Page 36 of Ten Mountain Men

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s total silence. I need some white noise. If only my phone wasn’t destroyed, I have the perfect app that doesn’t require a WiFi connection, with the settings optimized to usher me to sleep quickly and keep me there for my full eight hours. Without it, I don’t know if I’ll ever reach a REM cycle.

And the total darkness is worse. The moon’s not even out, so I can’t see my hand in front of my face. I feel like I’m in a tomb.

Of course, there’s a silver lining—it’s warm and cozy in this cabin. Despite the drawbacks, this is a way better arrangement than freezing my ass off in a tent, which if Ash is correct, would likely collapse on me underneath the weight of a foot of snow.

Still, I feel like I’m in a tomb, so when I finally drift off, I dream I’m in a tomb.

That’s what my subconscious decides to go with? With the naughty image of me riding Rusty in there as an option?

I’m in a tomb, and I’m not dead but I’m not quite alive either, and I realize I’m dying, suffocated by piles and piles of stuff. No, not stuff. Piles and piles of my mother’s ex-husbands’ corpses. Clive, the latest casualty, is on top of me, lifeless eyes staring into mine.

Then a giant hand is on my shoulder, shaking me.

I jolt awake. “Don’t touch me, Dead Clive!” I shriek.

“Gold, are you okay?” a voice that is definitely not Clive’s asks.

“Oh my God.” I throw off all the covers—I started out with one blanket but now there are like a dozen on top of me—and heave myself up. “Who’s there?”

“Buck. Buck Björnsson.”

I try to control my breathing. My heart, oh my Lord, my heart is going to spontaneously combust. Or is that a bat in my chest, flapping its wings in a panic? Could I have swallowed a bat in my sleep?

I hug myself.

“You were screaming,” Buck tells me, his voice grumbly with concern.

“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“I was awake. I had to take a piss…I mean. I had to…relieve myself. I was about to bring you another blanket in case you were cold, but it looks like someone or multiple someones beat me to that. Are you cold, though, because I can bring you another?”

I nod, because I am. Despite all the blankets I was under, I’m shivering, my teeth chattering.

“Do you want me to build you a fire or…”

“Or?”

“You can come sleep in my bed with me. I’ll keep you warm. I won’t try anything, I swear.”

Rose-Gold! That’s what they all say! He’s probably a somnophiliac and as soon as you doze off, he’ll whip it out!

Maybe I wouldn’t mind if he whipped it out, Mother!

Why am I so fricking horny?

I have not waited thirty loooooooooooooooong years to have sex, just to give it up to the first set of ten brothers that come along.

But that’s it, I realize. It’s Winnie and her Hammer brothers.

Their exception-to-the-rule love story is what makes the idea of having ten brothers of my own so appealing. And like Winnie…I’d have to start with one.

Oh my God. What is wrong with me? I know that’s not for me. Not with the…Björnsson brothers or any other set of ten men.

The Hammer brothers are one thing. The Hammer brothers and Winnie make sense, I remind myself. So much sense. Me with ten mountain men, living happily ever after in their cabin off the grid? THAT makes no sense.

But it doesn’t have to be a happily-ever-after…it could just be…a happy ending.

“Goldie?” Buck prompts. His warm brown eyes are so sincere and kind.

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