Cowboy Cravings

by Morgan Ashbury

  “I’m sorry. I’ve already got plans. I’m going out to Jesse’s. Actually, I’m spending the night. I want to see if I can do that without anyone really noticing.”

  Veronica smiled as she waved her hand. “Don’t apologize. If given the choice between spending an evening with you or playing mattress aerobics with two handsome, hunky men, I sure know where I’d be, and it wouldn’t be perched in front of the television.”

  Annie’s face heated. Funny, but she didn’t feel this embarrassment when she was with her men. Her men. She really liked the sound of that.

  “Thanks. Maybe we can, you know, plan something for next weekend. It has been awhile since we’ve had a movie night.”

  Veronica’s smile seemed different for just a moment. Then she nodded. “Yeah, maybe we can.”

  As the bell jingled following the other woman’s departure, Annie wondered if there was something bothering her friend. She seemed a bit distracted the last couple of times they’d been together.

  She’d ask her when they went for breakfast on Monday. Since Veronica had agreed to keep her confidence, the least Annie could do was return the favor.

  That’s what friends were for.

  * * * *

  Part of the old fence line still stood, where their grandfathers first erected it when they’d established their ranches in the late nineteenth century. It stretched for about a quarter of a mile in this east-west direction, before ending at the north-south boundary line.

  Grant had spoken to his parents on the phone last night, and one of the things he asked his father about was this fence line. He wanted to take it down. Actually, he had something else in mind for this spot. He couldn’t share that with the parents yet.

  “Hell, son, it’s your ranch.” His father had laughed when he’d said that.

  Grant countered, “Yes, but this is still your home.”

  In fact, the two-bedroom grandparent’s house, the original ranch house his grandfather built, still stood waiting to be used when his folks, or any family, came to visit.

  “Yes, it is. And when we come and visit at Christmas, we’ll admire all your changes and innovations. Just as my father did mine, from the dining room table, when you tell me about them.”

  “Been thinking about this spot,” Grant said now to Jesse.

  The two men sat side by side on horseback. The sun had begun its afternoon descent. Their work day was done. In truth, only the most essential chores were done on Saturday. They’d taken to giving the crew both weekend days off, unless something demanded immediate attention.

  “Yeah? What have you been thinking?”

  “It’s a pretty spot.”

  Grant watched as Jesse looked around. From where they stood, looking to the west, the trees that lined the creek where they’d taken Annie for their picnic two weeks ago Sunday were visible. Two creeks meandered within a short distance of this spot. The land here had a slight roll to it, so that it seemed maybe there might have been a ridge at one point, but that the streams that had once been rivers when the land was new had worn it down.

  “It is a pretty spot. Nice views in every single direction. That’s important”

  Grant smiled. “So you’ve been thinking the same thing I have.”

  “When have we ever not thought the same thing?”

  “Never any time important,” Grant conceded. He turned his eyes back to the land. “It wouldn’t be too difficult building here. There’s lots of shade, and any trees planted would likely grow.”

  “Not too far from the road, either. Carve out a lane, maybe two.”

  “One branching off yours and one off mine.” Grant nodded. “It wouldn’t have to cost that much, all in all. We’re both kind of handy, and for what we can’t do, we know those who can. Not much about this would be difficult, except maybe one thing.”

  “Annie.” They said her name in unison, then laughed.

  “It’s probably way too soon to speak to her about this,” Grant said. “She has it in her head that what we have together, the three of us, can’t last.” Then he looked at Jesse. “I just needed to see if you were of the same mind.”

  “I don’t want another woman,” Jesse said, quietly. “I was pretty sure I was all the way in love with her before we made love.”

  “Yeah, that about sums it up for me, too. I figured if we built her a place out here, then her comings and goings and ours wouldn’t be subject to gossip. In fact, we could actually all live together. Folks might talk some in town, but likely not to her face, or ours.”

  “Nobody’s damn business what we do, but yeah. Our relationship is a little out of the box, so it’s probably a good idea to provide Annie with the means to protect her privacy.”

  Grant nodded, satisfied. He took one more look at the views, then clicked his tongue at his horse to get the animal to move. “I wonder how long it’s going to take until she can accept that we’re in it for the long haul?”

  “Of the two of us, I’m usually the impatient one,” Jesse said, sidestepping a direct answer.

  Grant chuckled. “I know. Never felt this kind of antsy feeling before. Don’t like it much, I can tell you.”

  “Well, shit, man, don’t go off half-cocked.”

  Grant jerked his head around to look at his friend, who at the same time realized what he’d just said. They burst out laughing, causing their horses to fidget.

  “I’m going to head on home and shower,” Grant said, wheeling Sandstone around to face the north. “I’ll be over after that. Anything you want me to bring for tonight?”

  They’d pretty much decided to keep their time with Annie at Jesse’s. That way, there was less opportunity for tongues to wag. But Sunday, they were going to have dinner over at his place. He’d asked Rosa, his housekeeper and ranch cook, to prepare a dinner for the three of them.

  “No, Homer, I think I have everything covered. And just so you don’t go feeling all inadequate, I thought we’d just heat frozen pizzas for dinner tonight.”

  “Well, thank you, Molly. I do appreciate the gesture.” And he might, or might not, tell his best friend that he was taking cooking lessons on the sly.

  * * * *

  Rick Rutherford kept his hat pulled down and his sunglasses in place as he drove down the main street of Branchton, Wyoming. He’d flown into Cheyenne early this morning, after a trip that had begun Thursday afternoon in Buffalo. He rented a car and drove to Laramie, where he checked into the cheapest motel he could find. There he’d crashed for a couple of hours. He was still dead tired, but figured he could sleep later. It had taken him a week to get things together, scrape up the money, figure it all out. But he was here, finally, and now that he was he sure as hell couldn’t see the attraction.

  He never would have figured Annie to hide herself away in such a place as this. But he supposed when a fortune in diamonds hung in the balance, a person could do just about anything.

  Like serving a full sentence rather than go for parole, so that once Iwas out I didn’t have to check in with anyone on a regular basis.

  Rick laughed when he found out where Annie had lit out to. The medium security facility that had been his home until two weeks ago was called Wyoming.

  If he believed in crap like fate and destiny, he’d figure it for a sign. But he didn’t go in for that New Age bullshit. He trusted no one and believed only what he could see. And he counted on nothing, so he was taking everything one step at a time.

  He hadn’t told his mom anything about where he’d been headed. She’d fronted him most of the money, anyway. Plus, he had some cash put away from before he went to prison. He borrowed a few hundred from Squirrel, too. Pathetic bastard was always eager to please. Rick had enough, he figured, for a few days stay at that no-tell motel, and to get his ass to Mexico once he got his hands on the gems.

  It shouldn’t take him that long to persuade Annie to hand over the necklace.

  He slowed as he neared the center of the town and saw her store on the first pass. Br
anchton General Store. Well that sure as hell was creative. As he passed, he turned and looked. There she stood, just on the other side of the glass of the front door, turning the hanging sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’. Their gazes met for the barest of moments, and then he motored past.

  He didn’t think she recognized him, wouldn’t have even thought he could be here, on her doorstep so to speak. His cock stirred to life with that fleeting glimpse, and it was all he could do not to turn the car around and pound on her door, then pound into her.

  He would, but first he needed to case the area.

  There’d been a truck stop restaurant out on the interstate, nearly all the way back to Laramie. He’d eat there, then come back. He’d hide the car, walk to Annie’s, and spend a couple of hours casing the place.

  Mrs. Smith only had the one address for her baby girl, and it hadn’t taken much muscle on his part for her to give it to him. Weak-willed spineless bitch.

  So he knew Annie lived in a tiny apartment above the store. If he was satisfied that things checked out, maybe he’d break in and surprise his little sister-in-law. They could have their reunion party right there in her bed tonight.

  Yeah, that sounded like a real good plan.

  Maybe he’d take her with him, and maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, before too many more hours had passed, he sure as hell was going to take her.

  Chapter 12

  Uneasiness crept up her spine.

  The road had become familiar to her, and Annie found it easy to allow her mind to wander just slightly as she drove out to Jesse’s ranch. It hadn’t taken her long after closing the store to get herself ready and out the door. It had only been ten after five when she got into her car and headed out of town.

  A shiver wracked her as she descended the stairs to the empty lot behind her building where she kept her car. She couldn’t say why she felt nervous, on edge. She just did. It was the kind of feeling she hadn’t felt since leaving New York City. She felt as if danger surrounded her, and she needed to move quickly. As if eyes watched her every move, tracked her.

  She felt like she’d been back in Queens.

  She hated that feeling, couldn’t understand how she’d been able to live like that for so many years. She never wanted to live like that again.

  Something about the way that man looked at me as he drove past the store frightened me. She’d immediately directed her gaze to the car’s license plate. Seeing the familiar cowboy on the bronco comforted her. She’d thought the symbol a horse, but had, of course, been corrected soon after getting her own Wyoming license plate.

  Jesse’s lane came into view, and Annie exhaled, and then immediately laughed. She hadn’t realized until just then exactly how unsettled she’d actually been.

  Maybe it was to be expected. Maybe the reality of having taken two lovers upset her psyche.

  So what if it has? I’ll get used to it. She felt the smile take over her face, and knew it was a raunchy one. She would get used to having Jesse and Grant both, because no way in hell would she give them up.

  At least not until the time came for everyone to move on. Which she hoped would not be anytime soon.

  The front door opened before she turned off the car.

  Just look at them. Who could ever imagine that those two handsome hunks could be turned on by me?

  Annie experienced another ‘pinch me’ moment, just a flash of seconds when she wondered if this was all a dream.

  One look into the eyes of her lovers and she left her musings and her car behind.

  “’Bout time you got here, woman,” Jesse said as he rocked back on his heels. The motion drew Annie’s attention down to his feet, which were bare.

  “Time’s a wasting,” Grant agreed.

  “I thought everything was slower paced out in the great wide West,” Annie chided them as she walked toward the porch. “If I wanted break-neck, I’d have stayed in Queens.”

  “Thank God you didn’t,” Jesse quipped.

  “Yeah.” That was her feeling on the subject, too. Thank God she’d found the courage to grab a life for herself. She would never know why that ad for a general store in a small town in Wyoming had drawn her. She’d never know what had made her believe that if she just reached out, she could have a life completely different than all she had lived to that point, when all she’d ever known, really, had been a pathetic kind of hopelessness.

  “Hey.”

  Annie came back to the present and noticed her men looking at her with twin expressions of concern. She’d come to a standstill only a few feet from the porch steps.

  “Hey,” she answered back. Her smile had slipped. Realizing that, she bolstered it.

  “We’ve got pizza and wine. How about we put the first in the oven, the second in some glasses, and celebrate the end of the work week?”

  She tilted her head at Grant’s suggestion. It sounded good, but usually they couldn’t wait to get her naked.

  “We have all of tonight and all tomorrow. We don’t want to scare you away by giving you the impression that all we’re interested in is sex,” Jesse explained.

  Not even two full weeks, and already her men could not only read her moods, but understand them. “No need to worry about scaring me away,” Annie replied truthfully.

  “But still.” Grant smiled as he said that.

  Annie felt herself begin to frown and deliberately relaxed her facial muscles to prevent it. She had defined her relationship with these two men as friendship before the sex entered into it. She supposed if she wanted to maintain their friendship when the sex became history, some time spent together chatting and drinking wine was in order.

  “What kind of wine?” she asked as she moved to join them.

  “We’ve got red, white, and Zinfandel. We didn’t know which you preferred.”

  “Cowboys who drink wine,” Annie teased as she reached the top of the steps. “Who would have ever guessed?”

  She stretched up to kiss Jesse, a light, playfully teasing brush of her lips with just the barest stroke of her tongue. Then, because she was an equal-opportunity sort of gal, she treated Grant to the same greeting.

  “Hey, we got couth,” Jesse complained good naturedly. Opening the door to his house, he held it for her.

  “Yeah, we shower once a week and everything,” Grant added.

  “Well, aren’t I the lucky one?” Annie tossed back. Usually, she got to play straight man to their vaudeville comedy routine. Not too often they let her have the punch line.

  “Nah, we’re the lucky ones,” Jesse said.

  “And with the right amount of wine, hoping to get luckier.”

  Laughing at Grant’s quip, she held up the small canvas backpack-style bag she carried.

  “I hope so, because I brought my toothbrush and a change of clothes.”

  “No pajamas?” Jesse asked.

  The teasing banter gave way to a ripple of arousal. Annie licked suddenly dry lips, and met first his gaze, and then Grant’s.

  “Hoping I won’t need them. Hoping if I get cold in the night, the two of you will take care of it.”

  “Count on it.” Grant’s voice sounded husky, and heat lit not only his eyes, but Jesse’s, as well.

  Good to know she wasn’t the only one aroused. She felt her smile forming, a full smile this time, and rejoiced in the smugness of it.

  “Now that we have that out of the way, let’s drink some wine.”

  “Out on the back deck,” Jesse directed.

  Annie set her bag down in the hallway and headed for the back deck. The nerves that had attacked her earlier had been completely vanquished, replaced by a subtler, and perhaps just as annoying, sensation.

  Determined to keep things light, Annie pushed away the feeling of having just come home. Dreams of happy ever after and picket fences were for other women.

  Women who could offer the ones she loved a future.

  * * * *

  The pizza had been reduced to crumbs. Not wanting to have to w
ash plates, Jesse had used paper. But since wine didn’t taste quite right in plastic, he’d used his mom’s good crystal. The sun fired the sky a soft pink-orange and the heat of the day, what there’d been of it, had passed. They’d been making small talk, just sharing each other’s company. But he had in mind to share something more, so he let the silence linger for a few minutes more before he began.

  “I’ll never forget the day I found out my folks were gone.” Jesse let the memory take him. This he allowed rarely, and only with a select few. Those he didn’t know so well, those he held at arm’s length, had no idea that he still mourned, that he still thought about that day when his world changed forever. His past was a part of him, had made him the man he’d become. If he wanted to give Annie all of him—not just his body, but his heart and his soul—then he had to give her this, too. And if he wanted her to share her inner demons, then he needed to prove to her that sharing would be safe.

  “Grant and I had camped out by Stillman’s Creek. It’s about a half day’s ride south of here. Camping out was something we did often back then. Just another Saturday night for us.”

  “We’d talked your dad’s foreman into giving us a bottle of Jack,” Grant remembered.

  When Jesse met Grant’s gaze, he knew his best friend understood his mood and his thoughts. Jesse smiled, because not every part of this memory was painful. He hadn’t allowed the tragedy of what had happened to taint the memory of what had been.

  “Two young men, nothing but open skies and a bottle of booze,” Annie said softly. “That’s a story written in one form or another a thousand times every year.”

  “Well, it was our first time with the liquor,” Grant allowed. “But not our last.”

  “We awoke with the sun, feeling like we’d been rode hard and put away wet. We threw up most of what we’d guzzled the night before.” All these years later, Jesse could close his eyes and see that morning play out, clear as if it had just happened.