by Joyee Flynn
“Of course I forgive you,” Rory blubbered. “You have every right to be angry with me. Just promise you won’t leave me or divorce me!”
“Never, Rory. You’re my other half, the reason I get up in the morning. Nothing’s more important than you, baby.”
“Me, too,” he whispered, wiping his eyes and smiling slightly. “Fight over?”
“Yes, but you have to promise not to ever keep anything from me again. I don’t care if you think you’re protecting me, okay?”
“I swear. I’ll tell you everything. Even when I jack off when I’m going into heat because I’m horny and you’re at work.”
“That sounds promising,” Isaac purred seductively. Then he cleared his throat, probably remembering he was at work. “Did you guys go see the vineyard?”
“No, the twins were comforting me while I sobbed and freaked out,” Rory admitted with a chuckle. “We can go now. I know Zane’s waiting to accept his promotion until they say they like it.”
“We’ll like it. Tell the damn man to accept the job already,” Banning grumbled. I agreed, but Zane wouldn’t hear of it. He didn’t want us agreeing to more than we could handle and wanted us to check it out first. It wasn’t hard to understand why we’d fallen so hard and so fast for the man.
“Okay, we’re going now. I love you,” Rory said before hanging up. I realized I’d missed part of the call while I was lost in me musings. That was okay, I felt a little intrusive as it was. “He forgives me.” Rory’s smile was jubilant.
“Aye, we got that when we saw the flowers.” I snickered. Banning had already grabbed our jackets and Rory’s car keys. We teased Rory relentlessly as we headed out, wondering if Isaac cleaned out all the florists in just Virginia or the whole East Coast.
Half an hour later, we were pulling off the main road onto a dirt drive. I glanced around, noticing there were posts for a sign, letting people know what the name of the vineyard was, but it was gone. It seemed so sad to me. The couple that died had probably put their hearts and souls into this place and wouldn’t be happy to know this was how it ended up.
We would fix that, I realized with a smile. We would make this place great again.
Banning hopped out to open the gate and the damn thing practically broke off in his hands. I pulled out me notebook, ready to start making lists. That would be first on the needs fixing now list. As if agreeing with me, Banning ripped the thing off the hinges with one good tug and tossed it to the side of the drive.
“Interesting approach.” I snickered when he got back into the SUV.
“What?” He shrugged at me as Rory pulled forward. “There be no point in having a broken gate. We’re gonna need to replace it anyways.”
“We haven’t accepted the gift yet,” I sighed, rolling me eyes. “Until we do, this not be our place.”
Now it was me twin’s turn to roll his eyes. He gestured out the window. “Right, like we be saying no to this.” I followed his hand, getting me first good look at the place as Rory steered toward the main house.
It was breathtaking. Mostly because I knew it was ours without a doubt. Because the vineyard itself would need a ton of work. It was overgrown, dying, warped, run-down, and in desperate need of some tender care. But it had history, character, and we would just be fixing things instead of having to start completely from scratch.
I surveyed the vineyard, taking in the beautiful fields with their delicate fencing. The fields seemed to roll out before me, a thin layer of snow covering them as well as the big barn and numerous greenhouses, which were charming even in their dilapidated state. “Me answer be yes already,” I said quietly, swallowing around the lump in me throat. “But there’s no way we have enough in our savings to fix all of this, Banning.”
“Aye,” he whispered sadly. “Unless we started out small and just kept improving as we go.”
I nodded, not thinking that would work. We climbed out when Rory pulled up in front of the main house. Now I just wanted to cry. It was an enormous ranch-style house. Although it only had two stories, the house stretched across a large portion of the property. As we got closer, I noticed the light brown paint was chipping off the siding and a number of the rails were missing in the wraparound porch.
Many of the shutters on the windows were also in need of repair as they hung precariously from their location, the breeze blowing them gently back and forth.
“We’re farmers, not carpenters,” I said more to myself than everyone else, me heart filling with despair. “We can’t fix this.”
“Aye,” Banning agreed, looking as if someone just ran over his puppy. We both turned to head back to the SUV, totally heartbroken, when Rory cleared his throat. We turned to face him and I had no idea how to thank him for a generous gift we couldn’t accept.
“You didn’t think we were going to give it to you in this condition, did you?” he asked with a raised brow.
“Ya bought us the land. That be the most generous mating gift ever,” I answered, not sure what he was getting at. There was no way Zane would let Isaac pay to fix this place up.
“But we’re not the only ones giving you presents.” He giggled, handing us a few cards. Banning glanced at me as I reached for them. I opened the first one and gasped, quickly handing it to me twin.
“Dillon, Shane, and Sean contracted a crew to fix the house and update it as we want!” Banning exclaimed, reading what I just had.
“Holy fuck me,” I yelled as I read the next one. I passed it along as well. “The Marius family be replacing the glass and broken items in the greenhouses!”
“We can’t accept all this, ma would kill us,” Banning whined but still took the third card. He broke out laughing as he read it, handing it back to me.
Lads,
Ya be gracious and accept the gifts given to ya by people who be loving ya both and ya mate. Make them proud as ya have always made me and ya das. We love ya more than we can ever put into words and will miss ya dearly. So ya better all plan on visiting a lot, or we’ll be coming there to kick ya arses for neglecting ya family.
Love always and with all me heart,
Ma
“I fucking love that woman!” I whooped with joy. If the house and greenhouses were fixed, that was a huge start, and the rest we could do as we went along. We would have warriors to help, and with the deal Isaac got us, we would still be making money by handling all their produce.
“So I take it the answer is yes?” Rory asked, his eyes twinkling with laughter.
“Aye!” we both shouted as we attacked him, hugging him with everything we had. “Thank ya, Rory.”
“I’ll be honest because I like you both now, but don’t think I did this all for you,” he said gently as we let him go.
“Aye, we know,” I said with a smile. “Ya done it for Isaac so Zane wouldn’t go, but ya also did it for Zane to keep us happy and wanting to stay. So, we’d still be thanking ya.”
“But ya don’t hate us anymore for hurting Zane, right?” Banning asked hesitantly, and I knew it was hard for him to talk about this kind of stuff. It was a new leaf me twin was turning over, going back to the loving brother I remembered before too much shit went down in our lives.
“Aye, I be liking ya lots,” Rory said in his best imitation brogue.
“Bratty kitty,” Banning grumbled and hugged him again. “Now what?”
“Now we call our mate and tell him to take the damn job,” I answered, doing a quick jig. “Then we call ma before Dillon, Shane, and Sean. Then we get to work and start our lives here with our mate.”
“And I’m going to call the Mariuses and the contractors everyone hired.” Rory chuckled.
For the next ten minutes, all the three of us did was talk on our phones. We paced around, carrying out our own conversations, excited, flustered, and a little scared.
Then, as if like magic, all three of us hung up our phones at the same time. We were done. It was done. This was our new home.
“Let’s start the list
s,” Rory said with a wide grin, rubbing his hands together in glee.
We each ended up grabbing a notebook and pen, figuring with all of us taking notes there were less things that would be missed. Rory told us, as we moved into the house and started looking around, how he felt bad because the contractor and crew had been waiting. He didn’t know that everyone had been on hold during his meltdown.
We swore we’d never tell a soul what had happened and told him to blame us and that he didn’t want to give away the surprise and raise suspicions by rushing us. I think Rory liked us even better after that. We understood. Not everyone needed to know about every fight between mates. Hell, everyone knew about our issues when we met. It didn’t make it any easier when people stuck their noses in whether they had the right intentions or not.
People started showing up at the house. First it was Elena Marius, with Damian, Gabriel, Stefan, and Patrick. They were all ready to work and help out in any way they could. Then a few trucks showed up and dropped off Dumpsters for us to toss what we couldn’t salvage.
More warriors showed up with Desmond, who also brought lunch. I kept glancing over at Banning, wondering if he was as shocked as I was. This was better than the barn-raising scene in that old Harrison Ford movie!
A little while later, the contractor showed up with his crew. They started helping with the demolitions while we walked the house and talked to him about what needed to be done first. Elena helped us with that part, and I wanted to kiss her.
“I raised seven sons and have handled countless renovations of rooms and the house over the centuries,” she said with a smirk, waving off our thanks. “Besides, I promised your ma I’d help you get settled since she’s far away. Your family was there for Caleb when he needed you most and that makes us all family in our eyes.”
“Aye, ya be a great second ma.” I chuckled, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.
By the time the workers and help were ready to call it quits for the day, we had a good chunk of the demolitions and removal out of the way. Elena guided us over to one of the greenhouses where she showed us that they’d already ordered windows last week and Remus was installing them with Stefan’s help.
“I heard you guys have a green thumb,” Stefan teased. “Just remember I’m partial to fresh tomatoes.”
I glanced over at Banning and smiled. We raced off to find a few pots of soil and whatever seeds we could find leftover in the greenhouse. Sure enough, there was a cabinet full of seeds left behind. We grabbed what we could and went back to everyone, getting curious glances from all of them.
“Normally plant life responds to us being around and flourishes,” I explained as we planted some seeds in the pots we found.
“But we can channel it and make it work faster, but it’s tiring like when any of ya use ya gifts,” Banning finished for me. When we were done, we both focused on the seeds we’d just planted. A few seconds later a tiny sprout appeared in each pot. They kept growing until they started budding. Minutes later, we had full plants with fresh tomatoes, fully grown and ready to eat.
“I knew my mates were amazing,” Zane said from behind us. I gasped and threw myself into his arms, Banning joining me.
“Love ya, me mate,” I whispered as I nuzzled his neck.
“Me, too,” Banning added.
“I love you both so much,” he said tenderly. “Are you happy? Is this what you really want?”
“Aye. We want ya and nothing else matters, but this vineyard be the icing on the cake,” Banning answered. I couldn’t have agreed more. “Ya did promise us a Zane Po’ Boy as well though.”
“That I did,” he purred. “Let’s go christen our new house.” He threw one of us over each shoulder, both of us laughing like loons. I couldn’t think of a better idea right then.
THE END
WWW.JOYEEFLYNN.COM
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joyee Flynn grew up in Chicago, living in the same house all her life until she left for college. Though she has a great life, she loves to get lost in fantasy that only books could bring. Her wide interest in reading was reflected in her writings. Currently Joyee lives with her dog, Marius, named after a vampire from Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire series. She dreams of one day living out in Montana, enough land to have a few horses, and find a couple of cowboys of her own.
A lover of men, Joyee’s all about them in any form in her books. Vampire, werewolf, military, doesn’t matter at all as long as they are hot, hard, and sex fiends!
Also by Joyee Flynn
Siren Classic ManLove: Marius Brothers 1: Micah
Siren Classic ManLove: Marius Brothers 2: Remus
Siren Classic ManLove: Marius Brothers 3: Stefan
Siren Classic ManLove: Marius Brothers 4: Victor
Siren Classic ManLove: Beyond the Marius Brothers 1: Isaac Dragos
Ménage Amour ManLove: The O’Hagan Way 1: A Dillon Sandwich
Ménage Amour ManLove: The O’Hagan Way 2: A Caleb Footlong
For all other titles, please visit
www.bookstrand.com/joyee-flynn
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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