Love Under Two Accountants [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)
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The Lusty, Texas Collection
Love Under Two Accountants
Bailey James flees New York to Lusty, only to meet two men from home who touch her heart.
Chance and Logan Benedict never dreamt they could share a wife until they came to Lusty and discovered their family history. They’d had a special relationship in college with a woman who only wanted the experience for her bucket list. Now, learning ménage runs in their family fills Chance and Logan with hope.
When they meet Bailey, they know they’ve found the woman destined to be theirs. But there’s a catch. As forensic accountants, they’ve been assigned to an investigation, the target of which is Bailey’s late boss. Bailey comes with a catch of her own. Her boss was murdered and the killer believes she has something of his.
Chance and Logan know that before they can build a future with Bailey, they must do something about the killer on her trail.
Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Romantic Suspense, Western/Cowboys
Length: 59,264words
LOVE UNDER TWO
ACCOUNTANTS
The Lusty, Texas Collection
Cara Covington

Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
LOVE UNDER TWO ACCOUNTANTS
Copyright © 2017 by Cara Covington
ISBN: 978-1-64010-503-4
First Publication: July 2017
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2017 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
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PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my husband of 45 years, David. Our lives are about to change forever in a few months, when you at last retire from a long career of very hard work. You helped me realize my dreams, and I intend to return the favor.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful for my readers, who continue to honor me by reading my books. Thank you for contacting me, and filling my heart with gratitude when you tell me how my stories have touched you, inspired you, and helped you get through tough times. Writing them does the same for me. What unique common ground we share!
Thank you to my reader’s group/street team, The Lusty Ladies. Your dedication to and love of all things Lusty keeps me going. If ever I think I don’t know what comes next, I have only to look to the wonderful montage of photos you sent me to remind myself that you’re waiting for my words. I’m especially grateful to Lisa Buchanan Phillips, my admin, for all of the time she gives to the group, but mostly for her friendship.
Thank you to my beta reader, Angie Buchanan Jones, who keeps me honest. Angie, I appreciate your comments and suggestions, and I am grateful for your friendship. I know every book is better than it would have been because of you.
I’m grateful to the hardworking, dedicated professionals at my publisher, Siren-BookStrand. My editor, Devin, is outstanding, and I am so grateful for her guidance. And of course, I continue to be grateful to Amanda Hilton, for saying yes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Morgan Ashbury, also writing as Cara Covington, has been a writer since she was first able to pick up a pen. In the beginning, it was a hobby, a way to create a world of her own, and who could resist the allure of that? Then, as she grew and matured, life got in the way, as life often does. She got married and had three children, and worked in the field of accounting, for that was the practical thing to do, and the children did need to be fed. And all the time she was being practical, she would squirrel herself away on quiet Sunday afternoons and write.
Most children are raised knowing the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule. Morgan’s children also learned the Paper Rule: Thou shalt not throw out any paper that has thy mother’s words upon it.
Believing in tradition, Morgan ensured that her children’s children learned this rule, too.
Life threw Morgan a curve when, in 2002, she underwent emergency triple bypass surgery. Second chances are to be cherished, and with the encouragement and support of her husband, Morgan decided to use hers to do what she’d always dreamed of doing—writing full-time.
Morgan has always loved writing romance. It is the one genre that can incorporate every other genre within its pulsating heart. Romance showcases all that humankind can aspire to be. And, she admits, she’s a sucker for a happy ending.
Morgan’s favorite hobbies are reading, cooking, and traveling—though she would rather you didn’t mention that last one to her husband. She has too much fun teasing him about having become a “Traveling Fool” of late.
Morgan lives in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, with a mysterious cat, a nine-pound Morkie dog who thinks he’s a German shepherd, and her husband of forty-five years, David.
For all titles by Cara Covington, please visit
www.bookstrand.com/cara-covington
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Landmarks
Cover
LOVE UNDER TWO
ACCOUNTANTS
The Lusty, Texas Collection
CARA COVINGTON
Copyright © 2017
Chapter One
Angel’s Roadhouse, 3 Miles
Those words, scrawled on a sign above an arrow pointing to the left, captivated Bailey James’s imagination.
Now that’s what I need. Time in the presence of an angel. With her next breath, Bailey shook her head. Where in the hell did that thought come from? Sure, she felt more than a little untethered lately, more than a little unsure of what happened next. Definitely more afraid than she was used to feeling. Those emotions were completely understandable under the circumstances. But it wasn’t as if she was in any real need of heavenly intervention. After all, she’d already removed herself from the danger zone. She was safe now. Right?
When she’d left New York City and her home in th
e nearby town of Maplewood, New Jersey, she left all the rest of her past behind, hadn’t she? Three weeks into this change, more than fifteen hundred miles away from everything familiar, she wasn’t about to second-guess herself now.
Bailey slowed her car and put on the left turn signal as she approached the turnoff for the roadhouse. Whether there was an actual angel there or not, it was well past lunchtime, and having gotten up late, and skipped breakfast, she was hungry. The voice that tried to tell her she could live off her fat was a voice she’d decided to ignore when she left the rest of her past behind her.
Bailey had never, in her entire life, done anything spontaneous, nor had she ever taken a vacation before this one—and she was practically thirty years old! When she’d driven away from Maplewood, destination Texas, she’d told herself that, for the first few weeks, she would simply consider herself to be on vacation. That meant she would do what she wanted and go wherever the spirit led her. There would be time to look for work, and a new place to call home, in the days and weeks to come.
She’d also resolved to be a woman of strength, a woman with a positive self-image. That resolution was proving to be more difficult than she’d anticipated.
Her first stop once she’d reached Texas had been Dallas. She’d found an economical room in a place close to but not in Dallas proper, in Arlington. She knew herself well enough to understand it had been the name of the city that enticed her since she’d lived not that far away from another Arlington, the one in Virginia. While in the Dallas area, she visited the historical sites, played tourist, and tried to find that spirit of vacation she’d heard about from others all her life. That spirit continued to elude her, although she’d immediately felt at ease in that historic city. Houston and then Austin were her next stops. Both were large cities with decidedly different atmospheres, not only from Dallas, but each other. She’d enjoyed the driving, even though she hadn’t been used to so many hours in the car before this trip.
Her stop in San Antonio had been awe-inspiring. And while this city, too, had a different vibe to it, Bailey mentally confirmed the one thing all the cities she’d visited so far in this state had in common. The people of Texas were a lot different from what she was used to and a heck of a lot friendlier and more approachable than her native New Yorkers.
Back home, it seemed as if no one looked at anyone as they walked along on the sidewalks. Ever. She’d often wondered, if she dropped into a faint, would anyone stop to help her? Bailey shook her head again. More likely, folks would just step over her body, grumbling under their breath about the inconvenience of it all.
Bailey had arrived in Waco late in the afternoon yesterday and had driven through the city and out the other end, heading west, looking for a suitable motel on the outskirts of the urban area. The Green Gables appeared new and was situated between a gas station and an IHOP. She’d checked in and then checked out—sleeping nearly twenty straight hours!
The deep sleep, unexpected but definitely needed, completely recharged her. She’d been tense before she’d left New York and had driven long hours for several days to reach her destination. She’d kept busy, ridiculously so, she could admit to herself now, as if she had to cram a lifetime of sightseeing into a few short days—or put worlds of distance between where she’d started from and where she was. Bailey had trouble sleeping each night, until Waco. From check-in yesterday until she awoke after ten-thirty that morning, she’d finally been able to let go of the fear and get some of the rest her body demanded.
Bailey saw the roadhouse just ahead on her right. The presence of a couple of cars and several pickup trucks in the parking lot assured her the establishment was open for business. The roadhouse seemed surrounded by barren, undeveloped land. Did they call these tracts farms or ranches? The iconic image of cowboys on horseback working with herds of Texas longhorns was a sight that had eluded her so far. Though in Dallas it seemed a lot of the men went around wearing business suits accessorized with cowboy boots and hats, there’d still been no horses. The only cattle in sight had been advertised on restaurant marquees as either barbecued brisket or steak.
Bailey parked her car and emerged into the sunshine, which, in mid-February, felt more like late spring than the winter she’d left back home. She’d brought a light jacket with her when she’d exited her room at the Green Gables, thinking she might have need of it. She left it in the car. Locking her vehicle, she headed inside the roadhouse.
Bailey was greeted by an interior so well-lit that the polished wood inside gleamed. The floors, a dark kind of tile, accented the lighter shade of the wood-paneled walls. Music played, but just loud enough to hear. The large dining room held only about twenty diners, and there were lots of tables available.
Bailey couldn’t hold back her grin as she looked at those diners. Here at last were the real cowboys she’d been hoping to see. Though most of the men seated didn’t have cowboy hats on their heads, something about their tee-shirt-covered chests, broad shoulders, and wind-blown hairstyles spoke of lives spent in the saddle, sweating under the mid-day sun.
Central to the room stood a large bar surrounded by high, bistro-type seats. Bailey blinked as a red-haired elf of a woman popped up in the middle of that bar. I think I need more sleep if I’m imagining elves as well as angels. She wasn’t at all certain the two beings were even in the same realm.
The woman spotted her and immediately smiled. “Hey there. Welcome! Sit wherever you like—table, booth, or bar.”
Because the woman’s smile reached her eyes, Bailey opted for the bar. There were rungs on the chairs that helped her to boost her five-foot-three self up and onto the seat.
“Thanks. I saw your sign out on the highway, and my stomach rumbled.”
The woman chuckled. “We hear that a lot. That one sign is the best advertising we have—well, next to word of mouth.” She handed over the menu. “We have a wonderful taco soup today. How about I bring you a cup, to get you started, while you decide on your lunch?”
Bailey didn’t have to think about it twice. “Perfect. I love trying new soups.”
“Coming right up.”
While the server left to get the soup, Bailey perused the menu. She spotted something right away that made her appetite wake right up. She’d had chicken fried steak in Dallas, on her first day in Texas—one of those dishes she’d heard mentioned on television shows but had never tried. It had been love at first bite, and Bailey didn’t even worry about the calories. The couple of weeks since hadn’t changed her mind on that. She closed the menu, lunch decided.
The server returned with a cup of soup and a basket holding what appeared to be taco chips with a tiny cup containing salsa.
She set the items down and then produced a bottle that had obviously been kept on a shelf under the bar. “Our chef doesn’t make the soup overly spicy, so if you need more heat…” She wiggled the bottle.
“I’m not used to a lot of spices, but thank you.” She put her napkin on her lap and then spooned a bit of the soup. She let the broth sit on her tongue, pleased when it wasn’t, in her opinion, too spicy. She could taste the chilies, yes, but also the beef and the beans and the tomatoes. “Oh, this is good.”
“Enjoy.”
Bailey ate, the tasty soup whetting her appetite and awakening her taste buds. When she was done, the server asked if she’d decided on what else she wanted. The woman then keyed the order into her computer and came back to stand before her, bringing the sweet tea Bailey requested.
The woman tilted her head to one side. “You’re not from around here. Northeast?”
“Yes, ma’am. I was born and raised in New Jersey—in a suburb of New York City, actually.”
“Well, we’re glad you’re here. Are you visiting family in the area?”
Something about the way the woman smiled was contagious. Bailey felt herself relax. “No, I don’t have any family. There was just my mom and me, but she died a few years back.” Bailey didn’t know why she kept talking. She wa
sn’t one to open up about her life, as a rule. “Anyway, I suddenly found myself out of a job a few weeks ago, and I decided that it was time for a change.” Bailey was proud of the fact her voice didn’t hitch and her emotions remained calm. Being able to put the way her life had exploded into such simplistic terms proved she’d been right to reach for a brand-new start.
The server smiled. “I arrived here a couple of years ago looking for a change, too. What made you decide on our area?”
Bailey never considered anything but the truth. “I couldn’t decide on which state I’d go to for my new beginning, so I left it up to fate. I put a map up on the wall and threw a dart. It landed on Texas.”
“Oh, I love it!” She reached her hand across the counter. “I’m Laci Benedict.”
Bailey accepted the offer. “Bailey James.”
“Nice to meet you. So, tell me, what did you do back in New York, Bailey James?”
“I didn’t go to college, because by the time I was in my senior year in high school my mother wasn’t well. I began working at a restaurant as a waitress when I was still in school and kept that job even after I graduated. I took on a second job in a small manufacturing plant, working in the office. That job gave me benefits, so I was lucky to find it. I kept both jobs for about five years. When the manufacturing company folded, I hired on to an import/export business, working in the office.”
“What sort of office work have you done?”
Bailey shrugged. “I started out in that first office as a general gofer, but worked my way up to the accounting clerk position—payables, receivables, and payroll. I did some of the same in my last job, too, although in that one my boss hired out all the tax-related and end-of-year stuff.”