Page 76 of Shared By the Mountain Men Triplets

As I take in the sight of him, his hair rumpled as if from sleep and his eyes free of their usual easy charm, Rhett demands more information from Cade.

“Clipped one,” Cade says through the crackle of the radio. “They’re moving fast. Not coming back without more men.”

“Hold position until I reach you,” Rhett answers.

“Negative,” Cade says. “Stay with the cabin.”

Rhett’s mouth flattens into a silent argument as he grips the radio in his fist.

Boone makes his way towardme, his eyes sweeping over my face, then down to my bare legs below his shirt. “Sweetheart.”

“I’m okay,” I say, but his face tells me he either doesn’t believe me or doesn’t care, because he’s going to put his hands on me anyway. When he reaches me, he wraps one arm around me hard enough to lift my feet off the floor.

Rhett’s gaze passes over us, then away, as he continues to scan windows and doors, converting fear into action, because that’s what he does.

It takes nineteen minutes for Cade to come back, and I know because I count every one.

When he finally appears at the back door, his hair is damp at his temples, there’s mud on his knee, and a narrow scrape along his cheekbone.

I wait only long enough for him to set his rifle down before I throw myself into his arms, and he absorbs me without a sound, one arm going around my back and the other locking over my shoulders.

He’s solid under my hands, and alive. His heart beats hard against my cheek. I stretch onto my toes to kiss him, then touch his cheek, just beside the scrape.

“Are you bleeding anywhere else?”

He frowns, then says, “It’s just a scratch. No. I’m fine.”

I look him over anyway, knowing he’d deflect even if a body part were missing. “They came here,” I say, part question, part statement.

“Two-man team,” Cade says.

“For me?”

“For us,” Rhett says behind me.

“They were probing,” Cade says.

“They weren’t here to grab you,” Boone says. “Too light for that. Too few men. They were testing our response.”

Cade strokes the back of my neck with his thumb. “They found out Turner doesn’t have a clean angle on this cabin.”

“And that we shoot back,” Boone says.

The words are comforting, but they also make my stomach twist in an icy knot. Harlan Turner sent armed men to the cabin at dawn. Any thoughts I’ve had that he’s only trying to scare me are long gone.

“Come here,” Rhett says.

It’s a command, but I go anyway.

Rhett sets his phone on the table and cups my face in both hands. “They came onto our mountain,” he says. “They approached our home, and they ran when Cade engaged. That’s the full extent of what they accomplished.”

My breath catches, and I realize I’m shaking. Not hard, but enough that he notices, too.

“Being scared doesn’t make you weak, Wren.” His thumbs stroke my cheeks.

“I didn’t say it did.”

“No, but you looked like you were about to punish yourself for it.”