Page 69 of Knot Her Mountain Men

“I’m sorry,” Cooper gasped out. “My brain feels scrambled.”

“You’re okay, man.” Ryder put a comforting hand on Cooper’s shoulder. “Take a breath.”

The roar of snowmobiles came through the windows and Maverick startled, moving over to check it out. “We’re popular today.”

The machines pulled to a stop in the yard. What on earth? They hadn’t had a single visitor and now suddenly they were getting multiple in the same day?

I got Cooper settled onto the couch while the others—minus Bear, who stayed with us—went to check things out.

A couple of minutes later, a familiar voice was shouting through the lodge. “Cooper, you selfish motherfucker. What the hell is wrong with you?” His packmate Cash came marching in like a disgruntled mother hen, stopping short when he saw both of us. “Holy fucking shit.” Cash bounded over, throwing himself at us so he could hug both of us at once.

“Good to see you too, Cash.”

“Jesus Christ, Morgan. We all thought you were dead.”

Cooper shrank down next to me.

“This dingus slipped away into the fucking night while we were asleep to keep searching for you after everything was called off. We’ve been following you for fucking days, Coop.” Cash flicked Cooper in the forehead, my brother flinching back.

“I had to keep going.”

“You could’ve kept goingwith us.” I turned to see their other two packmates, Levi and Dakota. Levi scooped me up, squeezing me tightly. “Thank god.”

Dakota took me next, trading off from hugging Cooper. “We’ve been so worried.”

“How did you find me?” Cooper croaked out.

“We followed you as long as your phone was charged,” said Levi, “and then struggled for a while just with your trail. We gave up yesterday, hoping your stubbornness would keep you alive until we could get another fucking search and rescue going. Your location pinged back on a couple of hours ago and we came straight here.”

Cash, Levi, and Dakota formed a protective wall around Cooper and me on the couch.

“Are you ready to leave, Morgan?” Cash asked.

“Leave? Ijustfinished a heat. I can barely stand for more than five minutes.”

My brother and his pack all stiffened, gazes darting toward the alphas who had cared for me, turning as one to the nest tent as if they hadn’t noticed it before.

“Morgan,” Cooper hissed. “You had a heat? You hate those.”

“Little hard to avoid when Brandon took every fucking thing of use, including my suppressants, when he abandoned me in the woods.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Cash. “What the fuck are you talking about? Brandon was crying all over the fucking TV about how he lost you in the storm.”

I rolled my eyes. “Lost me on purpose, maybe.”

“I have to sit down.” Cash sank onto his ass, looking both dazed and pissed. “We saw him at the start of the search. That’s it. I need to kill him.”

The lodge was pure chaos. There was a lot of shouting going on between the arrival of Morgan’s brother and his pack, and the revelation that the person who had escalated everything to a search and rescue had been the one responsible for it being needed in the first place. Pumpkin participated, dancing around the guests, barking.

Bear looked like he was ready to crawl out of his skin from all the noise.

I gave a sharp whistle and everyone fell silent. “Let’s all take a breath. There’s a lot to be discussed. Morgan and Cooper need rest, and I don’t want our omega to get stressed.”

“Youromega?” Cash bristled.

Had that not come up in the shouted conversations? I couldn’t keep track of all the topics covered. “Morgan is our scent match.”

“What?!” they chorused.

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