Anita's Triple Temptation [Men of Montana 4] (Siren Publishing Menage Amour) (16 page)

The two women broke out in giggles as Lyndee reached for her purse. Anita followed suit. Lyndee grabbed the check and was heading to the cashier station before Anita could so all she could do was follow. She’d pick up lunch, she vowed to herself.

Hitting the mall in Kalispell, the two ladies spent the morning shopping for linens and decorative items. After a lunch at the food court, they began to shop for furniture. Dave, Kevin, and James had told Anita that they trusted her to choose everything. Guilt consumed her that she was spending too much but Lyndee had insisted Anita get whatever she wanted as it was a gift, as was the house, from the Goodall brothers, Austin, and Lyndee.

And no…there was no arguing.

Anita gave in.

After making arrangements to have the furniture delivered later that afternoon, Anita needed to make one more stop. She had asked Lyndee to leave her at a coffee shop for about thirty minutes so she could meet up with Scotty, though she had told Lyndee she was just meeting with a friend. She hated to lie to her new friend but felt whatever Scotty had to tell her was important and didn’t want to burden Lyndee with the information since she didn’t know the man.

Sitting in a booth facing the door, Anita didn’t have to wait long for the middle-aged man to arrive. His shaggy hair was prematurely gray and he sported a mustache and a long beard. A smile was genuine though stressed which reached his blue, tired eyes as he greeted her.

After hugging her, he sat down across from her and asked for a cup of coffee from the waitress who had arrived before his butt hit the vinyl seat. Anita was sipping on a hot chocolate she had ordered while she waited. Fiddling with the handle on her cup, she had the feeling by the looks of Scotty that this was going to be an awkward conversation.

“Jesus, Nita, I heard what Virgil did to you. I’m so sorry. How are the boys doing?” he asked as if he was nervous.

“They’re good. We moved out to the Circle G ranch. I have met someone,” she said, unsure of his reaction.

Adam Ferguson, or Scotty, as he was known because of his heavy Scottish brogue, had taken Craig under his wing when he started at the logging company. Scotty looked out for Craig and had taken his death pretty badly since he was the one that should have been doing that job that day.

Reaching across the smooth tabletop, he took her hands into his rough ones, aged by time and work. Anita swallowed hard because at that moment she felt what he was going to say was life changing. For her or for him, she was not sure.

“I’m happy for you, sweetie,” he said, a sob mingled in his words.

Concern swamped Anita. “What’s going on, Scotty?”

The man took a quick survey of the restaurant. His gray brows knit together as his blue eyes darted from person to person before returning back to Anita. “You have to be very careful with Virgil. I don’t know why, but he is obsessed with you.”

Unable to stop it, a gasp escaped Anita’s lips.

“As I told you at the funeral,” Scotty continued. “I was supposed to be operating the yarder the day Craig died. What I didn’t tell you was that Virgil told me when I went into work that morning that Craig had already gone out there, but when I was leaving the office I could have sworn I saw him heading to the equipment shed. I was distracted by that damn idiot that follows Virgil around like a dog, almost like he didn’t want me going after Craig to find out what was going on. Later that morning when I was on my break, I overheard Virgil telling Jeremy that he would do anything to make you his. Then the call came in about the accident.”

Anita was aware who Jeremy was. Wherever Virgil went, his muscleman, Jeremy, was never far behind. Even the day Virgil propositioned her, Jeremy was standing next to Virgil’s pickup, as if the man needed a bodyguard. She’d hate to admit it, but Virgil made her uncomfortable while Jeremy literally frightened her. Now that she thought about it, she had to wonder where Jeremy was on the night that Virgil attacked her.

The duo was distracted when the door to the restaurant swung open. Two men who looked vaguely familiar entered. Anita glanced at Scotty who had turned back to her, a bit of fear in his eyes. Never before had she known him to be afraid of anything. Craig had regaled her with stories of Scotty since the first day he had started work at Cantrell Logging. The man didn’t take crap from anyone and despite his age and shorter stature than most of the loggers, he could hold himself in a brawl and always came out the victor.

Reaching out, Anita took the older man’s hands in hers. They were well weathered with calluses and scars. Dirt was embedded around and under his fingernails. He was a proud man and carried his battle scars like a trophy.

“Are you all right?” she whispered, knowing what his answer was going to be before he uttered the words. She knew she wouldn’t get any more information out of him today.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the two men eyeing her and Scotty suspiciously as they took a seat at a booth closer to the door. They both wore jeans and flannel shirts. Work boots adorned their feet. When they entered, they both wore baseball caps and had removed them as soon as the door closed behind them.

The man with the blond hair sat facing Anita. She tried to avoid his gaze though he tried to be casual with it. The mousy, blond-haired man only turned once to glance their way.

Scotty’s hands trembled within hers which concerned her. The older man’s gray head leaned a bit closer to hers before his hands held on tighter to hers. “I loved Craig and you like you were my own kids,” he whispered, tears in his eyes. “I need you to go to the main post office and ask for general delivery under Craig’s name. Take care of them boys. Be happy.”

Astonishment struck her as Scotty raised her left hand to his lips and kissed the back of it before pulling his hands away from hers. With that, he rose from the table and headed out the door without a backward glance. All she could do was watch his retreating form, noticing he didn’t straighten up, looking every bit of the old man he had become.

Glancing at the booth that contained the newcomers, Anita noticed both men openly watching as Scotty left even though the waitress had arrived at their table. At that same moment, Lyndee walked through the door after brushing against Scotty’s shoulder in his rush to escape the scene.

When the waitress cleared her throat to get the men’s attention, they glared up at her as if she was an irritation. “We aren’t going to be staying,” the man with the shaggy brown hair stated as they both began to stand. The waitress, a middle-aged bleached blond, looked just as irritated with them as she popped her hip to the left and rested her hand on it. “But you haven’t even looked at the menu,” she whined. The blond-haired man, who looked about eighteen, pushed the woman out of the way in their rush to follow their prey.

“Hey!” she exclaimed at the action. “You don’t have to be rude about it!”

Manners instinctively took hold of the man as he realized what he had done. A blush crept up on his face and neck. “Sorry, sweetheart. We realized we don’t have time to eat.”

Anita eyed Lyndee watching the scene unfold before her. The petite woman glanced at Anita questionably. She must have read the anxious look on her face for she moved over to the small group as she reached into her purse. Stopping next to the waitress, she held up her badge. “Excuse me. Is there a problem here?”

As she had suspected, the two men were afraid of Lyndee once they saw the badge. Anita hoped Lyndee questioning them would give Scotty time to leave the area. Taking a chance, she picked up her purse and headed toward the door but stopped at the cashier stand.

The brunette man chuckled before taking a step toward Lyndee, standing above her by nearly half a foot. Anita marveled at how her new friend confidently held her stance and wasn’t intimidated by the man’s action.

“You have no jurisdiction here, darlin’,” he sneered. “This is not Lake County.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Lyndee said sarcastically before flipping the small case that held her badge. “I was showing the wrong identification. See, this one says I have jurisdiction anywhere in the United States. Does that satisfy you, now?”

Anita had to suppress the laughter that was beginning to bubble up within her at Lyndee’s actions. She was finding out the woman was not someone to mess with.

Eyeing the two men, she didn’t think anyone’s eyes could open as wide as theirs did as they eyed the FBI credentials the little woman held. The man with the brown hair took a step back before looking at his partner.

Sheepishly, the blond man spoke as if his mother had chastised him instead of a federal agent. “I’m very sorry, Miss. We didn’t mean any disrespect to you, or you,” he said, glancing at the waitress. “We just realized we need to be somewhere else.”

Lowering her badge, Anita could tell Lyndee was skeptical. The woman was good at reading people and apparently knew the duo was up to no good. Anita inched for the door, fearing she might need to make a quick exit. Glancing at the glass door, she could see Scotty driving away in his pickup and was glad he wasn’t being followed as she was certain these two men were going to do.

Lyndee smiled politely at the men though from where Anita stood, the smile wasn’t genuine. It was nearly sarcastic with a hint of playfulness in it. “Well, since you have obviously been so rude to this woman and taken up her time and mine,” Lyndee said, the smile slowly disappearing. “You are going to generously tip her for the inconvenience. As for me, I’ll be keeping tabs on you boys, so you better watch your backs because you never know where I might turn up.”

Lyndee gave Anita a questioning glance and with a quick tip of her head, Anita let her friend know it was time to go. The two women watched as the blond man reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and then opened it. Rifling through the papers within the leather pouch, he pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to the waitress who accepted it though was shocked. Folding the billfold, the blond stuffed it in his back pocket before he nodded at his accomplice before the two moved for the door as quickly as possible, nearly knocking over Anita in the process.

Gaining her footing, Anita waited for Lyndee to walk over to her, not sure of what she was going to tell her new friend about what went down. “Were you able to take care of what you needed to?” the woman asked as she came within just a few feet of Anita.

“Yes, thank you. My only concern is what those men wanted with my friend,” Anita answered. “I hope he’ll be all right.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t just question them on a hunch,” Lyndee explained. “Hopefully they won’t cause any more trouble.”

Nodding, Anita followed Lyndee out to her black pickup and the two ladies got in. As they buckled their seatbelts, Anita remembered part of her conversation with Scotty. “Can we stop at the main post office? I need to pick up something.”

Excitement filled Lyndee’s eyes. “And then we can get back to shopping?”

Anita giggled at the woman’s eagerness. Not ever being in the situation of being able to go on a shopping spree, Anita was a bit overwhelmed with it all, but Lyndee seemed to revel in the activity.

“Yes. You are going to wear me out along with the guys’ credit cards.”

The two broke out into laughter as Lyndee threw the truck into gear and pulled out of the restaurant parking lot.

“We’ll discuss the bedroom situation when Anita gets home,” Dave said as all three men set their boxes of belongings in the foyer. Exhaustion from the day’s work settled on them, but they had things to do.

Stepping into the kitchen, Dave turned on one of the ovens to preheat and cook the casserole Martha again had sent home with them. They were going to have to do something nice for the woman for she was the mother hen of the Circle G.

Looking around he watched James and Kevin wander into the great room where they both sat down, one on each end of the couch. He hadn’t seen either one of them so relaxed in ages and he was happy they all had found the one they would spend the rest of their lives with, to love and cherish. Turning, he reached into the fridge and pulled out three bottles of beer and headed to give them to his friends. Handing each of the men a bottle, he sat in front of the fireplace, cross-legged on the dark hardwood floor.

Twisting the lid on the bottle, he pulled it off and took a long drink. Setting the bottle on the cobbled hearth, he reached over, grabbed some kindling from the wood box, and spread it along the grate in the middle of the fireplace. Setting several large logs on top of the kindling, he struck a match, holding it to the small pieces of wood, and watched the orange flame take hold. Soon, all the kindling was aflame and licking up at the logs demanding them to take light.

Picking up his bottle of beer, David watched the flames grow. Taking several drags of the amber ale and swallowing them, he was soon entranced by the roaring fire. He would love to have his lady love lying beside him, naked, her hair spread out as if a halo surrounding her, accepting the warmth of the fire on her skin.

Of course, there would be another fire building from within her depths as he and his friends ran their fingers along her skin. Then, they would touch her feminine areas, building the womanly fire within her cunt until she was writhing and screaming in ecstasy.

Lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t heard the pickup pull up out front. He came out of his revelry when James and Kevin jumped anxiously to their feet and headed for the door. Rising to his feet Dave followed them. As he reached the door, he had to sidestep Lyndee who was carrying quite a few bags. Stepping through the door himself, he found his two partners on each side of their lady, hugging and kissing her.