Triplet Babies for the Mountain Man (A Mountain Man's Baby Romance) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Triplet Babies for the Mountain Man: A Mountain Man’s Baby Romance

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Triplet Babies for the Mountain Man: A Mountain Man’s Baby Romance

  By Ella Brooke

  All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2018 Ella Brooke

  This story is a work of fiction and any portrayal of any person living or dead is purely coincidental and not intended.

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  Chapter One

  Marnie

  I had left everything I’d ever known behind.

  As I drove through the blinding sleet and snow, clutching the old Jeep Wrangler’s steering wheel and peering through the windshield, I reflected grimly on my present situation. I was making my way through the rocky South Dakota mountains as evening fell, and I didn’t like it, not in the least. In fact, the appellation Black Hills seemed to fit them all too well. All around me, blackness had begun to blot out everything.

  In a lot of ways, I thought, it had been a hell of a lot easier to be a bartender in a Minneapolis pub. It had been warm and dry, comfortable and familiar, and hadn’t involved me frantically straining to navigate my way through a snowstorm. It wasn’t like Minneapolis didn’t see snow, because we got plenty of it – somewhere over forty inches a year. But I hadn’t been able to afford to put on snow tires this winter, and driving on I-35 was absolutely nothing like driving on twisting county roads that hadn’t been plowed or salted. Right now, I really, really missed the city.

  But then again, I hadn’t fled my hometown on a whim. I’d left because I had to.

  No choice, I told myself. There’s no going back. Not now, not ever.

  And if I couldn’t go back… then I had to go forward.

  I wasn’t used to driving in the mountains, and the narrow roads and hairpin curves would have unnerved me even on a dry, sunny day. But this was worse. A lot worse. In fact, it was terrifying. I’d felt the Wrangler skid at least three times, and I knew the conditions weren’t even remotely safe for driving.

  But the problem was, I simply didn’t have any other options. Given how narrow and winding the country roads were, there wasn’t any place to pull over, and stopping in the middle of the road in a blizzard was definitely not a good idea. And it wasn’t like there were any hotels out here.

  Hell, there wasn’t anything here. Just a whole lot of mountains, and a metric fuckton of snow.

  “I hate the mountains,” I muttered under my breath, even though there was no one to hear me.

  At that moment, it was true. That morning I had been offered a job in Moose Falls, South Dakota, and at the time, considering everything I’d been dealing with in Minneapolis, it had seemed like a godsend.

  But now I found myself wondering precisely what God might have sent my way. A trickster God, maybe. One who was sitting up high above, perched comfortably on the dry side of the dark looming clouds, laughing at me as I slowly eased my way around yet another sharp curve.

  I felt the rear of the Jeep go sideways again, and I tried to compensate, but nerves caused me to overreact, and this time I only made it worse. The vehicle skidded across the road, then began spinning, and my heart jumped into my throat as I tried to picture exactly where I was. Was I going to plummet off the side of the mountain? Would the Wrangler fall a thousand feet and burst into flames at the rocky bottom of a canyon?

  Even if I didn’t go sailing into an abyss, I still couldn’t see a really positive outcome here.

  The Jeep spun faster, then skidded off the road entirely, bouncing, then rolling over and over.

  I’m going to die, I thought, grinding my teeth together to hold back a scream of sheer, raw terror.

  And then the hood struck something with a horrific crunching sound, and everything went black.

  When I opened my eyes again, I wasn’t dead.

  Could be worse, I thought, blinking into the darkness. Ending up alive was more than I had bargained for when the Jeep began to spin. I moved slowly, trying to figure out where I was, and if I’d been thrown out of the vehicle altogether. To my relief, I was still strapped into my seat, and all my limbs seemed to be still attached to my body.

  Better and better.

  It was cold as fuck though. Apparently, the engine had cut off when I’d hit – well, whatever it was I’d collided with – and had been off for quite some time. I must have blacked out, and it had taken a while for me to wake up again. Probably a concussion then.

  So I had a concussion, I was stranded in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, and it was snowing like Christmas at the North Pole. But on the upside, I wasn’t dead.

  Yet, the more pessimistic part of me muttered, but I ignored it. I was alive, and I was damn well going to stay that way.

  I tried starting the Jeep, to no avail. It didn’t even sputter, and I knew it was dead. But it had given its life in my service, and I couldn’t ask for more than that. I patted the steering wheel affectionately, then fumbled for my phone – not that I’d had service since I started driving up into these godforsaken mountains, but I figured it was worth a shot. It wasn’t on the console, so it presumably had been flung off by the force of the impact.

  After several minutes of rummaging around on the floor, I found it, but it wouldn’t turn on, and it didn’t take an expert to diagnose why. Even though it was far too dark to see, my fingers felt a spiderweb of cracks across the glass. It must have slammed into the dash pretty hard.

  Great. No phone. And that meant no flashlight app, either. I was going to have to walk for help, through the snow and darkness, along a deserted mountain road where I hadn’t passed another car for at least an hour.

  I reached into the back seat, found my coat by touch, and struggled to get it on. My limbs were definitely still attached, but aches and pains were starting to make themselves known. My arms hurt, my neck was sore, my head throbbed like my brain was trying to push its way out of my skull, and one of my ankles was starting to ache with a sharp, gnawing pain.

  But walking was the only option other than sitting here and freezing to death… And I wasn’t going down without a fight, damn it.

  My coat was short, and not heavy enough for these conditions, but it was all I had. Once I got it on, I struggled my way out of the car. Snowflakes continued to whirl through the air as night fell, and there was very little light to see by, but I seemed to have gone down a small embankment and ended up with my hood crushed against a big boulder. Which was admittedly better than sailing off the side of a mountain and falling a thousand feet.

  All I had to do was make my way up the embankment, and follow the road to the nearest town.

  That might be fifty miles from here, the pessimistic voice whispered, but once again, I ignored it. I was damn well finding my way to safety, one way or the other.

  I began making my way up the embankment, but it wasn’t as easy as I’d imagined. It was a
steep hill, and the grass and dirt were covered with several inches of snow and ice. Besides, my leg was on fire. Every time I made it up a short distance, I slipped back down again. More than once, I wound up on my ass, and before long my jeans were caked with snow and dirt.

  After several diligent efforts, and too many minutes wasted, I sighed, and gave up on the idea of climbing up this particular hill. I just wasn’t physically capable of managing it, not in these conditions. Perhaps, I reasoned, if I followed the road for a short distance, I’d find a place where it was easier to climb up.

  I left the sad, crushed remnants of my faithful Jeep behind, and began to make my cautious way into the woods.

  Maybe it was the concussion, or maybe it was just that it was dark and snow was still lightly swirling around me, but ten minutes later, I realized I didn’t have the slightest idea where the road was. The woods were densely tangled, and I had no idea where I’d come from or where I was going. I was lost, lost in the South Dakota wilderness, on a freezing dark night in early spring.

  You’re in big trouble, the pessimistic voice whispered inside my head.

  This time, I couldn’t ignore it. I knew it was right. I was in the biggest trouble of my life.

  I stumbled on for a long time, my hands jammed into my coat pockets to save me from frostbite. My boots hadn’t been made for this sort of hiking any more than my coat had, but they at least kept my feet warm. I fell more than once, tripping over obstacles I couldn’t see in the dark, but every time I somehow got up again. I’d always been stubborn, and I was absolutely determined that I wasn’t going to die, lost and forsaken, in a South Dakota forest.

  I went on until the darkness and the swirling snow seemed to have taken up residence in my brain. Confusion and exhaustion filled me, and every step was a struggle. I had tried my best, but I knew I wasn’t going to make it. There simply wasn’t any place to go.

  And then, for a brief instant, the snow let up, and through the trees I saw a flickering orange light, shining feebly, like a beacon in the darkness.

  I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin, and marched toward the light.

  Chapter Two

  Tannen

  Thump.

  I was dozing on my sofa in front of the fire when I heard the sound. I jolted awake because living alone in the remote reaches of the Black Hills for the past six years had made me, well, cautious. Predators roamed this wilderness – ursine, canine, and feline, not to mention human. When you lived in the wild, you learned to keep your ears and eyes open, or you didn’t live long.

  I listened carefully, but the sound didn’t repeat. Snow falling off the roof, I figured, blinking sleepily. Not worth checking on, not really.

  Still… it hadn’t sounded quite like snow. Besides, it wasn’t snowing that hard, was it? It hadn’t been, last I checked. It hadn’t been a blizzard yet, just some big flakes swirling around in the wind, and a few inches accumulating on the grass around the cabin. It couldn’t possibly have piled up enough to start sliding off the roof and making that kind of noise.

  Animal, maybe. A bear. A moose. Maybe a raccoon. Could be anything. God knew there was enough wildlife out here in the mountains. In fact, wild animals were my only neighbors for miles around.

  Curiosity spurred me to check. I stretched, cracking my joints and yawning, and then rose to my feet and made my way toward the door. I cracked it open and blinked into the darkness.

  There was a body sprawled on the snowy front porch.

  A second glance told me it was a young woman. She was a bloody mess, and for a terrible instant my brain stuttered and ground to a halt, as the awful memory of another sprawled-out, bloody body flashed through my mind. Panic gripped me by the throat, and a coward-like impulse overtook me, the desire to turn my back on her, to fling the door shut and leave her out there on the porch.

  But no. She was hurt. She might be dying. I had to help.

  I dropped to my knees beside her, checking for signs of life. Her skin was cold and damp, but beneath the chilled flesh, I felt her pulse beating steadily, reassuringly. I had no idea how badly she’d been hurt, and I hesitated to move her, lest I inadvertently worsen her injuries, but I couldn’t leave her out here in the cold, either.

  As carefully as I could, I lifted her into my arms, cradling her with caution. She weighed almost nothing, and it was easy enough to carry her into my bedroom. I placed her gently on the bed, heedless of the blood and melting snow and dirt on the patchwork quilt I had spent months creating, and looked down at her.

  She was bleeding from a gash along her hairline. The blood seeped out slowly, probably reduced to a trickle at least partly due to the cold outside. I would need to close that up, and I’d have to do it carefully because a pretty face like hers shouldn’t be scarred.

  She was pale and blue with cold, and I covered her with all the quilts and blankets I could find, then quickly got the banked fire roaring. Then I paused, considering what to do next. I couldn’t leave her in her soaked and muddied clothing. But I couldn’t easily take it off her when she was unconscious – it would be like handling a corpse, and I might well injure her if she had any broken limbs.

  After some thought, I decided the best thing to do would be to cut her clothing off. I found a hunting knife, and after uncovering her for a moment, I carefully sliced off her coat (which was nowhere heavy enough for these mountains, even in springtime), and then the rest of her clothing. She wore a green T-shirt that advertised O’SULLIVAN’S PUB, and I wondered if she was a regular customer at the place, or if she worked there.

  Regardless, she was soaked to the skin, and the shirt had to come off, as did her (quite tight) jeans, not to mention the small scraps of white lace she wore beneath. The shapeless winter coat, I discovered, had concealed a body of rare beauty. She was slender but curvaceous, with a slim waist and womanly hips, and despite myself, I couldn’t restrain my body’s automatic response.

  Stop it, I told my cock. She’s unconscious, for Chrissake.

  My cock didn’t care. She was the first naked woman I’d seen in many a lonely moon, and she was fucking gorgeous. Her skin was pale, too pale, but the warmth of the room was beginning to make it rosy again. Her hair was long, and probably golden when it was dry, though it was impossible to be certain, soaking wet and caked with mud as it was right now. Her face was a sweet, unlined oval, her mouth a pink, lush bow, and her breasts—

  Stop it, I told my cock again, and the rest of me as well. I realized I wasn’t just looking, but staring hungrily, and she didn’t deserve that. She was lost and helpless, and she needed me to take care of her, not lust after her.

  I looked her over thoroughly, as respectfully as I could manage with a raging hard-on, and decided nothing was broken, though her right ankle was badly swollen with what I guessed to be a sprain. I wondered how far she had limped, through dark, snowy woods, to find her way here. Judging from the state of her clothing, she’d made it quite some distance.

  This young woman has guts.

  She was beautiful, and she was tough. And she was the first person to breach the lonely emptiness of my life in years. I was looking forward to talking with her when she awakened, more than I’d looked forward to anything in a long, long time.

  Chapter Three

  Marnie

  I woke up in a state of confusion.

  I was in the Jeep, right? I was pretty sure I had been driving, but I couldn’t quite remember why, or to where. I struggled to focus on what had happened, and vaguely, I recalled the car spinning, an awful crunch, and then… nothing.

  I frowned into the dimness, considering the problem a little longer. Thinking made my head hurt, but I tried my best anyway. After some moments, I managed to recall that I had fled from Minneapolis and that I’d been driving toward a new job in… well, some small town or other, somewhere in South Dakota. But then what?

  The car had spun. I knew that much. Straining to remember made my head ache, but I had a faint, fuzzy memory of struggl
ing out of the smashed hulk of what had once been a battered but beloved almost-vintage Jeep and stumbling away from it. Toward the road? I couldn’t really remember, but it made sense that I would have headed for the road.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t seem to recall what had happened next. But the point was that I’d definitely been in a pretty bad wreck, so I should be either still in my car, or in the hospital. Or, possibly, dead.

  But as I glanced around, I saw that this wasn’t my car, and it didn’t look like a hospital, either. And it definitely wasn’t heaven – unless heaven had crudely-hewn wooden walls and incredible quantities of patchwork quilts. It looked like I was in some sort of cabin. To my right, there was a wide window, through which grayish light poured in. But little was visible through the window from my current flat position, other than a sort of blurry whiteness.

  I remembered the snow that had been in the process of blanketing the mountains when I crashed and guessed it might still be snowing outside. But night had been falling when I lost control of my Jeep, and now there was definitely daylight (of a glum, sullen sort) outside the window. I must have slept through the night and into the next day.

  But where was I sleeping, exactly?

  I considered it, and although I couldn’t remember, I decided that maybe I’d made my way to the road and found someone to give me a ride. Which still didn’t explain where I was. Anyway, the point was that I needed to get up, and head to… uh… Moose Falls, that was it. I needed to get to Moose Falls, where my new job was waiting for me. Where my new life was waiting for me.

  Your car is a wreck, the pessimistic voice in my head reminded me. You’re not going anywhere.

  Uber then, I thought, and immediately sneered at myself. Even if I could somehow get reception on my cell phone so I could use the app, no Uber driver was desperate enough for money to fight their way into the most remote part of the Black Hills, in a snowstorm, no less, just to save my ass.

  Oh, and my cell phone had been destroyed, too. I remembered that now. So I was stuck here.