by Cara Adams
“Wow. It looks really weird without a roof, but it’s still standing. That’s pretty good news, isn’t it?”
Ryder swung around at Piper’s happy voice right behind him. “Dammit, Piper, I told you to stay downstairs. Anything could happen up here. We don’t know how safe the floor is yet.”
“But you walked across it without smashing it. I know I’m no ninety-pound runway model, but I weigh a lot less than you do. So if it holds you, it’ll hold me.”
She was still smiling and happy, and what she said was true. It was just that he needed to protect her. She was his, theirs, but it was his job to keep her safe.
Ryder blinked at the pathway his thoughts were taking. She was just a client. Sure the Alpha would be really upset if anything happened to her, but she wasn’t his sole responsibility, especially not if she refused to follow his instructions. So why was he so adamant about protecting her? He shook his head. His dominant nature must be taking over after all the stress of the hurricane.
“We need to check the outside of the building as well, and then one of us ought to report back to the big house,” said Eliot.
“May I see you as panthers before you go?”
Duty warred with desire.
“That’d work. We can run faster in panther form and check the surrounding area better,” Zac said.
Ryder nodded. “Okay.”
* * * *
Eliot was surprised at how well the guest cottage had withstood the hurricane. He only hoped their home had done even better. Losing all the food growing there would be a huge expense for the community. Not just that they’d have to buy food to replace it, but also that a lot of the growing beds and chemicals would have to be replaced. Even the drip feeding system he’d designed had cost quite a lot of money to set up, although he’d considered it to be a good investment because he’d expected it would last twenty years or so.
Fuck! He wished he could race home and check the roof was still on. Maybe once they were in panther form he could—but no. That wasn’t fair. He and his brothers needed to look after Piper and make sure she stayed safe. The trails were likely impassable thanks to fallen trees and other storm damage.
He’d been deemed too young to stay out of school and help with the clean up after the hurricane fifteen years ago, but even the boys his age had spent long hours wheeling barrow loads of tree branches and leaves that had fallen onto the trails to the vegetable gardens to become mulch for the plants there and carrying messages. The younger children had acted as a messenger service for the work crews delivering information to and from the Alpha in the main house and fetching tools or equipment needed by the work crews.
Of course, that was before the days of cell phones. although whether the Alpha would unlock the system preventing cell phone or other communications technology to work on the island, apart from the tiny area surrounding the big house, remained to be seen. Likely the kids today would prefer being messenger boys and out of school some of the time, to sitting at their tables and solving math problems while the cleanup from Hurricane Nathan took place all around them.
Eliot followed Ryder outside, making sure Piper stayed behind him, and then watching to ensure she didn’t go exploring on her own. But she seemed content to stand and look around. There were shingles from the roof and broken lengths of wood everywhere, as well as some very large tree branches, but none of the trees immediately surrounding the cottage had fallen. They walked around the cottage, looking up at the roof, or what remained of it, and stepping carefully among the detritus on the ground.
“It’s a hell of a mess,” he groaned.
“Yes, but fixable. The basic structure is still sound.” Ryder pushed on the wall, and it didn’t move.
“If the sun stays out all day that’ll help the building dry out, too,” Piper said.
“A lot of these shingles will be usable. They’re maybe a little chipped, but shingles overlap so they’ll still be okay, I reckon,” Zac said, turning some over with the toe of his boot.
“We need to check our own house as well,” Eliot said urgently.
“You’re worried about your plants,” Ryder said.
It was a statement not a question, so Eliot just nodded.
“Do you have a garden?” asked Piper.
“Sort of,” he answered cautiously.
She turned to face him, crossing her arms over her breasts. “Define ‘sort of.’”
Zac laughed, and she turned to look at him for just a moment before she switched her attention back to Eliot. He really didn’t know how much to tell her, so he decided that right now, less was more. “We grow some vegetables for the community in a hydroponic set up I made.”
“That sounds amazing. Let’s go and check out your home then, and you can show me your garden.”
The whole reason they’d waited out the hurricane in the client cottage was to avoid Piper seeing their house. To show her now would negate all the efforts they’d made to keep her away. But suddenly he wanted her to see their home. It was a major part of him. He’d completed an online university degree in agriculture, doing his final papers on hydroponic gardening with the clear and stated aim of beginning such a venture here and it’d worked out even better than he’d expected.
That was one thing they’d forgotten to factor in when they’d agreed to start looking for a mate. If they found one, where would they house her? Not that he’d decided Piper was his mate. It was just that he liked her a lot and wanted to get to know her better. Instead of screaming the cottage down during the hurricane she’d been as calm and level-headed as they were. Now she was once again cutting to the most important items that needed doing, totally calm, logical, and helpful.
He really thought he could easily love a woman like Piper. Of course, she was damn sexy and hot, as well. The sex they’d shared had been amazing, and for about five minutes this morning he’d thought he was going to get lucky again. But the results of the hurricane had to be dealt with first. And he longed to see if his garden—and their home—had survived.
Eliot looked at Zac and then at Ryder. It had to be unanimous to take her home. They’d deliberately chosen to keep her away from there until now. That pattern could only be changed if all of them agreed. It was their joint home, not just his garden.
Ryder raised an eyebrow at Zac, who nodded slightly, and then looked at Eliot, who gave him a huge, relieved grin.
Ryder said, “You’ll have to obey us on the walk, Piper. The track might be very dangerous with soil erosion, potholes, broken tree branches and all sorts of dangers.”
“I understand. I’ll walk where you say, but you need to remember I’m not totally helpless and stupid.”
Eliot stared at her. Is that what she thought they thought of her? Anyone less stupid or less helpless would be hard to imagine. She’d hiked, swum, and climbed the cliffs with them quite confidently, even though she hadn’t been very experienced at those things. Well, apart from the walking, maybe. She was used to doing that. The other things, not so much.
Eliot locked the door of the cottage, which was rather a joke when it had no roof over most of it, but it seemed the right thing to do. Then Ryder led the way, his gaze on the trail as he stomped, kicked, and tested the track. In places the bushes were leaning right over the dirt path, making it almost like they were trekking through the jungle. In other places trees had fallen, leaving the trail washed away and exposed. But the hike to their home didn’t go anywhere near cliffs, and there was no danger really, apart from tripping over storm debris.
No, the worry was what Piper would think about their home when she saw it. What would she think of a house where every inch of spare space was filled with growing beds for the plants? Would she be shocked and horrified? Would she be disgusted with them living this way?
Suddenly Piper’s opinion of him and his brothers mattered to Eliot as much as whether the plants had survived the storm.
* * * *
Zac walked behind Piper all the way to his
house and spent most of that time staring at her luscious ass instead of where he was walking. Damn, he wanted this woman so much. Once was not enough, nowhere near enough. Not that there would be any good stuff happening at their house. They couldn’t even press her up against the wall to fuck her because the walls all had climbing plants like beans and tomatoes growing up them. The sooner he could talk to his brothers about demolishing their bunk beds and installing one ginormous bed for them all to fuck in, the better.
Piper was staring all around her, obviously keenly interested in everything they passed by. Not that much was visible from the track anyway. Because each home was built over a cave, they tended to be at the end of tiny sidetracks. Nowhere were two houses side by side, and only in a few places were they even off the same minor track. It seemed the caves here were not a connected system, but each one was softer rock worn away by the ocean movements. Fortunately no one lived in any of the caves that were actually open to the water. They only lived in ones that had been dry for hundreds of years.
That was something else to worry about. Maybe some families had suffered falling rock during the hurricane, damaging their hurricane shelter caves. It hadn’t happened the previous time, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t occurred this time. He hoped everyone was safe. The people on the mainland as well, including his own parents. The warehouse was close by the ocean, only a few hundred yards away, although it was up a fairly steep hill. Hopefully they were high enough above sea level that no storm surge would have bothered them. But that was just another thing that might have gone wrong.
Damn. One of them needed to get to the main house and check in with the Alpha sooner rather than later. It was just as well that there was no room for sex at his house because they really had far too many important things to do, although fucking Piper would have been a hell of a lot more fun.
As he came down the track to their home, Zac gazed at the roof. It blended in with the foliage and rocks, as it was intended to do, but the roof was still on and his assessing glance couldn’t detect any problems. Of course, he couldn’t be certain until he climbed up and checked, but so far things appeared fine.
Ryder waited at the front door of their home until they were all standing there in a group. Zac appreciated his brother’s attention to detail. This way they’d all see Piper’s reaction to their home, which was very unusual and likely not at all what she would be anticipating.
Ryder unlocked the door and looked at Piper. “Be careful of the vegetables.”
He smiled at her, and Zac wondered if she knew he was serious as well as trying to warn her. They all stepped into the living room—well what used to be the living room—and once again Zac looked at the ceiling and then all around, but there was no sign of damage. The hydroponic system bubbled away quietly, sounding just like normal. The plants looked to be untouched. That was one problem solved. Now, what about Piper? What would her reaction be?
He inched his way up the narrow aisle between two sets of plant beds, until he could see her face. Zac almost held his breath as he stared at her. Her big blue eyes were wide with amazement as she looked all around the room.
“Wow. When you grow vegetables you don’t hold back, do you? There’s enough food here to feed an army.” She was smiling and nodding—surprised, yes, but not unhappy or disgusted.
Zac let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “Not an army, a community.”
Zac watched Eliot bustle up and down each aisle, checking the nutrients and the temperature settings on the beds, lifting leaves here and there, and looking at the ripening fruits and vegetables. There shouldn’t be much ready to pick as they’d taken a box of freshly picked vegetables with them to Piper’s cottage. That reminded him that he was damn hungry but the food was back there. Although likely he could pull together a snack for them now. He was certainly ready to eat. Their mealtimes had been all over the place thanks to the hurricane.
Ryder hurried back outside holding their ladder, so likely he was going to check the roof, and Piper was happily walking among the crops, so Zac went into the tiny kitchen area and opened the refrigerator, pulling out the ingredients for a vegetable frittata. It wasn’t the ideal meal, but it was fast and easy to cook and would fill their bellies so it was good enough for now.
As he chopped vegetables he looked up at Piper, who still seemed entranced with the plants and heaved a sigh of relief. So far, so good. Their house and work was safe and their woman hadn’t been frightened away by their work.
After a while Eliot joined him, putting coffee on to percolate. “Is everything okay?” Zac asked.
“Yes. There’s no sign of damage or water entering the house. I’d say we were damn lucky. It doesn’t even seem as though the power went off at all which is close to miraculous.”
“It didn’t go off in my cottage either despite the roof coming off. Unless there were two circuits there, one for the bedroom and the other for the dungeon,” Piper said, coming across to join them and leaning against the counter.
“I have no idea. I’m just glad everything here is fine,” Eliot said, squeezing behind the counter with him and getting out plates and forks.
“You’ve got a huge variety of things growing here,” Piper said, presumably to Eliot rather than to him.
Zac busied himself flipping the frittata over. It was almost ready to eat.
Eliot said, “I want us to try some crops we could sell on the mainland. Ones we can grow out of season, or maybe some of the new super foods, anything that will get a price high enough to justify using the helicopter to transport them to market. But we’ve run out of room for new grow beds, and I don’t really want to ask another family to take on the responsibility of trying something brand new.”
“I was thinking about that. We could add a second layer over a lot of the crops. That airspace is real estate going to waste. Chilies don’t need eight feet of empty air above them,” Zac said.
His brother frowned but Piper grinned. “As long as you can reach them easily enough to care for them that’s an awesome idea, Zac. What kind of new crops did you have in mind, Eliot?”
“Strawberries for a start. Everyone likes them and they grow well in beds like this.”
Zac tuned the conversation out for a few minutes as he finished preparing their meal.
“Food is ready. Eliot, can you go get Ryder, please.”
“I’ll set the table for you. Where is it?” Piper looked all around.
“Um, yeah, about that. Usually we take our plates down into the dungeon to eat, but today I think it’d be better to stand here at the counter. We haven’t got a lot of spare time. There’s too much we need to do.” And he didn’t really want her seeing the condition of their man cave either.
She gave him a quick look but didn’t say anything, simply putting the plates and forks in a row along the counter. Zac poured them all coffee, and then Eliot returned with Ryder and the ladder.
“Everything’s okay up there. I’ve left the rope on the roof for now, until I hear the bad weather has definitely gone.”
Zac nodded at Ryder’s words. That made sense.
They all ate hungrily. Zac had totally lost track of time and had no idea when they’d eaten before, or how long the hurricane had lasted. All he knew was that he wanted Piper, more of Piper, much more.
“I’ll go and check in at the big house,” Ryder said.
“Can I see you all as panthers first, please? You did promise me that.”
Yes, they had said they’d transform for her, but they probably should be thinking about the hurricane clean up right now, instead of sex, although sex sounded mighty fine to him, and once they were naked, well…
* * * *
Piper hadn’t thought about what their house might look like. She’d walked around the island enough to know the homes were well hidden and built over caves, but she hadn’t stopped to think about how Eliot and his brothers would manage to grow hydroponic vegetables. If they’d asked she might have guess
ed in some kind of glasshouse or greenhouse. But never like this.
Every inch of this large room was crammed with long aisles of growing beds and green plants. Each different vegetable came in a range of stages of growth, indicating they’d been planted like that deliberately for year-round nutrition, and that made the idea of selling out of season crops to mainland restaurants clever. People would pay a premium for delicious fresh salad vegetables in winter. Nothing gave people a foretaste of spring when the ground was covered by snow, like crisp, fresh peppers; ripe, juicy tomatoes; or plump, decadent strawberries.
But all that could wait, as could the work on fixing her cottage. It would take weeks to repair the little house and likely a passel of equipment would have to be brought over from the Carolina mainland. But seeing their panthers would only take minutes. Well, perhaps half an hour if she was allowed to watch them run and play.
Besides, she’d never gotten to finish looking at them properly this morning. She wanted to touch, taste, and explore all their naked human bodies, and for that she needed a bed. There was a perfectly good bed waiting for them back at her cottage, along with some dungeon toys she’d never gotten to taste.
Dammit she’d practically been robbed of her dungeon time. She’d signed up for BDSM, and the goddamn hurricane had interfered with that. Hell yes, they absolutely owed her playtime, and if she managed it right, that would lead to more sex. These men were just what she needed, a black-haired bossy Dom, a red-haired man who could cook, and a blond plant genius. Life with the three of them would be mighty fine. Well, it would be if she could convince them to show her their panthers, their naked bodies, and their dungeon and bedroom skills, preferably in that order.
Piper looked from one to the other of them, blond, redhead, and black, but all with identical green eyes. She knew Eliot and Zac were waiting for Ryder to answer her. She guessed they usually discussed everything and hadn’t anticipated this particular question. But she liked that the other two trusted Ryder enough to let him reply. That told her a lot about them. In particular, it proved that Ryder wouldn’t use his position to further his own aims. His brothers trusted him to make a decision in the best interests of them all, and that was a good thing for her to know. She realized she did trust them already, but this was proof that she wasn’t being naïve or blind. They were worthy of her faith in them.