. I think.”

  “Another nightmare?” he asked.

  Paxton was the only person I’d ever mentioned them to and it wasn’t like we had drawn-out conversations about it. We talked long enough for me to figure out he was struggling with them, too. Then, that was that. Sometimes, we called each other when we woke up in the middle of the night but, since I’d been at the cabin, I’d kept to myself quite a bit.

  “Good thing I called to check up on you,” he said. “Wanna talk about it?”

  “Not really,” I said, groaning.

  “You sweating?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Aching?”

  “Uh huh,” I said.

  “You thought about talking to someone about them?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” I said.

  Silence fell on the phone call and I sighed. I raked my hand through my wet hair, grimacing at how it felt. I wouldn’t have to change the sheets but I would have to change my pillowcase and I could feel how scraggly my hair was becoming. My beard was uneven and the hair on top of my head was growing past the tops of my ears. The Navy would’ve had a field day with what I currently looked like but, as I sat on the edge of the bed and listened to the silence on the phone, a realization crossed my mind.

  I wasn’t in the Navy anymore.

  I knew it had been over a month since I’d officially been retired but that had been my life for most of my upbringing. From the time I was fifteen, I knew I wanted to join the military. I enlisted before I even graduated high school and I didn’t attend my own graduation because I was too busy attending basic training. I had them send me my high school diploma and I still had no idea where the hell that thing was.

  I breathed the military. I strove to do everything I needed to do to succeed. I took the classes, I got the certifications, I did the training, and I put up with the schools. I went through the terrible command heads and I trudged through the hospitals on the battlefields. I did rotations in areas of medicine I never wanted to touch again because that was all I could see myself doing.

  And now the one thing I’d thought about and relied on since I was fifteen years old was gone. All I had was a cabin and my truck.

  “Look, take it from me,” Paxton said. “You need to open up to someone about it. Even if it’s not some professional or whatever, you gotta talk to someone.”

  “Do you talk to anyone?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “My commander sometimes. When it gets bad.”

  “Why don’t we talk about it anymore?”

  “Because you stopped talking,” he said. “It was just me talking at a brick wall. That didn’t help me. It might help you, talking to someone who doesn’t talk back, but for me, it didn’t do much.”

  “I’m sorry, man,” I said.

  “Don’t be sorry. Just find what works for you. That situation we went through was rough. Rougher than anything we ever expected to experience. You’re not at fault but you do need to talk to someone about it. Even if you just ramble and it doesn’t make sense.”

  “You think a woman would listen?” I asked.

  “Why the hell would you ask that?”

  I sighed and I could practically feel Paxton’s grin through the phone.

  “You sly dog,” he said. “Are you dating someone?”

  “No, but I am trapped with someone.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “The storm,” I said. “You know, the one you told me to look out for? It got bad. And this woman… she was just out hiking like there was nothing wrong with the world.”

  “And she found your cabin?” he asked.

  “No, I saw her coming and figured she was lost. She took off running up this hill and tumbled right over it. Dislocated her ankle and rolled herself into a damn tree.”

  “So, you took off running like her savior,” he said. “Is she cute?”

  “What?”

  “The woman? Is she cute?”

  Anyone with a pair of eyes could see Whitney was a beautiful woman but that was beside the point. I couldn’t even trust myself to sleep. How the hell could I trust myself to have sex? That took more emotion, more energy, and more mental stamina than anything I was currently prepared for. “Sure, I guess,” I said.

  “You’re cooped up with a woman you’re taking care of and you don’t even know if she’s hot?” Paxton asked.

  “How do you know I’m taking care of her?”

  “You said she dislocated her ankle and rolled into a tree,” he said. “I’ve seen you try to help stray dogs on the side of the fucking road, Canter. You’re taking care of her.”

  “Well, she’s invading my fucking space. I came here to get away from people and now I’m stuck in a snowstorm with a person who won’t stop talking about herself.”

  “Is she self-centered and high-maintenance?” Paxton asked. “Or has she tried asking you questions and you’re just sitting there like a dick?”

  “A dick?” I asked.

  “Look, I’ve known you for years, Canter. You’ve always been quiet and girls like that shit. The quiet and mysterious guy. But after what happened to us
, you closed up. If this woman is just mindlessly talking about herself, then deal with it until the storm lets up. But if she’s trying to talk to you and you’re not talking back, then you’re being a dick.”

  “I don’t want to talk to anyone, Paxton,” I said. “That’s why I came up here.”

  “And there’s nothing you can do about this situation but make the best of it. You don’t have to tell her about your nightmares, man. But just fucking talk to the chick.”

  Even though I didn’t want to admit it, he had a point. Whitney was essentially talking at a wall because I wouldn’t talk back to her. Every time she broached a subject that even remotely meant I had to open up, I’d just leave her by herself in front of the fire on a couch that was still foreign to her. I didn’t owe her my entire life story but the least I could do was make her comfortable.

  Even if her version of comfortable wasn’t my version of comfortable.

  “Well, I gotta go,” Paxton said. “Duty never stops calling around here.”

  “When do you deploy?” I asked.

  “Couple more weeks,” he said. “I’ll be out to sea for about ten months.”

  “Call me again before you head out.”

  “I was planning on it,” he said. “But the next time we talk, I want a story about how you talked to this girl and you finally found out she didn’t have cooties.”

  “You’re a dick,” I said.

  “Which means you can’t be one,” he said. “Two dicks don’t get along, so go out there and talk to her.”

  “Fine, fine. I’m going.”

  “I expect a juicy story later,” he said.

  “I never talk and tell.”

  “Wow, how scandalous,” he said, chuckling. “Talk to you later.”

  I tossed my phone onto my bedside table and stood to stretch. I needed to shower but I wanted to have a cup of coffee first. Despite the weather reports, the snow was still coming down outside, which meant I’d need to check the generator as well. I couldn’t have that thing running out of gas while I was in the middle of washing my beard.

  I walked out into the room and saw Whitney standing at the kitchen island. She was sipping on a cup of coffee she’d made herself but I could tell she had been waiting for me. She whipped around and offered me a weak smile and I couldn’t help but flicker my eyes down to her ankle.