Page 4 of Possessive Mountain Man
“Thanks,” I said, reaching over and taking one.
“I’ve just been snacking my way through the evening,” she said. “No dinner. Just junk food. At some point, I’m going to switch to dessert.”
“What are you drinking?”
I nodded toward her glass. It looked like some sort of liquor mixed with soda.
“Sweet tea,” she said. “I was going to be the designated driver, but my friends left without me.”
“Your friends left you here? That’s kind of rude.”
She shrugged. “I kind of asked them to. They got bored with this place. They’re looking for a bar that’s packed with people. So they called for a rideshare. I offered to drive them, but they ignored me. A car picked them up, and the rest is history.”
“We have rideshare here?”
She laughed. “It surprised me too. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s a tourist town.”
“Yeah, things have picked up a lot around here in recent years. My buddies on the crew were saying you couldn’t even get food delivered until recently. And that was true even during the busy season.”
She looked back over her shoulder at the mostly empty restaurant. “I guess this isn’t the busy season.”
“They say it gets busy in the fall, and in the spring, they do an Easter egg hunt. The slide thing is fun, but on its own, it doesn’t bring in a bunch of people.”
“That makes sense,” she said. “I thought we were going on a vacation where we would hike and rappel, maybe even do a helicopter tour. Instead, they just want to get trashed every night and dance on bars. We could have gone anywhere to do that.”
“What made you pick Seduction Summit?”
“My grandma was from here. We visited a few times when I was young, before she died. She loved this town. So I guess maybe my sales pitch on the outdoorsy stuff was a bit too hardcore. I should have noticed when Sammie kept asking about nightlife. They think Seduction Summit is boring and Adairsville’s only marginally better.”
“So, what do you think?” I asked.
She looked over at me, chomping on a fried mushroom. Once she swallowed, she asked, “Think about what?”
“Seduction Summit. Is it what you remembered?”
“Oh.” She looked off to the side thoughtfully for a while before finally answering. “It’s better. In fact, if my friends weren’t being so weird, this would be the best weekend of my life.”
I knew what she meant. I’d fallen in love with the place as soon as I set foot here. Even breathing the air just made me feel better. But her words reminded me she was only here temporarily.
“Where do you live?” I asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Northern California.”
Shit. That was far. Plus, it took over an hour to get to an airport that would take me to her. Or bring her to me. A long-distance relationship was definitely out of the question.
So, what was I doing? I should cut my losses. Walk out of here and forget that, for a moment in time, a woman came along who lit me up in ways no one had in years.
It occurred to me, as the bartender came over to refill her drink, that I hadn’t even considered a one-night stand with her.I couldn’t imagine sleeping with her and walking away. Nope. Was not going to happen.
“…fries?”
That word snapped me back to attention. Both the bartender and the woman seated next to me were staring at me.
“Eve here was asking about our fries,” the bartender said, probably noticing my dazed expression. “I was telling her we now have chili cheese fries and nacho fries.”
“They also have chili cheese tots,” the beauty, who was apparently named Eve, said. “We could share some appetizers. Unless you’re going to order a meal. Maybe you’re going to order a meal.”
Once again, they were both looking at me, waiting for me to speak. My silence was probably getting weird.
