Page 3 of Saved By the Mountain Man Ranger

"That's it."

"You live here?"

"Yes."

She looks at the cabin. Looks at me. Something passes across her face that I can't read, and that bothers me more than the storm.

"Eliza Hart," she says, and holds out her hand.

Her grip is strong. Her fingers are freezing. My hand swallows hers completely.

"Weston McCall."

And I don't let go fast enough.

Chapter Two

ELIZA

The cabin is small. Warm. Smells like woodsmoke and pine, with something underneath that's just him. Cedar, maybe. Clean sweat from the hike. Whatever it is, it fills the whole space, and my body responds to it before my brain catches up.

Weston McCall moves through his home without looking at me. Hangs his pack on a hook by the door. Stokes the woodstove with practiced efficiency. Fills a kettle from the tap, sets it on the stove, pulls two mugs from a shelf. Every motion is deliberate. Economical. A man who doesn't waste movement because the mountain taught him not to.

"Bathroom's down the hall," he says, still not looking at me. "Towels in the cabinet. You need to get out of those wet boots."

My boots. Right. Soaked through from the creek bed crossing. My feet went numb about ten minutes ago, and standing in his warm cabin is making them burn as feeling returns. The shivering I've been suppressing on the trail breaks through in one violent full body tremor.

He looks at me then. Really looks. Those blue eyes sweep from my soaked boots to my inadequate jacket to my face, and something tightens in his jaw.

"Sit." He pulls a chair from the small kitchen table and points at it. "Now."

The command in his voice should annoy me. It does annoy me. But my legs are shaking, so I sit.

He drops to one knee in front of me. Just like that, without asking, he unlaces my left boot with fingers that are sure despite the cold. The boot comes off. Wet sock after it. His hand wraps around my bare foot, testing the temperature, and his palm is so warm against my frozen skin that a sound escapes my throat before I can stop it.

His eyes snap to mine. Hold.

"Other one," he says, voice rougher than it was a second ago.

The right boot comes off. Right sock. Both my feet between his massive hands now, his thumbs pressing into the arches, forcing circulation back. The pain is sharp at first, then gives way to tingling heat that crawls up my calves.

"You're lucky," he says. "Another twenty minutes and we'd be talking about frostbite."

"I had a timeline. The weather moved faster than the forecast said."

"The weather always moves faster than the forecast says." He releases my feet, stands, turns away. "That's why locals don't trust forecasts."

The kettle starts to whistle. He pours hot water over two tea bags and sets a mug in front of me without ceremony. Then he opens a closet, pulls out a pair of thick wool socks and a flannel shirt big enough to use as a dress, and drops them on the table.

"Change out of the wet layers. You can use the bathroom."

In the bathroom, which is barely bigger than a closet, I peel off my jacket and the damp thermal underneath. The flannel he gave me is worn soft from years of washing. When I pull it on, it falls past my thighs. Smells like him. That cedar scent wraps around me while I button it, and something low in my belly tightens.

Stop it.

I'm here for Marcus Farrell. For the book. For the story of a man who walked into these mountains and vanished so completely that twenty years of searching turned up nothing. Not a bone. Not a scrap of clothing. Not a single answer for the family who still sets a place for him at Thanksgiving.

That's what matters. The work. It's always been the work.