by D. L. Roan
“Oh.” She giggled. “I’m sorry. I met a Mr. McLendon yesterday and I thought he was—”
“Grey,” Matt interrupted with a grin and a nod. God she’s beautiful. She was so...small. Not chubby, yet not skinny. She was curvy and delicate; almost fragile. Her skin was like a flawless silk. Her starched, white blouse formed to her curves, tucking smoothly into the tiny little waistband of her long brown skirt. He’d bet he could wrap her up twice in just one arm. The faintest hint of her lacy bra showed through her shirt and his fingers itched to reach up and trace along the swell of her breasts. She was elegant. She was...she was...perfect.
“Grey?” she asked.
“Huh?” Matt fought to lift his gaze back to her eyes, only to lose the battle as they caught on the sight of her plump bottom lip as she worried it between her teeth. His gut twisted and he stifled a groan, his cock screaming for release.
“Grey?” Claira repeated.
“My brother,” Matt blinked to clear his head. He couldn’t think for shit with her standing in front of him. “He picked the boys up yesterday.” At least he thought that sounded right. Right now he felt lucky to remember his own damn name.
“Oh, your brother,” Claira sighed.
“What are you doing for dinner tonight?” Matt asked before he could stop himself. Smooth, he thought. This woman was different. She probably eats ten syllable words for dinner.
Her gaze shot to the twins who were attached to either of Matt’s legs and had latched onto every word of their conversation. “I’m sorry, Mr. McLendon.”
“Matt,” he hastily corrected her; proud that he actually had remembered his name.
She nodded, glancing back at Con and Car before fixing her gaze on the wall behind him. He could see her internal struggle with her reply. At last, she looked him in the eyes and shook her head. “Matt, I’m sorry. I don’t date my students’ parents.”
Of course she didn’t, but that didn’t deter him. “I make a mean lasagna. And the boys would love the company.” So would he and Mason. Mason. God, if she stirred Mason’s libido into the same frenzy... Could it be possible? Could she be the one?
“The one what?” Claira asked, her brows furrowing again, creating the most adorable worry line above the bridge of her nose.
“What?” Had he said that out loud, too? For Christ sake. He needed to get out of there and talk to Mason before he screwed this up even more than he already had.
“The one and only woman who could refuse my lasagna,” he quickly covered. “They always told me that I’d be rejected one day. I mean, that my lasagna would. I mean...” Matt felt his throat close up and sweet Jesus, it was getting hot in there.
“I guess it’s just us tonight, boys.” He grabbed Con and Car’s hands and made his way to the door. He paused and turned to drink up one last sight of her. Before he blurted out another of his wayward thoughts, he gave her a flirty wink and a smile. “I won’t give up.” He studied the small dimples at the corners of her mouth. “Have a good evening, Miss Claira.” With those brilliant words he was gone.
Claira sunk down into the cold, metal chair behind her desk. What just happened? Her blood raced, her lungs pumped like pistons to deliver oxygen to her brain. The manliest male she’d ever met just asked her to dinner and she’d turned him down! Was she insane?
“No.” She shook her head. She’d done the right thing. She wouldn’t bring her troubles to them. Those boys didn’t deserve that. Neither did their father. No one did.
She hoped he was wrong about not giving up. She wasn’t sure if she was hormonally capable of resisting him again.
Chapter Four
Mason had spent the entire day working with a three-year-old gelding; a beautiful paint that kept bucking his rider. The best horse breeder and trainer for three hundred miles, he’d been hired to work out the kinks.
He’d always had a way with animals in general. At times he’d swear he could hear a horse’s thoughts; feel what they felt. People were a little different, but he always seemed to see through things well enough to make a difference.
Within a couple of hours he’d figured out the problem. The horse had a simple case of ticklish flanks. Too much pressure or a quick heel to his side would set him to bucking. He’d put money on his suspicion that the owner was the one with the bad habits. Owning a horse and knowing how to ride one were two different balls of wax.
Even though this particular job had been an easy fix, after a few hours of watching and working with the paint, the last two of which he’d spent listening to Matt drone on and on about one Miss Claira Robbins, Mason was hot, sweaty and his dick was hard enough to hammer horseshoe nails.
Hell, the damn thing didn’t even so much as twitch for two years after they lost Sarah. He knew, though reluctantly, they had all slaked their needs on a one night stand or two at some time or another since then.
He wasn’t entirely resigned to a solitary life and had grown accustomed to the occasional fuck with friendly benefits, but he’d never allowed himself to hope they could ever have again what they once had with Sarah. He knew for a fact that Grey had given up on that possibility all together.
What if Matt was right? Was it possible to love someone like that again? For them all to love her as they’d loved Sarah? He’d often wondered what would happen if one of his brothers found someone else. Would they move on, go their separate ways? What would happen to the twins? How would they share them?
He’d never settle for splitting them up or living without them. That was the main reason he’d never allowed himself to entertain the idea of finding someone else to share his life with. His boys were enough. But, what if? Could this Claira woman be the one to heal their family?
“Okay, I’ll go.” Mason hung the lead on the tack hook next to the paint’s stall and turned back to fetch the water pail. “But I’m telling you right now, Grey will never go for it. And if I don’t see what all the hoop-la is about then you’re on your own. By that I mean you can fuck her, flirt with her, hell, you can pick daisies with her for all I care. Just get her out of your system before you go and do something that we’ll all regret.”
“Don’t talk about her like that, man. She’s different. You’ll see. She’s better’n that.”
Mason was stunned at the protectiveness Matt was already exhibiting over this woman.
“I need you to convince her to come to dinner,” Matt continued. “I know once you and Grey see her you’ll both feel it, too.”
Mason hung the pail of water in the stall and dumped a bucket of feed into the trough. “Do you really think it’s possible? I mean, you don’t feel guilty or anything?”
Matt shook his head with confidence. “Sarah’s gone. I hate it and I miss her like crazy sometimes, but she would want us to be happy again, Mace. I don’t think any of us could ever be happy in a relationship on our own. Our home is here, with each other, like mom and the dads. It wouldn’t be fair to the twins or whoever was left behind.”
Mason nodded his agreement. At least he knew he and his twin were on the same page. A fluttery and almost nauseating feeling in his gut told him his life was about to change. He only hoped it was for the better. There was a sneaky notion that it could go either way. “If I agree to do this, you’re doing the cooking.”
Matt rolled his eyes and slapped Mason on the shoulder. “So what else is new?”
As they were walking out of the barn, Matt noticed a trickle of dark fluid running out from under one of the empty stalls. He stopped and flipped the latch on the stall door, pulling it open to peer inside. “Jesus!”
“What the hell?” Mason pushed him out of the way and knelt beside a bleeding and laboring Bernie. “Call Doc Fisher!” He winced at the amount of blood the dog had lost. Two small pups were rooting blindly in the dirt, but something was wrong. She couldn’t have lost all that blood from birthing two puppies.
Matt pulled out his cellphone, called the vet and then knelt beside Mason. “Fisher is on his way. What
the hell happened to her?”
Mason cautiously inspected the mutt’s neck and pulled back a bloody hand. “She’s been cut up by something.” He brushed the sweat from his brow with his elbow and, with a gentle touch, continued to probe the area. “It’s a clean cut. Looks like a stab wound. Grab that lamp in the tack room and get me some water and clean towels.”
“What the fuck? Who would do something like that to Bernie?”
Matt raced to the tack room and back to Mason and Bernie with the supplies.
“I’m afraid to guess, but I have to tell you. Tom Grunion was pissed as hell when I out bid him on that stallion last month.”
The Grunion and McLendon families had feuded over land, horses and women since they first settled in the Montana Territory back when the Salish Indians still occupied most of the land. Their sordid and volatile history seemed to settle a little as the generations passed, considering some of the bloody stories told by their grandfathers, but there was obviously still plenty of bad blood between them.
“He knows we don’t need the stallion for our stock, but I couldn’t stand the thought of such a beautiful animal going to an abusive son of a bitch like him. Rumor has it, he’s been making some threats and Grey caught one of his hands poking around one of the barns last week.”
“In our barn?”
“Yeah,” Mason winced as Bernie whimpered. “Gave him a song and dance about looking for work. Grey recognized him from Grunion’s place. He got the feeling he was snooping for something.”
Matt watched as Mason tried to clean the wound. There was so much blood. “I can see him gettin’ all surly, but this? God, Mace how did she get locked up in here?”
“I have no idea.” Mason dipped his hand in the water and brought it to Bernie’s mouth, careful to only drip a little on her tongue. “There ya go, girl.”
He picked up one of the pups and noticed it wasn’t breathing. Placing it between his palms, he rubbed the pup between them, trying to massage him to life. “Come on, little one. You can do it. Breathe for me.” He dipped his head, covering the pups nose and mouth with his own and blew in a short breath. After a few more rubs, the pup screeched out a cry. “There ya go lil’ bit. You’re a fighter aren’t you?” He handed the pup off to Matt and turned his attention back to Bernie.
Matt kept rubbing, keeping the puppy stimulated, awake and breathing. “I’ll tell you one thing. If Doc Fisher confirms Bernie’s been purposefully cut up, Grunion’s goin’ to pay for this.”
He heard the anger in his twin’s voice. Matt felt violated and so did he. No one came onto his land and hurt one of their own, not even a dog, but he had to keep Matt calm before he lost his cool and went off half-cocked.
“Don’t go borrowing trouble, bro. Even if she makes it, there’s no way of telling who did this. We’ll have to keep an eye out for trouble is all.”
Bernie’s breathing picked up to a heavy pant as another contraction hit her. If he found even one shred of evidence that Tom Grunion was behind this, he wouldn’t have a problem breaking that no-good bastard’s nose himself.
~*~*~*~*~
Four more puppies and twenty-four hours later, Mason was standing in the middle of their kitchen staring at his dumbstruck twin.
“She’s really going to be here tomorrow night?” Matt asked. No matter how many times Mason told him, Matt still couldn’t believe it.
Mason nodded, grinning like an idiot.
“Tomorrow? Friday night. You sure?” Matt was acting like an untried fifteen-year-old nervous about his first date.
He’d done it. Claira was coming to dinner, and if Matt had his way she’d never leave. He knew it was crazy. He didn’t know the first thing about her, but after meeting her, he’d begun to think his brother might be right.
“Yup.” Mason nodded again. Since he’d left the school, he’d been incapable of more than one syllable words. The moment he’d laid eyes on Miss Claira standing by the swing set on the playground he’d lost all his blood and more than half of his brain cells to the demands of his cock.
Damn, she’d been like a goddess beckoning him to her. A brisk wind had blown in the night before and teased her shoulder-length curls as they billowed around her heart-shaped face, reflecting the sun like a bronzed halo. A sudden gust caught her flowing skirt and pressed it against her shapely legs, leaving nothing to his imagination. He’d counted it as a minor miracle that he hadn’t come in his jeans. The thought of those legs wrapped around his hips as he plunged balls deep. Mmm—he bit his lip to keep from groaning aloud at the memory.
Beautiful didn’t come close to describing her, but it was more than that. Something inside him had shifted. He was drawn to her in an instinctual way he’d never experienced before.
There was also something about the way she looked at him, the way she struggled to meet his gaze. He couldn’t quite put a name to it, but it was more than simple shyness and he felt an undeniable impulse to rid her of that haunted look; protect her from whatever was chasing her.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Matt said. “I mean, the dads always said they knew, that we’d know, when we found the right woman for us. It was different with Sarah, I know, but Claira’s different. It feels...right.”
Mason smiled. “Yeah, it’s different, but she’s suffering, Matt. We need to be careful with her.”
“What do you mean, sufferin’?”
“I can’t put my finger on it, but she’s running from something. We need to make sure she doesn’t take off and run from us. This will be a lot for her to take in.”
Mason knew a skittish filly when he saw one. The best thing to do was to remain still and let her come to them, but damn if he thought he could wait for that. He hoped they were right because, no matter how Claira reacted, they had a bigger problem to worry about; a much bigger, surly, older brother kind of problem.
He studied the lovesick look on his twin’s face. Being a twin definitely had its advantages. He could read Matt like a book because he was thinking and feeling the exact same things.
Mason crossed his ankles and braced his palms atop the counter behind him. Matt brought a hand to the back of his neck and tried to work out some of the tension that came with the new direction their thoughts had taken. They had to talk about it.
Mason finally bit the bullet and brought the subject to life. “He’s held on to his grief for so long it will be like taking a bone away from a bulldog with our bare hands.”
“Grey’s not grievin’. He’s just stuck.” Matt believed Grey had accepted Sarah’s death, but couldn’t get past the feeling that he was breaking his promise to her by moving on with his life.
Mason shook his head and snatched up the dishtowel from the table. “It’s still not going to be easy.”
Matt clapped his brother on the shoulder and looked him in the eyes. “Let’s just get her here and let the rest happen like I know it will. I trust my gut, our gut, on this.” He gave Mason a playful shove. “If we’re right, Grey won’t know what hit him.”
Mason shrugged and moved to the sink. “You cooked. I’ll clean up.” He waved Matt off and plunged his hands into the suds. “Go help Grey get the boys ready for bed.”
Matt gathered up the remaining dirty dishes and stacked them next to the sink. “No, bro. We’re a team.” He paused before turning back to the sink. “How’d ya do it? Get her here, I mean?”
Mason chuckled. “She’s not here yet, bro, but I asked her to tutor Connor.”
“That’s brilliant!”
Con had been struggling, falling behind in his class. The school counselor had talked to them on more than one occasion about maybe holding him back a year. The last thing they wanted to do was split the boys up.
“I’m telling ya. This is it. I can feel it.”
Mason sure as hell hoped Matt was right.
Chapter Five
“What a day,” Claira said with sigh. The trouble had started at daybreak when her water heater decided to take the day off
. After shivering her way through a cold shower, she found herself in the kitchen staring at a coffee maker that refused to spit out the nectar of life she needed so desperately after another night of bone-jarring nightmares.
In that quiet moment, while she was straining to hear any sound of life from the coffee gods, her phone rang, the shrill tone like a bolt of lightning to her decaffeinated system. When she’d answered there was only silence.
She managed to ignore the first two calls, but after the sixth hang-up she began to get a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She’d shoved the familiar paranoia away, managing to get through lunch, but by the end of the day the uneasy feeling began gnawing at her nerves. Everything was quiet when she’d arrived home. All of her security measures were intact and there was no sign of trouble.
As she checked the last window lock, a strange but welcome fury began to set in, stiffening her spine. She was being ridiculous. She had a new life, darn it all to hell and back. She was safe and time that she began to believe it. She couldn’t let a few prank calls twist her into knots again. Resolved, she decided she would go to the McLendon’s ranch, enjoy a nice dinner and put a stop to the incessant fear that had taken so much from her.
A picture of Mason’s gentle eyes and Matt’s playful smile flashed before her. Twins. Of all the beautiful people in the world, God had made two of them. At least now she had two pairs of blue eyes to go with the green ones that haunted her dreams.
An hour later, Claira sat in her car, idling at the stop sign at the end of town. If she went straight, the road would lead her to Falcon Ridge. She tapped her finger on the steering wheel as she studied the road ahead.
She should have never agreed to Mason’s request. Standing in the playground, staring into Mason’s bright blue eyes, she’d wanted him. That was it; plain and simple want. She wanted his lips on her, his strong arms folded around her.
She’d never allowed herself to want those things in the past, knowing it would only end in disaster. But things had changed and she couldn’t seem to help herself when she was around a McLendon. She was equally attracted to both Mason and Matt. And God help her, Grey, too. What did that say about her? I’m in way over my head, that’s what it says.