Haley's Mountain Man

by Tracy Madison

  “So what do you say?” Suzette asked, interrupting her thoughts. “Can’t be next weekend, but if I can put something together for the weekend after next, are you game? Please say yes.”

  “Um, sure,” Haley said, entirely focused on Gavin. “Whatever, whenever, is fine.”

  “That’s great! We’ll have fun, you’ll see. And I know you’ll like Matt.”

  “Uh, what?” Returning her attention to her friend, Haley said, “Wait a minute. Who is Matt and why does it matter if I’ll like him or not?”

  “Matt is the guy we’ve been talking about. He’s one of the teachers I work with.” Suzette smiled smugly and crossed her arms over her chest. “And you just agreed to a double date.”

  “No way, Suzette.” Haley shook her head to back up her words. “I’m not interested in a blind date, double or otherwise.”

  “You already agreed,” Suzette said in a singsong voice. “So, tough. I swear, he’s a great guy. And since he didn’t grow up here, you can learn all about what makes him tick. That is what you said you wanted, right?”

  Scowling, she pushed a strand of hair off her cheek. “It is, but you’re being unfair. I didn’t know what I was agreeing to.” Unable to stop herself, Haley turned to look at Gavin again.

  “Yep, but whose fault is that?”

  “Mine, but you took advantage.”

  “True. I’m holding you to it, though. For your own sake.” Following the direction of Haley’s gaze, she asked, “What is so interesting up there that you can’t stop staring?”

  Letting the topic drop—for now—Haley asked, “Do you see that guy?”

  “Mr. Mountain Man? Yeah, he’s hard to miss.”

  “If you were standing in line with him, would you feel uncomfortable or...threatened?”

  Suzette shrugged. “I might, if he looked at me funny. He’s a big guy and look at how he’s standing—all stiff and straight, like he’s rearing up to pounce or something. If he just stood there and ignored me, though, I wouldn’t give him a second thought. Why ask for trouble, right?”

  “Exactly.”

  “He has a killer body, though,” Suzette mused. “I wonder if he’s hot beneath all that hair. Do you know him?”

  “Not really.” Quickly draining the rest of her tea, she stood. “I’m going to get another. Do you want anything?”

  “Ah...no. I think I’m good.” Suzette glanced from Haley to Gavin and back again. “Him? You’re interested in that guy? He doesn’t look to be your type.”

  Heat suffused Haley’s cheeks. “I want more tea, Suzette. That’s all. And how do you know what my type is, anyway? I don’t even know what my type is.”

  Suzette regarded her silently for a few seconds before donning a bright smile. “I know that Matt is your type, and I know you’ll enjoy meeting him.”

  “I’m... Oh. The hell with it. Fine, I’ll go.” Simpler to agree than to continue to argue a case she wouldn’t win. Besides which, she was allergic to cats. “One time only. End of discussion.”

  “For now, but you might change your mind after meeting Matt.” Twisting her wrist to look at her watch, she made a face. “I have to run. Plans tonight and a lot to do beforehand.”

  “You can’t stay for a little longer?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t. Even if I could, I’m not up to feeling like a third wheel.” Standing, Suzette gave her a quick hug. “It probably won’t be this week, because Matt’s heading home to see his family for a few days, but once I have the details set for our double date, I’ll call.”

  “Yay,” Haley said with zero enthusiasm. “Can’t wait.”

  “Okay, I have to run.” She gave one more question-filled glance toward Gavin before saying, “Just...ah...be careful. With your tea.”

  Haley opened her mouth to argue—again—but snapped it shut. There was something to be said about protesting too much. Rather, she simply smiled and waved goodbye. Once Suzette had exited the Beanery, she expelled a breath and smoothed her shirt. Resisted the impulse to do the same with her hair, and pushed herself forward...toward the mountain man.

  Just out of curiosity’s sake, she assured herself. Nothing more than that. Because Suzette had been right on the money—Gavin Daugherty was not her type. He was, in fact, the physical opposite of every man she had ever dated. Taller, bigger, gruffer.

  He intrigued her, though, which was something a man hadn’t done in a long, long while. The thought was...compelling.

  Almost irresistibly so.

  Chapter Two

  Crowds in general made Gavin Daugherty uneasy. Being around too many folks at once brought on a plethora of miserable sensations. Out of nowhere, his throat would grow scratchy and dry, his palms would sweat and even the collar of his shirt went on attack, tightening incrementally around his neck until he found a way to get the hell out of dodge.

  Exactly the reasons he’d chosen midmorning to arrive at the Beanery. He’d hoped to hit the sweet spot and find the place near empty. Rather, it being a Saturday and all—a fact he should’ve considered—the coffee shop was teeming with people. When he first walked in, he’d had half a mind to turn around and try for better luck on Monday.

  Truth was, though, he’d already waited too damn long. He should have been on top of this months ago. So, like it or not—and he didn’t—here he was, waiting in the slowest-moving line on earth to speak with Lola, mentally rehearsing the speech he’d spent the past several weeks preparing, and trying not to spook the lady to the front and right of him again.

  Asking anyone for anything was about as far out of Gavin’s comfort range as standing in the middle of the busy coffee shop, but he had to do it. If he had any hope of his plan succeeding, he couldn’t sit back and wait for his entire lousy life to do a one-eighty without putting forth any effort. The thought had no more crossed his mind before he changed it. Much of his life had hit below the lousy line, but not all of it. Not by a long shot.

  Now...well, now was fairly decent. And he couldn’t forget Russ and Elaine Demko or the gifts they’d given him, either. God, he hated thinking that both of them were gone.

  Little had his scruffy, twelve-year-old self known how fortunate he was to be placed with them, or how much he would come to love them. Yep, he’d been headed down the wrong path at full speed when Russ and Elaine became his foster parents, and damn if he knew how, but they’d seen clear through his tough act and shown him what family, and being a part of one, meant.

  He’d stayed with them only for a little over two years before they’d decided to move out of state. Work-related, he’d been told. They hadn’t forgotten him, though, and had kept in touch on holidays and his birthday and a letter here and there. It had hurt, sure, but he’d found some peace in knowing they cared, that they were out there somewhere, still caring.

  Elaine had died several years back, from cancer. Russ just about two years ago now, from a heart attack. Or, more likely, heartbreak. And he’d gone and left Gavin some money. Not a little and not a lot, but some. Enough to buy some land. Enough to situate himself, to get started here, in Steamboat Springs, where Russ and Elaine had brought Gavin a time or two while he’d lived with them. Good days. Good memories.

  He’d rather have Russ and Elaine.

  Gavin stifled a sigh tinged with sadness and relief when the damn line finally moved forward by one. Lola, she liked to chat up her customers, that was for sure. Good business sense combined with a naturally friendly nature, he supposed.

  Before stepping forward, he darted a glance toward the right, curious if enough space now existed for the woman to retake her place in front of him. That would be a...no. She inched herself up but maintained her hovering-to-the-side position as if her very life depended on it.

  Accustomed to the behavior or not, it rankled.

  His clothes were clean a
nd well kept, if not brand-spanking-new. He was clean and...well, relatively well kept, though a shave probably wouldn’t be out of order. He hadn’t said a word to the woman, for crying out loud. So yes, it disturbed him, the way folks stepped out of his path when they saw him coming or refused to look him in the eye. And when little old ladies clutched their purses to their chests and watched him in a mix of distrust and fear, he just about died inside. He was used to it, but he wanted more.

  Stupid to think Steamboat Springs, Colorado, would be any different. It wasn’t. Folks here treated him the same as they did anywhere else, except for a handful of them. Lola being one, which was why he’d decided to start with her. He wasn’t about to give up.

  Someday, he’d walk these streets and folks would raise their hands and say hi. Someday, he’d have a place here. Not just for him, but for boys stuck in the system, as he had once been. A sanctuary, albeit a temporary one, where he hoped to make some type of a difference for these kids. Just as Russ and Elaine had done for him.

  That was his goal: to open a camp of sorts, for boys who didn’t have real homes, where they’d learn to ski, go on hikes, sit outside around a campfire. Somehow, and he wasn’t quite sure how, he wanted to show these kids what Russ and Elaine had taught him—that life kept moving, changing, morphing from one thing to another. Bad now didn’t mean bad later. And he couldn’t figure a better way than sharing his love of the outdoors.

  Being outside, whether working or playing, had often helped Gavin feel that he was a part of something bigger, better, than whatever was going on in that moment. He’d like to pass that feeling—belief—on, if he could. And no, he didn’t have all the details or specifics worked out, but he would. In time.

  That was the promise he’d made to himself when he’d received the check from Russ’s estate, when he’d read the letter Russ had written to him.

  Turned out, the Demkos had wanted to adopt him, along with the other boy who’d been staying with them, and had actually tried to sort through the red tape before Russ’s job had taken them to Massachusetts. Bad luck that they’d run out of time before they’d run out of red tape, forcing them to give up. Bad luck, as well, that Gavin’s mother had chosen that exact moment to get her act together long enough to go for another chance at raising her son.

  A chance she’d ruined within months. She’d had more chances, later, down the road. All of which had amounted to a big, fat pile of nothing. Just like always.

  But that letter from Russ—the sheer fact of knowing that the Demkos had wanted him as their legal son—had arrived in the nick of the time. Gavin had been in Aspen, fighting with himself over a decision. And that letter... Well, Russ’s words had once again altered his view of himself, of what he wanted out of life, and had pulled him off the disastrous path he’d come too close to taking. So yeah, he owed Russ and Elaine. Owed them the best he could give.

  More than that, he owed himself.

  Lost in the past as he was, in his hopes for the future, Gavin didn’t realize when someone else stepped into line behind him. It was the voice that filtered into his thoughts. A female voice, warm and sultry, and somehow effervescent, that broke his concentration. For a beat, he stood there and soaked in that voice, let it seep into his soul and calm his ragged emotions.

  “Excuse me, ma’am?” the female said again, louder this time, more insistent. He half turned to see who was speaking and to whom, because while he’d been mistaken for many things, not a one of them had ever been a “ma’am.” Thank God for that.

  Ah. Haley Foster. The sweetheart of Steamboat Springs, live and in person. He knew who she was, of course, from the sporting goods store he’d tried to get a job at, but also by reputation. In this town, the Fosters were well liked, well respected and very much involved in...well, it seemed like just about everything. And while he didn’t know for sure, he thought Haley was the baby of the family. Her brothers, from the few times Gavin had seen them, appeared to be older.

  But who knew? He’d never been that great at guessing age. If he were to take a stab, though, he’d put her on the lower end of the twenties. Maybe midtwenties, but surely no older.

  Something inside sort of tightened as he appraised her. Her long, auburn hair was up in one of those contraptions only females knew how to use, forming a loose knot that wasn’t completely doing the job it was meant for. Escaped tendrils framed her face in a messy yet no less appealing sort of way. Her eyes, a riveting combination of smoke and willow and fog—green but not all-the-way green—were aimed at the woman he’d somehow spooked.

  “Ma’am,” she repeated. “Are you in line or...?”

  The woman, apparently catching on that she was being spoken to, tilted her chin in Haley’s direction. “Yes,” she said. “Of course I’m in line.”

  Haley widened those riveting eyes of hers in a darn good imitation of surprise. “Oh. Um, you do realize that you’re not actually standing in line, though. Right? I mean, I thought you were just looking at the menu, the way you’re so far off to the side like that.”

  “I’m in line,” the woman repeated. “Sorry for your confusion.”

  “Confusion?” Shaking her head, Haley gave the distance between the woman and Gavin and assessing glance. “Nope, not confused. In fact, I would say you’re a good foot or so off from actually being in the line. Maybe more.” She nudged—nudged—Gavin’s arm. “Wouldn’t you say that’s about a foot? More or less?”

  And damn if he didn’t have to work hard not to laugh out loud at the woman’s expression. “Easily a foot. More or less,” he confirmed.

  Without another word, the woman eased herself into line. And Haley...well, she winked at him, and muttered something about ignorance he couldn’t quite make out under her breath.

  He knew it was dumb. He knew it didn’t mean a damned thing. But the fact was, the sweetheart of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, had just done something only two other people in his life had ever before done. She’d stood up for him. And that made her different.

  What was that word Russ would use to describe Elaine? Gumption. That was it. “Boy,” he’d say, usually after Elaine had rightly torn into his hide about one thing or the other, “that woman’s got gumption, and a woman with gumption is a helluva lot more important ten, twenty, thirty years down the road than anything else she might have once had. Remember that.”

  And yep, he’d remembered. Now, looking at Miss Haley Foster and the spunky, satisfied grin she wore, it was easy to see that she was damn near overflowing with the stuff, with gumption. Before he went and said something to that effect, or something equally ridiculous, he gave her a quick nod and faced front again.

  Not being able to see her didn’t wipe the look of her out of his head, though. He felt her, too, in every ounce of his body, deeper than bone. Not so different, really, than the warmth of the sun saturating into his skin. Natural. Life-affirming. Real.

  He let those words tumble around for all of thirty seconds before booting them out. She was a woman he didn’t know—not really—and she didn’t know him. So nope, she hadn’t stood up for him, she’d asked a damn question. That was all. And comparing her physical presence to the friggin’ sun? Where had that idiotic thought come from, anyway?

  Didn’t matter. None of it.

  What did matter was obtaining Lola’s assistance. Gavin returned his focus to that and started mentally rehearsing his speech again, all the while pretending that the warm buzz cascading over him, through him, had nothing to do with the female standing behind him.

  Not one damn thing.

  * * *

  Gavin’s flannel-shirt-covered back, every long and broad muscular inch of it, was so still, Haley couldn’t determine if the man was even breathing. Disappointment, sharp and strong, cut into the anticipation that had been fizzing and popping in her blood. What had she thought would happen? That they’d strike up a co
nversation because she’d confronted the standoffish woman?

  Yes, actually, that was what she had thought.

  She chewed on her bottom lip as she stared at that long, broad back. Considered tapping his arm and just start talking. Ask him a question. Mention how nice the day was, how it was slowly warming up outside. Find out if he was a coffee or a tea drinker, or... Okay. Something less boring. Something less...predictable. Maybe she should just faint dead away at his feet and hope he’d pick her up and carry her off to wherever he lived and...and...have his way with her?

  Really? She shook her head, tried to erase the image, but the darn thing refused to vanish. Warmth flooded her cheeks and dripped down her neck. A tight ball of heat gathered in her stomach, low and heavy and almost throbbing in its intensity, reminding her of how long it had been since she’d last experienced that particular sensation.

  Desire. Longing. The need to be touched.

  And wow, wasn’t it just awesome that she’d have this experience now, here in the middle of the freaking coffee shop, over a man she barely knew, after the briefest, most innocent of encounters? Pitiful. Embarrassing. Maybe even a little sad.

  But also...interesting? Yes, that, too.

  The line moved again while she pondered, considering the complexities and the simplicities of the signals her body seemed hell-bent on sending her way. A chemical response, surely, since she didn’t know Gavin. She didn’t know where he came from, what his goals were, what his favorite foods were. She knew he skied, considered himself able to teach others how to ski. She knew he’d moved into the area sometime before December.

  And that was the sum of her knowledge.

  So, okay. A chemical response. Nothing more, nothing less. Her eyes traveled the length of him, from his untucked charcoal flannel shirt, to his denim-covered legs, to his heavy leather hiking boots. Easy to see all were clean. Well-worn, too. The jeans, the shirt, they fit his body as if he’d been wearing them, had worked and played in them, for so long that they’d formed to his shape. No other man would be able to wear those jeans and that shirt quite so well.