“What?”
Maizy turned to Lucy. “You said that they’re in love.”
Lucy pointed to herself. “I think they’re in love. At first, I thought they were just looking for this chick because she struck their fancy but I’ve seen them talk about her since then and they’re serious.”
“And they’re renovating a house for a woman they hadn’t met yet? Why? That strikes me as really odd.”
Lucy shrugged and stole a glance at her. “They were sure they’d find you. I was surprised they didn’t give up, actually. The bears bought the house about a month ago and they’ve been working on it every chance they get, from what I’ve heard.”
“The bears?”
“Yeah,” Lucy giggled. “That’s what everyone calls Cody, Heath, and Spencer because they’re always together and well, because they’re big like bears.”
Warmth was spreading in the center of her chest as she listened to Lucy. The affectionate way she talked about them made Maizy feel better…but a house? She didn’t know what to think about that.
By suppertime, the sangria must’ve loosened Lucy’s lips because she said, “Guess what, guys! The bears found their belly dancer.” She giggled into her wineglass as Maizy glared daggers at her.
“They did?” Her little brother, Patrick, who towered over her by nearly a foot, said, “Does she know she gave them fits?”
Lucy burst into laughter. “She does now!”
Maizy nodded. “Yeah, get your kicks at my expense while you can, Lucy. Don’t forget I’m the one planning your bachelorette party.”
Lucy snorted and tried to control her laughter. “Sorry.”
Beck looked at both of them as if they’d lost their minds. “Someone want to decode girl-speak for us guys?”
Patrick’s beer bottle hit the table with a solid thunk and he looked at Maizy with bulgy eyes. “You? That was you behind that mask?”
Maizy’s cheeks gave the answer for her. “Yup.”
“Hey,” Beck interjected. “We were there that night and you didn’t come say hi to us?”
Lucy said, “That douchebag she was engaged to wouldn’t let her stay.”
“What’s a douchebag?” PJ asked.
Lucy grimaced and glanced at Patrick who was frowning at her and then looked at PJ. “Sorry, honey. It’s a not-nice name to call a guy who is a really big jerk. Don’t say that, okay?”
“’Kay.”
Hoping to move on from the subject, Maizy hurriedly said, “Anyway, Chaz covered me up and rushed me out of the Dancing Pony so fast my head was spinning.”
Patrick snorted. “I guess the aging football hero didn’t like someone else having the attention. We had no idea.”
“Yes,” Lucy agreed. “It was all very mysterious. You should’ve seen the bears. They made a beeline for you as soon as you were done. When they couldn’t find you, they looked so disappointed.”
Beck and Patrick nodded silently as they ate. Patrick looked like he was having a hard time digesting the news.
Lucy winked at her and raised her glass in silent toast. “I liked them from the moment I met them, but when I saw them not give up on finding you, it made them seem like…heroes.”
“Aunt Maizy, when were you lost?” PJ asked over a mouth full of food.
Maizy stroked his shoulder and said, “I wasn’t, but someone was looking for me and didn’t know how to find me. Did you tell your dads about your first day of school?”
She was glad when the conversation turned to the safer topic. She needed time to process all this new information.
They’d bought a house for a woman they didn’t know face-to-face yet. If she hadn’t met them already, she’d say that was stalker behavior. Cody’s card was still in her pocket. She felt odd about calling them and she still had a lot of unanswered questions.
While the conversation between the men continued, she caught Lucy’s eye and whispered, “I still need to talk to you.”
Lucy nodded and after the table was cleared and the kitchen tidied, they went out on the screened-in porch with fresh glasses of sangria. Maizy was grateful for the liquid encouragement.
Lucy sat down in the porch swing and patted the cushioned seat beside her and said, “I need to apologize to you.”
“What for?”
“For blabbing to the guys. That wasn’t cool.”
Maizy scoffed and waved a hand. “Watching you explain what a douchebag is to my nephew was penance enough. If I hear him mouthing off at school I’ll know where he got it from.”
Lucy grinned before she continued. “I should also apologize for the overshare earlier about the bears. It should’ve been them who told you about the house, and all the other stuff. I’m worried that I may have damaged their chances with you. I know how I feel about your brother and Beck…and PJ. It’s a very precious thing. And I know a little of how the bears felt while they were looking for you. You’re precious to them, even though it’s reasonable that you don’t understand or accept it yet.”
Maizy set the swing in motion as she sipped from her wineglass. “It’s a lot to take in, I’ll admit that. Since you told me, answer me this. Why do you think they bought the house?”
“I don’t think I should explain their reasoning. Even though it’s shitty of me to leave you hanging like that, I’d rather you ask the guys. They could explain better and it needs to come from them.”
I should’ve seen that coming, I suppose. “Can you answer my questions about ménages?”
“I thought I already had.”
“You satisfied my curiosity about your ménage, yes. But I have real questions now.”
Lucy’s eyes flared and she smiled. “Oh. Sure. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
She spent the next thirty minutes laughing, blushing, and getting answers to all her burning questions. In the end, while she now had more information, she was even more confused.
Looking at her sympathetically, Lucy asked, “Are you planning to call them?”
Maizy gazed out at the oak-treed expanse of Beck’s property, to the trees lining the creek at the back of the acreage. She was equal parts scared and willing. It felt weird to know they’d been looking for her and had made plans that included her. There was positively assumptive, and then there was borderline obsessive. She needed to figure out where they fit in that spectrum.
She slipped her phone from her pocket. “No time like the present, I guess.”
Chapter Five
Heath peeled the painter’s tape away from the kitchen cabinets, pleased with the off-white paint covering the red that had once been on the kitchen walls. Once the paint was completely dry, the new appliances stored in the garage could be installed and the new countertops put in. He couldn’t wait to get cooking.
Cody and Spencer were in the master suite and it sounded like Spencer was still busting out the wall that divided the closet in the den from the one in the master bathroom while Cody worked on the old tub. The prospect of demolition duty had put a spring in their steps as they’d carried Sawzalls and sledgehammers down the hall earlier.
Cody’s phone began to ring where it was plugged into its charger on a nearby outlet.
The caller ID read only the number so he wasn’t sure who it was. He knew who he hoped it was as he accepted the call. “Hello?”
“Cody?” The velvety, tentative-sounding voice on the line sent a thrill zipping up his spine. He tried to be silent as he jumped up in the air and did a fist pump.
“Is this Maizy?” he asked playfully, wanting to set her at ease.
“Yeah. Hi, Cody.”
“Actually, this is Heath. How was your first day of school?”
He heard her soft exhale and chuckle. “Hi, Heath. I teach kindergarten. The first week is always a big adjustment. But it was very good, thank you.”
Heath grinned, thinking that she’d make a perfect kindergarten teacher. He couldn’t seem to wipe the grin off his face. “Did they wear you out?”
/> “Yes.” She paused as if collecting her thoughts. “I need to ask you about something. I’ve talked to Lucy Carter.”
Heath smacked his forehead. Shit! “Did ya?”
“Is it true that you’ve bought a house and you’re fixing it up for the woman you’ve been looking for?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds kind of stalker-like, doesn’t it?”
“A tiny bit. Did you?”
“We were sure—I was sure—that we’d find her eventually,” he replied, employing her same impersonal language, hoping to set her at ease. “Ready to file a restraining order yet?”
Maizy chuckled. “No, but it feels strange to know that the three of you would make that kind of commitment. What if I’d been taken already?”
Treading carefully, he said, “It may look presumptuous on our part, but we’ve known since last fall that this was the lifestyle we wanted—to share a woman—so we considered it an investment in the future, regardless. But we believed we’d find you.”
“You’re not assuming that I’ll just jump on board with your plan, are you?”
Heath stood up straight. “No. No, baby. We don’t expect that. We just want a chance to get to know you. All we wanted was one date.”
“Just one?” She almost sounded playful.
“To start with.” He looked around the kitchen. “I’d love to cook a meal for you here but our kitchen is torn up at the moment. Could we take you to O’Reilley’s?”
“Sure. This will be a tiring week for me, so I’d rather not do it on a weeknight.”
“Understandable. We’re scheduled to work Saturday night, though. What about Saturday at lunch? Would that be okay?”
At first he’d thought that she might not like that, since they worked most weekends but she quickly said, “That sounds perfect. I had plans with Lucy and friends for Saturday night anyway.”
“Oh really? Any chance you might come out to the club?”
Maizy giggled. “We’ll be doing some shopping for her wedding and some planning for the reception but I could talk to her.”
“Great. If you let me know, I can reserve a table for you. The club is always busy Saturday nights. Do you have something to write with? Let me give you our cell phone numbers.”
“Sure. Hang on.” She rustled around for a minute and then took the numbers down.
“Did you want to talk to Cody? I know he’d like to talk to you.”
“Um, sure. If he has time.”
He unplugged the phone from the charger and headed down the hall. “For you, honey, he’ll make time.”
When he pushed aside the drop cloth covering the bathroom door, Cody and Spencer both looked up from their work, cutting the old tub into pieces for removal from the house. He mouthed “Maizy” and Cody pulled down his dust mask, grinned, and reached for the phone.
Spencer looked at him and lifted his chin in a nonverbal questioning gesture. While Cody greeted Maizy, Heath gave Spencer a thumbs-up gesture and whispered. “She said yes. We’re taking her out this Saturday for lunch.”
Spencer nodded but he was also frowning slightly. “She was okay with lunch?”
“It was perfect.”
Spencer let out a slow breath and nodded. “Good.”
They took a break while Cody sat on the outdated bathroom counter and chatted with her. In the hallway, Spencer stopped him. “She wasn’t just placating us was she?”
“No. Why would she? She could just as easily have said no.”
“Maybe she wants to turn us down in person.”
“No, Spence. It’s a date. And she knows about the house.”
Spencer’s frown returned. “She does?”
“She talked to Lucy. She wasn’t one hundred percent comfortable with us renovating a house for a woman we weren’t sure we’d ever find but she didn’t sound scared off by it either. I think she’s pretty level-headed. She teaches kindergarten.”
“Seriously? Wow. I never would’ve thought she’d end up being a kindergarten teacher.”
“I know. I’m feeling better about this all the time,” he added as he continued toward the kitchen.
Spencer sighed as they walked through the house. Three rooms were now painted the soft off-white color. “That’s so much better.”
Heath laughed. “I know. I hope she likes it.”
“One step at a time, brother,” Spencer said as he reached in the Igloo cooler for a Shiner Bock.
“She may come out to the club with Lucy and their friends on Saturday night.”
Spencer cracked a smile before he took a drink. That said it all. Spencer seldom ever smiled like that. Last time was when he got to hold little newborn Josh Parks a couple of weeks before.
That thought reminded him. “We got picture texts from Camilla earlier. You should check yours.”
Spencer put down his beer and unplugged his phone. He found the message and chuckled when he saw the picture. “Asleep at last,” he read aloud and then showed him the picture. It was Camilla cuddling both James and Joshua. She looked tired but happy holding both babies, who were indeed sleeping.
“Those are some beautiful kids, huh?” Spencer said as he looked at the picture and took another sip from his beer.
“Yeah,” Heath agreed. “It all worked out the way it was supposed to, I think. Well, I’m getting back to work before we start talking about our feelings or painting each other’s toenails.”
Spencer laughed and shot him the bird as he walked out of the kitchen whistling. He didn’t whistle very often either. Heath finished his beer and went back to work, looking forward to Saturday.
A sobering thought came to him when he recalled their earlier words. She was a kindergarten teacher, serving at the whim of the school board. If word got out she was dating three men, and if they were lucky, settling down with them, her job might be in jeopardy.
He had even more respect for her now, for calling them back, when the prudent thing to do would’ve been to throw that card of Cody’s in the trash and forget their encounter that morning. He recalled what Ben Lawrence had said to him when he’d asked sometime back about such difficulties.
“We do our best to make it worth the trouble to her.”
He hoped they could do the same. One close-up look at Maizy Owen that morning and he was sure. People might call him crazy but she was it for him. It was just a matter of convincing her of that fact.
Chapter Six
On Saturday, Maizy counted to ten as she let out a slow breath, inhaled, and did it again. The week had seemed even longer than she’d thought it would but not for the usual reason. It’d certainly been tiring because of school, but it had also been long because she’d been anticipating her lunch date with Cody, Heath, and Spencer. By the time she was dressed, she’d worked herself into a tizzy.
Three guys. Three hot guys. Breathe. It would be so embarrassing if she walked into O’Reilley’s and passed out from nerves. In her mind’s eye, she kept seeing their massive combined presence crowded around her car door. Their handsome faces and expressive eyes.
She’d obsessed about the date to the point that all she could think about was those men. Had she blown it out of proportion? She’d felt a connection with Spencer from the moment she’d laid eyes on him as she walked out of Divine Drip. She’d passed it off as the enthusiasm she felt about starting school, but later, she’d had to admit that it was there. Then they’d all approached her. They didn’t have to convince her they cared. She’d seen it in their eyes.
Three guys. Is it possible to care this quickly about three guys? Even with one it would be—should be—a stretch.
She let out another long breath and pulled the key from the ignition and climbed from her Bug. They’d looked at her car like it was a deathtrap. Poor Gertrude, she might be a lightweight in the rain but she’d never left Maizy stranded on the side of the road. She patted Gertrude’s top and walked to the restaurant entrance, adjusting the ties on the sheer gauze and lace jacket she wore ove
r a red camisole.
Lucy, Grace, and Jayne had been all for visiting the Twisted Bull after their planning session was done later that evening and she’d needed an outfit that would work for a night out as well. She felt good in her Wranglers and boots as she walked up to the door and pulled it open.
And there they were in the lobby. They hadn’t gone ahead and gotten a table. They’d waited for her. They stood as she walked in, dazzling her with their warm gazes.
The lobby was deserted except for the four of them and the men took full advantage of that fact. She barely had a chance to draw a breath before Cody came close and slid a gentle hand around her upper arm as he kissed her temple.
His scent was a pleasant mix of spicy body wash and laundry detergent, with an underlying hint of his unique fragrance. Warmth against her palm drew her attention to the fact that she’d slid a hand up his muscular back to his shoulder blade. Clearly her subconscious wanted to touch them, trust them. He was so bulky and warm and his smile, when she looked up at him, set her at ease and put all her senses on alert at the same time.
“Hi,” she murmured in a husky voice that didn’t sound like hers.
He gave her a sexy, yet shy, smile and murmured, “Hi yourself.”
She turned to the man next to him, Spencer, and smiled up at him. His gaze was warm but there was a reserved quality to it, and she wondered if perhaps he was a little nervous, too. The thought made her want to reach out to him, to reassure him, and wasn’t that just crazy?
She reached with both hands and hugged him around the waist, hoping that was okay. His arms slid around her and the pressure he used as he held her for a second was…just right. His body heat seeped into her through the fabric of his T-shirt and she hesitated in letting go. She smiled to herself when she felt, more than heard, a deep rumble in his chest and looked up at him. “Hi, Spencer.”
His eyes were focused solely on her and he whispered, “Hi, baby.”
Maizy the Bear Charmer [Divine Creek Ranch 16] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 5