Chapter 8
Luke
After we were in Dillon, taking care of supplies, Anna and I headed back to the cabin. I looked forward to spending time with her. I was excited to cook dinner for her as well. I had picked up some items for spaghetti Bolognese.
“My mom used to make spaghetti Bolognese when I was little,” I said. “It’s the first meal I learned to cook by myself.”
“It’s quite a meal for your first,” Anna said. “I can’t even remember the first thing I cooked. Probably cereal.” She laughed, and I loved the sound of it.
“Well, the recipe is fairly simple so don’t prepare to be blown away. Besides, with you being Italian and all, you’re probably used to authentic.”
Anna laughed again. “You’d be surprised how Americanized I am. I grew up with my dad, and it was easier to get takeout or go to restaurants than it was for him to cook for me. When I grew older, I learned how to cook, and I started taking over the role. But I hadn’t learned from anyone Italian so I’m pretty much as cut and paste as you get.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe it. I’m pretty sure you have taste, at least.”
Anna shrugged. “I can’t argue with that.” She waggled her eyebrows at me, and I laughed, realizing what she was saying.
I walked to the little kitchen and put pasta on the stove.
“Let me help. What can I do?” Anna asked.
I shook my head. “Tonight, I’m cooking for you. I don’t want you to do anything. What you can do is go to my closet—I have a laptop in there and a stack of DVDs. Choose something we can watch.”
Anna disappeared into the room, and I started on the spaghetti. I didn’t have cell service or Wi-Fi up here in the mountains but watching DVDs on my laptop was just as relaxing, and I didn’t have to struggle with advertisements or spam.
“What did you choose?” I asked when Anna came out of the room with the laptop bag and a DVD.
“I can’t believe you own Serendipity,” she said. “I thought it was a chick flick, and you are a manly man.”
I turned toward her from the cutting board where I was busy cutting tomatoes. “First of all, it’s one of the best movies ever made. Call me a hopeless romantic if you must. Second, I am a manly man, thank you very much.”
Anna laughed, shaking her head and set up the laptop on the coffee table. When the food was ready, we sat on the couch with our plates and watched the movie while we ate. Once our meal was done, Anna moved toward me and snuggled against me. I put my arm around her shoulders and relished in the closeness.
I liked having Anna sit against me like this. I had lived my life without a woman for the most part, and I had been fine, but with Anna around, I was starting to realize I missed a woman’s touch. Since I had dropped out of college, I had fucked around without ever committing. It had worked for me and my lifestyle, then. By the time I had run away, I had no strings attached, and it had been convenient. There had been a time when I had a girlfriend. I met her three weeks after college started and I had believed myself to be in love. When my life had started falling apart, I had dropped out of college, and I had lost my girlfriend. It turned out she hadn’t wanted to date a college dropout. Go figure.
I glanced at Anna, tracing her profile with my eyes while she was engrossed in the movie. If I had known back in college what I knew now, I would never have dated that girl in the first place. But everyone had to date that first dud to know what they didn’t want and what they did want. I knew exactly what I wanted, now.
Anna.
There was something about her that drove me mad. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but I was drawn to her the way I had never been drawn to a woman before. Wasn’t that supposed to be the other way around? Wasn’t there a syndrome where the damsel in distress fell for her hero? I felt like it was the other way around in the scenario because I was crazy about Anna even though I was the one who had saved her. Anna was definitely attracted to me, but I wasn’t sure she felt as strongly about me as I felt about her. And it wasn’t only physical, either. Sure, she had a hot body, and she was drop-dead gorgeous. But her personality, her mind intrigued me, and I wanted to know more about her because of who she was, not because of what she looked like.
God, if any of the guys back home saw me now, they would call me a pussy. But none of them were here, and even if they were, I would carry on pursuing Anna. She was a woman worth pursuing, a woman worth being bullied over. She was the kind of woman that would make all other men jealous when she decided to commit to someone.
Anna looked at me and caught me staring. I felt like an idiot.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
“You,” I said. “Have I told you you’re beautiful?”
“So far, at least once a day.” Anna laughed.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I’ll have to bump that up to twice a day, then.”
Anna laughed, shaking her head, but I didn’t miss the blush that crept onto her cheeks. I tipped her head up with my finger under her chin and kissed her. She was the type of woman I wanted to be with, girlfriend material, wife material.
But what did I have to offer someone like Anna? At the moment, I was hiding out in a cabin in the mountains. Back home, I had a handful of people hunting me. I had a bad past, no qualifications to my name, and I wasn’t exactly the kind of guy you introduced to your parents. My heart sank as I thought about it. I was in so much trouble, and if it found me, Anna could be in danger if she was around. The men that were after me weren’t the type that would negotiate before they aimed and pulled the trigger. I knew exactly how they operated because I had been one of them, once. I had played by the rules for so long I had lost track of who I was. When I had decided I wanted out, the Big Man had decided I had stepped out of line. When anyone was out of line, they were killed.
The only reason I was still alive was because I knew how they thought, knew where they would start looking first, and I had been able to hide well enough that they couldn’t ever find me. The downside was that I probably wouldn’t be able to leave the cabin. And living in a one-bedroom cabin in the mountains without cell-service and Wi-Fi was not exactly luxury. It wasn’t the kind of life I wanted to offer a worthy woman.
And Anna was worthy.
Maybe it was better for Anna to leave when the roads were clear, after all. It was safer for her. Just the thought of her walking away and probably never looking back made me feel like shit. I had only known her for a couple of days, but I knew what I wanted. The thought of losing her when I had only just found her brought back all the resentment that I had thought I had taken care of. I had resented Frankie, resented the men that had worked for him and with me. I had come to hate who I was when I was around them, and after I had left, I hated myself for weeks. Slowly, I had come to terms with who I was and what I had done. I thought I had taken care of the resentment and moved on.
If I had to lose Anna because of my past, that resentment would return in full force. It was because of what they would do to me when they found me because they were unable to drop a grudge, that I wouldn’t be able to be with Anna unless we were forever in hiding. What kind of life was that to offer the woman of my dreams?
These things swam through my mind again and again as we carried on watching the movie, and I barely saw what was happening on screen.
When the movie was finished, Anna turned to me.
“What do you do when you get cooped up in here?” she asked.
“I go for a walk,” I said.
“Can we go out? In the dark?”
I nodded. “I can’t see why not. A lot of the animals are hibernating right now. We’ll stay close to the cabin and take flashlights.”
Anna nodded, smiling. She looked excited, and the look became her.
I opened the storage closet on the other side of the living room and retrieved two flashlights. Anna and I took the time to dress warmly—at night the temperatures could go very low. Armed with our flashlights and our thick jackets, we headed out into the darkness.
The forest had an eerie quality to it with the snow shimmering in the moonlight and shadows capable of hiding anything. I had been thinking about the people I had been involved with, and tonight I worried they were hiding behind the tree trunks, ready to grab us when we walked past. I had to talk myself out of the madness. There was no one out there. My flashlight proved it every time it landed on something non-existent.
It was very cold, and in no time, Anna and I were shivering. I didn’t want to go too far but getting some fresh air was a good idea. Anna had wanted to head out, and I wouldn’t send her out into the wilderness alone.
While we walked, Anna asked me about my childhood. I explained to her how my dad had taught me to hunt, to trap small animals, and how to skin them.
“My dad has always been very serious about knowing survival skills. During the past year, it has helped me a lot.”
“You’re lucky you had such a good relationship with your dad before he disowned you,” Anna said. “I know it’s tough now, but those years you had with them shaped you as a person.”
“Do you feel like you weren’t shaped as a person?” I asked.
“No, I am,” Anna said thoughtfully. “It was just so much harder to have to do all that shaping by myself.”
Anna and I walked and talked together a little more before we headed back to the cabin. We got ready for bed, changing and brushing our teeth before Anna came to bed with me. I liked sleeping next to her. It wasn’t even about fucking. I enjoyed her company and her body heat next to mine when I slept.
Lying together, being side-by-side was plenty.