Page 22 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies (Men of Medford #4)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Beckett

Medford always looked like a postcard this time of year.

The Winter Lantern Parade had crept up on me like it did every December, quiet, bright, and impossible to avoid. The whole town turned out for it, bundled up and smiling as if the cold didn’t bite at your knuckles the second you left the house.

I didn’t do crowds. Never had. But Lucy had given Garrett a look earlier this week that said show up or die , so here we were.

The lanterns floated above the crowd, strung between the street lamps like little glowing stars. Kids ran past with paper ones on sticks, laughing, shouting, their breath puffing out in clouds.

Someone was playing live music on the steps of the courthouse—local musician Cameron Brooks, probably—and the air smelled of cinnamon sugar and woodsmoke.

“Someone needs to tell Charlie Dunn to turn the damn volume down,” Garrett muttered beside me, tugging his beanie lower.

Asher chuckled. “That’s the holidays, Gar. Noise and nostalgia.”

I stayed quiet. My hands were shoved into the pockets of my jacket, fingers curled tight around the rough edges of a cedar carving I’d forgotten to take out.

Habit. I made things when I didn’t know what to do with my hands, or my head.

Tonight, my head was a mess.

We hadn’t talked about Riley. Not since she left the cabin weeks ago. It was almost an unspoken agreement between the three of us.

Don’t say her name. Don’t stir up what can’t be fixed.

But she lingered anyway. In the smell of her shampoo on the extra pillow. In the half-empty coffee creamer she had left behind.

In the damn silence that stretched a little too long some nights when we all sat around pretending we were fine.

“Yo, Beck.” The voice of the loudest fireman, Colt, cut through my thoughts as he jogged over from a cider stand, his cheeks pink from the cold and his hands full. “Here. Don’t say I never do anything nice.”

I took the cup without arguing. Warm. Sweet. Smelling of cloves and oranges.

“Where’s Lila?” Garrett asked, eyeing the marshmallow-topped cider like he might steal it.

“With Jaxon and Ryan,” Colt said, grinning. “They’re around here somewhere. You’ll hear them before you see them. Or maybe Jace. He has really got a set of lungs on him now.”

“Parenthood looks good on you,” Asher said with a smirk.

Colt wiggled his brows. “I do love a good swaddle.”

Garrett snorted. “You’re not supposed to look that proud of it.”

Colt grinned and lifted his cider in a toast. “Let a man have his domestic era, Wolfe.”

Asher and Garrett fell into easy conversation with him, but I let my eyes drift back toward the crowd.

To my left, I spotted Aurora and the Grady brothers near Page Turners. She had baby Evie strapped to her chest in one of those cozy wraps, and she was smiling up at Mason, who was clearly telling some ridiculous story as Ethan rolled his eyes.

You could tell, just by looking at them, they’d built something solid. Something that made the cold feel like background noise.

Sadie was a little farther down, sitting on the edge of the fountain with baby James in her lap. Samuel had one hand on the back of the bench, Kai stood nearby with a Thermos in hand, and Adam was down on one knee, making the baby laugh with some ridiculous face.

The four of them radiated warmth. The kind you only get from a fire you built yourself and kept alive through a storm.

It should’ve made me feel happy for them. But it only made me feel hollow.

“Found them,” Colt said, nodding across the square. “See? Told you Jace would be the one screaming.”

Sure enough, Lila was there with her chaotic crew. Ryan holding baby Jace, Jaxon arguing good-naturedly with Lila’s brother, Nate, who looked about two seconds from throwing someone into a snowbank.

Lila, in the middle of it all, with her corgi, Biscuit, on a leash, was laughing like she didn’t have a care in the world.

Their life had never made me feel anything before. But now…

Now I craved something I would never be able to have.

Which is when I saw her.

Riley.

I didn’t even know if she was still in Medford.

Hadn’t dared to ask. Hadn’t let myself hope.

And yet, here she was.

Still Riley.

Still the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on.

She stood beside Lucy, both of them bundled up and rosy-cheeked, mid-laugh at something I was too far away to hear.

Lucy had a powdered sugar smudge on her cheek. Probably from the bag in her hand, which had “Sweet Cravings” stamped on the side.

Harriet and George Cooper were waving to them from the bakery steps, George throwing in a wink and calling out something that made Lucy double over laughing.

Riley looked lighter than I’d seen her in weeks. Not only in appearance, though she looked like she might be feeling herself again, wrapped in that too-big coat, her curls tucked beneath a beanie with a fuzzy pom-pom on top… but more .

The tension she carried in her shoulders, in her guarded eyes, was softened. Not gone. But lighter.

“You haven’t even taken one photo yet,” Lucy said, loud enough for me to hear as they drew a little closer, mock gasping at her friend. “Who even are you anymore? Miss Influencer?”

Riley laughed, a real, rich laugh that cut straight through the crowd noise and pinned itself to my chest.

“You’ve been walking around with glitter on your cheeks and no evidence exists? Unforgivable. We must take one now.”

They veered near the fountain, where Samantha handed them steaming cups from a folding table decked out in Brewed Bean signage. Sam was in a candy-cane-striped hat, chatting a mile a minute as she passed out cocoa and probably low-level gossip.

I didn’t even need to be too close for those words to drift my way.

“I told her not to go on that date with Todd Rivers,” Sam was saying to Nancy Hayes, who stood nearby with that graceful stillness she always carried.

“I mean, he’s charming and all, but he flirted with Ava Green and Vera Baker in the same ten minutes last week. That man’s ego needs to be iced down.”

Nancy sipped her drink with a knowing smile. “He remembers people’s orders. That’s half the battle in this town.”

“Maybe for booze,” Vera chimed in, nudging Paul, who was, of course, nose deep in his newspaper. “But in relationships? That man would forget your anniversary and blame the bourbon.”

Riley and Lucy both laughed again, blending into the warmth of it all, fitting right in.

But then there was a blur of movement, caught in my left eye as Biscuit slipped free from Lila’s grasp as she tried to focus on her child.

It happened fast.

A shout, a flash of corgi fluff, and the leash trailing behind him like a streamer. Biscuit darted through legs and lantern light, making a beeline straight for Riley, yipping as if he’d just found the love of his life.

Riley barely had time to turn before he hit her legs… too hard, too fast, and on the slick cobblestone, her feet went out from under her.

I didn’t think. I ran.

One second, I was on the edge of the crowd, the next I was cutting through people, past Ava Green who gasped, past Officer Bryan Hall who reached too late, past Dylan Turner with a camera halfway to his face.

She started to fall, arms flailing, drink flying.

I caught her.

One arm around her back, the other beneath her knees. Her weight slammed into me, warm and familiar and real in a way nothing else had been in weeks.

Her wide, stunned eyes locked on mine. And for one breathless moment, neither of us said a word.

I held her.

Too long.

Too close.

Her mittened hand was pressed against my chest. Her mouth parted like she wanted to speak but didn’t know how.

Or maybe she didn’t trust what would come out if she did.

The sound of the parade faded to a dull thrum. It was just us.

And everything we hadn’t said.

“Hi,” she half-whispered. It shattered something in me.

“Hi,” I breathed.

Lucy’s voice broke the moment. “Beckett Wolfe, you absolute hero. Well done.”

She reached to take Biscuit, who had the audacity to look proud of himself.

“I, uh. Sorry.” Riley moved to get down, flustered now. “He came out of nowhere?—”

“You okay?” I asked, not moving.

Her breath hitched. “Yeah. I think so.”

She didn’t push me away. Not right away. And I didn’t let her go.

Until I had to.

Carefully, I lowered her back to her feet. Her cheeks were pink, but it wasn’t just the cold now. Mine were probably the same.

Biscuit circled our feet as if he’d orchestrated the whole thing.

“Thanks for the save,” Riley murmured, brushing a curl from her face.

“I’ve got quick reflexes,” I said. My voice sounded rough. Like I hadn’t used it in days. “When it counts.”

The air between us hummed. Behind her, Lucy gave me a look .

And all around us, Medford carried on. Lights dancing, cider steaming, kids yelling, Hattie Cooper passing out cookies, Charlie Dunn rambling about the classic film potential of falling into someone’s arms at a parade.

But for me, there was only Riley.

And the truth that no matter how much time had passed, I’d never stopped being ready to catch her.