The Mountain Man's Kitten - Thickwood CO

“She’s not buzzing, silly. She’s purring. She hasn’t done that for anyone else. I guess we finally found the right person for her. You’ll take her, won’t you?” Katarina’s eyes lock on mine. She looks so hopeful and I’d give her the world if it was mine to give.

My throat is tight, but before I can stop myself, I nod. “Yes. I’ll take her.”

Only, she’s talking about the kitten.

Chapter Three

Katarina

I GRIP THE STEERING wheel hard and give myself a little talk before I open my car door and walk up to his cabin.

“Just business. He’s got a problem; you’re going to help him fix it. That’s all this is.” The words swim in my ears but in my heart a whole other tune is playing.

It’s just after eight o’clock, and an hour ago as I was settling the twins in at the shelter after we got all the animals that didn’t find homes today back into their cages and kennels. Then my phone rang.

When I answered, the male voice on the other end immediately had my heart racing and my belly tumbling. When Miller came to the adoption booth at the fair, I could barely get a word out, so I did the first thing that came to mind and handed him the kitten.

Next thing I know, I’ve got him cleared for the adoption, I’ve gone through the paperwork with him, he bought out everything I suggested that he might need and wrote my number on the paperwork, letting him know if he had any problems, to give me a call.

Well, when I answered my phone, he sounded desperate, and the noises coming from the background sounded like a kraken had been released.

Apparently, our little kitten has bi-polar, and the sweet, soft, quiet side of her has an equally wild opposite side.

The sun is just going down, it’s summer and it doesn’t get completely dark these days until after nine-thirty. His cabin is not huge, but not the wild, outback, overgrown hovel that my father described to me.

He and Miller have had several encounters, or meetings, however you’d like to describe it over the three years we’ve been here, and a couple of them happened right here at Miller’s home.

I make my way to the door. The path from the crushed stone driveway is made from blue slate, and the front of the cabin is river stone and pine beams with what look like hand forged wrought iron lamps on either side of an enormous carved wooden front door.

And it’s then that I hear it.

“No…” I don’t think I’ve ever heard Miller’s voice so high-pitched and unsure of himself. “No, for the love of god, that’s—” Smash. Short pause. “—an antique. Jesus, fucking Christ, when is Katarina going to get here.”

My stomach does this little tumble as I hear him say my name. I can’t help the dirty thoughts that spring into my head. His hand pressed hard against my pussy, pinning me against the wall as his lips come down to take mine.

I force myself to take a deep breath, hoping the dampness between my legs isn’t too obvious as I knock hard on the large wooden door.

It opens an instant later, and Miller looks terrified.

“Teething problems?” I ask as I try to look around him at the room behind. And when I say try I mean because his enormous body pretty much fills the doorway of the cabin like some illustration in a children’s fairy tale book.

And the unsuspecting girl arrived at the mountain man’s cabin…

“Please tell me you can fix this,” he says, backing away to let me in. “I don’t know what to do with her.”

I glance around the interior of the cabin, and stifle a belly laugh as I observe the devastation. I’m guessing Miller doesn’t live like this all the time. It’s like a tiny hurricane upended the room, tearing up the sofa, the rug, leaving scratch marks on the leg of the table, and leaving bits of what I’m assuming used to be an antique vase spread over the floor like a particularly difficult jigsaw puzzle.

“Little Miss Muffet did all this?” I finally ask.

Miller nods. “I told her ‘no’. She’s not a good listener.”

I can’t help the laugh that falls from my lips. “Yes, I was outside, I heard the whole thing. You were very commanding.”

A little growl rumbles his chest, connecting straight to my lady parts, and I’m now certain there’s no hiding what’s happening to me.

He may not be commanding with Miss Muffet, but I’m pretty sure I’d do just about anything he asked.

I draw a quick breath, feeling my face heating. “Where is she?”

“Seeing what she can break in the kitchen I think.”

“Through here?”

He nods as I head that way, with him following, grunting with each step behind, and find the kitten on the marble countertop, momentarily distracted by her own reflection in the polished surface as she wiggles her little fluffy bottom, readying to pounce on a cookie jar.