The Mountain Man's Babies Books 1-5

by Frankie Love

  "I grew up here," Grace tells me.

  "What did you do, to get punished?"

  She swallows, her eyes brimming with tears. "I tried to escape."

  "Why wouldn't they just let you go?"

  "Because the people here are monsters, Cherish. And that is why we need to be smarter next time. Why we need to make a plan that doesn't result in us returning right where we came from."

  I look deep into her eyes. There's more to her story than she lets on, but it's not the time to push.

  "Why are you helping me?" I ask.

  "Because, Cherish, you know what it's like on the other side. But for me? I've never left this place. I need your help as much as you need mine."

  "What will we do?" I ask.

  "We are going to plan another escape, but this time, it's going to work."

  Together, over the course of the next month, Grace and I plan each night when the compound is quiet, we whisper between the cots and figure out how we can leave.

  Sneaking out still seems the surest bet.

  "But it didn't work for you last time," I tell her.

  "Yeah, but it will be easier with two of us."

  It would have been easier, too, if my body would have cooperated.

  I was on bedrest for the entirety of my last pregnancy.

  This one seems no different. I know there must be more than one baby in my womb this time too because even at five months, I know that there is more movement than one fetus could produce.

  And I start cramping.

  The same way I did before.

  I need to see a doctor, but I can't risk asking for one.

  The night of the escape I tell Grace the thing I have been putting off for days.

  "I can't go," I tell her. "I'm scared of traveling, hitchhiking, and sleeping in rest stops. I can hardly move as it is."

  Grace swallows back any fear she may have. "I don't want to leave you, not after all this."

  "I'll fake a fever for a few days if anyone asks. You have to go," I tell her, with the urgency that has grown in my chest every day since we started talking about an escape. "Go find my children. My man. You have to go to the mountain."

  "Alone?" she asks, her eyes wide, her hands nearly trembling. Last time she tried to escape she was caught... but we know more now. We've been scouting the guards, watching when they take breaks, change shifts. The odds of us being successful are higher now, not to mention my time is running out. If I don't leave soon everyone will know I am pregnant. And I don't want to imagine what they will do to me if they find out.

  Grace nods, putting on a brave face. But she's never been anywhere besides the safety of this compound.

  "You can do it," I tell her, reciting the directions to the mountain, telling here exactly where she needs to go. "Take this with you," I tell her, setting the guitar pick in her palm. "And give it to James when you meet him. Because you will meet him. I know it."

  Chapter Eighteen

  James

  Jonah wasn't lying when he said he got himself a bunch of tattoos. He and I got our first ones together in Miami—I got Cherish on my chest, and he got a big ass whale across his. Since then he's covered himself in a dozen more and looks more hardcore than I know he really is.

  Because damn, he can put the babies to sleep about as well as I can.

  He's been here a week, and already he and I have set to adding an addition to the house. When Jaxon and his buddies found out, they told their women to come get my babies and helped us get the addition built in no time.

  With their help, we build three simple bedrooms off the main cabin. Though it’s not technically mine--my father was given it after my uncle died-- we all figure if he ever thought about showing his face back on this mountain he'd be running for the hills, knowing we all had plans to whoop his ass.

  "It means a hell of a lot," I tell them, knowing everyone has taken time off work to help me put this house in order. The babies will appreciate it too—having enough room for them to learn to crawl and walk is a true blessing.

  But it's hard to start counting them.

  Stella, Wilder’s wife, insists on helping decorate. She used to be an interior designer and knows what she's doing. She picks out paint and fabric, and while the men are putting the finishing touches on the cabin remodel, she enlists the help of Josie, the girl who works at Rosie’s diner, to help her get the main cabin room together. I hardly recognize the place.

  She's turned the place into a calm and comforting oasis. How she managed to do that with all the gear a set of triplets require is beyond me. She even turned a small nook into a space for Cherish, believing she will return one day, somehow. Cherish's guitar is hanging on the wall, and she framed a print with lyrics from a Beach Boy's song and added a plush blue chair where I can imagine the love of my life curled up, strumming her instrument.

  "Thank you, Stella, I know you've never met her, but the fact you'd go to all this effort—"

  She cuts me off. "You know, when I met Wilder he had just taken in his brother's newborn twins. I have a soft spot for a man who puts everything aside to take care of his children. What you've done the last five months is nothing short of incredible." She wipes a tear from her eye. "Your babies are all so precious, and we just hate that this has been the reality for you all."

  Her husband, Wilder, comes up behind her, looking at me, and he smiles. "You making my woman cry?"

  "I was just telling James that he has the sweetest babies." She pushes out her bottom lip. "I miss mine being so small."

  Wilder scowls playfully. "Woman, you have plenty of babies in the house."

  She shrugs, pouting. "But none so tiny. Mine talk back now."

  "You’re not allowed to get baby fever, you understand," he tells her, wagging a finger at her, with a smile on his face.

  Stella raises an eyebrow. "I know ways to make you change your mind."

  "Uh, I think I'm gonna go check on Jonah," I tell them, not wanting to be here when they start getting all hot and bothered.

  Stella twists her lips. "He's busy."

  I narrow my eyes. "What's he doing?"

  "He went to town with Josie. Something about needing supplies?"

  I shake my head, having noticed the way Jonah looked at that waitress. She's a sweetheart but damn, she has that glazed over look that screams I want a baby, and I want you to be the daddy. There are too many kids up here, and she's been helping babysit all of them—I won't be surprised if she has Jonah wrapped around her finger by the end of the winter.

  That weekend, the cabin is done. With more space to spread out, we've put the babies in their own cribs in one bedroom, set up another room for me, and the third is a guest room where Jonah is crashing.

  Today, though, Josie came over to hang out on her day off. She and Jonah are in the babies’ room installing a closet organizer and I'm loading the dishwasher. It's like we're a big happy family—except we are missing the one person I need for this to work.

  I close the dishwasher door, and head to the record player, I ordered it online, a copy of Pet Sounds too—Cherish's favorite—and let the song Let's Go Away For Awhile fill the low rafters of the cabin, and I add a few logs to the fireplace. I'm guessing a winter snowstorm is going to come in the next few weeks, and the chill has already come through.

  I'm handing Jacob, who's in a Jump-a-Roo in the living room, a teething biscuit when there is a knock on the door.

  Frowning, I walk over and pull it open, not expecting anyone, and not having heard a car pull in.

  When I open the door, I find a young woman who looks like she's seen better days.

  Much better days.

  She wears a long dirty dress, a bulky winter coat about three sizes too big, and a pair of sturdy boots, and her hair's in a long braid.

  "James?" she asks, her eyes filled with exhaustion.

  My eyes narrow. "Who are you?"

  She swallows, then reaches into her coat pocket. "I'm a friend of Cherish. And she ask
ed me to give this to you." The woman unfurls her hand, and in her palm, is the guitar pick that has crisscrossed the country.

  "You know where Cherish is?" I ask, my hands shaking as I take the pick from her.

  She nods. "Yes. And she needs you. Now more than ever."

  Chapter Nineteen

  James

  Josie, Jonah, and I each have a baby in our arms. The woman who looks like a train wreck personified stands before us, all of us slack-jawed and shocked.

  "Where is she?" I ask, pacing the room. "Tell me, I have to go, I have to get her."

  The woman nods. "I know. Cherish needs you. I hitchhiked here because she needs your help. I left last night and traveled all night. I'm just so tired. And so, so..." She covers her face, heavy sobs escaping her.

  "Oh sweetie, let me get you some tea, and some food," Josie says, setting Jamie in a Pack n Play, and heads to the small kitchen and turns on the electric tea kettle.

  Jonah and I eye one another anxiously, trying to understand the deal. "Where did you travel from?" I ask again. I can't just sit around here if she knows where my woman is. I need to go get her. Bring her home.

  "In eastern Montana. It's about 11 hours from here, way out in the middle of nowhere."

  "We've been going to Montana every week for the last five months," I tell her. "Where exactly were you?"

  “A few hours east of Circle." She shakes her head as if trying to remember details. "The property is so far out, and I've lived there all my life. I didn't even know where I was on a map until I got in a car last night and asked the couple who picked me up for directions." She takes a crumbled piece of paper from her coat pocket. "This is the closest I could come to an address. The compound is off the grid, but there are a lot of us out here. At least six hundred."

  Jonah whistles slowly, and I take the paper from her hand and then head to the hallway where I have a giant map of Montana, red lines drawn over the routes we've taken, the land we've scoured. We never made it to Circle, but we weren't too far off. We were looking in the right state at least.

  "I gotta go get her," I tell them.

  Jonah stands. "You aren't going alone."

  Josie hands the woman a steaming mug of tea, casting a scowl at Jonah and me. I have no fucking clue what we did wrong, but Josie is letting us know there is something we missed.

  "Sweetie, what's your name?"

  Oh, I guess asking that would be the polite thing here—but I honestly don't have time for polite.

  "Grace," she says, then biting her bottom lip, she looks at us worriedly. "Look, I understand you want to go find her, and you need to, but it's very dangerous there. You'll need guns, some sort of protection."

  "I don't need anything but my own bare hands," I say as I turn to go to my bedroom and start shoving clothes in a duffel bag. "Can you stay here, Josie, with the babies? Call Harper, ask her to come too."

  "Should we call Jax first? He can go with you," she says, walking toward my bedroom, worry stretched across her face. "James, maybe we should hear Grace out."

  "I don't have time. And I don't need anyone's help. I know where Cherish is." I turn to Grace. "You said she needed me—is she in trouble? I mean, beyond the ‘kidnapped by a group of psychopaths’ part?"

  Grace nods. "She needs a doctor. Soon."

  My heart pounds in my chest. I remember when they tried to kill me, left me for fucking dead. If they have laid a finger on my woman—there will be hell to pay. "What's wrong with her?"

  Grace bites her bottom lip. "I'll let her tell you that."

  I throw the duffel bag over my shoulder, ready to go. Ready to claim what is mine.

  "Hell, no," Jonah says. "You can't go alone. That's insanity, James. We know better than anyone how insane those people are."

  I slam my fist in my other palm. I don't have time or room in my head for their negativity. I have a singular focus: getting Cherish home. "Dammit, I have to go."

  "Jonah," Josie says, reaching for his hand. "Go with him. He's not thinking straight.”

  "Maybe I'm not," I shout. "Maybe all I can think about is that I need her and I need her now. I look around my cabin, at my beautiful children, and I remember that when they were brought into this world Cherish thought I was dead—and for the last five months I've feared that she was. Now I know we’re both alive, but that isn't enough. I want more than that for us, for our family. I want to fucking flourish. I want to put down roots, and I want to make this mountain our home."

  I can't do any of that without her.

  My words hit them hard. Josie wipes tears from her eyes, and dammit, so do I.

  Jonah fills a duffel bag, Josie asks again if we will tell Jaxon where we are headed, says we shouldn't go alone.

  But I don't have time to wait. I need to go now. While I know I said my bare hands would save me, I think it through and open the gun safe in the back of my closet. We're living in the wilderness and I have two .357 Magnums for protection. I add them to my bag and lock the safe back up.

  Grace explains exactly where Jonah and I are to go once we get outside the compound. She tells us what fence to crawl under, what path to walk on—how we need to do this in the dead of night. She says people might be on guard, considering she escaped, but, who knows, maybe no one will have realized she is missing yet.

  "And where do we go once we get through the guards?" Jonah asks, writing this all down on a piece of paper.

  I grin, loving his optimism.

  Grace explains where Cherish sleeps, tells us she's in a fucking pantry, sleeping on a cot. Imagining my woman like that tears me up again, but I don't have time to get angry about that now. I'll get my vengeance later.

  Once Jonah and I understand the basic layout of the compound, I thank Grace for all she has done for us.

  I lean over and kiss my sons, kiss my daughter. Running my hand over my beard, I'm all torn up inside. I hate that I must leave this mountain, the place my children call home.

  The woods that made a father out of me.

  But I have to.

  Cherish needs us and we need her.

  "Thank you, Grace," I say again, as I pull open the door to go. "Thank you for coming here. For finding me. I owe you everything."

  She shakes her head, her eyes filled with tears. "Go get her, and bring her home."

  I swallow hard, blinking back tears like a baby—forget that—I let the tears fall like a fucking man.

  Because tears don't make me weak. Tears prove I've got something to fight for.

  Someone to live for.

  And it's time I brought her home for good.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cherish

  My stomach is in knots. And it isn't because of the baby—thank goodness. It is because Grace has been gone twenty-four hours, and I don't know if she made it out alive.

  Sitting up on my cot, I exhale, trying to remain calm.

  I go to the bathroom, flicking on the light, I look at my face in the mirror, trying to remember who I am. It's been so long since I have seen my babies, my James. I press a washcloth to my face, trying to stop myself from hyperventilating at the thought of something happening to them.

  Something happening to Grace.

  If she was stopped... then my hopes of escape are narrow.

  I can't think this way.

  I run my hand over my blossoming belly, resting my forehead against the mirror, wishing I could float away to a world where there was sunshine and smiles and the promise of a bright tomorrow. Instead, I'm here, peeling potatoes and washing laundry and scrubbing floors. I'm here, attending services where I am lectured for hours on how to be holy.

  I never used to know what to believe in. It took so long for me to believe in myself—my power to choose my own destiny.

  But I waited too long before... and I fear I waited too long again.

  I should have been the one to try and escape—I shouldn't have let Grace go for me.

  When I press on my hands on my belly, I feel a kick.<
br />
  A tear falls down my cheek. This baby needs its father.

  I need my James.

  I feel myself falling into the dark place I've spent so much of my life. I don't know if the right word is depressed, or prone to sadness—but I do know when things are hard it's hard to keep my chin up... it's hard to be bright when the world feels gray.

  For so long I believed James would always be my sunshine.

  But now he might just be a memory.

  Closing my eyes, I imagine the life for myself that I've dreamed of.

  If Grace was successful, James could be coming for me any moment.

  I can't let myself spiral into a place of weakness again.

  Not now.

  I open the bathroom door, and head to my cot, slipping my dress over my nightgown, tying on my apron, and rebraiding my hair. I put on socks and shoes. There is no one else here, no one watching me.

  When James comes—because I know he will—I will be ready.

  Breathing deeply, I try to quiet the fear bubbling inside of me. And just when I think maybe I can get through this, I feel a sharp pain in my abdomen.

  I press my hand to my stomach again, feeling the beginnings of contractions. The familiar pain of labor.

  But this is much too soon.

  I fall to my knees, eyes closed, head to the ceiling. Please let my baby be okay.

  I start to pray for a miracle, but instead, I get a savior.

  I'm on my knees, biting back the ache.

  I've almost lost all hope, not believing he would find me.

  But he is here.

  "Cherish?" James whispers from inside the kitchen. My James. Here.

  I gasp and call out his name. My deepest wish, my only desire—he is here.

  He pulls off a ski mask, a gun in his hand. He reaches for me, but before I can fall apart in his arms—another contraction rips through me.

  "I need a doctor," I tell him.

  "What's wrong?" he asks, worry in his eyes, his hands refusing to let go of me.