Their Virgin Neighbor (8 page)

Jack held something out too. It was a
bottle of wine, red by the looks of it. “From my own collection,”
he said.

Anna thanked him and took it with her
free hand then stepped aside to allow them into the kitchen. She
shut the door behind them and was immediately aware of just how
cramped the kitchen was with them inside.

“
I have coffee ready,” she
said. “To start I mean.”

Jack nodded. Lee gestured to the
stove. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

“
No,” Anna said. “Go
through to the sitting room instead. I’ll bring coffee in. You can
enjoy it while I ready the first course.”

“
Course?”

She grinned. “I’ve gone all out. We’re
having a three course meal.”

“
Then we’ll do as you
say.”

Both men ambled off to the sitting
room. Anna noted that they were dressed in jeans, just like the
last time she’d seen them, and once again, their tops differed.
Jack wore a checked blue shirt. Lee wore a brown sweater. They both
looked fantastic.

She shook her head, more to put her
thoughts in order than anything else, and sorted out their coffees.
It was hot in the kitchen with everything on but Anna was wearing a
thin floral dress, so she wasn’t too bothered by it. She’d regret
it later though. It didn’t matter how hot the downstairs was the
upstairs was often really cold. Anna had taken to wearing layers
upon layers when she went to bed. It was probably due to the fact
that the cottage did not have a heating system. The fire seemed to
be the main source, followed by the small space heaters in each
room. But Anna didn’t want to leave the upstairs ones running. It
seemed wasteful.

She took the two coffees into the
sitting room…halting before making it to the couch. Jack was on his
knees in front of the fire…and the kindling he’d placed inside it
was already burning merrily.

“
Oh!” Anna said. “I
planned to try that out this week. I got the kindling and the fire
lighters from the general store. Sally said it was okay to use the
logs. I chopped a couple but…”

Jack turned his head to shoot her a
grin. “I’ve lit this thing so many times when my sister’s
down.”

“
And I’ll come down
tomorrow and take care of those logs,” Lee said.

Anna could not refuse. She hadn’t
enjoyed trying to chop the logs into small enough pieces, and if
Lee was willing.

“
It’s my first real fire,”
Anna said. “Thank you.”

She placed the coffee on the table.
Lee smiled up at her. That smile…Anna swallowed before turning back
to the kitchen.

Once there she got to work putting the
first course together. She could hear the men talking in the next
room, the crackle of the fire a counterpoint to their words. It
made her happy. All of it made her happy.

Anna had spent the better part of the
day getting everything ready for her guests. She wanted everything
to be perfect for this meal, and the activity had given her
something concrete to focus on. She’d pulled out Grand’s cookbook
and picked the sort of meal she thought would appeal to
them.

Time to find out.

The dining room was accessible only
through the alcove on the far side of the kitchen. Anna grabbed her
oven gloves then heaved the pot off the stove. She placed it on the
table in the dining room, checked that all the plates were in place
then added the basket of bread. Everything smelled great.
Everything was great…and the men…

Anna clenched her fists by her sides
as the thoughts that had kept her up late the past few days raced
through her mind. Anna wasn’t sure, God knew she had very little
experience either way, but at dinner she was almost positive that
she had seen something in both Lee and Jack’s eyes that suggested
interest.

If Anna wasn’t mistaken
they
liked
her,
and not just as a friend. That thought thrilled her all the way to
her core but Anna had no idea what, if anything, she could possibly
do about it. She wasn’t sure she was in a good place emotionally to
respond to their interest, and then there was the fact that she
couldn’t have
both
.

If anything was going to happen
between Anna or Lee, or even Jack for that matter, it would surely
have to be just one of them. And yet, Anna had no idea how she
would pick between the two of them. And she didn’t want to cause
any issues between them. The whole thing was a muddle, and Anna had
no idea how to handle it!

Of course, she conceded, she would be
wrong. Jack and Lee might just be being friendly. In which case,
Anna really needed to get a grip on herself. Spinning fantasies out
of thin air was not a good place to be in.

She gave herself a shake, plastered a
smile on her face, and called out. “It’s ready!”

The cottage was small enough that both
men heard her through the walls. They ambled into the room, both
smiling.

“
Something smells good,”
Lee said.

Jack nodded. “Sure does.”

Anna gestured to the
places she had laid for them and took a satisfied breath. The
carrot and coriander soup
did
smell good. The lamb chops and baked potatoes
were slow roasting happily and the bread and butter pudding was
good to go. All the food was taken care of.

She sat down in between both men,
pleased to note that Grand’s fine china plates looked perfect
alongside her own, more modern dishes. The lamps in each corner of
the room gave it a warm, welcoming glow, and the heat from the
kitchen was seeping through. All in all everything was how she had
hoped.

They were going to have a great
evening.

And they did.

It set the tone for the next three
weeks.

Chapter
Ten

Both Lee and Jack had given
considerable thought to how they might seduce Anna. Their original
plan had been to do so the first Saturday night they spent
together.

That hadn’t happened.

Everything had been so relaxed, so fun
between them all that neither men had been willing to do anything
to jeopardize that.

Since then they had spent quite a few
evenings a week together, both having dinner or simply for a drink.
Those nights had been, for Jack at least, a combination that was
equal parts pleasurable and equal parts torture. The longer he
spent with Annie, the more he wanted her.

His desire did not dim.

It simply increased.

He knew it was the same for Lee, and
in a weird way their extended seduction only strengthened the pact
they had made with one another. They would have Anna together or
not at all, and there was no question in Jack’s mind anymore that
they would have her. Anna was attracted to them both, it was
obvious. Her little gestures, the way she looked at them
sometimes…it simmered between them all and it was only a matter of
time before it exploded. Jack just didn’t know when.

He thought about all of this as he
loaded his truck. He had some logs, ready cut, for Anna’s fire, but
in truth he was beginning to wonder how good an idea it was to
deliver them to her. It had been snowing steadily for the past few
hours and already there was a good few inches on the ground. It was
possible that if he dropped them off he would end up staying, and
then he might end up snowed in.

He grinned as he considered that
scenario. Last winter he and Lee had been housebound for over a
fortnight and then a few weeks later they’d been housebound again.
Would Anna be able to cope alone in the cottage, he wondered? Oh,
he didn’t think that she’d lack for things to do, and she certainly
enjoyed her own company, but he worried that she wouldn’t have
enough supplies to see her through.

They’d chopped plenty of wood for her,
and Jack had also installed security lights on both ends of her
property. He hadn’t gotten around to installing a gate at the end
of the dirt track yet, but it had been on his list of
jobs.

“
Heading over to
Anna’s?”

Jack looked up to see Lee coming out
of the farmhouse. He was in his leather jacket, and had a bag slung
over his shoulder.

“
I was going to,” Jack
said. “It’s coming down pretty hard though.”

“
Then you should
definitely go,” Lee said. “Bring her back here.”

“
Back here?” Jack
said.

Lee nodded. “This one’s going to be a
doozy. I can tell already. Anna shouldn’t be alone in the cottage.
I’m thinking you should invite her to stay with us for the night at
least. Just in case.”

“
You think she’ll go for
that?” Jack asked.

“
I think she will
if
you ask right,” Lee
said. He gestured to the bag on his shoulder. “I’m going to grit
the dirt track. Got all of the salt we had spare in here. It’ll at
least give us a way in and out.”

“
On your bike?”

“
No,” Lee said. “I’m
taking the other truck.”

“
Right.”

“
Go and get here,” Lee
said. “For her own good if nothing else.”

For her own
good
… Jack thought about those words as he
made the quick drive to the cottage. Would it be in Anna’s best
interests to have her in the farmhouse with them? They both lusted
after her. They both wanted her. Stuck together in the house, with
little to do, it was quite possible that the long-awaited seduction
would take place…and it was with that thought that Jack decided he
would convince Anna to come.

He wanted her so bad.

And it had been weeks and weeks…a real
test of his self-control.

Why not invite her and wait to see
what would happen? They would never force anything on her that she
didn’t want. Anna was in charge here. Everything was down to her.
If she wasn’t interested in them then they would shake the
disappointment off and continue to extend the hand of
friendship.

Anna was in, Jack could tell because
most of the lights were on. He jumped out of the truck and jogged
across to the back door. Anna opened it a moment later.

“
Wow,” she said. “It’s
really coming down out there, huh?”

“
It is,” Jack said. He
hiked a thumb in the direction of the dirt road. “Lee’s going to
grit as much of it as he can. We have some grit bins, and he took
the salt too.”

“
You think it’s going to
settle?” she asked as they moved inside.

Jack nodded. “No doubt about
it.”

“
How many inches?” she
asked.

“
Several.”

The kitchen was colder than Jack was
used to. Clearly Anna had holed up in the sitting room. Her face
was flushed, her eyes bright. God, she was beautiful…Jack wanted
her so bad. “What are you doing?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Not much. I was
thinking about starting a fire, but…”

“
Leave it,” Jack said.
“Come back to the farmhouse with me.”

Her eyes widened. “Why?”

“
Because,” he said. “I’m
worried about how long this snow is going to carry on for. I don’t
want you down here by yourself when it really starts to
fall.”

“
Jack,” she said. “I’ll be
fine.”

“
You might be,” he agreed.
“But Lee and I will worry.” He paused, and then, because he
couldn’t resist any longer, placed a finger under her chin. He
lifted her head until their eyes were locked. “You don’t want to
leave us worrying, do you?” he asked.

Slowly Anna shook her head. “Of course
not.”

“
So come with
me.”

“
But what will we do?” she
asked.

And Jack smiled then, a deep,
satisfied smile, because Anna was not denying him, and somewhere it
occurred to him, that she probably even knew the reason he was
asking. “I’m sure we’ll find something to fill our
time.”

Chapter
Eleven

Anna hadn’t wanted to say no when Jack
arrived to invite her to hole up at the farmhouse until the snow
passed. That desire had been based on two very specific things.
One, she was not particularly excited about the prospect of being
snowed in. The cottage was lovely, but Anna knew herself well
enough to know that after a few days in those small rooms she would
get pretty fed up.

Two, Anna wanted to spend more time
with Jack and Lee. She knew that was strange, because she had spent
quite a lot of time with them in the past few weeks. Dinners,
drinks, even just little conversations. But Anna yearned for more.
Every time she was near the men she felt her belly flip and her
heart race. She ached for their company. Ached for the fact that
when they were close by she was happy in a way that she never was
when she was alone.

Jack and Lee brought out a side of
Anna that she hadn’t known existed.

It’s all down to the
spark.

She snorted and moved her hold-all bag
from the bed over to the closet. The room Jack had given to her
almost an hour ago was absolutely huge. A queen-sized bed sat in
the middle of it, a large closet covered almost an entire wall, and
an en-suite bathroom branched off to the left. All in all the room
was bigger than both the cottage bedrooms. Anna would be
comfortable here, there was no doubt about that, and she would have
Jack and Lee close by, but…