Page 18 of My Three Mountain Men

“I’ll do my best.”

I believed him. He had an openness about him that I found endearing.

“Are you brothers? You, Knox, and Ryder?”

His face shadowed almost imperceivably.

“Cousins,” he replied slowly.

“Oh…” That explained their remarkable physical characteristics. “How long have you all been living up here like this? Ten years?”

Brooks turned his head away, the query clearly making him uncomfortable, but then he turned back, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “Yes. Almost ten years now.”

“That’s a long time. You must have been a kid when you came,” I said, hedging the subject slowly.

“I was sixteen, Knox was seventeen, and Ryder was twenty-seven.”

Baffled, I gaped at him. “Did you come with your parents?”

Brooks’ body stiffened. “I don’t mean to be rude, Simone, but we really don’t like to talk about that time. It wasn’t a very good part of our lives.”

An image of a seedy trailer popped into my head, and I immediately clamped my mouth shut, clearing my throat. I knew what it was like to want to keep your past hidden. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m just trying to understand where I am.”

“You’re in Colorado, just west of—”

“I mean,” I interrupted with a small laugh. “Who you are.”

Brooks offered me a patient grin. “We’re friends who are going to help you survive the winter. We don’t get many visitors, but we’re not strangers to helping those who need it.”

My eyebrows sprung up. “What does that mean?” I asked, intrigued.

Brooks eyed me slyly and lowered his voice, glancing toward the door as if he worried one of his cousins might overhear. “Let’s just say that the nearest small town knows who to call on if there’s trouble that maybe the law can’t or won’t handle.”

Eyes popping now, I gaped at him, unsure if he was pulling my leg.

“Are you screwing with me?” I demanded.

He put a finger to his lips, and I laughed, still not clear if he was joking or not.

“And how do you fund these crime-fighting missions? And this ridiculously beautiful cabin?”

Brooks’ smile faded entirely now, and he stood. “Maybe that’s enough for one day. I wouldn’t want to dump it all on you at once, now, would I?” he jested lightly.

“I don’t mind!”

Brooks didn’t relent. “What about that tour now?”

Reluctantly, I also stood, realizing that Brooks could be just as stubborn as his cousins if he wanted to be.

“All right,” I agreed. “I can’t wait to see the rest of this place.” A delicious wave of anticipation washed over me as I imagined spending more time with him. I kept that thought to myself, though.

“Good!” Brooks’ grin returned. “I can’t wait to show it to you.”

“Then you can get back to fighting crime,” I quipped, and he chuckled, leading me out ofmybedroom.

The initial wariness I’d felt toward the trio slowly but definitively began to melt away. If they had meant me any harm, surely it would have come to me by now. There were too many flaws in the theory that they had been anything more than who they claimed to be—men who had genuinely saved my life when I would have otherwise faced a certain death at Aimee’s hands.

But I couldn’t let my guard down entirely, much as I found myself staring at Brooks’ full, perfect ass through his worn jeans as he led me down the hallway.

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