by Mia Ashlinn
Glancing at Jaycee, he saw that Cade was right. She wasn’t paying any attention to Ethan. Her attention was fully on him and Cade. Her eyes shifted back and forth between the two of them, observing their every move.
Cade leaned back against the couch, lounging like a man without a care in the world. He propped up his right leg on his left knee. “I think that sounds like a fine idea myself. What about you, Gray?”
Gray could feel the tension coiling inside of him, desperately wanting to be released. Instead of caving to its demands, he nodded. “Yeah. Call them up, Ethan. We can fuck as soon as they get here.”
With a naughty know-it-all smirk, Ethan shook his head. “No need. They’re in the car outside, waiting for the cue.”
Jaycee’s eyes bugged out of her head, and she blurted out, “What?” Her impassioned outburst made Gray want to laugh. She was already losing ground. He decided to push her a little closer to her breaking point.
“Get them in here. I’m horny as hell. What about you, my love?” Gray asked, turning the tables on her, silently daring her to lie to him.
“I, um,” she stuttered with pink cheeks, “I d–don’t know about this.”
Ethan spoke to her softly, taking her hands into his and pressing a kiss to the back of each hand. “Come on, J. You can do this. We would never hurt you.”
Jaycee’s chest rose and fell rapidly, her breaths coming out in ragged gasps. Gray could see real fear in her blue eyes as they darted to his face. She might have brought this upon herself, but no one messed with their woman. This asshole was going to die right now.
Jumping out of his seat before Cade could stop him, Gray lunged for Jaycee. He grabbed her around the waist with unyielding hands and yanked her off the couch so fast that her only response was an Eep!
Handing her to Cade, he turned back to Ethan. With all of his hatred for this man surging through him, bloodlust consumed him, and he attacked.
* * * *
Cade held Jaycee with steadfast arms, allowing no room for escape. She fought him like a madwoman, but he managed to hold on to her. If she wanted to play emotional games with him and Gray, she had to deal with consequences.
Sounds of fists against flesh could be heard from across the room. Gray was punching Ethan in his face and stomach. Hell, he even kicked him in the groin once. Ethan fought back with a vengeance, blocking and defending himself but never once throwing an offensive punch.
Cade felt Jaycee’s energy waning in his arms, her movements becoming weaker by the moment. As the fight drained out of Jaycee, he could hear her pitiful sniffles. Her almost-inaudible hiccupping sobs broke his heart. Even as furious as he was, he couldn’t bear her pain. He’d wanted her to take responsibility for her juvenile actions, not cry the way she had when she was hurt as a small child.
Maybe his and Ethan’s plan hadn’t been such a good one. Gray was fighting Cade’s accomplice, and Jaycee was crying. If he’d shared their scheme with Gray, they’d have all been saved from this spectacle.
Looking helplessly at Gray, Cade was relieved to see that he’d quit fighting the other man when he’d heard Jaycee whimper. Gray and Ethan still circled each other, but neither man touched the other. Finally, Gray said in a detached, frigid tone, “Get the fuck out of my house. If you so much as look at her again, I will castrate you and feed your dick to the pigs. They aren’t very picky about what they eat.”
Looking right through a roughed-up Ethan, Gray walked over to them. Cade handed Jaycee to Gray, who scooped her up and started for the stairs. He called over his shoulder, “Come on, Cade. We have things to do.”
Ethan limped to the door, turned around, and mouthed to Cade, “You owe me.”
Grinning at his new friend, Cade whispered, “Thanks.”
Ethan gave him a thumbs-up sign before slipping out the door.
Following his lovers upstairs, Cade could barely breathe, each breath more erratic than the last. His throat felt as if it was closing off, trying to strangle him. The trip to their room was far shorter than he ever remembered it being before.
When Gray paused outside their bedroom, Cade stopped. His mind knew that Gray wanted assistance with the door, but his feet were attached to the ground, his arms like lead. They didn’t want to cooperate no matter how hard he tried.
Gray seemed to sense Cade’s nervousness and didn’t push him. Instead, Gray waited patiently, holding Jaycee close to his broad chest. Finally getting a hold of himself, Cade used a clammy hand to twist the doorknob and push it open.
He stepped to the side, letting Gray carry Jaycee forward until she could see the inside of the bedroom. Her sharply indrawn breath was exactly what he’d dreamed of since he was a boy, but the curse that followed wasn’t.
Chapter 20
Jaycee couldn’t tear her eyes away from the items on the king-size bed that dominated the room. The scene they’d set for her was painfully familiar yet unequivocally different. Like stepping into a time machine, she was thrust back to the day that Gray had proposed to her.
* * * *
“Gray,” she sang out from the bottom of the staircase with enough volume for her voice to be heard throughout the upstairs. Receiving no answer, she danced up the stairs, her bare feet barely skimming the hardwood. She wandered down the hallway leisurely, stopping often to look at all of the pictures of her, Gray, and Cade through the years. Each time she paused, she would run her fingers lovingly over the image inside of the wooden frames.
Noticing their bedroom door ajar, she passed up the last two pictures. With a nudge, the door swung open, revealing the scene that women dreamed of their entire life. Gray stood with his back to her, staring out the window. When he heard her, he spun around.
She wanted to focus on him, to memorize what his face looked like at this very moment, but her eyes were riveted on the bed. The comforter had been pulled down to the bottom of the bed and neatly folded. In the middle of the mattress, on snowy-white sheets, were three objects. The first, and largest, item was a framed photo of her and Gray on their first date at the county fair. After hours of sitting in the bleachers, watching livestock activities in the pouring rain, they looked like drowned rats. But they were happy rats.
She couldn’t hold back a smile, remembering that dreary day in early September.
In front of the photo was a blue square box with the lid opened to reveal a mind-blowing pear-shaped diamond—not too large, not too small—in a platinum setting. Gray might have been able to afford the world, but he’d recognized what she would want in an engagement ring. A girl like her didn’t need a ring that would sink her to the bottom of the ocean if she fell in. It was a symbol to her, not a bauble to be admired for its grandeur and measurements.
Last, but not necessarily least, there was a scrap of paper with “Will You Marry Me?” scrawled on it in Gray’s messy handwriting.
Gray cleared his throat, diverting her attention from the bed. When she found him, he was kneeling a few feet from her with a brilliant smile that she knew she would look back on for years to come with a giddy heart.
“I love you, Jaycee Elizabeth Dalton. I could give you a million pretty words and never be able to capture the feelings in my soul. I could give you a million more words as to why we should spend our lives together and never be able to give you enough reasons to compare to what will come. So, love, I will give you the most traditional words and hope that they are enough to show you what I want for the rest of our days. Sweetheart, will you marry me?”
With tears in her eyes and a smile on her face, she nodded excitedly. Gray launched himself at her, kissing her with so much enthusiasm that she couldn’t help but laugh against his warm lips. He pulled back. “You shouldn’t laugh at the man who is kissing you.”
“No, but I should laugh at you whenever I want, and right now, I want to.”
He shook his head indulgently and lowered his head to take her lips with his once again.
The moment was nearly perfect. It was almost everyt
hing she had dreamed of. If only Cade was here with them, holding her and kissing Gray, too. She wouldn’t feel a pang of pain in the vicinity of her heart. There wouldn’t be a little voice in the back of her head telling her that no matter how amazing this moment was, it wasn’t complete. That nothing was going to be right until the day that Cade stood with Gray and asked her to marry him.
* * * *
She was sucked out of the time machine as fast as she had been thrown in. The scene around her hadn’t changed while she was gone.
The bed was still covered with probably a hundred or more photographs. The snapshots were of everything imaginable from being precious babies to adorable children and awkward teenagers to fully grown adults. They were all there. Pictures of Jaycee, Gray, and Cade alone were scattered amongst pictures of all of them together. She could see photos of her and Cade mingled with photos of her and Gray, and they had mixed in images of the two men together, as well.
One picture stood out against all the others. An upright framed photo of their tree was the focal point of the picture collage.
In front of the photo frame, they had placed a blue square box with a ring. This ring wasn’t like the first one. It was no less beautiful but far more meaningful. The pear-shaped jewel was still the focal point of the ring. However, on each side of the largest diamond were three smaller princess-cut diamonds.
Just as before, there was a piece of paper with the four most famous words that any woman could ever see. Only, her men had altered it to suit their purposes. “Will you marry us?” was written in black ink with a red overlay. She recognized Gray’s haphazard handwriting in black, while Cade’s neater writing was superimposed in red. Against her better judgment, and her will, her mouth curved upward at their emphasis on us.
Tamping down her smile, she jumped out of Gray’s arms and spun around to face them with an evil eye and a scowl. “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”
Jaycee stalked across the room, reached into her pocket, and tossed two men’s rings onto the high-thread-count sheets. The wedding bands she’d bought for them that afternoon landed on top of the pile of scattered pictures with a bounce.
Both men were comically staggered, gaping at the rings. Placing her hands on her hips, she waited to see who recovered quicker so she would know who to give hell to first for stealing her thunder.
Gray won when he pointed to the rings and blurted out, “What the fuck are those things?”
“What do they look like, Mister Smarty Pants?” Her sarcasm didn’t go unnoticed by Gray, who glowered at her. Cade was still thunderstruck with his mouth hanging open. If he didn’t watch out, a bug would fly right in it. “Those fucking things are wedding bands for you two!”
“Well, no shit, Jaycee,” Gray countered, his teeth clenched so tightly that Jaycee could see the tic in his jaw muscle. “I meant what are you doing with them?”
“I think it is more important to discuss all of this.” She waved her hand around the room with more animosity than gaiety, making her movements seem choppy and uncoordinated.
“No,” Cade stated firmly. “Gray asked you what the meaning of those rings are, and you are going to answer him before we discuss anything else.”
Debating whether or not to answer nicely or fight them tooth and nail took less time than it did to blink an eye. When Cade used that tone with her, she had no chance of escape. Mister Lighthearted had a dominant streak a mile wide that she hadn’t been privy to before, a streak that made her wet and horny. Right now, those were not two things she wanted to be.
“Fine.” Her eyes made contact with her pink-tipped toenails. She pretended to inspect them so she could mumble her explanation without seeing their reaction. If all men felt this nervous when they proposed, it was a wonder that anyone got married. “I figured that if we were equals, then I didn’t have to wait for you boneheads to get your act together and ask me to marry you. I was going to ask you.” She sighed softly. “I just didn’t want to be separated again. Last time was hell, and I didn’t want to go back there. Okay?”
Appearing from nowhere, a work-roughened hand tipped her face up with a finger to her chin. The calluses on his hand wouldn’t feel good against soft skin to most women, but it did to her. It reminded her of his hands on her body. Having capable hands on her was overwhelmingly erotic. She wanted a man who knew what she needed and who gave it to her ten times over.
Cade’s finger lifted her chin until her face was at an angle that she had to meet his eyes. Her eyes clashed with his green ones. She could see the sincerity and the love shining like a beacon in the darkness. There was a hint of regret there, too. “Darlin’, we weren’t going to let you go. You know better than that.”
Her chin wobbled, and her eyes moistened, but she needed to stay clearheaded. In a few minutes, she could become a giant bumbling mass of emotional woman. She would become one, she knew, but not yet.
Gray closed in on them with the soft eyes of a man looking at something precious to him. “My love, you’re not going anywhere. If you try to leave again, we will follow you to the ends of the earth and drag your ass back home where you belong.”
She believed him. They weren’t meant to be apart. The last years had been no more than a blip in their lives, a learning experience that would have a profound effect on them and their future. She would never be able to say that she was grateful for their time apart. However, there were life lessons to be learned and many of the most important ones were taught the hard way, the way that would be nearly impossible to forget.
Blinking rapidly, she attempted to stop the tears that were coming. She wouldn’t be able to hold them off much longer.
Gray tapped Cade on the shoulder. Both men kneeled at her feet, each taking one hand in theirs. Her battle to contain her tears was lost, and they spilled out of her eyes, trekking down her face like rain on a windowpane.
Cade was the first to speak the words that would be carved in her heart deeper than their initials in the tree. “Darlin’, I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. You’re my best friend, my heart, and my soul. Now, you’re my woman, and Gray is my man. So, Jaycee, will you marry us?”
A squeeze from her other hand had her turning toward Gray, but she still held on to Cade’s hand, not allowing the physical connection to be severed. This was about all of them together.
“Jaycee Elizabeth Dalton, I know that I have made mistakes in the past, and I know that I’ve been wrong, but that has changed.” Gray paused as though he was processing his thoughts and choosing his words carefully.
She wanted so badly to stop him, to help him or something. Not because she didn’t love a mushy Gray, but because Gray didn’t like being sentimental or emotional. She saw his Adam’s apple working as he swallowed in apparent nervousness.
With a quick breath, Gray continued his speech. “No, I’ve changed. I’ve learned a million lessons that make me a better man for you and for Cade. Not a perfect man, but you wouldn’t want that for me any more than I would for you. The past few years have taught me that there are so many things that I don’t want, and only a few that I do. I don’t want a life without you or Cade, and I don’t want to miss out on marriage and kids. I don’t want to miss growing old with the two of you, and I don’t want to be laid to rest without each of you by my side. All I want is you, Jaycee.” Gray pivoted his head toward Cade and said, “And you, Cade. Forever.”
Instead of immediately turning back to Jaycee, Gray spoke to Cade. “You’ve been with me every step of the way since the day your mom brought you to the ranch twenty-nine years ago. I know that I don’t tell you often enough how I feel, but I want you to know that I love you, and I don’t want to spend a day without you by my side. Will you marry me and Jaycee?”
Saying Cade was stunned was an understatement. He stared at Gray with a blank expression. It was as if Gray spoke to him in French when all he understood was English. Jaycee thought it was adorable and had to fight the urge to hug him for being so da
mn cute.
Gray chuckled, lightening the seriousness in the room. Since Cade was speechless, Gray pivoted his head back to her, giving her his undivided attention. “Jaycee, sweetheart, I love you. Will you marry me and Cade?”
Wiping her tears with the back of her hands, she told the men exactly what they wanted to hear. “I love you both so much. Yes, I will marry you!”
Her excited squeal had the power to wake a person six feet under the ground and, apparently, Cade, who looked from Gray to Jaycee then from Jaycee back to Gray, and said, “Hell yeah, I want to marry you both so I can fuck you anytime and anywhere I want to.”
Gray rolled his eyes. “Only you, Cade.”
Jaycee realized something while Gray was teasing Cade. No one had proposed to Gray. They both had proposed to her. Gray had proposed to Cade. But Gray was the odd man out. Not allowing that, she pulled both men to their feet, kissed each one of them soundly, and fell to her knees.
Gray was disconcerted, his brow furrowed and his lips turned down in a slight frown. She wasn’t sure if it was because he was confused or because he understood what she was up to and disapproved. Her caveman probably didn’t like this, but he would have to deal.
“Cade McCoy, I haven’t really been able to say all of the things that I’ve felt for you through the years. For this reason or that, I never felt it was fair to any of us for me to share these feelings when we weren’t free to be together. I couldn’t tell you how much more I wanted from you or how much you mattered to me or how grateful I was to have a man like you in my life. I have years of pent-up emotions that I felt the need to hide. Now that I can tell you freely and clearly, I want to spend the rest of our lives together so I can tell you as often as I want how much I love you. Will you marry me?”
Cade nodded solemnly, but there was a distinct twinkle in his eyes.
“Grayson Allen Blakemore—”
“Hey!” Cade interrupted her proposal, and she really wanted to smack him until he said, “You can’t propose to Gray without me.” The petulance in his tone was thoroughly amusing. His personality was making itself known, which meant the romantic moments were about to conclude and someone was getting naked.