Page 8 of Single Mom for the Mountain Men (Mountain Men Why Choose #3)

M y eyes open to find an empty bed.

The sun is streaming through the blinds, the rays illuminating my entire room. The other side of the bed is cold, like no one has been in it for a while. I stretch, and my sore muscles pulse in protest.

A sudden, cold feeling tracing its fingers down my spine, I decide that it’s time to get out of bed for the day.

Did Aiden leave without telling me?

A quick glance around the room reveals that his clothes aren’t there. His side of the bed looks cold and clinical, like no one has been in it for some time now. My clothes are lying folded at the foot of the bed. I hurry to get dressed quickly.

The peace I felt as I woke up has now dissipated. Apprehension bleeds over every other emotion as I tie my hair back.

My reflection in the vanity mirror looks well-rested and at peace. There’s a glow on my face that I haven’t seen in years, but my hollow, green eyes hold the same anxiety as they have for years. My neck is littered with bite marks and hickeys, every bruise mottled and prominent.

Even putting concealer on them hurts, but I power through it, hoping the makeup stays on well enough that Sophie’s attention isn’t caught by them. Bad enough I’ve already got burns I’m caring for. I already don’t know what I’ll do if she asks me how I got them.

Throwing my hair up in a messy knot, I make my way out of my bedroom, only to smell something mouthwatering flooding the house. The smell seems to be coming from the kitchen, so that’s where I head to next.

A cheery Aiden is in front of the stove, whisking eggs as he holds the bowl steady with his other arm.

“Awake, sunshine?” Aiden asks when he realizes I’m in the kitchen with him. I feel the tension leaving my body as I realize he didn’t leave, after all. “You like your eggs scrambled or…?”

“Over easy, actually.” I grin. “But since the chef is so handsome, I’ll settle for however he likes to cook them. Thank you.”

“Hm, feeling particularly cheesy this morning?” he asks as he turns back to the stove, his movements sure as he takes out the black pepper and chili oil.

“So, only you have the right to be silly?” I raise a brow and lean my hip against the kitchen island.

“No, by all means, join in on the fun.” He smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners. I give him a matching smile, and that’s when Sophie decides to walk in.

“Hey, baby, sleep well?” I ask my daughter as she sits on her stool, yawning loudly. “Cover your mouth, Soph. Where are your manners?”

“Let her be, Lena. She just woke up,” Aiden comments, and Sophie turns victoriously to me, her eyes twinkling.

“Yeah, Lena,” she parrots, and that’s when Aiden turns around to eye Sophie critically.

This action makes me burst out in laughter, and Sophie pokes out her tongue at me. It feels so nice that Aiden is comfortable and frank enough with Sophie to play around with her like this.

The two go on to bicker some more, and just watching them causes this strange feeling to fill my heart to the brim.

Aiden presents me with a plate of hash browns along with scrambled eggs, but he did make them slightly runny, as if to compromise.

He gives Sophie a hearty plate of pancakes.

He remembered Sophie’s and my favorite breakfast foods, which makes the weight I’ve been carrying on my chest for such a long time disappear entirely.

It feels freeing and fulfilling to be taken care of like this, without it being made into a huge hassle or argument.

Judging by the genuine look of happiness in his eyes, cooking us breakfast was something Aiden wanted to do.

He wanted to take care of Sophie and I, even when he could have simply disappeared back to his place this morning.

I take a sip of my burning hot coffee, nearly scalding my tongue as Sophie tells Aiden about her newest interest. He listens with rapt attention and responds as if Sophie is another adult.

Sophie hates being treated like a child, and Aiden has cracked the code on how to make her happy in only two weeks.

I finish my breakfast with a smile on my face, feeling light in a way that I haven’t in years.

Sophie ventures into the living room to fiddle with the TV, so she can watch one of her favorite cartoons.

Once she’s distracted and no longer paying any attention to us, Aiden presses me against the kitchen counter, his hips solid as they press into me.

Flashes from last night and yesterday creep into my mind, and I flush, trying to maintain decorum.

“We can’t do what we did here last time again,” I tell him in what I’m hoping is a firm voice. Realistically, I know I sound like a whiny kid.

“And what did we do? Can you help me jog my memory? Only works if you give me a practical demonstration,” he says cheekily while folding my hands into his.

I nod in an exaggerated manner. “Yes, of course, sir. Any other requests?”

“Yeah. I want in your bed again.”

I slap his stomach, peering at the doorway to see if Sophie heard.

“There’s children in this house!” I hiss after I make sure there’s no chance of Sophie noticing us.

“Oh, please, like that stopped you last night.” He rolls his eyes mockingly.

I scoff. “Okay, first of all, don’t show me this kind of attitude in my own house.”

“This is Jack’s house, though.” He grins stupidly, and I press a chaste kiss against his lips. He pauses for a bit, then his face erupts into a wide smile.

“You’re being annoying on purpose, so I’ll kiss you to shut you up?” I ask against his lips, eye darting every now and then to the door.

“Damn, gave myself away.”

I shake my head, endeared. “All quiet when I first met you, and look at you now. All you want to do is crack these lame jokes.”

He grins and his arms snake around my waist.

“What’cha doing today?”

“Oh, nothing. I was thinking of maybe chilling with Sophie inside the cabin. Do you wanna do something?”

“Yeah, I just wanna hang with you two today. Is that all right?”

My heart bumps loudly in my chest, affection warming me from the inside out.

“More than all right,” I answer.

The entire day, Aiden is glued to me. He’s at my beck and call, helping me around the house with the most basic chores. Even when I tell him not to worry about anything, he doesn’t sit down.

It should be irritating and obtrusive, but it’s the exact opposite.

Like a weight knocked off my shoulders, it makes me feel so relieved to have a helping hand around the house. Not only is it domestic, but the casual touches he graces me with only heighten the emotions I feel for him.

It’s like he’s erasing the wounds from my past.

While he’s helping me fold the laundry, he brings up that he and his brothers will be having a bonfire tonight.

“We’re just gonna crack open a cold one,” he tells me as he folds one of Sophie’s dresses. “You can both join us, if you’d like.”

“I don’t want Sophie to be out in the cold, you know. And she goes to bed pretty early for school, too,” I tell him, though a large part of me wants to accept the invitation.

“Hmm, you could put her to sleep, then join us.”

He proposes it casually, but my spine tenses all the same.

Leaving her all alone, with no supervision?

Yeah, not happening. I don’t say those words, but judging by his reaction, he can see that I don’t agree with this suggestion at all.

“Bring Sophie with you, then.”

I shake my head. “No. I don’t want to intrude or make you all feel responsible in any kind of way. Maybe some other time, Aiden.”

But he doesn’t take no for an answer. After some insistent beseeching, he finally gets me to agree to go to the bonfire with Sophie.

I don’t know what fun these three grown men will have with me and Sophie around, but I can only resist the puppy dog eyes Aiden uses on me a few times before I give in.

Sophie is over the moon when Aiden breaks the news to her before dinner.

“Oh, so a dinner party?” She perks up at the idea, her eyes glittering. “I haven’t been to one of those in so long!”

My gut tightens uncomfortably when I see how excited she is to be invited to a get-together. We haven’t been invited to many places for a while now, and even if we were…

Well, no use ruminating over that now.

“It’s not really a dinner party, Sophie. We’re all just sitting by the fire and roasting marshmallows, maybe playing some games.”

“Even better!” she says.

Her enthusiasm is contagious, and I find myself putting on the best cashmere sweater I have, tying my unruly, blonde hair back in a loose ponytail. A few strands frame my face, and my eyes look clearer than they have in years.

The mountains of Whitefish are really doing me good.

****

Aiden and I leave my cabin with Sophie marching along behind us. I check the lock three times before I’m comfortable enough to leave. Aiden watches me patiently, but I know he’s dying to question me.

Brody and Tanner are setting up, putting in dry sticks to stoke the fire.

They’re both bundled up, though in significantly fewer layers than Sophie and I are wearing.

You must grow thick skin during the mountain winters, I guess.

The weather is suitably chilly today, perfect for the warmth of the fire to be gentle on our faces.

Sophie greets the two men earnestly, and they greet her back with a fond smile. It warms my heart to see how much Sophie has grown on all three of the men. There is easy affection in their hearts for her, which I never expected to find in other people in a million years.

We all settle down in a half-moon shape around the fire, at a comfortable distance from the flames. Brody hands Sophie a few crackers, which she starts munching on immediately. We all get a bag of marshmallows, and Aiden takes the responsibility for melting Sophie’s, against my insistence.

A chilly wind blows over us, the flickering flames keeping the worst of it at bay. I snuggle deeper into my sweater while Sophie yaps the men’s ears off. I catch Aiden’s eye, watching the flames dance in his gaze as he melts a marshmallow on a stick for Sophie, and something loosens inside me.

“So, Soph, you any good at Uno?” Tanner asks before plucking out the cards with a flourish. He does a few classic, yet still impressive, tricks with the cards.

“Ooh, yes! I love Uno!”

“She’s never played Uno before,” I whisper to Aiden, but judging by my daughter’s unamused glare and Tanner’s grin, the whisper carries clearly, despite the sound of the wind.

“It’s Sophie. I trust her to immediately be good at it,” Tanner announces, and Brody agrees with an affirmative grunt.

We all get the cards passed out, and then, the game starts. My luck is as bad as usual. Perhaps it’s even worse than my strategy. Brody’s hand is the cleanest, with Aiden being the wildcard, and Tanner the analytical player. The last two come as a shock to me.

After I lose a few times, I quit playing, and Sophie carries the Sanders into victory. I can tell that they let her win, but they do so without making it too obvious.

It’s very cute. Sophie continues her competition with them as Aiden swaps his seat with Tanner, so that he can teach Sophie the real rules of the game.

“I thought you would wing it at Uno, too, you know,” I tease Tanner as he watches the scene before him with fond eyes.

“It may look like everything I do is a wild stab in the dark, but it is an educated and well-thought-out plan, Lena.” The corners of his lips lift. “Feel like a beer yet?”

I part my lips to reject, but all of a sudden, I think again. You know what? Fuck it .

“Yeah, I’d love one.”

His brows rise momentarily as he gets up. “And I didn’t take you for a beer kind of woman.”

“What kind of a woman did you take me for, then?” I pretend to be falsely offended, crossing my arms in mock outrage.

He smirks. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

Tanner gets up to retrieve the rest of the beer from the house, and when he gets back, he hands bottles over to the other two men and then one to me.

Sophie’s eyes are on the beers as she sees them being passed around, her attention momentarily drawn away from the cards. Tanner, the man that he is, already came prepared with a way to deal with Sophie’s pout that she can’t have one herself.

He hands her a Capri Sun, which he whips out from his pocket. Sophie gasps as she takes it, smiling as she starts slurping from the packet.

“Quick thinking,” I say to him quietly as Aiden gives him a thankful glance.

“What can I say? I’m always prepared, Lena.”

“That you are. I can’t imagine you ever being unprepared for something,” I add in teasingly.

“No, there have been instances,” he refutes.

“That can’t be. Tanner, not ready to seize the day? Nonsense.”

“Well, there was this job I had as a mechanic. I wasn’t built for that life at all.”

“Hmm, but you must have learned something while you were there.”

“I was there for three days. I quit and never looked back.”

I laugh silently before taking a quick sip of my beer. “What is the one thing you found the hardest to quit?” I ask him, expecting something along the lines of a profession.

“Gambling,” he admits. The fire crackles between us, Sophie’s amused yelps breaking through intermittently. “Lost everything to it, but even then, I couldn’t quit. The biggest addiction of my life. Sometimes, I still fear that I’m gonna fall back into it if I’m not careful enough.”

Unsure of what to say in response, I make a noise of sympathy, not expecting this kind of serious answer.

“The debt I collected because of that shit was immense.”

“How did you get rid of the debt, then?”

“Ran away. That’s the Tanner way, after all: when you encounter a problem you can’t solve, you run away instead.”

He gives me a toothy grin that doesn’t reach his eyes as he gets up and announces that he’s going to get more marshmallows.

I watch his back as he leaves, feeling a strange emotion in my chest. It’s like disapproval mixed with sympathy for the struggles this man must have faced.

He stands tall and proud now, but he has things in his past that he clearly still struggles to accept.

“And would you look at that—our champion has fallen asleep,” Aiden announces, and I glance over to see Sophie passed out in Brody’s lap.

“Oh, it is her bedtime,” I say, quickly getting up and dusting off my clothes. “I need to tuck her in, and I’m feeling tired, too, so I’m gonna–”

“I’ll help you,” Aiden interrupts, then takes a sleepy Sophie from Brody’s arms.

I smile and say my goodbyes to Brody and Tanner, the latter just having walked back out with more marshmallows.

I follow behind Aiden as he leads the way, feeling a warmth in the base of my stomach that I haven’t felt in years. I brush it off as the beer’s influence, but I know it’s more than that.