WILDER: The Mountain Man's Babies Read online

  “I’m not saying that to be cruel, but this is my life too, Wilder. You’re already a parent–I’m not. And I’m overwhelmed. I’m starting a new job and have a life that is separate from you. I’m not ready to give that all up for a man I hardly know.”

  I stand, reaching for my clothes, wanting to get back to the mountain before I say something I’m going to fucking regret. I grab a notepad from the bedside table and write down my number.

  “Listen, Stella, go figure out your shit, call me when you know what you want. Because baby, I already know what I want. You. But the truth is, you can’t be my everything because two other children need pieces of me too.”

  Chapter Twelve

  When Wilder leaves the hotel, I break down. This pregnancy has made me emotional sure, but the information Wilder delivered has me more than a little teary-eyed.

  Part of me feels horrible for not just wrapping my arms around him and telling him, sure Dean Wilder, I’ll be your baby-mama and move to who knows where and do this with you.

  But another part of me clings to the reality that I have an entire life that is just beginning. A life with a job I took so I’d be able to buy my freedom.

  I take the first flight home I can find, ignoring my sister's text as I board the plane.

  Anna: So, did he show?

  Ten minutes later, she texts again, and I know I need to answer so she doesn’t worry.

  Anna: Hello?! Are you okay?

  Me: He showed. It got complicated. I’ll see you tomorrow.

  I power off my phone, exhausted, and try to sleep.

  The next morning Anna is at my apartment bright and early.

  “Wow, look at you, managed to come all the way to Capital Hill to fetch me?” I tease, knowing she hates my neighborhood.

  Stepping inside my studio she offers me a latte and a pastry bag.

  “You’re gonna have to move out of here before the baby comes, you know that, right?”

  “I know.” I pull out a warm croissant and stuff it in my face. How could I not inhale the buttery goodness?

  “So… this guy you hooked up… he doesn’t want to be the dad?” Anna asks, never one to beat around the bush.

  I hadn’t called her yesterday to fill her in, mostly because I was still trying to gather my thoughts.

  Am still trying to gather my thoughts.

  How can I want something desperately and at the same time be so scared of it?

  “Oh no, he wants to be the dad. He pretty much told me I was everything he ever wanted. I mean, it was really romantic.” I swallow–the romance between Wilder and me isn’t the issue.

  Romance fades. Is it enough to stake my life on? The life of this baby on?

  Anna sighs, visibly relieved. “Thank God. I thought he was going to be some crazy man.”

  I smirk. “He is crazy. I mean, he would be perfectly happy with me dropping my life and moving to the woods to be with him.”

  “And you don’t want that?”

  I shake my head. I haven’t ruled out the idea, but I am nowhere near ready to genuinely consider it.

  Anna purses her lips. “How in the woods are we talking? Does he have a job? Does he seem normal?”

  I grab my purse and we walk out the door, down the three flights of steps to the sidewalk where Anna’s town car is waiting for us.

  “He seems normal,” I tell her as we slide into the leather seats. “He’s responsible, builds houses... has friends. No red flags.”

  As the car pulls up to the clinic, Anna twists her lips and says, “You aren’t just planning your own life anymore. You have to think about this child too.”

  I never hear my sister–whose priorities are as messed up as my personal life–speak with such sincerity. It forces me to listen.

  “Anna, I’m not ruling a relationship with Wilder out... but I’m not going to be with a man just because I need his financial and emotional support.”

  Anna nods, but the corners of her eyes fill with tears, she is being vulnerable in a way her glossy exterior rarely allows. “That’s really brave of you, Stella.”

  She squeezes my hand, and then starts to open the car door.

  I take a deep breath and begin to tell her the rest.

  “Wilder already has twins.”

  She pulls the car door shut, eyes wide.

  “What?”

  I explain about his brother’s accident, the funeral, and the babies. How yesterday morning when he told me, I responded in fear. How I’m not very brave at all.

  “So now do you see why it isn’t so easy? The other night, before I knew about the babies, I really thought maybe he and I, and this child, that we could make it work. That our story would be this crazy whirlwind, but to be a parent to two more kids? I don’t know.”

  Anna exhales, shaking her head in disbelief. “Can you imagine what it’s been like for him?”

  I look at Anna, trying to figure where my sister with a resting bitch face went; she’s being soft and supportive. And thinking about others. I don’t know how to reconcile myself with this personality switch.

  “I’m sure it’s been awful for him. And I did a horrible job of letting him know that. I made it all about me.”

  She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, adjusts her skirt. “You shouldn’t marry him just because you’re having his baby. I know it’s not that easy. Brent only married me because we were pregnant.”

  “What?” I turn to her, trying to understand. “Nicolette wasn’t born until two years after your wedding.”

  “I lost the baby, but not until after he had proposed. I always wonder, though, would he have married me if I had never been pregnant?”

  “Would you have wanted to?” I ask. Because this can’t all be about Brent.

  She shrugs. “I don’t know, Stella. And maybe that is why I’m such a cynic, so matter of fact about life, and children, and marriage. It is what it is; my choices were never about romantic love. It was about being practical.”

  Listening to my sister is hard. Wilder made my heart soar and my body expand. He made me feel beautiful and courageous and capable. When he looked at me I felt like he saw me, but I’ll also never know if he would want me if I wasn’t carrying his baby.

  “We should go inside,” Anna tells me. “You can’t miss the ultrasound.”

  I give her a hug once we’re on the sidewalk. “I’m sorry you’ve gone through so much alone, I had no idea, Anna.”

  “I know, I kept my cards close.” She smiles, but it falters. “You aren’t going through this alone, though, Stella. I’m here.”

  We walk into the clinic, and for the first time in my life, I’m glad she’s by my side.

  On the ultrasound table, the technician runs a wand over my exposed belly. We hear the thump, thump, thump of a heartbeat, and Stella grips my hand in hers.

  “That’s the baby?” I ask.

  The tech shakes her head, eyes narrowed in on the screen. “No, that one is your heartbeat,” she says slowly. “Hmm, give me a sec.” She squints at the machine as if it is going to speak to her.

  “Is something wrong?” I ask, suddenly scared. The pregnancy was a surprise, of course, but my heart is already wrapped around this little life. I blink back tears, thinking of my sister’s loss, and how she experienced it all alone.

  Am I going to lose something too? Is that why the tech won’t look at me?

  “What’s wrong?” I say more frantic this time.

  Suddenly the room is filled with a heartbeat–a heartbeat that is not my own.

  “Is that the baby? Is the baby okay?” I ask.

  “No,” the tech says still staring at the screen.

  “What?” I cover my mouth with my hands.

  The tech turns toward me now and smiles. “The baby isn’t okay. But the babies are. Congratulations,” she says pointing to the monitor where two embryos are now visible. “You’re having twins.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I regret leaving like I did, I regr
et not fighting, not trying harder to get her to realize I’m in this with her.

  But hell, I’m one man, doing the best job I can. And while I’d love to make Stella my whole world, the truth is, she’ll never have my entire heart. It’s already divided by four. She shares it with our baby and the twins.

  She has called, so there’s that. I’ve spoken to her once a week, for the past month, but the conversations have been stilted, impersonal, stating the only fact she seems to want to offer, that she and the baby are doing well.

  It’s almost as if she’s scared to say something real. And that’s a feeling I can understand. It’s almost like we both know that once we start telling one another the things we think and feel there will be no going back.

  Since she doesn’t offer more, neither do I. And the fact that a film crew is going to be here for the next month doesn’t even come up.

  Our conversations are nothing like they were when we were face-to-face, in one another’s arms.

  It makes me need to see her again.

  Soon.

  The first call I got from her was after her ultrasound, she sounded nervous, overwhelmed, but she said she was just calling to let me know that she was healthy, that the baby was healthy, and that once her job settled down in six weeks, she would come see me.

  That she wanted to see me.

  That gave me hope.

  And damn, I’ve held on to it.

  “You gonna be able to handle this, Dean?” Jaxon asks, coming up behind me, where a crew has been prepping us for the last twenty-four hours.

  “I’m good, I just wonder what this crew thinks they’re gonna get in terms footage. With our filthy mouths, they’re gonna have to bleep out ever other goddamned word.”

  Jaxon laughs. “We’ll make sure Buck gets the most screen time.”

  In the distance I see Buck grinning like a fool as a crew interviews him for the behind-the-scenes footage. The property we are on is going to be his and Rosie’s home, and the show is going to film us building it.

  For the next four weeks.

  A woman pokes her head out of the trailer behind us. With a make-up brush in hand, she waves to me. “You’re up, Wilder, we’ve got to get these shots before the day’s out.”

  Jaxon grins. “They gotta put makeup on you so you don’t look like a fucking scrub.”

  The woman raises an eyebrow. “You’re next, hotshot.”

  Several hours later, the entire entourage is assembled for the photo shoot. Jax, Harper, and their kids. Buck, Rosie, and theirs. And the twins and me. The TV show wants to get photos of us for promotional materials. Apparently, we’re a fucking gold mine, and more than once the producer Janice asks if I’d be interested in being the next Bachelor.

  What the fuck do they think?

  “The babies are so cranky,” Rosie laments after we’ve smiled, posed, and done our fucking part for sixty minutes.

  Rosie’s trying her best to keep her cool while a baby whimpers in her arms and the twins start crumbling crackers in their hands, but she’s done and not making any apologies. “We’ve been out here for an hour. You’ve gotta tell them we’re melting, Buck.”

  He nods at his wife, taking the baby from her arms. “Okay, darling, we’ll tell them we need to wrap things up for the day.”

  “Thanks, love,” Rosie breaths, already relaxed with her husband’s simple response.

  My jaw tenses as I adjust Briar on my hip. Wondering what it would be like to have someone around to help lighten the load.

  As Buck goes over to the crew, Harper asks if I’ve heard from Stella lately.

  “No, she seems very busy with her job. I just wish I had more details, but hell, I don’t even know where she’s working right now.”

  “She travels a lot for her work?” Harper asks.

  “Yeah, she has some new job. But we don’t talk very long when she calls. I think we’re saving everything we want to say for when we’re together.”

  “Huh.” Harper raises an eye.

  Jaxon laughs. “Sweetheart, you’re gonna need to give Dean a little more than that.”

  “It’s strange, isn’t it, that she’s being so... vague?”

  I run my hands over my beard. “Harper, the whole thing is vague. Only one thing is for certain.”

  “What’s that?” Jax asks.

  “That whenever she shows up, I’m not letting her walk away without knowing I’ll do anything to be her man.”

  “Look at you,” Buck says, walking toward us, the producer shouting at the crew, telling them that it’s a wrap. “This woman has got you all tied up after a few days together.”

  “Not even days,” I say, shaking my head. “Hours. And of course, she did, she’s the mother of my child.”

  “A woman?” Janice asks, coming up behind me. “You have a woman on the side? And a child?”

  I shake my head. “No, ma’am. No woman. Buck’s being a fool.”

  She narrows in on me. “What aren’t you saying?”

  Rosie laughs, her hands full with worn-out toddlers. “That his woman Stella Saint Claire needs to get her booty here, and soon.”

  My head whips to Rosie.

  She covers her mouth, real fast. “Oops. Sorry. It’s been a long day.”

  “Stella Saint Claire?” Janice looks at me confused. “That’s your... girlfriend?”

  “No,” I tell her, adamant about keeping Stella away from this cast and crew. “She is going to be the mother of my child, and the truth is, I want to keep our personal life separate from this show.” My voice must be direct enough that she gets my point because she drops it.

  “Okay,” she says waving her hands. “Tomorrow you break ground on the house at six a.m. You all need to be here, in wardrobe by five. Understood?”

  “Roger that,” Buck says. “Now, let’s go back to Jaxon’s place for some beers before Wilder here starts whining about being outed.”

  I don’t mind being outed. Hell, I’d let the whole world know Stella is my woman... but before I tell the entire show, I need to tell her.

  She is the one I want.

  A few weeks later Buck and Rosie’s cabin is coming together. The crew films us as we move lumber with sweat rolling off our backs and down our chests. We’re filmed as we put up walls, shingle the roof, and lay down flooring.

  They make sure to catch our conversations, wanting personal interviews about how Jax and Harper fell in love, how Buck and Rosie met. They want to hear me explain what happened to make me a father to my brother’s children.

  It’s more personal than I expected when we agreed to do the show but I can see our story is too good to pass up. All these babies make for good TV.

  Janice is talking us through the next phase of the project.

  “So the designer will be here today, with her crew.” At this, the producer looks pointedly at me. “And we’re going to have Wilder meet her outside the cabin to give her a tour. She already has seen the floor plans and put together the design, it will be integrated over the next two weeks. You’re in good hands. She has done homes all over the country.”

  “Shouldn’t Rosie be the one to meet her?” Buck asks.

  I nod, it makes the most sense. Rosie is the one who filled out the questionnaires about her interior preferences, color choices, what furniture she wanted for the kids, all that. I have no fucking clue about any of it.

  “Right,” Janice says slowly. “I think having a builder walk her though the project will be most interesting in terms of footage. Trust me, I’ve done this before. And tell Rosie not to worry. She’ll spend lots of time with our designer finalizing things.”

  A few hours later I’m telling my crew of landscapers how to pave the front walkway, when the producer tells me to walk to the driveway, to meet the designer.

  “This is the shot we want,” she says, waving me over with an intensity that doesn’t match the moment. “Get over, here, Wilder.”

  “Hold your horses woman.” I shake my head, adjusting
the mic pack on my back. “I’m coming.”

  I walk down the driveway of freshly dried concrete and see a black town car roll up, covered in dust and dirt. Who the hell decided to drive this ridiculous car up the mountain?

  Before I can make a joke about it though, the door opens, and out steps a woman.

  But not just any woman.

  My woman.

  Stella is here.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I never asked Dean Wilder explicitly where he lived. But I knew it was Idaho. I knew he built houses. Still, I never imagined he would be starring in the show I was working on.

  As we pull up in the town car, and I see him walk across the drive toward me, a million thoughts rush through my mind.

  The first being, damn he looks good. Sweat on his brow, his hair pushed back from his forehead, and his flannel shirt unbuttoned revealing skin I am longing to touch. Taste.

  The second thing I think is why have I been so stupid?

  I thought by biding my time I was giving myself a chance to figure things out. I wanted to finish the show, get some cash in my bank account so I’d have a plan of my own, and then come here and meet Dean.

  Then I’d tell him that we weren’t just having one baby, that we were having two. I didn’t feel like saying that information over the telephone. Especially knowing he already had so much on his plate.

  And knowing that I am carrying two of his children would just cause him to want me to show up here sooner. Or force him to come find me before I was ready.

  Because yes, the moment I heard those two heartbeats, saw the faces of our two babies on the ultrasound screen, I knew I would tell Wilder everything. But I don’t want to be dependent on him.

  The show will pay me thousands of dollars. Money I don’t have and I don’t want to ask my parents for. So I made a decision, but even as I did, my sister Anna looked in my eyes and shook her head.

  She thought my choice was foolish, selfish. That Dean deserved to know that he had two children in the world. Two children with his DNA growing within my womb.