Page 3 of Her Mountain Man's Christmas Lie
“Cybersecurity. Always knew you were smart.” He studies his own mug. “Ran into your mom when I got back. She doing any better?”
“She never told me she talked to you?”
He shrugs.
Shaking my head, I go on. “Husband number seven just left. He got away clean because she signed a prenup and didn’t read the fine print. She gets nothing except the new furniture which he didn’t like anyway. Now she’s pissy about everything becauseshegot screwed.”
He snorts. I laugh.
“Look, I got some money put away. I could help. You could move out. Start over on your own,” he offers.
“Not yet. Not this semester. Maybe later. I know Martha had internet here. I assume you still do?” He nods. “Could I just crash for a couple days? Give myself a mini vacation from the drama. Get ahead on my homework over the holiday.”
He smiles. “With this storm you aren’t going anywhere for a few days anyway. It was already getting rough on the way up. How did you get here? I didn’t see a car.”
My cheeks heat. Squaring my shoulders I meet his gaze head on. “I saw you loading supplies and climbed in and hid under the tarp while you were getting the last load.”
“Damn it, I could have hurt you.”
“You didn’t. So don’t worry.”
“Why?”
Because I love you and can’t stand to see you in pain.“I told you, I needed a break from them.”
Standing, he shakes his head. “You, little girl, are reckless.”
I stand, too. “Shea, I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m a grown woman. I have a mind of my own. What I want, what I do, the risks I take, are my choice.” I wait, watching, letting my words sink in. When his gaze flares just the slightest, I smile inwardly.
“Now, the soup and biscuits you mentioned earlier sound good. I only had an apple for breakfast.”
“You can have the loft. The bed has a dust protecter on it. I’ll strip it after I feed you and we’ll put fresh sheets on later. You’re gonna have to earn your keep. You can collect the eggs after lunch.”
“You know I hate the chickens.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “That was eight-year-old you. You’re a grown ass woman now. Right? You can handle it.”
I walked into that one.
CHAPTER 3
Séamus “Shea”
After eating, I give her different socks to wear with her still wet tennis shoes. Giving me a dirty look, she heads to the chicken coop with me. I have her collect the eggs while I refresh the bedding and give the flock new water and feed.
For all her complaining that she hates chickens, it doesn’t take long for her to start cooing to them. She even picks up a couple of the little ones.
Her mother is a manipulative conniving bitch. Always was, always will be. But I thought she at least cared a little about her youngest daughter. Cheating her out of her college fund just burns me. Chris said they looked like the American dream family from the outside, but they were a shitshow on the inside.
Each of the siblings had a different dad. Their mom cheated on all of her husbands, trying to score a bigger paycheck, a grandeur house, nicer cars, larger diamonds.
Chris and I were the same age, give or take a couple months, ten years older than Cady, and five years older than Noelle, the middle sister. He swore Noelle came out of the womb as demanding, manipulative, and whiny as his mother. I thoughthis rants were just a brother sister thing. For years she showed me a different side.
He and I met freshman year of high school. He was doing everything he could to stay away from his home while I was doing the same with my drunk old man. Miss Martha Palmer, student counselor, former history teacher, put us both in our place. She took me in when my dad killed himself in a car accident and that put both Chris and I on the right path. She mothered and molded him as much as me.
Chris hoped Noelle would grow up and mature from dating me. He warned me not to let his mom use me. And most important, always wrap it. A few months before he died, he told me not to take any shit off Noelle.
The day he died, we were coming off two months of intense back-to-back battles. We’d lost more friends in those two months than the whole eleven years before. Morale was low. It was around that time he made me promise to always look out for Cady, she was the best of them.
