Page 56 of Snowed In with her Mountain Men

CAMRYN

I blinked and a cupcake appeared on my desk. Red velvet. Blue frosting. A lit candle, protruding from the top.

Someone sure knew the way to my heart.

“Happy birthday!”

I spun in my chair, and found myself marveling at how all three of them could sneak up on me at once. They weren’t exactly small, you know; not one single place on their tall, gorgeous bodies. And believe me, I’d checked every square inch.

“My birthday was back in August,” I protested. “Remember?”

The fond looks on their faces told me they’d remembered. My body sure as hell remembered. Certain parts of it, anyway.

“Ryder’s an idiot,” declared Oakley. “What he should’ve said is happy anniversary. ”

“Anniversary…” Recognition slowly dawned on me. “You mean—”

“Yup! One year ago today, we carried you through our front door.”

My mouth dropped open. God, could it really be a whole year already? It seemed like only yesterday I’d been a stranger in this cabin, sleeping on the couch my first night here. I’d had an evil landlord. A fire-mangled hand. A bank account so empty, you could hear an echo.

But just after that, everything had moved incredibly quick.

The boys and I rode out the winter and shared a spectacular Rocky Mountain spring.

In no time I was soaking up the summer sun and enjoying cool, comfortable July nights, where the hills spread out beneath us, glowed with fireflies.

Fall came, and the mountain exploded in orange and yellow and bright, beautiful gold.

We camped out and enjoyed the crisp autumn air, until the leaves fell fast and winter roared back with vengeance on its mind.

And through it all? Love. Laughter. Success.

I’d finally finished my novel, then released it to modest sales but resounding reviews.

In time, it was the reviews that propelled it along, snowballing my writing career into something even bigger than I could’ve imagined.

And now I wasn’t just working on my next story, anymore. I was working on a sequel, as well.

“C’mon, blow!”

I turned back to the candle, put my lips together, and obliged them. Shit, I didn’t even make a wish, first. Then again, was it really all that surprising? What should a girl wish for, when she already has everything she wants?

“Thank you!” I said, popping the candle between my lips. As the sweetness of the icing hit my tongue, I felt abruptly guilty. “I— I should’ve probably—”

“Gotten us something?” Jaxon smirked.

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Never mind that. We got you something, instead.”

Something else appeared on my desk, as if by magic: a small steel box, rectangular in shape. It clattered heavily, betraying its weight.

“What’s this?”

“This,” Oakley said with a flourish, “is your computer.”

I looked from the silver-colored box to my laptop, which was still open, and pointed. “No, that’s my computer.”

“True.”

“Besides, I don’t need a new computer,” I said. “I love the one I have. Sure, it came from a pawn shop, but that’s part of the reason—”

“This isn’t a new computer Camryn. It’s your old one.”

I squinted down at the box. It didn’t look like anything. My face must’ve looked pretty comical, because all three of them laughed.

“This is a bootable hard drive,” Oakley explained, reaching out to tap the box with one finger. “It contains an exact mirror of your old machine. The one we fished out of the fire when you weren’t paying attention, and brought into town without you knowing it.”

I blinked a few times, unable to comprehend what they were saying. I could only sit there, incredulous.

“H—How did you—”

“Aric,” Jaxon said simply.

“Aric?”

“He’s a friend of ours, from downtown. Very smart guy. A total wizard with electronics.”

I shook my head. “But it was melted!” I exclaimed. “I saw it myself. Last I looked, it was a bubbling pile of plastic.”

“Yeah, Aric wasn’t too happy when we tasked him with it,” said Oakley. “But he owed us one. Maybe even more than one, really.”

I sniffed. “Why?’

“Let’s just say we got him out of some trouble he was in,” explained Jaxon. “Deep trouble.”

“Anyway, we hoped to get it back to you in time to save your book,” Oakley apologized. “But it was very far gone, almost impossible. Aric had to manually extract the drive and rebuild it from scratch, sector by sector. Took him hundreds of hours, or something along those lines.”

“He finished just a few weeks ago,” Ryder added. “Way too late, considering you already published your story. But then Aric told us what else was on the drive.”

Tears filled my eyes. Happy tears.

“My photos…” I murmured.

One by one, they smiled at my growing excitement. Oakley nodded. “Yes.”

Reverently I reached down to rub my father’s bracelet. With everything else gone, it was all I had to remember him.

All, until now.

“He saved everything?” I sobbed. “All of it?”

“It’s all there,” Oakley confirmed. “Dozens of folders containing photographs, dated by year. Separated by—”

“By month,” I breathed. “And by holiday.”

“Yes.”

“My mother…” I sniffed. “All those pics of us on school field trips. Our whole family at Christmas. And… and…”

I broke down, sobbing, overwhelmed by happiness and gratitude. A moment later I was being crushed in the warmth of a triple bear hug. Kissed tenderly on the top of my head and pulled in three different directions, as they fought to console me.

Since the day I’d left Florida, my old laptop had been my whole life. Emotionally, it represented the sum total of everything I’d brought with me from home. Everything but the memories still in my head, which I cherished most of all.

Still, without photos to look at, or family to reminisce with, I had little to remind myself of times gone by. Already those memories had begun to fade. My parents had been gone for so long, I had only a few sparse pics on my phone’s camera roll.

“You have no idea what this means to me,” I choked.

“All those photos that I thought were gone forever… all the scans I’d made of my mother’s recipes, that she never got around to showing me.

” I pointed to the little metal box. “That’s the only glimpse I have left into my old life. My last link to family.”

“Wrong,” declared Jaxon.

I wiped my tears against Oakley’s shoulder and looked back at him. “What do you mean, wrong?”

“What you just said,” he replied simply. “About family. It’s flat out wrong, Camryn. Your last link to family is us. ”

I stood there in silence, absorbing the statement. The warmth spreading through my chest told me he was right.

“You’re not just our woman,” he said softly, “you’re an inseparable part of us now. More than that, you’re our road ahead. The one we chose to walk together, as we always have. Like brothers.”

“And brothers,” Ryder agreed solemnly, “are family.”

A gentle hand took my face. It lifted it upward, to stare into a pair of liquid brown eyes.

“You and I are the same,” Oakley said softly. “We rose from the ashes of a shattered past. And him? Right there?” he nodded at Jaxon. “He literally rose from the ashes, surrounded everywhere by death. And yet here he is, opening his heart to you. Just like the rest of us.”

A solemn nod from Jaxon nearly made me cry. He was right, of course. About everything.

“There’s a reason my nightmares stopped shortly after you got here,” Jaxon pressed. “It’s because you bring balance to our lives, Camryn. You bring love. You gave us the one thing we were missing: a future. A future with you, that outshines our darkened past.”

Ryder’s hand found the small of my back. He pulled me closer, with a possessive spread of his long fingers.

“And if you think this is good?” he smiled. “Just wait until we knock you up. Wait until we take turns pumping you full of children, until we’re knocking the walls out of this place to add all kinds of spare bedrooms.”

Oakley nodded eagerly, while cracking his knuckles.

“And don’t think we won’t knock down every wall, in every direction,” he winked. “We’ll cut down half the forest if we have to.”

“You’ve cut down half the forest already,” I laughed, while crying.

“See that? We already have a head start.”

Ryder’s cerulean blue eyes drew me in like a tractor beam. He kissed me tenderly yet eagerly, until a soft growl of desire emanated from somewhere deep in his perfect throat.

“So many sons,” he exhaled. “So many daughters…”

He broke the kiss just long enough to pass me to his friend’s lips, which was always hot. Oakley’s jaw rotated slowly against mine, his tongue coaxing its way into my wet, eager mouth. Back and forth they went, my excitement building, as they took turns driving me crazy.

“They’re right you know,” a gruff voice declared. “Maybe we should practice.”

From the side, a warm nose nuzzled its way into my hair. I let out a long sigh, tilting to give him plenty of room as Jaxon began kissing my neck.

“Unless, of course, you’d like to look at your photos first…”

His kisses were fire. My tender flesh stood no chance against his mighty beard, as it exploded with goosebumps.

I’m going to be their wife, I thought to myself. I’m going to bear their children …

These things were coming, and coming on fast. Already I could feel the exquisite pressure of sweet, delicious inevitability.

A family.

My heart soared with a desire to have these things. To not just envision them anymore, but to experience this future I’d never dreamed about, but suddenly wanted with every molecule of my very being.

“You boys are right,” I sighed, pulling away and hopping up onto my desk. “The photos can wait.”

With one hand, I slid the silver box to one side. Then, turning to face them, I slowly spread my legs.

“Let’s practice.”