From across the room, Abigail smiled curiously. His insides clenched. Damn, but that was one fine-looking woman. Maybe he could handle it if she was simply gorgeous and had a banging body, but her smile was so warm he wanted to bask in it. She was soft and sweet and everything feminine.
She was exactly the kind of woman he needed to stay away from.
“Heads-up?” Abigail gave the group a laugh.
Sam’s grins could be infectious. Sometimes he wondered if he’d ever smiled before he met Sam. Sometimes it felt like they were two halves of a whole person—Jack the serious half, while Sam was all about the light. It put Jack in the position of older brother, though the two were only three months apart in age.
“I was looking for some beer, sweetheart.” Sam winked.
“You’re always looking for some beer.” Her lips curled up, and she shook her head with an affectionate giggle as she turned her attention back to the game.
Damn but he liked seeing her smile. Seeing her scared and lonely had sent a hole into him that he hadn’t quite managed to fill up yet.
Sam sank onto the couch next to him and a cold beer was pressed into his hand. Abigail started talking to the town’s high school football coach. Jack knocked back a long drink as he gave his partner a pitying look. He wasn’t going to let himself fall for Abigail. It would be an easy thing to do, but he was in control of his emotions. He wasn’t falling for a woman after two dinners, a couple of football games, and that one time Sam convinced him to see a movie then picked her up along the way.
Jack’s eyes went straight to the redhead like a moth to the flame. There weren’t many women like Abigail. She was smart and funny. Her take on the world challenged him. He’d learned more about politics from her in the few weeks he’d known her than he had in years of browsing through the papers. In addition to working at a hospital, she volunteered at a homeless shelter and had raised a daughter. She’d also been married for ten years, and just two years ago had lost her husband to cancer.
Jack sighed. He didn’t care what the town gossips said. She was a lovely, respectable woman. She would be shocked by what he and Sam wanted to do to her. She would run screaming the other way if she had a hint of how badly he wanted her trapped between him and the man he loved like a brother. Jack felt his eyes glaze over as he thought about it. She would be small in between their big bodies. Sam would immediately go for that sweet pussy of hers. He couldn’t help it. Sam loved to eat pussy. Jack would be free to tease her lips with the hard head of his dick. He would tell her exactly what he wanted and how deep he wanted her to take him. He would explain, and she would comply. She would do everything he asked her because she would learn to trust him. He would take damn good care of her in and out of their bed.
She would never have to change a tire again or deal with a crooked plumber the way she had last week. The trailer she was staying in was falling apart around her. Jack wanted nothing more than to get her the hell out of there. She deserved a beautiful house with lots of space. One where she didn’t have to worry about asshole deputies intimidating her.
That was the kind of relationship Jack wanted deep down. He wanted a woman he and Sam could take care of. He was bigger and stronger, so he should be the one to take care of the heavy lifting. He should make life easy for her because she would make it worth living for him. In exchange, she would take care of them. She would tell them when they weren’t properly dressed for an event and force them into suits and ties occasionally. She would watch their beer intake.
She would fuss over them.
She would also suck his cock. That was a given. Sex was a big part of what he wanted from Abigail. He wanted nothing more than to come in from a hard day’s work and sink his dick into some warm, wet place on her body. If there was a spanking involved, then that made the day better. Jack liked to be in charge. The thought of dominating Abigail made his cock strain against the fly of his jeans.
Yes, Sir.
He could still see her standing there in her front yard. She’d looked up at him like he was some kind of damn hero for intervening between her and the deputy. She’d called him Sir and couldn’t have any idea what that meant to him.
He came out of his daydream and shifted, hoping no one noticed his raging hard-on. No such luck. Sam was obviously trying hard not to laugh out loud at him.
Jack took a long, cold swig of beer and stared mulishly at the TV screen. He didn’t even know the score. That woman had ruined the football season for him. All he could think about was sex when she was around.
“Your turn.” Sam pointed to his empty beer.
“That was fast.” Maybe he should start watching Sam’s beer intake.
“I was thirsty,” Sam drawled. “Still am. Beer’s in the garage.”
Jack sighed and stood up. Hell, he was almost empty, too. “I’ll be right back.”
Sam pulled on his shirtsleeve as he walked by. Jack leaned over. Sam whispered low enough that Jack strained to hear him, but the message was clear. “Check out the box marked books.”
Why the hell would he be interested in a box of books? Still, there was something in Sam’s eyes that made him pick up the pace.
He opened the door to the garage and quickly found the box Sam had talked about. Abby had left a good number of her boxes in Christa’s garage since her mom’s single-wide left no space for storage. Jack’s jaw dropped when he opened the box.
He picked up book after book. All romances. Most of them ménage, but there was also a bunch of books about Doms and their submissives. He sat down in the middle of the garage and thumbed through a couple, trying to figure out what Abigail saw in these books. They were a window into her soul. Was she interested in sex, curious about the pleasures ménage could bring her? Or was it something more.
He picked up a book by a woman named Amber Rose and read the ending.
Jackie looked down at the twin rings on her finger and her heart was full. She had no idea why she needed Heath and Cass the way she did, but only those two men could truly fill her soul. Her Doms. Her husbands. Her men.
Jack closed the book.
Abigail Moore had sealed her fate. She might not know it, but she was staying in Willow Fork on a permanent basis. She would be staying with him and Sam. Jack took a long moment to think. He wasn’t a man to act immediately. He was a man who appreciated a plan. Sam might not like it, but he was taking over this courtship.
Jack smiled, but if Abigail could have seen it, she might have run. Jack felt his heart rate speed up in anticipation.
He’d met his mate, and he had no intention of letting her go now.
5
“Well, look at that. Your friends are here.” Christa grinned as she rang up a customer. “And they’re sitting in your section. I wonder what that means.”
“Maybe it means they’re hungry.” Abby stared as Jack and Sam slid into a booth. Sure enough, it was in her section. Abby glanced around Christa’s Café. This late in the afternoon there wasn’t a lot of traffic. She counted two people at the counter and another small group in the section Christa was working. It would be hours before the dinner rush. By then, she and Christa would be back at her place, their long shifts over for the day.
Christa looked pointedly at the cowboys who had been haunting Abby’s dreams for the last month. “They’re hungry, all right. Those boys have been hungry for a month.”
What had changed in the last week? She couldn’t put her finger on it. Ever since that day when they had sat in Christa’s living room and watched the Longhorns play, something had changed between them. Before that day, it had been Sam who called on her, with Jack only making the occasional appearance. Suddenly, Jack was everywhere. In the last week, she’d been out with the two of them almost every night she wasn’t working. On the nights she was working, they would show up at the café and insist on escorting her home. It was weird. And wonderful. The last week she’d felt protected.
It was the first time since she’d come back to
Willow Fork that she’d felt truly safe.
Abby pulled out her order pad and smoothed down the pink skirt of the uniform she was wearing. When she looked up, Sam was studying the menu, but Jack’s eyes were squarely on her.
They were two glorious slabs of masculinity. They both wore tight jeans and western shirts, but the similarities stopped there. Sam was smiling and jovial. Jack was more thoughtful. Abby couldn’t stop dreaming about them. It was just her luck that the minute she decided to live a little, she ran into the two most gorgeous cowboys she’d ever seen and they were gay. It was disappointing, but it certainly made her comfortable around them. Well, it made her comfortable around Sam. Sam was the light-hearted, friendly one. Jack, truth be told, scared her a little. He was intense, and she always felt like he was watching her every move, waiting for her to step out of line.
Then he went and blew the whole bad guy image by fixing her mom’s porch steps and saving her from the deputy. He’d told her to call him if anything else needed fixing.
She hadn’t, of course. It was a friendly gesture, nothing more. She’d been thrilled he stopped to fix the steps, but she knew she was on her own. It wasn’t the easiest place to be, but she’d done it before.
Abby smiled as a mental picture of her husband flashed through her brain. Ben had been kind to both her and Lexi. He’d been everything she could have hoped for in a husband. The sex might not have been the hottest, but he would have dealt with that nasty old Caleb Nevins who’d tried to swindle her over her mother’s clogged pipes. Jack had heard her complaining about Caleb overcharging her at the café and not two hours later, she had a refund check in her hand. Jack Barnes certainly knew how to handle the occasional con artist, and she had no doubt it was Jack and not some magical change in Caleb’s heart.
But until last Saturday, Jack had been very careful not to touch her physically. Sam touched her casually all the time. He was always there to help her out of her car or give her a friendly hug. When they sat on the couch to watch the game on the weekend, he would casually sling an arm around her shoulder, but Abby knew it was just Sam being Sam. He was a tactile person, and Abby didn’t mind. If she’d been more secure, she would have slipped her hand into Sam’s sometime simply for the comfort of warm skin against hers. It had been a very long time since a man had held her.
Last Saturday afternoon, though, Jack had been the one to pull her out of her chair and lead her to the couch while they were watching the game. He’d said he wanted her to have a better view of the television, but she’d been able to see fine. Nevertheless, she had quickly found herself between the two big men, and they hadn’t seemed concerned with things like personal space. Jack had casually rested his hand around the back of the couch, lightly touching her shoulders. His eyes held no small hint of challenge when she looked at him. It was as if he was claiming some right to touch her and daring her to deny him. Abby might have been able to stand up and tell him off if she hadn’t seen that part of Jack that was horribly vulnerable. It was there in his eyes when he looked at her. He was waiting for her to reject him. Besides, she had told herself when she settled against him, she didn’t want to reject his affection. Jack might be gay, but he was a stunningly gorgeous man. He and Sam must be lacking in female friends out in this small, narrow-minded town. Abby had lots of gay friends, and they tended to be very affectionate.
Still, it hadn’t stopped the longing she felt as she took Jack up on his offer and let her head rest against his broad shoulder. Jack’s arm curled around her, and when she felt Sam pulling her feet into his lap, she didn’t protest, just sighed and enjoyed being close to another human being.
This last week she’d spent a lot of time between them, she suddenly realized. Every chance they had, they moved her to the middle. She sat between them in Jack’s big truck when they drove to Tyler to see a movie. She’d been in the middle when they watched TV at her mom’s place. Everywhere they had gone in the last week, she’d had a hunky cowboy on either side of her.
“Do you want me to take that table, Abby?” Christa’s voice pulled Abby out of her thoughts.
Abby winked at her friend. She took out a pen. “Nope. I can handle those two. I bet they want burgers.” It was all they ever ordered. Sure enough, two minutes and a lot of playful flirting later, Abby placed their orders.
Christa cocked a single eyebrow. “You sure they aren’t bugging you? I like them, but I can run them out if you want me to. I’m quite handy with a broom when it comes to pests.”
Abby sighed. “No. I like the fact that they make sure to sit in my section. It’s good to make some friends. I’m flustered. Those are two gorgeous men, after all.”
Christa’s ponytail bobbed, reminding Abby of what she looked like at sixteen. “Well, we can talk about them all night tonight. It’ll be like a slumber party when we were teens. Right down to the cheap bottle of wine I used to sneak out of mama’s liquor cabinet and eighties music.”
“Why not?” This was the night a nurse came and stayed with her mother to give Abby time off. She had packed an overnight bag and would spend the night in Christa’s guest bedroom. It served two purposes, this slumber party. It gave her time with her friend and a willing man to change the oil in her car. Mike was probably already hard at work on her junker.
It was the most she could hope for in this town, to have a nice, slightly drunk night and sleep in a comfy bed for once. Now she wished she’d packed her vibrator. The damn cowboys had her flustered and horny. Abby smiled a little. At least her books were at Christa’s. She could sneak out into the garage, open her box of books, and lose herself in some hot romance. Those books were the only romance she’d indulged in for a very long time. It must be why she was so fascinated by Jack and Sam. They would be horrified if they knew she had fantasized about them last night. They were the fuel for her masturbation. Jack Barnes, Sam Fleetwood, and a pack of double-A batteries. That was all she needed to get going.
Christa gave her a hug. “I know I’ve said it a million times, but I’m so glad you’re here. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you. The yearly trip to visit you and Lexi in Fort Worth isn’t the same as having you here full time.”
Abby looked into her friend’s pretty face. She missed Christa, too. Unfortunately, some things never changed. “Don’t get used to it. I have to move on. If there’s one thing being back here has taught me, it’s that Willow Fork doesn’t change. I’ve gotten pulled over three times by the sheriff. So far it’s been warnings, but eventually he’ll start giving me tickets for everything under the sun. I think the only reason he hasn’t done it yet is that he knows my mom needs me. I’ve promised him I’ll be gone as soon as she’s on her feet again.”
Christa’s black ponytail swung righteously. “I am going to have such a talk with Len James. How dare he harass you like that?”
Abby sighed. This was why she hadn’t mentioned the deputy at all. She appreciated her friend’s indignation, but it wouldn’t get her anywhere. She’d sealed her fate twenty years ago by having the audacity to fall for the richest boy in town. The Echols family had made it plain how they still felt. They didn’t want anything to do with her or her daughter.
They had missed out. Lexi was everything a mom could want from a daughter. She had Adam’s good looks and Abby’s force of will. It was an amazing combination. Abby had never been prouder than the day her daughter started college. Her job wasn’t exactly over as a mom, but the really tough work was done. Alexis was in her freshman year of college, and her future looked bright. It was time for Abby to figure out what to do with the rest of her life.
“Don’t give Lenny hell, Chris.” Abby gave her a sad smile, thinking of the sheriff. He’d been a nice guy in high school. When he’d gone into a government job here in Willow Fork, he had come under the iron fist of the Echols family. It was just Ruby and her younger son, Walter, now. Hal, the patriarch of the family, had passed on last year according to her mother. Still, Ruby wielded her influence with all the
subtlety of a pit bull. “He feels bad enough as it is. What do you expect him to do? He’s an elected official. Nobody gets elected in this town without Echols’s money backing them.”
Christa took a deep breath. “Maybe it’s time that changed. Those assholes have run this town for way too long. Now Walter is talking about running for state senate. They don’t need any more power than they already have.”
Abby searched her friend’s face. “Have they been giving you trouble about me helping out at the café?”
“No.” Christa’s voice was flat. There was an arrogant look on her face. She was a small-business owner who knew how good her product was. “My restaurant is the only one in town that serves a decent breakfast. I haven’t seen anything but an uptick in business since you started taking shifts.”
“They’re curious to see how I turned out,” Abby said with a self-deprecating laugh. Despite the church ladies’ weekly brunch, she’d found most of the working-class part of town was more than interested in her. Many had been shocked to discover she’d worked her way through nursing school. She’d managed it all on her own and still sent some money back every month to help her mother out. Abby had rapidly discovered a world beyond Hal and Ruby Echols’s dominion. It had been a world that Abby conquered in her own small way.
“Or it could be that Sam and Jack suddenly started eating every meal here hoping to catch a glimpse of you. I bet their housekeeper is thrilled with all her free time, lately.” Christa looked over the counter to where Sam and Jack were sitting and talking. Sam laughed heartily. He was really something else. Sam Fleetwood was a testament to the fact that the universe was good to some people. He was broadly built, with strong shoulders and a chest that must look lovely without the encumbrance of a shirt. His golden blond hair curled even in its short style, and his handsome face spoke of a man who laughed easily. He was the opposite of his brooding friend. Jack looked like sin on a stick, and he was…well, he wasn’t paying any attention to Sam now.
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