Page 24 of Mountain Men’s Nanny

I was going to have to wait to discover what lay behind the charm.

“Hey,” I smiled. “How’s the leg?”

Gunner grinned, showing off two rows of sparkling white teeth. If it hadn’t been for his trimmed beard, he would have looked like a naughty schoolboy, complete with the mischievous twinkle in his eyes. I had been more worried about his injury than he ever was.

“Were you worried about me?” he asked. “Because you could have just knocked on my door to find out if I made it through the night.”

Guilt flashed through me. Of course, I should have gone to check on him. I checked on all my patients every few hours, but then again none of them had ever thanked me with a kiss that replayed in my mind all night.

“Something told me you’d be just fine,” I smiled back.

Gideon, Tobias, and Lexi joined us outside to squeeze into Gunner’s truck. I felt a shudder crawl through me. The mood changed, and I didn’t know how to act. With just Gunner, our interactions were casual and laid back. That didn’t exactly apply to either Gideon or Tobias.

I never knew what to expect from Tobias. He was mercurial; broody and then unexpectedly tender. Gideon was rugged and protective, which sometimes came off as a sweetness and sensitivity that didn’t quite fit his burly and silent demeanor. Being around all three was a juggling act, with Lexi added in for bouts of spontaneity and a litany of questions at the ready.

“So, how are we going to do this?” Gideon asked finally.

He looked over at the beat up double cab truck built to comfortably seat four people. Not five.

“I know, I know. I sit in the back,” Lexi said, trudging through the wind to the truck with Gideon following closely behind her.

He opened the door and strapped her in, then went in on the other side.

“And of course you need to be sitting up front to get a proper lay of the land City Girl. You can’t paint the town red from the backseat,” he laughed.

I followed him with Tobias behind me, stifling a laugh of my own. The town of Salmon wasn’t designed for amusement. If we were painting it, the best we’d manage was beige, according to my recent Google search. It was a town trapped in time, like something straight out of one of those old Western movies. There were no clubs, and no franchise stores like the ones I was used to.

I walked over to the truck and let Tobias open the door for me. I slid in and only then did I realize he was sliding in beside me. I scooted closer to the driver’s seat and had to throw one leg over the stick shift to make room for Tobias, with Gunner hopping behind the wheel.

I was squeezed between the two men who couldn’t be more different even if they tried.

“Are you ready?” Gunner asked, squeezing my thigh.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I smiled through the lie, and hoped they didn’t pick up on the shiver in my voice.

12

Alone At Last

~

Gunner

The truck had a very specific smell, a combination of men’s cologne (they honestly all just smell the same), oil, and wood chips. With Brie jostling beside me, there was a zesty, fruity smell too.

She was bundled up in way too many clothes. Every time the truck lurched, she struggled to sit up straight again. I drove over more rocks than I had to and swerved away from dips later than necessary to make her bob and bounce around beside me. Her thigh rubbed against mine even through her jeans and mine. I could feel her warmth; it made the long drive more bearable.

“Gunner, show Brie where you saw the bear,” Lexi said excitedly. “It’s closer than you’d think. Maybe we’ll see it too.”

Brie’s eyes went wide at the mention of bears nearby. I could tell she would have thought twice about coming here if she knew how close all the wild animals were. There were no cages or even fences that would keep them out. The only reason they had wandered out of the woods and onto our front porch was that they didn’t want to.

“It was over there by the trees,” I said, pointing it out to Brie. “A big old grizzly just wandering around like he owned the place.”

“Because he does!” Lexi laughed. “The bears do kind of belong here. They eat the fish in the river.”

I stole a glance at Brie. She was looking at the trees, probably hoping not to spot a bear, while Lexi looked at the trees with exactly the opposite wish.

“But just to be sure, they don’t come around the cabin, right?” Brie asked nervously.