“Well, these clothes are great because I was running out of things that fit,” I state, turning to lean on the counter so I’m facing her. “Are you sure you’re done with these, though? You’re still young. What if you want more babies?”

  “I would have been up for it, but Max is a bit older than me and felt kind of weird about being too old when his kid graduated from high school. And honestly, having Everly already made me feel like my cup runneth over.”

  I nod thoughtfully at that. “Was it weird being with a guy who had a kid already?”

  Cozy’s brows lift as a sly smile spreads across her face. “You know I was Everly’s nanny before Max and I...”

  “Um...no, I did not know this!” I exclaim and jerk my head back. “Holy shit, that’s juicy.”

  She laughs and shyly plays with the strings on her caftan. “I know. It was pretty scandalous initially, and I didn’t think it would turn into anything more than a fling. I thought he was just into me because I was convenient.”

  My brows twitch at that because the same thoughts cross my mind regarding Wyatt and me. I’m living right next door to him, pregnant with his kid, just...easy access.

  “But then...it became more. So much more. And the fact that he had a kid who I loved at first sight...it just...worked. Instant family.”

  Instant family. I repeat the two words in my head, feeling a sense of dread because I’ve never yearned for a family. In fact, when I think of my own family, I just feel...angry.

  “You loved Everly at first sight?” I ask, my tone almost a whisper as the question tumbles out.

  “You’ve met her!” Cozy laughs affectionately. “She has that effervescent spark, you know? That specialness that just pulls you in and makes you root for her. Ethan, I loved the minute I peed on that stick and found out that I was pregnant. God, he gave me such a gift growing inside me. The changes in my body, my heart...it literally felt like we had our own little secret. Our own little language of just existing together. Total happiness...even if he makes me crazy five out of seven days a week.” I notice Cozy’s eyes are filled with happy tears as she jerks back and waves her hand over her face. “Oh my God, I’m such a dick. I’m gushing about being pregnant, and you’re...”

  “Giving the baby up.” I finish what she cannot, a sense of foreboding pressing down on me.

  “Not giving it up. Giving it life. And giving it to someone who will love it until the end of time.” Cozy steps toward me and rubs my shoulder. “It’s an amazing gift you’re giving my brother-in-law.”

  I nod thoughtfully. “So would you say you sacrificed your dream of a big family because of Max, then?”

  Cozy’s face twists in confusion. “Sacrifice seems like a strong word.”

  “Does it?” I ask curiously. “If you wanted more kids and he didn’t, then you catered to him, right?”

  “I didn’t cater to him,” Cozy replies, her brows furrowing at me. “It’s called compromise.”

  “Right, but that’s a huge life decision to compromise on, isn’t it?” I feel my pulse increase as this conversation turns from light banter to intense discussion, but I’m not one to hold back when I’m curious about something. “It’s sort of like dating someone with a different religion. At some point, someone will have to change who they are for the other person.”

  “But if that other person makes you happier than you’ve ever been, then the change isn’t always a bad thing. Being in love with someone makes change feel exciting, not sacrificial.”

  I nod, trying to digest what she’s said. My family wouldn’t dream of sacrificing their own wants for something else. Especially not their own child.

  “Can I ask why you decided to be a surrogate?” Cozy asks, ripping me out of my inner musings. “That’s definitely a sacrifice to your body and your health. It must have been a big decision to say yes to Wyatt, right?”

  My head is nodding as my mind races. “I’d be lying if I said a lot of it wasn’t motivated by money.” I chew my lip thoughtfully before adding something I never had the guts to tell Wyatt when he first interviewed me. “But the truth is, once I started researching it, I was fascinated by the idea of people out there being willing to shell out boatloads of money for a kid. Like...they want a baby no matter the cost. They jump through extraordinary hoops because a child is their ultimate dream.” My eyes glaze over as I struggle to even remember my parents’ faces. Do they even remember mine? Do they even still have a picture of me? “I think maybe by doing this, I’m trying to heal my own inner child because the people in my life...my parents...they had kids by default. They didn’t try for them, didn’t struggle for them. They certainly didn’t dream about them. They just got them. Which made throwing them away so damn easy.”

  The silence is thick in the bathroom when I realize what I’ve just said, and I look up to see Cozy’s eyes filled with tears as she stares at me, lips parted, nose running, cheeks red.

  Fuck.

  I just spilled my guts to a basic stranger, and I should be embarrassed. Or sorry.

  But today... I’m not.

  I’m bitter.

  I’m bitter at how easy it seems for this family to love and care about each other when mine couldn’t find a single fuck to give about me.

  Chapter 37

  Weeks Pregnant: 20

  Animals on the Mountain: 9

  Wyatt

  Every head turns to stare when Calder, Luke, Trista, and I walk into the Mercantile. It’s Saturday night, and my brothers wanted to go to town for a beer and some food. We were heading there in the truck, and I saw the light on above the barn, and something in me felt compelled to stop and invite her. We’ve been seeing each other most nights anyway, unless she’s busy with Avery, so it felt weird not to have her come along.

  And part of me wants this night to be an opportunity to show her that I’m okay with her talking to my brothers and even spending time with them. Her asking me if I thought she was trash the other night really hit me hard. If anything, she’s too good for us.

  Judy sets three beers in front of us and a Shirley Temple in front of Trista. Her eyes drop to Trista’s belly, but she says nothing. Just tips her chin and leaves us be.

  My own eyes can’t seem to stay away from Trista’s belly either. She looks good tonight. Tight black top and a pair of shiny black leggings. She’s showing more every day, and the urge I have to constantly touch her is honestly becoming an issue.

  “Can you guys explain to me the real reason you all thought it would be a good idea to live as neighbors on a mountain? Like...forever?” Trista deadpans, causing Calder to chuckle around a mouthful of beer.

  “What? Is that not normal?” Luke asks with a playful smile.

  “No, it’s not normal!” Trista says, her eyes glittering in the dim bar lighting. “I haven’t seen my sister in a decade, and you guys are neighbors, coworkers, and brothers who carpool to work every day.”

  I smile and lean back in my chair, casually draping my arm on the back of hers. I’m going to let my brothers field this inquiry.

  Calder smiles cockily and leans across the table to start counting off the reasons. “Well, for starters, Wyatt let us build on his land for free.”

  Trista shoots me an impressed look, and I shrug.

  “The views are fucking spectacular.” He ticks off another reason. “And we already work together every day, so who gives a fuck where we sleep at night? Might as well be somewhere with a great fucking view.”

  “And we had to help him develop the land, so he owed us big.” Luke shoots a pointed look at me, and I nod knowingly. They worked their asses off helping me make the land livable before I could even start building. It became a bit of an obsession for us all.

  “And we’re best friends.” Calder slams his hands on the table before thrusting a finger right at my face. “Even if this fucker doesn’t want to call me his best friend.”

  Trista frowns at me, and I just shrug. “I don’t like labels.”

  “He loves me, even when he wants to punch me.” Calder gets up and moves around the table to grab my face, planting a big, sloppy kiss on my cheek. I shove him off me, and just as he moves to sit back down, I kick his chair out from under him, causing Calder to fall to the ground laughing. I fight back my own laughter as I watch Luke help him up.

  Luke smiles over at Trista. “They’re best friends who fight a lot.”

  Calder drops down into his seat and glares knowingly at me. “The truth is, Wyatt is the loneliest loner you’ll ever meet.”

  I growl under my breath and sip my beer, turning my attention away from the table.

  “He likes to be alone, but not too alone.”

  Luke interjects, “He actually doesn’t like to be alone at all. He’s just particular about who he spends time with. He has zero tolerance for people he doesn’t like.”

  “I keep a small circle. There’s nothing wrong with that.” I shrug dismissively and turn to face Trista before I ask, “Why aren’t you close with your sister?”

  Trista’s head jerks back, clearly not expecting the change in conversation, but she opened a door, and I’m sure as hell going to step through it.

  “Well, because she’s not a potbellied pig, most likely.” She shrugs like she’s completely serious, and I half think she might be.

  Calder and Luke laugh.

  “And because she’s kind of a raging bitch who bailed on me when I was sixteen, and she was all I had.” She sips her drink loudly.

  “Where were your parents?” Luke asks.

  “They dipped for good when I was fourteen.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did you live with a grandparent or something?” Calder asks.

  “Nope,” Trista replies cheerily. “Just my sister, who was eighteen at the time and my technical legal guardian. That is until she met a guy and moved to Hawaii with him right before my sixteenth birthday.”

  “Jesus, so who did you live with then?” Luke asks, concern evident all over his face.

  “Myself.” Trista shrugs like it’s completely normal for her to live on her own at barely sixteen. That’s two years younger than Everly, and I am inwardly seething that her parents could do that to her. She was a child. Someone who needed parents. “I literally lived in my family’s same income-based apartment until I moved up onto the mountain with you guys.”

  How the hell did she pay rent? Feed herself? Buy school shit? Pay utilities?

  The three of us all blink back at her, our minds reeling with this new information.

  “That’s fucked up, right?” Luke’s angry voice perfectly portrays the rage I’m feeling right now but am unable to say it out loud.

  Trista’s nose wrinkles. “I mean, I was almost an adult, so it was fine. I had a job and finished high school. One of my friends had me over to her house all the time, so I wasn’t always alone.”

  Calder’s tone is scary serious when he asks, “Do you ever hear from your parents? Where did they go?”

  “Alaska that time.” Trista looks thoughtful as she seemingly works toward recalling the whereabouts of her parents. “They joined some cult, but then they were kicked out and living in Canada illegally for a while. That was five years ago when my mom called and told me that. I haven’t heard from them directly since then, but I think my sister said they were in Maine at one point. I don’t fully recall.” Trista looks stiff and detached as she forces a bright smile that literally hurts my guts. “They weren’t model parents to begin with growing up, always leaving for these religious retreats, so I’m probably better off without them, but yeah...no idea where they are now.”

  The table grows silent as the three of us stew over what these kinds of parents must be like, especially when we had parents who would walk through fire for us. I’d walk through fire for Trista now, and I’ve only known her a handful of months. I want to burn every home their parents ever lived in to the ground and make them watch.

  Calder breaks the tension when he asks, “I bet you wish you could drink right now, huh?”

  Trista bursts out laughing, and we all smile along with her, but it feels sad. She literally has no family looking out for her. Everyone who should have cared about her left her.

  It makes me want to hurt someone.

  Trista

  Jesus, I really need to get a grip these days.

  Can I blame the pregnancy hormones on oversharing? Because two days ago, I spilled my guts to Cozy, and now, I have three mountain men all looking at me like I’m a lost puppy dog. Not the vibe I want for the first night out I’ve had in ages, especially since I’ve been feeling really good about my life lately.

  There’s a weird thing that happens up on the mountain. You seem to lose track of reality a bit. Yes, I go to the shelter every day and beg Earl not to fire me when I’m late. But when I return to Fletcher Mountain, all the noise just sort of goes away. Time just sort of ceases to exist in the magnificence of it all. It’s like this little sanctuary that makes the stresses of the real world disappear.

  It’s magical.

  When coyotes aren’t eating my chickens, at least.

  Calder and Luke are up at the bar, talking to some locals, and I can feel Wyatt’s eyes burrowing in on me. He’s looking at me differently since I opened my big mouth, and I’m pissed at myself for being so stupid. I wish I was drinking alcohol to have something to blame.

  “You have to stop,” I state firmly, turning severe eyes on him.

  “What?” he says, his eyes soft as they sweep over my whole face.

  “Stop looking at me with pity.”

  “I’m not looking at you with pity,” he says, brows furrowed.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “I’m looking at you because you’re beautiful.”

  “Okay, now I know you’re lying,” I harrumph and grab a french fry off my plate.

  “You are beautiful, you know,” he says, turning so his legs are on either side of my chair. I glance over to see if his brothers are watching because this is certainly a more intimate way to sit next to someone who’s not supposed to be having sex with me.

  “And you’re strong,” he adds with piercing eyes. “I could tell that from the first time I met you.”

  I lick my lips and nod. “Thanks.”

  “I mean it, Lucky,” he says with urgency in his voice. “I can’t imagine what it was like losing your parents that way. Mourning the loss of someone who’s not even dead. That has to be a mindfuck. I’m still not over my own dad’s loss, and there was never a day he wasn’t there for me. Never a day I doubted how much he loved me.”

  His words cut deep into a part of my soul I don’t like to access, so I shake him off. “It’s honestly fine. When you grow up in a dysfunctional environment, you don’t know it’s dysfunctional because it’s all you’ve ever seen.”

  I chew my lip thoughtfully, thinking back to the memories of what it was like every day. The verbal, sometimes physical abuse. The erratic behavior. The coming and going without even checking in on me. The nights I would go without anyone cooking a meal or asking if I ate. It sucked that I thought that was all normal.

  “But now that I’m grown, I take care of myself in ways my parents never did. Like when I was little, all I wanted was a dog or a cat...hell, I even begged for a stupid beta fish. And it was always no. And look at me now. I have a pig and a horse and a bunny and chickens and a cat...well, not a cat anymore, but if I want one, I’ll get one. Because I’m doing all the things for myself that no one ever did for me—that no one ever even encouraged me to dream for.”

  I take a sip of my drink and avoid Wyatt’s probing eyes.

  “And as hard as I know an animal sanctuary is going to be to open, I’m going to fucking do it. I’ve been researching how it can be financially sustainable to leverage donations and sponsorships, as I discussed with Max. Land acquisition will be hard, but I have a real estate agent looking for properties that could double as housing for me too, so I’m making moves. I’ll show them—my sister, my parents, the world—that even though I was left behind, I still found my way out.”

  Anger simmers in my veins as I white-knuckle grip my glass until Wyatt’s hand reaches out and folds over mine, silently urging me to release the drink. I do, and when I turn to look at him, his hand moves up to touch my face. His thumb caresses my jawline in a tender way that sends shivers down my spine as he whispers, “Fuck yes, you’ll show them.”

  There’s something about the whisper that makes it so much more meaningful. Like it’s a secret he’s been in on with me the whole time. Like he’s always known I’d do what I said I would do. That kind of validation feels so fucking good.

  I tilt into his touch, relishing the texture of his calloused palm against my cheek. His hand is warm and dry, like the perfect kind of comfort after off-loading a lifetime’s worth of trauma.

  His eyes drop to my mouth, and I feel myself drawing toward him, desperate to feel the certainty his lips just uttered with my own. Maybe if I taste them, I’ll believe them too.

  He moves in to close the space, and just before our lips touch, a loud crash sounds off behind us.

  Wyatt swerves around, and we see Calder and Luke face-to-face with two guys I’ve never met. Calder shoves his guy and pulls back to take a swing. His fist connects with the other guy’s jaw at the same time Luke takes a punch to the stomach. Wyatt’s chair crashes onto the floor as he rushes over there, grabbing the guy off Luke. He grips him by the arms long enough for Luke to take a swing and connect with the guy’s gut.

  Someone jumps Wyatt from behind, twisting his arms into a full nelson, and I gasp as Calder’s guy moves to take a swing at Wyatt. Just before Wyatt gets punched in the ribs, he manages to bend over, lifting the guy behind him off the ground and flipping him over his shoulders before he thuds onto the floor.