Kept by You
Levi
Another Montgomery brother down…
That makes four. Four brothers, all paired off. Butch and Cassidy. Duke and Maci. Beau and Callie. And now, Rhett and Shea.
Rhett, the one I figured would grow old on a job site next to me, the two of us cranky old fucks yellin’ at our younger crew and single till we died. But not anymore. Rhett’s got a ring and a girl and a whole life waiting for him right down the road.
I’m happy for him, I am. I’d throw myself in front of a damn truck for that man and I could not be happier he found her. I just didn’t think being happy for somebody could feel this much like getting left behind…
I steer my truck up the mountain toward the resort, and I do the one thing I keep telling myself I’m not gonna do, which is turn it over and over in my head like a bad fuckin’ dream.
Is it me?
Because the math won’t leave me alone—and usually, you’d be surprised to know, I actually like math. When it comes to square-footage and calculating lumber orders. Not when it comes to my love life, however.
Every single one of my brothers has found somebody, though.
Grumpy Butch. Brokenhearted Duke. Silent Beau.
On-Call Rhett. If these emotionally-constipated twats can find their person, then why haven’t I?
I’m the fun one, the one who talks to everybody, who never leaves a room without three new friends and a phone number from a pretty girl.
What does it say about me that I’m the one still going home to an empty bed?
Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe ‘fun’ is all I have to offer. Good for a party, good for a night, good for a laugh. Yet, nobody’s ever wanted to stick around and get to know me…
“Fuck me,” I mutter to the empty cab. “I need to chill out.”
Or the universe, or whoever is listening that’s in charge of my damn heart, needs to help a Montgomery brother out, I think to myself.
I push the negative spiral I’m on the edge of to the wayside and focus on where I’m heading and why.
Jenn Paul, the general manager for the Winton’s Ski Resort & Mountain Spa, called wanting a quote on potentially revamping the baths in a couple of the older suites on the third floor.
Nothing major, tile and fixtures, the kind of thing Rhett and I could do in our sleep.
Get in, take some measurements, get out. Simple.
I exhale a deep breath. Simple is good. I need something to steer my mind away from the bullshit. I park, sign in at the front desk, and ride up to the third floor with my tape measure and notebook in my back pocket. Old school? Sure. But it’s more like ‘old habits die hard.’
Even if ‘old’ is only thirty-one.
A walk up to suite 314. The keycard Jenn left me works on the second swipe, and I push the door open. The first thing worth noting is I hear water running inside.
I frown, one foot in the room. The suite’s supposed to be empty given it’s on the bath reno list and nobody’s supposed to have booked it.
But there’s the unmistakable hiss of a shower going somewhere past the sitting room, steam curling faint in the air, and a little twang of a country song humming under it.
“Hello?” I call out. “Maintenance, er, well, contractor. Anybody in here?”
Nothing but what may be Morgan Wallen singing nearby.
Housekeeping, maybe? Or a guest the front desk forgot to flag on the list, perhaps? I walk in, figuring I’ll knock on the bathroom door, apologize, come back later… Except, that’s when I see it.
There’s a rabbit on the bed.
An actual, honest-to-fuckin’-god rabbit. Small, light-brown, with long floppy ears and white-tipped fuzzy feet. Its sitting up in the middle of the crisp white duvet, nose going a mile a minute, staring at me with two round black eyes.
I stop dead, gaze narrowing in confusion. “What the hell?”
The rabbit doesn’t answer, obviously. It is a rabbit.
But it does keep staring at me, ears twitching. And against every ounce of better judgment I have, I edge toward the bed, hands out like I’m approaching a spooked horse.
“Hey there, buddy. How’d you get up here, huh?” I lean in closer until I’m damn near nose to nose with the thing. “You lost, little fella? You’re a long way from—”
The bunny opens its mouth.
And screams.
A full, shrill, unmistakably human scream. High and horrified, tearing through the suite loud enough to rattle my skull.
For one insane, ice-cold second, my entire brain whites out and I am absolutely fuckin’ certain this damn rabbit is a person.
“JESUS FUCK!” I lurch backward, arms flying, a shout of my own ripping out of my chest at a pitch I didn’t know I could hit.
I realize, a half-beat too late, that the scream did not come from the bed, however.
It came from behind me.
I whirl around ready to run, off-balance and boots tangling on one another, when there, in the doorway, stands a woman in my path. Dripping wet, blonde hair, a white towel, two hands raising as I approach too fast to stop, and a look of pure horror on her pretty shocked face.
We collide.
Hard.
There’s a blur of limbs, a strangled yelp, a wet towel slipping to the floor, and the sickening clash of two people going down at once.
The floor meets us and I twist on instinct to take the worst of it.
We hit the carpet in a tangle—her on top for a spinning half-second, then me, my forearms slamming down on either side of her head to keep from crushing her.
Everything stops.
She’s under me. Chest heaving, cheeks flaming, wet hair fanned across the stiff carpet, staring up at me with enormous, baby blue eyes…
It takes my stunned brain exactly one second to catalog the rest. The warmth of her soft skin under me, along the length of me, everywhere we’re pressed together. And the towel—the only towel she was wearing—lying in a useless wet heap three feet away where it fell.
Oh.
Oh, hell.
She’s naked, pinned beneath me on the floor. And, being a gentleman to my bones, I keep my eyes locked hard on her face like my life depends on it. From up on the bed, though, the screaming rabbit peers down over the edge at the two of us, nose twitching, thoroughly unbothered.
And god help me, with this mortified, gorgeous stranger trembling under me and every gentlemanly instinct I have telling me to move, the only coherent thought that surfaces in my self-pitying head is…
Well, guess the universe heard me after all.
Get ready for the next Montgomery looking for love in
Kept by You,