Page 34 of Ten Mountain Men

Before anyone can take me up on my offer to make them over, Grumpy Luke shuts the idea right down, claiming it’s time for dinner. How is that possible? It seems like we just had lunch.

But never mind that. Dinner is made, served, and gobbled up as fast as lunch was. While we eat, I catch several of the brothers shooting curious looks in Rusty’s direction.

After dinner, one by one, each of the mountain men goes to a spot that seems to be their usual spot, and pulls out a book. Over the tops of their books, I observe as the peeks they sneak at Rusty change from curious to admiring, and even a little envious.

“How the hell are your fingernails so damn shiny?” Ash finally asks Rusty.

“I gave him a mani-pedi. It’s clear nail polish.”

“Oh,” Ash says.

He returns his attention to his book, but every once in a while he pulls his focus away, his eyes darting from me to Rusty and back again. They’re all doing that.

Every once in a while, Grumpy Luke seems to notice their lack of focus and clears his throat loudly like they’re in study hall and he’s the teacher, and they go back to reading, their unkempt eyebrows—except Rusty’s which are quite kempt now—furrowed in concentration.

I’m not sure what I was expecting their evening to look like but it wasn’t this.

Pain is creeping back into my ankle. I get up from the table and hobble to the window seat, which no one has occupied—probably because they would have to fold themselves up like origami to fit.

“Is it okay if I sit here?” I ask.

No one responds. I don’t think they’re ignoring me. I just think they’re immersed. I can’t see the covers of anyone else’s book, but Nash is readingLittle Womenby Louisa May Alcott. I don’t know what to make of that. He moves his lips as he reads, which I find endearing.

I tuck myself into the window seat and watch as the sky grows darker and darker. I steal glimpses here and there at the brothers, trying not to stare, but that’s almost impossible.

“Would you like a blanket?” Brooks asks, and they all say no in unison. Then Grumpy Luke looks up, realizes Brooks was talking to me, and shushes him.

I nod.

Brooks brings an Afghan that looks like it belongs draped over the back of the couch on the set of an eighties sitcom. A cloud of dust puffs up when he unfolds it, spreading it out across my lap and legs.

“Sorry ’bout that,” he says.

“No worries,” I reply with a smile. There’s a tickle in my throat but thankfully I don’t cough in his face.

“Thanks so much for this.” I pat it and it’s scratchy against my palm, but I smile at him and try not to think of my chunky knit weighted blanket, made of the world’s softest organic cotton, back at my apartment. I’m sure someone made this with love. Decades before the brothers picked it up for a nickel at a garage sale.

I’m not snobby, I swear. I’m just not sentimental and believe that if something can be replaced with something better…well, why wouldn’t you?

Maybe they can’t afford any better, you Snobby McSnobSnob,I chide myself.

But if Lynx had gone to medical school, he could be a rich doctor by now. Certainly they all have ambitions to be more, to do more? If only they weren’t stuck on this mountain, living like recluses. It’s not fair.

Brooks is still standing over me—way over me—looking down at me expectantly.

“I might want one of those makeovers,” Brooks says, real fast and real hushed. “Tomorrow?”

I give him a nod and a smile. When he goes back to his spot, I study Rusty.

Yes, he’s still a very large man. And yes, if he were out and about with the general populace of the world, people would likely stare, because of the sheer size of him. Ask him if he was a basketball player or in the NFL. But once they got past that initial curiosity, they would see what I see now. After my makeover, he’s more beauty than beast.

And tomorrow, Brooks will be too. With any luck, the others will follow suit. Unless Luke makes me leave at sunrise…

“Did you say something?” I ask Ranger, because he’s looking at me like he’s waiting on a response from me.

“I asked if you’d like to borrow a book. We have a whole heap and you look bored.”

“Shhhh!” Grumpy Luke glares at us. He’s definitely making me leave at sunrise.

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