Her Knights in Black Stetsons [Smalltown, USA] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)
Page 1
Smalltown, USA
Her Knights in Black Stetsons
EmmaLee Anderson has grown up in a small town. Her family life was rough growing up, and the Dennison’s immediately took her in as one of their own. The boys had always come to her rescue, and ran off every boy within a 500 mile radius. They were the big brothers she never had.
Bad luck finally gets the best of EmmaLee. When things look hopeless and impossible, her knights in black Stetsons waltz in and fix the world by taking her back to the ranch where she belongs. What they hadn’t anticipated was the sexy woman she had become that replaced the gawky, lanky girl they had grown up with.
When temperatures rise and feelings bubble to the surface, Jase, Lyndon, and Dixon fight an inner battle of what is right and what they want.
One night out sends a bad relationship to smack her in the face, literally. After a little ‘counsling’ session by the Dennison clan, they assume he has learned the error of his ways. Revenge comes back in a nasty, sick plan of murder and kidnapping, threatening the one they hold dearest. The boys round up the family in a manhunt of vengeance and guns to save their country princess.
Can she pull through from the brutal beating and win the love of the three that have captured her heart since pig tails and mud pies?
Note: There is no sexual relationship or touching for titillation between or among siblings.
Genre: BDSM, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys
Length: 68,326 words
HER KNIGHTS IN BLACK STETSONS
Smalltown, USA
Shae Shannon
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
HER KNIGHTS IN BLACK STETSONS
Copyright © 2013 by Shae Shannon
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62740-350-4
First E-book Publication: August 2013
Cover design by Jess Buffett
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 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.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
To all of my fans—Here is a little taste of country life from a small town.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
About the Author
HER KNIGHTS IN BLACK STETSONS
Smalltown, USA
SHAE SHANNON
Copyright © 2013
Chapter 1
EmmaLee Anderson stared at the “Small Town, Oklahoma, population 1,260” sign as tears began to roll down her cheeks. Her radio had been blasting “You Can’t Always Get What you Want” by The Rolling Stones, up until the point where her truck shut off and left her fighting with all of her strength to handle the piece of shit bucket of rust. Her morning had been a snowballing cluster fuck, and it was only 6:00 a.m.
After an ice cold shower due to a broken water heater, a blown lightbulb in the bathroom that caused her to put on her makeup in the front room with a tiny compact mirror, the funeral of her coffeepot, and the dang neighbor’s dog jumping up leaving muddy paw prints on her baby pink T-shirt and blue jeans, she was now running late and pissed to the core. Cold showers were her most hated thing of all. That damn dog was making its way up the list. It was her morning to open at the small convenience store where she worked, and the Mortons would have her butt if she was late. Super.
She had barely managed to muscle her dead truck onto the shoulder of Highway 100 before it lost total momentum. The lights, motor, power brakes, power steering, and radio had shut off instantly while she had been hauling ass in an attempt to make it on time. It had taken her standing with both feet on the brake to get it to slow, and all of her strength to steer the old beast safely off the road.
With shaking arms, she hit the starter only to find it wouldn’t crank. “Fuck-fuck-fuckity-fuck ass! Why now! Always when I am running late! First the cold ass shower, and now this. What else can possibly go wrong? I mean seriously what the hell did I do in a past life to deserve this shit? Did I kill kittens? Give sexual favors to Hitler? Why does this crap keep happening to me?”
Her fists pounded the steering wheel, causing strands of her chestnut hair to escape from her ponytail. She slammed the driver’s side door a little harder than necessary, and stepped out to open the hood. With her feet standing up on the bumper and her head and torso leaned into the engine, she attempted to see anything noticeably broken or odd. She knew close to nothing about working on a vehicle, but due to her minimal income and her maximum bills, anything was worth a try. Her water heater and stove had broken earlier in the week and her running-challenged truck had problems once in a while, but for some reason it had to pick
today to act up. She glanced at the hoses and checked the oil, hoping it was a quick fix. Nothing caught her eye. Why would anything go easy? “You lie, Rolling Stones. For the past years of my life, I never get what I want, and I have yet to get what I need!”
She jumped off, landing her left foot on a rock and sending her fumbling to catch her balance to no avail. Her five-foot-seven-inch, 140-pound body went plunging to the ground. She twisted to avoid eating dirt, and ended up slicing her arm and coating her entire left side in mud. Cuss words burst in rapid-fire explosions from her mouth. Her temperamental outburst prevented her from hearing the approaching rumble of a huge, red Dodge Dually. Her verbal diarrhea of record-breaking length continued while she picked herself up and attempted to brush off her clothing unsuccessfully. Her sneakers had taken on the appearance of wedges with the obscene amount of muck that now stuck to the bottoms. Her balance had become compromised from the uneven surface and threatened to repeat her ungraceful and clumsy previous position. Her arms waved in the air with each slip and slide her feet skated. Just before her plump rear got an up close and personal introduction with the evil-plotting hell mud, two strong arms snaked around her waist and caught her midfall.
“Son of a fucking bitch!” Her momentarily appreciation turned to pure panic.
“Easy, there, darlin’. With that kind of language, you might make the poor woodland creatures blush,” he drawled with a heavy accent smothered with sarcasm.
Her head whipped around with sonic speed to meet the gaze of Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome himself. Two of the most hypnotizing, almond-shaped dark brown eyes anyone had ever seen sparkled with amusement back at her startled expression. Dixon Dennison, the oldest of the Dennison brothers at twenty-eight, was six feet six inches, two hundred seventy pounds of pure, mysteriously dangerous, and wild, erotic, muscled bulk wrapped up in a walking fantasy. Every chiseled muscle that had been sculpted from years of hard manual labor showed through his usual black wifebeater tank top. It was accented by tribal tattoos that snaked up both arms and over his shoulders to cage around his throat. His shaggy dark hair whispered against his forehead, dipping slightly into one eye, begging to be brushed out of the way. His chiseled features were sharp and masculine, with high cheekbones and a perfectly manly nose with a scar that ran across the bridge from who knows what. The manicured goatee brought more depth and only emphasized his bad boy persona, making most women within a fifty mile radius cream their panties just thinking about him. He was every young girl’s wet dream, and every older woman’s forbidden secret fantasy.
She had grown up with him and his two brothers, Lyndon and Jase, who had taken it upon themselves to fill the “big brother” role. They tried to chase off any date she had ever had, beat the shit out of her two-timing, woman-hitting, drug-using ex, Trent Graydon, and taken her in as part of the family when they discovered hers was shit.
Her mother was a psycho who committed suicide a couple years back and did the world a favor, and her father, who hadn’t stepped in to prevent the beatings or emotional abuse, was working on his third marriage to a bitch from hell, who had a spitting image of herself in an evil spawn of a fat, spoiled, daughter. He tried to call and text once in awhile now that she was older, but still fell short in effort.
She learned everything from cooking to sewing from their momma, Lillian. Jeremy, their dad, had taught her to keep her butt planted in a saddle, how to run a tractor, drive a stick shift, and the art to winning at poker. She was always included on family vacations, and had her own chore chart on the fridge when she was little.
“What the hell, Dixon? You tryin’ to give me a damn heart attack?”
He lifted her to her feet, turning her in his arms in the process. “Well, I was only saving that sweet ass of yours from gettin’ all bruised up. I wouldn’t mind seein’ my handprint in a pretty pink whelp on it, but bruising is out of the question.” He slapped his paw on her derrière, emphasizing just what he had in mind.
“Dixon Dennison, if you don’t get your hand off my ass I am gonna show you just what this mud feels like when I drop you facedown in it with a bloody nose!” She wiggled to free herself from his grip, only to be pulled up against his body. Instantly she became aware of every hot, hard, rippling muscle that pressed into her soft curves in an assault on her nerve endings. Her breath hitched in her throat, and a warm wetness puddled in the crotch of her lacy panties. She felt her senses melt and her mind whirl with excitement. He must have noticed, because a shit-eating grin spread across his face. Everything had changed and created multiple awkward moments between her and the boys the moment her hormones made themselves known. Damn puberty and hormones! At first, they teased her into locking any ideas or thoughts about the three away deep into a naughty vault. At around sixteen, they ripped any dreams she had apart when they had a heart-to-heart with her and explained that she was like a sister to them and that’s all it would ever be. Now, they teased her freely, knowing she wouldn’t read into any of their flirtatious comments. It was just who they were, all flirt and flatter to even their momma. They had learned that a few compliments on her new hairdo or a dress she hardly ever wore earned them just about whatever they wanted.
“If you wanna roll around in the mud, take them clothes off, babe, ’cuz they are blocking my view. Otherwise, save it for later. We can go out on the quads to the south pasture to have some fun. You can be a dirty girl there and not out here beside the highway.” His eyes flashed with an ornery spark of insinuation, causing her heart to skip a beat.
“Don’t go usin’ your playboy lines on me, Dixon. You are all talk and no action. Now, if you don’t mind, I gotta figure out how the hell I am going to get to work before the Mortons find out I ain’t opened in five minutes and they fire my ass. To top it all off, I get to wear mud all day. After the super-duper sunshiny morning I have had, I can’t wait to see what the world has to throw at me next.” Her fury raged and morphed into tears, creating pools in the edges of her brown eyes. She looked down in an attempt to keep her weaknesses and emotions hidden.
He instantly relaxed and put the wit back on the shelf when he reached his finger under her chin and tilted her tear-streaked face to look at him. “Hey, Emm, I’m sorry. Don’t cry. I was just teasin’ ya. What happened this morning that could make hard-as-nails EmmaLee Anderson fall into tears?”
“It’s nothing. Just my life. Something always has to be fucked-up. This morning chose to multitask and make everything break. First the hot water heater quit Monday and I had been heating water on the stove to wash in until the stove wouldn’t heat this morning so I had to take a cold shower.”
He wrinkled his nose and sucked a breath between his teeth. “Oh no, not a cold shower. We all know how you are allergic to cold water.”
Her features slightly relaxed. “Then, the lightbulb in the bathroom blew. And, of course I didn’t have any new ones, ’cuz it’s those dang fluorescent light thingies. So I had to attempt to get ready in my compact propped up on the couch. I look like hell. The damn neighbor dog had to come say ‘fuck you’ to me and jump up leaving mud paw prints all over as I was running out the door late. I have had no coffee. The damn pot committed suicide sometime in the middle of the night and left me high and dry. I was tempted to suck on the grounds. And now my truck. Thank God I got it off the road and didn’t plunge down the cliff. But, that would be too easy…Fate wants me to suffer for some reason.” She sniffled and tried to wipe her eyes, knowing she had cried her mascara into something that resembled a demented clown.
He bear hugged her, holding her tight and stroking soothingly down her back before picking her up and carrying her to his truck. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and let his sweet, spicy smell melt her anxiety. There was no place safer than the arms of a Dennison male. With one hand, he pulled the latch to the tailgate and set her up on it with the other. Without saying a word, he pulled her shoes off and tossed them in the bed. Her socks were soaked and muddy, so they were next to be discarded. He
silently walked to the cab and brought back a white T-shirt and a black pair of sweatpants and handed them to her. “Here, strip down and put these on. I will get you to the house and Momma can get you something to wear while I get the boys and take your truck into the shop. Dad has known Ol’ Man Morton all his life. I will have him get someone to cover your shift today so we can get things fixed up for you. Quit your cryin’ now, before you make me get all mushy. It ain’t that bad, doll, we can fix it, kay?”
Her eyes widened and her face softened to show her appreciation and love for the sweet, hunky beefcake. “Thank you, Dixon. You are here to rescue me, once again. I can’t have that piece of shit in the shop though. I don’t get paid until Friday, and I doubt I will make anything that will even come anywhere close to what it will cost, much less gas money to get to and from work. Hell, I have lived off of ramen noodles and hotdogs for the past two months. I need to get a job waitin’ tables at Jim’s Bar and Grill, I just haven’t had time to get down there. I thought about slingin’ drinks down at the Honkeytonk Blues, but I know some drunk would get handsy and I’d beat the shit outta him and end up fired. I have been workin’ from open ’til close at the Quickie Mart for the past four months now. I swear the more I work the less they pay me. Mrs. Morton is getting Alzheimer’s or something because she never gets my check right, and I just don’t have the heart to talk to her about it. Can’t you and your brothers just rig it or something?”