by Madison Faye
“Tell her what?” Austin said quietly, as if he didn’t know exactly what I was thinking.
“You know,” I shot back.
He growled, shaking his head. “Tell her what, that we had to run from our entire world because our shithead uncle made everyone think we murdered our father?”
“Basically.”
He sighed, looking away before his jaw tightened.
“I want to tell her too, man,” he finally said, his voice low. “I want to tell her everything.”
And I knew we both did. We wanted to tell her about the mistakes we’d made, and the life we’d led before this mountain life. The thing was, neither of us missed the glitz of that life, not after living here for so long. We’d run from money and privilege, but we’d found peace up in the woods.
And yet, there was one thing we missed up here. I guess we’d miss it even if we were back home, with dad gone. But up here in the solitude of the mountains, is was even more obvious.
I missed family. And if I’m being honest, I missed thinking about having one of my own someday. I know Austin did too. I knew we both wanted that for ourselves and for each other, but it was kind of hard to make that happen when you were on the run and up in the mountains.
But then, we’d met her — our Stella. And suddenly, it felt like…
I sighed to myself. It felt insane to even think about it like that, considering what it meant and considering how little time we’d known her. But I couldn’t help it. One day with her and I knew. Hell, one fucking second and I’d known. Stella was it — she was the family I’d thought about and hoped for someday. And I saw it with her.
There’d never been jealousy with Austin and me, but suddenly I wondered if this would be the breaking point. I wondered if she would be the thing that came between us and wedged us apart.
“It’s getting dark man.”
“Hmm?”
Austin’s voice broke me from my thoughts, and I looked up at him.
“She’s not here, and it’s getting dark. Look, let’s head to Braun’s place and we’ll just meet up with her there.”
I made a face. Stella had asked us to not say anything to Braun or Katrina about what’d happened. And I totally got it. I mean, for one, it was a lot to tell someone — the three of us? Yeah, that was big. And with her best friend getting married the next day, all telling people now would do is pull attention away from Braun and his woman on their big day. And I got that.
So, her going back to their place to check in, figure some stuff out about the next day, and freshen up a little was something she’d wanted to do without the two of us coming with, and we could totally see that.
But, it was getting darker now, and the thought of her traipsing through these woods alone in the dark wasn’t something either of us wanted to even think about.
“Try her cell?”
Austin nodded, grabbing one of the untraceable burner phones we used up here and dialing her number. I could hear it ringing and ringing against his ear, before it hit her voicemail.
He scowled.
“Nothing.”
He tried again, and this time, it went right to voicemail.
“Shit,” my brother swore. “If she’s already heading back on the trail we showed her, she’ll be by the switchback trail by now.”
“Which gets zero cell reception,” I muttered, finishing his thought as he nodded. “Alright, fuck, let’s hit the trail and see if we can meet her.”
We headed into the woods, hitting the trail we’d shown Stella earlier that basically ran a direct line back to Katrina and Braun’s place. If she was on the way, we’d definitely bump into her on it.
“Hey, uh, I gotta ask you something.”
I glanced at Austin and instantly started to chuckle.
“What?” he frowned.
“Dude, twins.” I grinned at him. “Trust me, we’re thinking the same thing.”
He chuckled. “About her.”
“Of course.”
“And?”
I stopped mid-step and turned to my brother, looking him right in the eye.
“And the answer is no. No jealousy, man. Never. And certainly not with Stella.”
“It’s not just the immediate I see with her,” Austin said quietly.
“Me neither,” I growled back fiercely before I sighed again and shook my head. “Fuck. How the hell did that happen?”
He grinned. “So fast you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know, Dallas, but I don’t care. She’s it.”
“Yeah,” I growled. “She is.”
“For both of us, it seems.”
“No jealousy.”
He shook his head, clapping me on the back. “Never. And there won’t be.”
We embraced, hugging each other fiercely before we turned and started down the path. We made it all of two steps before the rough, growling, deep fucking voice sliced through the silence behind us.
“I hope you two aren’t trying to hide.”
“Fuck!” Austin and I both jumped, my pulse roaring as we ducked out the way and whirled.
“Because I could hear you two a mile a-fuckin-way.”
There, standing behind us like the fucking mountain beast he was, was Axe.
I shot a quick look at my bro — goddamn this guy freaked us out. And I don’t say that lightly.
There were five of us living up on that mountain. Austin and I had come first, I think. Vlad, the Russian with his swank lodge up on Coffer’s Peak came around the same time. Braun came a bit later. Well, I guess there were seven of us now if you counted Katrina and Vlad’s girl Chloe.
So, we’d all been there a while. But Axe? No one knew how the fuck long he’d been there.
He was a monster — huge, bearded, with wild hair and serious tats covering his body. We were all men of the mountains, but Axe was a fucking caveman.
He slunk out from behind a tree, somehow completely silently even with his huge size.
“Fuck, Axe,” Austin muttered. “Didn’t know you were back.”
“Did you know I was gone?”
My brother and I glanced at each other. The guy had a point. Hell, I didn’t even know where Axe fucking lived. I assumed he had a roof somewhere, because the one thing he seemed to own besides a pair of jeans, boots, and a black t-shirt was a his motorcycle, which he’d take tearing down the mountain on the old logging roads before disappearing for, well, who knew how long.
“So, what can we do for—”
“I wanted to tell you both something.”
The words truly growled from Axe’s mouth, cutting me off.
“Yeah? What?”
Axe turned and narrowed his eyes at my brother’s tone, but he seemed to take a breath.
“A man is looking for you.”
A chill went down my spine.
“What?”
Austin swore. “What man?”
“I have no fucking idea,” Axe muttered roughly. “But he’s been asking in town for you two — seeing who’s seen you. He made it up towards Vlad’s place, but the Russian told him to fuck off.”
My jaw tensed. Fuck. Someone looking for us, here? That wasn’t good. That was the fucking opposite of good.
“What’s he want?”
Axe shot me a withering, cold look.
“Just thought I’d ask. Fuck, man.”
“I’d lay low,” Axe growled. He turned, and without another single word, started to melt back into the shadows of the woods.
“Hey, Axe.”
He froze, turning slightly at my words.
“You coming to Braun and Katrina’s thing tomorrow?”
He frowned deep, turning back to us. “Thing?”
“The wedding?”
He smiled thinly, his eyes flashing something I couldn’t even decipher before he turned again and faded into the woods. Austin and I stood there in silence for at least three full minutes before we slowly let our breaths out.
“T
I slowly shook my head.
“Who the fuck is looking for us, and how the hell did they find us here?”
His jaw tightened. “No idea. But that can’t be good.”
“No shit.”
His phone suddenly bleeped in his hand, and he glanced down and scowled.
“What?”
He passed me the phone to show a text from Stella.
“Hey, sorry, I fell asleep on the couch. It’s late. See u tomorrow?”
I swore before I texted a quick reply.
“Our bed is going to miss you. Sleep well, beautiful.”
I tossed the phone back to Austin, and the two of us nodded slowly.
“We should head back — try and figure this shit out. Maybe we can call a few people and see if they know anything.”
I nodded, my thoughts swirling as I glared at the ground.
“We’ll see her tomorrow, Dallas,” my brother said lowly, his hand on my shoulder.
“I know,” I growled. “I just don’t like it.”
He smiled thinly. “C’mon, let’s head back.”
12
Stella
As elegant as Katrina had made things, and as gorgeous as the ceremony spot next the Rayburn falls was decorated, this was still a country mountain wedding. And her fiancé was still a rough mountain man.
…Which is to say, even if there was plenty of champagne and good wine, there was also plenty of whiskey.
Perfect.
My nerves had been on edge the whole night before after the call from my OB’s office. I’d hid it as best I could when I’d taken on my maid of honor duties by kicking Braun out for the night to go stay at Vlad and Chloe’s so Katrina and I could have girl time. I’d even sort of put it out of my mind as we stayed up late talking about old times, plans of the future, doing her nails, and all that stuff.
But now the day of? It was all coming back. And I was a wreck.
Part of me wanted to run — run, not walk — down the mountain to the nearest drug store and buy a pregnancy test. But I knew that was ridiculous. Even if — and if was the huge word there — something had, well, taken, day two was hardly when a pee test was going to show anything.
Before my first run-in with Austin and Dallas, I hadn’t had sex in, well, a while. Actually I’d joked with Katrina over the phone that closest thing to getting laid I was getting was a nurse’s assistant implanting my own eggs inseminated with a stranger’s sperm into my uterus.
Yeah, real steamy.
But then, I’d run into them, I’d lost my freaking mind, and I’d lost my damn heart along the way. I’d also had both of their cum inside of me, multiple times. So, if there was a pregnancy test that could magically show after a day? Well, there’d only be two men I’d need to talk to.
…Two men who I was going to have to face any minute now when they arrived.
I grabbed a glass of the whiskey Braun had set out off the bar and brought it to my lips. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply, feeling my blood pound in my ears before slowly, I took it away from my face.
No.
And suddenly, the word roared through my head even louder, and I set the glass back on the table and shoved it away.
Hell no. I knew my chances were low — really low, even with how fertile I was from the treatments. But still, if I was? I almost wanted to slap myself. Yeah, no fucking way was I drinking a drop until I could pee on a stick and find out for sure.
And then, maybe, I’d have to have some pretty real conversations with Austin and Dallas.
…And me possibly being pregnant wasn’t the only thing I was scared to talk to them about.
They’d lied to me. Or at the least, they’d omitted some serious shit from me. The whole thing with their father — I shivered as I turned away, biting my lip and losing myself in my thoughts. I didn’t think they were killers, even if the story about them going on the run for being accused of it was true. They’d spoken of their father with such love and admiration that they’d have to be total psychopaths to also have killed him. But even so, they were on the run from the law. They were fugitives wanted for murder, and they hadn’t mentioned it.
I paced the clearing by the falls, trying to escape the cloud over my head by mingling with the guests. Katrina’s parents were there, and however weird and zany in that super-rich way they were, it was still nice to see some familiar faces. Eventually though, everyone headed back down the path to the house, where we were all going to meet first before taking our seats for the ceremony back up here.
And then I was alone. Alone with the cloud following me. The cloud of doubt, and worry, and fear The cloud that kept whispering in my ear that even if I’d fallen hard for the two mountain brothers, I really didn’t know them very well. And that scared me.
“Stella.”
I froze at the sound of his voice — one of the men I’d just had blazing through my head now standing right behind me. I took a shaky breath, wanting more time to let all of this try and find a place in my head, but knowing I had to turn around. And slowly, I did.
“Hi,” I said quietly and shortly, my voice terse and my eyes avoiding them. Dallas and Austin frowned slightly, and Dallas stepped closer.
“Beautiful, what’s wrong—”
“Nothing,” I snapped heatedly, my heart breaking a little as I watched the two of them flinch and then glance at each other.
“The hell is going on, Stella?” Austin growled, stepping towards me.
When I recoiled, his frown deepened.
“Tell us what’s wrong, baby girl,” he said quietly, his eyes burning into mine. “I can see you’re hurting, so let us be here for—”
“I have to go.”
I snapped the words as I turned to storm away to follow the last of the guests disappearing into the woods down the trail. But suddenly, I gasped as strong hands grabbed me and pulled me back. The shriek caught in my throat as Austin physically threw me over his shoulder and turned to storm the opposite way out of the clearing, toward the falls.
“Get your hands off of me!” I screamed, kicking and hitting his hardened, muscled body before he finally lifted me off and sat me down on wooden bench someone had long ago built here next to the waterfalls.
“Easy!” he growled, stepping away as I took a swing at him. “Fuck, Stella, what the hell is going on!”
My eyes darted between, my mind and my heart and my emotions still not sure if I was angry or scared or just everything all at once.
Both of them looked at me carefully, before slowly, Dallas nodded.
“Someone told you something, didn’t they?”
I bit my lip.
“Fucking Braun,” he spat, his brow scowling as he looked away.
“Well?” I snapped. “Is it true?”
“There’s a lot we haven’t told you,” Austin said quietly.
I barked out a laugh. “No shit.”
“We’ve known you for a day,” he growled. “How about some slack?”
The three of us froze like that, and suddenly, the fight just went out of me. I hung my head, my emotions welling up inside of me. And I wasn’t even angry, I was just scared, and more than a little freaked out.
“I’m…” I closed my eyes. “I’m sor—”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about,” Dallas said fiercely as the two of them swept me up in their arms, holding me tight as I trembled against them. “Nothing. We should have told you everything. We wanted to, we were just…”
He trailed off.
“Being pussies,” Austin muttered. “We were scared of, well, this. Of scaring you off or freaking you out. Look, Stella, the whole thing with our dad, you know that’s not us, right? You know we’re not even capable of something like that.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“Our uncle set everything up,” Dallas muttered. “He paid off doctors, board members — you name it. He didn’t just want our company, he wanted to bury us and make sure we never came to try and take it back. When we figured out what the hell was going on, yeah, we ran, and we’ve been here on Blackthorn ever since.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said quietly, holding them close and kissing each of them on the cheek.
“And you really have nothing to be sorry for, beautiful,” Austin purred, kissing me slowly. “That’s all there is. We’ve been here on Blackthorn. At first, we thought about revenge, and how to ‘get back’ at our uncle. But the longer we lived here, the more that life just didn’t even appeal to us anymore. We’ve found peace here in these woods, and now that we’ve found you?”
He grinned, sending a spark right through me.
“Now that we’ve found you, I don’t know what else there is,” Dallas said, kissing my cheek. “And now you know everything about us.” He chuckled. “So I guess now we just need to know everything about you.”
He kissed me slowly, pulling away to let his twin do the same. They moved closer, my pulse spiking as the two of them moved against me and let their hands slide down my body. I gasped, trembling against them and wanting so badly to just get lost in them.
…But there was something they had to know. After they’d just told me all of that? I couldn’t keep it from them any longer.
“Everything about you,” Austin growled, his fingers tugging the hem of my bridesmaids dress higher. “Like what color panties you’re wearing under this—”
“I have to tell you something!”
I blurted it out like a swear word, stumbling back away from them, my eyes darting between them.
“I really have to tell you something.”
13
Stella
The three us went silent as the words left my lips. It was like time stopped, and everything just hung in the air in slow motion. The breeze in the trees stopped, and it was like even the sound of the waterfall in the background slowed and then faded away.
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