On the Mountain (Follow your Bliss #5) (12 page)

Like a gentleman, Wes opened the
door to the truck for her.

“I wonder if our moms were
roommates or knew each other. What year did she graduate? I’ll have to ask next
time we talk. What’s your mom’s name?”

Wes didn’t answer. Just as she
was about to repeat the question he said, “Her name was Nina Carter.”

Through the haze of food and
drink, Baskia realized what he meant.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
“I’m so sorry. If you need to talk about it…” Her offer was feeble, but his
lips quirked as if he swallowed back long sentences, paragraphs even, but was
afraid, yet desperate, to force his way through the difficulty.

“I don’t want to talk about it,”
he said, not taking his eyes off the road.

“Need and want are two different
things,” Baskia answered lucidly, despite the saké. Nevertheless, like him, she
watched the road ahead until the truck climbed the mountain.

“Thanks for dinner,” Wes said
when they pulled into the driveway.

“You’re welcome. You’ve helped me
out, a lot.”

“I can get that wood delivered
and stacked by the end of next week. They say a storm is on its way. Do you
still need me to show you how to operate the woodstove?”

She didn’t want to say yes.
However, no, meant there would still be a stack of wood outside in the spring
and possibly a case of frostbite. He was capable, strong, and manly, yet there
was something he needed, something she didn’t have. Happiness? Companionship?
Time away from the woods and in civilization? She wanted to figure it out and
help him find it, just as she wanted someone to reach down and give her a hand,
pointing her in the right direction.

“That would be great. Um, you can
show me now if you want,” she knew that was a bad idea as she eyed the
motorcycle parked in the driveway.

“Better to have wood first,” he
said, almost laughing.

She was glad her foolishness
earned her a smile. “Right. Of course. Thanks again,” she said, getting out of
the truck just as soon as it stopped.

Once inside, a dim light shone
next to the couch. Trace lay there, fast asleep, his inked arms folded over his
chest, his lips, perpetually on the edge of laughter.

Baskia fell into bed, glad the
night was over.

^^^

For the next few days, Trace made
no mention of the twenty minutes they spent making out on the counter, nor did
he try again. Electricity fizzed and popped anytime they were in a room
together, but he kept his distance.

By the weekend, Trace had read
Baskia’s wide range of books, as if being on the mountain wasn’t enough of an
escape.

She couldn’t stop moving. She
caught him watching her more times than she could count, making her wonder what
he saw through his alluring eyes. She continued her fitness routine, prepping
for the upcoming show, dropping calories despite the few times he’d offered to
cook for her. She cleaned the house, top to bottom, practiced her walk—not that
she needed to—sifted through old magazines, and couldn’t sit still.

One afternoon, while she
contemplated whether to go into town or sort her cosmetics, her knee
jitterbugged against his on the couch.

He said, “Don’t you get bored
here?”

“Yeah,” she answered absently.

He tilted his head toward her as
if waiting to hear more.

“That’s the point.” She could
hardly endure the long stretches of measured time, the grandfather clock
counting the seconds, but it was an exercise she wanted to push through.

Her smile brought him closer to
the punch line. “So you came here to get bored? You know what they say about
idle hands. But it doesn’t seem like you can keep still.”

“That’s just because you’re
here,” she said candidly, before she could stop herself.

“And why’s that? Do I make you
nervous?” He gripped her knee in his strong hand, stopping it from shaking.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?
No, you don’t make me anything,” she said, leaving the room, cursing herself
for pouting, for wanting him, for being so confused. When she closed her
bedroom door behind her, she stuck her tongue out in the direction of the
living room like a petulant child. “So there,” she muttered. Desire burned, but
if his interest came and went on a whim, or whenever
he
was bored, she
wouldn’t give in.

Chapter Twelve

Baskia strutted from her room
after a few hours of online browsing and shopping to get something to eat.
Trace reclined on the couch, one hand behind his head and his legs stretched
long. He watched her cross the room; she would have been concerned if he didn’t
look at her with his particular hunger written on his lips. Yet, he didn’t try
to fill it, so what was the point?

While she looked in the fridge,
he stood close behind her, reaching up and taking two glasses out of the
cupboard overhead.

“Want a drink?” he asked, his
voice whisper-soft by her ear. “There are some swank drinks in that book of
yours.” He referred to the copy of Mixology she’d bought online.

“Fine,” she said, indulging him,
but also sure that a drink would stem her own boredom.

“Cards?” he asked, holding a deck
in his hand as he brought her an ombré tequila sunrise. The layers of colorful
liquid melted into each other. “Sunrise for a sunset. Enjoy,” he said, looking
out the window as the copper sun dipped low against the dark span of the
mountains.

“You’re really bored, aren’t
you?”

He smirked.

While they worked their way
through the tequila section of the book, and a great deal of a bottle of
Patrón, Baskia found herself yearning for him, remembering that late summer
afternoon, and the lake. More than once their hands brushed while playing
cards, but from beneath the surface of the alcohol that burned her stomach, she
told herself, no, no, no.

As she knocked another drink
back, she could hardly resist the urge to laugh and giggle, to nudge him with her
foot when he made a teasing comment, but she resisted the pull of desire.

“I’m leaving in a couple days,
back to Brooklyn.” Trace said.

“Thanks for telling me this
time.” She wanted to ask him where he went and what he did, but in truth, the
possible range of answers made her uneasy. “I won’t be here for the first two
weeks in December, so if you come up, clean up after yourself.”

“Sure thing,” he said, tossing
down a winning hand.

“Hey, no fair,” Baskia said, mad
that he’d won. She’d needed one more card. “I demand a rematch. And a refill.”
She didn’t want to think about him leaving.

With a tequini in hand—a tequila
version of a martini—she shifted to untuck her leg, leaned too far over, and
the drink splashed and spilled on the cards. As she went to wipe it up, she and
Trace knocked heads.

He looked intently into her eyes.
“You’re so damn sexy, even when you’re half drunk.”

She hiccupped. “Nope. I’m pretty
sure I’m all drunk.” She stood, to get something to wipe up with, but slipped
on some of the cards. He steadied her. They both started laughing. She lobbed a
pillow at him.

“Let’s not spill any more of
this,” he said.

“That’s a great idea.” She downed
the remaining drink in one long sip, and then launched herself to his end of
the couch, their lips instantly pressing together. “What were you saying about
me being sexy?” she asked, longing to hear his low voice drawl the words in her
ear.

His shirt came off. He unhooked
her bra. He pawed her chest. “You taste good. You look good,” he said when he
pulled away.

She nibbled on his ear. “More,” she
whispered.

Then he stopped. “No, we can’t.”

“What? Why not? We did before and
it was—”

He shook his head. “I should go
to bed.”

“Wait a minute. You can’t just
start and then stop. That’s not—” She wanted to demand another redo, like the
rematch in their card game.

“I can, and I did. I don’t want
to—”

Baskia’s cheeks burned with shame
and anger. “You...” She stormed back to her room, slamming the door.

The next day her head only
stopped spinning in the afternoon, keeping her in bed late. Rain fell heavily,
cooping them up in the cabin. After refilling her glass of water and rooting
around the medicine cabinet for something to dull her throbbing head, she
retreated to her room.

 Trace appeared in the doorway.

Looking up from where she sorted
her stack of shoes, she snapped, "What?"

His arms gripped the top of the
doorframe as he leaned in. “I just want to tell you that last night, wasn’t
about you.”

“Oh, ‘You’re so sexy,’ isn’t
about me? Were you getting me mixed up with someone else?”

“Yes, I mean no. No, not like
that at all. It’s just that I’m dealing with some shit,” he said, trying to
mask a look of agony with his patent smirk.

“Then deal with it. Don’t drag me
into it and then leave me there.”

“You’re right. I won’t do it
again.” His expression hardened.

She wanted to say,
No that’s
the thing, I want you to do it again
, but he left her there with her pile
of shoes, feeling as confused and frustrated as ever.

The smell of lasagna baking in
the oven lured Baskia into the kitchen a couple hours later. She uncorked a
bottle of wine hoping to chase away reminders of her headache. Trace had set
the table for two and candlelight burned softly between the place settings.

“Will you join me?” he asked.

“How’d you know my favorite?”
Homemade lasagna had the potential to earn  him forgiveness.

His rough around the edges
appearance and moody demeanor didn’t keep with details like candles and cloth
napkins. If she’d been anywhere else, she’d have said so long to him, but there
was no escaping him in the cabin, she was rooted there. And the meal smelled
irresistible.

They didn’t say much while they
ate, but Baskia noted the silence wasn’t awkward like with Wes. Of course, she
wanted to ask what he’d meant when he said he was dealing with some shit, but
instead they made conversation about her return trip to New York after
Thanksgiving, a few of the books they’d both read, and their wine preferences.
By the time they were done and the grandfather clock struck twelve, Baskia
glowed with the satisfaction of a good meal shared in good company.

“Thanks,” she said before
retiring to her room.

“No, thank you,” he said,
meaningfully. With that, he blinked off the light.

The clock glowed a half-hour had
past when Baskia felt the covers lift, shuttling in a burst of cool air.
Trace’s lean body slipped into the bed, chilly against hers.

“Midnight delight?” he asked with
a soft chuckle.

“Were you cold?” she asked,
turning toward him.

“Not anymore.” He reached his
muscled arm around her back and pulled her closer.

In that moment, the confusion
that translated to anger from his mixed messages didn’t matter. She wanted him,
and he obviously felt the same. She couldn’t deny herself the intense pleasure
of hooking up with Trace. She’d never before experienced the longing and
passion that played between them. His tongue explored her mouth as she nibbled
on his lips, gently tugging, nipping, and sucking. She tugged on his boxers.

“I can’t stop thinking about
you,” he said.

 “I don’t want you to,” she
whispered. “But you said this wasn’t a good idea.”

“I never claimed to have good
ideas,” he said, his breath quickening.

“I thought you were leaving
tomorrow.”

“I am. At dawn.”

Baskia wanted to ask him to
define what this was for him, what it meant, but it’d never mattered before, or
perhaps it always had, but no one ever made her feel as much as he did.
Emotions churned inside her like a storm on the sea with waves in the form of
lust, yearning, confusion, arousal, frustration, intimacy, and bliss, all
crashing into one another. Her attention to so many conflicting feelings waned
as the heat built between their skin.

Their lips pressed urgently
together, like yesterday didn’t matter and there may never be a tomorrow. In
the dim light that shone through the windows, Trace never took his eyes off
Baskia, perhaps afraid she’d disappear. He invited her to melt into him.

Baskia clawed her way from a deep
sleep to the sound of Trace’s motorcycle revving. She leaped to the window as
the back of his head disappeared in the exhaust from the tailpipe on the cold
morning. Pulling a blanket from the end of the bed around her shoulders, she
lingered wondering if she’d see him again and if it was worth the laughter, the
frustration, the confusion, the ease, the attraction, the anger, and the
passion.

“What is it about you, Trace
Wolfe?” she asked aloud.

Later that day, Baskia went into
town to return a few books, namely the romance novel, long overdue. As she set
it on the counter a slip of white paper brushed to the floor.

“Oops. You dropped your
bookmark,” Mary said, pointing.

Baskia crouched to pick it up and
recognized Trace’s handwriting from the note on the washing machine. It said,

What do you want? XO

A half-smile tugged at her cheek.
It was as if he’d read her mind, but before she answered the question, she
wanted to know what he wanted. Guys had always wanted her, but in a sexual way,
for status, to tell all their friends on Facebook that they were dating a hot
model, and to show up at a party with her on their arm. It was never so much
about her, but about how she looked and what she did, not who she was. Surely,
that wasn’t true about Trace. Status didn’t seem to register on any list of
important qualities he may have had. They flew so far from each other’s social
orbit as to be laughable. She imagined him hanging out with bikers, doing God
only knows what in dim, smoky bars.

“Miss Benedict,” Mary asked,
“your card, please.

Baskia handed it over and then
carefully put the slip of paper in her purse.

“Oh, this is a good one. I’m sure
you’ll like it,” she said, offering commentary on a memoir. Baskia picked it
because she liked the bluebird on the cover. “Oh, and I see you’re brushing up
on classics. Very good.”

Baskia’s cheeks grew rosy as she
tried to ignore the reason she’d picked up the Iliad—Trace had mentioned being
a classics major before he’d dropped out of Harvard.

“Will this be all? Are you sure
you don’t want any DVDs? I always watch
Roman Holiday
on Thanksgiving. I
love Audrey Hepburn. She had such class.”

Baskia grabbed a copy of
Paris
when it Sizzles
from the nearby display.

“Good choice. You know, I met her
once.”

The librarian relayed a story of
her sole trip abroad, to Italy, where she stumbled onto the set of the film. Baskia
indulged her, not mentioning she’d lost count of how many times she’d been to
Europe, Italy specifically.

“Someday, I’d really love to go
back,” Mary said wistfully.

“Why don’t you?”

She sighed. “Things have changed.
I’m not as young as I used to be. And well…” but she didn’t answer. The chime
on the door tinkled, and Mary greeted an older patron with an overstuffed tote
of books.

“Thanks,” she called as she
skipped out the door, the note from Trace zipping through her mind. She wanted
him. However, the chaos that danced between them, made it daunting, if not
impossible. As surely as there could never have been a relationship between
Anya, in Roman Holiday, and the journalist, played by Gregory Peck, a future
between Baskia and Trace was unlikely. Maybe she’d be better off with someone
simple like Wes.

As her thoughts carried her back
to the mountain, the wood delivery, and the impending winter, she caught
herself up short with astonishment. Why was she so hung up on guys and
relationships? Hadn’t she sought refuge in the forgotten town to figure out
what she wanted? That’s what Trace’s message meant. What did she want in life
and from herself? And there she was again, back where she’d started. The
question hung in her mind like a no vacancy sign, the neon bulb flickering and
dimming with her inability to occupy it.

Stashing her books in the car,
Baskia went into the market, hoping to find something suitable for a
Thanksgiving meal. Her mother had invited her over, but she’d already be in New
York for two weeks in early December, adding any extra days would give Anne the
opportunity to arrange another meeting with the alums from Columbia and other
unpleasantness.

A young girl with mousy brown
hair and a downturned mouth replaced the cashier with the missing teeth. Baskia
roamed the aisles, not sure what she was looking for. She spotted a box of
mashed potatoes and read the instructions. “Just add milk, salt, and butter.
That’s easy enough.” She went to the freezer section and grabbed a bag of green
beans, a frozen meal with cranberry sauce, and a small tub of Dulce de leché
ice cream. The scent of warm cinnamon swirled in the air.

At the counter, a portly woman
set down several pie boxes. “If you run out, call me right away. I can have
more down here in three hours or you can take the name and number of the
customer, and I can call them. I know this is just a trial, but no one has ever
turned down one of my pies before.”