Nobody's Prey [Liberty Springs Wyoming 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)
Liberty Springs, Wyoming 5
Nobody’s Prey
Beau Preston’s secret love for his best friend’s widow has only grown as he’s watched her rebuild her life and the Lazy J ranch.
The twins, his younger brothers Josh and Colt, are so identical most people don’t even bother to tell them apart, but Connie has always seen them as individuals. To Colt, she’s a kindred spirit, another restless soul—to Josh, the answer to every prayer he’s ever whispered.
After a passion-filled night in a snow-locked cabin, Connie must reevaluate her relationship with all three Preston brothers.
Painful memories hold her back from embracing the love and passion the Prestons are offering her, but her son and the Lazy J come first in her life. When both of those are threatened, she must turn to the three men who love her to help her save them, and yet another man must realize that Connie Jamieson is nobody’s prey.
Note: There is no sexual relationship or touching for titillation between or among siblings.
Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys
Length: 74,359 words
NOBODY’S PREY
Liberty Springs, Wyoming 5
Kaliana Cole
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
NOBODY’S PREY
Copyright © 2012 by Kaliana Cole
E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-891-3
First E-book Publication: July 2012
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
For the first time the writing process hasn’t been a solo journey for me. I have had the support of a very talented but as-yet unpublished author who is just as good at pointing out plot holes and shortcomings as she is at stroking my ego. This one’s for you, Cath!
NOBODY’S PREY
Liberty Springs, Wyoming 5
KALIANA COLE
Copyright © 2012
Prologue
Beau Preston watched the horse and rider emerge like ghosts from the moon-kissed shadows. The pale dun mustang stallion blended with the night like the smoke he was named for, appearing to drift through the air with his dark legs disappearing in the gloom. His rider was a dark silhouette growing clearer as they approached the small ranch outbuilding that was Beau’s workshop.
A smile lit his heart but did not touch his lips as she passed in front of the window. For three nights he’d been watching for her. It was the first full moon since winter had loosened its grip on the land and the pass over the northern pasture had opened. Four long months since his lunar-driven, nocturnal visitor had called, four long, dreary months without her presence to lighten his mood.
He heard her step down from the mustang, heard her spurs clink as she trod the boards of the porch. He bent his head to the task before him so she wouldn’t know he watched for her. The mold for the trophy buckle was complete, but he put it under the loupe and pretended to work at it anyway. He couldn’t concentrate worth a damn with her about.
The door opened and closed silently, bringing a gust of cool night air. She went straight to the old potbelly stove and warmed her hands.
“How’s the pass, Connie?”
“Open, but there’s something nasty hanging around the southern face, probably a bear. Smoke gets a bit antsy around them.”
He’d get antsy, too, if she insisted on driving every bear off her range by peppering them with buckshot. More than once the fleet-footed pony had done some quick thinking to get him and his brave-to-the-point-of-lunacy rider out of trouble.
Beau schooled his features before he turned around to face her. “I’ll let Colt know. He and Josh can head up and take a look.”
She’d grown even more beautiful in the time since he’d seen her last. Her eyes were the soft green of spring grass, and her hair and lashes darker than the night. The heart-shaped face was a little leaner, the cheekbones more defined, but her jaw still had the same stubborn tilt, as if daring the world to take a swing at her. He’d do anything to find a way past her defensive façade.
He watched as she went predictably for his whiskey decanter and poured a good measure into the two glasses he kept with it. She’d never said anything when the second glass had appeared about the third time she’d ridden over.
“How did winter treat you? You doin’ okay?”
He’d watched her fall apart and rebuild herself from the ashes when Jake had died nearly five years ago. Her progress had been full of fits and starts, but Connie was finally letting him go. It had been disconcerting as hell watching her wear Jake’s jackets, and Beau had rejoiced when that stopped about eighteen months earlier. She still rode Jake’s horse, but that wasn’t likely to change while Smoke’s four legs pointed to the ground.
“Some days are better than others, but I’m getting there.” She handed him a glass, and he savored his while he watched her embrace the whiskey’s burn
. “The stock have all wintered well, and Cody’s finally taking a bit of interest in school.” She gave a humorless laugh. “I interviewed the summer help last week. There might even be one of them who can sit a horse.”
Connie moved around restlessly, picking up this and that in her furtive search. Eventually Beau pulled the packet of cigarettes from his pocket. She took one with a guilty smile, and he lit it up for her. He was probably the only person on earth who knew she indulged occasionally. Even Jake hadn’t known she’d filched his cigarettes.
“God, that’s good. I can’t even remember the last one I had.”
Beau could. She’d found him alone at the town Christmas party and silently helped herself to his inside jacket pocket. Her touch had haunted his dreams for weeks afterward. “It shortens your life expectancy.” He felt compelled to warn her.
“So does every breath you take.” She drew on the cigarette and blew smoke into the rafters.
“Touché. It’s a good thing neither of us smokes often.” Hell, he could throw them away tomorrow if he wanted to—he could go days without one—but then he wouldn’t have one for Connie to steal when she came calling. “When are you planning on moving the stock up to the main range?”
“Over the spring break. It’ll give me a few extra hands while I’m breaking my new cowboys in.”
Beau smiled at her word choice. For the last two years, she’d gotten around to breaking one or two of them in more than figuratively. Not while they were in her employ but as a going-away present any young man wasn’t likely to forget in a hurry. It galled him that she hadn’t come to him or one of the twins to break the drought, but she was a flesh-and-blood woman, and he’d been glad to see her let go of Jake’s ghost. “Are you gathering your wild girls first or using your main herd to lure them in?” Connie left the heifers she was going to keep for breeding stock to winter with their mothers on the main range. If they survived, they learned enough from their crafty mothers to be able to look after their own calves. It took one hell of a critter to mess with a longhorn cow protecting her calf.
“With the wannabes I’ve got this year, I’ll take the main herd up first. These guys would get lost in their own backyard, let alone trying to get those wily old bitches out of the high country.”
Each year Connie hired hands from one of the agricultural colleges down south. They were too young to drink and just old enough to take orders from a woman once she showed them up once or twice. Watching her efficiently castrate a few bull calves usually had a way of demanding their respect. The ones who lasted the summer headed home with a lot of useful, practical experience and either a deep abiding hate or undying love for their boss lady.
“You’re hard on them, CJ. They’re young and dumb. All guys are the same at that age.” Beau took a sip of his whiskey and smiled. “Hell, we’re still waiting for Josh to grow out of it.”
“Come on, Beau, face it. The Lazy J is a magnet for dumbasses. Look at Cooper last year. That guy had to have two dicks. One dick couldn’t possibly be responsible for a guy being that dumb.”
Beau chuckled. She could be right there. That little smart-ass Texan just hadn’t known when to stop shooting his mouth off. Josh had been all set to take the kid apart when he’d grabbed Connie on the ass, but she’d laid him out cold in front of the five other hands. Everyone had treated her with the respect she deserved after that. Cooper had gone home to cry to his mommy after just three days on the Lazy J.
She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and started wandering again, the restlessness taking hold of her once more. If a man could take all that restless energy and direct it into more personal endeavors, he’d have a whole lot of woman on his hands, enough woman to sate three men.
He could think of two off hand who would be more than happy to step up and share the burden.
“What did you do to piss the twins off last week? They’ve been bitching and moaning ever since.”
Connie chuckled wickedly. “I’d warned them to keep that old Hereford bull at home. He’s been sniffing after my heifers for the last month. He got through the fence down at the creek again, so I gave him a little operation before I sent him on home. He won’t be chasing my heifers again.”
“You castrated Wally?” Beau was slightly aghast but amused as hell. They’d christened the bull Wally for his habit of disappearing. Playing “where’s Wally” was a springtime tradition on the Diamond Deuce. He was big and mean and as ornery as they came. They should have culled him from the breeding herd years ago, but the twins had a soft spot for the old devil.
“It was that or shoot him, and Colt threatened to have me charged last time I shot at one of his bulls.”
“He’s kind of touchy about that kind of thing.” Beau felt a smile curl his lips as she finally sat down in the big old armchair by the fire. He’d give her five minutes and she’d be asleep.
“Tell me about the mustangs you’re after this year.”
He passed her a hank of horsehair that was hanging on the rafter above him. “Plait me a few bracelets and I’ll tell you all about the yearlings we’re going after come summer.”
They sold the bracelets online to raise money for their mustang foundation. Genuine mustang hair bound with silver clasps brought a pretty price that helped with the expense of keeping and training the wild horses they culled out of the wild herd each year.
She’d plaited two bracelets, and he was telling her about the yearling blue-dun filly Smoke’s dam had on her when her eyes drifted closed. He gently took the unfinished one from her fingers and slipped the quilt off the arm of the chair. Beau spread it over her and sat down and looked his fill.
Her face softened with slumber, the defensive aggressiveness smoothing right out of it. He could still see the remnants of the battered and bruised seventeen-year-old Jake had brought back from Montana, shocking everyone with the news that she was his wife.
Jake had always been a soft touch for strays and wounded souls. He’d been a perpetual rescuer. Hell, Beau had thrown the poker game that had won Jake the mustang that was waiting patiently outside for his mistress. There’d been no one else he’d known with the time and patience to gentle the flighty colt they’d found caught in an illegal snare with a wolf pack hassling him. Saving and rehabilitating wounded souls was what Jake had done best. His finest work was sleeping peacefully in the chair by the fire.
The first time Beau had laid eyes on Connie was the day Jake had brought her home. He’d called around to have a look at the new stud he’d gone to Montana to pick up and been surprised when Jake had arrived with an empty horse trailer and a black-haired woman-child in patched, faded jeans and a brand-new wedding ring who moved like a half-opened pocket knife.
Beau had returned her shy greeting and pinned Jake with his best “what gives?” look. Jake had shrugged his big shoulders a little, just like he did every time someone questioned his latest lost-cause project, giving Beau the same answer he always did. What else was I supposed to do?
Three days after, he’d gotten the full story out of Jake. He’d arrived at the Montana ranch to find the owner pinning down a colt while Connie tried to get on it. Her brother had sported a freshly dislocated shoulder, and she’d gotten on the damn thing herself instead of letting her father bully her brother, Jack, into getting on it injured. Jake had seen her thrown sky high for what had proven to be the fourth time that day. She’d had three cracked ribs and a broken collarbone.
He’d dropped her brother off at the hospital after extracting a promise that he wouldn’t return to his father’s abuse. Jake, being Jake, had rescued Connie the only way he’d known how. He’d given her his home, his name, and his respect. Connie had never worked a day from the time of her marriage to the day Jake died. He’d worshipped the ground she walked on. Beau knew for a fact that they’d never shared a bed for the first year of their marriage. It was only when Connie finally went to him that Jake ever touched her.
After Cody was born, Jake had worried so muc
h over her. She’d suffered postpartum depression, but it was more than that. It was as if her restlessness went soul deep. Jake had often confessed that he felt he wasn’t enough for Connie, that she yearned for something he couldn’t give her. It had worried him that if she did leave him, she’d end up with someone who wouldn’t take care of her.
Beau lifted his glass heavenward in salute like he’d done a thousand times before. “I’ll look after her for you, my friend.”
He sat and watched her into the wee hours, waking her just before dawn to give her enough time to make it home before the household awoke. She mumbled a thanks and slipped sleepily onto Smoke’s back. He watched her ride away, feeling tired but somehow satisfied.
She came over without invitation, drank his whiskey, smoked his cigarettes, and stole his heart anew every damn time.
The time would come soon when he’d cut through the bullshit and get her to admit what she really came over for, but there were two others that loved her every bit as much as he did. God willing, with time and opportunity, they’d have a chance to show her how good it could be.
Beau headed for his lonely bed and a few hours’ sleep before the twins roused him for the morning chores. Sleep, he knew, would be haunted by dreams of her.
Chapter 1
Connie shook her head as one of her new hands dived between the rails for the second time. “Hal, get in here and show him how it’s done. Paulie, go and ask Emilio for a teaspoon of cement.”