Page 30 of Snowed In with her Mountain Men

CAMRYN

The fire crackled, and my feet were toasty. My whole body was toasty, really, although that probably had more to do with me being halfway through my third glass of wine.

“He took a lot of rounds with him over that hill,” Jaxon agreed solemnly. “And he used every damned one of them.”

I don’t know what made them want to tell the story, but I was finally getting it.

It could be the lateness of the hour, or the whiskey, the general level of comfort the boys felt around me by now.

Personally, I thought they just needed to get it off their chests.

The story was far too fantastic, and too important, to be kept only amongst themselves.

“It was hard to hear anything over all the gunfire and grenades,” Oakley went on. “But Sarge had told us to stay. And not just told us, he’d ordered us to hold position. Almost as if he knew what came next.”

I didn’t have to ask; I knew they’d eventually tell. Besides, it was better for me to sit there, quietly absorbing their story, than to interject.

“We ran to follow, of course,” said Ryder, “once we knew what was happening. But Sarge was one step ahead of us. He’d kicked us back, scattering our things. He screamed in our faces too, louder than I’d ever heard him. And I’d heard the man scream ten thousand times.”

“He knew,” Oakley acknowledged. “He knew, and he saved us.”

Their heads bowed, and for a few long seconds the room went silent. The crackle of the fire brought us back to reality however, as Jaxon cleared his throat.

“The explosion was tremendous,” he said coldly, “and so bright it blinded us. It was also so loud, our ears didn’t work right for the better part of a month.

” He gnashed his teeth. “When the smoke cleared, we found him on the other side the berm. Sarge was in the middle of their trench, lying atop a pile of rebel corpses. Most of them had been shredded by machine gun fire. The last few were covered in plunging knife wounds.”

“Easy,” Oakley admonished his friend, his eyes shifting my way. But I shook my head.

“No need to water it down for me,” I murmured. “Please. Tell it like it happened.”

“Point is, he took one for us,” continued Jaxon. “Somehow he knew about the charges they were about to set off. He sacrificed himself. He saved the squad.”

Ryder was on the other couch, feet up, hands folded on a pillow behind his head. He nodded, thoughtfully. “Sometimes, I think something like this was always his exit plan. Like he knew he’d never get out.”

“But he built this place,” I pointed out. “He obviously wanted a life here.”

“He did,” affirmed Oakley. “And I think that’s why he took the diamonds.”

My wine glass was paused against my lips. I’d stopped drinking mid-sip.

“See, Sarge was old-school,” he continued, this time shifting his attention toward me.

“The man went to war all the way back during Desert Storm. He was an officer at one point, but got demoted back to Sergeant Major and never rose through the ranks again. He always told us it was his own choice; that he made a better grunt than a desk jockey. Rumor had it though, back in Kuwait, something big went missing during his watch.”

“Diamonds,” Jaxon took over. “Big, clean stones, too — all of them supposedly raw, and uncut. They disappeared from the broken palace of a Kuwaiti sultan, during a time Sarge’s men presided over the ruins.”

The fire crackled steadily. The flames lit the darkened room with their orange glow.

“And you think Sarge, uh, ended up with them?” I asked carefully.

“You mean took them?” grinned Ryder.

“Yeah. That.”

“We never had reason to before,” he shrugged. “We laughed at the stories and accused him halfheartedly, but when he grunted a bunch of denials we’d always believed him. Up until the day he was laying there, dying atop a whole mountain of shredded enemies.”

“And then what?”

“He grabbed us, just before the morphine took hold, and pulled us close,” said Oakley. “He was bleeding out. It only took one glance to know there was no saving him. And his last words, rather than finally tell us he loved us, was to ‘get the diamonds.’”

“Wow,” I swore.

“Beneath the tree,” Ryder took over. “That’s what he said. When we asked him which tree, he gripped us tighter and spoke his very last words.”

“The tree at the cabin,” breathed Jaxon.

Just imagining the scene gave me goosebumps. Full of wine, bathed by the warmth of the fire, I felt them ripple over every inch of my exposed skin.

“The morphine took hold of him after that, thank God,” said Ryder. “He never woke up, and we thanked God for that, too. His wounds were horrific. It was a miracle we even got to say goodbye to him.”

He sniffed and averted his eyes. I could feel the pain in his heart.

“But you did,” I broke in. “Get to say goodbye, I mean. You guys were there for him at the end. You held him in your arms. He wasn’t alone.”

“That’s what I keep telling them,” grunted Jaxon. He cradled his whiskey glass in both hands as he stared into the fire. “Sarge was a true warrior who died on the battlefield, surrounded by those he trained and loved. There’s no better death for a man like him.”

He raised his glass, and the others toasted along with him. Somehow, it felt right for me to do the same.

“We didn’t even know about this place until we inherited it,” sighed Oakley.

“We got back to the property and there was a giant spruce tree, right out front. It was blatantly obvious, or so we thought. We dug in a thirty-foot circle around it, down to ten feet. We used excavators, metal detectors, everything we could find — even a pulse induction machine.”

“And nothing?” I asked, incredulous.

Ryder grimaced and shook his head. “There was nothing there. We would’ve found it for sure, if it was. We checked every square centimeter of spoils from that hole.”

Oakley nodded numbly. “That’s where our obsession began,” he said.

“We moved in and began fixing up the cabin, and that’s when we noticed two more big trees in the back.

They weren’t as tall as the spruce out front, but definitely gigantic.

We pulled those, then three more trees, and then a few birches that looked different from the rest. For the past two summers we’ve been widening the clearing around this cabin, trying to find where Sarge hid the diamonds. But… nothing.”

“Damn,” I swore. “No wonder why you have so much firewood!”

The guys stared back at me, sourly. They didn’t look amused.

“Alright,” I said, quickly changing the subject. “So which tree do you think he meant?”

Ryder shrugged. “That’s the million dollar question.”

“Or ten million,” said Oakley. “Or a hundred million. Who really knows?” He drained his whiskey and sighed. “Only some forgotten sultan whose palace got shattered, somewhere back in the 1990’s.”

The room fell silent again, as we quietly finished our drinks.

I felt blessed, and not just because I’d been so well taken care of over the past few weeks.

The boys had entrusted me with a very big secret.

They’d taken me within their own inner circle, and from what I’d seen since they first kicked my door in, that circle was infinitesimally small.

“I think I want to sleep down here,” I said, to no one in particular. “In front of the fire.”

Through my peripheral vision, I could see them exchanging glances. Recently they’d been showing up in my bed, but on a sort of rotational basis. Almost as if they’d agreed to some sort of schedule.

“You can sleep down here with me, if you like,” I smiled coyly.

“Who?” asked Oakley.

“Any of you,” I shrugged, feeling a flush of heat. “All of you.” I smiled wickedly. “The more the merrier. Just bring pillows and blankets.”

They rose, one by one, to their full, imposing height. My stomach rolled, as I realized I’d never been with all three of them at once.

It damn near did somersaults with what I said next.

“And why don’t we move Friday’s itinerary up to tonight?” I sighed, tilting the last of the wine down my throat.

I felt a delicious shiver of anticipation, as my beating heart kicked it up a notch.

“Seriously?” asked Ryder.

“Yeah, sure,” I shrugged again. “Why wait? I’m feeling pretty good right now. Very relaxed.” I set my wine glass down. “I’ve heard that helps.”

“But… no bubble bath? No Godiva chocolates?”

“Are you really going to argue with a girl trying to give up her ass cherry?”

They broke from the couch, like football players from the line of scrimmage, and I watched in amusement as they scrambled up the stairs. Oakley practically raced Ryder, the two of them leaving Jaxon in the dust. He turned his head at the landing, to look back at me.

“You’re really something,” he swore. “You know that?” His face was plastered with an uncharacteristic smile.

“I am?” I asked innocently.

“You know you are,” smirked Jaxon. “And you know exactly what you’re doing, too.” He paused, those brown eyes narrowing into cold slivers as he looked me over. Eventually, he shook his head. “It’s just… I’ve never met a woman like you before, Camryn. You’re one of a kind.”

I stared back at him wordlessly, absorbing the gravity of the moment. Completing our silent connection.

“Get your ass upstairs already,” I smiled at him. “And bring my pillow down too. The soft one.”

He nodded, took the stairs two at a time, then disappeared into the upstairs landing. Turning, I stared back into the fire and sighed.

“I’m gonna need all the softness I can get tonight, I think.”