Page 53 of My Three Mountain Men

Suddenly, I felt like a reprimanded kid.

I fixed my eyes on my plate and reached for my juice, mind racing. I contemplated coming clean about what I’d done, but I realized how crazy that would make me look.

“Yeah. Something happened to it a while back. I keep meaning to look at it, but I don’t really see the point while the internet is down, anyway.”

“You can at least get the modem working again, even if the internet isn’t,” Ryder insisted, his eyes narrowing as he looked at me. “Can’t you?”

I nodded quickly, eager to get the attention off me.

“How much longer until the internet is back up?” Simone asked. “We must be getting closer to a thaw.”

“Remember what I told you about counting days,” Brooks told her gently. “That’s not something you want to get in the habit of doing—even now as we’re getting closer.”

Unable to help myself, I looked at her. “Are you still in a big hurry to get back online?”

Simone frowned, the question apparently taking her aback. Her lips became a moue, and she laughed. “You know what? I really haven’t thought about it that much, honestly.”

Relief rushed through me at her response, and looking at my cousins, I could see that they were equally pleased by her answer.

“I’ll check it out,” I told them.

“Do it soon,” Ryder ordered me, the suspicion on his face evident. I nodded and avoided his stare as he dropped the modem next to me.

Simone collected the dishes, and I retreated to my office with the modem in hand. I didn’t see Ryder until he closed the door behind us.

“What did you do to it?” my older cousin asked.

I jumped nervously and faced him. “What?”

“What did you do to the modem, Knox?” he asked point blank.

I shook my head, but before I could lie, Ryder stopped me. “We don’t lie to each other. That’s what makes this situation work between us. We don’t hide things from one another, and we don’t lie. We might fight and get pissed off, but we always come together in the end because we’re family, and we have each other’s backs. But to do that, we have to be honest with each other, Knox. Tell me what you did to the modem.”

Humiliated, I sank into my chair and lowered my eyes. “I sabotaged it,” I admitted.

“Because of Simone?”

Damn. He did know us so well.

“She was just so eager to get out of here, and she wouldn’t stop asking about the internet…”

“That was really fucking stupid,” Ryder informed me. “You know that, right?”

“Of course I know that,” I muttered. “And I was going to fix it.”

“I’m not talking about the modem, Knox.”

My head turned upward to meet his eyes.

“You can’t force her to stay here,” Ryder told me bluntly. “Internet or no internet. She doesn’t belong here. She never did.”

His words were a knife blade to my chest. “She likes it here!”

“She’s making do here because she’s resilient—and thank God for that. It could have been much worse for all of us if she was really some stuck-up city bitch. But Knox, you’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that in the spring, Simone is going to return to her life.”

I shook my head vehemently. “You don’t know that!” I spat angrily. “Have you talked to her about it?”

Ryder eyed me pityingly, angering me more.

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