Kate Hoffmann - Warm & Willing

During his second winter it was sex and the music of Linkin Park. After he’d gotten back, he’d driven around for over a week with their latest CD in his disc player and spent his nights with a sexy nature guide from Smokey Mountains National Park.

Sam wondered just what kind of woman would share his bed this time around. It was always a bit tricky, explaining his situation and his particular needs to a potential bedmate. Most single women were interested in a romantic relationship, one that might result in marriage. Sam’s only interest was in a wildly exciting, no-strings attached sexual encounter lasting approximately one week.

To his surprise, he’d found quite a few women who required nothing more than unbridled passion with a skilled and eager partner. After a week together, there was nothing more to experience and both parties went away well satisfied.

Sam grabbed a pair of faded jeans from the hook on the wall and tugged them on. He’d first walked into the mountains a few months after the death of his best friend, Jeff Warren. They’d climbed Mt. McKinley together and on the way down, Jeff had been swept away in an avalanche, gone in an instant, buried deep beneath the snow.

Adventure had become almost an obsession for the two of them. Every extra dime they’d made from their jobs on Wall Street had been spent searching for bigger and better thrills. And when Sam had suggested a climb up McKinley, Jeff had barely been able to contain his enthusiasm. It had all been good, the crazy thrill of standing on top of one of the world’s seven summits. And then it had suddenly turned so bad. In a heartbeat, Jeff was dead and Sam had been left to rue the day he’d ever mentioned Mt. McKinley.

The first book Sam had read after the funeral had been Thoreau’s Walden Pond and he’d gotten from it the idea of living a quieter, simpler life, what he hoped would be a remedy for his chaotic emotions. So he’d quit his job and set out on his most challenging adventure—to spend a winter in the wilderness, completely alone.

Luckily, that first winter had been mild. He’d come with just a tent, a warm sleeping bag, some rudimentary tools and a book about wilderness survival. He’d camped on a piece of privately owned, inheld land, surrounded by national forest and set on top of a small mountain range.

In his determination to live off the land, Sam had nearly starved. He’d decided not to bring a gun for hunting and was left to fashion snares out of vines and saplings. He had quickly exhausted his taste for wild roots and edible plants and the occasional rabbit that wandered into his snare, yet he’d refused to give up.

He’d left his camp that spring knowing he’d become a different man on those long, lonely winter nights—a man he could look at in the mirror again. A man who could face anything life threw at him.

Over the following summer, he’d prepared to go back to his former life, but when autumn had rolled around, Sam had packed more tools and spent the winter working on a rough log cabin. It had been slow progress all alone, but by the time spring had come, he’d had a cozy shelter with a stone fireplace and a roof over his head.

He’d begun recording his experiences and thoughts in a small diary as a way to pass his evenings. And when he’d hiked out after his second winter, Sam had decided to submit a few of his stories to an adventure magazine. The editor had been impressed and scheduled the stories to run in a regular column starting that October. But by October, Sam was back in the wilderness again.

He filled his days with finding food and chopping firewood and making improvements to the cabin. The long winter nights were a time to contemplate the man he’d been and the man he’d become. But there was a limit to his need for solitude and he’d passed it about a month ago.

Sam grabbed the water bucket and walked out the front door of the cabin. He followed the well-worn path to a small stream that carried runoff from high in the mountains. It was nice not to have to melt snow to bathe and shave. He wondered what it would take to dig a well on his mountainside.

As he walked back up to the cabin, Sam was startled to see a lone figure waiting on the front steps. He hadn’t seen another person for months. But when the man turned, Sam chuckled and shook his head. “Carter Wilbury! What are you doing on my mountain?”

The elderly man waved and dropped his pack beside him. “Sam Morgan! If I remember correctly, I own this mountain and pretty much all the land around it.”

“I was just on my way down,” Sam said when he joined the older man. “How was your hike up?”

“Not bad. Took a while for me to work the winter out of my bones. Could have done the whole thing in a day, but I camped down below last night. Just couldn’t work up the energy to climb this last bit. I thought you might see my campfire and walk down to investigate.”

Though Sam considered himself a competent out-doorsman, Carter Wilbury was a real mountain man. Carter had once broken his leg in a twenty-foot tumble off a rock ledge, then crawled for six days to get help. He’d eaten bugs and grubs and worms and drunk the dew off leaves to stay alive. Since then, he’d been a legend around Sutter Gap. But age and a bad bout of frostbite had kept Carter indoors in the winter—that and a pretty widow who had captured his fancy.

Sam picked up the man’s pack and dragged it through the front door. “I’d offer you a cup of coffee, but I ran out a few weeks back.”

“I brought some along,” Carter said, bending down to rummage through his pack. “Just show me where the pot is.”

Sam grabbed the pot from the dry sink and filled it with water from the pitcher. “So what brings you up here so early in the season?”

“Came here to warn ya,” Carter said.

Sam froze. “About what?”

“There’s a woman nosing around Sutter Gap. She found out you like to frequent the Lucky Penny when you’re in town and she’s waiting for you to come back.”

“Who is she?” Sam asked.

Carter shrugged. “Says her name is Sarah Cantrell. She won’t say what she wants, but she’s a persistent little thing. She tried to pay me five hundred dollars to bring her up here, but I told her I didn’t know where you were.”

“What did she look like?”

“Pretty. Real pretty. City girl. Nice fingernails, fancy makeup and she wears the damnedest boots with these funny little heels. And she’s always messing with her cell phone. Most of the boys at the bar have been drooling over her but all she’s interested in is you.” Carter paused. “I saw that Fatal Attraction movie on HBO a few months back. You don’t think she’s…”

“A bunny boiler?”

“No, got a Sam Jr. she wants to show you. You are quite the ladies’ man when you’re off this mountain.”

“Did she have a baby with her?”

“No, but do the math. You came off the mountain in April of last year. It’s late March now. She could have photos of a two-month-old to show you.”

“Listen, I may enjoy the company of women, but I do it responsibly.”

Carter nodded. “Well, then, I guess we can rule out the social diseases as well. Maybe a relative died and she’s here to tell you you’ve inherited a fortune. Or maybe she’s one of those reporters looking to do a story on a modern-day Daniel Boone.”

Sam considered the possibilities for a moment, then shrugged. “I suppose I’ll know soon enough. Thanks for watching my back.”

“No problem,” Carter said.

Sam considered the ramifications of Carter’s news. “Can you do it again? Watch my back, I mean. When we get back to Sutter Gap, I want you to tell this woman you know someone who can take her to see Sam Morgan.”

“Who? Besides you and me, no one else knows how to get up here. And you know how the folks are in Sutter Gap. They don’t talk to strangers.”