Page 91 of Knot Her Mountain Men

“That’s an understatement.” Morgan flopped backward, gently kicking her dangling feet. “Iwillmove in, but it might take me a bit.”

“One box at a time,” I assured her. “There’s not a huge rush as long as you have enough up here to be comfortable before we have guests. We ordered everything to put in your bathroom so it should be good to go by the end of the week at the latest with all four of us working on it.”

“I don’t want to make more work for you guys.”

“Nothing is ever going to be wrong with more bathrooms in a place that hosts guests.”

She propped herself on her elbows to look at me. “I guess that’s fair.”

“Why don’t I bring some of your clothes up? We can get them put away.”

“Sure. Can I borrow some cloths to wipe out the drawers?”

“Already done. We made sure everything was spotless before it came in here.”

Her bottom lip wobbled, eyes filling with tears.

“Hey, it’s okay.” I moved instantly to sit next to her, wrapping my arm around her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not used to people being that thoughtful.”

“Practice.” I kissed the top of her head and held her against me until she relaxed. “You deserve an easy life, firecracker. We’ll give it to you if you let us.”

Morgan let out a tiny distress sound and locked her arms around me, burying her face against my chest. “Stop being so nice. I’m fucking tired of crying.”

The stairs creaked and Bear peeked through the door. “Everything okay?” he signed, glancing between me and Morgan.

She slipped away from me and planted her forehead against the hollow of Bear’s throat, her arms wrapping around him, and his around her in turn. “The post-heat hormone dip is fucking me up, Bear. I don’t like it.”

I could hear his purr from here, his first instinct to soothe her, always.

“I’ll go get your clothes. Stay here with Bear.”

Garbage bags of clothing sat in the garage and I prodded them to make sure there wasn’t anything secretly breakable, hurling all four of them ahead of me into a pile so I could get them all moving at once, transferring them like that and getting them to sail up the stairs where Bear could pull them off the landing.

We laid out a blanket and tore open the first bag, dumping the contents out. Morgan slid down to the floor, sorting and folding.

“How can we help?” I asked.

“Pull out some drawers and bring them here so I don’t have to get up?”

“You’ve got it.”

Having the meticulous task seemed to settle her quickly. She didn’t want help with anything except putting the drawers back, but I didn’t mind being there primarily for company.

* * *

The next morning Mav and I went into town at an ungodly early hour to pick up everything we would need to finish Morgan’s en suite. She was still asleep when we arrived back, but quickly perked up when she realized what we’d brought home.

While we carted everything upstairs, she took on the task of covering everything already in there with some old sheets to protect it from construction dust. Eager to make progress, we immediately got to work after getting ourselves and the supplies organized.

Bear and Kit had pretty decent construction skills, and I had learned fucking fast when Mav and I moved out here; we both did. It was half a point of pride, and half that I refused to sit by and let Kit and Bear do all the work. Morgan passed tools, made sure none of us shriveled into a raisin from dehydration, and took care of Pumpkin while we worked.

Progress was fast with four sets of hands working on the same project. By the end of the day we had the walls framed, the tiles put in, and the sink, shower, and toilet installed. Every inch of me ached, but it was worth it. Tomorrow we would grout the tile, put in the vapor barrier and drywall, and get to work on the ventilation.

“What now?” Morgan asked as we set our tools aside for the day.

“Are you up for a trip to the hot springs?” I asked.

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