Page 31 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies (Men of Medford #4)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Asher

There was a time when a Thursday night at Lucky’s was exactly my speed.

Cold beer. Easy smiles. Familiar bodies brushing up against mine with no expectations and no strings.

Exactly how I preferred it.

But tonight, everything felt flat.

Someone turned the volume down and forgot to tell me.

Life had kinda been that way since Riley went to the doctor’s and then just kinda disappeared. I knew she was okay and was still with Lucy, but I didn’t know what was wrong, and that killed me.

I sat at the far end of the bar, nursing a beer I didn’t really want, while the jukebox warbled some twangy country ballad about bad luck and worse women.

Normally, I’d be deep in a game of darts, making someone blush, maybe lining up something to distract me for the night. But I couldn’t even be bothered to flirt.

Todd wiped down the counter in front of me and raised a brow. “Another round, Ash?”

He was already reaching for the lime, like it was muscle memory.

“Nah, just this one,” I said, swirling what was left in my glass. “Pacing myself.”

He gave me a look. The kind you earn after enough years and too many hangovers. The kind that didn’t need words to call you out.

“You good?”

“Peachy,” I replied, flashing that grin I’d perfected over the years. Easy. Cocky. The kind that usually worked better than truth ever did.

Even I didn’t buy it.

My gaze drifted, out of habit more than interest.

Samantha Barnes was laughing near the pool table, tipping her head back as if someone had just said the funniest thing on earth. Her hand slid across Cameron Brooks’ arm as if she’d practiced it, and hell, maybe she had.

She looked good. Always had.

Hair curled. Lips glossy. Wearing that lipstick I swear was called something stupid. Sinful Peach, perhaps?

A year ago, I’d have been over there already. Said something low in her ear that would’ve had her leaning into me like old times.

Let her make me forget whatever weight I was carrying.

But tonight?

Nothing. Not even a flicker.

And I knew why.

It wasn’t Samantha. It wasn’t any of them.

It was Riley.

Riley Brooks, who’d hit town in a storm I hadn’t seen coming. All sharp edges and don’t-touch-me fire, until she let me see past it.

Until she let all of us in. And I hadn’t been the same since.

Didn’t mean I knew what to do with that. Didn’t mean I was proud of any of it. But it was the truth, whether I said it out loud or not.

I leaned back on my stool, letting the noise of the bar blur around me.

I used to be part of the pulse here. Now I was a guy loitering in a place that didn’t quite fit anymore.

“You know,” Todd said, drying a glass without looking at me, “you used to be more fun.”

I snorted. “Guess I’m slipping.”

“Or growing up.”

Same damn thing, wasn’t it?

He wandered off, leaving me to sit with the drink I wasn’t drinking in a bar that didn’t feel like mine. I was halfway to standing when something outside the window caught my eye.

A flicker of movement.

Dark hair. That beat-up coat.

Shoulders drawn tight. She was trying to hold herself together and losing ground fast.

Riley .

She was walking past the front of Lucky’s, boots crunching through the slush, head down, trying to disappear into the sidewalk.

The world was too loud and she couldn’t take one more second of it.

I didn’t even think. Just moved.

Slid off the stool. Snatched my coat. Mumbled something half-assed to Todd on my way out.

The second I pushed through the door, the cold slammed into me, but I barely felt it.

All I saw was her.

“Riley!” I called out.

She stopped as if she’d hit a wall. Real slow, she turned, like she wasn’t sure what version of me she was about to face.

Her eyes widened a little when she saw me, but the rest of her face didn’t move. No smirk. No sass.

Just tired. Worn down to the wire.

“Asher,” she said, flat as the sky in February.

I walked up, hands shoved deep in my pockets to keep from doing something reckless. Like touching her. Pulling her into me and pretending I could fix it.

“You okay?” I asked, softer than usual. “You looked… I don’t know. Like maybe you could use a drink.”

She shook her head, barely a motion at all. “I’m good. Just walking.”

“Still,” I said, giving her the closest thing I had to an olive branch. “If you want company, I’ve got time. Lucky’s makes a damn good whiskey sour.”

There. A flicker of a smile. Barely.

“I can’t,” she said.

I tried to tease it out of her, defaulting to charm as I always did. “What, did I finally lose my magic touch?”

That got a laugh. Sort of. More the ghost of one.

“No,” she said. “It’s not that.”

I was about to say something else, something light and stupid to keep the mood from crashing.

Then she dropped it.

“I can’t drink, Asher,” she said. Too fast. Too stiff.

I frowned. “You?”

“I’m pregnant.”

What?

No.

No, no. She didn’t just say…

The words hung there between us like they were still deciding if they were real.

My heart stopped. Literally skipped a goddamn beat.

The sounds around us, the cars, the wind, fell away as if someone had hit mute on the world.

I stared at her. “What?”

She winced. “I didn’t mean to tell you like that. Not like this .”

“You’re pregnant?” I said again, slower this time. Maybe if I said it differently, it wouldn’t hit as hard.

She gave a tight nod. Barely moved her head, as if it cost her something.

I opened my mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.

Is it mine?

Is it ours?

I couldn’t even finish the thought.

But she already knew what I was trying to ask.

Her voice cracked, just a little. “It could be any of you.”

And just like that the cold found its way under my skin and stayed there. Deep. Sharp.

Pregnant . Riley was pregnant.

And one of us—me, Garrett, Beckett—was the father.

My throat went dry. My brain tried to spin up something useful, something smooth or reassuring, but it was all static.

My voice, when it finally clawed its way out, sounded as if it’d been dragged over gravel. “Are you okay?”

Stupid question. But it was all I had.

She breathed out, shaky. Wrapped her arms tight around herself as if she could hold the pieces in.

“Not really.”

That cracked something in me harder than the news itself.

Because Riley didn’t say things like that.

She didn’t break in front of people. She didn’t let herself break.

Until now.

“I didn’t mean to tell you in that blunt way,” she said again, voice rough. “It just slipped out.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly, still reeling. “Well. Hell of a thing to let slip.”

She looked away, eyes darting toward the street like she was about to bolt. Like if she moved fast enough, she could outrun the truth.

But not tonight.

Not from me.

“Come back with me,” I said, too sudden even for me.

Her head jerked back toward me. “What?”

“To the cabin,” I said, softer now. “It’s freezing. You look like you haven’t eaten or slept in a week. We can talk. Or not. Whatever you need. Just don’t do this alone.”

“I’m fine?—”

“No, you’re not.” I stepped closer. “You’re walking through the dark like the world’s about to crack under your feet. And maybe it is. But you’re not doing it alone.”

She opened her mouth. Closed it again. And for once, she didn’t argue.

I didn’t say anything. Didn’t push.

I held her gaze and let her see it.

That I meant what I said.

I wasn’t trying to trap her. Wasn’t trying to fix something that couldn’t be fixed.

I wanted her warm. Safe. Somewhere she didn’t have to carry all this weight by herself.

“You don’t have to talk,” I said quietly. “Or explain anything. Just be. If that’s easier. I won’t say a word to Garrett or Beckett until you’re ready.”

She stared at me for a long moment. And I could see it happening.

All the thoughts warring behind her eyes.

Pride. Fear. That bone-deep kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from lack of sleep, but from holding everything in for too long.

But then she nodded.

Just once. Barely more than a breath.

“Okay,” she whispered.

And something in me finally let go.

I’d been holding my own breath without realizing.

We didn’t speak as we walked to my truck. Didn’t need to.

I opened the door for her, helped her up. She didn’t argue, didn’t crack a joke, didn’t shrug me off as usual.

She climbed in, folded her hands in her lap, and stared out the window like she could disappear into the night if she tried hard enough.

I slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

But my thoughts were stuck back on that sidewalk.

Pregnant .