Page 113 of Ten Mountain Men

Goldie

“What the hell took you so damn long?” Luke asks when Clay and I enter the cabin, with plenty of apples but no pears. Luke looks over all the baskets. “Why no pears?”

“Because, if you must know, we were busy having the friendship and then the sex,” Clay says. “And Lawd have mercy, I regret nothing.”

I cringe inwardly, wishing Clay wouldn’t poke the bear, because it seems Grumpy Luke is back in full force.

But, wait. What? No. He’s grinning. Not at what Clay said, but at the apples.

“These are the most beautiful ones I’ve seen yet,” Luke says, and polishes one off in two bites. “Damn, and the tastiest too. While you two were off fucking around…literally…Ash finally figured out what was going awry with the roof and we’ve got it fixed. For now, at least. Goldilocks, if you’ll make lunch again, I’ll make pies for after supper with these apples.”

“Deal,” I say. “Anyone mind if I take a quick bath first?”

“Ride you hard and put you up wet, did he?” Luke nods at Clay and I swear, he almost sounds lighthearted. Almost.

“Something like that,” I admit. I smell like sex and that’s not a bad thing, but I feel sweaty and I hate that.

“As long as you can have lunch ready by noon, bathe your heart out,” Luke says, tossing me a bottle of the raspberries and cream washing-up liquid.

I tell him thank you and head for the tub, where I try not to luxuriate in the bubbles too long. After I get out, when I go to dry off, I’m stunned into silence. There’s an eleventh towel, embroidered with my name on it in pink.Rose-Gold, it says in the same neat script as the guy’s towels. I put on my clean clothes and go out into the living area to find out whose handiwork this is, because…one of these big, burly mountain men knows how to embroider? I’m not trying to stereotype at all, but how? With those big hands? How?

And it hits me that the living area is empty.

I can get the cameras. My heart does a happy dance. Or maybe Clay fucked me into some kind of cardiac arrhythmia, but we’ll hope for the happy dance.

I’m racing for them when there’s a stomp stomp stomp behind me, followed by, “Hey, Rose-Gold Locke.”

I turn to see Rusty.

“Hey, hey, hey,” I say, as one does when trying to sound super casual and like they absolutely weren’t up to anything they shouldn’t be up to.

“Hey,” he says. “Oh! You found your towel. Do you like it?”

“Did you make it?” I ask.

“Hell no. With these hands?” He holds them up, turning them one way, then the other, as if I’ve never seen them before. “Lynx did it.”

I’m about to point out that Lynx’s hands are just as big as Rusty’s, if not bigger, when Rusty says, “He wanted to be a surgeon, you know. So he practiced on anything he could with needles growing up. Ma once caught him trying to stitch me up and I didn’t even have any kind of cut, so she made him start the embroidery.”

The easy mention of the past, of their mother, does not go unnoticed, but I don’t make a big deal out of it.

“I’m on laundry duty,” Rusty says. “Got anything that needs a wash?”

I’m a bit caught off guard, because I don’t remember seeing a washing machine or dryer anywhere, but of course they do laundry. Maybe the washer and dryer are in one of their sheds, or maybe there’s another hidden doorway leading to the laundry room? I marvel at how the cabin looks so small on the outside but I keep discovering new rooms and spaces.

“Yes, I do have some stuff, thanks. This might sound a bit princess-y, but…do you guys use hypoallergenic detergent?” I cringe at my own words, hoping I don’t sound too high-maintenance. And it’s kind of ridiculous since I’ve been bathing in some kind of all-purpose washing-up liquid.

Rusty chuckles, his relaxed demeanor not missing a beat. “We don’t use detergent. It would pollute the river.”

My eyes widen in genuine surprise. “You wash clothes in the river? Like…beat them against rocks?”

He laughs again. “No, we’ve got a washboard. It’s old-fashioned, but does the trick. So, how about it? Got any dirty clothes you want to toss in with our stuff?”

I think about the outfit I was wearing when I first tumbled into their world and into that puddle with Luke.

“Actually, I have what I was wearing when I first got here….it’s pretty much ruined. Probably beyond saving,” I admit, feeling a slight pang of guilt since that pink sequined camouflage outfit technically belongs to the wardrobe department at the studio and was just a loaner.

“Let’s have a look. Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”

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