Billionaire Mountain Man

"Next time, you will," I said. She didn't say anything, sipping her coffee instead. Idiot, I thought. Next time? You think she's coming up here again? This time she had had a reason; why the hell would she do it again?

I floundered for something to say, to change the subject, but I didn't have to. The plow appeared, coming up the road.

"There they are," she said. It had cost significantly more than average to get a snow removal service out this far, but the alternative, waiting for god knew how much longer for the snow to clear by itself, just hadn't made sense for Natalie.

"I'll help you with your stuff," I said, getting up. She got up after me and went into the house as I went to talk to the person driving the plow. They wanted to know whether this was the right address. Unfortuna

tely, it was.

She didn't have that much stuff; it was just bulky because they were winter clothes. The plow had gone up a few yards past the cabin clearing the road and had done the short driveway from the road to the cabin. It was back on the road ready to head back down, and Natalie with it. She slammed her trunk shut and threw her purse into the passenger seat before turning to me.

"It'll be nice to finally have my own space again," I said. She smiled.

"It'll be nice to be able to have pizza delivered again," she countered.

"Will you come back?" I asked. She raised her brows.

"Out here? It would take another snowstorm," she joked.

"I'm serious," I told her. "I want you to. Consider this an invitation."

"Invitation? You don't give those then act shocked when people actually take you up on them."

"I mean it. Whenever you want. I want to see you again." She crossed her arms looking at me.

"That's very kind," she said. "Maybe closer to July, and I might consider."

"You have a lot of weekends between then and now," I said seriously.

"Guess I do," she said. Not a definite yes but not a no either. I wanted to believe that meant she was considering it. That was probably all I could ask of her. It was a hell of a drive made worse by the time of year and shit; it was to come see me. Sure the past week had been good, but I couldn't speak for her. I didn't know whether she wanted to come back, whether she even ever wanted to see me again. I felt like I could call her my friend at this point but that was just me. There was a chance she’d disagree even though she had suggested otherwise.

"So I'll see you?" I asked. She nodded.

"You will."

"Soon?"

"Goodbye, Cameron," she said with a smile on her face. Okay, she didn't want to tell me. I couldn't make her, and I couldn't make her visit if she actually didn't want to. I hated that I didn't know whether I'd see her again, but there was an easy way to fix that. Follow her.

I watched her get into her car and start the engine. She waved as she backed out. I watched her leave, standing outside the cabin ‘til the plow and her car were out of sight. No, I wasn't going to follow her just to see her again. I had made her an offer she could take or turn down. I wasn't ready. I didn't want to leave, and if she wasn't coming... maybe I'd wait and see whether I actually saw her again or not.

Nothing wrong with having a little hope.

I went back inside and shut the door behind me. There it was again. The silence. The fire had heated the cabin, but it felt cold somehow. Emptier since she was gone. She had said that she would come back...maybe. Even if she did, there was no way I'd be able to have her here the way we had been this past week, waking up to her in the kitchen or out on the deck day after day after day. Just having her around as a person who answered questions when I asked them out loud. I’d take a short visit if that was all she’d be able to do. I’d take whatever she could spare.

I walked around the room, slowly over to the fire, around the living room, stopping at the window that looked out onto the porch and the front of the cabin. I had wanted solitude, and this was it. But that was the problem. This was everything I had up here. Myself.

I didn't regret coming out here. Not really. I mean, how was I supposed to know that the minute I did, everything would change? That Natalie Cooke and I would finally speak and that speaking would turn into... into this. Me missing her minutes after she had left for her own place. I knew what we had agreed to do together, and I respected her wishes. Respecting them didn’t mean I didn’t want more, that I didn’t think about having more from her and with her. Like she had said, if things had been different, if I was different and my situation wasn’t like this, maybe there could have been something. Maybe she would have stayed. Maybe I wouldn’t even have come up here in the first place.

Right decision or not, I was here now, and right now, I didn’t have a good enough reason to leave. Not yet.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Natalie

"Look who it is," Kasey said as I walked towards our table. "People said she'd never make it down the mountain."

"Are you done?" I teased, sitting. I had gotten back to Provo the day before, and after calling Kasey to tell her, she hadn't wasted a second asking me to go to dinner with her. I was happy to see her too, but I hadn't been in my place for almost a week. Walking back into my place, it had looked like one of those old pictures you see of houses that were abandoned suddenly. I had to completely trash everything I had in my fridge and had spent most of the night that I got back cleaning and doing laundry.