Page 16 of Possessive Mountain Man
This meant something to her. I just had to figure out why she disappeared.
“Can I get that to go?” I asked, pulling out my wallet.
I’d tip him extra well on that cheap drink. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I had to track her down. I had to have confirmation that she was blowing me off. Because if I left it alone, I’d wonder for the rest of my life what went wrong.
7
EVE
Ifelt like a prisoner escaping from a hostage situation. A bit dramatic, but that kind of described what had happened.
The day started out so perfectly, but then I agreed to go on a hike with my friends. At some point, I’d lost my phone and didn’t even realize it until we were back at the lodge. We’d all changed, and they’d packed me up in the rental car with promises of going to look for my phone later. They’d headed toward Adairsville for a night on the town.
Finally, I’d talked Catherine into bringing me back to the lodge. And that was why I now stood in the middle of the lobby alone, trying to figure out what to do next.
I couldn’t go find Hayden because I didn’t have a car or a phone. But I wanted to get to him. I had to get to him. Once I found him, everything would be okay.
But that wasn’t why I wanted to track him down. Nothing had felt right since he dropped me off at the lodge early this morning. We’d made promises to text each other throughout the day and make plans for tonight, but as it turned out, putting it off until I finished hiking with my friends had been a bad idea. By then, I hadn’t been able to text at all.
The woman at the front desk appeared to be even younger than I was. She’d given me a big smile and a welcome as I entered, but when she realized I was just going to stand there looking lost, she shifted her attention back to her computer screen.
Now, I walked toward her. “Do you know a guy named Hayden?”
She looked up, a smile frozen on her face. I knew from the way she tilted her head that the answer to that was a big fat no.
“He’s one of the loggers,” I said. “Tall, muscular, dark hair, and a beard and mustache.”
I could have been describing any number of loggers in this town. The beard was the only thing that set him apart from some of the others—but not all.
“Sorry, no,” she said. “Is he staying here? I could try to buzz his room.”
I took a deep breath and looked toward the restaurant. Even if he was a guest in the lodge, I didn’t know his last name. I’d been to his house, though. Could I find my way back there? Maybe. But first I’d need a way to get there.
“No, he’s not.” I stepped away. “Thanks, anyway.”
The restaurant was worth a try. Maybe he’d stayed to get a drink, waiting around just in case I showed up. It was a long shot, but what else could I do?
“Please let him be here,” I said to myself as I neared the restaurant entrance.
I was prepared to start looking for him the second the bar came into view. But what I wasn’t prepared for was the hulking figure that filled my vision as soon as I walked through the door. He was approaching, coming from the bar to the entrance. His head was down as he looked at the phone in his right hand. His left held a foam cup with a straw sticking out of it.
“Hayden?” I asked.
His head shot up. His eyes went wide. His mouth fell open.
“Eve?” he asked. “I’ve been looking everywhere. Well, not everywhere. This was the only place I knew to look. I was thinking about making the drive to Adairsville to see if I could track you down, but that would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
All of that came out in one big burst. That wasn’t like him at all. But it wasn’t just his chattering that told me he was relieved to have found me. No, it was his expression. He looked tired, but his features had relaxed considerably since seeing me.
I got it. I’d been stressing all day—not just about the lost phone, but the fact that my friends wouldn’t let me do anything about it. I’d informed my friends, before stomping out of the bar with Catherine, that I would not be returning to California to live. I’d only be coming back to our condo to remove my stuff.
After the way they’d behaved toward me on this trip, I was ready to let them find someone else to take over my lease. Catherine said she’d handle it. It was all getting pretty old to her too. I had a feeling that once the fall semester started up, she’d find other living arrangements for herself.
“I lost my phone on the hiking trail,” I said.
I took a deep breath and tried to compose myself, but I couldn’t stop the tears that welled in my eyes. It had been a long day and seeing him was like finally coming home after a long, exhausting absence.
“My friends wouldn’t let me go look for it. They tricked me into changing for dinner, saying we’d retrace our steps, but they didn’t want to do that. Once we got on the road, they said it was getting too dark outside.”
