Page 238 of Mountain Men Heroes

When I finished, I finally turned my head to look at her. She stared at me with wide eyes. “Holy crap, Clara. I can’t believe you kept all this from me.”

“It all happened kind of fast.”

She nodded. “Well, I understand why you went running out of the office today. It couldn’t have been easy hearing the guys talking about putting themselves in danger.”

At her words, a teeny, tiny crack made a chink in my armor of numbness. I sank my teeth into my bottom lip and tried to hold onto the nothingness with all my might.

Trinity ruined my efforts when she leaned over and hugged me. The compassion of the woman I was coming to think of as one of my best friends put another crack in the numbness. A tiny lance of pain skewered my heart as I thought about losing Dyson and Eeli so soon after I found them.

Trinity gave me one last squeeze and then pulled back slightly. She gave me a sweet, sympathetic smile for about two seconds before her expression started to change.

She grasped my arms and gave me a small shake. “Okay, enough of that.” This time her voice was firm. It was the same no-nonsense tone she used when handing out the guys’ marching orders at the office.

She hopped to her feet, put the cat toy away, brushing off the seat of her jeans. “Now we need to get down to business fixing all this.”

I blinked up at her. “What?”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Clara, I listened to everything you just said. I heard you tell me what Dyson thought, what Eeli thought, what Sawyer thought, and what your friend Will thought. I know it was easier for you to hide your music from everyone for years and you got used to hiding who you are from everyone. And now I think you’re trying to hide how you feel. But honey, that’s not good. And on top of that, the only opinion that matters when it comes to your life is yours. Screw what others think.”

I jumped up from the floor as I let her words sink in. “But that’s not true when it comes to the men. They get to have an opinion, too, when it comes to our relationship.”

She snorted out an inelegant laugh. “Please, they have less of a choice than anyone. Have you paid attention to life?”

I wrinkled my brows at her. “Of course.”

She shook her head. “But have you really paid attention? This whole soulmate thing you have going on with both men is unique and I bet it will only get stronger as time goes on. But do you think it’s anything any of you can actually ignore? Like, do you think they would walk away just like that?”

I blinked, her words settling over me. Now I understood my drive to help Eeli and Dyson heal went far deeper than just wanting to help out some friends. Their happiness was more important to me than anything else.

“And from what I can see it’s even worse for your guys. They’d do anything to protect their woman from even a moment’s pain.” She gave me a hard look. “Your guys are thinking of facing their worst fears by returning to the military just to keep you from feeling a moment of pain.”

“That doesn’t make sense, though. How would their leaving me keep me from feeling pain? Aside from them dying, I can’t think of anything worse than them reenlisting and leaving me here alone, worrying about them every second of every day.”

Well, crap. There went the final crack in my numbness. Just thinking of Dyson and Eeli sacrificing themselves in the name of my happiness cut through the armor and allowed the emotions to come pouring through. The only thing that kept me standing was the fact that the leading emotion right now was anger.

She shrugged. “They want you to be happy. It doesn’t mean they’re always going to be smart about it. Men. Complicated, aren’t they? Sometimes you need to hit them over the head with things to get them to understand.”

I opened my mouth to start ranting out all my thoughts on everything from my interfering, overprotective brother to my thick-headed men who thought of doing the most asinine thing I’d ever heard in the name of protecting me. But before I could get a single word out, the front door swung open and Sawyer strode into the shelter.

“Clara!” He practically growled my name between clenched teeth.

“Oh, no. You don’t get to be mad at me,” I spit out at him, placing my hands on my hips. “All of this is your fault.”

“My fault?”

“Yes, your fault.” I stepped forward and gave him a poke in the chest. He growled at me in response, but I didn’t care. Let him growl all he wanted.

“If you haven’t noticed yet, Sawyer Becker, let me spell it out for you. I. Am. An. Adult.” I punctuated each word with another poke to his chest.

“Really? Because by the way you act, it’s hard to tell.” He grabbed my wrist.

“You’re right. I’ve been hiding bits and pieces of my life from you for years.” I knew that wasn’t what he meant when he referred to my childish behavior, but I was past caring. It was time for me to claim all areas of my life and my freedom to live it as I chose. “I’m a musician. Did you know that Sawyer?”

His eyes widened. His mouth opened and closed. Obviously, that wasn’t what he was expecting me to share.

“I’ve been playing with a band for years. And I’m good at it and I love it. We get gigs at bars and clubs a few times a month. All those animal care meetings I go? Yeah, I’ve not ever been to one of those. I go play with my band.”

“Your band?” His voice was back up to just below a yell. His eyes skidded over to Trinity. “And you knew about this?”

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