Page 18 of Snowed In with her Mountain Men

CAMRYN

Snow.

I’d craved it, I’d desired it, and now it was all around me.

I’d gone from dreaming what it would be like to stick my tongue out and catch a snowflake, to being buried beneath an avalanche of the white stuff practically every other day.

It made walking difficult, and driving treacherous.

Worst of all, it made staying warm damn near impossible.

Still, as a lifelong Floridian, I just couldn’t get enough of it. It was too beautiful. Too perfect. Too—

“So… you wanna tell me about this book you’re writing?”

Oakley reached out and turned the heat up; as we rolled slowly down the mountain. Maybe he’d seen me shivering. Or maybe he’d just read my mind.

“Sure. What do you want to know?”

He shrugged, guiding the wheel with one hand while using the other to scratch at the soft brown bristles along his jaw. His goatee was sexy to begin with. But his uniform? Even sexier.

“I dunno. What’s it about?”

“Murder,” I answered immediately, then spent the next several seconds wondering why that was the first word that had come to mind. “Suspense. A mysterious homecoming.”

His mouth — the same beautiful mouth that had been kissing me for hours on end — curled into a smile.

“A mysterious homecoming?”

“Among other things, yeah.”

Oakley nodded, remaining silent. In the past, such silence might’ve worried me. I’d always been defensive in talking about the stories I wrote, especially the ones that weren’t even close to being finished. For some reason though, that usual anxiety wasn’t rearing its ugly head.

Instead of pressing for more information, he changed the subject.

“So what got you into this?”

“My father,” I answered, without hesitation. “He’s the one who got me into reading. We read together all the time when I was little, everything from Junie B Jones to Harry Potter. But my favorites were the old Hardy Boys books, and the mysteries they solved.”

“Ah,” he grinned. “The Hardy Boys.”

“Yup. I read every one of those I could get my hands on, several times each. When dad brought home Nancy Drew, I went bananas. He’d read the books to me, and then with me, and together we’d try to figure out the mysteries.

That was our time together,” I realized absently.

“That quiet little hour before bedtime, just sitting there reading those silly stories.”

“Doesn’t sound silly to me,” said Oakley.

“He introduced me to Agatha Christie,” I went on. “Elizabeth Peters. Eventually I started writing my own stories, and dad would read them out loud and try to solve the mystery.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“More than you can imagine,” I sighed, in happy remembrance. “Of course, I was only nine, so the mysteries were easy to solve. Even so, dad took his time. He made it fun for me. Most of all, he encouraged me to write more. He bought me writing journals, calligraphy pens. All kinds of things.”

“Your dad sounds amazing.”

“He was amazing,” I breathed.

“Still is,” Oakley corrected me, shaking his head. “He might be gone, but he’ll always live here.”

He made a fist and thumped it against his heart. The adoration in his voice made my own heart just about melt. We drove on for another two minutes, without speaking. He didn’t ask what happened to my father. For some reason, that meant everything to me.

“Tell me about Sarge.”

Oakley hugged the turns carefully, as we descended the mountain. But now the smile returned to his face.

“Sarge is Sarge,” he eventually grinned. “The man could be the biggest pain in the ass you’ve ever met, and your worst possible enemy. But of anyone I’ve ever known, he also had the biggest heart.”

I returned his smile, reveling in his memory.

“I looked at that photo again when I came down this morning. Sarge’s expression is really something.”

“You mean his perma-scowl?”

I chuckled. “Why does he look like he’s on the verge of yelling?”

“He probably was yelling,” laughed Oakley. “Sarge was always yelling. Seemed kinda fitting to pick that photo to honor him, when we hung it up.”

“And you said he built the cabin?”

“He started it, yes,” Oakley admitted. “I guess you could say we finished it off. Sarge didn’t have a family, and he never had any kids. He left us a modest bank account, the deed for the place, and strict instructions to make it our own.”

“And so you did.”

Oakley shrugged. “When the man gave an order, you always obeyed,” he said, his voice somewhat distant. “Those orders kept us safe, they kept us alive. We sure as hell weren’t going to disobey the last one he ever gave us.”

“I’ll bet he loved the three of you like sons.”

He thought for a moment. “I’m pretty sure he did. When he passed, and he left the place to us, we were transitioning back into civilian life again. So we moved into the cabin together, to finish what he’d started.”

I couldn’t help but notice Oakley’s pause in talking about his mentor’s passing, and how his fingers gripped the steering wheel a little more tightly. I wanted to know what happened to Sarge, of course. But since he’d done me the same courtesy, I couldn’t ask.

Eventually the narrow mountain road ended at a blinking yellow light, signaling the beginning of civilization.

We passed a few shops here and there, with storefronts gradually increasing in size and frequency as we got closer to the town’s center.

Crescent Springs was exactly that: a city sprawled in a crescent shape along a pristine lake, fed by three surrounding mountains.

It wasn’t small by Montana standards, but it wasn’t huge either.

Somewhere along main street, Oakley located the garage Jaxon had indicated. The lot was littered with cars and trucks, all of them jutting from between irregular piles of snow. One of them I recognized as mine.

“Damn those tires suck,” Oakley grumbled.

A man stood hunched over a dirty white Mercedes, spanner wrench in hand. He looked exactly like someone named Sampson might look. He looked up and waved, and Oakley waved back.

“Alright, you should be good from here,” he said, pointing. “You know the way home, right?”

“Head up the mountain we came down from, until I hit a big fucking log cabin?”

“Or until you slide backward into a ditch,” Oakley quipped. “Either way, call me. I don’t like the look of those tires, but they’re still better than the ones you had.”

“Will do,” I promised. “I need to stop at the diner first. I think I’m on the schedule a few nights this week. I also want to pick up a local paper. See if I can figure out a rental I can afford.”

He looked a little taken aback by my last statement. Maybe even hurt.

“Didn’t you just get settled in?” he asked. “You’re already looking to make a fast getaway?”

“No, no, of course not,” I countered. “But I can’t impose on you boys forever. The sooner I look, the sooner I’ll be out of your hair.”

“And what if we like you in our hair?”

He uttered the words, but then looked away quickly. As if maybe he’d said too much.

“Never mind,” he finished. “If you find one this late into the season it’ll be a miracle, anyway.”

“Probably. But it can’t hurt to try.”

I popped the door and set one foot on the step bar. Before I could leave however, I felt a hand close over mine.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Oakley asked gently. “You know… with last night?”

My smile returned. Shifting inside again, I leaned into his seat and gave him a passionate, fiery kiss.

“I’m a little better than alright with it,” I said, adding a flirtatious wink. “And you’d better be, too.”