Page 84 of Ten Mountain Men

But that’s fine. I meant it when I told her soon enough he’d be begging for her kisses. I see the glimpses he sneaks at her—glimpses that are filled with curiosity, not animosity. He’s a tough nut to crack, but if anyone can crack a tough nut it’s my dear sunshine.

As all our other brothers rush through the water toward me and Brooks and Goldie, I pass her to Brooks and hold up a hand. “Hey!” I call over a chorus ofGoldie’s back!andYou found her!“Everybody stop losing your shit. I mean, cool your nuts. I mean, er, settle down. Please.”

I give them a second.

“Now!” I clap my hands together. “Goldie is back.”

“As we can all see, since we have eyes,” Clay chortles. “Now, come on over to me, sweetheart, so these eyes of mine can get a good look at you. I’ve almost damn near forgotten what you look like.”

As if there was even the tiniest sliver of a possibility any of us would ever forget what she looks like, even if she was gone a million years.

“First things first.” I level Clay with a get-in-line look. Though Lord knows that man ain’t ever gotten in line in his life. Can’t take nothing serious. But he presses his lips together at least. “Me and Goldie and Brooks just had ourselves a, um…we had amen-age-a-troys.” I glance at Goldie, whose face is the same glorious pink it was when she got off. “Did I pronounce that right?” I whisper to her. “I’ve only ever seen it written in books, never heard it said out loud.”

She gives me a sweet smile. “Not quite, but it’s a tricky one.”

She rattles the correct pronunciation of the wordménage à troisoff her tongue like she’s French born and bred, and Lord, it does something to me. I’m too in love to be embarrassed at my own wrong pronunciation, which was very wrong, turns out.

I didn’t just think the wordlove, did I?

Well, shit, I think I did.

I survey my brothers, all of whose eyebrows are way up, except for Luke, who is studying the red, flaky bark of a pine tree like it’s got the entire Bible carved into it and he’s trying to find the exact verse to condemn us for the sins we’ve just committed or something.

“Anyway. Brooks found Goldie, and they had sex, and then I found them, and we all had sex—well, um…not me and Brooks, obviously, because, ANYWAY. We both had sex with Goldie, and as we were discussing this morning at the family meeting, we all want her, and now we know she wants all of us. So she’s going to stay for a spell, and she and she alone will determine how long that spell will be. And this will be nothing like with Susie May, because there won’t be any ultimatums or fighting over who gets her ’cause we all do. And we can all just be happy and enjoy each other’s company while she’s here.”

Luke doesn’t say anything.

No one says anything.

Everyone just sort of blinks at me, like I stopped speaking English and was instead talking in some kind of language from another planet altogether.

Then, all of a sudden, Clay lets out a whoop, slaps his hands together, and then smacks the water, making a giant splash. “If that’s the case, I’ll enjoy your company over behind that big ol’ pine tree right now, sweet thang…er…sweetheart.”

“Um,” Goldie says, then whispers something to Brooks, who sets her down. “Actually, I have a few things I’d like to say.”

“You go ahead, snapdragon.” Brooks rests his hand on her shoulder, giving it a couple of comforting pats.

“I have friends. They’re brothers, like all of you. There are ten of them, like all of you—”

“Do you have this, um, kind of arrangement with them too?” Ash says, and the way he holds his hand over his heart, like he’s covering it to protect it already, gives Goldie a look in her eye that worries me, like she sees it and it scares her.

I don’t move a muscle because I can’t bear her seeing that I’m inclined to hold my heart as well, and have that look turned on me.

“No, definitely not,” she insists, and I’m so fucking relieved that the air whooshes out of my aching lungs and I realize I was holding my breath.

“Besides,” she continues, “my best friend Winnie claimed them long ago, and they her. But that’s not the point I’m trying to make. I’m saying that I got to work with them for a long time and see how close they are. How important their bond is. I never had siblings myself. I’m an only child. But I know what the Hammer brothers mean to each other, and I know that you all, well, you’re each other’s whole lives, pretty much. And I ran out of the cabin this morning because…Idowant all of you, as crazy as that seems. But I won’t come between you. I refuse to be the girl who destroys your relationships or the peace of your household. I will not. So yes, I’ll stay, but only…” She shudders out a breath and I can see how much this matters to her. “Only if we can agree to a few rules.”

“Alright, nope, that’s it, you can’t just—” Luke begins, but I cut him off.

“Let her finish, dickhead.”

“But she can’t just barge in and start making rules—”

“Let herfinish, youdickhead,” I say again.

Luke glares, and it’s not a surprise Goldie calls him Grumpy.

“Thank you, Hunter,” she says, the way she says my name filling my chest with a soft, sweet, floaty feeling. “Although maybe don’t call each other dickheads on my account? Now—I am not this Susie May heartbreaker you all keep mentioning.” Goldie says it gently, looking at Lynx, then Buck.

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