Page 30 of Snowed In with Three Mountain Men

“We’re putting everything on the line to give you a place to stay,” I mutter, shaking my head. “And the least we deserve is to know what exactly you’re running from. What exactly you’ve gotten all of us into.”

She swallows hard, not taking her eyes off me. “Fine,” she spits. “I’ll tell you. And if it’s too much, I can leave. I can walk right out of here this instant and never look back, and you’ll never have to worry about laying eyes on me again, you hear?”

I lift my chin, silently indicating for her to go on.

She looks between Chuck and Callum and me, as though trying to reach for a way out of this, but they stand there in silence. No matter how they might go about it, they want this as much as I do.

And she knows it.

At last, she begins to speak.

“I…after Callum and I split up,” she begins, haltingly, “I was involved with this…with this guy. I met him at an event I was waitressing, for his dad—he’s a senator, pretty influential in the city, and his son, James, set his sights on me when he saw me there that evening. I was flattered at first, I guess I liked the attention, being part of the fancy side of the city, but…” She trails off.

“You don’t have to keep going, if you?—”

She lifts a hand to cut Callum off. “No. Dax is right,” she replies, voice hollow. “You deserve to know. You’re putting so much on the line for me. This is the least I can do.”

Once she’s gathered herself, she keeps going. “And he liked that too. I mean, the fact that I didn’t have any real connection to his world. He got to call all the shots, there was nothing—there was nothing I had control over. He started paying for stuff, started pushing my friends away, starting making like they weren’t good enough for me, and then for him. And I moved in with him, because—because, fuck, I thought at least he wanted me. At least he wasn’t going anywhere.”

She fires a look toward Callum, and he starts as though he’s been struck with a physical blow. Whatever happened between them, it’s clear it laid the groundwork for whatever she’s describing now—and he’s not ignorant to the fact.

“And that’s when it started getting…bad. Worse,” she explains, her voice dropping. “Once we were living together, he was paying for everything, and he made me quit the jobs I was doing since he could provide for me. He pulled me into his world, and he made it seem like my choice. There was nobody I could turn to, I didn’t have my old friends anymore, didn’t have any family, and he was just telling me, over and over again, how grateful I should be that he had given this to me.”

Her words are starting to lace through with anger now, as if it’s finally clicking just what he did to her.

“And he started to hurt me. Not physically, not at first, he was too smart for that. But he’d put me on timers when I went out, and if I didn’t get back in time, he’d spend the night berating me, to the point where I just gave up going out at all. When I told him I wanted to go back to pick up with my studies, he freaked outon me, told me I was ungrateful—that was the first time he put hands on me. He just grabbed me that time, but it left bruises, and I know I should have left then, but…”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t see a way out,” she admits. “I couldn’t. That’s how he had made all of it, so there was nowhere for me to go and nobody for me to turn to. So when he started hurting me more, I just…I took it. I would cover it up with makeup when we had to go to one of his father’s fundraising events, because he would tell me that I would make a scene and attract too much attention if I didn’t. And I let him. I fucking let him.”

The anger, now, is turned in on herself. And I recognize it well. It’s the same anger I woke to when I was pulled from the explosion that killed my unit—the anger that consumed me for years, feeling like I could have done more, should have done more, or that I should have at least had the decency to die out there with the rest of them. The nights I lay awake, turning the events of that day over and over, trying to find some crack in the memory that would grant me peace, only to come up with nothing—that’s the look on her face right now, that bitterness, that utter self-loathing.

“And then he proposed to me,” she continues, almost with an edge of laughter to her voice. “And I said yes. Because I truly didn’t know what my life would look like without him. And even though he treated me so badly, I—I thought it was better than being alone again. I thought it had to be.”

She twists her head to the side, and I can see tears glistening in her eyes. She dashes them away with the back of her hand, quickly, as though she doesn’t want any of us to see it.

“It wasn’t until my wedding day that I realized I couldn’t do it,” she confesses. “I…I climbed out the window of that stupid hotel we were meant to be getting married in, and I left him there among all the photographers and society people who came to see him make me his. I knew if I stayed, I would never find a way out, not with who his father is. They would tie me up in legal proceedings for the rest of my life just out of spite, just to keep me tied down to him. So…so I stole that car, and I ran.”

She catches her breath, like it still comes as a shock to say that part out loud.

“And that’s how I ended up here. I thought that he would—I don’t know what I thought. Maybe that he would be so angry he wouldn’t want anything to do with me anymore. But I guess that’s not how he’s playing it.”

“You think he would send people out here to find you? Kill you?” Chuck presses, his voice low with concern.

She sighs. “I wouldn’t put it past him,” she replies. “Or maybe he’s just trying to drag me back to marry him and go through with what I promised, I don’t know. His father, he’s a powerful man, and he can get the authorities to look the other way if he wants to use methods that aren’t entirely legal to get what he wants. God knows he’s already done it to cover up the drug use and shit like that.”

Finally, she falls silent, and looks between the three of us.

“So, that’s it,” she tells us, bluntly. “That’s why I’m here. That’s what I’m running from. That’s who I’m dealing with. And if you want me gone, then I’ll go, right now?—”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Callum growls, almost as though the very thought of it pisses him off. He strides toward herand crushes her against his chest in a huge hug, pulling her close like he never wants to let her go. I can see him murmuring something against her ear—an apology, maybe, for what happened between them before?

Chuck moves toward her and puts his hand on her shoulder—a surprisingly intimate gesture, given that he’s not the most forward guy in the world. She turns to him, and he nods with certainty.

“You’re staying here,” he replies. “No way am I sending you back out into the world when that psycho is looking for you. You can stay as long as you need to, Charli.”

She thanks him with a small smile—and as she breaks free of Callum’s hug at last, she looks over at me. All three of them do. And I know exactly what they’re asking. They’re asking if this is enough. If I agree to this. Because what she just told us changes everything. She might be vulnerable, but she’s put us in the middle of all of this too. And now I have to figure out if I can handle it. If we’re not all on the same page, we’re not going to be able to take down this psycho ex of hers, and I’m the one who came out here demanding answers.

But as I look at her, something shifts in me. Yes, I’m still pissed that the life we’ve made for ourselves out here has taken such a huge hit with her arrival. And I know it’s not just going to snap back to normal when all this is done either—if it’s ever done. But there’s something about her story, about the way she speaks, about the pain in her eyes, that I know all too well.

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