One Night with her Bachelor(3)
Except it would’ve needed flour.
Either way, he’d finally noticed her.
“Mom, are you even listening to me?”
“What?” She shook her head clear of Gabriel’s eyes and remembered where she was and who she was with. “Uh, yeah. Of course, sweetheart. I was just thinking about what you were saying about… Colton Thorpe being pretty darn good.”
“Right. But not the best. I’m going to be the best.”
Phew. Pretty easy guess, since the local-boy-turned-rodeo-champion was Josh’s hero. But still. She shouldn’t fade out on him like that. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t polite, even if it was sometimes necessary to preserve her sanity. She focused on her boy for the rest of the drive to his scout leader’s house, making sure to give him every bit of her attention.
Sadly, she couldn’t shake her body clear of her residual longing. It pulsed through her with every heartbeat. If just the thought of Gabriel did that to her, what would the reality of him be like?
Ten minutes later, she kissed Josh goodbye and gave him a final warning to mind the grown-ups before she jumped back into her truck for some camping of her own. She’d told everyone she was going to take advantage of a rare opportunity for solitude. She’d packed a sleeping bag and the two-person tent she and Josh usually shared, but hopefully she wouldn’t need either of them.
She parked in a small lot at the trailhead that led through the woods toward Gabriel’s cabin. From what she heard around town, he lived about two miles hard trekking off the path, so she grabbed her hiking boots from behind her seat and put them on. She slid on her big backpack, which was crammed full of her camping gear, and locked her truck. Then she headed out into the wilderness to get herself some of that lucky everyone was always talking about.
*
Gabriel bent over and placed another log on the chopping block behind his cabin. Sweat trickled down his spine to the waist of his camo pants as the September sun beamed on him. Before picking up his ax, he drew his shirt over his head, wiped his grimy face with it, and tossed it onto his porch railing. He’d been working all morning, preparing the cabin for the long winter. He’d started at sunrise, sanding his wooden window frames and the porch. This afternoon he would paint them with a layer of sealant so they’d be protected from the wet winter weather.
Today was all about the wood. As he grabbed the handle of his ax and swung the blade hard through the log, his body filled with the soreness that signaled a morning well spent.
Bend down. Grab a log. Place it on the stump. Pick up the ax. Swing and split. Add firewood to the pile.
The routine soothed him. The physicality focused him on the parts of his body that worked rather than the ones that didn’t. More than anything, physical labor left him little room to think. Thinking was never good. Thinking led to dreaming, which led to longing, which led to disappointment.
Bend down. Grab a log. Place it on the stump. Pick up the ax—
The bushes at the edge of the clearing rustled and he glanced up to make sure he wasn’t being visited by the mama bear and cub he’d surprised this morning as they’d rummaged through his composter. But a frisson of surprise rippled through him as he noticed the woman standing there, carrying a heavy-looking backpack with a tent bag secured to the bottom.
No cub with her this time, but he certainly recognized this mama bear.
Molly Dekker had stared at him all through his teenage years. No surprise there, since most people had stared at him and his twin sister, Camila. Maybe they waited for signs of the sinful nature he and Mila inherited from their parents’ betrayal to emerge. Mila had spent her teenage years living down to their expectations, until she’d messed up her life so badly she’d needed a complete do-over. Gabriel had spent his time more wisely, working hard to build the life he wanted, staying out of people’s way. With the exception of the Air Force and his friendship with Scott, he’d never joined in on things that looked like they involved bonding. Bonding was just a couple letters away from bondage, and—call him crazy—but Gabriel had never been a fan of slavery. His job meant he rushed head-first into chaos and did his best to save whomever he could. His personal life—what was left of it—meant he rushed head-first into solitude.
But the morning’s solitude had been disrupted by pretty Molly, the sweet girl who’d surprised approximately no one by growing up to become a kindergarten teacher. She took a hesitant step forward, and then one more. Before he knew it, she was just a few steps away. “I—I was looking for a camping spot. I didn’t realize your cabin was here.”
He bit down gently on the inside of his cheek and looked at her, not really sure what to say. He could point to the cabin and say Well, it is, but that was obvious.
She shifted her weight, slipping her hands under the straps of her backpack to ease some of its heaviness from her shoulders. His silence seemed to unnerve her.
He wasn’t an *. He knew how to behave. But that didn’t make him good with small talk, especially when he hadn’t been able to prepare himself for it.
He cleared his throat. “Going camping?”
Nice one, shit for brains. That was even more obvious than pointing out the cabin’s existence. But for some odd reason, it seemed to jumpstart her side of the conversation.
“Yeah. Josh—my son—he’s ten years old, you see, and he’s a Boy Scout and they’re camping on Copper Mountain for the next two nights, so I thought I’d treat myself to some alone time.”