Aching for the Mountain Man - Page 3

I turned and dug the key out of the right pocket of my cargo shorts. Then I unlocked the door and pushed my way in.

The smell hit me immediately. It wasn’t bad, necessarily. Just stale and musty, like a swamp. Yes, water had definitely gotten into this house, even if it didn’t look like it at first glance.

My heart broke for my buddy, who’d called me asking me to check on his mom’s house. She was in a nursing home and not in good shape. And nobody had thought to clear out her house when the roof blew off, including me.

The guilt weighed me down. But I’d make it up to him by taking care of things today.

“Looks great, right?”

The woman’s voice filled the room, making me aware I wasn’t alone. She’d followed me inside. I should be jumping for joy, but I was too busy beating myself up over my failure as a rescuer.

“Water damage,” I said, pointing toward the second story. “You can smell it.”

When my gaze landed on her face again, her eyes were wide. “Is that bad? Can it be fixed?”

“Let’s go take a look,” was all I said.

I really didn’t know the answer. None of us did. This was the first natural disaster I’d been part of, and I’d seen some hairy stuff in my time in the Navy.

I’d moved here to get away from all that, but I couldn’t just hide when people needed me. I’d take care of this, then return to my quiet life in my cabin.

Again, I didn’t wait for her, heading up the stairs in full scent detection mode. I braced myself for what I’d see when I got to the top of the steps.

But halfway up, I could see things were off. It was way too bright. As I stood on the very top step, all I could do was gape. I’d never seen anything like it. There was a clear view of the sky where a roof should have been.

“Holy shit,” I said, moving out of the way as I heard footsteps behind me.

My helper said nothing as she joined me, looking up. “Do you think they’ll total it?”

That question pulled my attention off my surroundings, refocusing it on the woman standing next to me. I’d a thousand times rather look at her than the ugliness the tornado had left behind.

“The house,” she said when I didn’t answer right away. “Isn’t that what they call it? Totaled?”

“Like a car?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

Our eyes met, and that brief connection did something to me. It wasn’t just my cock that stirred. No, I was drawn to this woman in a way I’d never been drawn to anyone. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and keep her safe from everything. Tornadoes, bears, dangerous people…

“I think they call that red tagging,” I said, not even sure where that information came from. I wanted to impress her with my knowledge, though. “And that’s up to the insurance companies to decide. I need to get everything on the top floor out of here so we can get started on remediation.”

With that, I started walking, heading into the bedroom to the left. It had a desk with one of those gigantic computer monitors that were around back in the early days of the internet. Next to it was an equally outdated printer—the kind that made a ridiculous amount of noise.

All of it would have to be trashed, but I doubted my buddy would be brokenhearted over that. He was more interested in things that couldn’t be replaced, like pictures and childhood trophies.

“Let’s get to work,” I said.

I headed straight for the monitor. The thing would be heavy as hell, if I remembered right. Part of protecting this woman I’d just met was taking on the heaviest stuff.

“I’m going to look for boxes,” the woman said. “Be right back.”

I didn’t even have time to respond. I stopped halfway across the room and turned, and she was gone.

Boxes made sense. Did I expect her to carry one item at a time out of this place? But what really struck me was that this was a take-charge kind of person, and I liked that even more than anything else I’d seen of her.

For the first time in my life, I realized that was exactly what I wanted in a woman.

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