Chapter One
Leighton Pulver paced the length of the small cabin, furious over her current situation. I should have gotten a handle on this when it first started. Her bare feet coasted over the carpet as she wore a path from the door to the living room and back. Why did I let it get this far? So stupid. She’d out of her way to take the high road, and now the bitterness and backup from biting her tongue and feigning detachment. The ignored emotions rushed up, choking her. Her hands shook. Heat spread across her face as she worried the beige carpet. This life had twisted the optimistic girl she’d once been and had opened her eyes to the horrors, hypocrisy, and deceit people doled out at an alarming rate. I guess I found my breaking point. Fear clung to her brain like cotton candy.
What will they say when I spill my guts? When they see the weak woman beneath my tough girl front? Her soft underbelly wasn’t pretty, and they had enough on their plates running the Lodge. Her stomach rolled and knotted like pretzels waiting to be baked. She didn’t do sharing. People had a way of breaking your heart, and using your weaknesses against you. But this had already waited too long. She nibbled the bottom of her lip, fingering the threadbare material of the gray shirt she’d borrowed from Ryan to do the laundry.
A key turned in the lock, and she paused in the middle of the living room. Ryan and Casey walked inside. For a moment, her vision swam. She curled her feet into the carpet beneath her to ground herself.
“Lei.” Ryan’s gruff voice made her jump.
“What’s going on? Something happen?” Casey shut the door behind him, and they tensed, launching into protective mode. Anderson, Alaska was a wild, rugged area. It wasn’t unusual for animals to wander the property, and after the way her Dad died, extra caution became the norm. Rabid bears were a one in a million chance. She slammed the lid shut on the horrific memories and focused on the boys.
She took a deep breath and forced the words repeating in her mind out. “I can’t do this anymore.” Tears hovered in the corner of her eyes, and she struggled to keep them back. I refuse to be remembered as a crybaby. Her chest ached, and pain crept into her temples, a dull pulsing she knew would quickly escalate to a paralyzing throb if she didn’t end this soon.
“You can’t do what?” Ryan shook his head. His brow creased with confusion.
“Exactly.” She snorted.
“We’re not following you,” Casey said slowly. His dark brown hair swung side to side, and she drank in his beauty. He had large, soulful brown eyes set in a masculine face. A broad forehead, strong jaw, and dimpled cheeks rounded out the total package that kept the females in the town swooning. The sparse city boasted two hundred and fifty people on a good day, so pickings were slim. Everyone knew the Boyer boys, whose father ran the only Lodging Hotel in town. Since their fathers had been best friends, Leighton grew up beside them, fishing, hunting, and not realizing how attractive they were until much later in life. She gulped.
“Does it matter?” Leighton’s voice cracked.
“You come at me talking crazy, yeah, it kind of does.” Ryan stalked forward, and she stepped back, avoiding him. Too close and he muddled her thoughts like a lead wall dampening airwaves. His deep-seated, brownish-green eyes and high cheekbones led down to a full pair of deep pink lips she wanted to nibble. Her pulse ramped up.
“Are you running from me?” Ryan’s hazel-colored eyes widened. A frown curved his tempting lips down, and the sharp angles of his face softened with concern. Since the mauling, she’d had panic attacks. Periods of time where rationalization left the building and fight or flight set in.
“We’re all running from something.” The bitchy tone made her wince. This isn’t how I wanted this to go. ”Shit. I am mangling this.” She hung her head.
“Just…breathe. It’s clear this has been bothering you forever, but we’re clueless.” Casey’s soothing baritone brought her outside her head. The man had a knack for saying the right thing to smooth over choppy waters. A skill she was convinced he’d been gifted with to offset his brother’s brusqueness.
“I had this all worked out in my head, and now, it’s too much.” Leighton shook her head, begging them to understand with her eyes. Please don’t make me spell this out. Embarrassment and shame, mixed with a bit of self-loathing, proved to be a pill too bitter for her to swallow. I just had to flummox this all up by falling for them.
“I know it’s been hard since you lost your dad—” Ryan said.
“Don’t!” She held out her hand. “I can’t have that conversation tonight.” Her stomach rolled, protesting the topic. The sight of her father’s body shredded and left like garbage before the bear came at her would haunt her for the rest of her life. The nightmares stopped a few months ago with the time, grieving, and a healthy dose of counseling. She had no desire to make them resurface.
“It’s been six months. When are we going to?” Ryan tilted his head, refusing to back down. Bullheaded and bossy, he boiled her blood in more ways than one.
“Not now.” She ground her teeth. Images of scarlet puddles and internal organs strewn across the grass flashed in her head. She’d been lucky to make it out alive. Without Ryan and Casey, she never would have. Thank God they made a habit of stopping by the house to check on us. Her father, Carl, had been a surrogate father figure to the boys, and with old age setting in, they often swung by. She’d grown up in this rural area, had been around wild animals her whole life, often hunting them. Yet, this bear had been from hell itself. Beastly, it came in at about eight-hundred-and-fifty pounds and stood at six foot. She’d battled the thing tooth and nail to survive long enough for help to rush to the rescue when the bear made a mockery of the security door on the back porch and finagled its way inside. Pulvers did what they had to.
“Isn’t that what this is about?” Ryan scowled. Frustration tinged his voice.
“No. It’s about me fucking up and trying to rectify the situation.” Leighton wrapped her arms around her waist. The thought of leaving the sanctity of their home made her sad. Has to be done. Man up, Pulver. You screw this up and you’ll have no one left.
“Leighton, you can tell us anything, you know that. We’ve known you since you were born,” Casey said. Always the voice of reason.
She rolled her eyes. “You love bringing that up, don’t you?” Right now, the last thing she wanted to remember was how they viewed her as a little sister.
“Since when is having history a bad thing?” Ryan’s jaw flexed.
“Since the only thing I can think about is fucking the two of you.” She covered her mouth, shaking her head vigorously. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” Casey gasped, and Ryan’s jaw dropped. The words spilled out like air from a balloon with a hole. “The one-night-stand, wing woman of the year shit is killing me a little more every day. I know we could never do casual. Ryan doesn’t do anything else except that, and Casey’s still recovering from my dad’s death same as I am.” She paused. “This is my stop. I’m
a big girl, and I know when to get off the ride before It becomes too much.”
Ryan turned to Casey. A silent conversation took place between them. I hate it when they do that. They stepped forward, and she glanced at the ground, not ready to see the disappointment and pity. Shame sent heat into her cheeks. The poor, pudgy, black girl had developed a crush on the hottest commodity in the tiny community.
“Look at me,” Ryan said.
“No.” Mortified, she closed her eyes tight and balled her fists.
“Come on, Leighton.” Casey’s timbre was laced with comfort. For once, she wanted no part of it. Growing up with people trapped you in a time capsule.
Ryan stepped into her space, blocking her between the expanse of the arms he placed on either side of her head. “I’m not going to move until you do,” he said.
“Such a fucking bully,” she said under her breath.
Casey snorted.
“Shut up, Casey,” Ryan said.
Her lips twitched. She loved their brotherly banter.
“Finally a smile,” Ryan said. She could hear the smile in his voice. Thoughts of his brilliant beam made her knees weaken. Tired of being a coward, she looked up and fell headlong into an intense set of brownish-green jewels gifted to him as eyes.
“All this time we’ve been calling ourselves bastards for wanting to get into your pants.” Ryan smirked.
“What?” His words rolled around in her brain, but she refused to follow the logic. Surely he didn’t mean what she thought he did.
“We’re painfully aware that you aren’t a little girl anymore.” Ryan moved even closer. Their bodies brushed.
“Is this some sort of joke?” Her voice cracked.
Ryan grabbed her hand and placed it on the bulge in his jeans. The air fled from her lungs, and her mouth formed on O. “No joke, sweetheart. Why do you think I’ve been playing wheel of fortune every bar we enter?”
“B-because you’re Ryan Boyer.” She huffed. His reputation preceded him.
“Now you’re just trying to flatter me.” Ryan smirked and rubbed against her hand. The bulge grew. Her nipples peaked. Tongue-tied, she shook her head. Casey framed her face in his massive hands as he leaned in, stopping her denial. ”We see you. We want you, and nothing about the demands we’ll place will be casual.”
“C-Case…”
“Do you want it too, Leighton? Are you willing to give us a try? You know us better than most. We’re possessive, greedy, and gruff. But I promise you, you’d never want for a damn thing.” Casey’s mouth hovered millimeters from her lips.
“We want you here, Lei. We like the dynamics too damn much.” Ryan nipped her neck. Casey connected their lips, and she closed her eyes, lost in the incredible sensation they created together.
“So beautiful.” The sincerity in Ryan’s voice blew her mind. Never the one with a soft touch, Ryan always treated her like one of the guys. He licked her pulse point, and she moaned into Casey’s mouth. Her world tilted on its axis. Fantasies became possibilities.
“If we do this, you’re ours, Pulver,” Ryan said.
Casey pulled away. She sucked air into her lungs. “Y-Yours?”