by Jenny Penn
“That’s enough of that, or you’ll make it hard for me to concentrate on the road,” Dylan warned them with a smile in his tone.
Brandon snorted as he released Kristen, allowing her to settle back down in her seat. She was clearly flustered and embarrassed, casting quick little glances at Dylan, and Brandon could easily read her thoughts. She was worried, worried about what had happened last night with his best friend.
Dylan had told him all about their heated embrace, along with the ultimatum he’d laid down. Kristen hadn’t shot him down. That alone had shocked Brandon, but now he understood what his friend had been saying about just kissing her.
It did really work.
Kristen seemed to have completely forgotten about their argument. Actually, she settled down quite nicely, all too eager to move on past their kiss and the embarrassment it clearly caused her.
“So, Deputy Hammel⎯”
“Brandon,” he corrected her, having a feeling he’d be doing that for a long time to come and not surprised in the least when she ignored his correction.
“You said something yesterday about enjoying gardening.”
“Oh God, don’t encourage him,” Dylan groaned.
“Why do you have to be like that?” Brandon shot back. “You like our yard.”
“Your yard?” Kristen blinked as she glanced between the two men. “You two live together?”
“Actually, we bought a house together,” Dylan informed her, shooting a dirty look over Kristen’s head at Brandon. “One, I was assured we could fit a pool into the backyard, but somebody has taken it over with his stupid vegetables.”
“Don’t somebody me.” Brandon wasn’t about to let that one lie. “And you like those vegetables.”
“I’d like a pool more.”
“I like vegetables,” Kristen chipped in softly, drawing both Dylan’s and Brandon’s gaze down to where she sat between them, still blushing like the virgin she was. “Actually, I used to have my own little garden. Mom and I grew herbs.”
“Your mom cooks with herbs?” Dylan sounded doubtful, and Kristen seemed to understand why.
“No.” She smiled. “But they smell nice on the porch.”
“On a porch,” Dylan latched onto that comment. “That’s a great place for a few pots and great way to make room for a pool.”
“Oh, shut up about the pool,” Brandon groaned. “If we took out the garden, what would you cook with?”
“I’d go to the supermarket and buy something,” Dylan shot back.
“You cook?” Kristen injected herself into their argument once again, blinking up at Dylan with an expression full of surprise.
“I dabble.” He shrugged. “Dad used to be a cook in the army, so he taught me a few things.”
“I bake,” Kristen declared, blushing over that admission, as if there were any reason to be embarrassed.
“Well then, maybe we should get together and make a meal,” Dylan offered with enough of a suggestive hint for almost any woman to take his double meaning. Any woman that was but Kristen, who beamed proudly up at him.
“What a wonderful idea.”
Brandon rolled his eyes and bit his tongue as Dylan snickered and finally turned down Main Street. They were almost there, which was a good thing because it was becoming harder and harder not to give into the urge to kiss Kristen again.
The light, floral fragrance that seemed to be distinctly hers filled the cab, making it hard to concentrate. It didn’t help that he felt the soft plushness of her thigh pressed up against his. It had him overheating in inappropriate ways and shifting in his seat as he tried to get comfortable with the ever-growing erection beginning to tent his slacks.
He wasn’t alone in that. Brandon couldn’t help but take note that Dylan kept fidgeting down at his end of the bench seat. He could guess what had his buddy all itchy. So would most women, but Kristen seemed completely oblivious to the effect she had on either of them as Dylan pulled into the Main Street parking lot and started looking for a spot.
There were none, and the search cost precious seconds that allowed the temperature in the cab to rise another couple degrees. Brandon needed to get out of the damn thing before he turned and ravaged Kristen right there in her seat. Thankfully there was a spot on the side of the road, and seconds later, Brandon was all but leaping out of the truck, gulping in the fresh air.
It didn’t really help.
Not with Kristen following him with that sweet smile still tugging on her lips. Boy but she was pretty, and so damn sweet a man could get more than a toothache. Brandon would suffer all the aches just to have the pleasure of escorting her into the bakery and knowing that every man there was jealous because Miss Kristen was with him…and Dylan.
* * * *
By the time Deputy Singer and Deputy Hammel dropped Kristen off that evening at her house, she was all but quivering with excitement. It had been a wonderful day. They’d had a big brunch and been joined by several other people, who had also shared their opinion on the pool versus garden debate.
Kristen feared Deputy Hammel’s garden was endangered and had insisted on seeing it herself. She’d expected something small, something like what Gwen had with a little yard and quaint old home, but it was much more like an old farm, with a long, sweeping drive and a massive backyard overtaken by rows and rows of garden beds overflowing with produce.
The flowers…Deputy Hammel grew the most beautiful ones. They attracted bees and butterflies and even a humming bird that she’d watched buzz all around. It had been an exciting moment.
So had seeing their house first-hand.
They’d bought one of the old, white-clapboard homes that rose up tall and proud and was banked by a nearly wrap-around porch that Deputy Singer had already restored back to its former glory. The latticework was ornate, the railing spindles hand-spun by Deputy Singer himself.
He had a workshop set up in the old garage. He was using it to build new, custom kitchen cabinets. Kristen had been suitably impressed. Deputy Singer clearly took a lot of pride in the house and had big dreams. What Kristen couldn’t figure out was how Deputy Hammel played into those dreams.
The two men had bought a forever home, one that had enough bedrooms for a whole brood of children, but whose children? Their children? Like Deputy Hammel and Deputy Singer were a couple?
That made little sense, but it also made sense of other things, like why Deputy Singer hadn’t been jealous when Deputy Hammel had kissed her. Of course, Deputy Singer hadn’t confessed to feeling anything other than lust for her, so maybe he was just not honestly jealous.
That still didn’t explain the house. Kristen couldn’t escape her curiosity or her need to find out just what was up with the two friends because they were clearly very, very close. There was one person she knew who would know. Gwen.
Kristen found herself staring into the bedroom Gwen had turned into a den. It housed Gwen’s precious computer and even more coveted large screen television, but she wasn’t busy using either. Instead, she was sitting at her desk staring down at something and looking completely lost.
“Is everything all right?” Kristen asked as she came to a pause in the doorway, not sure if she should intrude.
“What?” Gwen sniffed and blinked as she looked up.
“You look upset. Did something happen?”
“Nothing you can help with,” Gwen assured her, recovering her normal hard, brittle tone. “Is there something you wanted?”
“No. I just…” Kristen didn’t even know how to ask what she wanted to know, and Gwen wasn’t patient enough about how to get the words out.
“Is this about Brandon and Dylan?”
“How did you know?” Kristen blinked, shocked by her cousin’s perception.
“How do you think?” Gwen snorted. “You showed up for church on a scooter and you don’t think your mother is calling me up and reaming me out for letting you buy the thing?”
Actually, Kristen had expected her mother to do
something like that. She’d just forgotten that she had expected it. She’d been having too much fun that afternoon to be worrying over her parents, but now she felt a twist of guilt as she smiled sadly at Gwen.
“I’m sorry. She shouldn’t have done that.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Gwen shrugged and shoved away from the desk. “She didn’t say anything she hasn’t said before.”
“Still…” Kristen stepped back as Gwen tried to brush past her and then followed her cousin into the kitchen. “It wasn’t your responsibility to let me do anything. She should know that.”
“Well then, tell her. Doubt it will make any difference,” Gwen muttered as she headed for the refrigerator. “So what is it you want to know about your boyfriends?”
“Boyfriends?”
“The two deputies.” Gwen paused to remind Kristen of what she’d interrupted her for. “You have a question or not?”
“Well, it’s just…they’re not my boyfriends.” Kristen felt compelled to correct that misassumption. “But they have both showed interest in me, and I was just wondering…I mean…”
“It’s not either-or.” Gwen cut her off, wrenching open the refrigerator. “Whatever has you stuttering over there, I can guess they both made a pass, and you’re wondering who to choose, but the great thing about Cattlemen is you don’t have to. You can have them both.”
Kristen blinked, not following that explanation. “What do you mean both?”
“I mean at the same time.” Gwen shot her a knowing little smile as she began to pull the beer out of the refrigerator. “Front and back, there is nothing like that ride.”
“You mean both,” Kristen repeated, having trouble computing that crude thought. “At the same time?”
“Oh, yeah.” Gwen took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clearly savoring some kind of memory. Kristen was horrified to think of what it might be.
“I…I…but that’s wrong!”
“Nothing is wrong when you’re naked and having fun,” Gwen assured her as she began popping every can of beer open and pouring it down the drain. That seemed peculiar, but Kristen was still stuck on shocked to pay her cousin much mind.
“Well then, my answer is no, absolutely not!”
Kristen was half tempted to ride back over to the deputies’ house and tell that to their faces, but she didn’t want to give them a chance to kiss her again. Their kisses were potent, making her want to agree to almost anything.
No, she’d tell them off in public. It would be safer.
“What are you doing?” Kristen frowned as she finally focused back in on Gwen, who had now emptied a whole twelve-pack down the sink.
“Going on an alcohol-free diet,” Gwen tossed back, leaving the cans to drain as she turned and headed back toward her bedroom. “And I have a friend coming over. Let him in when he knocks.”
That drew Kristen’s eyebrows up. Normally, Gwen’s friends didn’t come by the house. She wondered if this man was special, but she somehow doubted it when he arrived not ten minutes later. Kristen answered the door with a smile that dimmed slightly as the tall gentleman waiting on the other side frowned in response.
“I’m Kristen, Kristen Harold, Gwen’s cousin,” she explained as she held out a hand that he just looked at. “And you are?”
“Gwen didn’t tell me her cousin was in town,” the man responded with a hint of accusation in his tone. It reflected the sudden sense of animosity she felt seeping from the man.
“Yes, well…she told me you were coming over.” Kristen wasn’t sure what else to say.
If this was her house, she might have told the rude stranger off and slammed the door in his face, but this was Gwen’s guest, and she had little choice but to step back and allow him entry.
“She’s in her bedroom. I’ll go get her.”
“Don’t bother,” the man grumbled as he brushed past Kristen to storm off down the hall toward the back bedroom.
“Excuse me.” She raced after him, leaving the front door wide open. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to announce yourself in such a manner.”
“She won’t mind.”
“But⎯”
“Gwen!” he hollered as he banged on her bedroom door. “Open up.”
“Dean.” Gwen threw the door open to latch onto the man and jerk him forward. “Get in here.”
A second later the door slammed in Kristen’s face, leaving her beyond curious and feeling a little torn. Whatever was going on in there wasn’t her business, but Kristen was sort of instinctively nosey and couldn’t help but lean slightly as the murmur of voices grew until the man was storming.
“How could you let this happen?”
“Shhh!”
Gwen shushed him as the patter of footsteps raced for the door. Kristen jerked back instantly, ducking into the den as she heard Gwen’s bedroom door open. It slammed shut a second later, and that should have been her cue to flee, but Kristen’s attention caught on the page still lying on Gwen’s desk.
It wasn’t a paper after all, but a picture. Several of them, in fact. They were all of a fetus. Kristen’s eyes rounded as she shuffled over to stare down at the printed sonogram results and the name clearly typed beneath them.
Gwen was pregnant!
Kristen couldn’t help but wonder if the man Gwen had pulled into her bedroom was the father and then, uncharitably, wondered if Gwen knew who the father was. That was wrong of her, but then so was pressing her ear back up to the wall and eavesdropping on their conversation, but Kristen was curious, and, she reasoned, her cousin might need her help. God knew Gwen would never ask for it.
“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” the man snapped, sounding very angry. “You should get an abortion.”
“That’s the stupidest thing you ever said,” Gwen snapped back. “Do you know how much this baby is worth?”
Kristen frowned at that, not liking where that question led at all. Her opinions didn’t count for much, though. She couldn’t even share them. She had to bite them back as she continued to strain to catch every detail.
“You can’t do this, Gwen. It’s too dangerous.” Beneath his anger, the man sounded honestly concerned.
So was Kristen because, while she could agree that Gwen’s words lacked wisdom, they hadn’t struck Kristen as dangerous. She was clearly missing out on something here, something she probably didn’t want to know the details to, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from trying to gather them.
“It will work out,” Gwen assured him. “But I need your help, and you know you owe me.”
“Fine. What do you need me to do?”
“Help me convince the sheriff the baby is his.”
“What?” The man sounded just as horrified as Kristen felt, but obviously for very different reasons. “You can’t blackmail a whole bunch of men into thinking they’re each a daddy when you’re trying to convince the one man you’re certain isn’t that he is. That’s insane.”
That certainly was. Gwen was blackmailing somebody, from the sound of it more than one person. Suddenly Kristen couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Gwen could afford a house and fill it with such nice things because she had a second source of income. That was an unnerving thought.
“Are you going to help me or not?”
“I don’t even know what you’re trying to do here because Alex will demand a blood test.”
“Who cares?” Gwen spat. “By then Heather won’t want anything to do with him.”
“You need to give up this obsession and focus on the problems at hand,” the man insisted.
Kristen couldn’t have agreed more. All these silly games Gwen was playing seemed pointless and a way to avoid the real problem of what she was going to do with a baby.
“What I need is for you to help me. Now are you going to or not?”
“I said I would. Just tell me what you want me to do and don’t blame me when this all blows up in your face.”
“It’s not going to
blow up.”
“Of course, it is. Alex hates you. You slept with two of his deputies.”
Kristen’s heart froze at that as her thoughts turned immediately to Deputies Singer and Hammel. The way Brandon had spoken to his cousin would be easily explained if he were some kind of scorned lover. It would also explain why he thought Gwen would be jealous over her, because he wanted her to be.
Maybe the two of them were just using her to get back at her cousin. That thought cut deep, and she didn’t want to hear any more. Everything was all messed up. Gwen was pregnant and blackmailing people. She’d probably slept with the two men Kristen had actually thought were taking an interest in her.
It was all just so confusing that it gave her headache, and she went to lie down.
* * * *
Dylan didn’t normally whistle while he cooked, but that night he was just full of songs. Brandon watched him, wondering if his friend even knew how happy he sounded. That was Kristen’s effect, and Brandon was not immune.
He found himself wondering if he wasn’t being kind of dick about the pool. Dylan really wanted one. It had been something that he’d rejected houses over until Brandon had sworn they could put one in. That was really why they’d bought a house with a big backyard.
Four years ago Brandon hadn’t known he’d turn into such an avid gardener. That was his grandmom’s doing. She’d come over to help with the yard, and he’d been hooked. That didn’t mean he couldn’t share the yard.
“You know, I’m thinking if we put in maybe a round pool, not too big,” Brandon tacked on quickly as Dylan spun around at just the word pool. “I could rearrange the gardens so they surrounded it.”
“That’s a brilliant idea.” Dylan nodded, looking like a kid who’d just heard Santa Claus was real. Brandon couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yeah, but we need to get some real designs together.”
“Of course, but if we got a pool, we would have an excuse to teach Kristen to swim.”