Page 232 of Mountain Men Heroes

He grinned down at me before he leaned down and kissed me with a fierce passion I wasn’t expecting.

When he broke the kiss, I’d lost my ability to speak for a moment. All I could do was blink up at him.

He grinned down at me, a little smug at my complete loss of composure. “Night, sweetheart.”

“Seriously? You’re going to kiss me like that right before you leave me?” I asked as I finally found my voice. “Just for that, I’m making you some kind of barks and twig cereal, high in fiber and low in taste for breakfast.”

He laughed and leaned down and gave me a last, quick peck. “Only you could make me laugh after dealing with one of Eeli’s nightmares.”

I looked up at him in wonder and my heart did a little tap dance right there in my chest. It meant the world to me to know I could lighten Dyson’s load, if only for a few minutes.

“I’m glad,” I said softly.

He tangled his hand in my hair again. “My sweet, soft-hearted girl.”

He curved his hand around my neck for an instant as he studied my face. A swift look of sadness came and went from his expression before he stood up.

“Get some sleep, sweetheart.” And with that, he was gone.

It felt like he took all the warmth in the room along with him. A chill settled over me, making me shiver. I pulled the comforter up tighter under my chin, huddling under the covers as I tried to fathom the odd expression I’d caught on Dyson’s face.

I tried not to dwell on the fact they were sleeping together in the other room, and I was left here on my own. But it wasn’t as easy as I wished.

A single tear streaked down my face and into the hair at my temple. All my life I’d dreamed of what it would be like to be loved. Never in all my dreaming did I imagine it involved sleeping alone and isolated from the two men my soul called out for.

Thoughts of how we’d move forward from here chased me into a fitful sleep.

Eeli

“Is she okay?” I asked Dyson as he slid into bed beside me.

“She’s fine.” Dyson got comfortable on his back and rubbed his hands down his face.

“Fuck. I really could have hurt her.” Nightmare images of what I could have done to Clara in my sleep flooded my mind.

“Either one of us could have.”

It was true. Both of us had suffered from nightmares since we got home. That was one of the reasons we shared a room, a bed. We could handle a punch or two from each other, but being able to subdue each other and calm each other down had gone a long way in reducing the nightmares in the last few months.

I hadn’t spent too much time thinking about the fact that not only was I sharing a home, but also a bedroom and a bed, with my best friend instead of my woman. Our woman. Frankly, the whole thing was FUBAR and I’d been holding out hope we’d get it all figured out and get back to normal somehow without getting doctors involved. We just needed time.

But here we were, nowhere near normal, not by the standards. We shared a lover and even that got fucked up, with her lying alone in the next room while I shared a bed with my friend.

“What the fuck are we going to do?” I asked.

“No fucking clue.”

“We can’t hurt her,” I stated the obvious, but my horror at the thought of what could have happened tonight brought on the same greasy ball of anxiety as being away from Dyson.

“We won’t.” Dyson’s hard voice was a vow. I found some cold comfort in his determined promise.

“We won’t,” I repeated.

And cold comfort was all I got for the rest of the night as I tried to find sleep with Clara sleeping apart from us. Hopefully tomorrow would bring a clearer head and a solution for handling all this.

Twelve

Clara