Page 257 of Mountain Men Heroes

"Not yet. Shit, the four of us can barely talk about it and we lived it. I’m not sure she ever needs to hear about our lives as soldiers, ya know."

A month ago, hell a day ago, I probably would have argued with Sawyer and told him nothing should ever be hidden. But with my own beautiful woman currently tucked away at my house, I had a new perspective.

"Trying to tie her to you as tight as possible before you show the dark side of your life?"

Sawyer just nodded his agreement at my words.

I stood and clapped a hand down on his shoulder. "You've got nothing to worry about. That woman is yours. No doubt about it. But Eeli is right. By sharing stories of your time in the military you can only help."

"Thanks, man," Sawyer said. "I know you're right. I just worry about her. She's seen enough darkness. I want to protect her from anything else that might do more damage."

I nodded, suddenly fully understanding his need to protect the love of his life.

"I hate to break up this love fest," Dyson spoke up dryly, "But back to your news for a sec. Have you considered, Mac, what drove your woman to seek you out instead of just calling? I mean, could that one night stand have meant more to her than she’s letting on?"

I turned to him. "Everyone is pretty damn insightful today. Something in the water or did Trinity dose the coffee machine with some kind of love potion?"

Eeli laughed. "Maybe, or we’ve all been bitten by the fucking love bug and now have feelings and shit."

“I don’t know, man,” I said seriously to Dyson’s question. “I know for one, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. I swear I could sense her here right before the Police Chief called me in. Like I knew Gabriella was close by. She’s in my dreams, too. Every damn night. Her voice follows me through the day.” I scraped a hand down my face. “What the fuck is going on?”

Dyson and Eeli both swore what they have with their woman, Clara, is on a whole other level. That they could feel their shared lover’s emotions as if she shared a part of their souls.

They shared the whole spectrum of emotions as if by some kind of magic. They called it true soulmates but it all sounded hooky at the time so I shrugged it off.

But now I’m starting to wonder if there is some truth to what they shared.

“Maybe she’s your soulmate.”

Eeli dropped his bomb and then pushed up, heading for the coffee machine.

My heart might have come to a complete stop in my chest. I know my breath did. I struggled to pull air into my lungs as his words sank fully into my mind and heart and soul. Then everything that had stopped came to life again at double the speed. My heart thudded at twice its normal rate and my breathing came quick and shallow as the realization solidified itself inside me.

Gabriella Cole, the woman carrying my baby, was my soulmate.

Six

Gabriella

If my head was spinning before I told Mac the truth, by the time he left the house to go to his meeting, I was in a tizzy. Just the fact he’d left me in his house when he barely knew me surprised me. I’d never do something like that with someone I'd known for what amounted to less than a day.

But he’d left me without any warning about where I should or shouldn’t go or things I could or couldn’t touch. I’d done my best not to take advantage of his trust, but he had told me to make myself at home.

So I decided making myself at home included exploring his house some more. Part of me insisted that even without his permission, it was the smart thing to do. Why not make sure he didn’t have three other pregnant girls locked in a spare room or something? He might seem like the nicest guy in the world. And he might be the father of my baby. But I’d already messed up my plans to get to know him better before I shared my news. I figured I should take the opportunity of being left alone in his house to see if there were any skeletons in his closets—literally or figuratively.

As I explored the house, I found that most of it was as nondescript as the outside. Boxy rooms with small windows, lots of beige paint, blinds on the windows but not a curtain in sight. And the small signs of bachelorhood I’d found in the great room were even more evident in the rest of the house—a hamper with clothes piled up high, the king-sized bed in the master bedroom unmade, a shaving kit left on the bathroom vanity.

After I’d peeked into every corner of the first floor and all three bedrooms on the second, and finding no signs that I’d gotten myself stranded in the home of a complete psycho, I debated what to do until Mac returned.

While my mind wandered, my body took up tasks of its own—washing the dishes in the sink, drying them, and putting them away.

When I realized what I’d done, a longing came over me. I was hit with the desire to clean Mac’s house. Not so extraordinary for me. I tended to like my surroundings neat and orderly. To the point where Amber had accused me on more than a million different occasions of suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

But the compulsion here was different from my usual drive to clean. Underneath it, there was a longing to take care of Mac. I tried to tell myself that it was just a combination of my OCD and a desire to do something to earn the room and board Mac offered for the night. It definitely had nothing to do with liking the thought of taking care of the father of my unborn baby.

And that’s the story I kept telling myself as I neatened the pile of newspapers into a stack that I tucked into a basket by the fireplace. And while I changed the sheets on his bed, switching them out for a clean set I found in his upstairs hall linen closet.

I continued to tell myself my newfound domesticity had nothing to do with any feelings for Mac as I sorted his laundry into whites, lights, and darks and started a load of wash in the stackable washer and dryer in the upstairs bathroom.