Bewitching Bret

by Cheri Chaise

  “Who’d they have to sell it to around here that doesn’t know us already?” Cole busily worked his shirt buttons closed. “Especially when it comes to horses in these parts? Everyone knows you’re the premier horse breeder around here.”

  “What about their pa?”

  Now it was Cole’s turn for his dander to get worked up. “My uncle’s dead.”

  “Maybe not. We only have their word, shoddy as that is.”

  “I spent three days with them on the hay run. They provided a hell of a lot more detail than they apparently gave you.”

  With Cole’s explanation, the remainder of Bret’s frustration deflated under the weight of logical argument. “I’d promised that horse to Zeke Cummins when he was fully broken.”

  Cole transferred his hand to Bret’s shoulder in a comforting display of camaraderie – much like Running Wind had before the tribe.

  “Don’t worry. Come morning, we’ll talk to the hands and see if we can’t ferret out if anyone heard or saw anything. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll be sure and question the shit out of the twins on our way into town at the end of the week to buy out those claims.”

  Bret’s cheek twitched. “Check their saddlebags too. They might be taking things into town to get more money in order to purchase those claims.”

  “Drew or Evan might be able to supply more information on what’s been happening,” I surmised aloud. “There’s not much that gets past Evan, you know.”

  “You’re right.” Bret’s brow furrowed as we walked around to the stable door. “I’m surprised someone got past Evan though. He usually sniffs out trouble before it even shows up.”

  Cole opened the door for all of us to exit – and ran smack dab into the subject of our conversation. “Speak of the devil.”

  Evan’s expression was half in the lantern light and half in shadow. But I could still see the concern that marred his grizzled face as he steadied his rifle in his hands.

  “Stay inside. I just spotted a wild animal at the edge of the clearing.”

  Bret perked up and headed back into the heart of the stables. “She’s probably waiting for me to feed her.”

  “Her?” Evan growled. “Her what?”

  “The dog…before she gets so hungry that she gets into the chickens.”

  Evan’s widened eyes cut to Cole. “We have a dog?”

  Cole crooked his elbow my way to escort me toward the house like a gentleman. A grin painted across his cheeks – just like his youngest brother.

  “Apparently we do now.”

  And I had husbands I no longer recognized.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Bret

  I was up the next morning before the dawn.

  Truth be told, I hadn’t slept a wink, even after that incredible fuck with our wife in the stables. I’d laid on that overstuffed sofa, tossing and turning as thoughts churned through my mind. Thoughts of silky sweet skin were interrupted by a snarl of frustration every time I thought of the missing yearling.

  The medicines would eventually get replaced, but that would take time and a lot more money than my brothers realized. With Cole heading into town at the end of the week, we’d soon have an assortment of brand new tools and supplies too that would get us through the approaching winter.

  But it was the principle of the thing. It grated to have my property stolen. Things to help provide for my family. To take care of their needs and wants. To keep them safe from sickness and harm.

  Just like we’d thought we were doing by not mentioning the missing eggs to Essie, she was protecting Abby from worry after all the traumas experienced back east. To provide her with the security of having a roof over her head at a time when she was bereft of any other family comforts.

  But Cole was right last night. Essie had to find a way to reveal our lifestyle to her sister. We had to help her see that love had many facets and forms that wouldn’t change her relationship with her sister. Love only served to enhance the familial bond – and there was no shame in that.

  The only shame I felt was when I remembered how I’d acted last night. The rage that had overtaken rational thought. I’d always prided myself on maintaining control, never letting the slights and slurs that came with my Indian heritage to get the better of me.

  Until last night.

  The sky was beginning to lighten by the time I finished feeding the horses and went through what was left of my medical supplies. I dropped small bits of jerky from my pocket as I walked across the yard and clutched the bowl of water until reaching the porch steps.

  After setting the bowl on the lowest step, I sat down one step above and waited, tugging my jacket up around my ears and pressing my hat lower on my head.

  The air had that freshening scent carried on the northerly breeze, bringing with it the promise of snow within the week. While I didn’t look forward to that first blast of bitter Canadian air, I always loved how a good snowfall changed the landscape. What was once green and vibrant had become brown. Dead.

  But snow was the promise, taking a drab and dreary world and making it fresh and new again. Brightening the old with a blanket of freshness. Like a new babe. Like the baby of ours that Essie carried.

  The sigh just came out of the depths of my heart. My love for our wife made me at times crazed with want, yearning with need, and feeling as if my heart would no longer fit inside my chest because of how much I loved her.

  And yet my actions last night with the crop said otherwise. I hadn’t hurt her or anything. Stayed in control with each flick. But there was something about not touching her in that moment that reached down deep and revealed something buried in my soul. Something that almost enjoyed tormenting my wife. Tugged at a dark place that enjoyed hearing her beg and plead.

  Something savage.

  But I’d find a way to overcome it. Somehow we’d make it through this. Stronger. More in love than ever before. And we’d make more and more babies until our home burst at the seams.

  Much as my heart did.

  The first hint of dawn’s light brought movement around the stable corner. Bit by bit, the dog scarfed up each small piece of jerky, sniffing around in the dust until catching the scent of the next. Inch by inch, she continued across the yard, stopping and sniffing at the chicken coop before hesitantly continuing to the next bite.

  Halfway across the way, her forward progression slowed. Grew more hesitant as wariness of my presence brought her up short.

  The dog crouched to the ground as we watched each other. Her coat was matted with burrs and bramble from her trek across the prairie. If she stuck around, the easiest thing to do would be to shear her like our flock of sheep come summer.

  Cautiously she dipped her nose into the cool earth then buried it in her front paws. Neither of us moved as intelligent eyes studied me.

  Hunger finally won out. But this time she crawled forward on her belly to the next morsel. Then the next. I’d gradually dropped the jerky bits closer together as I’d gotten closer to the porch so she couldn’t help but smell more just waiting for her.

  She licked her chops. Then whined, a high-pitched softness that cut a smile across my lips.

  The dog understood where her meal was coming from. Could probably smell the nearby water too. But circumstances had forced this poor creature to become distrusting of both man and her fellow creature.

  A feeling I understood only too well. After last night, I now struggled with even trusting myself.

  She finally belly-crawled to the last morsel and lapped up what was on the ground before sniffing the air, her eyes darting around the empty ground separating us. This little girl wasn’t a stupid, dumb animal. She knew there was more food just waiting nearby even though she couldn’t see it.

  But she had to trust me enough in order to get it.

  Her head jerked up from the ground as I slowly brought my hand forward and opened my fingers to reveal the last chunk sitting across my palm. That tongue darted out again. Another whine.


  Hind legs twitched beneath her. That position couldn’t be comfortable on her injury, and I couldn’t get a good look at it from this angle. But I wasn’t about to move.

  Ears perked up. The house was showing the first signs of stirring behind me, but this girl wasn’t about to leave without the final bite.

  I just hoped it wouldn’t be of me – or the kids.

  Even though it was obvious the dog wasn’t infected with rabies, she still wasn’t ready to be inundated by a bunch of children.

  Much like Abby hadn’t been ready to be inundated with activities outside her normal sphere when she’d first arrived. Much like this dog, she was initially wary and fearful of this new world she found herself in. But she’d finally come to accept her surroundings and adapt to them. Someday she’d adapt to our lifestyle too.

  Eventually.

  The dog’s haunches wiggled. I held perfectly still. Her front feet pawed at the ground as if she was about to leap.

  But instead she stretched out her neck as far as possible, pushing up from her haunches as much as she dared and opening her mouth as she stuck out her tongue.

  It was warm. Rough as she tasted. Then she scooted forward, her eyes never leaving mine, and nipped the jerky from my palm before sitting back to swallow.

  She didn’t run. I didn’t move. Her furry head cocked to the side as she studied me with brightened eyes.

  Then she bent and took several careful laps of the water bowl settled between my boots before trotting backward a few feet to watch me.

  Finally offering me a good look at the injury.

  The wound appeared to have scabbed over and was no longer visibly seeping or bleeding. That was a good sign. She had a chance to get past this trauma – much as I hoped I would.

  A squeal from behind sent the dog darting off into the trees before the front door clattered shut and little running feet thundered across the porch. I swept my nightgown-clad daughter in my arms and held her fast.

  “There’s a dog, Papa,” Meg cried. “We have a dog.”

  “Not if you yell like that, we won’t.”

  Her gray eyes sparkled with glee, but her voice dropped to a hush. “Did you bring me home a dog, Papa? A little dog just for me?”

  “It’s not so little.” I brought her forehead to rest against mine. “And it’s still trying to get to know us, so you and your brothers can’t go running around after it, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Just like people, it’s important to care for those under your charge and respect their space.”

  “Just like Mama won’t let the boys play with my dolly ‘cause it’s mine.”

  “Yeah,” I acknowledged. “Except this dog is a living creature. You’ll have to let her come to you eventually.”

  She nodded her little head vigorously. “I will.

  “Even then, you’ll have to be careful because you never know what kind of mood an animal might be in…just like when you’re grumpy most mornings and don’t want to be bothered.”

  Her gasps of laughter filled the yard as I tickled her belly. I’d never tire of hearing the sounds of our children, even when they stomped their feet in anger or cussed like their fathers.

  When I stopped tormenting her ribs, she descended into a girlish giggle. “And I promise not to let the boys fuck with her either.”

  My turn to bark with laughter as I stood up with my daughter in my arms, the image her words portrayed after Cole and I had fucked our wife last night still fresh in my mind.

  I tweaked her nose. “I dub you, Meg Carston, the official brother fucker-off’er.”

  She stared off after where the dog had disappeared into the trees. “What’s her name, Papa?”

  “Well, that’s something we’ll have to figure out…as a family.”

  And that now included figuring out how to explain things to Abby – which was complicated all the more when I turned around to find her watching the exchange with my daughter through the screen door.

  Brown eyes wide. And I wasn’t sure if that was from the language she’d just heard spouted by her niece.

  Or that she’d overheard Meg calling me Papa.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Estella

  “Ooo,” Edna cooed. “That’s the ticket.”

  The sweet, warm scent filled the kitchen as Abby tentatively pulled the yellow cake from the oven and carefully set the pan on the cooling rack near the window before surveying her work with a critical eye.

  “It’s rather lopsided,” she observed, tilting her head from side to side then tittered. “The bloated middle reminds me of father’s belly.”

  Something I’d never have to see again. “More like what mine will be in a few short months.”

  Abby sighed. “What did I do wrong?”

  “Nothin’ a’tall,” Edna returned, wielding a knife to cut a thin sliver from the edge. “Just a bit o’ steam from all that cooking. Give it a mite, and it’ll settle on down.” She set the still warm sliver on a plate and cut it into three pieces. “Now’s the real test.”

  We each picked up a morsel and settled the warm cake on our tongues. Delicious sweetness tickled my senses as the moist cake went smoothly down my throat. I was ready for more – but it’d have to wait until tonight’s celebration.

  My babies were three today, and nothing pleased them more than digging into yellow cake topped with a sugary, chocolate icing.

  “Mmm,” Edna offered with a lick of her lips. “Delicious.”

  A grin lit up my sister’s anxious face and transformed her like none of her old silks and satins ever did.

  After a crash course in baking these last few days, Abby had asked if she could help make the boys’ birthday cake. With plenty of oversight by Edna, my sister had succeeded more swiftly that I ever had. Even her first batch of biscuits, as the Davies family cook said so many times to me in the past, was edible, an achievement that had taken me almost a month to hear.

  Oh how things had changed in the five years since then. At this rate, Abby might find a new husband out here in less time than the six weeks it’d taken me to travel to Carston Ranch before the train construction finally crossed the Missouri River.

  I nodded in agreement with Edna’s assessment and wiped my hands on my apron. “The boys will be quite ecstatic.”

  “Baking is one of the easier things to master in the kitchen,” Edna instructed, pulling a bowl from the cabinet.

  “It wasn’t for me,” I grumbled, busying myself with preparations for tonight’s dinner.

  Edna patted my cheek with a floured hand as she walked by toward the pantry. “You were the exception, dear.”

  Abby giggled behind her fingertips. I smiled back to assure her there were no ill feelings over the truthful quip. Gone were the days when we competed for our mother’s and father’s affections.

  She’d won out there in the end. Or maybe neither of us did after the way in which the end of his life played out.

  Edna dug around in the pantry before coming out with laden arms. “But a cake is never truly complete without the icing…and yellow cake deserves a decadent chocolate.”

  My mouth watered anew. “You always did make the best chocolate icing, Edna.”

  “This time, I won’t be making it alone.”

  Abby’s eyes widened as Edna placed the items on the counter and scooted the bowl in front of my sister.

  “Me? But I’ve never…”

  “You’d never baked a yellow cake before today either.”

  “But…”

  Edna patted Abby’s arm before spinning her around to face the bowl and pointing to the recipe card beside it. “I’ll be right here beside you. As long as you follow the recipe and measure the ingredients to the letter, it will taste exactly like mine.”

  Abby raised a helpless stare to me. I just grinned and turned back to slicing off bits from the bacon slab to add to the beans as I readied them for the oven.

  “Don’t look to me for help. I’ve not been
able to duplicate her results.”

  “It’s all in the wrist,” the old cook continued. “You have to whisk the sugar together with the heavy cream and then whip in the melted chocolate until yer arm feels as if it’s one giant cramp. Then you keep goin’ until you can’t feel yer arm anymore as the gloss dulls and the icing begins to stiffen and peak.”

  Much like my nipples had stiffened and peaked when Bret had pinched and smacked them with that riding crop. I couldn’t forget my shock and surprise with the first flick – and how my nub swelled and quivered in unexpected delight. How my sex had wept liquid pleasure all down my thighs as Bret had teased and tempted me with the slight sting of the whip as he denied me the tender touch of his fingers.

  And now all I could think about was having more of that strange, new pleasure.

  “How will I know if it’s stiff enough?”

  “Trust me,” Edna said as I fought to stifle the image of Cole’s and Bret’s stiff manhoods. “You’ll know.”

  “I can’t ever get past the elbow cramp,” I confessed, trying to rid my thoughts of passionate invasions. “That’s why mine usually comes out more like a hard sugar icing.”

  “Put more of your wrist into it next time.” Edna demonstrated, jiggling her roundness with the whip of her wrist.

  I laughed as the image of Bret holding the crop flickered into the front of my thoughts again. “I haven’t heard any complaints.”

  And I had none after our lovemaking in the stables either.

  “Well, you might after those men get a load of the richness of our light and fluffy peaks tonight,” she returned with a wink as Abby held the measuring cup up to the window and poured in the cream.

  I rather favored stiff peaks – and dipped my head to the task to hide the growing flush in my cheeks.

  I glanced behind me to where Edna instructed Abby – and my mirth tempered. The longer I put off telling my sister about our shared love, the harder and more convoluted it seemed to grow. The more tangled my feelings became on how to bring up such a subject.