Ecstasy in Elk's Crossing (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (8 page)

“Hey there, Katie!” the foreman called out. “You’ve got that beef stew special going today, don’t you?”

“You know I do,” Katie replied. “I’ve made a double batch this week because I knew you and your men would be showing up.”

“I see you’ve got new hours. You’re closing from two ’til four-thirty?”

“I’m working all alone for a while, so the change is only temporary.”

“You’re all alone?” He put his hand over his heart. “Can I propose to you right now? Say ‘yes’ and you’ll never be alone again.”

Katie smiled when she replied, “You can propose, but I’ll say ‘no.’ At least for now.”

“As long as there’s still hope then I’ll stay and have lunch.”

She turned back to the McGowans and said sotto voce, “We’ll finish this later.”

* * * *

Elk’s Crossing, North Dakota, looked as miserable as David figured it would. A hick, small town off the highway consisting of little more than a collection of pathetic-looking buildings that had all seen better, more prosperous days. Most of the vehicles were SUVs or pickup trucks, and few of them looked like this year’s models.

“What a shit hole this is,” David grumbled as he got out of his car at the gas station.

He walked inside the gas station. A man in his late sixties sat behind the counter near a cash register that looked to be as old as he was. The man wore a straw cowboy hat with the front brim bent so low it was almost impossible to see his eyes.

“What can I help you with, young fella?” the old man asked.

David despised him instantly. But in a friendly tone, he asked, “I’m looking for someone new to town. A woman named Katie Sellers. Know where I can find her?”

“Yep. That’s the new girl. We don’t get those ’cept every once in a while. Most pretty girls leave Elk’s Crossing soon as they can.”

David bit his tongue to keep silent the insults he wanted to scream. Sounding only a little sarcastic, he asked, “Would you mind telling me where she is?”

“She’s over at the Mountain View Saloon. Serves up hot food and cold beer. Good, too.”

David got directions to the saloon. Soon enough, he’d look into Katie’s eyes and explain that she’d made some very serious mistakes that had cost him grievously. She had to be punished for those mistakes—punished in a manner befitting the crime.

* * * *

“Keep an open mind,” Aaron said as he pulled the pickup into the long, gravel drive leading to the ranch house of Circle-Square-Circle Ranch. “We can make any changes you want, but we’ve made quite a few already. We want you to be comfortable.”

“Changes to how you live, and you don’t even know if I’ll accept?” Katie sat between Aaron and Blair, and the warmth and strength of their bodies so close to her own was doing disastrous things to her willpower. “You’re pretty confident in yourself.”

“If we weren’t, you wouldn’t be here now. A woman like you wouldn’t pay a man any mind at all if he wasn’t confident.”

But I did spend time with a man who lacked confidence. David had to beat me up to prove his masculinity.

The hundred-plus-year-old ranch house was a rambling, single-story log structure that had been added to countless times over the years. Off to the north sat a large barn and a penned-in pasture with a white-painted, three-rail fence. A dozen horses were in the pasture munching grass and hay. To the south was the largest garage Katie had ever seen, and inside was an assortment of trucks, all-terrain vehicles, several tractors, and something she suspected had something to do with baling hay.

The place looked well groomed and orderly. Nothing appeared run-down or unkempt.

“Welcome to the Circle-Square-Circle Ranch,” Blair said as he extended a hand to help Katie out of the pickup’s cab. “Ask as many questions as you like.”

Aaron added, “Can you picture yourself calling this ranch your home?”

“I’m a city girl through and through,” Katie replied, not really answering the question. “I was born and raised in San Francisco.”

“But you’re in Elk’s Crossing now.” Aaron’s leonine gaze was warm, his voice a subtle caress. “Like I said, keep an open mind. We’ve got a lot to offer, and we’re offering it all to you.”

The McGowans had stayed at the saloon all through lunch, waiting around until Katie closed and locked the front door at two o’clock.

As Katie stepped into the bachelor ranch house, she had expected the place to be messy. Her notions of what four men would do when left to their own devices was decidedly negative. Instead, she found a ranch house that was masculine, rustic, and absolutely clean.

“Did you clean this place to within an inch of its life just for me?” she asked with a teasing smile.

“Mama never tolerated us making a mess,” Aaron replied. “Said it was her job to raise us up to be gentlemen, not slobs. It was Papa’s job to raise us to be cowboys.” He smiled, and Katie could tell that he missed his mother and was grateful for the way she’d brought him up. “She also said it wasn’t her job to pick up after us. We do our own laundry and things like that.”

“You’ve just never learned to cook.”

He nodded. “Mama always did that for us. And after she passed away, your grandma did most of our cooking.”

“The only meal we know how to make is breakfast,” Garrett piped in. “Eggs, bacon, and grilled potatoes washed down with milk and coffee starts our mornings.”

“Well, that’s something,” Katie replied. After a moment, she added comically, “I guess.”

Katie learned that the original log house had been built in the 1860s. It started out just a single-room structure built low and solid to withstand the rugged North Dakota winters and be easy to heat. Over the years, rooms had been added, then more rooms, and more rooms after that. With the advent of running water and electricity, and indoor toilets and showers, more additions and renovations had to be made. The end result was a rambling, sprawling log house that, even to Katie’s urbane sensibilities, was surprisingly warm, masculine, and inviting.

“If you want, this will be your room,” Aaron said, opening a bedroom door.

Katie’s heart skipped a beat.
Her
room. It implied a permanence that was much more than just being the lover to the McGowan men.

As the door swung on its hinges to reveal the room, Katie knew instantly that the bedroom had been their parents’ room. It was bigger than the other bedrooms that she’d seen, and there was a private bathroom off of it.

Her gaze went to the king-size bed, and instantly Katie’s imagination began conjuring the pleasures that would be hers to experience on that bed and with these four men.

“The bed’s brand-new. Never been slept in. The chest of drawers is an antique. I can’t remember exactly, but it was either my great-grandmother’s or my great-great-grandmother’s,” Aaron explained. “We figured you’d need a
sanctum sanctorum
to call your own. Over there’s a bathroom that’s exclusively yours.”

Katie managed to censor herself before commenting that she was surprised a cowboy like Aaron would know what a
sanctum sanctorum
was. Instantly, she became even more determined than ever to not put these surprising McGowan men into neat little groups that they didn’t fit in. They just couldn’t be so easily categorized.

“Very kind,” she said. “Very considerate. You’ve obviously gone through a great deal more thought than I had at first suspected.”

“This is your room, and we’ll stay out unless you invite us in.”

All four of you? One at a time or all at once? Oh, God, I’m starting to take this lunacy seriously.

She shivered at the thought of trying to sexually satisfy four big, strong, lusty men simultaneously. Was it even possible for one woman to do such a thing?

She was surprised to find that there were bookcases in nearly every room, and the one truly large room in the house—they called it the library—was dominated by floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases, and a large, flat-screen television.

“Earlier, when you invited me here, I thought I’d find some one-room log cabin with clothes and whatnot strewn everywhere.” She made a passing motion with her hand toward the packed bookcases and enormous TV. “I didn’t expect orderliness in the extreme, or a TV the size of Rhode Island.”

“Come on,” Aaron said. “I’ve saved the best for last.”

“
We’ve
saved the best for last,” Blair said quickly.

The “best” was waiting for her in a pen in the barn. It was a fourteen-year-old gelding quarter horse, sorrel in color with a white blaze on his forehead, and trained to perfection.

“We figured, you being a city girl your whole life, that you wouldn’t have much experience riding horses, so we picked out Buddy here for you. He’s got plenty of get-up-and-go in him, but he won’t bolt into a gallop with you in the saddle unless you want him to.” Aaron ran his hand affectionately over the horse’s nose. Buddy replied with a whinny. “He’s yours. Your saddle’s over there.”

“My own horse and saddle?”

What woman wouldn’t fall in love with men who’d do something like this?

“Your very own. We’ll teach you how to ride. We’ve got five high-country pastures we move the cattle between, and the best way to do that is from a saddle. The McGowans have been in this country for generations, and we’ve got pastureland spread all around.” He nodded toward the mountains to the west. “From high country to flatland prairie, we’ve got cattle grazing on our land. We’re all spread out, and that’s why it takes all four of us working it.”

Katie felt joyous tears stinging her eyes. She willed the tears away, averting her gaze so the men wouldn’t read her emotions. She stroked Buddy’s nose and neck and murmured softly, “You want to be my horse? I don’t think I’ve ever been in a saddle except for those Shetland ponies they have at the amusement park when I was just a little girl.”

These brothers have done more for me than all the previous men in my life combined. I feel precious with them. And protected.

“You don’t have to make your decision right now,” Aaron said, his words coming out a bit rushed. Katie suspected he had seen the unshed tears in her eyes, and had misinterpreted them. “We just wanted to show you what’s yours at the Circle-Square-Circle. All you have to do is come and accept what we have for you.” He cleared his throat. “You’ll be ours, and we’ll be yours, and that’s the way that’ll be.”

“Unconventional in the extreme, don’t you think?” Katie had tried for lightness in her tone, but she hadn’t managed it.

“I can’t argue with that.”

Buddy was the trump card they had to play, and it worked. I’m not going to say ‘yes’ just yet. I’ve got to think this through. I’ve got to think with my head, not my heart, or I’ll get hurt.

“I’d better be getting back to Mountain View. It’s nearly four, and customers will be showing up. You’ve spent almost all day with me.”

Katie was checking the amount of beer she had in the coolers when she heard the front door to the saloon open. The first of the evening’s customers had shown up, and that meant that she wouldn’t be alone with her thoughts any longer. She wasn’t at all certain whether it was good or bad to be thinking about having an affair with all of the McGowan brothers. Even
thinking
about making love to all four brothers made her shiver.

“You’re looking good, Katie. Better than you have any right to.”

The voice, masculine but high-pitched with tension, so startled Katie that she spun around too quickly and tripped. She hit the grill hard with her hip. She looked at David, hardly able to comprehend that he’d come all the way from San Francisco.

“How…how did you know where I’d gone?” she asked, her heart pounding. She felt fear, marrow-deep and terribly real, for the first time in many weeks.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” David looked around the saloon. The expression on his face said he didn’t like what he saw. “Quite a downgrade for you, isn’t it? Going from a fancy steak house in San Francisco to some stinking saloon in some shit hole of a town in North Dakota?”

“I like it here.”

“What’s to like?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Katie smiled, having regained her composure enough to use her ex’s own words to taunt him. “How long have you been…?”

The words drifted away, and Katie saw the hatred for her in David’s eyes. He walked slowly across the saloon to the bar.

“Jail. That’s the word you’re avoiding saying. How long have I been out of jail? Let’s talk about how long I was
in
jail. All because of you.”

“Keep your distance. You got locked away before for hurting me. Don’t make it worse for yourself.”

David shrugged his shoulders in a gesture that said doing jail time meant nothing. Katie knew otherwise. David wasn’t a street thug who needed to beef up his street cred by doing some time behind bars. He was an investment analyst with a solid education and no job.

He sat on a barstool, affecting a nonchalant pose. Now only the mahogany bar separated the man Katie loathed and feared from herself. Her palms were clammy with fear, and her throat felt tight.

“How about making me a Manhattan? You know how I like them.”

Katie cleared her throat, looked inside herself for courage, and then said, “No. I want you to leave. I’ve got a restraining order against you. You’re not supposed to be within five hundred yards of me.”

“What a California court says doesn’t mean shit in North Dakota. Now let’s have that Manhattan.”

Katie didn’t want to serve him, but she was alone with a man she knew hated her, and though he wasn’t a big man, he was big enough and strong enough to give her another thorough beating. She knew, tragically from experience, that he had no compunction against using violence on a woman.

She made the mixed drink, careful to measure accurately, wanting it to taste proper. At one time, she had thought David to be a level-headed gentleman. She eventually learned that he was a hothead who couldn’t control his temper, and that there was no telling what would infuriate him. Most of all, she learned that when he got into a rage, he let his fists do the talking.