Man of the Mountain

She ends the call and looks at me with eyes of steel. Hard. Distant. As if refusing to let anything block her view.

“I’ll just stay inside with her while you deal with the tree, okay?” She reaches for Hope, not meeting my gaze.

“Don’t you want to talk about this? About us?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she says tightly. “I’m gonna get that cup of coffee and work at the table, okay? Could you bring her little bed in here?”

I run a hand over my beard. “Just like that? You’re giving up?”

She levels her eyes with mine. “I can’t give something up when I didn’t have it in the first place.”

I clench my jaw. “That is not true, Katie. You have me.”

“Don’t.” She shakes her head, blinking back the tears that threaten to fall. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

“I know you’ve been fighting your own battle all your life, sweetheart, but you aren’t alone anymore. I’m here.”

“For how long, though?” she asks, disbelief in her voice. “Because Kutter, the odds of her going back to her birth mom… they’re high. And maybe that’s where she belongs. I don’t want to get between them.”

“You’re right, maybe they will end up reunited, but in the meantime, she will still need advocates, won’t she? Why can’t we be those people for her? I want to protect her. I made a promise. I don’t break them. And I made a promise to you too, Katie. To take care of you. Let me.”

“Just because we had one reckless night doesn’t mean I’m your responsibility.”

My heart tightens, I can’t lose everything I just found. “No. I’m not letting you off the hook that easy. I know it’s scary — but this isn’t reckless. This is love. And I promise you I won’t let you down. Ever. Let me love you the way you deserve.”

Tears fall down her face. “And if Hope… if we lose her…”

“Then we will get through that together. But dammit, Katie. Don’t go running from the first good thing you’ve ever had.”

“And you’re my good thing?” she asks, her chin trembling, lips quivering. God, I hate to see my girl so damn scared.

“I’m more than your good thing, girl. I’m your man. And even more than that, I’ll make you my wife.”

“Oh, Kutter,” she says, crying into my chest, tears on my bare skin, Hope between us. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Our lips meet and my heart fucking melts. These two girls, they are my whole damn world. “Now let’s get in my truck at the end of the driveway and go figure out what shit we need to do to make sure Hope is safe.”

“You have a truck we can take?”

“Hell yeah. Even has a back row. All set up for my family. We can’t wait til the tree is cut. We need to take care of business. Now.”

“Look at you, all protective.” She smiles up at me.

“Of course I am. You are my family now, Katie. My everything.”

Katie

As we drive out of Fox Hollow, fear threatens to swallow me whole. Up at Kutter’s cabin, his friends Reed, Jasper and James are busy working on moving the tree. My car is still there — Kutter says that’s fitting considering that is my home now.

Is it though? How is this actually going to work? There are a thousand questions racing through my mind, but the most pressing one is what is going to happen to Hope.

I got the intake forms filled out on my tablet while Kutter was rounding up his buddies, and the truth is, we would have to be registered as a foster family to even take care of Hope. And how would that work with my job, with Kutter’s? There are so many logistics to sort.

But Kutter squeezes my hand as we drive down the mountain, toward the city. He seems to believe that the impossible is possible. That together, we can make this work.

Destiny.

Hope fusses in her car seat, and I wish I could just pick her up and soothe her. Kutter turns the radio to an oldies station and Johnny Cash seems to soothe her. I smile, actually leaning back in my seat and relaxing, letting the beautiful, rain-washed forest ease the tension in my heart.

“Did you really say you’re going to make me your wife?” I ask Kutter as we weave through Fox Hollow.

He glances my way, a grin on his face. “Not the proposal you were hoping for?”

I laugh softly. “I’m not the kind of girl who needs a dramatic set up. I just want a real one. A forever kind of one.”

“Well, I meant it. I want to marry you. You can quit your job and instead of working for Lorraine, you can be your own boss.”

“How do you figure?”

“You’ll be busy raising Hope.”