Page 36 of My Three Mountain Men

“You’re being ridiculous!” he exploded. “What kind of shitbrained idea is this?”

I tensed at his accusation. “We don’t have the resources to keep her here all winter.”

Knox snorted disbelievingly. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. You just don’t like her.”

I paled and again turned my face away. “That’s not it. We didn’t plan for an extra body this winter.”

“We have enough to take her on. We always have more than we need. Even if we were trapped for six months, we have enough.”

He was right, of course, calling me on all of my excuses. “Ryder, what’s going on?”

“I don’t want her here.”

Knox ambled closer to me, his head cocked. “Is this because…” He cleared his throat. “Because of me and Brooks?”

I whipped my head back and shook my head vehemently. “No,” I said sharply. “I don’t care what you’ve been doing with her. I’m actually glad you two are enjoying yourselves.”

His face twisted, as if my wording upset him.

“I didn’t want her here at first, either,” he admitted. “But I don’t think she’s so bad. Give her a chance.”

“I don’t want to give her a chance!” I barked furiously. “I want her to go back to wherever she came from.”

Knox’s face fell, and I drew in another breath. “Knox, she’s going home eventually. There’s really no sense in prolonging the inevitable.”

Stubbornly, my cousin looked at me. “We’re not taking her to town on the snowmobile. You’re not that stupid, Ryder.”

He spun on his heel and stormed out of the woodshed as I fumed in his wake.

He was right, of course. There were way too many risks taking her to Loganville. But could I really withstand another eight to ten weeks with her in my house?

I had warned Simone about cabin fever, but maybe I was really the one at risk all along.

* * *

My chat with Knox appeared to have done something to my cousin. Before, Brooks and Simone were spending most of their time together, but now, the three of them seemed joined at the hip. Every time I walked into a room where they were, Knox watched me with suspicious eyes, like he was sure I was going to snatch Simone up in the middle of the night and take her away.

It wouldn’t have been possible, even if that had been my intention. One or both of them slept in her bed at all times, a fact I was distinctly aware of, despite the thickness of the walls.

The days grew longer, more agonizing as I tried to block out the love affair growing between my cousins and the internet sensation, but it was impossible. Whenever I did manage to sleep, I was plagued by dreams of the past that I thought had forever been abolished.

Simone’s arrival had roused some hard memories that I had deigned to keep buried, and the longer she stayed, the more the wounds opened.

I was never going to survive this. Simone had to go before those gaping holes of my soul were fully exposed.

But how the hell was I going to convince my cousins now that they were so smitten with this tantalizing blonde enchantress?

CHAPTER17

Simone

Ahobby.

Really?

I would have laughed if I didn’t think it was the only way to get some kind of connection with Ryder, who was going out of his way to put up walls between us. At first, he had been wary of me, but as January slipped away and February entered a frozen, icy wonderland outside the cabin walls, the patriarch of the household appeared to be purposely building a proverbial house of bricks around him.

No matter how much I huffed and puffed, I could not blow that house down.

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