Page 9 of Mountain Man Tempted (Hard Timber Mountain Men #2)

HOLT

She left. And the kicker was, I didn’t do anything to stop her.

Being an incredibly generous person with the biggest heart, she’d even offered to continue to watch Lane until the end of the summer.

I couldn’t let her do it though. It would be too hard to have her back in my house, sharing my space.

Not after I’d killed everything special between us.

Lane’s night terrors were back. My sister had stepped in to take care of him for the next couple of weeks, but she didn’t know how to help.

Jessa did her best, but Lane missed Calla.

Hell, I missed her too. She’d left a hole in our hearts the size of a giant asteroid.

Even bigger than the one that was said to cause the dinosaurs to go extinct.

And it was all my fault.

It had been a week since she’d walked out on me.

Hard to think that last Saturday we’d been walking through the farmer’s market with Lane between us, and this week I was trying to pick up the pieces.

Even Jessa was getting sick of me moping around.

She’d even stayed over last night so I could go to trail supper, but when I got there, I just sat in the truck for an hour feeling sorry for myself before I turned around and came home.

“You need to get out today.” My sister tossed my keys toward the couch and glared at me from the other side of the room. “Take Lane to the swimming hole or something.”

I didn’t want to. Didn’t want to do anything besides sit on the couch and wonder why I’d sabotaged the best thing to ever happen to me.

“Holt.” Jessa came around to stand in front of me. “You can’t keep sitting here.”

“Says who?” I wasn’t feeling particularly open to having other people tell me what I could or couldn’t do. Especially when they were right.

She sat down next to me. Her voice softened. “Did you ever tell her how you felt about her?”

It was nobody’s business what went down between Calla and me, but Jessa was trying to help. Maybe that’s why I actually answered instead of blowing her off again. “No.”

“Well, are you going to?”

“It won’t do any good. The program she put in place secured funding for the school year.” I shrugged, unable to imagine competing against something like that. “Those kids need her. She’s probably better off without all this.”

“All of what?” Jessa wouldn’t let it go. “An incredible kid who adores her? A community that’s already carved out a place for her? A stubborn asshole who’s too scared to say the word love?”

That one hit harder than it should have. I wasn’t surprised my sister called me an asshole, but it caught me off guard to hear her toss out the ‘L’ word, even though that was exactly how I felt about Calla. “She was never gonna stay. This was just for the summer.”

“Says who?” Jessa asked, shaking her head. “Is that what you want? To keep living by what’s safe? What’s expected? To be the iceberg everyone already thinks you are?”

I didn’t answer. My throat tightened, making it impossible to utter a word.

Jessa crossed her arms. “You let that stupid Ex-List get to you. You’re not broken. You got hurt and shut down to protect yourself, but Calla’s not the one who hurt you. It’s not fair to let her walk away because you’re too scared shitless to tell her how much you care.”

Fuck. She made it sound so easy. Like putting my heart on the line wasn’t the most terrifying thing a man could do. The silence stretched, uncomfortable and heavy.

Jessa put her hand on my arm. “She didn’t need a perfect plan, Holt. She just needed to know she wasn’t the only one all in.”

I stared at my hands while regret washed over me. “She told Lane her dream was to build a camp. For kids like him. A place where they’d feel seen.”

Jessa’s eyes warmed. “That sounds like an amazing opportunity, and you have all the pieces in place to give her that if you want to.”

My head snapped up. “What do you mean?”

“That acreage you’ve been sitting on? Use it to build her camp. One that will make kids like Lane feel they’re a part of something where they’ll never be turned away. Prove she wasn’t wrong to believe in you.”

I wasn’t sure I was ready to let myself hope. “You really think she’d stay?”

“Only one way to find out.” Jessa picked up a stack of library books from the coffee table. “Why don’t you go drop these off and see if the library has any books on how to start a non-profit.”

Lane had been sitting on the back porch with Jack the Rabbit but came in at the tail end of the conversation. “Can we go to the library, Dad?”

I wasn’t always willing to listen to my little sister, but I was smart enough to take her advice when it mattered. “Yeah, bud. There’s something I want to talk to you about on the way.”

Jessa nudged me in the ribs as her mouth spread into a giant grin. “Go get her, Holt.”

“Go get who?” Lane asked as I herded him out the door.

I told him if he got buckled, I’d let him know who Jessa and I had been talking about.

He needed to be all in as well if we were going to ask her to stay.

My kid and I were a package deal, one that came with a lot of baggage that would need to be unpacked.

But if she was willing to help, I was ready to start opening up and really let her in.

“So, you know how Calla had to go back to another job?” I started, not sure how to broach the subject of asking whether he’d be okay with her moving in permanently.

“Yeah.” His face fell, and his lower lip started to shake. “I wish she coulda stayed.”

“Me too, bud. What would you think about asking her to stay with us for good?” I checked the mirror to gauge his reaction. His eyes lit up like they did when he discovered a new-to-him dinosaur.

“To take care of me?”

“Kind of. More like so we could all take care of each other.”

“Like a real family?”

“Yeah, bud. Exactly like that.” I was tempted to leave the conversation right there, but he deserved to know the whole truth about what it would mean to invite Calla to come back. “But also, I was thinking of maybe asking her to marry us. To be my wife and your mama if you’d be okay with that.”

“Really?” He bounced up and down on his seat.

“Would you like that?”

“Duh, Dad! Can we go ask her right now?”

Encouraged by my son’s total acceptance, I let out a laugh. “There are a few things I need to do first. She was pretty mad at me when she left.”

“We can make her a dinosaur at the library.” Lane clapped his hands together. “I’ll show you how.”

“I’d like that, bud.”

* * *

An hour later, with the help of the very patient librarian who’d been around since I was a kid, Lane and I had created a family of tiny dinosaurs out of nothing but a printer and some weird plastic stuff she’d called filament.

Lane had been extremely particular about making sure the medium one had bright pink hair, and the biggest one had a bushy beard.

He’d even asked the woman to help him make a box to put them in and hadn’t thrown a fit when it took a few tries.

I’d done a little snooping via Nellie and learned Calla was still at her grandparents’ place but was planning on heading back to Bozeman the next day. There was no time to spare if we wanted to catch her and try to convince her to abandon all of her plans and take a chance on the two of us.

“Don’t worry, Dad.” Lane squeezed my hand as I helped him out of the back seat of the truck. “I can tell she likes you.”

“Really? How?”

“Because she always smiles when you’re around.”

“Oh, yeah?” He’d always been extremely observant, but I hadn’t realized he’d been aware of anything happening between me and Calla.

“Yeah. And you like her too. Cause you’re only supposed to kiss girls you really like.” He kept walking like he hadn’t just dropped a bombshell in the middle of the driveway.

“What do you mean?” We’d been careful. I’d made sure he’d never even seen us hold hands in front of him.

He looked up at me and rolled his eyes. “I’m not blind.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, and I didn’t have a chance. As we approached the front door, Calla’s grandma pulled it wide open.

Lane let go of my hand and held out the box. “Is Calla here?”

Mrs. Smith pressed her hand to her heart. “Well, she’s in the back, but I’m not sure she’ll want to see you.”

“Who is it, Gran?” Calla came up behind her grandma, took one look at us, and backed away.

“Calla!” Lane pushed past Mrs. Smith and flung himself at her waist.

She looked up at me, tears already welling in the corners of her eyes as she bent down to gather Lane in her arms. “Hey, Laneosaurus. What are you doing here?”

He pulled away just enough to hold up the plastic box. “This is for you.”

“What is it?” She squatted down and took it from him.

“It’s us. I made it pink because your favorite color is pink.”

Calla lifted the lid and pulled out the dinosaurs one by one. “This is amazing. Is this one supposed to be me?”

“Yeah. And there’s the flag for our new camp.” He pointed at the flag he’d made me print in letters almost too tiny to read. “It says ‘Camp Braveheart, established now.’”

She turned the dinosaurs over in her hand. “I don’t know what to say.”

Lane glanced back at me. “Ask her, Dad.”

“Ask me what?” Her eyes were guarded. I deserved that look. Hell, I’d practically invented it. But it was time to let my walls down.

I gestured toward the box. “This is just the start. I want more.”

She stood slowly, her eyes never leaving mine. “What do you mean?”

“It means I don’t want to waste another minute pretending I don’t want a life with you in it. A life full of building things together. Like a family…” My voice almost cracked but I kept going. “Our family.”

“You and me and Dad,” Lane added.

“This isn’t just a stunt to keep me from leaving, is it?” She rested one hand on Lane’s shoulder while she held the box of dinos in the other.

“No. It’s real. Hell, Calla, I knew I was going to fall for you the second you walked into the damn cafe. It just took me a long time to be able to tell you.” Being vulnerable scared the shit out of me, but I pressed on. “I love you, baby girl. Stay with us, and we’ll build your dream together.”

Her breath hitched. “The camp?”

“Yeah. Lane’s decided he wants to call it Camp Braveheart, if that’s okay with you.” I didn’t deserve her, but I’d seen a glimpse of the life we could make together, and I wanted it more than anything. “Will you stay?”

She bent down and looked at Lane. “Are you sure this is okay with you?”

He nodded so hard I was afraid he was going to give himself a headache. “I need a mom, and I want you.”

I had to look away. If she said no, she’d be breaking both of our hearts.

“Okay.” Her voice was strong and determined. “But I’ve got some rules.”

“Like no running in the house?” Lane asked.

Calla laughed. “That one too, but the ones I’m thinking about are about being honest with each other and always telling the truth. And not trying to hide our feelings from each other, even when they’re hard. Think you can do that?”

“Yeah.” Lane smiled. “That’s easy, isn’t it, Dad?”

“It should be,” I said. “It might take some practice, but that’s what I want, too. No hiding. Not even when it’s hard.”

Calla tilted her head. “I love you, too, you stubborn man. Let’s go home, boys.”

Lane took her hand and tugged her toward the truck. “I told you she’d say yes.”

“Hold on, bud.” I put a hand out to stop him. “I think I can take it from here.”

He let go of Calla’s hand and I pulled her into my arms, right where she belonged. And in front of her grandma and my son, I kissed her like my life depended on it. Because it did.

“Is there gonna be a lot of kissing?” Lane groaned.

I rested my forehead against hers and held her gaze, not scared anymore. She’d seen the worst of me and still accepted me for who I was, with all of my faults and insecurities.

She smiled up at me, her eyes full of enough love to last a lifetime.

I smiled back. “Yeah, bud. There’s going to be a lot more kissing happening.”