Page 44 of Shared By the Mountain Men Triplets

I should have put a stop to it right then, but I’m not sure I could have.

Boone catches my eyes shifting toward the bedroom and breaks the silence. “How long are we going to keep dancing around it?”

With someone else, I’d deny knowing what he’s talking about, but not with my brothers.

“I’m falling for her,” he says. “And before either of you try to be a martyr about it, so are you.”

Cade looks down at his hands, which for him is as good as a confession.

Boone challenges him anyway. “You want to deny it?”

“No.” Cade’s answer is quiet but without hesitation.

Then Boone looks at me. I’ve lied to enemies, officers, clients, doctors, and once to a chaplain who asked if I was all right after a mission that left blood in the seams of my boots. I can’t lie to my brothers about Wren. “I’m not denying it, but she’s under our roof becauseshe’s in danger. That comes first.”

“It has come first.” Boone straightens and leans forward. “Every damn day. You think I don’t know where the lines are?”

“I know you know.”

He looks away. “Knowing hasn’t made it easier.”

“That’s why we hold the line together,” Cade says.

Boone rubs both hands over his face. “So that’s what we’re saying?”

“I’m saying none of us touch her unless she comes to us clear-eyed and wanting all of it.”

“All of us,” Cade says.

I nod. “All of us.”

Boone’s laugh is low and rough. “God help me.”

“Discipline and respect help you. Remembering she doesn’t owe us a damn thing is what should help you.”

Any hint of charm remaining in Boone’s features falls away. “Don’t talk to me like I’d forget that.”

I stare back at him for a beat, then give a small nod. “I know you wouldn’t.”

We’ve shared women before, but those were other times that belonged to another life. Those were women who knew exactly what they wanted from three identical soldiers with too much adrenaline running through their veins. There were no promises made.

Those encounters were temporary and purely physical, but everything about being with Wren would be different.

I look between my brothers, and for a second, I don’t see our cabin. I see the three of us at nineteen, standing shoulder to shoulder at our first duty station, already tired of people treating us like a novelty. I see us older, harder, bloodied, carrying each other through places that wanted us dead. I see the folded flag at our parents’ funeral, Boone pale with grief, and Cade silent, then absent.

We’ve survived because we do not fracture. We bend, fight, and call each other idiots. We go silent when it’s best.

We don’t fracture, but Wren could do that if we give in to fear. She could become the fault line.

Or she could become our center.

“It has to be her choice,” I say.

Boone draws in a breath and looks toward the hallway. “What if she doesn’t choose it?”

“We protect her, we finish this, and we let her go.” I don’t like the sound of it, and neither do my brothers, but that’s the way it has to be. “We don’t take because we want. We wait until she asks.”

Boone’s voice drops. “And if she asks?”