Page 40 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies (Men of Medford #4)

I looked at Lucy. “I don’t want to fight her.”

“You don’t have to,” she said calmly. “You already won, Riley. You told the truth. You said your piece. And Ava’s showing everyone exactly who she is without you lifting a finger.”

Still, I paused. Old instincts begged me to say something. To correct the record. To push back.

But then Lucy added gently, “Do you want to give her more of your peace? Or do you want to protect it?”

I swallowed hard.

“I want to protect it.”

So that was what I did. With Lucy’s help, I blocked Ava’s account. I set boundaries. I muted the noise.

I chose peace.

Let Ava throw her tantrum in the digital void. Let her shout into an echo chamber. She could unravel herself.

That wasn’t mine to hold anymore.

The snow crunched beneath our boots as we walked the winding path toward the Wolfe brothers’ cabin, the trees heavy with fresh powder, glittering under the weak winter sun.

My breath curled in front of me in soft white puffs, my fingers clenched inside my gloves as I tried to settle my nerves.

Not about the weather. Not about the cabin.

But about what I was carrying. Inside me. Around me.

The secret that was feeling increasingly heavy by the day.

Garrett was already outside stacking firewood as if the world might run out of it tomorrow, his sleeves shoved up to reveal forearms that looked carved from oak and covered in faint sawdust.

“Morning,” Lucy called, grinning. “Can’t wait for lunch!”

Garrett glanced up, a smile tugging at the edge of his mouth when he saw her, but his gaze flicked past her, for the briefest second, to me. I caught the glint of heat there, the spark that always made my knees a little unsteady.

“Me too, I’m starving,” he said gruffly, hoisting another log onto the pile like it weighed nothing.

Inside the cabin, the smell of roasted meat, garlic, and something sweet and cinnamon flooded my nostrils, causing my stomach to growl.

“Someone went all out,” Lucy said, whistling. “Asher?”

“Obviously,” Beckett muttered from where he leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, expression dark as always. “He won’t let anyone else touch the turkey. It’s a ‘sacred ritual.’”

“That’s because none of you barbarians understand the concept of basting,” Asher called from the kitchen, flipping something in a cast iron skillet with flair and zero fear of splatter.

“You baste like it’s foreplay,” Beckett grunted.

“That’s because it is , Beckett,” Asher shot back. “You’ve clearly never seduced a turkey properly.”

Garrett walked in behind us, slamming the door shut with his boot. “We’re not having this conversation again. Every year, you two get weirder.”

“It’s not weird,” Asher said. “It’s culinary art.”

“You talk to the meat,” Garrett replied, leveling him with a flat stare. “Out loud.”

“You’re jealous because I’m the sexy brother and the one who can cook.”

“That’s debatable,” Lucy said, pulling off her coat. “Garrett’s got that brooding lumberjack thing going. It’s unfair to the rest of you, really.”

Beckett snorted and muttered something under his breath, but I caught the flicker of a smile before he shoved it down again.

I took it all in quietly, the swirl of voices, the teasing, the warmth of real family dynamics. Something I wasn’t used to. It was lovely.

I perched on the edge of the couch while Lucy helped Asher plate the food, pretending I wasn’t hyperaware of every glance that found me across the room.

From Garrett, who moved with quiet command, every flick of his eyes like a touch on my skin.

From Asher, who didn’t stop moving but stole looks as if he was cataloging every shift in my breathing.

From Beckett, whose gaze lingered the longest, like he already knew the answer to a question I hadn’t asked yet.

Garrett passed me a plate, and when our fingers brushed, something slow and electric moved between us. His hand didn’t linger. But his eyes did.

“You good?” he murmured, low and steady.

He was asking me about the baby, but of course, we couldn’t be too vocal yet. I nodded, though the weight in my chest felt anything but steady.

“Yeah. Just taking it all in.”

His loaded gaze held mine, and then Beckett’s voice cut through the moment.

“Careful,” he said, dry and quiet from his place by the window. “She’s got that look again.”

“What look?” I asked, startled.

“The one where she disappears a little,” Beckett said, not looking away. “And we don’t like that.”

My stomach fluttered. Not just from what he’d said, but how he’d said it. Like he had a claim. As if they all did.

Asher swept in with a tray of vegetables, his apron slightly askew. “Ignore him. He gets poetic when he’s anxious. Or hungry.”

“Starving,” Beckett muttered, still watching me.

Asher winked at me. “We’ll fix that.”

Luckily, Lucy wasn’t paying any attention, or she would have seen right through us. She was too busy being chaotic in the best way possible, getting us ready to eat.

Plates were overloaded. Napkins were ignored. Garrett carved meat like it offended him, while Beckett hovered nearby with his arms crossed, criticizing every side dish.

“You caramelized the cranberries?” he said, lifting a brow at Asher’s bowl as if it might bite him.

“It’s festive,” Asher replied.

“It’s desperate.”

“You’re desperate,” Asher shot back, shoving the bowl toward him.

Garrett shook his head. “Damn. Every year.”

“Garrett,” Lucy said brightly, holding out her fork with a bite of stuffing. “Try this. Tell me it’s not magic.”

He obligingly leaned in, took the bite, and chewed slowly, eyes darting briefly toward me.

“It’s good,” he said finally.

Asher scowled. “I’ve been working my ass off in this kitchen and she gets the royal treatment because she added sage?”

“She didn’t set anything on fire,” Garrett muttered.

“That was one time,” Asher groaned.

“One time?” Lucy repeated, wide-eyed. “You set two ovens on fire in college. In two different kitchens.”

Beckett, now seated and pouring himself his third glass of cider, didn’t even glance up. “And both times he blamed the ovens.”

“They were faulty!” Asher protested. “I was creating. Greatness has casualties.”

“I’m surprised the turkey made it out alive,” I said, half laughing, half in awe at the chaotic domesticity around me.

Was this what Christmas was always like for people?

Asher pointed his carving fork at me. “Don’t tempt fate. The bird and I made a pact, but she’s temperamental.”

I snorted into my tea, warmth blooming in my chest that had nothing to do with the drink.

This, the teasing, the ridiculous banter, the scent of cinnamon and roasted garlic in the air, the paper napkins with snowflakes on them—this was the real Christmas magic.

Not picture perfect. Not branded or broadcast.

Not the kind of Christmas I’d had last year.

I’d spent that one in a rented mansion in the Hollywood Hills, surrounded by crystal stemware and strangers with surgically identical smiles.

The “Influencer Holiday Bash” was sponsored by some vodka brand and an energy drink company, with LED snowflakes projected on the walls and fake snow pumped in through machines.

We all wore white, because that was the aesthetic .

We toasted to nothing. Posed for content we wouldn’t remember making.

I’d been dressed in a sequin dress loaned from a stylist I barely knew, lips glossed, laugh dialed to ten, every movement calculated, lit, captioned.

I hadn’t realized I was lonely.

Not then.

Not when the photographer told me to look “wistful, but grateful,” by the twelve-foot tree that didn’t smell of pine.

Not when I stood poolside sipping warm champagne, making conversation with a guy who called himself a “Crypto Manifestation Strategist.”

Not when I posted my fourth story of the night with a boomerang of the fake snow and a tag that said #blessed .

I only realized I was lonely now.

Now, surrounded by mismatched plates and the sound of Lucy humming as she spooned mashed potatoes onto everyone’s dish like a mom who couldn’t help herself.

Now, with Beckett snorting at Asher’s apron, and Garrett refilling cider without asking, his hand brushing my shoulder every time he passed.

Now, in this creaky, overstuffed, slightly drafty mountain cabin, where nothing was curated but everything was real.

The noise wrapped around me like a blanket I didn’t know I’d been cold without.

Lucy dropped into the seat beside me and nudged her knee against mine. “You having fun?”

I glanced around the room. At Garrett, quietly refilling water glasses with a seriousness that made my heart ache.

At Asher, tossing a dish towel over his shoulder like a chef in a sitcom. At Beckett, who pretended to be aloof but made sure the sweet potatoes didn’t burn when no one else was looking.

And I nodded. “Yeah. I really am.”

“Good,” she said, grinning. “Now eat before Asher guilt-trips us with his ‘sacrifices in the name of gastronomy.’”

We all piled into the mismatched chairs and benches around the table, shoulders brushing, elbows bumping, a loud chorus of overlapping voices blessing the meal or mocking Asher. Hard to say.

Beckett raised his glass without ceremony. “To the weirdos we didn’t choose but got stuck with anyway.”

“Speak for yourself,” Asher said, lifting his. “I’d choose all of you again. Even if I have to listen to Beckett insult my cranberry game.”

Lucy grinned. “To families, and besties too!”

Garrett’s voice was quiet but steady as he added, “To peace. And second chances.”

And because I wasn’t sure I could speak without crying, I lifted my glass, my throat thick with something good. Something whole.

As the meal began, so did the chaos.

Beckett somehow managed to start a debate about whether Die Hard was a Christmas movie and steal half the sweet rolls from my plate. Asher began narrating his culinary process like a Food Network star.

Garrett grumbled about “proper carving technique” while Lucy and I nearly cried laughing over a potato that looked vaguely like a celebrity.

I pressed a hand to my belly, instinctively.

Garrett’s eyes found mine across the table.

No one else noticed. Not yet. But we did.

And maybe we didn’t have everything figured out, not the secrets, or the future, or even how to tell Lucy, but this time, I wasn’t afraid.

Not of being seen. Not of being loved.

And especially not of what came next.

Because this Christmas, in this messy little cabin with cinnamon in the air and laughter echoing off the walls, I wasn’t alone.

I was home.