Mountain Man's Baby Surprise (A Mountain Man's Baby Romance) Read online

  “Good. Get some rest. You need it.”

  When Luke was sure I was set, he left, cold wind blowing through the front door before he slipped out. When Luke was gone, and I was alone, I searched for that familiar feeling of panic, but I couldn’t find it. For the first time since I had left home, I felt safe and relaxed. I lay down on my makeshift bed and closed my eyes.

  Chapter 4

  Luke

  I made it to Dillon in record time. Dillon was the closest town to the cabin where I could stock up on supplies, something I had to do often through the winter. In the summer it was easier to live off the land, but in winter, everything was frozen solid, and I had to buy supplies.

  I didn’t mind. I loved the winter season. I was comfortable in the mountains, and I knew my way around.

  “Morning, Luke,” Old Sal said when I walked into the City Market.

  “Morning,” I said and headed straight to the premade vegetable packs. I wanted to make more soup for Anna, and I had to buy more food to be able to feed the both of us. She wouldn’t leave right away, and I needed to make sure I gave her what she needed.

  She had said she’d been heading to Steamboat Springs. It was two hours’ drive from Dillon, just about. I had no idea what the weather looked like up there now, but it wasn’t the best road to drive when it stormed the way it had, and Anna didn’t know the mountains the way I did. I was worried about that.

  When I reached the tills, Mavis was in the queue in front of me.

  “This weather is making my arthritis act up,” she complained. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

  “The only thing any of us can do is stay indoors and keep warm,” I said with a friendly smile.

  “Of course, that’s the way,” Mavis agreed. “But I get so frustrated when I’m stuck indoors. It’s a catch twenty-two with us old people, isn’t it?”

  I nodded, still smiling, and paid for my groceries.

  “Oh, Luke dear,” Mavis said, waving her hand at me to get my attention when I wanted to walk away. “Charlie has been asking about you. You must come to see him.”

  Charlie was Mavis’s grandson, a sweet little boy that I had made friends with and had taken fishing in the summer.

  “I will,” I said.

  “How does this afternoon suit you?”

  I was eager to get going. I didn’t want to leave Anna alone for too long.

  “This afternoon is a little tough for me, Mavis. But we’ll arrange something.”

  I ran out of the store and to my truck before anyone else could stop me and make small talk. It was all they did in this small town. Usually, I budgeted the time for it. Today I wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.

  In my mind, every possible scenario took place of something that could have happened to Anna. She could leave the cabin and be attacked by a mountain lion, even though they stayed far away. She could have upped and left without letting me know, and I would come home to an empty cabin. Someone could come and take her away—she looked like she was running. In my mind, everything went wrong, and for everything that I thought of that could go wrong, I had to fight with myself and insist that it hadn’t happened.

  Still, I peeled out of the parking lot and drove back to the cabin as fast as I dared in the treacherous snow.

  The drive took much longer than I wanted. I had to slow down twice to get through patches of snow that were too thick to speed through. Driving in snow, even with snow tires, was dangerous business.

  When I arrived at the cabin, I grabbed the bags of groceries and walked to the front door. I pushed it open, and the heat from inside greeted me first. The sleeper couch was empty, but Anna stood at the sink, washing dishes.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said, putting down the groceries. “I’ll take care of it, later.”

  Anna shook her head. “I’m almost done, and it’s the least I can do in return for your hospitality. I’m grateful that you’re letting me stay here.”

  “Oh, you’re more than welcome,” I said. I peeled my thick jacket and scarf off, warm enough now that I was inside, and picked up the groceries. I put everything away in the fridge and small pantry.

  “Help yourself to whatever you feel like,” I said. “This is your home for now.”

  Anna nodded and smiled carefully. “Thank you,” she said politely.

  After Anna finished the dishes, she dried her hands and walked to the couch where she had put it back into the seating position and folded the blankets into a pile.

  “I really need to get to Steamboat Springs,” she said. “They must be worried sick by now.”

  I shook my head. “I have some bad news about that,” I said. “I saw weather reports in town. There’s a bad storm up there at the moment, and they’ve closed roads. You’re not going to be able to get to Steamboat Springs for a while.”

  Anna looked worried. “How long do you think it will be?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “With this weather, anything can happen. But I would say a day or two? It’s not too bad, but it’s enough to make things difficult.

  Anna nodded. “I guess that makes sense,” she said. “The weather here is crazy.”

  I laughed. “It takes some getting used to. Here, we plan around the weather.”

  “I can see why,” Anna said. She folded her arms across her chest and sighed. “I guess I’ll have to wait it out, then.”

  “It’s the best way to do it,” I said. “We’re safe from being snowed in. The cabin is high enough and sheltered by the mountain for the most part. I don’t think we’ve ever been stranded here.”

  Anna listened to me, nodding as if she found it interesting.

  “I understand. It’s a different approach. Winter must really disrupt your schedule sometimes.”

  “It does,” I said. “But you learn to live with it.”

  “I suppose you do,” Anna said.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “As soon as the storm lets up and the roads open, I’ll drive you to Steamboat Springs myself. It’s a two-hour drive. We can make it easily.”

  “That would help me so much, thank you,” Anna said. I nodded, happy to be able to help. She was the type of woman I wanted to do favors for. I wanted to go out of my way for her. I don’t think I’d ever felt this way about a woman. It was refreshing to be around Anna. Her conversation was intellectual. She was rational about everything despite her situation, and she was to the point. I liked it. I liked her.

  I made us coffee, and we sat together on the couch, talking. I wanted to get to know this woman, and to my surprise, she talked easily about herself. When I had brought her home, she had been so closed off and frightened, but getting lost in a storm would do that to a person.

  “What did you study?” I asked when Anna told me she wasn’t working because she had recently graduated.

  “Criminal Psychology,” Anna said. “I took it all the way to a master’s.”

  “That’s impressive,” I said. “What made you decide on that?”

  Anna hesitated. “I guess because I see so much crime all around us, I felt there had to be a way to help. And the first way to help is to understand why it’s happening in the first place.”

  “That’s a straightforward sense of reason,” I said. I was surprised every time she explained her logic to me.

  “What about you?” Anna asked. “Did you study?”

  I nodded. “I started, but I dropped out pretty early on, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Why?” Anna asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I got involved with the wrong people. You know how it goes.”

  Anna nodded, and I chuckled because with her degree in criminal psychology, she would know exactly how it went. Except, she would never know the full extent. How I had needed to get away from that life where my very existence had depended on someone else’s mood. Where Frankie had threatened me with a gun to my head more than once. Where leaving would mean dying. Anna would
n’t understand that risk.

  “I left that life behind, but I still don’t have a degree to my name,” I added.

  “Why don’t you go back to college and finish what you started?” Anna asked.

  I chuckled, shaking my head. “I’m happy up here in the mountains, living the simple life. It works for me.”

  Anna nodded. “There’s merit to it. I don’t think I’ve ever been this calm, and I don’t have a good reason to me. The mountains, so unbelievably large and majestic, always remind me how small I am in comparison to the grander scheme of things.”

  We talked for hours, learning things about each other, talking about trivial things that we wouldn’t normally ask someone about.

  Night fell, and the living room became darker and darker, the fire in the hearth the only source of light.

  “We should make supper,” I said when it was so dark we could barely see each other.

  “Right,” Anna said. “I’ll help.” She stood up and flipped on the light switch. We would have had to switch on the lights sooner or later—we wouldn’t have been able to sit and talk in the dark forever—but the moment the light flooded the room, driving away the twilight, the spell was broken.

  Anna walked to the fridge and opened it.

  “What are we making?” she asked.

  We made chicken and rice and salad, and we worked together to make it happen. It was strange having someone else in my kitchen when I had been alone for more than a year, but I found I enjoyed the company. Whether it was because it was with Anna, specifically, was impossible to say. I didn’t have anyone else to compare it with.

  We ate the food we had made, and it had come out fantastic. We talked more, drinking wine from a bottle I had opened and ate our food.

  The wine made me feel light, buzzing through my veins. I barely drank out here. I had to be on my guard, ready to run at a moment’s notice, and I couldn’t afford to be intoxicated. But it had been more than a year that I’d been here, and no one had found me. One night was alright.

  We cleaned up after we were done, and Anna and I stood side by side as we washed the dishes. I glanced at her every now and then. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. The more I got to know her, the more beautiful she became. I was aware of her body and how sexy she was. She carried herself with grace, and her body was perfect. Curvy in all the right places with breasts perfectly sized to fit in my hands and hips that made me want to sit up and beg.

  But I couldn’t perv over her. I had to behave.

  Anna reached for a dishcloth, stretching across me and her breast brushed up against me. I took a deep breath, feeling my cock harden in my pants. God, I wanted to fuck her so badly. But I had to behave, I told myself. Behave, behave, behave.

  When Anna’s hand brushed against mine, she looked at me, and her eyes were filled with the same hunger I felt. Was I only seeing it there because I wanted her so badly? But no, her lips were parted slightly, and her pink tongue darted out, wetting her lips. She looked at me with big brown eyes. When they slid to my lips, I knew I hadn’t misread it. She was as filled with lust as I was.

  I stepped closer to her so that our bodies were pressed up against each other, and she inhaled sharply. I put my hand on her cheek, pushing her hair back with my fingers, and kissed her.

  Chapter 5

  Anna

  The kiss was urgent immediately, and Luke wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against him. We made out as if we were going to consume each other, the atmosphere charged with a passion I hadn’t ever felt before. Luke picked me up, lifting me by my thighs, and I wrapped my legs around him. He carried me to the bedroom and laid me down on the bed, still kissing me.

  I wanted him so badly. My body ached for his touch, my nerve endings were on fire, and I wanted him inside of me. Even though I had never done this before. I was a virgin because my dad was scary, and no man had been good enough in his eyes. Not even when they had been good enough in mine. My dad was scary when he wanted to be, and most men ran a mile when they saw him.

  The few that had managed to stick it out hadn’t been good enough for me. I had spent a lot of time around the men my dad hired, watching them and taking note of how they treated women, and I had decided I never wanted to be treated that way.

  Luke was the first person that didn’t treat me like a piece of ass.

  “Wait,” I said, breaking the kiss. I was breathing hard. Luke’s eyes were cornflower blue and riddled with hunger, but I needed him to know.

  “What?” he asked. He was out of breath, too. He was as turned on as I was. I could feel the thick ridge in his pants where he pressed himself against my crotch.

  “I’m a virgin,” I said, throwing it out there.

  Luke blinked at me, taking in what I had just said and rolled off me. I didn’t want him to stop, but I had to talk to him about it. The mattress dipped under our weight, and we were pushed together in the middle of the bed.

  “Really?” he asked, and he looked like he couldn’t believe it. It was a compliment.

  I nodded.

  “We don’t have to do this,” he said. “We can stop.”

  Those words made my heart sing. Would any of the men in my life before have said that to me? No. And Sam, God, I didn’t even want to think about him.

  “I don’t want to stop,” I said. “I want to do this. I just thought it was something you should know.”

  Luke nodded and moved closer to me, rolling onto his side so that his front was pressed against me. I was aware of his erection, of the way his eyes bore into mine. He put his hand on my thigh and moved it slowly upward, making me shiver as he touched me inch by inch.

  “I’ll be gentle,” he said in a low voice.

  I kissed him. I didn’t want to talk anymore. He knew what he needed to know, and it was enough. I rolled onto my side as well so that we faced each other and put my arm around Luke’s neck, kissing him deeper. He slid his tongue into my mouth, and I sighed, melting against him. He was an amazing kisser.

  Luke ran his hand down my body, and I shivered and squirmed slightly, smiling against Luke’s mouth. I was ticklish.

  The sensation quickly changed when he pushed his hand under my shirt and his palm and fingertips were on my bare skin. My breath hitched in my throat, and everywhere he touched me left a trail of fire. His hand cupped my breast, and he kneaded and massaged me. I rolled away from him a little to give him space to touch me.

  Luke pushed the other hand under my shirt, too. He pulled my shirt up and massaged both my breasts. My nipples were hard against the padding of my bra, and I moaned softly. Luke touched me as if I was delicate, rare, making me feel precious. I loved how he made me feel, and we had barely done anything, yet. It was confirmation every step of the way that I had made the right choice telling him I wanted to go through with it.

  After a while of Luke worshipping my breasts, he pulled my shirt up, and I lifted my arms to help him get rid of it. I pulled my hair back and out of the way when the shirt lifted over my head, and I was in my bra in front of Luke. I arched my back so Luke could reach under my body and unclasp it, and he did it with skill that suggested he had done it before.

  I didn’t care. Luke looked at me like I was the only woman to him, the only one that had ever mattered. None of those that might have come before me meant anything, now. It was only Luke and me, and he treated me like it had always been that way.

  Luke looked at my breasts when I was topless in front of him, my bra somewhere beside the bed along with my shirt. He looked at me like he had never seen a topless woman before.

  “You’re incredibly beautiful,” Luke said, and I blushed, feeling the need to cover up. I was suddenly shy. I started to lift my arms, putting them across my chest but Luke stopped me, shaking his head.

  “Don’t,” he said. “It’s perfection.”

  He put his hands on my breasts again, and I lifted my hands over my head instead, forcing myself on display and giving him space to do what he wanted to do. I
wanted Luke to have this, to do what he wanted to me. I wouldn’t get in my own way because I was shy and lived in fear that all men were the same.

  Luke was proving to me every second that he was different.

  Luke leaned forward and sucked a nipple into his mouth, and I stopped thinking about the logistics, stopped trying to rationalize and gave myself over to the feeling. I whimpered and moaned as Luke sucked on my nipples, alternating between the two while he massaged the other, rolling it between his fingers. He was driving me crazy, and we hadn’t even undressed completely.

  As if he knew what I was thinking, and it reminded him, Luke moved down my body, kissing his way over my ribs and down to my navel. He undid my pants with skilled hands and slowly peeled them off my body. I was naked in front of him, and Luke was still fully clothed.

  Luke pulled off his shirt, and I let my eyes wander over his six-pack abs and muscular arms. Whatever he did out here, he was doing it right. He could carry right on doing it. Luke looked at me with a look in his eyes that made me shiver before he parted my thighs with his hands. He touched my pussy, and I whimpered. Every touch felt enhanced, and my body was like a live wire, ready to explode at the smallest touch.

  “Your scent is intoxicating,” Luke said, and I blushed again, but before I could feel embarrassed that Luke was between my legs, studying the most intimate parts of me, he flicked his fingers over my clit, and I squirmed. Luke worked his fingers over my clit in small circles until I was about ready to lose it before he pushed them into me and I cried out as he pumped his fingers in and out of me. He did that until I came undone at the seams before he moved to my clit again, keeping me on the edge of an orgasm but never allowing me to tip over. I whined and squirmed and moaned, and Luke worked me over, setting me alight.

  Finally, Luke pressed his thumb against my clit while two fingers were still inside me, and he moved slowly in and out, moving his thumb around on my clit at the same time. I cried out as I tumbled into an orgasm. My body jerked and spasmed, and I squeezed my eyes shut, giving myself over.