Her Cowboy Cousins: A Reverse Harem Romance

by Veronica Wade

  Morgan cuts me off. “Your behavior?” He laughs. “If anything, I kissed you. I’m the one who should have to apologize. And if I made you uncomfortable at all, I really do. Apologize, I mean.”

  “Oh.” I don’t know how to take this statement. “Well, uh, no… you didn’t make me uncomfortable.”

  He smiles a little bit hearing this, which only confuses me more.

  “Wait, so if I didn’t do anything wrong, you’re not going to fire me, right?” I ask timidly.

  They all look at each other. “Is that what you think?” Marshall asks. “That we intend to fire you?”

  “I mean… yeah. That’s the only reason I could think of that you all wanted to speak to me privately.”

  Spencer shakes his head quickly. “Not at all. Your job is completely safe. And before we move forward with this conversation, we want you to know that. You’ve got a job here no matter what, all right?”

  Relief washes over me. “All right,” I echo. Thank heaven.

  Though now I truly have no idea what they could want to talk to me about.

  “This isn’t about your behavior, Sarah, it’s about ours,” Marshall begins. “See, as much as we all would like to avoid it and don’t wish to admit it, the truth is, we’re all very attracted to you.”

  I feel the air catch in my throat. It takes a second for me to process this. I’m sure I haven’t heard them right.

  “You’re all… what?” I ask as I suck in a deep breath.

  “We’re attracted to you,” Morgan continues. “I’ve already made that clear at least. But Spencer and Marshall feel the same way.”

  Okay. I’m completely lost now.

  Not only because it’s quite a shock to find out they all are interested in me, but even more so that they’re all openly telling me this. It makes no sense. Wouldn’t they make every effort to hide such a thing? What direction could this conversation possibly go? How could anything productive come from telling me this?

  “Okay,” I say quietly.

  “You don’t have to feel obligated to say anything,” Marshall continues, “but we felt the need to be honest with you. We all like you, and I think we’re all mature adults here and can deal with that in a healthy way. We want you to know our interest so that, you know, if you have any interest back for any of us, you can express that.”

  “And no hard feelings!” Morgan pipes up quickly, sounding sweet and comforting as usual. “Look Sarah, this is all up to you. If you do want to date any of us, the other two won’t hold it against you. Or if you’d rather not date any of us, that’s fine too! No pressure at all.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Let me get this straight… you guys are telling me that you’re all attracted to me just so I can pick one of you if I want to?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Marshall confirms.

  Suddenly, I’m even more anxious than I had been before.

  This is crazy. I mean, it’s a fantasy come true. Three incredibly hot guys that I’m undeniably attracted to are opening themselves up to me and giving me the pick of the litter? I can just choose any guy I’m into and… date my boss?

  I look at Morgan, who puffs up a little when I do, but then my eyes glide over to Marshall and Spencer.

  And I quickly realize this is no fantasy. It’s a nightmare.

  I can’t choose! I couldn’t possibly choose. Not just because I don’t want to hurt their feelings, but because I truly don’t hold any of them over the others. They’re all incredibly attractive. I don’t know how to take a step back from any of them. Picking one just means refusing another.

  I stand up quickly from my chair and start pacing the floor nervously as my mind races.

  “Sarah?” Marshall asks, sounding nervous. “Are you okay?”

  “I couldn’t possibly choose any of you!” I blurt out before running out the door.

  It’s the second time I’ve run out of a room like a coward in the last forty-eight hours, but I don’t care. I can no longer handle this conversation or this moment. I desperately need to escape.

  And this time, I don’t care if they fire me. If they want to, they can even do it over the phone. I can’t possibly come back and be put in this impossible situation again.

  All I can think is if I were to stay even one more minute, I would end up confessing how much I like all of them and humiliate myself even more than I already have.

  Sarah

  The job I initially loved coming to every day has become such a tense place.

  After my last conversation with all the guys, I fully expected to be fired for running out. But true to their word, none of them made me feel like my job was at risk.

  They’ve all been true professionals since that day, and we haven’t talked about it since.

  But I also avoid them as much as humanly possible. I do my job, I keep my head down, I remain polite, but I do not go out of my way to see them.

  I’ll probably look for another job, despite this one paying so much more than most others in town. It’s too hard to be here with them every day.

  They’re all attracted to me, and I’m attracted to all of them back. If this were some hot and steamy fantasy, it would be perfect. Three of the sexiest men I’ve ever seen want me? I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t played with the possibilities in my mind.

  But this isn’t a fantasy. It’s real life.

  There’s no way I can have all of them, so I’ll have none. I really could never pick between them. First of all, because it would put me in an awkward position with the other two, which I definitely do not need at work. And second, even though I’ve tried to decide, I honestly like them all equally. I’m incredibly attracted to each and every one, and none of them seem to take precedence in my mind. If I were to pick, it might as well be tossing dice.

  It doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve already accepted that I’m going to have none of them, so I don’t even waste my time thinking about who I would choose if I had to. I’m just going to do my job, mind my business, and keep my stupid romantic life out of my work life.

  Hell, I’ll just stay away from a romantic life entirely. Why do I need one? I’ve been fine without one so far. I think I should just continue down that road. Clearly, as soon as I get entangled with a man—or three—my anxiety begins to spiral out of control. Dating is way too complicated for the likes of me.

  The only downside I can see is that staying away from Spencer, Morgan, and Marshall has meant that things have gotten considerably more boring at work. But I can live with boring. That is certainly doable. The complication is not.

  I’m in the middle of organizing the drawers at my desk when Cheryl Lester runs into the lobby, looking absolutely frantic.

  “Cheryl, what is it?” I ask before she can even reach my desk.

  “It’s Paul!” she says in a huff. “He’s missing! We went on a ride this morning and he got tired, so I sent him back to the room without us, but… I just got back there, and he’s nowhere to be found! Have you seen him?”

  “No. No, I haven’t,” I tell her, reaching out and touching her arm to calm her because my answer makes her start to hyperventilate. “Cheryl, take a few breaths. Try to relax. It’s going to be okay. The ranch is contained, you know that? It may be big, but unless he’s crawling under any fences to escape, which would be pretty hard for him to do, he just got lost on his way back. And we will help find him, okay? But you’ve got to breathe.”

  She nods back to me slowly, clearly trying though her breath is hitching in her throat. “Mark is searching the room for him.”

  “Okay, why don’t you go get Mark and bring him back here? I’m going to inform Marshall and we can all start a search for him, all right? Meet me right back here as soon as you get Mark.”

  “Okay, okay,” she says as she runs back down the hall.

  I rush to find any of the guys. To my relief, they just so happen to all be standing around in the kitchen, drinking glasses of water. No doubt they were all taking a break from
whatever manual labor project they were doing. There’s been a lot of renovating lately.

  “You guys, we need your help at the front desk. Cheryl’s lost her son. She doesn’t know where he is after sending him home from the trail ride,” I tell them. I’m a little out of breath myself. “I hope that what I told Cheryl is true, that he’s simply wandering around outside, unsure of where to go, but we have to find him.”

  “Well, sheeeit,” Spencer says in his usual country accent. “We gotta go hunting for him.”

  “Where are the Lesters?” Marshall asks.

  “Cheryl went to go get Mark. I told her to meet me back at my desk.”

  “All right, we’ll split up into pairs,” Marshall says. “Me and Morgan, you and Spencer. You and Spencer go head out right now, get a start on looking outside. I’m going to meet the Lesters and we’ll search all the guest suites, and we’ll check the other buildings before searching outside too.”

  “Sounds good,” Spencer says quickly.

  I immediately agree, and in the moment, I’m too frantic to think about how awkward it’s going to be being alone with Spencer. I don’t realize it until we’re outside, unbearably quiet, our eyes darting around the ranch.

  “You want to check the stables first?” Spencer asks me.

  “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. He does seem to love the horses.”

  “All right, let’s head that way.”

  As we walk along, I keep my eyes moving. Near every bush, under any tree, I’m looking for Paul’s small body. I should’ve asked Cheryl what he was wearing this morning, but I think I remember seeing him in a red shirt when they headed out riding for the day. Or was that yesterday? I can’t be sure.

  I see nothing, though. And despite searching every stall, we don’t find him in the stables.

  Spencer is about as quiet as I am while we look, and I don’t know if it’s because he’s worried and focused on Paul too or if it’s because he’s not too happy with me and my reaction to our previous conversation. I try not to think about that right now. I should really just be concentrating on finding Paul.

  “If he’s not in here, we should search on horseback, cover more ground,” Spencer suggests.

  “Right, of course, great idea,” I agree.

  We saddle up two horses. My mare is Jenny, an Appaloosa. She’s white with large brown spots and a gentle, speckled face. She’s beautiful and I’ve ridden her before several times, so I know I like her. She’s an easy ride, a very patient horse. She’s the best fit for me as we go hunting for Paul.

  We head out and keep our horses at a steady trot, not too fast that we can’t observe our surroundings, and each of us looks in the opposite direction. Besides being an effective way to search, I’m also grateful for the lack of interaction.

  My heart skips a beat when I see a flash of red on top of some bushes. I think it might be a shirt or something, but either way, it’s totally out of place and it catches my eye.

  “Hey! Over there!” I call out to Spencer. “I see something.”

  I direct my horse to it and Spencer follows. When we get close to the bush, we both hop off our horses and go to inspect it.

  It isn’t a shirt at all. It’s way too small, so my hopes are dashed before we even reach it.

  “Dammit. Never mind, it’s not what I thought it was,” I tell Spencer, upset with myself. Though, admittedly, it’s probably a good thing there wasn’t a random red shirt lying on top of a bush. I can’t think of a harmless reason that Paul would lose his shirt, and I hope very much he isn’t hurt.

  “You’re not what I thought you were, either,” Spencer says suddenly.

  I look at him with shock in my eyes. “Excuse me?”

  “Nothin’.” He shrugs as he walks back to his horse.

  “It’s not nothing. What do you mean?” I ask again.

  “I mean I got a feeling from you. A vibe.” He looks me dead in the eye and I’m a little intimidated by his unending stare. Not so intimidated that I look away, though.

  “What kind of vibe?” I ask.

  “A vibe that underneath that soft, quiet, reserved exterior, you had a fire in you. That you were itching to do something new with your life, to jump out from under your mama’s grasp.”

  I glare at him. “First of all, it’s damn rude of you to suggest… what? That I have no fire? That I’m a boring girl? And second, how could you ever know what I want? Who says I have a problem with my mother?”

  “I’m not saying you have a problem with her,” Spencer explains. “I’m saying that you seem like a responsible adult. The kind of woman who can make her own decisions. I didn’t think you intended to let your mother have her hold on you forever.”

  “Who says she has a hold on me?” I snap.

  “Why else would you turn us all down? All of us? Because I didn’t see that. When Marshall told you how we felt, I could see it in your eyes! It was clear as that red on the bush. You were interested in one of us. So why say no, why deny yourself, unless it’s because that’s what your mama wants?”

  He’s totally off base. This has nothing to do with my mom or her disapproval of me dating my bosses, though she most certainly would disapprove. Especially of Spencer. She had a mouthful to say about him.

  But I wouldn’t let her disapproval stop me. If I had feelings for just one of them, I’d go for it. But I don’t. I have feelings for all of them, which complicates everything.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I scoff, annoyed and distracted from the task at hand.

  “Is it me?” he asks.

  “Is what you?”

  “Is it me that you have feelings for? I could’ve sworn when you looked at me, for a second there….” He lets his sentence trail off. “I just want to know. Is it me?”

  I have no idea how to answer that. I’m speechless. Yes, in a way, it is him—as much as it is all of them.

  But he takes my silence as an answer, and without another word, he leans down and pushes his lips against mine.

  I close my eyes and allow it. As much as he pissed me off, and as badly as I want to tell him off now, I want this more. I’ve wanted to try this pretty much since I started working at the ranch.

  It’s different from the kiss Morgan gave me. Morgan had a gentle touch, his lips were soft and steady, and there was a comfort in his kiss.

  This kiss with Spencer is just… hot. Plain and simple. It sends tingles through my body, and I feel dizzy with the thought of him. I find my hands reaching for the hem of his shirt, wishing to push it up and let my fingertips graze his abs…

  But, no, I absolutely cannot do that!

  I pull away quickly. This can’t go any farther. I won’t let it.

  “Look, you can’t just insult me and then kiss me, okay?” I snap at him. “You’ve got no idea about my motivations, so just—” I turn around from him, pacing a bit in my frustration, and that’s when I notice the red object again.

  It actually does look curiously like fabric, so I walk toward it and pick it up.

  “I wasn’t insulting you!” Spencer argues behind me, with my back still toward him. “I was complimenting you, if anything! I believe you are capable, and beautiful, and smart, and maybe a bit too loyal for your own good!”

  I cut him off. “Wait a minute, I think I recognize this.” It’s a red bandana.

  “Recognize it?” Spencer walks up from behind me.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen Paul wear this. It’s got to be his. He’s got to be around here somewhere.”

  But why would he just abandon his bandana? The thought makes my heart sink a little.

  Spencer looks around. “But where could he be?”

  “I don’t know,” I mutter. “We should check the area on foot now, though. He has to be around here somewhere.” At least, I truly hope he is.

  Truth be told, the ranch is not the safest place for a child to be alone. Even the area we’re currently in has some uneven ground, snake holes, and even an old, aban
doned shed which looks like it could cave in at any moment. It’s not place for a child to be wandering around alone.

  We begin to walk toward the right. I plan to look behind the shed actually, but before I get a chance to, I hear a voice call out to us.

  “Hey, over here! He’s right here!”

  I turn around to see Marshall waving us down. Cheryl and Mark are with him too, though Morgan is not.

  We make our way toward them, running a bit because I’m eager to see for myself that Paul is safe. Sure enough, he’s lying in the grass, looking up at us with confusion.

  “What’s going on?” he asks.

  “You tell us!” Cheryl gets down on the ground and pulls him into a huge hug. “We were so worried! I told you to go back to the hotel room!”

  “I was gonna!” Paul said. “But then I wanted to ride horses more, and I thought if I had a nap, I could get back on. So I just lay down to rest. Then I was going to come back.”

  “Don’t ever do that again, kiddo,” Mark says sternly, though relief is on his face. “When we tell you to go somewhere, that is where you go. You don’t change plans and not tell us. Not ever.”

  “I’m sorry,” Paul says sweetly, clearly upset that he had worried everyone. “I won’t ever do that again.”

  I heave a relieved sigh.

  “I found this just over there in the bushes.” I hand the bandana to Cheryl.

  “Oh! I used it to cover my eyes!” Paul says. “I guess it got blown away.”

  Cheryl hugs him one more time, a little more tightly, and I look to Marshall.

  “Where’s Morgan?”

  “He’s back up at the main building. Cheryl and Mark wanted to come outside to look with me, so he opted to stay back and search all the rooms. We should probably head back there now, actually, and let him know that we found Paul,” Marshall said.

  With the relief of Paul being safe out of the way, another thought suddenly hits me. Marshall, Cheryl, and Mark had been searching so close to us. Was there a chance that any of them saw me and Spencer? Did they see us kiss?