6 Mountain Brothers for Christmas

At the Bonfire...

The incredible aroma of the Driftwood BBQ filled my nostrils and made my mouth water. And my tummy growled loud enough that Jenn turned and looked at me with an amused expression on her face.

“Hungry?” she asked. “Maybe you should get you some good old-fashioned Driftwood BBQ.”

“Maybe, I should,” I said, taking a long sip from my sweet tea – something else I'd missed when I was in California. “Maybe, I'll do that.”

I looked over at the food truck, and as delightful as it sounded, the idea of running into familiar faces – other than Jenn's – filled me with a deep sense of unease. Especially, if those familiar faces belonged to the brothers who now owned the truck.

The McCormick brothers had never been mean to me – not like some of the others in my little hometown had been. We'd just never been exactly close. Cason was my age and had been my lab partner in Biology my sophomore year – not that I expected he'd remember that. And I'd had brief interactions with all three of them over my high school years.

But, it's not like we'd ever been friends. They ran in different circles than I had. They were the popular boys and I was the invisible girl. Hell, if I walked over to the truck and put in my order, they probably wouldn't even remember me. That's what I said to reassure myself once the hunger pangs got to be too much for me to bear any longer.

“Want anything?” I asked Jenn.

“Nah, I already ate,” she said. There was a mischievous twinkle in her eye and her lips were pulled back in a salacious little grin. “But help yourself, darling.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You'll see,” she said giving me a suggestive little wink.

Shaking my head and chuckling to myself, I walked over and got into the long line of people waiting to place their order. Keeping my head down, I did my very best to avoid making eye contact with anybody or drawing attention to myself. I simply kept to myself with my hands in my pockets, and I slowly made my way to the front of the line.

The smell from the grill got stronger as I stepped closer to the window of the food truck and my stomach growled even louder and was more persistent than before. I was dying for some authentic Driftwood BBQ – yet, still a little reticent about seeing my old schoolmates. But I did my best to keep my emotions in check – and stop myself from bolting at the first sign of somebody I knew from back in the day.

I glanced over the heads of the people in front of me and saw two of the brothers working hard inside the truck. I could tell it was them just from the dark reddish-brown hair. The overhead fluorescent lights in the truck, danced off their hair, making the red stand out more than in natural light. One of them – I assumed it was Cason – had short clipped hair. It was almost a buzz cut really, with just a little on top. The other, which I thought had to be Quinn, had shaggy, choppy chin length hair that he had to keep pushing behind his ear – the same hairstyle he'd had back in high school.

I only saw them in profile at first and was staring pretty intently, trying to determine who was who. But then, Cason looked up from what he was doing and caught me staring at them. I quickly looked away, feeling my cheeks flushing, but it was too late. He'd caught me. Dammit.

When I turned my head, trying to salvage something of my dignity, my heart sank when another familiar face caught my eye. This time, it was a woman that called out to me from the crowd.

“Hailey Roberts?” she called. “Is that really you?”

I cringed at the familiar, sing-songy, saccharine-sweet voice of Rebekah Henderson.

She came toward me with a full head of springy blonde curls bouncing around her still perfect face. She grabbed my hands in hers and stared deep into my eyes – her striking blue eyes appearing kinder than they ever had when we were teens. She was wearing a sundress that clung to her very pregnant belly, and a silver cross laid flat against her neck.

She was still every bit as gorgeous as she'd been back in our high school years. I hated her back then and I didn't see tha

t changing anytime soon.

“My lord,” she chirped and then laughed. “I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Where have you been all these years, Hailey? You're like the girl who just – poof – disappeared one day.”

“Uhh well,” I said, desperately trying to come up with something on the fly.

Rebekah was bright, chipper, and seemed nice. Like, genuinely nice. Which of course, is the polar opposite of what she'd been back in high school. She'd been the stereotypical mean girl – sugary-sweet to your face, and then she'd stab you right in the back a moment later.

Back then, it had been easy for me to see through her forced bubbliness. But standing there with her, I didn't get a sense of that mean girl she used to be. She'd either gotten really good at hiding it, or she'd actually changed. If she had, it might be the very first case of a tiger changing its stripes in human history.

I scratched my head waiting for the other shoe to drop when, all of the sudden, I realized that everyone was looking at me. Or at least it felt that way. The knots already in my stomach constricted painfully and I grew increasingly uncomfortable beneath their scrutiny. Almost as if operating of their own volition, my eyes darted this way and that, looking for an avenue of escape.

But I took in a breath and let it out slowly. Forced myself to calm down and act like an adult – and was barely able to manage the feat.

“I’ve been living in California for the last couple of years,” I managed to croak out.

“Oooh, how exciting,” she beamed. “So, what brings you back to Black Oak? Why would you leave a paradise like that?”

My stomach dropped. The dreaded question.