One Bride for Five Mountain Men

“That’s amazing,” she exclaims.

“What’s even more amazing is that the mine actually did produce silver. Eli and Liam took their first findings to the assayer, then made sure everybody in town heard about it. So when somebody made them an offer to buy the mine, they took it. Sold it within a month. Made a hundred thousand dollars. That was a lot of money back then.”

She laughs, a sweet peal that shakes her shoulders.

“Okay, I guess a hundred thousand dollars is still a lot of money,” I admit sheepishly. “But in any case, Eli and Liam knew that they were not miners. They didn’t want to try to learn the skill, and taking the money was a very smart move for them. People died in mines all the time, or got murdered over it, or any of a number of other tragedies could befall them. Even though gold and silver built the West, it was still an extremely risky business. So they took the cash and started a logging company.”

“Oh… right,” she breathes. “Your family fortune is in timber, right?”

“Yes, totally. There is a statue for Eli somewhere in silver country, but the real money was in timber. That was an industry that Eli and Liam knew very well. They basically cornered the market in this part of the Southwest, at just the right time. That legacy and wealth just keeps growing.”

“Until Whitney took it all?” she adds sourly.

“I don’t know if that was her original intention,” I sigh bitterly. “Maybe it was just a series of unfortunate coincidences. But in any case, it was simply easier to give her what she wanted. She got the fame and more money than she could spend in her lifetime. My brothers and I got safety, anonymity, and privacy. It’s a good trade.”

“It most certainly is not!” she objects, rising to standing then immediately sitting back down, frustrated. She glares at her ankle as though it has betrayed her.

“You shouldn’t be out here, hiding! She is the one who should be hiding! She didn’t earn that money! Why should she be hanging out with movie stars and giving interviews and going all over the world, while you guys all pretend to be dead? How is that fair?”

“She is hanging out with movie stars? Like who?”

“Like every single Hemsworth!”

I wince. Yeah, that sort of stings. She does have a type.

“You know what, you should let me write about you,” she says in a low, rapid voice. “We can fix all of that. We can take Whitney down, and get you guys back the life that you deserve.”

“Absolutely not!” I say, rising. “Lola, I don’t even want you to consider it! Just put that thought out of your mind!”

She flinches, and I realize I must look very intimidating. I try to control my reaction, but it is almost impossible.

“I am not kidding, Lola!” I roar, unable to contain it any longer. “I don’t want to hear another word about it! You are not to write about any of this!”

She holds her hands up in a gesture of innocence, and I try to control my temper. After a few seconds of fuming, helplessly realizing there is nothing else I can say, I simply storm out of the room.

Chapter 13

Lola

“What was all that about?” Timothy asks, hovering in my doorway.

I shrug helplessly, trying to figure it out myself. “I’m not really sure,” I admit. “Whitney, mostly?”

“Oh,” he nods, tugging at his chin thoughtfully. “Did you ask him to shave?”

“No, that was his idea,” I remark absentmindedly. “Gee, that is not the way that I expected that conversation to go!”

“Oh, don’t take it too hard. If he shaved, he must really like you. So there’s that.”

“What does that mean?”

He shrugs again. I noticed that he’s the youngest of the brothers, possibly the most charming. He has this sweet innocence about him, though I figure he must be in his late twenties at least. Actually, all the guys seem to be in their thirties, although Jake may be around forty. Still, Timothy is the most boyish, and they tend to dote on him the most too.

“Well, all of this was his idea, you see,” Timothy explains as he takes a seat by the window. “Not everybody thought that crashing a plane in Peru was a good idea, you know what I mean? Some of us wanted to continue being alive. But Whitney promised to destroy everything that we had built. Carty decided that this was our best shot at living a halfway normal life.”

“Does this seem like a normal life to you?” I ask tentatively. “Even halfway?”

He shrugs, staring out the window. The view is breathtaking, with mountains as far as the eye can see and the icy depths of Lake Tahoe below. It looks like a painting. Postcard perfect.