Love Under Two Prospectors [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Menage Everlasting)

by Cara Covington

  She hugged Sean and Noah, giving them both a good look-see to assure herself that they really were all right. Then she enfolded Brittany into a tight, warm hug.

  “All I can say is, thank God for you, Brittany. Thank God for you.”

  Brit shook her head. “I didn’t do anything special.” She really hadn’t, as far as she could tell.

  “You did. The rest of us were paralyzed.” She shook her head. “It’s been awhile since I was set down on my ass, hard. You think you’re a person who has it all together, and then something happens that just knocks the pins right out from under you. None of us could wrap our heads around the news Carrie brought. It took you barely seconds to react, to get us organized and moving in the right direction. You remembered that Jordan was at home and that he was a contractor and that he should be consulted before anyone tried to dig. You knew what we’d need and who could do what, and you brought that all together.”

  Sean laughed. “Face it, love, you’re special. And you behaved just like a Kendall.” He cupped her face. “Having been on the other side of this sort of equation recently, and knowing how much you love us, I have an idea of how frantic you were—frantic for everyone, yes, but for us, especially. Yet you were able to do what needed doing, putting the family first. I love you more now than I did this time yesterday, and I didn’t think that was even possible.” He placed a sweet kiss on her forehead.

  “Sean’s right, sweetheart. I’m proud of you—and I love you very much.”

  “I love you both more than I can say. And I love everything about this town and the people who call her home.” Sean eased her into his arms and hugged her and then turned her over to Noah.

  Brittany looked up into Samantha Kendall’s beaming gaze. In the older woman’s eyes, she read pride, and love. There could be no question. Lusty had become home to her, and all the people here were members of her extended family.

  “Why don’t all y’all grab some food and have a seat, up by the front. Robert is going to give us an update on everyone, and Jake is going to give some thoughts about the response time, the equipment, everything.”

  “Sounds like a meeting of the full Town Trust,” Sean said.

  “It is exactly that.” Samantha smiled. “The first one I attended was at the dining room table in the New House, when we found out about your uncles Derek, Keith, and James.”

  Noah tilted his head. “That was just after you came to Lusty, wasn’t it, Aunt Samantha?”

  “Yes, indeed. Right after my car died and while it was still in the shop. Now, go eat, since none of us got to have supper last night.”

  They’d all been too exhausted when they got home the night before to eat. The display of food was so large and so damn appetizing Brittany didn’t know what to attack first.

  “Who made all this?” She couldn’t imagine anyone had had time to whip together this buffet feast. Then she focused on loading her plate.

  “It’s catered.” Matthew Benedict got in line behind them. She hadn’t had a chance to even talk to Matt the day before because he’d been at the fires. “This was Grandma’s idea.” He grinned, and Brittany saw the familial resemblance between him and Grandma Kate, who was his actual, by-blood paternal grandmother. “She thought everyone should have the chance to know what all had happened since so many of us were out of town—and for those trapped to see that everyone was okay.” Then he shrugged. “And in this family, good news and good food seem to like to go hand in glove.”

  Brittany hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she forked up the first bite of ham. After that, there was no talking, only eating, at the table. Matt, Steven, and Kelsey came and sat with them. Amanda Rose was in a booster chair her daddy Steven procured for her.

  Brittany grinned. The little five-year-old was the daintiest eater Brittany had ever seen. But she also saw something that made her heart go soft. When her mom had set the plate before the little girl, there were four different foods on the small platter—and no one food touched any other.

  “I used to eat just like that when I was her age.” Like her own parents had done for her, Amanda Rose’s parents allowed the little girl her affectation. They allowed her to be herself.

  After about a half an hour, at the point when they’d inhaled a good portion of the food, Noah nodded toward the door. Sean turned around to look, as did everyone there. Ricoh Stone and Julián Alvarez had just come into the hall. Ricoh was walking with the help of a cane, and Julián wore a sling. Angela walked beside Ricoh, and the woman looked a lot happier than she had last night.

  It appeared Brittany been right about Julián’s arm possibly having been sprained. And then the men who’d been trapped with them got to their feet and started to applaud. It was clear who they were cheering—who they were thanking. Soon everyone had joined in, and that included Brittany.

  She might have helped the night before, getting everyone headed in the right direction quickly. But there was no doubt in anyone’s mind. The real hero of the hour was Ricoh Stone—a man whose part-time wood-working hobby had, in the end, saved many lives.

  Ricoh and Angela and their friend Julián sat with the Alvarez-Kendalls.

  “All right, brother of mine,” Peter said as he helped the wounded man sit. “That’s two for me and two for you. I think we’re done now, don’t you?”

  That comment brought laughter from the assembled crowd and even a few comments of “damn straight.” Then Jordan and Peter accompanied Angela to the buffet where they loaded a couple of plates for the injured.

  “Two what?” Brittany asked.

  Matt grinned. “When Peter first arrived in Lusty, we didn’t know he was a fed on the trail of drug smugglers. In the dust-up that followed, when he and Jordan had already begun their relationship, Peter was shot. Then, awhile later, when the head of that cartel put out a contract on him, and had threatened Tracy, he got shot a second time.”

  “Totally unrelated, not long after Julián arrived,” Steven said, “a friend of his from Divine and her fiancé’s baby were kidnapped. The villain turned out to be a criminal who’d landed his Lear jet right here at the airfield in Lusty due to mechanical problems, so it was to the airfield here he brought them. Julián had a piece in the rescue—and ended up getting shot.”

  “Ah, so last night, his being wounded in the tornado, that was his second time.”

  “Yeah. We really hope their other brothers, Paolo and Sebastian, don’t show up, fixin’ to stay.” Matt grinned, showing Brittany that he was joking.

  “I hear there’s a contingency plan to lay in Kevlar vests and hazmat suits,” Steven said. “Just in case they do.”

  Sean and Noah chuckled. Brittany met Kelsey’s gaze and, with her, laughed.

  People she’d never seen, wearing catering uniforms, brought around sweet tea, coffee, and made quick work of getting hot tea or any other beverage anyone wanted to drink. Plates were cleared, pastry platters set on every table, and Robert Jessop got up on the small stage.

  He only had to stand there to command silence. Brittany had heard the man was a consummate dominant. That was an impressive display of skill.

  “We only had three injuries that required a visit to the clinic. Duncan Moore suffered a projectile, a shard of glass, to the gluteus maximus. We removed it surgically, and he received a few stitches and, in honor of my father who’s on a cruise with my other two parents, the requisite butt shot.” Many people laughed, and Brittany figured she’d get the inside scoop later. “Duncan is currently at home, resting comfortably in a prone position, his wife, Holly, pampering him, as you can imagine. On behalf of us all, I informed him that the odds on his having gotten that kind of injury, all things considered, were pretty high.”

  “Not as high as the odds on that natural royal flush he pulled,” Chase Benedict said.

  Robert looked over at Chase. “You’ve got me there, cousin.” Robert was smiling, and Brittany looked at Sean. “Duncan got a natural royal flush?”

  “It was
a beautiful sight and happened immediately before the tornado.”

  “I wonder if he ever wished aloud for one?” Josh Benedict asked. “You know, just once before I die…”

  “We ought to have the Town Trust look into that. Hey, Jake, make a note, please,” Cord Benedict said.

  Everyone laughed at that one. For his part, Jake raised his hand and waved in response to the suggestion.

  “Our other two walking wounded are Julián and Ricoh. Ricoh has a sprained ankle. Julián, unfortunately, suffered a fractured wrist. As you can see, both gentlemen are up and about. The rest of the men in that collapse had varying scrapes, bruises, and contusions, but nothing that rest and maybe a little feminine pampering wouldn’t fix.” Then he looked over the assemblage. “We all got lucky, my family. Very, very lucky.”

  Loud applause greeted that statement. Robert nodded and returned to his table. Jake took the stage next.

  “I’ll be meeting a team from the Office of Emergency Management in a little while out at the site, as they’ve requested the chance to see the damage up close. I’m going to ask Lieutenant Phillips and Sergeant Williams to provide us with after-action reports. Lieutenant, thank you for being on point, for stepping in and providing us with solid, sound leadership when we needed it most. Because you did, things were done right, and lives were saved.”

  More applause broke out, and Brittany waved to everyone. She honestly didn’t think she’d done all that much. But she took the thanks because she’d had a personal epiphany that doing so was what these people needed her to do. She looked around and saw Gunny and Rosemary sitting with Caleb, Bernice, and Jonathan—and Grandma Kate.

  “Julián, when you’re ready to head home, let your brother know then give him your keys.” He grinned. “Grandma Kate says I’m to offer you two modes of transport. Either Peter and Jordan will form a two-vehicle convoy with you as passenger. Or Henry will fly you home in the chopper and your vehicle will arrive about six hours later—same two vehicle convoy.”

  “Appreciate that. I’ll think on it.” He lifted his coffee cup in a toast.

  “Once we have the after-action reports, we’ll have another meeting to look at what we did right and what could be improved upon. Now finish eating, visit as you need to, then head on home and enjoy the rest of your day.”

  Sean slipped his arm around Brittany, and Noah edged close. “There goes our grand seduction plan,” Sean said. He kissed her lips, a brief caress. Then he met her gaze. “How fast can you type?”

  “Pretty fast.” She used a finger to stroke his bottom lip then kissed him back. She turned and did the same with Noah. “I have some things to say to you both, and actually, writing that report will help me get my mind set straight.”

  “In that case, let’s get to it.” Noah sounded as anxious as she felt.

  “You don’t have to ask me twice.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It didn’t take Brittany long to write the report. That she’d been asked to do so didn’t even register as odd with her until she began to compose the email and wondered who all she should send it to. An after-action report—or AAR as it was called in the Corps—was standard operating procedure whenever one or more marines encountered action—more often involving weapons discharge—but she hadn’t thought it would be something a civilian would know about, let alone ask for.

  I guess you could call the sudden, near catastrophic strike of a tornado to be an action in need of a report.

  She didn’t use the standard report format but rather wrote a small essay, detailing the events. She used a time line, of course, but the rest of the format most often used, citing base name and location, command, and other operational details simply didn’t apply. She’d send the report to Jake Kendall since he was the one who asked for it. If anyone else needed to read it, she figured Jake could forward it on to them.

  Brittany read her report over once and then closed the document, attached it to her email, and hit Send. Sitting and setting down the events of the night before into logical order, writing the words out, thinking about them as she read those words over again, put things into perspective for her. The exercise had allowed her to reflect on the events, something she’d not been able to do at the time.

  From the moment that Carrie had burst in to the great room at the Big House, nothing had mattered to her or the people who’d been with her except rescuing the people who were trapped—taking care of family. Brittany had subsequently learned that while she’d been busy helping out at the Benedict North ranch, Samantha Kendall had gotten into one of the SUVs parked out front of the Big House and, with Anna Jessop riding shotgun, had surveyed the entire rest of the town, every street, every building, and even driving to the outlying ranches at both ends of Lusty, ensuring there were no other emergencies to be tended to, no other storm damage needing repair. That was something Brittany simply hadn’t thought to do, and that was okay. Everything hadn’t been on her.

  Everyone, working together, got the job done.

  One of Brittany’s personal epiphanies over the last twenty-four hours went deeper than the initial moment of realization. She recalled how annoyed she would get, beginning in San Diego, when everyone seemed to delight in commenting that, “she was alive, and that was the most important thing.” At the time, she felt as if everyone was discounting what had happened to her—as if the loss of her lower left leg and her left foot was nothing.

  And that hadn’t been the point of their repeated litany at all.

  There’d been that one horrible moment last night—when the searchlights illuminated the damage that tornado had wrought and she’d seen the stark reality of what they were dealing with. In that moment, she’d been terrified that the men she loved beyond all reason were dead. And she’d known she would have given anything for them to just be alive.

  Her lovers, her family…they hadn’t been discounting what she’d lost. They’d been celebrating what she had left, the most important thing of all—her very life.

  Love drew her out of the chair in the office and sent her searching for her men. She didn’t have to look far.

  In the aftermath of the storm front that had swept through the day before, the humidity had lessened. Though it was still Texas-hot at the end of June, there was a slight breeze. The back patio enjoyed shade all day, and it really shouldn’t have surprised her at all that her men had taken the opportunity to sit outside and enjoy a beer.

  Having been crammed into such a small space, cheek to jowl as it were, for several hours the night before with eighteen other men, knowing they were more or less buried alive, would have been a claustrophobic experience. It certainly would have been for her.

  Both men looked up as Brittany stepped out the sliding glass door.

  “All finished with that report, baby girl?” Sean extended his hand to her, and she went to him. He eased her down onto his lap and rested his hand on her right hip. Sitting like this on his lap, she could see both her men, which was perfect.

  “Yes. Thank you for understanding that I needed to get that done right away.”

  “You don’t have to thank us, sweetheart,” Noah said. “We know how important it was to get the facts down as soon as possible. Less chance of forgetting important details that way.”

  Brittany met Noah’s gaze and then Sean’s. “Having to go over it all again brought it all back so vividly. I was so scared. I didn’t allow myself to think about the worst-case scenario. I just kept up a positive mantra inside my head and did what had to be done, one step at a time. In some ways, I was like an automaton, going through each step then taking the next and the next.”

  “Boy, do we know that feeling.” Sean smiled, and Noah grunted in agreement.

  Brittany nodded. She stroked Sean’s face then reached for Noah’s hand. He gave it and then moved his chair closer so she wouldn’t have to stretch. “I love you both so much. Thank you for not giving up on me, through all my bullshit.”

  “I love you, Brittany.�
� Sean ran his hand down her back. “You’re smart and sexy, and you have such a beautiful heart. You’re the center of my world, and I don’t want to live a day of my life without you in it. Will you marry me?”

  Before she could answer, Noah stroked the back of her hand, drawing her attention to him. “I love you, Brittany Phillips. I love every single thing about you. You are the best woman I know—and the only one I want to be with, have babies with, and grow old with. Will you marry me?”

  She’d wondered if this moment would come. She recalled thinking, as her father drove her to meet them at the private airfield in Indiana, that if only they’d let her, she would gladly spend the rest of her life with them.

  Her vision blurred, and her heart filled. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you!” Her tears were falling once more, but this time it was because her heart was so full—of love, certainly, but also of joy. Of the pure joy of being alive. “You’re my heart, my core, and my future. You’re both my everything.”

  “Come to bed with us, baby girl. Let us love you.”

  Brittany tugged on Noah’s hand, and he released her. His slight nod, when she met his gaze, gave her the courage for her next words.

  She cupped Sean’s face in her hands and kept her gaze on his. “I want to make love with you both. Together, at the same time. I need to feel you both inside me.” She stroked his cheeks with her thumbs. “Sean, I need you to love me like I’m the whole woman you’ve been telling me I am, and not like I’m just a cripple.”

  Sean closed his eyes, but not before she saw the pain. When he opened them again, his expression lifted her heart. Yes, tears shimmered in his eyes. She’d never doubted his love, and knowing how much he loved her, she understood how deeply he regretted his own failings.

  “Forgive me for that, baby girl. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.” He looked off to the distance for just a moment and then met her gaze once more. “I blamed myself for something, I know now, that wasn’t truly my responsibility. All last night when we were trapped, all I could think was, if I never got to see you again, never got to hold you and love you the way you deserved, that your memory of me would be of how I’d cheated you, how I’d cheated us all by treating you as less than a full partner while trying to keep myself, my emotions, safe.” He leaned forward and kissed her, a hot, fierce, but way too short kiss. “Yes, Brittany. I’ll give you—we’ll give you—all that you need, all that you deserve. Always.”