Double Rugged Trouble: Rancher MFM Menage: Stonecreek Valley Read online

  “What?” I could hear the high-pitch surprise through the phone. “I did not hear you say boyfriend plural, did I?”

  “You did. I’m seeing both of them.”

  “What in the hell happens in Stonecreek Valley? How did this happen?”

  I giggled again. I knew Tia wouldn’t judge, and I loved the chance to finally spill my secrets.

  “The whole things is so crazy. I want you to meet them. Please tell me you can be here next weekend.”

  “I can’t. I have to work, but in a few weeks, I can.”

  I nodded. That would have to be good enough.

  “So, keep talking sister. How do you have two boyfriends? And are you sleeping with them?”

  “Well, it all just kind of happened. I spent the night at their place. They’re roommates. And we both all kind of ended up making out. And then the next thing I know I’m having sex with both of them, and now I’m moving in over there.”

  “What!”

  I cringed. “I know it sounds insane.”

  “Go back to the sex part.”

  I laughed. “That’s what you want to hear?”

  “Umm. Yes, it is. I want all of that.”

  Tia and I talked for the next hour. I should have been packing, unpacking, and sorting, but instead I told my best friend about the hot springs. I told her how sweet and protective the guys were. I told her how they had built a massive business out of a dirty parcel of land. All of it. Every last detail. By the time we finished Tia was convinced she had done dating wrong the entire time.

  “I swear I need two boyfriends.”

  I smiled. “You kinda do. They trade off on chores. They are perfect for me, Tia. So perfect.”

  “Do they know about Barton yet?”

  His name spent a chill along my spine.

  “No. I don’t want to ruin what we have by bringing up that asshole.”

  “But don’t you think they should know what he did to you?” she asked. “It affects any date you’ve had. You haven’t had a real relationship since him.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe it’s better to leave it in the past. I just want to focus on Ace and Dalton and what we have.”

  “I get that, but after everything that’s happened I just want you to be happy. If telling them gives you a fresh start, then you should let them know.”

  I sighed. “I’ll think about it, ok?”

  I heard two trucks pull up in front of the house. “They’re here,” I announced. “I have to go.”

  “I miss you, Jade.”

  “I miss you too.”

  “Call me and tell me everything. You promise.”

  I giggled as my men sauntered into the bedroom. “I’ll tell you. Gotta go. Boys are here.” I turned off the phone and stood to greet them.

  Ace’s arms were around me first. His lips singed my neck and throat.

  Dalton pulled me from him, kissing my collarbone and dragging my shirt over my head.

  “What’s gotten into you two?” I asked.

  Dalton growled, sliding my running shorts to the floor.

  Ace unclasped my bra and stepped out of his jeans.

  “Ace? Dalton?”

  Ace knelt behind me, taking his tongue immediately to my hole.

  “Oh shit,” I hissed. He pushed me forward so my ass was wide and he pressed his tongue inside me.

  Dalton dropped his pants. Ace eased back on the bed and Dalton handed me to him.

  My eyes hit Dalton when I realized what was happened. Ace’s cock speared my ass with a solid thrust and I fell backward on his chest. Dalton took my knees wide as he approached the bed. The tip of his head wedged my pussy open before he slammed into me.

  “Oh fuck,” I cried.

  “Say that again,” Dalton growled.

  “Fuck,” I whispered.

  They both sank into me and my world spun upside down. I loved how they controlled me. How they filled me. How they took me to new levels. Erotic. Forbidden levels that claimed me and bonded me to them forever.

  “Again.” Ace bit my ear. His hands circled to my tits.

  “Fuck me,” I begged. “Harder.”

  With another surge my body was sent over the edge, flying through sensation. The orgasm ripped through me with wild abandon until Ace and Dalton grunted and groaned. They panted in unison until their hot seed filled both my holes.

  I gasped and gulped for air. They owned me. Possessed me. And I never wanted it to end.

  Afterward, the three of us sprawled across my tiny bed.

  “That was unexpected,” I whispered, making a circle on Ace’s chest.

  “We missed you,” he explained.

  “And you call me the tiger,” I teased.

  Dalton squeezed my ass playfully. “We could take things easier if you want.”

  I shook my head. “No way. I love this. I love sex with you. Are you trying to back out now just when I’m packing to move in?” I joked.

  Dalton leaned over, kissing me on the mouth. “Never. We plan to fuck you every night. Like that.”

  A tingle shot through my core. I was getting wet again.

  “You were supposed to bring food,” I reminded them. “Did you? I’m starving.”

  “Oh yeah. It’s in my truck.” Ace sat forward. “Let’s eat and then load up what we can. Sound like a plan?”

  I nodded. “It’s good I have tomorrow off too. I can spend more time going through what I really need to take other than clothes.”

  “Mondays are busy on the ranch,” Dalton explained. “You’ll be ok over here by yourself?”

  I stared at him. “Of course I’ll be ok. This is my house. Remember? My grandmother lived here by herself just fine. I think I can spend the day packing up.”

  “Sorry, it’s just we’re overprotective. Especially since those guys…” Dalton’s voice trailed off.

  “I know. And I appreciate it.” I rested my palm on his forearm. It was taught with muscle. “But you have to give me room to breathe. Room to be who I am.”

  Ace pulled his jeans on. “I’m going to get the food. I’ll be right back.”

  He hopped off the bed and walked out of the bedroom.

  I decided I needed to get dressed too.

  I couldn’t think of tonight as the last dinner in my house. I would have plenty of meals here. They just wouldn’t be the way I had envisioned them.

  But when Ace strolled in the house and Dalton cleared a spot at the table I knew that was ok. I had made peace with my decision.

  25

  Jade

  The next day I was committed to doing the work I needed to do all along at the cottage. I opened boxes. I made trash piles. I sorted my art supplies. After four hours in, I looked around and realized I had accomplished a huge chunk of what needed to be done. I was proud of my work. Ace and Dalton were both overloaded on the ranch. I knew I had taken them away from many of their weekend responsibilities. Today was the perfect day for everyone to refocus on work.

  I reached for my water bottle and took a few sips.

  I spotted a box in the corner. I didn’t remember packing anything with masking tape. All of my boxes were sealed with industrial tape. I hadn’t wanted a nosey mover trying to snoop through my things.

  I tugged on the tape and realized it wasn’t one of my boxes. It was my grandmother’s. For a second I doubted whether I should sift through it. But I reached in and pulled out a handful of photos. It was then I realized there was no going back.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  It was my grandmother, but a much younger and beautiful version. It was when her hair was long and blond. She was slender and had curvy hips and big breasts. I realized I had gotten my figure from her. I sat on the floor and crossed my legs. I couldn’t help digging into the contents of the box. I realized the more I dug, the more I was peeling back the most personal layers of my grandmother’s life.

  I turned over one of the photos in my hand. On the back I recognized my grandmother’s handwrit
ing. She labeled the other girl in the photo: Reva.

  Holy shit. Was that Reva from the diner?

  I wanted to find more clues from the town. More people. More stories.

  But then my heart ratcheted up to my throat. It was stuck there pounding and thumping.

  There was a picture of my grandmother with two men. Neither were my grandfather. Slowly, I turned the picture over in my hand. Zeke & Everett.

  I stared in disbelief. There had to be at least twenty pictures of the trio. They were everywhere together. On vacation. Christmas morning. Birthdays. I leaned into the wall. Did my grandmother love both these men? Was that what the pictures were telling me? I picked them up again, studying where the men had their hands. How she looked at them. Every detail I could squeeze out of faded photograph. No matter which way I turned the pictures, I came to the same conclusion. These men were hers.

  I quickly shoved them back in the box. They seemed too private. Too intimate. I closed the box and slid it to the back of the closet. I didn’t know how to process it. Not now anyway. There was too much work to do.

  It was strange how quickly two months passed at the ranch. Dalton, Ace, and I sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee. Ace held the paper.

  “Mother fucker,” he muttered.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “The damn mineral rights again.”

  I remembered him mentioning something about that in passing once before. It was the first night I had spent with them.

  “Care to elaborate?” I questioned. “What is it about the mineral rights that keeps pissing you off?”

  Dalton groaned. “You don’t want to get him started on that. It’s not pleasant. No way to start the morning.”

  “She deserves to know.” Ace argued. “It involves her too.”

  “What? How?” I placed my mug on the table.

  “They’re interested in the springs,” he answered.

  “What! Who?” My eyebrows pinched together. I was immediately territorial.

  Ace exhaled. “The judge ruled they can move forward with an exploratory ground crew to test the water.”

  “When?”

  “The order went through yesterday. The contractors start today,” he responded.

  “At the springs?” I felt the panic enveloping me.

  “Not on our property, but downstream. And that means, they could try to move the operation upstream to the springs.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “That is not happening. We will fight it.”

  Ace looked over the paper at Dalton. “Told you.”

  “And I told you it would only stir up shit.”

  Dalton grabbed my hand. “This mineral rights fight has been going on for generations. It’s not new. Don’t let what some dumbass judge says ruin your day. Or week for that matter.”

  “But they can’t claim something that isn’t theirs. Those springs are pure. They are priceless and untouched. You don’t care if they are full of gold. Do you?” I hadn’t thought about whether Ace and Dalton would ever want to cash in on the value of the land, if in fact the springs held wealth.

  “No. Never.” Dalton grimaced. “We aren’t gold miners, darlin’. We want the springs to stay exactly how they are. But the problem is Birchleaf Creek isn’t ours once it runs off the property. There are others who want the testing. They want the money, whatever the cost to the land.”

  “But it’s terrible. It’s so beautiful and peaceful. It’s untouched.”

  I closed my eyes, feeling an uphill battle was in front of us.

  “There are many more battles ahead,” Ace interjected. “Testing downstream doesn’t mean it’s inevitable, but it’s not the news we wanted. That’s all.” He folded the paper in half. “You have the day shift today, don’t you?”

  I nodded, but with the tight knot in my stomach it was hard to think about work.

  “Let me drive you to work today,” he offered.

  “That’s ok. I can make it.” I rinsed my coffee mug in the sink and placed it in the dishwasher.

  “You’re upset. It’s my fault.” He walked behind, placing his heavy hands on my shoulders.

  “Well, Cookie will distract me.” I turned, smiling brightly. I reached up on my toes to kiss him on the cheek. “I need to get going for the breakfast crowd.”

  Dalton kissed me before I left. I left the ranch silently. I was in a funk.

  But nothing compared to the mood I was in when I walked into the diner.

  “There you are. Running late, hun?” Reva chirped as she ran around with a plate of bacon and eggs.

  I hung my coat and purse on the hook. I stashed my phone inside my pocket.

  “You’ve got a single out front,” she called over her shoulder. “Booth six. Sorry, but he’s a pissy one.”

  “Great. I groaned.” I pulled my hair up in a ponytail and walked absently into the dining room. My eyes were on the black and white floor as I marched to the last booth in the row. I pulled the pad from my apron. I reached for my pen as my eyes floated upward.

  “Sorry you had to wait. Can I bring you some coffee?”

  My jaw hung open. It was as if my spine had been coated in a thin layer of ice. I couldn’t move.

  “Hey, Jade. How you doin’, babe?”

  I was glaring at my ex.

  Barton had found me.

  26

  Ace

  Something wasn’t right. I didn’t like how we left things this morning when Jade went to work. Maybe Dalton had been right. Maybe she didn’t need to know about the mineral rights, but she loved the springs as much as we did. And it had become her special place. I couldn’t be there now without feeling as if she had invaded every square inch of that oasis. It was Jade.

  I heaved a bale of hay into the stables for one of the hands. It was fall. And we were still short a couple of workers. Dalton had been trying to hire a new workforce, but there weren’t a lot of options in Stonecreek Valley.

  In the meantime, I took on the extra chores and helped out between running the operation from the office.

  Dalton was working the steers today. He had a new cowboy to train. That was going to take a few weeks to break him in.

  The auction was in two months. It was our biggest event of the year, and our biggest money maker. We were expecting a couple thousand this year. If it was any less than that, I knew our numbers would suffer.

  I tried not to think about the pressure we were under, while I stacked the hay for the horses.

  In two months, the three of us had fallen into a pattern that worked for all of us. Jade liked to paint at night. Dalton and I choose those nights to work late. We split the weekends between fixing up her cottage and spending time on the ranch, either riding or swimming at the springs.

  She accepted our help when it came to repairing and painting at her studio. But if we offered to invest any kind of money, she immediately clammed up. We gave her help where she would accept it.

  I was proud of her. The studio was really coming together. At first I couldn’t understand her vision, but now I saw it too. She used the sitting room and the living room right across the foyer as her galleries. The back two bedrooms were where she painted. The room off the side of the kitchen was going to be her students’ work space. Dalton and I still had floorboards to replace there before it was ready.

  She had worked her ass off to get the place ready. It was something that had never existed in Stonecreek Valley before. I hoped she knew what a difference she had made. What an impact a place like that would have on the community.

  Dalton and I told her repeatedly, but she was going to have to see it with her own eyes to believe us. I knew once she started selling paintings again, her confidence would be restored. That and the day she could hand in her waitress apron to Cookie and work at the studio full-time.

  I wiped the sweat from my brow. I looked up when Dalton rode into the stable on the back of Stormy.

  “What’s up, man?” I asked.
>
  “That cowboy is not the brightest one we’ve hired.” He dismounted and threw his gloves on the shelf.

  I chuckled. “Aren’t you the one in charge of all the new hires?”

  “Shut the fuck up.” He glared and sauntered to the water cooler.

  “Have you heard from Jade?” I inquired.

  He pulled his phone from his back pocket. “No texts. How about you?”

  I shook my head. “None here.” My eyes lowered to the hay-strewn floor. “I didn’t like the way things went this morning. She went to work upset.”

  “Yeah, well you wanted to tell her about the springs.” Dalt shrugged.

  “She deserves to know what’s happening. Besides, would you rather hear it at the diner? You know what a gossip cesspool that place is.”

  “You’ve got a point. But there are ways to say things, man. And that was not the way to tell her the place she loves more in the world could be the center of Montana’s biggest legal battle.”

  “Fuck,” I mumbled. “You’re right. You’re right.” I sat on top of one of the bales. “I’m going to call her. Maybe she’ll let me pick her up from work.”

  “I doubt that.” He chuckled. “We haven’t picked her up from work in months.”

  “I’m going to try. It’s the thought that counts, right?”

  I dialed Jade’s number. No answer.

  “It dumped me into voicemail,” I reported.

  “I’ll text her,” Dalt offered. He rubbed his jaw.

  “What is it? Did she say something smart-assy?”

  “No.” He held up his phone. “It says non-deliverable.”

  “What the hell?” I sent a separate text. The red exclamation point appeared next to my message. “That’s it. I’m riding in town.”

  “Then I’m going too.” Dalton was on my heels.

  We might not have had a woman’s intuition, but we both knew when our woman needed us.

  27

  Jade