Page 9 of Single Mom for the Mountain Men
It was funny, I could admit, but completely reasonable for Jack to warn Lena about us.After all, what man wouldn’t tell an unassuming mother living alone with her daughter about the strange men who have lived in the mountains long enough for them to basically become an extension of the terrain?
Her hands shake a lot, I notice. When she’s speaking, she uses her hands to talk, but stops doing so immediately when she realizes what she’s doing. There are a lot of things about her that she represses in a similar fashion—like she has to hide parts of herself at all times. She’ll start to laugh loudly, but then, she’ll press her palm to her mouth to muffle the noise, like showing people how happy she is will get her into trouble. She makes herself smaller whenever she can, as if trying to avoid drawing any attention. Her shoulders curl inwardly when she sits, and she tries to participate in conversations only when spoken to, no matter how eager she looks to offer a piece of her mind.
There’s also this innocence in every action and thought of hers. When we were about to get stuck in the storm, her optimism, which seemed absurd, brought us out of the forest right before the storm struck. Her wincing every time she had to shoot at a rabbit while hunting, and the small prayer she would say for the animal as it died by my hands, were utterly endearing.
I can see where Sophie gets her guilelessness from.
I’ve never seen anyone react like her, though. I hate seeing her so fearful. To her, the experience of emotions is so pure and clean. It’s unlike anything I have seen before.
Something has made her think that hiding is the only way to save herself, but what I want to know desperately is what does she want to be saved from?
More specifically,whodoes she want to be saved from?
This cloud of mystery shrouding her nags at me. I know I shouldn’t let it bother me, but I can’t help it.
I usually don’t give a shit about these things. All I care about is finding new challenges in the wild, surviving conditions previously deemed too tough for humans to survive. The world isn’t kind, and especially not to me.
I have learned that lesson the hard way; getting beaten into a pulp by loan sharks when I was as young as twelve, running away from home, barely surviving on the streets, doing the nastiest work possible so I had a place to sleep, getting mixed up with the wrong crowd, and racking up debts I could never repay in seventeen lifetimes. All of these experiences have only prepared me to see the world for what it truly is: a cruel, hellish place with no sympathy for others.
But this world is the same one that Lena lives in, where she smiles at little animals and birds whenever she sees them out her window. It’s honestly refreshing to see someone who is not so jaded and defeated by the horrors of life, even after seemingly experiencing them for herself. Her youth is apparent in her eyes—life hasn’t taken the essence of her soul from her like it has from me and my brothers.
It’s a wonderful thing to see.
I usually don’t care what a woman does, or what has happened to her in the past, unless she’s involved with me. Lena isn’t involved with me.
Why do I have this itch under my skin, then? This relentless desire to protect her, to guide her, to have her attention and that little smile turned on me all the time?
It’s crazy. She’s an outsider to life at Whitefish; she doesn’t know how bad it gets here. I don’t know how things were for her back in her city, either—whether they were good or bad, or maybe even a mix of both. There is so much about her that I don’t know, and with how skillfully evasive she is, I can tell she doesn’t trust me enough to divulge much yet.
Judging by her reactions, I can guess that it’s nothing positive. Still, it’s her secret to share when and if she’s ready.
I have to mind my own business. Even if it’s tough.
Chapter six
CHAPTER 6: Aiden
“Aiden, could you check the shower in my bathroom? It hasn’t been spraying water correctly—it just drips,” Lena asks me as she brings her load of laundry to the kitchen.
Lena has grown comfortable around me. More often than not, I’m at her cabin, fixing things that need to be repaired. It’s an old and slightly neglected cabin, so there are always issues popping up that I need to take a look at.
Lena being here is a welcome bonus.Hell, who am I kidding, it’s more than a bonus.The repairs have become an excuse just to see her. Helping her out makes me feel useful and needed like never before.
Shit, I might just like her needing me a tad too much for it to not be selfish.
She starts separating the whites and the colored clothing, and I tell her, “All right, let me get my stuff.”
The trouble with the shower isn’t a severe problem; the showerhead just needs to be screwed on more tightly. I finish with that and end back up in the kitchen, watching her cook.
“What’cha cooking?” I ask her, leaning on my elbows as I press them on the dining table.
“This new ramen recipe I saw. It looked so delicious and doesn’t need many ingredients. The soup has to be healthy for Sophie, though.”
“Is there going to be enough food for all of us?” Tanner and Brody took Sophie out to have fun in the snow, but they should be back in a half hour or so.
“I think so,” Lena says to me with a little nod, though her voice sounds distracted.
I think about how much things have changed between all of us. She was scared to even talk to us when she first met us. Now, she lets her child go play with my brothers so that she isn’t in the way while I’m fixing the broken stuff at her cabin. It feels good to be part of their daily routine, natural, like we’ve always been a team.
