Chapter 12
MCGREGOR
ONE WEEK LATER
“ C ome on in,” I say with a sweep of my hand toward the couple standing on my front porch.
Calliope squeals behind me, rushing forward to wrap her best friend, Felicity, in a bear hug. Felicity has long, brown hair with blonde highlights, and her face is open, with big, blue eyes.
Her husband, Fierce Amestoy, trudges in behind her. It’s not often I’m around a man who stands taller than me at six foot four, but he’s got a good two inches on me. He offers his hand, his blue eyes dancing. But I pat him on the back instead, holding up my hand in a brace.
“How’d you do that?” he asks in rich tones, a slight French accent coloring his voice.
“Punching boulders.”
I expect him to act shocked. Like pretty much everyone else. Instead, the brute of a shepherd shrugs as if it’s a natural thing to do.
“So, this is McGregor,” my woman says, coming up next to me and wrapping her arm around my waist.
“Mack?” Felicity corrects, scrunching her forehead.
I shake my head, but Calliope beats me to the punchline. “He goes by McGregor with friends and Mateo with me. But never, ever Mack.”
Felicity’s eyebrow arches, her face filled with a thousand questions.
“I know. I know. I still have to fill you in on everything. This week has been so busy,” Calliope excuses, placing her hand on my chest.
“For us, too,” Felicity says, smiling broadly at her husband. “On that note, you have a lot of explaining to do! McGregor is practically our neighbor! Why didn’t you tell me he lives in Rough and Ready Country?”
I shrug. “Like I said, I was trying to avoid the small-town rumor mill and how it might influence my first impression of Mateo.”
Fierce eyes me for a long moment. “You’re one of those Army Ranger guys. A friend of Wolfe Ormsby, right?”
I nod. “You know Wolfe?”
“I detest that guy, along with his entire family,” the Basque man declares with a bravado that makes me stand back on my heels. I make a mental note to ask Wolfe about this. My boss is the most agreeable guy in the world when he’s not beating the shit out of people.
Calliope’s eyes round, but Felicity’s face remains relaxed. “There’s bad blood between the Amestoys and the cowboys of Rough and Ready Ranch. A land war, you might say.”
Fierce growls low in his throat, his face simmering. But I want to keep today light and happy for my girl’s sake.
“Well, I stay out of shit like that. Make yourselves at home. Can I get you something to drink? Water, tea, juice?”
“Do you have iced tea?” Felicity asks.
“Girl, you know we do,” Calliope says. “Sweet or unsweetened?”
“You already know the answer to that,” her bestie giggles. They head towards the kitchen.
“Ma luciole.” Fierce shakes his head, tsking his tongue on the back of his teeth. “Caffeine? What about the baby?”
“The baby?” Calliope shrieks. “What does he mean?”
Felicity giggles, nodding. “I’ll tell you about it in the kitchen.”
Fierce and I head outside, where I’m manning the grill with my good hand. “A baby, huh?” I ask, lifting the lid of the Traeger and grabbing a spatula to turn the burgers and sausages cooking over the flames.
The giant of a man with curly black hair grins from ear to ear. “Yes, I’m going to be a father. We only found out a few days ago. In fact, you two are the first people to know, which is saying a lot if you knew my big, traditional Basque family.”
“I can imagine,” I nod, eyeing him for a moment. “My mom’s family is from Mexico. When they get to gossiping about shit like babies and marriages, things go off the rails pretty quickly.”
“And do they know about your engagement, yet?”
“More than engagement,” I chuckle. “She’s my mail-order bride.”
I expect Fierce’s head to bob up, his face filled with surprise or alarm. Instead, he nods. “I had one of those, too. But she married my brother instead. Because after meeting Felicity, I couldn’t settle for anything less than her perfection. She’s everything to me.”
In the past, as an inveterate single man, I would have felt out of my depth at this point in the conversation.
But now his words ring so true I can feel them vibrating through my soul.
The corners of my mouth turn up. “That’s how it is with Calliope and me.
She’s a goddess, and I don’t know what she sees in me.
But I’m determined to make her happier than she could ever imagine … for the rest of her life.”
“That’s our job.” Fierce grunts. “Always to make our women happy and put them before ourselves.”
Calliope and Felicity reappear, each carrying two glasses. “Thank you, Shivers,” I say, grabbing a sweating glass of sweet tea from my lover.
Felicity delivers hers to Fierce, before taking a sip of orange juice.
“Mmm, this is delightful,” the towering shepherd says, looking at his glass as if he’s never tasted anything like it.
“Sweet tea made by Mateo. But I’d swear it was my Great-Auntie Myrtle’s recipe if I didn’t know better,” Calliope adds.
“Oh, now I really wish I could drink it,” Felicity says, scowling.
Fierce crosses the distance, wrapping his arm around her. “Soon enough, mon amour.”
Felicity beams at her husband as he leans down to kiss her.
Calliope presses her body against mine, stretching up on her tiptoes to whisper in my ear, “Fierce and Felicity are the most amazing couple. I mean, total relationship goals.”
“And how am I doing in comparison?” I ask, feeling a knot form in my stomach. I’m not sure I want to hear her answer after our rocky start.
“Once I figured out who you really were?” She giggles.
“Yes, my breathtaking fiancée.”
Calliope cocks her head to the side, eyeing me. “You’re without compare. Amazing.”
My cheeks warm, though I have trouble believing her. That said, I’ll spend the rest of my life striving to meet her expectations, working to realize our own relationship goals.
“But, you know, Mountain Mates is already hemming and hawing over our story, trying to find ways out of giving us our dream wedding because of the identity mixup.”
I shake my head, furious at the company for even thinking about messing with my woman’s dream wedding. At the same time, I’ve made more than enough money through my military and civilian careers and investments to provide whatever wedding she wants.
“Don’t worry about Mountain Mates. We don’t need them,” I murmur, my eyes mesmerized by her full, hot pink lips. “We’ve got more than enough money and resources to cover whatever kind of nuptials you want. Period.”
“How about us at the lake with our closest family and friends?” she asks, her large mahogany eyes beaming.
“I thought you’d never want to look at that lake again,” I counter darkly. “After?—”
She shakes her head, cutting me off. “After the wildest night of my life. A night I requested, even though I had no clue what I was getting myself into.”
“I still have more groveling to do, you know,” I whisper against the shell of her ear, glancing over to find Felicity and Fierce whispering to each other and kissing, far too absorbed in each other to care about what Calliope and I are doing.
“Yes, you do,” she whispers darkly. “The kind of groveling that happens on my knees.”
“As I write a lover letter to you with my tongue,” I add with a naughty wink that makes her mahogany eyes sizzle and sparkle and her cheeks glow.
Thank you so much for reading The Mountain Man’s Curvy Surprise . If you loved Callie and McGregor’s story, then you’ll love Payton and August’s romance in The Mountain Man’s Accidental Bride by Julia Stone.
Want to find out more about Felicity and Fierce’s wild ride of a relationship, thanks to Mountain Mates? Keep reading for a sneak peek of their story in Forever with the Mountain Man .