by Starla Kaye
“But…”
Victoria was out of her car and walking toward Rose. He saw her start to call out to him. He shifted into reverse and drove away, chicken man that he was.
* * * *
“So did you ask her out?” Doug scowled at Camden as he climbed from his truck in front of the main house. One of his friends from town had called him to say he’d seen Camden talking to Rose. He wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about it.
Camden took a second, but finally said, “No.”
Doug felt relieved and at the same time disgusted with himself. If Camden really was interested in a woman after all this time, he didn’t want to stand in his way. Although Camden had vowed years ago that he didn’t ever want to get married, didn’t want kids and all the hassles that went with all of that, Doug wasn’t so sure anymore. He’d seen the envious way Camden had looked at one of their married ranch hands and his wife when they’d brought their new baby home from the hospital. He’d watched him hold the baby and saw the sadness in his expression.
“It’s okay with me if you do,” he said even though he was interested in Rose, too. He’d back off for Camden.
“We were just talking, not a big deal.” Camden glanced toward the house. “I’ve got some things to discuss with Samuel. Maybe we can talk later.”
Doug nodded and turned to his own rig parked nearby. “Sure. Later.” He had a feeling they wouldn’t be talking about Rose. Good, bad, who knew.
CHAPTER FOUR
Rose had managed to avoid any further run-ins with the Grayson brothers for the rest of the week. Evidently they were too busy at the ranch to come to town and harass her anymore. Good. Great. Darn it! She missed them. Both of them. And wasn’t that plain dumb!
Victoria walked into the library just before Rose got a chance to turn the sign around to Closed. She took one look at Rose and shook her head. “It’s Doug and Camden, right?”
“What’re you talking about?” She reached around her friend to flip the sign and locked the door for good measure.
As always, Victoria looked perfect. Designer jeans that appeared made just for her. Grass green, long-sleeved Western cut shirt the color of her eyes. Buff-colored boots that matched her purse and soft leather vest. And her hair was perfect, too. There wasn’t a hair out of place in her over-the-shoulderlength pale blond style she wore. It was enough to make Rose want to cry. She’d managed to get a black scuff mark down the side of her dress that wouldn’t come out. She’d dropped a heavy book on her foot, and now only wore one shoe, and she was hobbling around. She didn’t even want to think about her hair.
“Never mind,” Victoria countered and studied Rose in concern. “Rough day?”
“We don’t even want to discuss it. At least I don’t.” She walked gingerly behind the checkout counter and turned off the computer. “Remember those old ‘Calgon take me away’
commercials?”
Victoria nodded.
“Well, that’s the kind of day I’ve had.”
“TGIF.” Victoria glanced uneasily toward the closed door.
“What?” Rose pressed, a feeling of dread spreading through her.
“I don’t suppose you want to hear what I observed in Bert’s General Store a few minutes ago,” she hesitated, “to do with Camden and Doug Grayson.”
Rose squeezed her eyes shut, heard her heart pounding. “What?” She opened her eyes warily.
Victoria looked toward the door again. “They’re good men, really. A tad on the aggressive side at times. Competitive, too, especially with each other.”
Not a surprise to her. She nodded. “And?”
Her friend appeared to weigh whether or not to say any more. Then she blurted out, “Camden bought the only scroungy bouquet of flowers in the store. Doug bought two of those big mixture bags of chocolates.”
Rose groaned inwardly. Surely she was thinking wrong.
Before Victoria could finish her tale a fist pounded on the door. Then another one. And then two male voices were raised in disgruntled conflict.
Rose didn’t even wait to try and figure out what they were carrying on about. She hobbled back to the door, unlocked it, and jerked it open. “What are you two arguing about now?”
Both men clammed up. She glanced down and sighed. Camden held the saddest bunch of flowers she’d ever seen. Doug held a huge bag of mixed chocolates in each hand and had a slight better-than-his-sorry-offerings look on his face. They were pitiful, the both of them. And yet they’d made her rotten day.
She blinked at threatening tears, gave a wobbly smile, and snatched all of the gifts. She clamped both bags of chocolates to her chest with one arm and held the flowers in her other hand, sniffing. Then sneezing and sneezing and sneezing.
Camden grabbed the flowers back and tossed them out the door, frowning. “Are you okay?”
Victoria marched over, shoved the men aside, and picked up the discarded flowers. “You can’t be littering the sidewalk, Camden Grayson.”
“But—” he started to protest, appearing horrified that Rose was still sneezing.
“Allergies,” Rose gasped, trying to catch her breath, mortified. She’d known better than to smell the flowers, but she hadn’t been able to resist doing so.
Victoria hefted the sagging bouquet of flowers high and headed for her Mustang parked out front. “I’ll get rid of them.” She glanced back at Rose. “I assume you can handle these two Lotharios.”
“Lotharios?” Doug asked, clearly puzzled and wondering if he should be offended.
Camden shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
Doug looked horrified and ready to grab for his gifts as well. “Are you allergic to chocolate?”
Down to only sniffling, Rose had a death grip on the bags and stepped away defensively. “No! And you can’t have them back.”
Doing a one-eighty, Doug smiled. It was so startling, so filled with pleasure that she all but swooned at his feet. She gave him what had to be a goofy grin in return.
Camden seemed to feel left out and offered a heart-melting smile of his own. Then he looked her over from head to foot and lost the smile. He went down on one knee and gently touched her bruised, slightly swollen foot. “What happened?”
Her face flamed in embarrassment and she tried to scoot her foot away from him. “Library accident,” she mumbled. “Dropped a book on it.”
The men shared glances and Camden scoffed at his brother. “See…accidents can happen in all kinds of work places, even a library.”
Doug’s expression wasn’t nearly as amused. “Dropping a book, getting a bruise isn’t near the same as being tossed into a fence by a thousand-plus-pound angry stallion.”
Her eyes widened and she gasped. “Is that what happened to you? How you hurt your arm? Your nose?” She was rethinking that not wanting to kiss his boo-boos thing. Well, maybe she’d just give him a hug.
Camden stood. “The stallion and the fence did the job on my arm, yes.” He slanted a disgruntled look at Doug. “Bro here did the job on my nose.”
She glowered at Doug, disbelieving. “You…you hit him?”
“Hey, he earned it.” His expression was just as sour as Camden’s. “Fool was going to ignore his arm. He was going to try and get back on the horse.” He looked pleased with himself, but she saw the concern in his eyes. “I changed his mind, then hauled him into town to the medical center.”
Okay, she could accept that answer. Not that she thought Doug should have punched Camden. But they seemed to have their own way of communicating. And it was clear they cared deeply about one another. She wondered about the many Grayson siblings she still hadn’t met. She’d heard they had been a pretty rough bunch when they were younger, but they’d grown into fairly responsible men and women. Lee was having some issues at the moment with his new wife and his career as the quarterback for the Denver Mustangs. Tyler had retired from bull riding not long ago and was settling in at the ranch with his wife, except there was rumored to be some con
flict about that. Then there was Harley, a top of the charts star in the Country Western scene. And there were many more that she hadn’t heard the real scoop on yet, being still pretty new to town.
“The reason I came by—” Camden began at the same time Doug said, “I wanted to see if—”
They stopped to scowl at each other. Except instead of launching into an argument, each one drew in a breath and calmed down, appeared resigned.
And, as seemed to be continually happening with them, they surprised her yet again. Doug waited patiently for Camden to speak. Camden thrust out his chin, straightened his shoulders, and said, “Have you ever considered a three-some?”
She blinked and felt her mouth gape open. The bags of chocolates slipped from her arms to the floor. “A…a what?”
For the first time that she could remember, Camden blushed and he shifted uneasily. “You know, one of those ménage a trois things.”
She needed to sit down, and she did. She went right to the floor next to the chocolates. Her foot hurt and she said dazedly, “Ow.”
Doug was the first to crouch down in front of her. His forehead was pinched in worry, his expression intent. “Dumb idea,” he grumbled.
Camden went to his haunches next to his brother. Gone was the usual teasing grin, the amusement normally dancing in his eyes. “It was just a thought. Probably a dumb one, like Doug said.”
Now that she was sitting, some of the shock faded. Yes, it was no doubt a dumb idea, outrageous even. Yet it was sure a titillating one, too. Hadn’t she been having crazy dreams about these men? Puzzled because she was drawn to each of them? Each was so “hot” in his own way, so… She couldn’t quite come up with a description.
They waited for her to respond, but she was still in a bit of a daze. This wasn’t something she’d ever faced before. She hadn’t even considered it. Okay, not in reality. Sure, she’d read about this, been seriously turned on at the time. But really? Little Miss Formerly Prim and Proper Ballerina now a small town librarian? Seriously? And with these two clearly alpha, obviously super experienced-in-the-bedroom cowboys?
She worried her lower lip and reached for the bags of chocolates, pulled them into her lap. Hadn’t she partied hard just the other night with her newest vibrator, eight inches of life-like heaven and thought about this pair of stud muffins?
She’d concentrated first on one and then the other as she climbed to that magical moment. At the memory alone, she squirmed, felt warmth building inside her. And with these two gorgeous cowboys only inches away…
“Are you okay?” Doug reached a hand to smooth one side of her face, such tenderness in his expression.
Camden did the same with the other side of her face. “Forget I said anything. Let’s go back to—”
So many sensations were flying through her at their touches: need, fear of the unknown, an aching desire, concern, excitement. Her stomach fluttered with nerves. “Can I think about it?” she asked anxiously.
Two sets of blue eyes widened. Two chins in need of shaving dropped. Apparently she was capable of surprising them as well, which pleased her.
“What did you say?” Camden asked, looking hopeful.
Doug shook his head. “I’m not even going to consider something that makes you uncomfortable.”
She looked right back at him. “I said I’m going to think about it.”
He didn’t appear happy, but he nodded. Then together the men stood and hauled her to her feet as well.
“Not tonight, right?” Again Camden wanted clarification.
She shook her head and he sighed. “All right.” He took hold of Doug’s arm and attempted to tug him toward the door with him.
Doug resisted, taking a step away from Camden. He turned back to her and said, “We’re pretty sorry risks as far as relationships go. Not the settling down kind of men a woman like you would look for.”
His warning, tinged with sadness and regret, touched her. She saw his cautious warning mirrored in Camden’s expression. This would be a situation all about the sex then, nothing more. She thought she could live with that since she wasn’t interested in falling in love again only to be hurt. Maybe this was exactly what she needed. Something wild and fun to satisfy the passionate needy woman in her. Something that wouldn’t risk her heart.
“I’m not interested in commitment, either. Tried it, got burned. Not chancing it again.” She looked from one brother to the other. “Just so you know that up front.”
They were quiet a few seconds, both watching her. Then Camden’s teasing grin returned. “So you’re up for this?”
“Thinking about it, remember?” But she smiled back at him, and then at Doug, who had a hopeful look in his eyes but no sign of a smile.
Now it was Doug who nudged Camden toward the door. “Call my cell when you’ve made your decision. I wrote my number on one of those bags of chocolates.”
“Damn, I should have thought about that. Could have written mine on the paper around the flowers.” Camden sounded disgusted and started to turn back around.
Doug shoved him out the door. “She’s got my number and that’s good enough.”
CHAPTER FIVE
It had been a day and a half since he and Camden had shown up at the library to propose a threesome to Rose. Doug still couldn’t quite believe they’d done it. He’d done a lot of thinking, a lot of envisioning on the subject before and certainly after they’d suggested it to Rose. He’d discussed it with Camden and Camden had never tried a threesome, either. Hell, he’d even gone on the Internet and done a bit of research on the matter. He wasn’t about to do this with Rose and take a chance on screwing it up or on hurting her.
When was she going to call them? The suspense was killing him, Camden as well.
He pulled a freshly pressed pair of jeans from his closet and grabbed one of his favorite shirts. Tyler had caught him last night at the rare Saturday evening family meal and asked him to go to church this morning with him and Maggie. It had been a while since he’d gone because he usually used those few quiet hours on the ranch to fiddle around with this or that piece of machinery. There was always some engine that needed tuning or some part needing to be replaced. Besides working with the stock doing whatever needed to be done, he enjoyed being the ranch’s mechanic. But Tyler and Maggie were going through some rough times at the moment and Ty needed his family for moral support. He’d be there for him. They all would.
Tossing the clothes on the unmade bed, he started toward his adjoining bathroom. As he flipped on the light switch, his cell phone rang. He froze, heart racing. It could be any of his family or friends, but something told him this call was different. He walked back across the fair-sized bedroom to his bed and the phone on the nightstand.
The instant he picked up the still ringing phone, he spotted Rose Myers in his caller ID window. To his surprise, his hand shook as he answered, “Doug.” He couldn’t seem to manage more than that.
“Um…Don’t get this wrong,” Rose said sounding nervous. “I’m…I’m still thinking. I just wanted you to know.”
Damn if his knees didn’t go weak on him. He sat down on the side of the bed. “Still thinking?”
So she hadn’t just trashed the idea but she wasn’t ready to jump all over it, either. He felt disappointed, but only for a second. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure any of them were ready for such a big step. Oh it sounded great in theory. But the reality of it was more than a bit daunting, at least to him. He figured Camden was also hopeful, yet concerned. They just hadn’t talked about it.
She’d been quiet while he’d been thinking. Finally she said in a rush, “I don’t really know either of you. I like to know a man before… Well, before…” She hesitated. “I’d like to get to know both of you before…”
“That seems fair.” He understood her concern. He was pretty sure she’d heard about their reputations with women. He hadn’t really given it a lot of thought before, but now it bothered him.
“We’re not as wild as
rumors have it.” They weren’t quite as wild as they’d been in their randy twenties. Or at least he wasn’t. Not that he’d turned anything close to celibate either. Nor had Camden.
She gave a soft laugh that curled through him. “I doubt if any man could do all that you two are professed to be capable of.” She laughed quietly again. “There are a lot of women around here that would like you to live up to your reputations as lovers, with them.”
He thought of Elizabeth, constantly chasing after him. Thought of Ana. Thought of Barbie. Thought of… Okay, neither he nor Camden had eased up on their hound dogging ways all that much. But he was ready to. He wasn’t as young as he’d once been.
“How about going to church with me today?” he asked warily. “Maybe eating afterward?” He’d told Samuel that he would eat at the main house today with whatever family showed up, though he’d tried to get out of it. He probably could now, using Rose as an excuse.
“I was planning to visit a church today,” she said, clearly thinking his offer over. “All right. I’d like that.” Then she sounded worried, “What about Camden?”
“He won’t be back until late morning, took some kids on a campout last night. Out to the far range.” Samuel had made a deal with the local sheriff to watch after four teenage boys who’d gotten into some mischief in town. He’d made his usual agreement to keep them here on the ranch for a couple of weeks and work on turning their attitudes around to keep them from being shipped off to Juvie down in Denver. Which meant that Camden and a couple other brothers would be spending time with the boys. Camden’s introductory time had been last night.
“Something to do with Samuel, right?” She sounded almost in awe, obviously having heard about his passion for helping troubled boys and girls. “I’d like to meet him one of these days.”
“I’d planned to have lunch out here with him and whoever else shows up. That work for you?” He sort of hoped she’d say “No,” that she’d rather eat in town at the diner. He could only imagine the questioning looks he’d get when he walked in with her. The inevitable interrogation from Samuel. But he wouldn’t take the offer back.