Page 51 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies (Men of Medford #4)

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Beckett

The sound of chiseling echoed through the quiet of the workshop.

I’d been at it for hours.

The sky outside had gone that bruised shade of indigo that meant dusk was close, and the smell of fresh-cut pine hung thick in the air.

I liked it that way. Wood shavings on the floor. Tools exactly where I needed them. The weight of something real taking shape beneath my hands.

Two cribs. Not one.

Two.

I’d been working in tandem, shifting between them every couple of hours to keep the design balanced. Same height. Same spacing between the rails. Same curves carved into the headboards.

Not identical, though. That didn’t feel right. I wasn’t trying to make copies. These were for two different souls.

Two babies.

Ours .

I still couldn’t say that out loud without my throat tightening.

After the ultrasound, I hadn’t been able to sleep. Not from fear. Not exactly. It was something bigger.

I’d been walking through the woods my whole life, thinking I knew the terrain, only to stumble into a clearing and realize the world was wider than I’d imagined.

I wasn’t ready. But I would be.

So I built.

Let Garrett handle the blueprints for the cabin extension. Let Asher argue with the electricians and talk his way into free insulation.

My brothers knew how to show up in their own way. This was mine.

I brushed wood dust off one of the railings, inspecting the carved pattern along the side. Small mountain ridges. Trees. Two foxes curled together in the center, tucked safe beneath a crescent moon.

For Riley.

For the way she looked at nightfall, silhouetted against the porch light with her hands on her belly and her whole body humming with something soft and wild.

I’d never loved anyone like this.

Not only her. Them.

All of them.

A creak from the doorway pulled my attention, and I looked up to find her standing there, bundled in one of my old flannels over a cotton dress, hair loose around her shoulders.

She was glowing again. Not in the cliché way people talk about pregnant women. It wasn’t about skin or shine.

It was presence. Gravity.

Riley had become the kind of center things orbit around. And I was more than okay with being caught in her pull.

Her eyes found the cribs behind me. She stepped in slow, quiet as a deer at the edge of the clearing.

“You made these?”

I nodded.

She moved closer, one hand reaching out to trace the curve of the fox I’d carved. “They’re beautiful.”

“They’re theirs,” I said, surprising myself with the sound of my voice. “I wanted them to have something that’ll last. Something made by hand.”

She looked at me then, really looked, and something shifted in her face. Like she could feel everything I wasn’t saying.

“Beckett.”

“I don’t know how to be a dad,” I admitted quietly. “Not like this. Not to two. But I can give them something solid. Something safe.”

She stepped closer, placing her hand over my heart.

“You already are,” she said. “You show up. You protect. You build. That’s more than I ever had growing up.”

I swallowed hard.

She leaned in, resting her head against my chest. “You think love’s this big, loud thing. But it’s this,” she whispered. “Two cribs in a workshop. Wood chips on your boots. Your heartbeat steady against mine.”

I wrapped my arms around her, tucking her in like she was something breakable. And maybe she was. But she was also steel.

“I’ll never leave,” I murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know,” she said softly. “Neither am I.”

Outside, I could hear Garrett shouting for Asher to stop nailing things drunk and crooked. Something crashed. Laughter followed.

Home.

This wasn’t the life I thought I’d end up with.

It was better.

She stayed with me in the workshop a while longer, asking questions about the wood, the tools, what each detail meant. I didn’t talk much, but I answered every one.

Riley had a way of asking as if she already loved the answer. She could see the meaning even when I didn’t have the words for it.

Later that night, after she fell asleep curled against my chest on the couch, I found myself standing in the doorway of the room we’d built for her.

Her space.

Her sanctuary.

It was Asher’s idea, surprisingly. He’d said if we were going to ask Riley to make a home here, she needed a piece of it that was all her own.

Not something borrowed or wedged into a corner. Something made with intention.

So we did what we always do.

We built it.

Garrett handled the bones, walls, insulation, windows with views of the woods. Asher installed the lighting, the shelves, the little soundproofing panels so she could record without picking up every dog bark or chainsaw from the yard.

Me?

I made her a desk. Real oak. Wide enough for her camera setup and all the little things that made her space hers. I carved a tiny mountain fox at the edge, just like the ones on the cribs.

And she loved it.

Riley didn’t post like she used to. It wasn’t about brands or metrics or aesthetics anymore. No more rented kitchens or filtered perfection.

These days, it was videos of her and Sadie hosting bake sales. Stories about the local kids painting murals at the community center.

Little clips of Garrett at the lumberyard, me carving ornaments, Asher making hot toddies on the porch, and pretending not to care how many people saved the recipe.

She called it Life in Medford.

And people watched.

Not millions, maybe not even hundreds of thousands. But enough. The right ones. The ones who showed up in the comments asking where they could stay when they visited.

The ones donating to Sadie’s causes. The ones booking cabins, walking through town with stars in their eyes, like they were hoping to catch a glimpse of Riley Brooks in flannel holding a pie.

Tourism ticked up.

Businesses started doing better. The town had a new mural, a new walking trail, and even a new café in the works.

All because Riley had stopped chasing influence and started living .

She was happy.

Not the performative kind, not the smile-for-the-camera, brand-deal-glow kind of happy. This was deeper. Rooted.

And when she looked at us, Garrett, Asher, me, she didn’t see mistakes or maybe-nots.

She saw home.

I stepped into her new room, just to be near it for a minute. The desk lamp was still on, casting a soft glow across the space. A half-written post glowed on her laptop.

I didn’t read it. Didn’t need to.

This was her now.

And somehow, impossibly, we were part of the story she chose to tell.