Page 14 of Snowed In with Three Mountain Men

“I’ll talk to my brothers,” he replies, jerking his head outside the door. “Once the snow’s settled, we can get out there and move it.”

I chew my lip.

“That’s a long time to just leave it out there…”

“Trust me, in this weather, nobody is going to be driving around these parts anyway,” he assures me. “Please. Just get some damn rest, Charli. We’ll deal with it.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. I have no choice but to believe him right now, even if every fiber of my being is screaming at me to argue, to put up a fight and tell him that he doesn’t just get to tell me how all of this works.

Truth be told, I need to get over myself. I have to rest up. Even if I want to make a break for it first thing tomorrow, I’m not going to be able to do that in the midst of this snowstorm, while I’m still carrying injuries from that crash. He’s offering me somewhere to rest and heal up, and if I’m going to escape from James, I need to be in full fighting form to make it happen.

“Fine,” I sigh, and I sink down onto the edge of the bed. And just like that, all the fight seems to fade from me in an instant. Whatever was left, it’s gone, and all I want now is to curl up under these covers and sleep for the next five years straight. It’s not exactly how I imagined I would be spending my wedding night—but I know it’s a hell of a lot better than having to placate James all evening.

“Good,” Callum sighs, and he heads for the door. But before he can go, I blurt out his name.

“Callum?”

He turns to face me again. I’m not even certain why I said that. It’s like an echo of what we had before played in my mind, calling out to him to stay closer. The thought of sleeping here alone suddenly scares me—like he might walk out on me and abandon me like he did before.

And as he looks down at me, I know he can feel it too. Whatever history there is between us, it won’t be so easily forgotten. And it’s about to make everything that’s happening here a whole hell of a lot more complicated, I’m sure of that.

“What is it?”

I hesitate for a moment before replying. I almost want to spill it all to him, right then and there—how much I’ve missed him, how everything changed after he left, how I settled for someone I knew wanted me back, even if he was willing to control every detail of my life to prove it.

But I swallow it down quickly. Callum doesn’t need to know all of that. In fact, the less he knows about me, the better—the easier it’s going to be to walk away from him when I’m back on my feet. He pulled himself out of my life all those years ago, and I’m not going to try and coax him back in, no matter the circumstances.

“Nothing,” I reply, shaking my head. “Sorry.”

With one last look lingering on my face, he finally heads out of the bedroom and closes the door behind him. I half expect to hear the lock slide across, but it doesn’t, much to my relief. He seems to be serious when he tells me that I can leave whenever I want to, though I don’t have much interest in testing that for the time being.

Slumping back on the pillow, I stare at the ceiling. I don’t know what the hell happens next—but I know that, for the time being, the most important thing I can do is rest. Finally, as my eyes drift shut, I fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.

7

CALLUM

“So,”Chuck says as we step out of the cabin and into the snow-covered forest outside. “Now that it’s been a couple of days, are you going to tell us what the hell happened between you and that girl?”

“Charli,” I correct him, stuffing my hands into my pockets to ward off the cold. “Her name is Charli.”

“Charli, right,” he muses. “So what exactly happened between you and Charli, then?”

I ignore him, glancing up to the sky, still cloaked in a heavy gray cloud.

“We need to get down to the crash site,” I reply. “It might start snowing again soon. I want to make the most of the clear weather while we’ve got it.”

“So that’s a no, huh?” Dax interjects as we begin to crunch our way through the snow toward the spot where the car crashed.

“A no?”

“About what happened between the two of you.”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.”

I don’t even have to look back at them to know they’re rolling their eyes at each other. Call it triplet telepathy—or maybe just my siblings’ bad attitude in particular.

“Because as long as she’s staying here, we deserve to know what you’re giving up room and resources for,” Chuck reminds me as he catches up to me.

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