“It’s fine, Mal, why don’t you go spend some time with Tim. I’m sure he misses you by now, what has it been, three days since you have escaped from here?”
“Four, but that doesn’t matter. He has been busy with shearing, he and Cameron only got back home this morning. I was going to leave going to him until tomorrow.”
“Well, go surprise him. You two only got engaged three weeks ago; you should still be glued to each other’s sides.” I winked at her, then went back to stirring the spaghetti, making sure to break up the lumps, so it heated all the way through. My boy wasn’t a fussy eater, but when it came to his beloved ’sgetti, he had certain demands.
“You know, Cameron was asking after you again. Tim mentioned that Cam wants to ask you to the yearly cattle breeder’s formal.” Mallory clucked her tongue, giving me a nudge with her elbow.
“Is that right? Well, tell Tim his brother needn’t bother. Cameron is very nice and sweet, but going out with a man isn’t on my agenda right now,” I scoffed firmly. The very thought sickening me.
“And, of course, you are still legally married.” Mallory so helpfully reminding me.
“Yes, there is that, too,” I agreed drily, not even bothering to stifle my growl.
“Okay, if you are sure, I will take off. I do miss my fiancé, and he did promise to show me heaven the next time he saw me.” Mallory wiggled her eyebrows at me, making me giggle despite my mind whirling with issues and problems.
“Go, find yourself sexual pleasures. Tomorrow, I will go see the solicitor and try to figure out this mess Dad has landed us in again.”
Mallory clapped her hands and let out a squeal, which of course, made Daxx giggle and squeal along with her. The sound of my baby boy happy, a much-needed boost to my mood.
Watching Mal bustle her nephew with sloppy kisses, I turned and poured the spaghetti into two bowls, one for Daxx and a smaller one for me. Money was going to get tighter around here. Daxx needed to eat; I could survive with one or two meals for a day for the foreseeable future, and I was sure Mal wouldn’t mind taking some of her meals at Tim’s. Sacrifice was steadily becoming a part of everyday life here, Mallory and I grew up knowing the value of the dollar, how to be thrifty with clothes without looking like a coat hanger from Op shops. However, never did I think food would become a luxury we couldn’t afford.
Pasting on a smile, I grabbed the bowls and took them over to the table, giving Mal a strained smile as she walked past me.
“We will get through this; it’s just another hurdle we will overcome.”
“Aren’t you sick of hurdling and overcoming Makena? Sometimes, I think you have too much of Dad in you.” Coming back to stand in front of me, Mallory gave Daxx a pointed look.
“He has only one mother, and a father he doesn’t even know exists. I won’t stay around just to watch you kill yourself with work like Dad did just to prove a point. Dad had too much pride; he let his hatred of Will Hott bury him. Don’t you do the same because of his son.”
“I’m not,” I spluttered, shocked that she would even think that was what I was doing. “I work hard because I don’t want to see all of the hard work our parents put into this place wither away and die. This is Daxx’s legacy, his right to work himself one day. It has absolutely nothing to do with Lenoxx. ”
Mallory let out a harsh laugh as she picked up the small child-sized spoon and fed my son some of his dinner.
“Legacy Mack, really? It is a black hole of debt. Most of the machinery needs to be retired to a junkyard; we have one full-time employee left who is well beyond retirement, and you come in every night after fifteen hours on the land so exhausted I worry that one day you won’t come back in.” Mallory’s voice rose, emotion tweaking from her throat.
“And you are kidding yourself if you think that the long hours you put into this money pit doesn’t have something to do with your husband. Whatever went on between you and Lenoxx changed you, turned you into a different person. If it wasn’t for the love I see you have for Daxx, I wouldn’t even recognise the person you are now.”
Mallory ran her free hand over Daxx’s soft hair; her face turned from me.
“I know how much you love him, Mack, I see that love every time you look at him. No matter what Lenoxx did to you to make you run, he has the right to know his son, to watch him grow and help mould him into a good man instead of a bitter one bogged down with a legacy he never asked for.”
With that, Mallory leaned down and kissed Daxx once more then left via the back door rather than passing me and going through the lounge to the front door. Her back stiff and ridged, leaving me standing there speechless and thoroughly put in my place.
Looking down at my son, I dropped into a kitchen chair.
“Well, shit.”
Daxx gave me a cheesy smile, sauce all over his face, small lumps of spaghetti on his chubby cheeks.
“Shit!” he shouted, making me laugh.
Reaching over I brushed some of the mess off his face with my fingers and wiping it on my jeans.
“Mumma really knows how to land herself in it doesn’t she?”
LENOXX
“Reckon you have been spending too much time in the corporate world, Noxx, forgotten how to swing a hammer?” Fenixx called out, laughing at me when I hit my thumb for the third time in as many minutes.
“And you spend too much time with cattle brother; you are starting to look like one,” I ribbed back, taking in his attire. Fenixx was the youngest of our trio by ten minutes and the only one who didn’t leave the family property for more than a trip into Cattle Ridge. Cattle breeding ran in his veins even more than it had in our father–he lived and breathed the land and the lifestyle. Looking at him under the protection of my dark aviators, I smirked at his dusty ripped denim jeans and old worn denim shirt with the sleeves ripped off, his cowhide boots and belt, even his huge gold and silver belt buckle had the family brand on it.
“We should start calling you denim Dan. You know there are other colours other than denim, right?” I laughed again, swinging the hammer down on the nail head, this time hitting it square on nailing it right into place.
“And you know there is another colour other than the colour of money, right?” Fenixx threw back at me, his head turning to look over at the helicopter sitting in the paddock. This trip, I was only here for three days, so I sent the pilot to stay at one of the B and Bs in town, rather than send him back to the city only to come back two days later. Aviation fuel wasn’t cheap, and neither was I, but I knew how to spend and when to save.
“My attention to the money side of this business means you can stay here and play match-maker with your cows,” I reminded him, pulling my sunglasses down on the bridge of my nose so I could nail him with a look. A look that spoke better than any words. Twenty-eight and a CEO meant some people didn’t like to take me seriously. Some businessmen twice my age soon learned that being younger didn’t make me an easy target, or someone not to worry about. My black heart gave me a distinct advantage in the boardroom, and when needed, my charming smile worked just as well when finalising million-dollar deals.
My dear undevoted wife completely responsible for my heart, the charm came from my mum.
“Just because you are the oldest doesn’t mean you can fly in on your metal bird and–”
“Ahh, it warms the heart to see the other thirds of me getting along so well,” Hendrixx sang out, coming out of the machinery shed, a wide smile on his face. It never ceased to amaze me, even at the age we were now, how incredibly identical the three of us were. Not one feature on our faces different, even in the slightest way. If I was in Melbourne, Fenixx here and Hendrixx off at a sale, we could all have the same stubble length on our faces, eat the same breakfast, go for a run at the same time, and all without knowing that the other was doing the exact same thing at the exact same time.
It freaked Mum out sometimes, but for the three of us, it was completely normal.
As kids, we’d had fun with i
t, looking the same got us into a lot of trouble, but it also gave us many fun times too. No one could tell us apart when we were younger, and even now only because of our clothes, and because I spent most of my work week in Melbourne. The only person who knew which triplet was which had been Makena. When we first met, Hendrixx thought it would be funny to swap places with me; it hadn’t been an unusual prank; we pulled it on girlfriends all the time back then. But Makena Rogers … she had been different right from the get-go. The second I laid eyes on her, I not only wanted her, but I also wanted her total submission. The need for her to live and breathe me consumed me and drove me wild to be perfectly honest. The plan had been for Hendrixx to pretend to be me, and I was to watch from a hiding spot and watch him make-out with her. I remember every cell in my body disagreed with the game, not wanting my brother’s lips anywhere near hers. Imagine my surprise when the beautiful teen slapped Hendrixx across the face when he tried to kiss her, giving him a lecture about being a dickhead, then kneed him in the balls. Right there, I fell headfirst deeply in love with the stunning sixteen year old, and from that moment, I became hers. Anything she wanted, I gave her–anything. All that stopped early one morning when she believed someone else over me and broke my heart forever, turning me cold and untrusting.
Facing Hendrixx, I groaned when I saw our mother coming up behind him.
I loved my mum, and really the woman was a blessing in every way. She was also a pain in my arse because all she wanted was grandchildren. Four from each of her sons no less, a declaration she laid on us two days after Dad died. She decided her grief would disappear if she had grandbabies to love on. Guilt trips were her speciality, getting what she wanted … that was another matter entirely. By now, I thought Makena and I would have at least one child, possibly two. We talked about kids and family, both of us keen to get started on filling our lives with love and kids. Our financial situation ,when we got married, never deterred us from planning. No one was born to be a mother more than her, naturally protective, deeply caring, and … well, the word loyalty came to mind, but I quickly squashed that. The one quality I thought she had in spades was the one that failed her. She left not only me but her family too. Leaving her family farm to be run into the ground by her father. I wondered if Mallory had anything to do with the place, or did she take off like her sister did?
Who the hell fucking cares?
“Hey, Ma, what brings you down here?” I asked, changing the conversation going on in my mind about my wife to a much safer one with my mother.
“I thought, if I want to actually see all three of my sons this weekend, the best way to do that is to come down where the cow shit reigns,” Mum answered me, making all three of us chuckle. Mum was definitely don’t judge a book by the cover. On the outside, she was a June Clever clone all the way from her blonde pinned-up hair to the pearls around her neck. She wore clothes from an up-market farmer’s wives boutique; even her gumboots had diamantes on them. Mum embraced the rich farmer’s other half persona …on the outside. But as my dad used to say, ‘there isn’t a woman who can throw down a calf like ya mother boys’.
“Ma, Drixx and I are here all the bloody time,” Fenixx reminded her, pretending to sound offended. None of us had a jealous bone in our bodies when it came to who got what attention from our parents or how much. Mum was the one to give the soft love, and Dad gave us the lessons in life and hard work, a pretty balanced upbringing all round.
“Yes, sunshine, but it’s only the weekends we get the gift of Noxxie,” Mum murmured, giving me a kissy face, then laughed when I rolled my eyes at her.
“Jesus, Mother, you make me sound like a hayshed cat,” I grumbled. I hated being called Noxxie, almost as much as being referred to as Hottie 1 by the locals.
“Well, Ma, you get to spend even more time with Noxxie because I have to get going into town. I have been summoned to our solicitor’s office here in town, something about a loan we made being called-in for non-payment, but the payee is disputing the terms of the contract. Something about not knowing about the loan or the fact that the bull in question is actually ours until the lease is either paid out in full or the payments continue to be made,” Hendrixx announced.
Looking over at my brother, I whipped off my sunglasses. “Have you spoken to Hubble?” This dispute was news to me; it wasn’t unusual for us to lease out bulls to farmers in the district. Our beef breeding program was as important to the community as much as it was to the restaurant trade. Our dad started bringing in local farmers to take out leases on stud bulls to allow them to increase not only their herds but to improve them. It worked well then and still did today, we made sure the farmers had the best access to agriculture experts and help when it came time to sell animals. The deals we made were fair, yeah sure, my brothers and I made money and benefited from those deals, we made no apologies for that. Farming was a business, no matter the scale. Significant properties like this one, or smaller ones around Cattle Ridge, everything we did was to make money. How much those other farms made was totally up to how they farmed.
It sounded like this recipient didn’t like the terms because they didn’t bother to read the contract properly. Nothing got hidden in fine print, no surprises, no bullshit.
“Yeah, he talked to the daughter; apparently she wasn’t informed about her father’s business dealings with HBC. It seems he also didn’t let her in on the fact he owes a shit tone of money not only to us but to the bank. Hubble said she was a real firecracker and a lot pissed off with the cooperate dickwads that took advantage of her father,” Drixx replied with a wide grin. “He gave her my number to call and yell at, his words. Instead of speaking to me she called her solicitor who contacted ours in Cattle Ridge. I am on my way now to see if I can sort this shit out.”
Hendrixx was the company’s COO, he worked out of his home office here at the house, preferring to stay on the Triple H than the confines of the corporate offices. Fenixx, too, chose to work on the farm as the manager, leaving me to be the face of the company. That suited me down to the ground, I loved the land just as much as my brothers did, but being here full-time meant I risked bumping into Makena’s father and sister.
And just maybe Makena.
“At the very least, get our bull back. If there are issues with the repayments, maybe bring Hubble back in and see what can be arranged before we hand it over to legal. We aren’t about taking people’s livelihoods, just want them to honour what they signed.”
“I know, mate. Don’t worry; I will be back later hopefully with good news.” Hendrixx slapped me on the back as he walked past me to head towards one of the farm utes. Hendrixx was the calmest and most laid back of us Hott triplets; he led with his heart, so I had no doubt he would do everything to help the family in question. Finding a solution fair for both parties. Drixx had a calming way about him, and it took a lot to rile him up and let loose from his calm demeanour, although there was one person that had the ability to rile my brother in less than a second.
“Yo, Noxx?” Hendrixx called out, turning around abruptly.
“Yeah?”
“Do me a favour and keep Blake away from that fucking stallion, will ya. She is just waiting for me to turn my back so she can jump on his back,” he growled, his eyes narrowing in the direction of the big barn where I had no doubt the person in question was most likely lurking in wait until the coast was clear.
And there was his trigger, Blake.
Hiding my smile, I pretended to act like I had no idea what was going on. The three of us might be close and would lay our lives down for the others, but tormenting was always a high priority.
“I was thinking about taking her up on her offer to show me how fast he can run,” I announced, doing my best to not laugh.
A low growl left my brother’s throat, his dark eyes hooded dangerously.
“She goes near that beast; I will make sure you go back to the city with a horseshoe lodged so far up your—”
“Hendrixx, do not finish tha
t sentence!” Mum shouted. “Noxxie, leave your brother alone. You know how Blake likes to pull dangerous stunts. Her dad left her in our care when he died, Hendrixx has taken his request to look out for her seriously. He is a good boy, aren’t you Drixxie?” Mum crooned, giving Hendrixx her famous kissy face.
“If only she knew what he wanted to do with her,” Fenixx hissed under his breath, smirking when Hendrixx clenched his fists and took a few steps forward.
This could be fun. Fenixx and Hendrixx liked to go toe-to-toe, they worked closer together than I did with either of them, so fistfights tended to break out more between them. And while I enjoyed the show, that dispute the call was over was concerning me. All of our bulls were worth a lot of money, the most crucial part of farming was the breeding. I didn’t know the ins and outs of this contract, nor which bull got leased out and that didn’t matter. If a solution couldn’t be reached, I wanted the animal back on the Triple H.
“I will watch her, don’t worry,” I promised, appeasing him so he would leave. Sometimes, I felt like the city was less stressful, dealing with an executive on a power trip was easier than my brother agitated over the nineteen year old that had him worked up at just the mention of her name.
Drixx extended his middle finger to Fenixx, then craned his neck and looked past me to somewhere behind me.
“Don’t even think about it!” he shouted, making a motion with his hand of watching.
Glancing over my shoulder, I caught a glimpse of a petite body ducking back inside the building, a long blonde braid whipping out of sight.
Shaking my head, I sighed and dropped my head before pulling out my phone and shooting off a text to Alex, one of the stable hands, to make sure he keeps the stallion stabled for the rest of the day. The last thing I needed was Hendrixx going postal if Blake got hurt. He might not admit to the extent of his feelings for her, but one thing I recognised was the look in his eyes whenever she was near.
I should know, I’d had that same look once.
Hott and Taken (The Hott Brothers Book 1) Page 4