Two Cowboys for Cady (4 page)

They must have been used to overnight guests,
because there was a small basket of travel-sized toiletries on the
counter, all still in packaging. She availed herself of deodorant,
toothpaste, and a toothbrush before attempting to restore some sort
of order to her tangled brown locks with her fingers. Giving it up
as a lost cause, she smoothed the mess down as well as she could
and padded out of the bathroom in bare feet. Her socks were another
MIA item, but she didn’t bother to search the bedroom for them.

Hoping against hope that maybe the men were
out doing whatever it was that ranchers did early in the morning,
and that she could slip out without being seen, she tiptoed down
the hall. Her stomach dropped when she heard Brody on the phone,
meaning she couldn’t avoid the morning-after meeting. With a sigh,
she stopped in the doorway of the living room, catching her breath
at the sight of Brody with his back to her. Remembering how that
body felt made her palms itch to touch him, and she tried to push
away the thought.

“Yeah, yeah. No excuses, Jeremy. We showed
your lady a good time. She is fat, sassy, and well-serviced. So
just tell me when you’re going to let us bring one of our mares
over for studding with Irish Gold.”

Cady reeled back from the room, groping for
her purse on the entryway table. She didn’t care if they heard her
leave. She didn’t even care that she had no way back home without a
ride. Walking six miles into town was preferable to facing
them.

Tears burned her eyes as she opened the door
and stepped onto the porch, letting the screen door close softly.
It couldn’t really be how it sounded, could it? Surely Jace and
Brody didn’t trade a night of giving her sexual favors so that her
brother would let them breed a horse with his prize-winning
racehorse? Jeremy wouldn’t do that. She honestly couldn’t picture
her brother ever giving a passing thought to her sex life, since
even trying to think about hers turned her stomach.

Taking a deep breath, she forced back any
tears and sat on the porch swing. After the tender way they had
treated her last night, she couldn’t truly believe her lovers would
have done something so mercenary and creepy either. She set the
swing in motion, still lost in her thoughts, but no longer anxious
to escape.

She looked up when one side of the swing
shifted as Jace sat down. Cady accepted a cup of strong coffee
gratefully, finding the caffeine invigorating. “Thanks.”

He nodded, scooting closer to sling his arm
around her shoulders. “How’d you sleep?”

“Like the dead.” She managed a light tone and
bright smile. “You guys are better than melatonin.”

“I hope we didn’t bore you,” he said, lips
twitching.

Cady lifted a shoulder. “Oh, maybe just a
little.”

He turned her to face him, putting his hand
just below her breast. “We’ll have to do something about that,
won’t we?”

Eyes wide, she froze when he leaned down to
kiss her. At the last moment, she turned her head, causing his lips
to brush her cheek. “I really need to get home.”

Jace wore a fierce scowl when he tilted up
her chin to make their gazes meet. “Why?”

“I have work…”

He shook his head. “I meant, why did you turn
away?”

Searching for an answer, she sighed when the
door opened, and Brody came out to join them. He rudely plopped
down beside her, squishing her between them. It was heavenly, but
also torture, because it couldn’t last. “We all know this was a
one-time thing, Jace.”

“Do we?” Brody took the coffee cup she was
clutching and set it on the porch.

“Yes,” she said with as much firmness as she
could. “It has to be.”

“Why’s that?” asked Jace, toying with a
strand of her damp hair.

“How can it be anything else?” Cady squeezed
her hands together on her lap.

Jace shifted closer. “Why ruin a good thing,
Cady?”

“He’s right, Cady-did.” Brody took her hand,
leaving one for Jace that he promptly grasped. They ignored her
efforts to pull free. “We like having you between us. You seem to
fit there real nice.”

“Really nicely, you barbarian,” said Jace.
“Did you flunk out of eighth grade English, man?”

Brody chuckled. “Whatever. Why not see where
this takes us?”

She frowned. “How can a threesome take us
anywhere, except a bedroom?”

Jace slipped his hand down her thigh to
stroke her denim-clad pussy. “There’s no need to switch locales,
honey. We can have a fine time here. It seems you owe me a
blow-job.”

Feeling her resolve slip, she shook her head.
“That won’t solve anything. We’ll have some fun, but it will end. I
don’t need another broken heart, okay, guys?”

“Who says it will end?” asked Jace. “It could
last forever. You have to know we both love you, Cady.”

Her mouth dropped open, but she couldn’t find
any words to utter.

“It’s true,” said Brody, squeezing her hand.
“We have for years.”

“And we’re already used to sharing
everything. We have the ranch and horse breeding business together,
all the same friends, and our families are intertwined. It seems
downright perfect to share a wife.”

She shook her head. “Wife? How does that
work?”

Brody shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess you
couldn’t legally marry both of us, but we’d all know you were our
wife. The world would know too, ‘cause I ain’t hiding it.”

Jace stroked her again, seeming to find the
seam of her pants enthralling. “Me neither. You’d be our woman, and
everyone would know.”

“People will talk.”

“They always do,” said Jace, sounding
unconcerned.

She bit her lip, so tempted to at least try
what they were suggesting. “Our folks would freak.”

Brody gave a half-shrug. “They’ll adjust. A
few grandbabies will soften them right up.”

She blinked. “How do we have kids in a
relationship like this?”

“The same way as any other people, honey.”
Jace pressed against her clit. “One of us puts a cock in your sweet
little cunt and fills you until you get pregnant.”

“So crude,” said Brody in a teasing tone,
“But that sums it up, Cady-did.”

“But who would be the father?”

Jace shrugged. “We could take turns or leave
it to fate. I don’t really care. Brody is closer than a brother to
me. I’d have no problem with his kids calling me Dad.”

“Same here, as long as you’re their mother,
Cady-did.”

Her head whirled. “I…I need time to think.
Could you please drive me home?”

Jace and Brody shared a long look before both
nodded. “If that’s what you want,” said Jace.

“Just don’t make us wait too long for an
answer, love,” said Brody. He squeezed her hand before releasing it
with obvious reluctance. “We’ve waited too long as it is.”

*****

Cady’s mind was still reeling when she let
herself into her small house. She’d retrieved her car from the bar
after Jace dropped her at Maverick’s, so there was no reason she
couldn’t go into the shop. Still, she found herself reaching for
the phone, first to dial her manager to cover the small gas station
she owned, and then to dial Ella’s number.

Her friend answered on the third ring,
sounding sleepy. New York was a couple of hours ahead of them, but
it was still early for someone on vacation. “Hey, sleepyhead,” she
teased in lieu of a more conventional greeting. “It has to be
eleven there.”

“Eleven-eighteen,” said Ella around a
yawn.

Her voice on the line helped soothe some of
Cady’s jangled nerves. “What time did you and Mr. Right make it to
bed last night?”

“He dropped me off at my hotel room at
midnight,” she said primly, before giggling. “Adam had an early
meeting this morning.”

“So, have you and he…?”

“No, not yet. We just met in person a couple
of days ago.” Ella’s voice dropped to a confidential pitch. “I’m
planning to have sex with him tonight.”

“How unlike you.”

Ella laughed. “I know, but I figure if I’m
thinking about moving to New York to be with him, I’d better know
everything about us together, as a couple. I’d hate to uproot my
entire life and end up incompatible in bed.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t want anything kinky.”
Like a threesome.
The words hovered on the tip of her
tongue, and she knew she’d have to summon the courage to bring it
up before long. After all, she had called Ella for advice, so she’d
have to tell her all about it soon enough.

“Oh, some kink doesn’t bother me.”

“Me neither apparently.”

She could easily imagine the way Ella quirked
her eyebrow as her friend said, “What’d you mean? Did you and
Garrett do something totally out-there?”

A harsh bark of laughter escaped her.
“Garrett is totally out-there, as in out of my life. I caught him
screwing his neighbor. You know the one who’s only a sophomore in
college? I guess she has daddy issues.”

“Gross,” said Ella. “He’s forty, right?”

“Forty-one.”

Sympathy laced her voice. “I’m so sorry,
sweetie. I know you were thinking he was The One.”

“No, not really. I was settling on him as The
One. There’s a difference.” That realization had come to her on the
drive back from the ranch. Garrett had seemed to be her last chance
at a husband and family, so she had clung with both hands long past
when she should have let go. In retrospect, it was easy to see what
a louse he was.

“I’m glad you didn’t get your heart
broken.”

“Nope, I got laid instead.”

Ella gasped, and then giggled. “Really? How
unlike you.”

“Yeah, really unlike me. They made me an
offer I couldn’t refuse.” She held her breath, waiting for Ella’s
reply.

“They?” Genuine shock laced her tone. “As in
more than one?”

“Um, yes.” She didn’t know whether to cringe
with embarrassment or giggle with delight at the confession.

“Whoa. How many?”

“Two.”

“Guys?”

“Ella!” She hadn’t done something that far
out of character, right?

Her friend’s shrug was practically audible.
“Well, it could have been a guy and a girl. Two girls, one guy are
the most common threesomes from what I’ve heard.”

“Oh, well…no, two men.”

Her rich chuckle filled the line. “I’m so
proud of you, though I wish you hadn’t driven to Butte after your
breakup. That’s a long drive when you’re so emotional.”

“I didn’t. I went to Maverick’s.”

A long silence filled the line.

“Ella, are you there?”

“Yeah,” she said in a strange voice. “It was
my brother and Brody, wasn’t it?”

“What?” Cady reeled back a step, furtively
looking over her shoulder, though she knew no one was in the house
with her. “How’d you guess?”

“Oh, hon, it’s pretty obvious my brother is
crazy about you and has been for ages. Since he and Brody are
practically a matched set, it was the reasonable conclusion.”

Warmth suffused her. “You think Jace is crazy
about me?”

“Please. He has been since his senior year.
We were juniors. Remember?” She paused for a moment, as if awaiting
confirmation, but didn’t allow Cady to give it before she started
speaking again. “It was all he could do to keep from drooling at
the sight of you in your winter formal dress. If you hadn’t been
hanging all over Les Warren, I’m sure he would have approached you
then.”

She snorted. “Ha. He was hanging all over
Becky Turner, and Brody was glued to Mary Hanks.”

Ella crowed with laughter. “Oh my god, you
remember their dates too. Have you been nursing a secret crush all
these years?”

“More than nursing, and more than a crush,”
said Cady in a serious tone, ready to admit the truth, both to her
friend and herself. “I’ve been half in love with them all my life
too.”

“Love?” Ella sighed. “So, it’s serious?”

“It could be. They want me to marry
them.”

She made an odd noise. “How does that work,
Cady?”

Cady sighed deeply. “I’m not sure. I guess
we’ll figure it out as we go.”

“So, you’re going to do it?”

She hesitated a long second. “Yeah, I guess I
am. We aren’t getting married right away, but we’re going to see
how things progress.” Hadn’t she already made up her mind back when
they proposed the unorthodox relationship? She just hadn’t been
ready to acknowledge it yet. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s crazy and all kinds of
wonderful. If you’re all happy, that’s all that matters to me.”

Tears stung her eyes. “Thanks, sweetie.
You’re the best friend in the world.”

Ella sniffed, as though trying to fight back
tears. “I guess I’ll be your sister pretty soon too.”

“Yeah, probably,” she confirmed in a thick
voice before clearing her throat. “You’ve been my sister forever.
We’re just maybe making it official.”

“Congrats, hon. Name your first child after
me.”

With a laugh, she said, “I’ll have to check
with the guys first.” A few moments later, she and her friend hung
up. Cady put the cell phone back in her pocket, suddenly feeling
light and carefree. Ella had taken the news with aplomb. While she
didn’t expect everyone else to be so accepting and open-minded, at
least in the beginning, having her best friend on her side, and her
lovers at her side, made all the difference. She could be brave and
seize what she wanted. To hell with anyone who thought they were
doing something wrong.

Whistling a jaunty tune, she scooped up her
purse, fished out her keys, and left her house. It was a beautiful
day for a drive, and she set off in the direction of the ranch.
Toward her new home and the two cowboys waiting there for her.

********

Cover Image Credits courtesy of licensed
images purchased from Deposit Photos.

Please keep reading for an excerpt of another
Rubenesque romance from Kit Tunstall!

Amourisa Press and Kit Tunstall reserve all
rights to ALL GROWN UP. This work may not be shared or reproduced
in any fashion without permission of the publisher and/or author.
Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely
coincidental. All characters are over the age of 18.