Page 36 of Snowed In with Three Mountain Men

“Well,that’s me for the night,” Chuck sighs as he gets to his feet and stretches. I glance up at him and smile, and he reaches down to give my shoulder a squeeze.

“You alright?” he asks softly, and I nod. It’s late now—late enough that I’ve entirely lost track of time, and of how many drinks the four of us have put away from the bottle of scotch Chuck brewed up. I’m a little tipsy, but in that warm, comforting way that makes the whole world feel a little softer around the edges.

Or maybe that’s just the aftermath of the conversation I shared with the three of them.

Chuck heads through to his room. Callum has already retreated to bed, and I guess I’m going to be joining him there tonight. I don’t know exactly where I stand with these guys in terms of our physical relationship, but in truth, I’m not sure I really care.

I glance over at Dax, who’s still sitting in his seat, staring into the fire, his hand wrapped around his glass on the edge of the chair. I get to my feet and slip into the spot next to him—I still haven’thad a chance to talk to him one-on-one since I came clean about my past, and I really want to know where he stands with all of it.

He looks over at me and cocks an eyebrow, offering me a small smile. “What do you want?” His words might sound harsh on the outside, but the way he delivers them is nothing but sweetness.

I raise my eyebrows at him. “That’s no way to talk to a lady.”

“You’re no lady,” he chuckles. “I saw how you put away that scotch. No lady could manage something like that.”

I giggle, and take another sip.

“You’ve got me there,” I agree. “It’s just kind of…moreish, when you get into it, though, right?”

“Or maybe you just get drunk enough that you stop noticing how noxious it is.”

“Maybe that too.”

The two of us fall into a companionable silence as we both look into the fading embers of the fire before us. Even though there’s still tension in the air, it feels like we’ve gone a long way to beginning to clear the worst of it, and I’m beyond grateful that he’s been willing to give me another chance to prove myself to him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally, catching me off guard.

I look over at him, confused. “What about?”

“I’m sorry for the way I reacted when you first got here,” he admits, and he turns to meet my gaze. Beneath his shaved head, his eyes look wide—piercing, as though he’s doing his best to see what’s going on inside my head.

“You’ve got nothing to be worry for,” I assure him. “I would have reacted the exact same way, if I’d been in your shoes. Someone turning up out of the blue like that, with no warning, someone you didn’t know?—”

“Yeah, but I should have given you more of a chance,” he mutters, turning away from me once more. “I was too quick to judge you. If I could change that?—”

“Hey,” I murmur, reaching over to give his arm a squeeze. “You didn’t know who I was. As far as you were concerned, I just dropped out of the blue to make your whole life harder. You were within your rights to be pissed about it.”

“I wasn’t pissed, just…worried,” he replies, and he looks over at me again.

“Worried?” I laugh. “About me? You thought I was going to come in here and cause chaos?”

“Not quite,” he replies, a smile curling up his lips. “It was…different.”

“What kind of different?” I ask him curiously. This is the closest he’s gotten to telling me what he really thought when he first laid eyes on me, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested to find out just where his reaction had come from.

He stares at me for a long moment, as though considering whether or not he’s actually going to come clean with me about it. And then—much to my frustration—he turns away and shakes his head. “You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Hey, don’t play mysterious like that!” I protest, reaching over to nudge his arm. “You can’t just walk right up to telling me the answer and then change your mind at the last minute.”

He shakes his head again. “I don’t know if you want to hear it.”

“I’m telling you that I do.”

“Yeah, that’s because you don’t know what I’m going to say?—”

“And how the hell am I going to know whether I’ll like it or not if you don’t tell me?” I demand. The alcohol has me feeling a little reckless, a little daring. Normally, I would never risk talking to Dax like this, but he’s leading me on, trying to get me to coax more out of him.

“You sure you want to know?” he asks, flicking his gaze to mine again.

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