Unwrapping His Mountain Package

I grinned, and when I felt Dane’s fingers lace with mine as he pulled me close, it was almost like the storm was already passing.

Vlad nodded at us, crossing his arms over his chest. “So, are you in? We’ve got more food than we know what to do with.”

“Yeah and this asshole lives in a luxury mansion masquerading as a cabin,” Braun chuckled, kicking snow at Vlad. “Trust me, he’s got the room for more people.”

I turned to Dane. He turned to me. Our eyes met, and slowly, we both started to smile. Above us, the clouds parted, and for the first time in two days, real, actual sunlight started to shine down on the snowy white mountain around us.

And I knew it was all going to be okay.

***

We laughed later, bellies full of food, heads swimming with wine and whiskey, and faces hurting from smiling so much. God, I didn’t even know when the last time I’d smiled so much had been.

The feast had been amazing, and meeting all the others who lived up there on Blackthorn was incredible. Some had come to just get away from it all. Others had run there from something, like us. Others had stumbled onto the place, and stumbled onto a someone who made them realize this was home.

No matter how they’d arrived though, there was only love here. I watched as Axe kissed his wife Larkin tenderly, which was wild for a guy his size who looked as fierce as he did. Behind them, their twin girls toddled around, bringing a smile to my lips.

Ryker and Stone, two biker-types who were close with Axe, were off in a corner playing Christmas carols on guitars while Ryker’s wife Addison sang with this gorgeous voice that filled Vlad’s huge lodge-like living room. Over in the kitchen area, the twin brothers, Austin and Dallas took turns switching off washing dishes and dancing with their bride, Stella.

Their bride. As in, shared. I’d blushed fiercely when Stella had introduced them, but she seemed pretty used to that reaction.

“Don’t ask me how it works,” Chloe, Vlad’s wife, had giggled over a glass of wine later with me and Katrina. She’d nodded at Stella and her men. “But, it does.”

I’d watched as Dane had clinked glasses of whiskey with Braun across the room. Apparently, they knew some of the same people in the Marines, which was crazy. We cheered when Ryker’s little girl Kyrie recited “The Night Before Christmas” by heart. We whistled when Stone broke out into a guitar solo that sounded a lot more like Guns N’ Roses than Silent Night. And we laughed when Stone’s wife Jackie marched over to the two gorgeous and tattooed guys — Caleb and Landon, tattooist friends of Stone’s — and told them to “get their mitts off” her sister, Kennedy, whose arm they were both drawing fake tattoos on.

And after all of that, I found myself sitting by the fire, wrapped up in Dane’s arms, content, and happy.

There was laughter, and warmth, song and dance, food and wine, and mostly, there was love. And Braun’s words from earlier echoed through my wine-happy head.

“It’s a pretty fucking great place to start over in.”

And maybe it was. But maybe, for now, all I needed was the present. All I needed was him, and those arms around me, and the love all around us. The rest we could figure out later.

“Hey,” I whispered, turning in his arms to look up at him. “Merry Christmas.”

He grinned. “Merry Christmas, angel,” he murmured before his lips pressed to mine, kissing me softly. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I whispered back, melting into him as his arms tightened around me and the last bars of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” rang out from across the room.

Epilogue

Dane

When I was kicked out of the Marines, I’d been lost. I’d floundered, and when I’d washed up somewhere, even if I knew it was no place I wanted to be, I’d stayed. Working for Angelo had been a means to an end. It’d kept me above water, in a way, even if I hated working for the prick. But then, somehow, I found the silver lining.

I found her.

Through all the shit I’d waded through, through the storms and the depression and the darkness, I’d come through. Battered and bruised, but saved by an angel I never saw coming. An angel I found hidden in a box in my damn truck, up on a mountain, in the middle of a snowstorm, three days before Christmas.

I found her, or maybe she found me. But either way, once I had her, I knew she was my forever. I knew like the way I know the sun’ll come up tomorrow. Or the way I know the Earth will just keep on turning.

The way I know the way she tucks her hair behind her ear, or the way she gives me that look with her lip caught between her teeth will get me roaring to have her in seconds. No matter where the hell we are.