morning but now the sun was breaking through. So far there hadn’t been a drastic change in the weather, though the September heat had broken and the nights were getting cooler. He looked out at the valley. Since the first night of the aurora, he hadn’t been back down. He didn’t want to walk patrol, and though he couldn’t get Sela’s nipples out of his mind, neither did he want to see her . . . Hell, face it, he was lying to himself. He did want to see her, but from a distance. His nerves had felt raw after that accidental midnight meeting, as if he’d been skinned alive. The contact had been too much, and he’d retreated to give himself the time and space to heal.
Being alone was much more comfortable. He could find peace in the silence and solitude. So why was he thinking about trekking down the mountain?
Because he was a man and she was a woman, and his dick was pointing at her like a German Shorthair pointing at a covey of quail. Fuck! Literally. Yeah, it was nice to know the thing was still alive, but actually getting involved and doing something about it was a step too far. Everything in him recoiled from the thought . . . everything except the part of him that kept thinking about her.
Almost before he realized he’d decided to do anything, he was kitting up with his shotgun and water, and threading a length of rope through the ring on the dog’s collar. The youngster needed a good walk, but its hunting instinct was strong and it hadn’t been trained; he didn’t want it plunging through the woods after game and not knowing what to do when called. Instead of pulling on the makeshift leash it began bouncing around, reaffirming his belief that it had some training.
“All right, dog, let’s go on a walk.”
The farther down the mountain he got the more pissed off he was at himself, but as on the night of the red aurora, that didn’t seem to matter. It wasn’t even dark, and he was going down where people could see him. Finally he just thought, To hell with it, and concentrated on his surroundings. The mountain and the exercise always made him feel better, even if he was having to deal with a young dog who wanted to investigate every new scent it came across. The dog didn’t make him laugh—he hadn’t laughed in so long he couldn’t remember the last time he had—but its puppy eagerness somehow lightened his mood. Okay, so he was going down the mountain. He might have to talk to people. The world wouldn’t come to an end; he could always retreat to the mountain and not come back down again until he was good and ready.
No one in Wears Valley, or anywhere else, was his responsibility. He had no one to save, no one to worry about. Anything he did or didn’t do now was his own choice, without any bullshit orders to follow. All of this was his choice, and he could talk to people or not.
Funny how he hadn’t realized that before, that every interaction he had was under his control. He’d sat beside Sela and talked to her because he’d wanted to, not because he’d been trapped and hog-tied. He could talk to her again if the mood took him, or not talk to her if he didn’t want to. The same went with everyone else he might encounter.
He was the one in control. He could talk or not. The realization was freeing.
He avoided the houses down below his, leaving the road and striking through the woods whenever he neared one of them. He didn’t know who his nearest neighbors were and didn’t feel as if he was missing anything. That might change one day, but not right now.
Even admitting that there might come a day when he got to know his neighbors felt as if he’d turned some mental corner . . . or at least seen that there was a corner to be turned. He wasn’t yet ready to go around it.
The uncut path he took down was rough enough that he pushed all other thoughts aside and concentrated on getting himself and the dog safely down. Acorns had fallen and crunched under his boots, and the smell was different as the green vigor of summer faded away. Ben was in his element in the wild: he liked the fresh air,