Page 7 of My Three Mountain Men

My eyebrows furrowed at the revelation. “Nothing at all? Not a purse or a backpack?”

Brooks shook his head, his dark hair flopping over the front of his forehead as he did. He raised a hand nervously through his dark dresses, and I idly thought how badly all three of us needed haircuts and shaves.

“Not even a bottle of water,” he replied. “Not buried in the snow or anything.”

My frown deepened. “That’s odd, isn’t it?” I mused, more to myself than them. “An influencer without a cell phone?”

“That’s more proof that something happened to her, and she’s not here under nefarious circumstances.”

“Maybe she walked from somewhere else,” Knox suggested.

“Or she left her stuff with that Aimee woman, and she went looking for help,” Brooks added urgently. “Maybe her friend is lying there injured somewhere, too. We’re wasting time and daylight standing around like this. We should be talking to Simone.”

“Both possibilities can be true,” I reminded my cousins. “She could have come here with one intention and then just gotten herself in trouble. In either case, we need to tread lightly with her.”

They stared at me, waiting for me to speak again.

Finally, I nodded reluctantly. “Fine,” I conceded, knowing that neither cousin was going to go anywhere until I relented. I was the oldest by a decade, and they had always looked to me for guidance, after all. Even after all these years on our own. We were fully grown men, and they still looked at me like their father in some ways.

I wondered if that would ever change.

I shoved the semi-bitter thought aside and pivoted to open the door and confront the newcomer in our massive cabin.

Just what I needed. Another kid to take care of.

CHAPTER4

Simone

Every minute I spent in that huge, beautiful room with the stone fireplace crackling hypnotically, my anxiety mounted. Bit by bit, I regained feeling in my limbs, but I kind of wish I hadn’t at the same time. I ached in places I didn’t know I had—the tips of my fingers discolored from what I imagined was frostbite.

My head turned to take in the surroundings with more clarity, the movement cracking my stiff neck painfully. Wincing, I strained to look at the high ceiling, a cast-iron chandelier dangling from the center of a wood-slatted ceiling. The piece was designed to look as if it was holding real candles, but it was really electric… I assumed.

What was this place? A resort?

It had all the vibes of some reclusive celebrity hideaway, but it was extremely quiet, and the three men who all shared distinctly similar characteristics did not strike me as movie stars on vacation—especially not after my last coherent memory of being jabbed by Aimee.

Am I being held here for ransom?The idea was almost laughable. Who would they even call to stake their claim? Nobody who cared about me had any money. Well, nobody even really cared about me.

My head still wasn’t clear enough for proper logic, but I was pretty sure that I couldn’t stay there, cozy and warm as I was.

I managed to sit up, and as the heavy comforter fell away, I saw that I was wearing the same outfit I’d had on from the hotel room at the ski resort. I was filthy, covered in streaks of dirt, and still damp, but no one had tried to take me out of the clothing.

Was that good? That was good, right?

Straining my ears, I tried to hear their voices in the hallway, but the walls were too thick for me to make out more than a muffling of voices, all of them blending together. I couldn’t tell which man was which. Did I care?

“Hello?” I called out weakly. “Is Aimee with you?”

My nerves were so taut, I thought a slight breeze might snap them in half as I waited for a response, one leg slipped out, poised for flight.

But that answer never came.

“Hello?” I called again, still detecting their voices but not sensing them coming any closer. What the hell were they doing out there?

My mind went haywire then, imagining the absolute worst. They’d brought me there to kill me. They were waiting for Aimee to come back and finish the job. I had to get out of there before they returned.

Fully untucking myself from the bed, I teetered onto the floor, my legs buckling, but I managed to stay standing. Whatever drugs were in my system still hadn’t cleared, apparently, but I could walk a few feet, my bare toes stumbling over the pristine wood planks of the… heated floors?

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