"But then I came to see Harper, and decided to come here, to my uncle's old cabin until I came up with a plan as to how to find you... and here you are."
"You found me." She covers her eyes as tears continue to escape her. "I really thought you were dead, James, and I had no one I could talk about it with. I grieved you... I wept for you... and here you are."
I pull her to me, kissing her again, softly. "Here I am." I cup her face with my palms, our lips brushing, she smells like a wood fire and fresh air, like earth. She smells like hard work and determination, but more than that, she smells free.
And she looks free too. Different than I've ever seen her. Her hair is loose, not tied in a long braid. She isn't wearing a blouse, buttoned to the neck, and buttoned at the wrists. She isn't in her regular hand-sewn skirt either, she wears nothing but a nightgown.
"James," she whispers, leaning into my hand, pressing my other hand to her other cheek. "Is this a dream?"
I shake my head. "This is us finally catching a goddamn break."
"Don't let go of me, James. Now or ever." She looks at me, asking me for a promise I wanted to keep before, but wasn't able to. I want to believe nothing could ever take me from her again, but I also know that sometimes life has a way of fucking you over.
Sometimes the fight isn't fair.
Still, in this moment, I choose to believe I will fight all her demons, protect her for always. Right now, I want to believe my love for her is big enough to conquer whatever may come our way.
So, I promise. And my hands find her hands, and our fingers lace together, and under the big oak tree, I kiss her hard. No more soft kisses tonight. The sun is setting and our need is deep, and our love—damn, that is fucking real.
"Make love to me again," she asks, her voice soft but clear. She knows what she wants. After all those years of holding back, of not giving in to me and the love I had for her—she is ready to claim what I always wanted to give. "Make all the bad things disappear, if only for just a moment."
Anything for my girl.
I find the hem of her dress, the sun setting and the warmth of the sunset casting a pink glow over us both. I pull it over her head, and she gasps as I do, the summer breeze washing over us, around us. Wrapping us up in a lavender scented puff of air.
She looks beautiful, more of a woman than I remembered. She looks fuller, more voluptuous. Her breasts look huge, her ass bigger, her tummy rounder—in a sexy, I'm-all-woman way.
"Oh, love," I tell her, running my hands over her perfect skin. Wondering how I got so damn lucky to show up here when I was broken down beyond measure, to find her here. As if waiting for me. "How did you end up here?"
She shakes her head. "Later," she tells me. "Save that story for after. Right now, I need you to take me away. Far, far away." The tears are back in her eyes, she needs me to help her move past this place of pain she is in. She needs to be brought somewhere beautiful—somewhere ours.
Her hands tug at my shirt as if she needs to see more of me. All of me. I tear it off, and her hands are on my bare chest. She finds the tattoo on my skin, Cherish and she traces her fingers over the letters.
"Not Abigail?" she asks.
I smile softly, groaning as she undoes my belt, pulls it off. Her fingers resting on the waistband of my boxers
"I don't know the name you want me to remember you by," I tell her. "Abigail is beautiful, and the name you had growing up... but you were Cherish when you finally gave yourself to me. It means something different because of that. The woman you were when you finally said yes... that is the girl who had my heart."
"I should never have waited so long," she says, blinking away tears.
"We can't go back. We can't live in a place of regret, Cherish. We can only live in the present. Look at what we have." I shake my head, incredulous at our second chance. "We have one another."
I pull her to me, not letting this moment wash over us unless our bodies are pressed together, unless her skin in on my skin, our hearts are beating as one.
Wordlessly, her hands run under my boxers, her fingers finding my hardened length, my jeans falling to the ground. I kick off my shoes and step out of them, my body against her body, both of us naked outside under the tree. Same as when I took her last, it's crazy to think we have come full circle.
She's not ready to tell me her story, and that I understand: stories are complicated, especially ones born from sorrow.
She thought I was dead.
Her body is soft, opened in ways it wasn't a year ago. And when I touch her skin, her breasts feel tender. When I slip my hand between her legs, her pussy is wet, open, willing. In the space of a year, Cherish has become a woman the way she wasn't before. My heart breaks for her, for whatever has been done to her body, her heart. Her soul.
But also, knowing whatever has happened to her has made her stronger, more resilient.
Here.
Now.
In my arms.
I tell her I love her because I do. I kiss her hard, needing to feel her mouth on mine, and her breath is hot, her breath is heavy.
In my arms, I lay her on the lush green grass, her long dark hair splayed out around her like she is a goddess of nature. She looks at me with swollen lips and wide eyes. Then takes my finger in her mouth and sucks it hard.
"You know what you want?" I ask her.
She pulls out my finger and presses my hand between her legs. She doesn't say a word but I know exactly what she wants. What she needs.
I kneel before her, between her spread legs, relishing in the sensation of her hands wrapping around my cock, stroking me as if this is something she's done every damn day of her life.
But it's been so long, too long. It's been fucking forever.
She touches me, and with her gestures, she asks me to touch her too. So, I do. My fingers run up and down her wet slit, her body telling me this is what she wants.
My cock is thick with her hands wrapped around it, and I groan in pleasure. Her eyes close, her mouth turns up to a smile. God, it's so good to see her so happy.
My fingers run over her, circling her clit, needing her now, and wanting this to last longer than our first time.
My fingers press inside of her, her tight pussy opening to me, asking for more, and so I give it what it wants. My fingers move inside of her more and more quickly, until her back arches, her knees go weak.
Her hand slips from my cock, and then her fingers are gripping the blades of grass beneath her, as my fingers move faster and faster inside of her creamy cunt. She is dripping for me, for my finger fucking.
She moans as I finger fuck her. I move deep inside of her, causing her juicy pussy to coat the grass beneath her, she squirts as I ride her cunt like it was made for.
"Oh, James. It's too much. I can't. My body doesn't–"
My girl doesn't know what she needs. Her body has never been touched like this, but I already can sense that her body is going to love it. I press another finger inside of her, moving faster now, my thumb running over her exposed clit, throbbing under my touch.
I move fast inside of her until I feel the walls of her pussy throb, aching for release as it showers over my hand, she comes everywhere. She's dripping; no, that's not what's happening. She's gushing. Her body has been pent up for far too long, waiting for this moment under the oak tree. There is nothing here but a black, star-filled sky, she and I. This is the moment we've been waiting our entire lives for. And now we have it.
Now we have one another.
"James, come in me now, come in me now," she begs. My cock is still so fucking hard, and I'm not gonna wait for her to ask me again. She knows what she needs, and I'll give my girl anything she wants.
I press my cock inside her, thrusting deep into her tight pussy. Her legs wrap around me effortlessly, her ass raised off the ground and my hands run up her stomach toward her beautiful tits. Tits that bounce with each thrust I give her. She steadies them with her hands, but I push her hands away. I want to see them move, her h
ard nipples, her creamy skin. But she shakes her head, barely enough for me to notice.
"What is it, love?"
"They're just tender." Her words are soft, muffled as I come inside. Ribbons of my manhood fill her up to her very core. Good, I want my come deep inside of her, filling her up with all I have to give.
"Tender?" I ask as I pound her perfection.
"Yes, tender."
I come in her, hard, and she comes too, moaning as we exhaust ourselves in one another.
I lean over her, my elbows resting in the grass, my hands pushing away her hair from her forehead.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes," she says, smiling. "It's just..."
"You can tell me. You can tell me anything. Is it that time of the month?" I ask. "Because I don't want you to feel like you have to—"
She shakes her head. "No. It's not that."
"Then what is it, love?"
"It's just—" She bites her bottom lip. "I think you need to come inside and see for yourself."
Chapter Eleven
Cherish
James is here. And I’m leading him to my stolen house—his uncle's cabin. I'm not sure when my messed-up life became a fairy tale... but today it did. It's like the universe is rewarding me for finally taking the risk I always dreamt about.
Rewarding me with the man I thought was gone from me forever.
He filled me under the oak tree and it felt like everything wrong in the world was suddenly right.
He holds my hand, marveling at us both being here, but my stomach is churning with anticipation, knowing what is through the doors of the cabin.
His children.
"I'm trying to understand how you ended up here," he says, squeezing my hands tightly as we pass my tiny garden, my beat-up van. "How long have you been here?"
"About a month."
"Why didn't you tell Harper you were here? You know Honor lives on this mountain now, too? Got herself married, even."
I shake my head. "I didn't know that... but I don't want anyone to know where I am. You know how the church is... what if they come looking for me?"
"We could go to the cops."
"No, James. I don't want that mess in my life..." But really, I'm not thinking about me. I'm thinking about the babies. If I rat out George... who will come after me? It's too dangerous.
"You need to use your voice though, make sure no one—"
"James," I tell him, stopping at the base of the small porch. "I made sure nothing bad happened to my family by living like I did."
"Family?" His eyes narrow. "What does that mean?"
I push open the front door, a finger pressed to my lip. Nodding toward the bassinets in the living room.
"You’re a mother?" James's face goes white. I know this is going to be a lot to take in... when he pulled up here tonight he had no idea I would be here, waiting.
And now... now he is going to discover he is the father of three.
"I had triplets three months ago."
James runs his hands over his beard—a look that is taking no getting used to. He looks so handsome like this: rugged, strong and capable. I know with all my heart that he is going to be an incredible father.
When I look back at him, though, I see a sadness in his eyes I wasn't expecting.
"You had George's children?" he asks softly, his hand finding the small of my back.
"Oh, James," I say, shaking my head, giving him the slightest of smiles. "No, these babies are yours."
He draws in a deep breath and steps closer to the sleeping babes.
"How can you know? Surely you and George..." James lets his sentence drop and I'm grateful. I don't want to talk about lying with George either.
"I did what I had to do, but look at them, James. These children are yours."
He kneels before the bassinets, his hands on the rim, looking down at his children for the first time in his life.
Our boys have hair as dark as a raven's wing, eyes that dark, too—mirror images of me. But his daughter, Jamie, has hair as light as the sun, eyes green as the grass. His double. They're sleeping now, but I know when he looks in her eyes, he will know what I knew the moment I held them in my arms: they are ours.
James pulls in a sharp breath as I lift Jamie from the bassinet, swaddled tight, her little hands tucked beneath her chin. I hand James his daughter and there are tears his eyes. "Triplets?" he asks in wonder.
I can't hold back the grin now, and why would I? "Crazy, right? Just like your sister."
James blinks back tears, lifting Jamie closer, kissing her little nose, her cheeks, her lips. Breathing her in and staring at her perfection. My heart has melted, seeping toward my family.
He sets down Jamie and picking up Jacob, then Andrew, memorizing their faces. We stand there for what feels like hours, staring at our children, he unswaddles them looking at their fingers and toes, marveling over their existence. Watching him fall in love with our babies is the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed.
As they stir, I bring them, one at a time to my breast. Nursing them in the rocker, James is transfixed by us, by his family. He begins humming the Beach Boys song, Wouldn't It Be Nice as a lullaby, and that's when I lose it. My tears begin to fall for the time he has lost, and they have lost. For the moments he has missed.
But it's only been three months... and the truth is, I thought it was forever.
I thought he was dead, but he is here, his voice cracking, tears in his eyes, over the lyrics that mean so much to us both. And somehow his voice is more soulful, raw—real—it's as if all that we’ve been through has made him more of a man than I thought possible. His beard is rough, but his heart, it's still soft.
He’s always been soft to my hard, the wide-open to my closed-door heart.
"It's like those lyrics were written for us," I tell him, rewrapping Andrew in his blanket and lying him in his bassinet. The babies are all fed, and back to sleep. "I haven't heard you sing in so many years."
"I lost my voice when you...."
I close my eyes, knowing they'd be cloaked in regret. "When I refused to leave with you when we were eighteen?"
He nods, walking toward me, and pulls me to stand. "You came out here all alone, with them?" he asks, his arms around my waist, my cheek resting on his chest.
I know I need to tell him my story, hard as it is to tell. It is time.
I take his hand and lead him to the bed I have made on the floor with all the blankets and comforters I had packed. He takes off his boots and pulls me to him, he's watching me as if I am something fragile. What he doesn't know is that right now, I am the strongest I have ever been. Stronger than I ever thought I'd be.
So, with that courage, I tell him the story. I detail the marriage vows with George, how the sister-wives dressed me in white and slipped the gold band on my finger and stood with me before Luke, our pastor. How I stood frozen, the shell of who I had once been, my heart wrecked over his death, unable to grieve.
I tell him how after, I went to the bathroom and threw up in the toilet, terrified of the night to come. How all I wanted was him.
How all I wanted was him.
How all I wanted was him, but he was dead and I was left alone.
And how I slept with George, but that it never felt real.
Because the only real thing I knew was gone.
I tell him about the months of sorrow, not being able to show my heartache over losing him to anyone for fear of what may happen to me.
When I realized I was pregnant, I knew immediately that I was carrying his child. I refused to believe George could ever fill my womb. How I clung to his memory as our babies grew and I how I was stuck in bed—but how that was better than anywhere else I may have had to be.
During the pregnancy, I resolved to leave as soon as the babies were born; as soon as I was strong enough to leave the compound with them.
And how the church planned on leaving anyway. When I tell him about the day of my escape, sick at
the memory, he pulls me to him, and I lie across his chest, his head on the pillows, and I realize I have never been in a bed with him. That tonight is the start of a new sort of life.
"Where did they go?" James asks.
I sigh. "Not sure, George told me Montana... but I don't know any more than that."
"Those fuckers should have to pay," he says, anger in his tone. I've never heard that from him before. He has always been the grin-and-bear-it kind of man, an anchor in the rough seas of life. Not shaken. But now, now he is charged with something different.
I pull up and look at him. "Can't we leave it all behind us? We're together now. It's all that matters."
His eyes are hard, and the day has turned to night and suddenly everything that should be bright and hopeful feels covered in something dark.
"Those men should pay for what they did to you."
"You mean what they did to you and Jonah?" He was the one with broken bones, left for dead.
He shakes his head. "No, to you. I should have taken you from that place before it ever came to that. You say you spent a lifetime being scared—well I was scared too, in ways I've never admitted before. Dammit, Cherish. I should have taken you away and shielded you from this mess. I failed you." He buries his face in his hands, but I refuse to let him think this way.
I pull his hands down, straddling him. Looking deeply into his eyes with intent, blinking my tears away.
"Listen to me, James," I tell him. "You are the man I love, the man who made me a woman and a mother. The man who saw something in a sad little girl and wanted to make her world shine like the stars. And I refuse to let you beat yourself up over the past."
He shakes his head, my tears falling down on his cheek, the salty pain covering us both. He cups my face with his hands, refusing to let go. Just like he's refused to do forever.
"If you want me to forgive myself, you need to forgive yourself too,” he tells me. “We both need to let go of the shit that holds us down. We both need to move forward without regret. Without the past, we wouldn't have this present. And baby, I wouldn't trade this moment for a goddamned thing."
The Mountain Man’s Babies: Books 1-5 Page 44