Page 24 of Single Mom’s Mountain Men (Mountain Men Reverse Harem #1)

Patty

T hings don't change much between Charlie and Wes on the night of my conversation with Mitch.

I don't know if Mitch has talked to his brothers yet, but I can see that they are giving each other a wide berth, with Wes shooting angry glares at Charlie when the latter isn't looking. However, when Wes meets my eyes he always smiles warmly, so I know he’s not mad at me. As for Charlie, he just avoids me, refusing eye contact on the rare occasion we’re in the same room, but he’s not hostile to me, which is probably as good as anyone is likely to get from the naturally taciturn Charlie.

The thought doesn't give me much comfort though. In fact, I think I would rather they were both mad at me but getting along with each other. If things were like that, I would probably feel less guilty.

As it is, I'm being consumed by remorse.

The next morning, neither of the men show up for breakfast. But surprisingly Mitch appears in the afternoon as the girls are finishing up their lunch .

“Uncle Mitch!” Katie says excitedly and Maddie climbs onto her seat jumping up.

He grins at the girls and says, “Hey, my little rascals. How did y’all sleep?”

“We slept real good,” Maddie says, mimicking his accent and he chuckles.

“Maddie no feet on the chair,” I say and she obediently hops off onto the floor running to Mitch.

“Up!” She says throwing her hands up and Mitch obliges.

“You don’t just say up,” I tell her, sternly. "You say please carry me.”

“Please carry me, Uncle Mitch, “she says but the effect is lost because Mitch has already swung her up before I could even finish my sentence and she’s now comfortably sitting on his hip, just like she belongs there.

Mitch walks to Katie and ruffles her hair, asking. “You finished your book?”

“Uh-huh.”

"Already?" Mitch's eyes widen. "You just started yesterday. You must be real smart, huh?”

"I am,” she says. “Mrs. Weatherby says I’m the fastest reader in preschool. She thinks I could be the next Albert Einstein, but I don't want to be a boring old scientist. I wanna be a writer."

Mitch beams down at her, a hint of pride in his gaze. "I think you'll be a great writer, Rascal."

“I wanna be a writer too," Maddie announces, frantic to regain Mitch's attention. "I read too!"

"I know, I know Squirrel." His gaze is soft as he brushes his lips against her cheek. It warms my heart to see. I can’t believe I thought Mitch was such a hard man before. With my daughters, he completely softens and he’s totally affectionate with them.

My girls preen under the attention of all three men, soaking in all the positive fatherly attention they never got from their actual father.

Even Katie, who is usually so shy around men, opens up with Mitch.

I'm glad for their relationship, but I'm wistful too.

This is the kind of father I should have given them. Not Keegan.

I'm worried it might be more damaging in the long term to let this attachment continue because it might make their eventual separation more painful.

But there's nothing I can do about it now.

I couldn't stop my girls from falling in love with these three men if I tried.

And at the back of my mind, a little voice whispers to me like daughter, like mother but I push it away.

When Mitch finally meets my gaze, he says, “I thought I would give you a ride today." It was a Saturday, so no daycare, but I wanted to go grocery shopping with the girls.

"Don't you have work?" Typically Charlie or Wes drives us. Even with my car all fixed up, one of them usually offers to take me, citing 'You're not used to the roads' as a reason.

"I have to meet with a marketing agency in town anyway," Mitch says. "And this way, we don't have to waste the gas.”

“Oh. Okay then,” I say. "I’d love to.”

It's my first time riding in a car with Mitch and though we’ve met and sat across from each other multiple times at the dinner table, the interior of his immaculately maintained, powder blue, forty-three year old Jeep Cherokee Chieftain creates a new and different kind of intimacy for us.

We're sitting mere inches apart, and the vehicle has a manual transmission, so I'm watching his hand on the stick shift, his finger subtly tapping on it as he navigates the road with one hand gently on the wheel, his elbow resting on the sill of the open window. He looks the very picture of masculine confidence, competence and capability. A man that could take on anything and get the job done without making a big deal about it. A man who knows his own value, and who doesn’t need to look to others for his feelings of self-worth. The type of man that’s made America the great country it has become.

A flash of imagination sees that hand shifting just a little to wrap around my thigh, squeezing it. Then maybe traveling higher brushing the edge of my panties, slipping them to the side, burrowing deeper.

I swallow, trying not to squirm in my seat.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately, why my hormones are all out of whack.

The nerve of me to be here lusting after Mitch.

I’m already facing enough problems with the two brothers I hooked up with.

I can’t believe I’m here fantasizing about the third one.

“You finding everything you need at the grocery store?” Mitch says, interrupting my musings.

“What? Oh… err… yup,” I answer, hastily pulling my mind back from its libidinous fantasies. "I'm making honey-glazed cinnamon rolls next week."

"Charlie'll go crazy for that."

I grin. "I know. That's why I’m making them." I identified Charlie’s sweet tooth early on and I noticed that he had a particular passion for anything with cinnamon in it. A week ago, when I added a little bit of cinnamon to the apple pie I’d made for dessert, he nearly cleared the entire dish before the rest of the men had a chance to get a taste.

And then he and Wes tackled each other to the floor for the last slice.

I chuckle at the memory and feel a little sad again.

That tackle had been a friendly battle, unlike their other fight.

That first fight was just roughhousing. The last one was serious enough that they're not speaking to each other now.

And despite what Mitch says, I know it's all my fault.

“They'll be fine,” Mitch says and I glance at him. He has an amused look on his face. “You’re worried about Charlie and Wes again aren’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“It's written all over your face. Don’t worry. No irreparable damage has been done. It’s just boys competing over a beautiful woman. It’s normal.”

I blush but Mitch doesn't react to the fact that he just called me beautiful. He treated it like it was common knowledge.

When Wes said it, I could brush it off as him flirting. He probably said that to just about every woman he came across. But Mitch isn’t the type to say things he doesn’t mean.

Does he actually find me beautiful?

“Uncle Mitch,” Maddie asks.

“Yes, Maddie?”

“Why do you live on a farm, and why is everything made of wood?”

Mitch grins at her in the rearview mirror. “It’s not a farm, it’s a timber yard. And the house is a log cabin surrounded by the forest. We live there because it belongs to the three of us – Wes, Charlie and me. My grandad bought the land a long time ago, and mom handed it down to us when she died."

“What’s a log cabin?”

“Well, it’s a house made of timber logs. If you work in a forest like we do then the most sensible way to build a house is to build it out of the local timber. And your uncles work in that forest, so it only makes sense to live there."

"Is that why you're always in there cutting wood?" Katie asks. "You sell it to people? "

“That's my clever girl." As Katie beams, Mitch continues, "My parents have been in the timber business since before I was born.

My dad would wake up at the crack of dawn to get to work with his men and he would come back late at night.

It was tough, backbreaking work, but he always had a smile on his face every single day.

I never got it before, but now I do. There's something freeing, almost relaxing, about that type of work.

No sitting in offices all day working on machines.

No endless meetings. Just man and nature.

Logging may be my job, but it's also a labor of love for me. "

“Do your brothers feel the same?" I ask because I've never seen this enthusiasm and glow when they talk about the work.

Wes treats his job like a bother and something to be avoided, and Charlie is compliant but always seems like he would much rather be doing something else. Like working on my car, for example.

I might be wrong, but neither of them seems to like it as much as Mitch.

But then Mitch shrugs to answer the question.

"More or less," he says. "I'm pretty sure Charlie does at least. And Wes likes to mess around a lot but that's because he's practically still a kid. When he gets older he'll understand the importance of keeping the place running and holding on to our family legacy. We're honoring our parents too."

“I think your parents would be honored to see you guys pursuing what makes you happy," I point out gently. "At least that's how I would feel with my girls."

Mitch grunts noncommittally. I watch him silently.

My first evaluation of Mitch weeks ago was that he was the type of man who had difficulty relinquishing control.

In the same vein, he holds onto any responsibility given to him, refusing to part with it even if it drives him mad.

It worries me. He works so hard and has no social life. That can't be healthy.

And worse, he imposes those same expectations on his brothers too, without considering their wishes.

Maybe he thinks they share the same views about their responsibility to their mom and dad to maintain their legacy, but I don't think they do.

Particularly Wes. He takes no enjoyment from the job.

It doesn't fit his personality at all. Wes is an extrovert and needs a job where he can be around people.

Something that challenges him socially as well as physically.

“Have you thought about hiring more hands?” I ask.

“Eventually,” Mitch responds. “Right now, we have people who come around on a contract basis, part-time.

We spend most of our profit on marketing and purchasing state-of-the-art tools to make our job easier.

We're trying to get clients as fast as possible and then once we’ve managed to make a comfortable name for ourselves, we can look into hiring more hands to make the job easier. "

I nod. I want to suggest that maybe hiring more hands earlier would help with their growth, but I don't want to irritate him, and in truth I know so little about the timber business.

"I want to work on a farm," Maddie says. "I wanna have an egg farm."

"You want to raise chickens?" Mitch adds. "Not a bad idea actually. We have an empty shed in the back we can use."

"I don't want chickens. I want eggs."

"Eggs come from chickens, Maddie," Katie explains patiently.

“No, they don’t. Fibber.”

"I’m not fibbing. Mom, Maddie called me a fibber. "

"Don't call your sister a fibber, Maddie," I say as Mitch glances back at the window and chuckles.

After Mitch drops us off, I head into the store with my two beautiful girls and Mitch heads to his meeting. I try to do enough shopping for the month which ends up taking a lot longer than I expected, in between comparing different discounts and refereeing my daughter's arguments.

Luckily, Mitch texts to tell me his meeting is taking long as well, so I take my time with each selection.

A couple of hours later, as we're heading back home, Maddie is dozing off in the backseat and Katie is reading a new book Mitch presented her with when he picked us up. He also gave Maddie a toy to avoid any sibling rivalry, and the girls were excited about their presents.

His act gave me an idea to bribe his brothers into making up. With the allure of honey-glazed cinnamon rolls, I can probably get Charlie to agree to talk to Wes. And for Wes, maybe I'll promise him some extra ribs the next time I make them.

As Mitch pulls into the parking lot of the main cabin, we instantly tense up at the sound of Wes' raised voice followed by Charlie's gentler murmur.

"Oh no," I turn to Mitch in dismay. "Are they fighting again?"

"They better not be," Mitch growls. "Or I'm going to knock some sense back into them."