Page 10 of Snowed In with Three Mountain Men

“Just give me a coat or something, some shoes,” she begs. “I can leave. I need to leave. You don’t understand, he’s?—”

“Who?” I ask her, before she can go any further. I’m not going to just stand around and let her keep spinning these stories to try and win some sympathy. My brothers might have fallen for it, but I won’t.

She presses her lips together. I take a step closer to the bed.

“Who’s after you, huh?” I demand. “Tell us.”

Slowly, she shakes her head. “I—you wouldn’t believe me. Even if I did tell you.”

I let out a snort of derision. “Damn, that’s handy for you. So you don’t have to tell us anything, huh?”

“That’s not why I’m?—”

“Dax, with me. Now.” Chuck’s tone leaves no room for argument. I glance over at him, Callum standing just by his side, and my heart sinks. I can tell I’ve lost. Chuck jerks his head toward the door, and I grit my teeth.

“Someone should stay here to keep an eye on her,” I mutter, and Callum steps forward.

“I will,” he replies. “Go, Dax. You’re not making this any easier.”

Shooting one last look in the direction of our unexpected guest, I follow Chuck outside, to the main living space of the cabin—a fire is crackling in the hearth, and there’s food on the stove, filling the room with a warm, savory scent. I would normally be starving by this time of night, but food is the last thing on my mind as I glare my brother down.

“What is it?” I ask bluntly.

He narrows his eyes at me. “You really need me to tell you?”

I sigh, and toss my hands in the air.

“I don’t see the issue,” I protest. “I’m the only one talking sense out of the three of us. Listen to the girl, for God’s sake, Chuck! She’s telling us that she wants to go. She’s practically begging to leave, and?—”

“And you know as well as I do that when you’ve been through something serious, you’re not always thinking straight,” he finishes up for me, his voice firm. I bristle. I know what he’s getting at—and I don’t like the implication.

“This is different,” I snarl. “This is a girl crashing her car near the cabin and acting like she’s got a whole army on her tail. This is nothing to do with us. This is?—”

“And that’s exactly what the people who found you out there would have said,” he reminds me, pushing his face close to mine.

I fall silent. I hate to admit it, but he’s right. I can still remember the flashlight beam in my face after the explosion, our trucksmashed into the side of the road, the men who had made up my unit scattered around me in pieces. My own leg, twisted underneath me, a bullet lodged in my hip, though I could barely feel it then, the shock too intense for that. The civilians reaching down and pulling me out of the ditch and taking me to the nearest hospital, and if they hadn’t done that—if they had looked at me and decided that I was more trouble than I was worth—then I would have died there with the rest of them, I was sure of it.

“She’s not going to die if we let her out,” I protest, but it’s weak. Truth is, if she walks out into that weather, she’s going to be in serious trouble—and that’s without even considering whatever is actually going on that she’s running from.

“Dax, she’s in trouble,” he murmurs. “And I’m not going to ask some woman in a wedding dress who’s clearly going through something to walk back out there and face it. It doesn’t sit right with me. And I know it doesn’t sit right with you either, no matter what you say about it.”

I tear my gaze away from him. Fuck, I wish he didn’t know me so well sometimes. That’s the downside of living so closely as brothers—there’s not a damn thing they don’t know about you, not a thing they can’t read in your reactions or responses to any given situation. It’s infuriating.

But at the same time, I know he’s right. This girl…she’s been through something heavy. Running away on her wedding day? I don’t even want to think what kind of marriage she might have been facing if this seemed like the better option. And even now, all she wants is to get out on the run again, like she’s terrified that whoever this guy is might already be on the brink of finding her.

“If she causes us any trouble?—”

“Then we’ll deal with it,” Chuck replies, his voice smooth, calm. Times like this, I get why he did so well as a comms operator—he knows how to handle people, even assholes like me.

“She’s not going anywhere, Dax,” he finishes. “You try fighting Callum on it if you’ve got a problem with it, but you know he’s not going to back down on this.”

A small smirk curls up the corners of his lips.

“Hey, what do you think happened between them?” he asks, lowering his voice slightly. “You see the look on his face when he saw her there?”

I shake my head. “Yeah, it was crazy,” I agree. “He’s never mentioned her to me before…”

“Or me,” Chuck replies. “Which means he probably screwed things up royally with her, and he’s trying to do his best to pretend he didn’t.”

---