“That connection was reinforced when Gerald and Patrick were stationed at Goodfellow as flight instructors during the war,” Kate said. “Two of Peter Smith’s grandsons had enlisted in the air force. At the time, they’d signed on to be pilots but were better suited to be mechanics—and became heroes when they noticed something wrong with the ‘avgas’ being used, alerting the authorities to a very dangerous fraud.”
“Oh, I remember that incident,” Grandmother Mattie said. “That awful man who owned that refinery Dalton later purchased had tampered with the fuel, all in the name of higher profits. One of the pilots was killed!”
“Exactly. Gerald later said he’d never been so happy to have washed a couple of men out of flight training.”
“So…you have contacts in Durant who will help do…what?” Pamela loved every one of these women without reservation. They were her family, period. But they’d been surprisingly closed-mouthed about what they had in mind beyond locating the two con men. She thought the next step would be to alert the authorities to their location.
Looking at the expressions on Mattie and Chelsea now, she began to understand that the police didn’t figure into their plans—at least, not immediately.
“Well, to set a trap, of course. And I know just the woman I want to contact, too.” Chelsea looked around the room. “We’ve all read the previous reports that Mr. Watson sent. He was able to get a lot of background information on both Fred Thomas and Gary Morris.” Chelsea looked over at Mattie. Pamela imagined the two women, who’d considered themselves sisters since they met, were capable of almost reading each other’s minds.
“Yes, Mother, we do recall that,” Miranda said.
Was it only Pamela’s imagination that Aunt Miranda was providing some sort of cover for the two octogenarians? A quick look around the room told her no one else seemed to be alerted to something…other than what appeared on the surface.
“Good,” Chelsea said. “Mr. Watson says that he doubts very much either man has a high probability of being violent.”
“And in one case, they returned some money—anonymously, of course—to one of their victims when that woman’s husband was killed in a car accident.” Mattie folded her hands and sat back.
Grandmother Chelsea seemed to notice the look on Pamela’s face. She didn’t doubt that she looked as horrified as she felt. Were they feeling sympathetic toward those two thieves?
“Now, sweet girl, you have to understand. If we simply alert the authorities as to where these two men are, they may or may not be arrested and sent back to Maryland, or any of the other places where they’re probably wanted for questioning. It’s far better if we can catch them red-handed, don’t you think? What with budget cutbacks and police being more concerned with violent crime and drugs and the like, we’re just giving them a hand, is all.”
“Quite right, sister. So we set a trap and let those two step into it.”
“How do we do that, Grandmother?” Pamela really wanted to know.
“Dinna fash yerself,” Madison Jessop said. She reached over and patted Pamela’s hand. “The grandmothers know what they’re about. Have a little faith, lass.”
Pamela met her cousin’s gaze. “All right, I will.” Then she looked around the room. “Y’all always wave off my thanks, but you have them, regardless. Thank you.”
“That was a very nice y’all,” Chelsea said. “Before we go our ways for the evening, I’ve one question for you, sweet girl.”
“Yes, Grandmother?”
“Do you still love those ham-handed, dull-witted, idiot grandsons of mine?”
Several of the women chuckled, but Pamela didn’t. She just kept her eyes on Chelsea Benedict Jessop-Kendall. “Yes, ma’am, I do. With all my heart.”
“Good. Then I would suggest that when they apologize and mend their ways, you tell them you’d like to have your commitment ceremony on Thanksgiving.”
“Oh, well done, Mother,” Maria Jessop said. Then she grinned. “That way, they’ll remember the one thing they should be most grateful for, every year. It’ll be a good annual kick in the butt for them.”
Pamela smiled—not because it was funny but because, like her, these women had no doubt whatsoever that Adam and James would come around. We’ve been married for two months, now. In truth she expected that epiphany to come any day.
“Thanksgiving it is,” Pamela said. This will be one Thanksgiving in Lusty, Texas, I’ll never forget!
* * * *
One evening a week or so later, James and Adam left their house just after supper and headed over to the Bachelor Uncles’ farm. It was the only place any of the men could come up with for them to gather without the women wanting to come, too. This would only be the second meeting the men had attended since that first one over at the New House. But it was the first evening meeting, which necessitated the small subterfuge.
He’d known Uncle Peter and Uncle William all his life. The two men were quiet, content in each other’s company, and had, over the last few years, become more than a little hermit-like.
There’d been rumors of a lady love found and then lost, several years back. James didn’t have the details and would never have asked anyone if they knew what had happened. He’d heard stories of all the uncles from when they’d been teens. In those days, Peter and William had behaved like any of the family’s males.
He knew it had taken Grandmother Mattie a long time to accept that those two sons would never marry and would in all likelihood remain as they were—bachelors and socially withdrawn.
Did loving and losing fundamentally change a man? That was a possibility that haunted not only James, but Adam, too.
People were entitled to live their lives however they chose—that was the reason Lusty had been founded, after all. If that choice in the end was to live as a bachelor, well, then, that was a body’s right.
Tonight, the uncles had been very welcoming. They had a case of beer chilled and some chips and salsa set out. James hadn’t been inside the two-story farmhouse for a very long time. He was pleased to see it was as neat as if a housekeeper had just spent hours cleaning it.
James couldn’t hold back his grin. That bit of gossip he did know about. Mother had told them they were fastidious in their housekeeping and hygiene to ensure none of the women of the family would descend upon them and fuss.
Their cousin Caleb had told them, when he’d called the day before, that he had a report for them and that the men were gathering to discuss the situation. Once everyone was present, and settled with a beer in hand, Caleb began. James listened raptly as his cousin filled them in on what he’d learned.
“And that’s it, more or less.” Caleb Benedict nodded then looked to his father, Gerald.
James Jessop wasn’t sure what to think. “So, Trevor Watson found the two men who conned Reg Franklin. That’s good, right? All you have to do is tell him to let the police in Baltimore County know.” He looked over at Adam, who nodded.
“How long do you think it will be before they’re picked up?” Adam asked.
Grandfather Jeremy sighed. He shook his head as if he was deeply disappointed. James looked over at Adam. His brother simply shrugged.
“The first thing you need to know, boys, is that we didn’t hire Watson. The grandmothers did that. Now, the man isn’t averse to giving us progress reports, but he won’t take any action that is contrary to what Chelsea and Mattie have decided upon.”
“You mean the grandmothers haven’t instructed him to alert the sheriff in Baltimore County?” Adam sounded aghast.
“That wouldn’t really result in any guaranteed action being taken,” Caleb said. “The men committed what we call white collar crime. That makes them low priority, and the arrest and extradition to another state of suspected criminals is a very costly affair. They’ve allegedly perpetrated a fraud on several people. They aren’t violent. Neither of them has, in fact, ever shown a single violent tendency. So imagine, Watson calls your father-in-law’s friend, the sheriff. What h
appens next? Likely nothing. Or, worst-case scenario, the two hear from their contacts back east that their names are known and they go on the run again, and then Watson has to start all over again at square one.”
“Then why look for them at all if nothing can be done?” James asked.
“It’s the immediate lack of evidence that puts the limitation on legal action at the moment,” Grandpa Sam said. “If, however, the gentlemen can be caught red-handed in the act of committing a fraud, or breaking some law, well, then, that’s another matter altogether.”
“When that happens, the crime is being perpetrated in Durant, and the local authorities—among whom are some friends of the family—can then step in and arrest the scoundrels.” Grandpa Chalie nodded.
“Ah, look at how dunce my sons appear,” Warren Jessop said. “Brilliant doctors, the both of them, but otherwise quite clueless.”
Douglas Jessop, James’s other father, shook his head. “The grandmothers have contacts and friends all over the damn place, especially, by the way, in Durant, Oklahoma. You know the family’s history with the Choctaw and Cherokee nations in general and the Smith family in particular.”
“Yes, we know the grandmothers are very well connected.” James still wasn’t getting it.
“My guess would be that Chelsea and Mattie will be contacting some friends of theirs and asking them to help in setting a trap of some kind for those scoundrels,” Grandfather Charlie said.
“And you’re going to let them?” Adam’s question, wrapped in outrage, seemed to hang in the air all by itself.
“How are the two of you not bachelors?” Peter Benedict asked. He shook his head.
“We don’t let the womenfolk do anything,” Grandfather Jeremy said. “They’re free to make their own decisions and choices in life. Our job, as their husbands, sons, and grandsons, is to support them in those decisions and choices and protect them without their being any the wiser.”
James looked at Adam. His brother looked totally bewildered, but James was beginning to understand something—and he didn’t feel too good about it at all.
“I think we need even more help than this,” he said. He swallowed hard and looked around the room. “I think we really don’t understand how to be proper husbands. And I, for one, am really worried that we’re going to fuck it up beyond all repair.”
Jeremy and Dalton met each other’s gazes, and looked over at their brothers-in-law. Grandpa Charlie and Grandpa Sam smiled and nodded, and then looked at Warren and Douglas.
“It’s about damn time,” Warren said. “Fortunately for you, your wife seems completely in love with you both. If in future you ever wonder about that little thing, be assured…that fact alone, after the way the two of you’ve behaved, is a damn miracle.”
Jonathan Benedict rubbed his hands together. “Hot damn. We get to tell the eggheads what they’ve done wrong. Someone get the tractor and haul in that list!”
“Ah, cousin-speak,” Nick Kendall said. “It’s a wonderful thing.”
“It is indeed,” Patrick Benedict said. “When it’s not being flung at you.”
Adam’s expression as he met James’s gaze said it all. They were in for a lot of ribbing, and they had no one to blame but themselves.
Chapter Thirteen
Pamela looked up from the book she’d been reading when the front door opened. James and Adam came in, and when they saw her there, looking at them, they both smiled. She thought their smiles were wrapped in some other emotion, but she didn’t feel alarmed by that fact.
She hadn’t expected them this early and had chosen to spend her time reading rather than watching television. It wasn’t even ten, and they’d only been gone a couple of hours. She closed her book and set it aside.
“How are the uncles?” Pam knew, of course, from talking to the other women that sometimes several of the men went over to Peter and William Benedict’s house to visit. She thought it a wonderful idea. She’d met the men, though she didn’t know them very well. But they’d been kind in donating all those berries for the women to make jam, and she knew they were generally the first to offer help to anyone who needed a hand fixing something around the house.
“They’re well,” Adam said. “They have the same sense of humor as the rest of the men in the family, of course. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
“It’s not,” James said. “And tonight, rather than it being a case of our being there just to visit them, they—and the rest of the men—were actually there to help us.”
She looked from Adam to James. Both men wore almost identical expressions of sheepishness. “They helped you? In what way?”
Rather than sit beside her, as they usually did, the men moved the decorative plate, doily, and picture book to the edge of the heavy oak coffee table and sat side by side on it, facing her.
Adam picked up her right hand and kissed it. Then James did the same thing with her left.
“We’ve been so damn worried about…well, about something stupid, that we let our worry take over every corner of our brains that weren’t occupied with medicine.” Adam sounded contrite. He exhaled in a huff and shook his head.
Pamela wondered if the moment she’d been waiting for had finally come. Her heart beat just a little faster.
“We have,” James said. “And we’re both very sorry for it. But that foolishness ends tonight.”
“It does. Pamela? I love you, baby. I love you with all my heart.” He leaned forward and gave her a soft kiss on her lips.
“Pamela, I love you, angel. You’re my world, my everything.” He, too, leaned forward and gave her a soft kiss. Both kisses were over way too soon.
She felt the wet of her tears but didn’t bother to wipe them. She didn’t worry, either, that the men would misinterpret them, because she felt the width of her own smile. “I love both of you. I have probably from the moment we met.” She felt her face heat. “Even though I felt more than a little naughty loving you both, I couldn’t seem to help it.”
“We were afraid you wouldn’t, or couldn’t, love us both,” Adam said. “We assumed that, instead of asking you if you did.”
“We almost asked you a few times but always managed to talk ourselves out of it. And we’re not just talking about whether or not you could love us.”
“We never asked you if you wanted to come to Texas, or not. We uprooted your life, made you leave everything familiar, and we never even gave you any choice in the matter. And once you were here with us, we never asked you what you wanted to do—if you wanted to work, or hell, we never even asked you if you wanted to start a family.”
“We avoided any topic we thought might make you realize you didn’t or couldn’t love us, and in so doing, we realize now, we were doing the very things that might bring us to that bad ending we were so afraid of.”
Pamela had always known her men were not quite in tune with their inner social beings. That had never bothered her. She’d seen through their awkwardness to the good men they were at heart. She’d even seen them in action once, as doctors, though she’d never told them that.
Pamela had been sent to help when many victims of a bus accident had been sent to the emergency room—a mass casualty event that had happened about two weeks after they’d met.
She’d seen their passion for saving lives, their complete devotion to their patients. They’d worked tirelessly for hours until the last patient had been tended.
That heart, that dedication was a far more important quality in her mind than a smooth tongue or penchant for romantic gestures.
“I never would have married you if I didn’t want to—if I didn’t love you. And when I love, it’s forever. I love you both. As to what I want to do? Despite the fact that I went to college and became a lab tech, I’m afraid I’m not much of a ‘liberated’ woman. My most cherished career goal was always to be a wife and mother.” She squeezed their hands and met each of their gazes in turn. “I’d like for us to have a couple of years together, just
the three of us, before we begin to grow our family. And it occurs to me that, with two daddies, the stress I’ve seen other women deal with as new mothers won’t be an issue for me.”
“Never.” Adam’s gaze was so full of love it took Pam’s breath. “We’re going to be with you for every step of that journey. We’re looking forward to being the best husbands and fathers we can be.”
“Jessops are like that,” James said.
“Good. As for living here in Lusty? My definition of home is not a town or a state. It’s being wherever you are. I won’t say I don’t miss my dad and my brothers, because of course I do. But we’ve talked on the phone, and I know we’ll visit. In the meantime? I love every member of our family here in Lusty. This is going to be such a good place to raise our children.”
In their eyes and on their faces, she read such eloquence of emotion it put a lump in her throat. They claimed a lack of finesse in expressing themselves, yet here was a love so beautiful it belied those claims.
“Will you let us make love to you, Pamela?”
“We need you naked between us. We need to give and receive…everything.”
“Yes please. I need to make love to you both, and ‘everything’ sounds just right. Let’s go to bed.”
The moment they entered the sanctuary of their bedroom, her men began to pamper her. With sweet kisses and gentle caresses, they removed the clothing from her body, worshipping each new piece of her they uncovered.
“We really don’t deserve you,” James whispered.
“But we’re keeping you anyway.” Adam’s tone, fierce and possessive, sent a shiver of need racing through her. It was a need that demanded she let them know her stance on that.
“Damn right you’re keeping me. I’m never going to let either of you go.”
Adam and James stepped back only long enough to shed their own clothing. They moved in, pressed close, and Pamela sighed. “This, this is my home. Right here, right now, and whenever we’re together.”
“Sweetheart.”
Adam, standing behind her, stepped back, and Pamela placed her hands upon James’s chest and gave him a little shove. The moment his ass hit the bed, she knelt and reached for his cock. “You’ve given me such pleasure. I need to do this for you.” She didn’t wait for him to approve. She leaned in and nuzzled him where his cock emerged from the dark hair that nested it. She heard him suck in a breath, and then she sucked his cock into her mouth.
One Thanksgiving in Lusty, Texas Page 12