Page 57 of Ten Mountain Men

“I can’t believe you and Nash find me kiss-worthy looking like this,” I say, touching the sore spot.

“Well,” Lynx says. “Purple does happen to be my favorite color.”

I smile. “My mom always said I was a unicorn, but…I hope that wasn’t prophetic, because it looks like I’m about to sprout a horn!”

He smiles back at me, then with seriousness in those golden-green eyes, he asks if I’m experiencing any changes in my vision or sensitivity to light, do I still have a headache, am I nauseous or dizzy, and a few other questions.

“Am I gonna live, Doc?” I ask lightly.

“I’m not a doctor,” he reminds me. “Just a…guy who can do minor first aid. But that bump will go down before you know it and the bruises will fade.” He claps his hands on his knees. “So Luke decided we’re going to be so late having lunch we might as well skip it and have an early supper instead. But if you’re hungry, I can whip you up a sandwich or something?”

I tell him I’m okay. “I hope Luke’s not too mad at me.”

I wonder if this decision to skip lunch is part of Luke’s master plan to sway his brothers over to his side, to make them believe it would be better if I was gone. A subliminal “If she’s here, you’re not getting fed” sort of message.

“He’ll get over it,” Lynx says. “Besides, it was as much mine and Nash’s fault as yours, if not more. We should’ve known to stay on task. But you’re one damn irresistible lady, Miss Goldie Locke, and I don’t have a single regret.”

“No?” I ask. “Not even that we were interrupted?”

He flashes that catlike grin at me. “Okay, yeah, maybe one regret then.”

The brothers spend the vast majority of the afternoon outdoors, doing whatever it is that mountain men do, but there’s frequent foot traffic as they come in the front door and exit out the back. With the exception of Grumpy Luke, whenever one of them passes through, they ask if I need anything. When I say I don’t, they make various offerings anyway—more pillows, books, another glass of water, a hunk of meat.

That last one came from Nash, and I’m honestly not sure if he was offering to finish what we started down at the water again or legit asking if I wanted a steak.

Or a can of spam, but hopefully not that.

In any event, I’m losing my mind as I mostly stick to the couch, per Grumpy Luke’s wishes. I’m bored and antsy. I could at least be cleaning this place up a little! I look around, surveying the various piles, moving things around in my head, organizing this, tossing that, dusting the hell out of everything. Their floor is basically a shelf, and I could get so much done in such a short amount of time if they’d let me!

But I stay put.

This is for the greater good,I tell myself again when guilt hits about the cameras. And, oh, it hits.

Then something interesting happens.

Clay comes in, asks me if I need anything, cracks a joke that’s like a seven on the one-to-ten scale of appropriateness, but it makes me laugh anyway. Then. Then he leans over the back of the couch and says, “I see you’re downright busy as a bee here, but could you squeeze in a li’l bit of time to make me over?”

I enthusiastically volunteer. After I’m done with the general manscaping like I did on Rusty and Buck, he surprises me by asking me for a legit haircut.

“I think I want to try it short,” he says.

Stunned and a bit dismayed, I convince him to let’s try a man bun instead, to see how he likes the feel of it being off his neck before we just hack it all off. I’m not sure he would look right without his Rapunzel-long hair, and if he takes care of it properly, it’s actually really great hair.

He’s blond like me, but his shade of blond is platinum with natural sun-kissed lowlights mixed in. Once I’m finished with it, it’s thick and luxurious and wavy. I want to rake my fingers through it and kiss him hard on the mouth, but I resist. The twinkle in his crystal-blue eyes kind of lets me know he’s maybe thinking about that too.

He agrees to think about it some before the major hairstyle change, but does insist on taking his beard short. Figuring it’ll grow back much quicker, that doesn’t seem as high stakes, so I agree. Cropped and shaped, his beard makes a perfect frame, accentuating his very kissable lips.

After I’m done with Clay, Brooks is waiting. We talk while I work on him, and after admiring his freckles—swooooon!—aloud, I actually manage to draw a little bit of info out of him. The brothers are each two years apart, almost exactly, with Grumpy Luke being the eldest at forty-two—he looks older, not in a bad way, but I won’t be telling him that—and Rusty being the youngest at twenty. A baby! Brooks himself is thirty-eight.

I wonder if maybe the cameras were an extreme measure and unnecessary. Maybe patience was what I needed, and more time.

But I remind myself—I don’t know how much time I have. And odds are very high Grumpy Luke’s patience will wear out completely before mine will even get thin.

By the time everyone gathers for supper, I’ve made over everyone but Luke and I am thrilled. Thrilled and hornier than ever. But thrilled. The results are astounding, and I wish like hell I had before and after photos.

We dine on fried fish, cornbread, and baked beans. As if their appearance affects their table manners, supper seems to be way less chaotic than our previous meals. Civilized, even. Luke has three helpings of the beans but none of the others touch them, which I find adorable and thoughtful. Obviously they’re avoiding the beans because they don’t want to get gassy and fart in my presence. Very considerate. I stick to the fish and cornbread too. The fish is sooooooooooooo delicious, mouthwateringly so, which is a thought I’ve never had about fish, ever.

I tell Grumpy Luke he’s an excellent cook and he mutters, “I know,” around a mouthful of cornbread, but other than that, he pretty much ignores me. I consider it progress.

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