Page 5 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies (Men of Medford #4)

CHAPTER THREE

Riley

The drive up the mountain took longer than I expected.

My GPS gave up somewhere past a blinking yellow light and a sad excuse for a gas station, and after that, it was just me, a rental car that hated the snow, and a winding road that looked like it hadn’t been plowed since last Christmas.

The tires kept slipping no matter how gently I tapped the brake, and the engine made this sad little groan every time I asked it to do anything more than crawl.

Honestly, it would’ve made great content. The kind of video people eat up.

Gray skies, snow-dusted pine trees, a soft piano track layered under a voiceover about finding clarity in isolation. I could already picture the caption: Sometimes you have to lose your signal to find yourself.

Barf.

But I wasn’t here for content. I was here to disappear.

To lay low. Be nobody. A woman in a rental car with a suitcase full of overpriced sweaters and a completely destroyed public image.

Lucy had promised her cabin was the perfect place to hide.

“Remote but cozy. You’ll be safe. Take it. Regroup. Breathe. I won’t be long.”

So I tried to breathe. In through the nose, out through the self-doubt. It didn’t help much.

When I finally spotted the cabin—nestled between two giant evergreens like it had been carved out of a Pinterest board—I actually sighed. A dramatic, full-body sigh.

My shoulders dropped. My jaw unclenched. It felt as if I could finally let go.

That feeling lasted about thirty seconds.

I killed the engine, grabbed my suitcase from the back seat, and climbed the porch steps, already dreaming of hot tea and a nap that lasted through the apocalypse. I pushed open the front door…

And stepped straight into a puddle.

“What the hell.” I whispered.

It smelled like wet wood and mold. The air was heavy, damp, and freezing. And when I took another step, my boot actually splashed.

The whole cabin was flooded.

The living room rug was soaked. Water clung to the baseboards. And somewhere behind the kitchen wall, I heard a slow, steady drip like the universe was mocking me in Morse code.

I dropped my suitcase and yanked my phone out of my pocket.

No bars.

No Wi-Fi.

No Lucy.

I stood there for a long moment, heart hammering, trying not to freak out. But the storm outside was picking up, the snow falling heavier now, wind howling through the trees like something out of a horror movie.

Vise-like panic set in.

I wasn’t cut out for this. I didn’t do plumbing or mountain storms or whatever the hell was happening under that sink.

I was good at hotel-room service and PR statements, and making people believe I was fine even when I was falling apart.

This? This was real.

And I didn’t know what the hell to do with real.

I wandered through the cabin like maybe I was wrong, like maybe I was overreacting and the place wasn’t actually waterlogged.

But no, the kitchen floor was slick, the pipe under the sink was still leaking, and the air was cold enough to see my breath.

I found a mostly dry corner near the fireplace and sat down, hugging my knees to my chest.

This wasn’t peace. This wasn’t healing.

This was a soggy, freezing disaster with no cell service and zero backup plan.

I closed my eyes and tried not to cry. Tried to remember how to just be without the noise, the likes, the constant feedback loop of validation and judgment.

It wasn’t working.

Then I heard it. The unmistakable crunch of tires on snow.

Someone was here.

I froze.

I didn’t know who. I didn’t know what kind of person drove through a storm to a cabin that was supposed to be mine and mine alone.

But I was freezing. And wet. And one more drip away from a breakdown.

So, whoever was about to knock on that door?

Dang, I hoped they were the rescue I didn’t want to admit I needed.

Before I could figure out my next move, a truck pulled up outside. Not just any truck—some massive, growling beast of a thing, tires thick with snow and a body that looked like it belonged in a lumberjack calendar.

The headlights cut through the falling snow, blinding me for a second.

I scrambled to my feet, heart thudding, soaked socks squishing in my boots. I had no weapon, no cell signal, and nowhere to hide unless I felt like drowning in the kitchen.

The door creaked open.

And then I saw him.

Him .

Asher.

The one-night stand I hadn’t stopped thinking about since he snuck out of that hotel room like a cliché. Same messy dark hair. Same smug smirk. Same body built for bad decisions.

My stomach flipped—half dread, half a wild intensity that I couldn’t even begin to grasp.

He stood in the doorway, eyes sweeping over the room before landing on me.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he said.

That made two of us.

“You?” I blurted. “What are you doing here?”

His brow ticked up. “Was about to ask you the same thing.”

I crossed my arms, ignoring the squish of wet denim and the fact that I probably looked like a drowned rat. “I was invited. Lucy said I could stay here while she’s stuck in the city.”

Surprise shifted behind his eyes. “You’re the friend?”

“Yes?” I said slowly, like maybe he’d had a head injury on the way up the mountain.

He let out a short, incredulous laugh and shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

“What is?”

“I’m Lucy’s brother.”

Silence.

Long. Awkward. Ice-cold silence.

The kind where the universe sits back with popcorn and watches you flail.

Fuck .

I thought I recognized him. I’ve never met him before, but I’m sure I’ve seen him in photos. In Lucy’s old college room, online…

I stared at him, horror blooming in my chest. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“Lucy never said anything about a brother being here.”

“Well,” he said, glancing at the water pooling around my feet, “she probably didn’t think I’d be walking into a flood zone to find her guest halfway to hypothermia.”

I flushed. “I didn’t plan for this, okay? I think the pipe must have burst. There’s no heat, no signal, and I can’t reach her.”

“She called us,” he said, waltzing inside with a playful smirk dancing on his lips. “Said things went to hell at work, and asked me and my brothers to check on you.”

Brothers ?

Of course she did.

Of course there’s more of them.

Of course the universe decided that the one person within fifty miles who knew what I looked like naked, very recently, very thoroughly, was also the one responsible for my rescue.

“I’m fine,” I said stiffly. “You can go.”

“You’re not fine,” he shot back, gesturing around the cabin. “This place is soaked, there’s a storm blowing in, and I’m guessing that fireplace hasn’t been serviced since before Instagram existed.”

I glared at him, but my teeth were starting to chatter. Which really undercut the whole “I’m fine” thing.

“I’m not leaving you here,” he added, and there was an edge in his voice, firm, low, unwavering, that made me want to argue just to feel in control again.

But I couldn’t. Because he was right.

I was wet. I was cold. And I was very much not okay.

“What do you suggest?” I asked, biting the inside of my cheek.

“We’ve got a place a few miles back. Me and my brothers,” he said. “Spare room, heat, Wi-Fi, maybe even a dry pair of socks if you’re nice.”

“I don’t need?—”

“You need to not freeze to death,” he interrupted. “It’s one night, Riley. Don’t get too excited.”

I scoffed. “Please. Like this is my idea of a good time.”

He smirked, and somehow, that annoyed me more than anything else.

“Fine,” I muttered, grabbing my suitcase and trying not to wince at the cold seeping through my soaked clothes. “But one night. That’s it.”

“Scout’s honor.”

“You were never a scout.”

He grinned. “Nah. Too much attitude.”

I followed him outside, back into the snowstorm, every step feeling like a reluctant surrender.

This was just another disaster. Another thing I couldn’t control.

And the worst part?

I had the sinking feeling that this one-night stay wasn’t going to go the way I planned.