Wrangled (Steele Ranch 2)

With my eyes, I followed Cord and the ATV back and forth across the yard. If we’d had this conversation before I’d met Jamison and Boone, I’d have probably said yes just to make her feel good. But now? Now I believed it one hundred percent. What else could this be? The attraction, the need, the desire to just be with them, it had to be love. I’d told them my deepest secrets and dreams, given them my virginity and even made myself susceptible to so much more than heartbreak. But I knew. I knew they wouldn’t hurt me. Stupid, my mother would say. Perhaps I was being stupid. But I was stupid in love and I wasn’t going to waste it. Wasn’t going to run away from it just because it might go bad, that it might be inappropriate that I wanted two men.

I might be a Vandervelk on paper, but my DNA screamed Steele.

“Absolutely,” I told her.

“That’s why we’re trying for a baby. I want one. I always have. Them, too, it seems. Well, at least they want one with me.” Her hand slid over her flat belly. “I’m excited.”

“Based on what Cord said in the doorway, the three of you are trying pretty hard.”

She grinned wickedly. “I was on the pill, but I stopped a few weeks ago. It might take a while, but they’re willing to put their best efforts into it.”

I thought of Boone and Jamison, of how they’d taken me without protection. They’d been like two cavemen, seeing their cum slip from me. The idea of them making a baby with me had only made them hard again, which made them fuck me again and fill me with more cum. I wasn’t sure how I wasn’t pregnant. If Kady’s men were as virile, as attentive, she was probably pregnant now. Maybe that was why she was so weepy.

“You have the main house now to yourself, although if your men are anything like mine, you won’t be staying there all too much.”

We hadn’t spoken of next steps, nothing more than forever. Boone had a shift at the ER tomorrow and while the ranch would probably survive without Jamison, he couldn’t shirk his duties because of me for very long. While I wanted a family, a house to take care of, I didn’t think the men meant Boone’s house, nor beginning immediately.

“I assume we’ll be dating, having more quiet times on the couch watching movies. Months of getting to know each other. I’ll be back at the main house by dinner. Alone.”

She laughed, then stopped when I wasn’t laughing with her. Instead, I frowned.

“I’m sorry, but you’re serious, aren’t you?”

I realized I hadn’t finished buttoning my shirt and did them up as I replied. “Yes, I’m serious. I have stuff to resolve.” I pointed at my purse. “My mother is going to hound me about something. Most likely the outline for my dissertation or the job offers she’s somehow heard about. I swear she has my email bugged.”

“Isn’t she a congresswoman?”

“Yup,” I said, tucking my shirt into my jean skirt. “And she’s not thrilled I’m here. Aiden Steele is her dirty laundry. The sooner I’m out of Montana, the better.”

“What?” She gripped my forearm. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

“I have no intention of going anywhere. I like it here. I like Jamison and Boone. I really like what we did last night.”

She waggled her red eyebrows and grinned.

I smiled. “I just have to figure out my stuff. It’s not like I’ve known about the inheritance for very long.”

She offered me a small smile in return. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. I have a half-sister, Beth, who I grew up with. She’s…she’s a drug addict and in a locked-down rehab.” She sighed. “We’ll need something even stronger than wine for that topic. What I’m telling you is I miss having a sister.”

Now I felt wistful because she was actually interested in me. “I have a half-sister I grew up with, too. Evelyn. She’s six years older. I was shipped off to boarding school when I was eleven—”

“Like Harry Potter? I’m a teacher, remember, so I know everything about the series.”

I thought of Chapman Academy, about my years there. My mother got her money’s worth out of the place, but I’d gotten more out of it than just the fancy education. I’d learned just how little I’d been wanted. I’d been like the fancy silver, pulled out for special occasions, then put away once the need for me was over. “No flying brooms, unfortunately. Evelyn and I were never close. She’s a lawyer now in North Carolina. So yes, I’m glad I’m here, too. With you.”

She slung her arm over my shoulders and we looked out the window. Boone, Jamison and Riley were standing together talking, all manly and a feast for the eyes. The loud motor of the ATV came first, then Cord flew by the window on the all-terrain vehicle.

“They have too much testosterone for their own good,” she sighed.

“That’s not what you said last night,” I teased.

/> She giggled. “I bet you didn’t either.”

10

JAMISON

I stopped the truck in front of the main house, but didn’t turn off the engine. The windows were open because the early evening was a perfect temperature. I hated wasting the good weather on my truck’s AC. Before too long, it would be snowing again. The weather in Montana was fickle enough.