Take a Mountain Man Home for Christmas: A Mountain Man Romance Christmas Collection

by Crowne, K. C.

  In the background, I heard another voice. “Who’s with you?”

  “It’s a long story,” he said with a sigh. “And I promise to explain everything when I can. Just talk to Teddy and don’t leave the house, we’ll be together as soon as we can find a way to do it safely.”

  “Jack, where are you?”

  “I’m about an hour away. We have to make a stop at a cabin for some supplies, and then we’ll be in touch to figure out the next steps.” He paused a moment. “Just stay with Teddy, Cassie. Tell him, but ask him not to go to the department yet.”

  The line began to get fuzzy. “Jack—”

  “Sorry, there’s no reception out here, I think I’m gonna lose you.”

  “Jack…”

  “I love you, Cassie,” he said just as the line went dead.

  “Jack—” The line was dead, but it didn’t stop me from trying to reach out to him anyway. My hands were shaking, and I nearly dropped my phone.

  I scrambled from the bed and was at the door when I realized I didn’t want my son out of my sight for one minute until this nightmare was over. I hurried back to where he was sleeping, looking so peaceful and perfect, and tried to pick him up as gently as I could. I didn’t want to wake him, but I also couldn’t imagine leaving him alone either. As soon as he was safely tucked into my arms, I hurried from the room.

  I heard Madison and Teddy talking in the living room down the hall. It was late, but Madison was a night owl, and Teddy usually didn’t sleep much. I was thankful for that now. I rushed into the room, and it must have been the look on my face. Madison jumped up from the sofa, her face as white as a sheet.

  “What? What’s wrong? Is it Owen?” She rushed to my side and began checking on my son.

  “No, no, it’s Jack, actually.” Tears rolled down my cheeks.

  “What’s wrong with Jack?” Madison asked me.

  “He’s in trouble, and he thinks we’re all in trouble too. He thinks someone might come after us,” I said, my voice shaking.

  Teddy was up on his feet and next to me in a second. “What’s going on, Cassie?”

  “I don’t know all the details, and he said to tell you, but asks that you don’t go to the department just yet. He’ll be in touch as soon as he can,” I listed breathlessly. “But I don’t really know anything else.”

  Madison wrapped her arms over my shoulder and shot a look to Teddy. “Get Zoey.”

  She led me to the couch and sat down next to me. Teddy was gone and back in a flash, their sleeping daughter in his arms, her head resting against her daddy’s chest.

  “Tell us everything you know, Cass,” Madison said.

  “Jack was trying to find evidence against the head guy of the crime ring that killed your father and—”

  “We caught all of them,” Teddy said, shaking his head. “They’re either in prison or dead.”

  “Apparently, you only caught some of them,” I told him. “The big guy is harder to catch, and Jack was determined to get evidence that would put him away for good. He said we weren’t safe as long as the boss was alive and free.”

  “You knew about this?” Teddy asked, his voice tinged with anger.

  “I knew very little,” I promised. “I still don’t know much.”

  Teddy placed Zoey in Madison’s arms and paced the room. He was stewing - likely over us not telling him sooner - but also plotting. I could see the wheels in his head working.

  “So is he coming here? Now?”

  “I don’t know. I think so, but he said they had to grab some supplies first.”

  “I need to call this in—” Teddy muttered.

  “No,” Madison and I said at the same time.

  Teddy stared at us with raised eyebrows. “The police need to handle this.”

  “If this gets out, if even one of your men is working with these people, it could put us all in danger, Teddy. It could put Jack in more danger too.”

  “I trust my men.”

  Madison gave Teddy a look. “All of them?”

  The fact that Teddy hesitated told me all I needed to know. There was at least one person on his team he wasn’t sure about. He sighed and ran a hand over his face. Teddy was a by-the-book kind of man, so this surprised me.

  Madison filled in the details for me. “There’s a new guy at work. He transferred in a month ago, and he’s been in law enforcement for almost as long as Teddy has been alive. He’s causing some problems within the department, and Teddy and I aren’t sure he’s not connected to something bad, but without proof…”

  “Exactly what Jack was dealing with,” I said, turning to Teddy. “You have to understand how fragile this is right now, Teddy. Jack and I trust you, only you. Let’s just see what Jack has to say first.”

  Teddy looked conflicted, but his eyes fell on his sleeping daughter. Zoey was sucking on her thumb, curled up in her mother’s lap. Teddy’s face softened.

  “I’ll do anything to protect my family,” he said with a sigh. “And you’re right. I don’t trust Dave. Something isn’t right about him. But if this gets bad, I’ll have no choice. I trust everyone else in the department with my life.”

  “I know you do, sweetie,” Madison soothed. “And I trust most of them. But right now, I trust Jack more.”

  I was surprised that Teddy agreed with her. He sat down on the floor next to Madison, stroking his daughter’s hair as she slept.

  One day, I want that, I thought to myself.

  One day when all this shit is over.

  Jack

  “We’re home,” Graham announced as he pulled into the driveway of a cabin at the end of a very long dirt road. We were an hour outside Liberty, in the middle of nowhere, and I had no idea who these guys were except they kept claiming to be my brothers.

  Graham had introduced himself first and was the one who broke the news to me. He was the oldest, but only by a few minutes. His twin brother, Samuel, was the spitting image of him. Almost hard to tell them apart, except Graham did more talking. Samuel didn’t say much.

  Mason was the middle child while Elijah was the youngest – or was the youngest until they learned about me.

  We got out of the truck and hurried inside the cabin. The place was nice - really nice, in fact. They’d kept calling it a cabin, but it was the nicest, largest cabin I’d ever seen.

  “We’re only renting this place until we can find a place to settle in Liberty,” Graham said. “We’re looking at building our own place, maybe several homes on a plot of land closer to Liberty.” Graham had a sharp, southern twang. He and his brothers were from Tennessee.

  “Why do you want to move to Liberty?” I asked.

  “Why not?” Graham said with a shrug of the shoulders. “We’d like to get to know our family here, and besides our mama, there’s not much for us in Tennessee after granddad died last year. I think our father would want us to get to know you better, Jack.”

  Graham opened the door to the cabin, and we stepped inside.

  “Are you sure you have the right person?” I asked. “Because my dad - Glen Wiley - wouldn’t have cared less about any of this.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but Glen wasn’t your father,” Mason piped up from behind us.

  The four of them got to work gathering supplies - guns, knives, even rope. I stood and watched, dumbfounded, and wondering if I was dreaming. This couldn’t be real. I didn’t have brothers.

  “My parents had been together since they were children, essentially. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Ever heard of affairs?” Elijah winked at me. He had a large sack filled to the brim.

  “As in, my mom had an affair?” Not that I would put it past her. Her relationship with my father had been pretty shitty. “But when?”

  “Dad told us he was in Vegas for a conference, and he ran into your mother. They spent a few days together, never leaving the hotel room apparently, and—”

  I held my hand up. “Alright, I get it.”

  My mom had a sist
er in Vegas, our aunt, Helen. We’d been to visit a few times when Helen paid for us to travel. But that didn’t prove anything.

  “How did your dad find me?”

  “He was in Salt Lake City recently, came across an article on your release from prison,” Graham said. “He recognized your mom’s name and photo, did some math, and realized the timing would have worked out. He even looked up your birthdate.” He shrugged. “It all adds up. Plus, you look just like him, man.”

  “I look just like my dad too. Glen, I mean. Not—what’s his name?”

  “Clifford Harvey. Cliff for short.”

  “Right. But if I look like my dad, how could I look just like Cliff?”

  “Maybe your mom has a type?” Elijah tossed out, shrugging as well.

  “And sometimes, we see what we want to see. If someone tells you you look like someone, you’re more likely to see similarities. Because you’re looking for them,” Mason added.

  There was one problem with me being my dad’s son - the size difference. Glen wasn’t a big man. No one in our family had my size. Madison and mom were petite. My father was average-sized. But we’d always assumed I took after a great-great-grandfather or something.

  “But how can you be sure? Without a DNA test—”

  “Give him the proof,” Graham said to Mason.

  Mason pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. I stared at it for a second before unfolding it.

  “DNA results? How—”

  “We’re private investigators on the side. Mason has a medical background. Jack, you literally leave traces of DNA everywhere you go,” Graham said with a laugh. “I managed to nab some hair from you during that brawl in the alley.”

  “You what?” I pieced it together finally. He’d been in the alley who stepped in to help me. “You guys were following me?”

  “We had to know for sure if you were our brother, and if so, what kind of person you are,” he said. “So yeah, we followed you a bit.” He smirked as he gathered a couple of bags together and walked toward the door with them. “Ready to go?”

  I stared at the paper in my hand. According to this document, I was 99.9% certain to be related to their father, Cliff Harvey.

  My father.

  I still wasn’t sure if I believed any of it.

  “Why didn’t you talk to me, tell me what was up?” I asked, following Graham out the door.

  “Because we wanted to see what kind of guy you were. Your history isn’t that great, Jack, and it looks like you’re tied up in some criminal enterprise.”

  “I’m not. I mean, not willingly. I was trying to—” I stopped short. I hadn’t told anyone what I was doing against whom. Could I trust these guys? They claimed to be my brothers, but I didn’t know them from Adam.

  “We know now,” Graham said as his brothers packed up the truck. “We had to do some digging, ask about you around town, get the whole story. We know what we’re doing.”

  “I thought you guys owned a security firm. So you do investigative work too?”

  “Whatever pays the bills,” Graham said with a wink.

  He hopped into the truck, and the others followed. I was the last one to climb inside, and they’d given me the passenger seat in the front.

  “I know it’s weird. You don’t know the first thing about us,” Graham said. “But I can assure you that we’re here to help. You have a family you’re trying to protect? They’re our family too. We have a variety of experience,” he explained. “Samuel and I are ex-Marines. Mason is Army. And Elijah might not look like much, but he was an Army Ranger.”

  Elijah flipped his brother off from the back seat.

  “And now, we handle security and PI work. Been doing it for years. I think we can help you out of this mess.”

  “Oh yeah? And why would you do that?” I asked.

  Graham glanced at me with a serious expression on his face. “Because we’re family, and our dad’s last wish was to get to know you - and to help you if you needed it.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean like this.”

  Graham shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter. We take care of our own in the Harvey clan.”

  “I’m not a Harvey, though.”

  “Not yet, you mean. But you will be.”

  I gazed at these men, each in turn - all of them as large as me, all of them rough as me. But there was one key difference between us. They were ex-military and they lived clean lives free of crime. They were nothing like me.

  And I wasn’t sure I would ever be like them.

  Cassie

  “Jack!” I rushed to the door, and Jack wrapped his arms around me. I let him hold me for a while, wishing he would never let me go again. Tears streamed down my face and onto his jacket. I almost didn’t notice the other men with him. Four large, stocky men towered behind us since we’d blocked the entry from the foyer into the rest of the house.

  Madison and Teddy were with us. Madison held Owen, and Teddy held Zoey. We crowded into the tiny little entryway. Madison finally said, “Let’s get into the living room, where there’s more space.”

  I didn’t want to let go of Jack, but I did. I was shaking and crying. He wiped the tears from my eyes, and we kissed quickly before following everyone else into the large living room.

  “Now that we’re all here, I have to ask, what the hell is going on, Jack?” Madison asked, giving her brother a death glare.

  “It’s a long story,” Jack muttered.

  “Well, get to talking.”

  Jack quickly explained why he was in trouble, essentially telling them what he’d told me. He left out a lot of the same details - like who he was trying to catch - but Madison was quick to grill him.

  “I can’t tell you everything,” Jack insisted.

  “And why not? If our lives are in danger, we deserve to know who’s threatening us.”

  “Because the less you know, the safer you’ll be. It’s me they want.” He looked at his sister. “They mentioned you too, Madison, but let’s face it - they want me. It was likely to get under my skin since you don’t know anything. Let’s keep it that way.”

  Madison sat on the couch and scowled. I could feel her anger, and I understood it. She thought she and her family were safe until tonight, and now, they were once again in the crossfire.

  “I think we need to call this in,” Teddy said.

  Jack hurried to negate. “No, Teddy. Listen to me - the man at the top of this is more powerful than you’ll ever know. He likely has plants within the police departments. If we don’t have proof, we can’t take him down, and none of us will ever be safe with him walking around.”

  I expected Teddy to fight it, but something shifted in his face. He and Madison had spoken of Dave before, but I had no idea how deep the mistrust went. Teddy was the sheriff; it seemed weird to me that someone in their department could have more power than him. Then again, as with anything, it all came down to proof. Which we were in short supply of these days.

  Teddy didn’t say anything.

  “And can you explain who these guys are?” Madison asked, pointing at the four men standing quietly at the back of the room.

  I’d always thought Jack was large - but these men were all as large as him, all of them well over six feet. Likely more like 6’5” or above. And they all looked a hell of a lot like him.

  All of them had the same dark hair - dark brown or almost black. Dark eyes too. Rough, rugged beards. Tattoos. They looked like older versions of Jack.

  Jack started to speak, but one of the other guys stepped forward and held up a hand to stop him. “I can explain. I’m Graham. This is Samuel, Mason, and Elijah. We’re brothers. And we recently found out that our father had another son in Liberty that he didn’t know about. We searched for him, and we found him.” He gestured to Jack.

  “Your dad is Glen Wiley?” Madison exclaimed, her eyes wide as she tried to comprehend.

  “No. You see, Glen isn’t Jack’s real dad,”
Graham stated matter-of-factly. “Clifford Harvey is. Said he had a fling with your mother in Vegas right around the time Jack was conceived.”

  Madison’s mouth opened as if she wanted to say something, but no words came out. She stared at Graham, then at Jack.

  “Do you believe it?” I asked Jack, turning my gaze to him.

  He hesitated, looking at the men, then nodded. “I do, actually.”

  “You believe them? Just because they came into town and told you they’re your brothers?” Madison asked, her disbelief plain.

  “It’s more than that, Mads. But yeah, I do,” he said, continuing as she stared skeptically at him. “Listen, you know Mom and Dad never had a great relationship. Dad cheated on Mom, and they split every other month when we were kids. Is it really so hard to believe that Mom snuck away and had an affair while visiting Aunt Helen at some point?”

  Madison was getting visibly worked up, so I hurried over and took a sleeping Owen from her arms. I tried not to wake him, but his little eyes fluttered open, and he began to fuss. Jack was at my side in an instant.

  “Need my help?”

  “No, if he doesn’t fall back asleep, it’s almost time for him to eat anyway.”

  “I can feed him.” Jack’s eagerness made my insides turn to goo.

  I stroked his cheek, and we shared a smile. Even in the midst of chaos, being with him made me think everything would be alright.

  “We need to talk about the next steps,” Graham interrupted.

  “What next steps?” Teddy asked.

  “Well, Jack has a target on his back. I don’t think it’s safe if we all stick together, just in case they come after him. Not with the kids and everything.”

  My heart suddenly sank to the bottom of my feet. I looked at Jack, begging with my eyes. “You can’t leave again. If you think we’re in danger, then what does it matter?”

  “Graham’s right. They want me. I don’t even think they know about you and Owen yet,” he said. “We need to be safe, Cassie.”

  “What if they do come after us?”

  “I’d say get the hell out of here. Go somewhere not connected to any of you, somewhere more public,” Graham said. “A hotel maybe, but under a different name.”