“Tourists will love it,” he says. “They swarm Lake Tahoe in the summer. It’s tons of people looking to get away from cities and do stuff outdoors.”
It’s not a bad idea, but the reality is we all need to keep our options and schedules open to help out with the ranch. Priorities come before all the frills.
Cody’s phone rings while we’re bouncing ideas around.
“It’s Jameson,” he announces after checking the screen.
“Who?” my daughter asks from behind a giant coloring sheet with a picture of a pig in a chef’s outfit.
“Never mind. The adults are talking,” I tell her. Jameson is the cattle ranch manager, so she doesn’t need to know about that. She’s curious, that little one. She can already read at a grade one level, according to her daycare worker.
Cody’s lips tighten and his blond eyebrows push together. We haven’t gotten to the ranch yet, and already the stress is eating him up. Handing off his cake store to new owners, putting our house up for sale, and packing up everything we own nearly made him change his mind. He needs to finally take a deep breath. Soon.
He swipes the answer button and asks Jameson to hold, then looks up at me, Carter and Deuce. “Let’s take this outside.”
It must be some detail from a prior conversation with Jameson that has puts Cody on edge, to the extent that he wants Carter, Deuce and me to hear this call. We follow him out the front door.
“Everything good?” he asks Jameson after tapping on the speakerphone.
“Oh yeah. How are the roads?”
“Not bad. We’re about half an hour out. Having a bite in Lockwood.”
Cody catches my eye, and I mouth the question, “What the hell does he want now?”
He gives me a quick nod. He has it under control.
But that’s not the case. Cody’s been running the show, playing his role as patriarch of the family for over a decade since Dad died. His switch is turned to the ‘on’ position twenty-four seven. Cody probably doesn’t know how to relax at this point.
“What’s up?” he asks.
A rumbling sigh travels through the line. “I wish I could say it was all good. The cattle shipment that was due today won’t be coming in till next month.”
“What’s the issue?”
“The breeder said some of the heifers got ill and had to be put down. They’re being replaced.”
“Can you order the rest from somewhere else?”
“I already paid for this batch. And that’s not the only thing. I didn’t want to wait to tell you this next part. I went over my records again like you asked. Everything’s accurate. The numbers are right on, down to the penny.”
“That’s strange,” Cody answers. “My accountant doesn’t believe it’s adding up.”
“In what way?”
“We’ll sit down and go over them face to face in a few days. There’s no point going over the books on the phone when we’re so close now. We’ll get ourselves settled in over the next few days. Sometime after that, we can sit down and look at everything.”
“Sounds good to me,” he answers through a tight, cracking voice.
I remind myself to be calm. I’d like nothing more than to reach through my brother’s fucking phone and strangle this guy. If anyone’s behind the hit our ranch has taken over the last few months, it’s this fucker. My brother’s eyes agree, but he’s a shit ton calmer and infinitely more politically correct than I’ll ever be.
“Well, thanks for the heads up,” Cody says, and ends the call.
“Fucker’s got some nerve,” Carter grunts.
“Let’s see him try it in person,” I add, my blood already boiling. “You see what he’s doing, right? The son of a bitch is spoon-feeding us this shit because he knows we’ll find out everything by the time we get there. For all you know, he’ll be long gone by then.”
Cody grunts and shoves his phone into his pocket. “Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out. This shit happens with a lot of businesses. You know, the mice play when the cat’s away, and all that crap.”
“It never happened with your cake business,” Carter tells him.
“That’s because, well, there’s the obvious. My ticker’s still at it. The cake shop is also my baby. I mean was. I would’ve been there twenty-four-seven if I didn’t need sleep and a good fuck every once in a while. The ranch just needs more attention.”
“Right,” I agree.
Cody points at the front door again. “I’m gonna finish that sandwich. God knows what state we’ll find great-gramps’ house in. I’m sure I’ll need to hose down the kitchen either way.”
Hearing about trouble with the ranch makes me antsy to get there. Problems pile up as they come. If we don’t take care of them right away, we’ll be eyeballs deep in a mountain of shit in no time at all.
And none of us can afford that outcome.
Carter follows him inside, but Deuce taps me on the shoulder. “I’ll be out here for a bit,” he says, and subtly gestures for me to take a look at the edge of the parking lot.
I turn to look.
That’s when I see the reason Deuce wants to stay outside.
A woman I’ve never met before is heading in our direction.
As she gets closer, I see that she’s wearing a piece of jewelry dangling from her wrist, and it calls for our undivided attention.
2
Ember
I walk toward the diner with my hands full and my legs moving double time.
I’m late.
Russell owes me big time for this. He’s my boss and the owner of Baker’s Buns, a dessert and coffee shop in Reno. I usually only work there on Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings, but Russell was short-staffed today. He phoned me in a panic, telling me that I was the only one of his employees who could help him with this favor. According to him, I’d save his skin if I helped him out by quickly picking up his delivery van on my lunch hour to drop off this order all the way out in Lockwood.
I’m not even sure why I agreed to help him out. Oh yes, I remember why. It was the promise of sixty dollars to cover gas and my time. But that won’t save me from the lecture I’ll get from my other boss, where I work as a full-time general administrator.
Chief Denton Robertson.
Fire Chief of Reno Fire Department, Station Eleven.
I’m sure to hear it from him. He doesn’t let anything slide with me, especially because he’s my father.
I wasn’t supposed to work for him. It’s against the fire department’s rules. I hadn’t even planned to work for the fire department at all. But after spending three years at college majoring in humanities, I took the first job I could get upon graduation and worked as an administrator at another fire station. Then an unlikely chain of events led to me reporting directly to my father. The retirement of the fire chief at Station Fourteen where I worked—and possibly government budget cuts as well—led senior management to the absurd decision to merge both stations, which are a mile apart. A few administrative staff took the opportunity to tap into early retirement offers, and others were approved for various transfers around the city. My request for a transfer is still in limbo, so although a familial reporting relationship isn’t allowed, the human resources people at the head office have let it slide pending their processing of my transfer request.
That was two years ago. I’m still waiting for my goddamned transfer. While I hang on, my father doesn’t want anyone to think he’s showing me preferential treatment. But the truth is, he holds me to a higher standard than most of his firefighters.
One day he’ll find out that his actions and the lengths he went to keep me under his control, created that ‘bad girl’ side of me.
Still, there’s late, and then there’s going overboard.
Picking up the pace, I step up on the sidewalk, and give a distracted nod to the two men at the front entrance of the diner. Except something in my mind takes the time to look at them. Fuck, they’re hot. Tall and well-built too. I’ve never s
een either of them before, so they can’t be locals. By the way they’re dressed at this time of day, they can’t be tourists either. My guess is they’re both truckers on their way through town.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” the taller, strapping one with light brown hair says, and pulls the door open for me.
I’m about to open my mouth to thank him when I notice his eyes aren’t on my face. They’re honed in on my wrist. The pendant hanging down from my bracelet, to be exact. Which can only mean one thing.
He knows.
“Hi,” I manage to say, and wish I had more time to stop and talk. “Thanks for your help,” I add as I squeeze by him.
Crap. Of all the times for me to finally bump into some decent-looking men who know what the pendant means. I’ve been wearing it for a long time, since my trip to Las Vegas for a taste of everything taboo. Not a soul has noticed it here in my part of the world. Although, even if they did spot it and had a clue what it meant, they’d probably steer clear of me anyway, because of who my father is.
I vaguely notice that the diner’s quiet today as I pass the mostly empty tables on my way to the main counter. Giving the boxes an extra lift, I place them on the counter beside the cash register. A brief glance back through the glass entrance door and I’m certain they know. It’s as though their eyes haven’t left me since they caught sight of the pendant.
Maybe I can find a little time for some alternative socializing.
Convenient for me.
And possibly, lucky for them.
“Hi Josephine,” I say to the middle-aged waitress returning to the kitchen from the other end of the restaurant with a tray of empty dishes.
“Hi, Ember,” she smiles. “You working today?”
“No. Well, yes, at my day job. I skipped off lunch to get this order over here. Russell’s short-handed today.”
“Oh, we know what that’s like,” she says. “How’s your dad?”
“Great,” I answer, and leave it at that. Pretty much all the staff from every business establishment on the I-80 between Fernley and Truckee know my father. He keeps reminding me about that as a way to keep me under his thumb like I’m still a child.
What you do reflects on me, Ember.
His voice is stuck in my head. He was always so quick to add that statement to each and every talk we used to have. The mere thought causes me to reach my hand over to my bracelet. It’s no wonder I’ve gone so far off the reservation in my sex life.
“It’s no problem if you’re in a rush—” she starts to explain, but stops. Her eyebrows raise, and a smile lifts the sides of her lips. “Though you might want to hang around a little while longer. Those two hot guys at the door are checking you out. You’re lucky, girl. You can take your pick!”
Or have them both, I think.
Suddenly, getting back to the office a little late isn’t as big a deal anymore. I’m already late. I’ll get a talking to no matter what. It may as well be for something memorable.
“I don’t think so,” I answer, but it’s a flat-out lie. This reply is a distraction for Josephine. I’m well acquainted with how rumors start in small towns like these. My father will probably hear about me running off to play hooky with some badass truckers during my lunch break long before I get back to work. “Have a good week!”
A few new patrons are entering as I get to the front door. I use the small bustle to ask the guy with lighter hair, “Did you notice my bracelet?”
“We both did,” he says with a nod, a half-smile lifting on one side of his face as his eyes blaze a slow, searing trail down my body, and back up again. His right arm goes up, then his friend with the darker hair, and they both pull back a sleeve of their winter jacket to reveal that they each have one too.
“I don’t have much time, but we’re standing in a public place. Too public. Meet me around back.”
They head off in the opposite direction, and already, I appreciate their good instincts by not following me. It’s only then that I remember. It’s Russell’s bakery delivery van that I drove to get here. Heading over to it, I open the rear double doors. The back is split off into two sections. Close to the double doors, the space has three custom installed shelves at intervals of about eighteen inches, to fit bake trays or boxes. The area near the sliding side door on the passenger side is for larger orders, so it allows a person to stand at full height. And it’s empty right now. It just may work.
I’m nervous but excited when I get into the van, start the engine and drive around to the back of the diner where it’s quieter. These guys are smart. They’re waiting beside a black, late-model Ford Expedition with dark tinted windows. It occurs to me that I should ask them how it is that truckers are traveling with an SUV, but don’t bother questioning it. Five or six of the eighteen-wheelers I just drove past have a pickup truck or some other vehicle being towed behind it.
The one with lighter hair opens the rear passenger door as I walk up to them, his arm extended for a handshake.
“I’m Hammer, and this is my buddy, Deuce,” he says.
“Interesting names…nice to meet you,” I reply, shaking his hand, then Deuce’s. “I’m Ember.”
“Good to meet you too, Ember,” Deuce answers with a smile that shows off a sexy deep dimple on the left side of his face.
If I don’t take action right away, I’ll end up chickening out. With a breath of air sucked into my lungs for extra courage, I step up into the vehicle and sit behind the driver seat.
“Have you done this before?” Deuce with the dimple asks, scooting past me to sit in the back row.
“Surprisingly, I haven’t,” I confess. “Not many Club M members make a stop all the way out here. On the ski slopes, or at the casinos in Reno, maybe, but I haven’t met anyone since I joined in Vegas a while back.”
“Lucky break for us, then,” Hammer says in a deep baritone voice that seems to resonate and travel straight to my core. He jumps into the seat beside me and pulls the passenger door closed.
I’m alone with these two strangers, going on faith that they’re Club M members in good standing who adhere to the five-part code of membership.
Consent.
Respect.
Pleasure.
Discretion.
Safety.
So far so good, but I’m nervous. I wonder who’s going to make the first move now that we’re alone. Thankfully, I don’t have to wait very long to find out.
Deuce unzips his winter jacket and takes it off, throwing it into the trunk section. Leaning forward, he pushes down my right armrest and leaves his hand facing up at my side. It’s an invitation for me to get closer. I turn and look back at him. His eyes are steady and confident, setting me at ease, so I take his hand and let him guide me into his lap. I’m grateful that he’s sure of himself, because at the moment, I have no idea what to do with my limbs as his hot, ripped chest muscles make contact with my back, radiating heat through my light winter coat and shooting need to that spot between my legs.
Heat rises to my cheeks at the feel of his arms wrapping around me. Hammer lowers his armrest and turns to me. He stretches a hand toward me, reaching up to the top of my jacket’s zipper, slowly sliding it down.
It feels strangely comforting to have them this close, one pressed up against me while the other removes a layer of my clothing. It’s almost as though they’re taking care of me, like I’m a full-sized doll being undressed. In a way, I am, because my arms and legs are numb. I can’t move. I can barely breathe. I can’t believe I’m going through with this.
What I need is to give myself a mental pep talk. I’ve been waiting to meet Club M members in my part of the world for a long time. Now that I have—and with not just one, but two of the hottest members I’ve ever seen—I need to act.
With my jacket now open, Hammer slides his hand under the seam of my loose button-down shirt. I bite down on my bottom lip after hearing a moan escape my lips as Hammer’s hand slides up my chest and comes to rest on one bra-covered breast.
God, that feels good. He’s firm but gentle. Not the groping type at all. He eases into massaging my breast, and Deuce begins to move his hands up and down the sides of my hips, causing me to part my legs, yearning for focused contact where I need it.
I’m enjoying their touch so much that before I know it, Deuce has my work slacks unzipped and down my legs, all the way to my knees. Hammer pauses his breast massage to pull my pants down the rest of the way. It feels so damn good, I don’t care that I’m in these guys’ SUV with my pants off, my jacket wide open, my dress shirt halfway off, panties and bra exposed, and soaking wet between my legs.
With my thermal sock and winter boots still on.
They’re so out of place against my near nudity, I smirk for a split second, but am immediately back in the erotic moment as Deuce tilts my head to one side and presses his lips to my neck. At almost the same time, Hammer throws aside my pants and pulls a condom from his pocket. He passes it over to Deuce and kneels between my legs. Spreading me as wide as the space between the two middle-row seats allows, his hands travel up my thighs, and his head lowers to my pussy.
Hammer presses his mouth to my clit through my soaked panties while Deuce devours my neck and plays with my breasts. The desire in my core is almost too much to stand. I finally overcome my partial paralysis, grinding my ass on Deuce’s throbbing cock. Every second makes me braver, and soon, I move aside the fabric of my panties and run my hand through Hammer’s hair. I need to feel his lips make direct contact with my clit.
I’ve been so wound up for so long that if I’m not careful, I’ll end up coming any second now. My brain shuts off, letting my primal urges take over. I want this. I fucking need this. Probably more than Deuce and Hammer do.
Hammer makes room for his hand between my legs and slides two fingers into my dripping wet pussy. His tongue circles my clit, then he sucks it in between his lips as he fucks me with thick, sure fingers. Christ. I’m moaning so loudly, breathing heavily at their combined touch. The opening of the condom wrapper in Deuce’s hand echoes in the vehicle. I’m so ready. I need more. Hammer reacts to the sound too, lifting off of me. While on his knees, he places his hand into my hair and pulls my head to his for a hot, demanding kiss that gives me a taste of my own juices. I’m wild with desire now, my tongue entwined with his. I start to miss Deuce’s body heat at my back and ass, yet I can’t help but love the feel of Hammer’s hands buried in my hair as he pulls me closer.
Two Firefighters Next Door: A Bad Boy MFM Romance Page 2