Page 64 of Mountain Men’s Nanny

“I love you too,” Gunner sighed.

31

Home Truths

~

Brie

For the first time since I moved into the cabin, I was the first one to wake up and get to the kitchen. It was quiet, and so was my mind. No nagging feelings, no questions, no wondering.

The sun shone brightly against the white snow. The kitchen gleamed, and the knots in all the wood looked as if they had been placed there intentionally by some artistic genius. Perfect. Everything was absolutely perfect.

I searched through the pantry and, as if by divine intervention, all the ingredients for my mother’s gingerbread cookies were lined up on the top shelf. Again, perfect.

I pulled out the sugar, the flour, and the ginger and set them on the counter as heavy footsteps came down the stairs.

“Good morning, beautiful,” Gideon smiled, pulling me into a kiss.

“Good morning,” I smiled back.

He went about getting the coffee machine ready and started to make breakfast. Tobias and Lexi came down soon after. Tobias planted a sweet kiss on my cheek while Lexi hugged me sleepily.

“Good morning,” she yawned.

Her cheeks were puffed, and her eyebrows furrowed in a grumpy scowl.

“What’s wrong, princess?” I asked, bending down to her level.

“My cookies are finished, and Daddy says we aren’t going to the store for another few days,” she whined.

Everything was lining up perfectly. It just made sense. I planned to bake cookies with Lexi before she came down, disappointed that she had eaten through her sleeve of cookies before our scheduled restock.

“Guess what we’re going to do today?” I asked brightly. “We’re going to bake gingerbread men!”

“Do we really need more men here?” Gunner asked, coming down the stairs with his shirt slung over his shoulder. “And here I was thinking the male population of this cabin had reached capacity.

He leaned down and kissed my forehead and poured both of us a cup of coffee.

I sat down at the kitchen island, watching Lexi and Gideon crack and whisk the eggs, and reached for my phone in my pocket.

The weather was clear. It was even sunny for a winter morning in the hills of Idaho, but I still had no service. Even the satellite phone had no service.

I checked my phone now and then through breakfast, through Gunner’s plans for knocking in some panels that had come loose through the blizzards, and still there was nothing. No signal, no messages, not even a notification about calls I might have missed.

I slipped the phone back into my pocket and forgot about it. There was enough to do in the cabin to make me forget I even had a phone. Between mixing the batter with Lexi, teaching her that more sugar didn’t always make the cookies better, and defending the batter from Gunner and his insatiable sweet tooth, it didn’t bother me that I hadn’t spoken to Holly in days. Not until the door shook with a hard and forceful knock.

We all froze. It never happened, not almost never, not rarely. It really never happened. The cabin was set in the middle of the property on a private road. There were no shops, schools, or any buildings within walking distance. The only people who turned up here did so on purpose.

“Expecting anyone?” Gideon asked, already heading for the door.

We were all too confused and surprised to answer.

He opened the door slowly, and Holly burst into the cabin.

“Where is she?” she demanded, looking around and spotting me in the kitchen. “Oh, my God! Brie!”

Her entire demeanor changed. At the door, she was angry and demanding, ready to fight anyone who stood between us. When she saw me, healthy, happy, and teaching Lexi how to roll the dough so it wasn’t too thin and delicate, she was more than just relieved.