Page 9 of Mountain Men’s Nanny

The nurse in me immediately panicked. “Maybe we should wait for Gunner then.”

“No, silly,” she giggled. “We will only pick morel mushrooms. There’ll be more in the spring, but there’s a log with a few of them over there. We’ll get enough just for a taste.”

I looked at Tobias and caught him watching us, a small smile playing on his lips. It was pride.

“Do you know how to tell the mushrooms apart?” Lexi asked. “Gideon says it’s a survival skill.”

“No,” I admitted, “I’ve only really ever seen wild mushrooms in a textbook and at the grocery store, where I know they’re safe.”

She clicked her tongue and shook her head in disapproval. “Is it because there aren’t wild mushrooms in the city?”

There weren’t wild mushrooms growing in the city, no wild berries either. Out here, this little girl understood far more than I did. She led me to a log not far from the tractor Tobias and Gunner were working on, and skillfully picked one.

“This is a morel mushroom,” she explained. “It has all these holes in it that make it look like a sponge. That’s why some people call it a sponge mushroom. You see?” she said, holding the mushroom up for me to look at.

“I see,” I agreed, looking at the mushroom closely. Not just to pacify her, but also to make sure it wasn’t on the list of poisonous mushrooms I had studied.

“When you pick the mushrooms, you grab them like this,” she said. “You pinch the stem and twist.”

It looked simple enough. I followed her instructions, holding the mushroom stem and twisting only for the head to break off in my hand.

“City girl,” Lexi teased with a lively giggle. “You need to hold the stem lower.”

A muffled chortle came from the truck. I looked up, expecting to see Gunner doubled over at the nickname he had teased me with being used by Lexi. Instead, I saw Tobias laughing with his hand over his mouth. He didn’t look away when I saw him; he just kept laughing, meeting my eyes for the first time since last night.

“I’ll get the next one,” I said, determined to get it right. If a child could do it, then so could I, surely.

“Don’t worry,” she said, comforting me. “My dad and Gideon couldn’t get it right the first time either.”

I listened while Lexi continued. Tobias and Gideon had both had to learn how to navigate life out here, while Gunner seemed to know everything about living in this remote mountain cabin already.

I looked up to see him working hard on a snowplow while Tobias had moved on to reinforcing a loose piece of timber on the cabin. He pounded a hammer into it hard, building up enough of a sweat to justify unbuttoning his shirt.

His chest glistened with sweat as he raised the hammer again and again.

My attention was drawn by a sudden rustling in the nearby trees. I looked up quickly, and everyone was accounted for, even Gideon, who was outside inspecting something mechanical.

“Lexi, let’s go,” I whispered. I tried to hide the panic in my voice.

“Why?” Lexi asked, looking into the woods.

We saw it: an elegant deer with broad-branched horns staring right at us. I had only ever seen them in pictures and on TV. I screamed, grabbed Lexi, and made to run back to the cabin with her.

“You’re supposed to be quiet,” Lexi laughed. “Gunner told me that when he was teaching me about hunting. Sometimes he brings them back to the cabin for freezer meat.”

The men, startled by my scream, watched the whole thing unfold and laughed openly.

“They don’t bite,” Lexi assured me.

“Still, I think we should go closer to where your father is,” I said, taking her hand and walking her back to the cabin, my heart still pounding in my chest.

I knew I wouldn’t live this down. I’d have to do something to show them I wasn’t just a bumbling city girl.

I watched Lexi disappear into the house, a bunch of mushrooms held in her shirt, and looked around for some way to be useful. I knew nothing about mechanics; I couldn’t chop wood to save my life, but I could climb a ladder and hold something down while Tobias made his repairs. So I set out to do just that.

Without asking anyone, I carried a spare ladder and leaned it against the cabin, then started to climb. I didn’t dare take my eyes off the rungs, but I could feel Tobias’s steady gaze on me. I climbed, determined to look natural, as if I had done this before, and when I was level with him, I finally met his eyes. There was something new there, a softness I had never seen before, something that held my eyes and held me in place.

I tried to blink it away, made myself move one hand at a time off the ladder to become useful, then I felt the ladder wobble, gently at first, then faster, refusing to become steady. I was falling.