Page 43 of My Three Mountain Men

Ryder’s mouth gaped, but he seemed to think better of fighting and resumed his meal. Simone stared at him wistfully, and my chest panged for her. She was trying so hard to win his approval, and my cousin was being such an asshole.

After dinner, I helped her with the dishes, but she tried to usher me away.

“This is my job, remember?”

“We all pitch in, remember?” I insisted. “It’s fine.”

She didn’t protest, and I helped her load the dishwasher.

“I’m sorry Ryder isn’t warming up,” I finally blurted out when the silence grew too heavy. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

She cast me a sidelong look, scraping the food scraps into the compost bin. “It’s okay. I kind of came to terms with the fact that he hates me.”

I frowned, my brow knitting into a vee. “No… I don’t think that’s true, either, Simone.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure it is. If he’s willing to risk my life by snowmobiling me out…”

“I don’t think he was actually going to do that…” I mumbled, unsure of what Ryder was really thinking when he’d proposed that. “I think this was just all too much for him. I mean, the guy sort of got tasked with being a dad to us when our parents died, you know?”

“You guys weren’t babies,” Simone argued.

“We were teenagers,” I countered. “I propose that’s worse than babies.”

Simone snorted, filing the dishes into the racks. “Point taken.”

She raised her head curiously. “You were teenagers,” she repeated slowly. “How did you not end up in foster care?”

My cheek twitched. “Ryder agreed to keep us as the only nearby relative.”

Startled, Simone stared at me. “Really?”

I nodded. “He never said anything, but I doubt he wanted the responsibility. I mean, he was just getting his life started himself, but he didn’t refuse. He could have, and Knox and I would have ended up in foster care until we aged out.”

Simone’s eyes narrowed more. “And he could have taken your money.”

“He could have screwed us all kinds of ways,” I agreed. “Instead, he handled all the funeral arrangements during the investigation of the plane crash. He made sure that Knox and I finished school and graduated. Man, we fought all the time.”

I smiled at the memory.

“It’s good to see that some things never really change,” Simone murmured.

“That’s family for you. But before the crash, we weren’t close. I mean, we saw one another at functions, sometimes on holidays, but we never knew one another. Not really.”

Again, Simone appeared baffled by the revelation. “What?”

“Our fathers were brothers, but they weren’t exactly cut from the same cloth. Ryder’s father, Royce, was the brains of MMC. His mother was the face. They put in grueling hours at the office, and Royce lured my father into the idea with money. I think Andrew, Knox’s father, wanted to build a legacy for his kids, but his mom, Charlotte, was happy being at home with Knox. We just didn’t live the same kind of life, in spite of the company being the common thread.”

I paused thoughtfully and looked out of the kitchen window, into the moonlit mountainside. “I suppose if they had lived, we all would have followed in their footsteps in some form or another, but fate has a way of intervening.”

“It sounds like you did sort of follow in their footsteps,” Simone replied softly. “Ryder takes care of everyone, just as his father and mother did. Knox oversees the household. And you are the glue keeping it all together.”

“Hmm. And I thought you were that glue.”

I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her toward me, placing a sweet kiss on her lips as she giggled, her arms snaking toward my neck.

“I don’t want you to worry about anything,” I told her, our noses pressed together.

“I’m not,” she said quickly, but I didn’t believe her.

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