A Very Lusty Christmas (6 page)

“As well, several of the ladies of the families will be coming by to volunteer.” Sarah nodded. “We’ll be drawing up a duty roster to ensure that you’ll have plenty of help. Many who won’t actually be coming in to take shifts assisting you with the many tasks of caring for the convalescing will take turns cooking dinners, so you need not trouble yourself with the evening meal each day.”

Something Sarah Benedict had just said struck an odd chord with her. “The families?”

“I beg your pardon?” Sarah Benedict tilted her head to the side.

“I’m sorry. I was just curious. You said ‘several of the ladies of the families,’ not, ‘several of the ladies of the town.’” Kate felt her color rising, but pushed on. “I thought it an unusual turn of phrase, is all.”

The two women exchanged looks. Sarah sighed. “I imagine there’s a great deal about Lusty that you’re going to find curious and unusual.” Sarah picked up her cup. “You see, this town was founded by me and my husbands, and Amanda—who met you at the train station earlier—and her husbands before the turn of the last century. Most everyone who lives in Lusty belongs to one of about four different families. We’re more or less, all of us, related.”

Kate felt her mouth drop open. “Husbands. You said
husbands
…as in more than one. So…” That sense of something off that she’d felt early came back to her now, full force. “Not to be indelicate, or forward…you mean to say that you and Mrs. Jessop-Kendall were both of you divorced and remarried?” Kate knew she sounded hesitant, but she couldn’t really help it. She was getting a strange feeling, a very strange feeling indeed.

Perhaps in that moment when Sarah Benedict met her gaze, the older woman understood a little bit of the turmoil that seemed to be roiling through her. Kate thought that was entirely possible, for that gracious lady’s expression softened. She reached out and patted Kate’s hand.

“No, dear. I’m afraid that I meant husbands, as in I had two of them at the same time. They were brothers, twins actually, named Caleb and Joshua. We shared many happy years together. They’ve been gone not yet a full decade, and I miss them both terribly.”

“You had two husbands—who were brothers—at the same time.”

“Yes. It’s the Benedict way, you see.”

Kate took a moment to sip from her cup, and then set it down. The cup clattered on the saucer, because her hand shook, just a little. “I met two young men—officers, both—named Benedict, not two weeks ago. They were really quite…forward. They, too, spoke of ‘the Benedict way.’”

“My two eldest boys always were far too impatient for their own good,” Madeline Benedict said.

Kate looked from one woman to the other. She wasn’t certain what she felt at the moment, but one thing she knew with absolute clarity. “I do believe that somebody owes me an explanation.”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “I suppose that somebody does.”

* * * *

“Can’t you drive this car any faster?”

His brother spared him a brief, very annoyed look, and then put his attention back on the road again. Patrick tried to hide his smile, but he knew he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. He also knew that Gerald was driving as fast as he ever would, stickler for the rules that he was.

“No,” Gerald answered. “We’re going plenty fast enough.”

Patrick chuckled at hearing words his fathers had both often said. Leaning back against the seat, he exhaled heavily. “That seemed to be an ungodly long two weeks.”

“It did. I didn’t relish having to wash those two young men out of the program so soon, either.”

No, his tough-as-nails brother wouldn’t be happy that he’d had to tell two would-be aviators that they just didn’t have what it took to fly in wartime. A man needed sharp instincts and even sharper reflexes if he wanted to avoid being smeared into the ground or shot all to hell.

“There really was no help for it. Those two Oklahoma farm boys likely will make much better mechanics than they would flyers.” Patrick understood the magnetic pull of aviation. He and Gerald had both succumbed to the lure of the skies when they were little more than kids themselves. He supposed he had just never given it any thought before now, how lucky he was that he could do that which he loved.

Perhaps loving something and being unable to fulfill that calling might be one definition of hell.

“What do you think of the Valiant?”

Patrick exhaled heavily and shook his head. “That bird they have us flying sure as hell isn’t a Hurricane.” An understatement if ever he’d made one. “I can certainly see how the Valiant earned its nickname, ‘the Vibrator.’” Patrick looked over at his brother. “I wasn’t very impressed with it, that’s for certain. About the only good thing I can say is that having trained in ‘the Vibrator’ will make the next plane our trainees handle seem like a smooth ride to them.”

“There is that. I checked the maintenance records on the one I had up today. I just thought it coughed and sputtered a bit more than I liked, but it’s a little hard to tell with all the regular shaking going on.”

“The records check out?”

“Yes, those boys are vigilant about the service of those birds, and in keeping good records, too.”

Patrick focused his attention on his older brother. “Something’s bothering you.”

Gerald exhaled heavily. “Just a sense, really. When I had that plane up in the air today, I had an odd sense that something was just not right with it. But I couldn’t put my finger on what, exactly, gave me that impression.”

There’d been a couple of times in the past when Gerald’s intuition had proven sound, so Patrick didn’t dismiss his brother’s “odd senses,” not one little bit.

“Could you request the craft undergo a thorough check?”

“Well, I did ask just such a question. In response, I was reminded of the base’s motto.”

Patrick grinned. Goodfellow Field, named after World War I local hero John J. Goodfellow Jr., had a motto, as did most units of the United States Army. That motto was, “Ever Into Danger.” He nodded and said, “Next they’ll tell you that if these training conditions were good enough for Jimmy Doolittle and his men…” He didn’t complete the sentence.

“I’m just going to shake it off. I hate when I get those sensations, though. Makes me want to watch my back every damn minute.”

“I’d put it aside for now, brother. But I wouldn’t dismiss those feelings, not completely.” And since he did love his brother and considered him his best friend, Patrick determined to watch Gerald’s back a little more closely than he usually did.

Silence ate up a few miles, and then Gerald sighed. “I’ll tell you what else I hate. That we had to report for duty just as Kate was coming to town,” Gerald said. “Of course, I know everyone would have made her feel welcome. But still, I just feel as if we should have been there for her.”

Patrick grinned at his brother. “One thing we can count on the women in our family to do is to make newcomers feel welcome.” Having spent some time abroad over the last few years, and having a good look at how other people lived, Patrick’s pride in his family had been newly invigorated since coming home.

“Do you suppose she’s figured things out yet?” Gerald asked. “That we more or less arranged for her to be there, for us?”

“Unfortunately, that’s the other thing that we can count on the women in our family doing—banding together as sisters.” In fact, though he would likely never admit it to another man other than his brother, he was proud of them for that, too.

Gerald looked at him for just a moment, his grin wide. “Good. I wouldn’t want her to feel overwhelmed
and
alone.”

The sun had dipped low on the horizon, even though it wasn’t quite seven in the evening. This time of year—the first week of September—the sun would set just before eight. He’d grown up, a son of ranchers and farmers, and he knew the calendar well.

Patrick loved the clear Texas nights. The month of September brought the end of summer, and occasionally cooler evenings, but relative dryness tended to blanket both the moderate and the extreme in his home state, and he gave thanks for that.

England had been hellishly damp and chilly, it had seemed, all the damn time.

“I used to dream of this place when we were over there,” Gerald said. “Of the campouts we went on with our dads and the uncles and the grandfathers.”

“I was just thinking the same thing. When it was both cold and wet I would close my eyes and think about the campfires out on the trail, and the stories they would tell.” Unexpectedly, Patrick’s throat felt tight. “Christ, I miss them. All of them. Caleb and Joshua, Adam and Warren.”

“So do I.” Gerald seemed to sense his emotions—or, more like, he shared in them completely. After a few minutes, he chuckled. “I keep imagining that moment when they were escorting Grandmother Sarah to her new home outside Waco. That moment in Indian Territory when the grandfathers looked up, and there before them was a line of Cherokee as far as the eye could see. I almost can’t envision Grandmother Sarah clinging to Grandpa Caleb’s back.”

“Or her keeping silent and letting the men do all the talking.” Patrick grinned. Then he looked over at Gerald. “Can you ever even
conceive
of a Benedict, Jessop, or Kendall doing to a daughter what her father did to her?”

“No, not in these enlightened times,” Gerald agreed. “But in those days—in the 1890s—women had few rights, and practically no voice at all.”

“I suppose I should just be grateful, because without grandmother’s father having struck that deal with Tyrone Maddox, we wouldn’t even be here.” To this day, none of the Benedicts claimed that long-dead man as either a grandfather or a great-grandfather.

Mr. Carmichael had never accepted his daughter’s marriage to the brothers Benedict, and the rest of the family, in turn, had never accepted him.

“True.” Gerald fell silent for a long moment. “Kate isn’t much older than Grandmother Sarah was when she had to leave all she knew behind and trek into the unknown wilderness with two gunslingers as escort. Maybe we should keep that in mind as we court her.”

“That’s a fine and noble idea, brother. But we both know that once we’re alone with her, once the scent of her and the sight of her fills us both up, we’re only going to want to do one thing.”

Gerald nodded. “Claim her as our own. I know. But in my heart, we already did that back in Washington.”

“With just a kiss? I had a more…earthy sort of claiming in mind.”

“You don’t have to use euphemisms, brother. Not between the two of us.”

Patrick nodded. “I know, but I’m trying very hard not to talk myself into a permanent state of hard-on.”

Gerald chuckled, but there certainly wasn’t much humor in the sound. “How is that working out for you?”

“Fuck, Ger, you have to know, not well. I can still taste her on my lips, and I can
still
smell her heat.”

“Yeah, me too, all of that,
and
I can feel her tight little nipples poking at me through both our layers of clothing.”

Patrick groaned and then adjusted his position on the seat. Thank God his uniform trousers were loose enough to leave a little room for his erection. “I have a feeling the lady won’t just fall into bed with us, either.”

“You might be right about that. We may have quite a time getting her where we want her…naked and between us. Except…”

“Except what?”

“There’s passion in her, hot and fiery. I tasted it and so did you. And, there’s an intrinsic honesty in her. Our Kate won’t play games.
If
she decides to take us on, she’ll open to us. We won’t have to coax her into it.”

“Yes.” He took a moment to relive that incredible kiss. Then he looked over at Gerald. “We haven’t discussed this, and since we’re only a few minutes away from home, I suppose we really should. Just how are we going to get the delicious
Major
Wesley right where we want her so she can make that decision?”

“Now, that is a question, isn’t it? I came up with the last plan—the one that brought her to Lusty. I think it’s your turn, brother, to come up with this one.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that. Well, if all else fails, we can always use the tried and true.”

“Ask her?” Gerald asked.

Patrick grinned. Coming right out and asking her hadn’t even occurred to him. “No, I was thinking we could just seduce her. Since she did seem to be attracted to us both even, I think, against her better judgment.”

Gerald was silent for a long moment. Patrick didn’t think, even for a minute, that his brother was mentally weighing the pros and cons of that approach. No, like him, Ger was imagining all the delightful ways the two of them could seduce their woman.

“Yes,” he said at last. “I imagine we could, if we worked at it. And provided, of course, that the lady still is as attracted to us as we are to her.”

Patrick let go of his insouciance, and met his brother’s gaze. “I haven’t allowed myself to even consider the possibility that she isn’t—or that she wouldn’t be receptive to us.”

“I don’t think we have anything to worry about. The woman is incredibly hot-blooded—I could tell that by the way she trembled in my arms.” Gerald grinned, then, the kind of full-of-fun grin Patrick hadn’t seen on him in a long time. “And I’ll tell you the truth, it was a combination of arousal and indignation that made her tremble.”