Page 26 of Scoring the Mountain Man

He catches it with his thumb, then sighs. “I guess we should go face your brother.”

We both quickly get dressed, then walk out to the living room holding hands. Wes looks at the both of us, then looks at his best friend.

“Why man? I knew Brey always had a crush on you, but why would you betray our friendship like this?” Wes asks.

“I understand you feel like this is a betrayal of our friendship, and I’m sorry you feel that, but I’m not sorry for what I’ve done. I have been in love with your sister for six years and out of respect for our friendship I never did anything, but this time, I couldn’t hold back,” Jaxon tells him honestly.

“I won’t let you hurt my sister,” Wes says, angrily.

“I have no intentions of hurting your sister. She could hurt me, but I will never hurt her,” Jaxon says, looking over at me and I can’t help the tears that fall.

Jaxon again wipes the tears away, neither one of us really paying much attention to Wes right now as we stare into each other’s eyes.

“You better not, or I’ll have to hurt you. Do you plan to marry her?” Wes asks.

“Yes I do,” Jaxon says, still not taking his eyes off me.

“There you have it, now leave them alone, Wes,” Emily says and I gasp, not having seen her in the room.

“Em, what are you doing here?” I ask, giving her a hug.

“I needed to check and make sure you were okay. I knew there was no power or phone service. Luckily your brother came looking for you and I was able to hitch a ride out here. Of course, had I known that you were doing just fine, I would have kept him away,” she says with a chuckle.

“What if I told you we couldn’t continue our friendship unless you dumped my sister?” Wes asks Jaxon.

“I’d tell you, you’ve been a great best friend and could have been a great brother-in-law, but I understand. I’m not walkingaway from her Wes. I love her and she loves me,” Jaxon tells him.

Wes nods his head, then shakes his head, and then nods his head again.

“Wes, are you okay?”” I ask him.

He looks at me and I can’t tell if it’s anger or disappointment I see.

“You really love him?” he asks.

“I do,” I say defiantly.

“Will you support his hockey career or make him quit?”

I gasp. “I will always support what he wants to do. I would never make him choose between his dreams and me,” I say, shocked that my brother would ask me that.

“Are you going to quit your hockey career?” Wes asks him.

“No. I’m still going to work on the rehab and get back on the ice as planned. Do you want me to quit?” Jax asks Wes.

Wes looks at Jax, then at me, back to Jax and says, “No, man. I don’t want to play without my best friend. It’s been hell already without you there.”

“Then I’ll be back,” Jax says with a smile and the guys hug it out.

“You really want to be here?” Wes asks joking. “You know she has an attitude.”

“Oh, I know and I love every bit of it.”

I laugh as I say, “You have no choice now.”

Epilogue

JAXON

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