“Your most expensive pair of heels? What will you ever do?” The man said with full-blown sarcasm, not even a hint of a smile on his face.
I held back my eye roll. Of course, he thought I was just a city girl lost and helpless.
Okay, so maybe I was those things, but he didn’t have to look at me like I was.
“If you have an extra thousand dollars lying around, I’d love to replace them. But right now, I’ll settle with coming inside, drying off a little, and possibly using your phone? As long as your dog doesn’t eat me.”
“Who, Bluey?” The man asked, while glancing down at the dog. “He’s a marshmallow. But yeah, come in and dry off. We can find your car in the morning.”
“In the morning?” I asked as he held his door open, one hand holding onto Bluey’s collar.
“Yeah, it’s dark, muddy, and rainy. We can wait until the morning. Don’t worry, you can sleep in my bed and I’ll take the couch.”
“No, I can’t possibly ask?—”
“You didn’t. I’m telling you. Now come in, before you get more wet.”
Little did I know then that stepping into his cabin would change my life forever.
CHAPTER TWO
Ayden
A city girl?
Here in my cabin.
Soaking wet, in ruined expensive clothes, and needing my help.
Since when did I take in strays?
Especially city ones.
I was a loner. A small-town mountain man who lived alone with my dog, kept to myself, and didn’t bother a single soul.
Yet here she was at two am, walking all over my property, in her pricey ruined heels.
It annoyed me yet, she turned me on. Why?
I imagined her living here. A city girl plucked from her cozy life and dropped here, in the cold rainy woods.
Ha. One day in this cabin in the woods and she’d be begging to go home.
Yeah, I had indoor plumbing with a toilet and a shower. But I chopped my own wood for my wood stove, grew my own fruitsand vegetables, only bought local food, and roughed it out here. It was how I liked it.
None of that stupid come easy to me shit city people got used to. A cab at your beck and call, or food delivered right to your door, or a million parties and social events, endless socializing and an exhausting night life.
No, thank you.
My older parents raised me on their farm, just the three of us, and after they passed, I moved to Appleridge, and never looked back, carving a little hole in the wall in the world for just myself.
The last thing I needed was a city girl and her destroyed shit fucking my world up.
Yet here she was.
And the most insane thing?
I felt drawn to her.
