Wrangle Me, Cowboys_A Reverse Harem Forbidden Romance Page 9

  “I don’t know if he can be replaced,” Holden said quietly. “He runs this ranch as much as the three of us.”

  “We’ll just have to make do,” Waylon said.

  And even though they said it wasn’t my fault, it sure felt like it. I sat up straighter, grateful for Holden’s strong body beside mine. “I’ll take over the rest of the chores with the horses,” I said. “I feed and exercise them every day, but I can muck out the stalls and put their bedding down, too.”

  “You don’t have to do all that,” Holden said.

  “I’m not a vet, and I can’t put shoes on them or anything, but I can take over their general care,” I said. “And I can do the recordkeeping and accounting stuff for the whole ranch. I’m getting bored with decorating, anyway.”

  The guys looked around the room, taking in the new throw pillows on the couch, the decorative gourds on the coffee table, the candles on the end tables and the mantle, the wreathes hanging on either side of the fireplace.

  “It looks nice,” Sawyer said.

  “Yeah, like a home,” I said. “But seriously, let me help. Even if it’s not my fault that Grimes is gone. If I’m part of this family now, if I’m going to be part of your lives, really let me in. Not as a guest, but as an equal, who does her fair share just like the three of you.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty to keep you busy at night,” Sawyer said. “It’s going to be a lot of work taking care of the needs of three men. We need you well rested.”

  “She’s not a sex slave,” Waylon growled. “If she wants to work, she can work.”

  “Thank you,” I said, shooting him a grateful look. I was surprised he’d step in on my behalf. If anything, I thought he’d be the one who insisted I have nothing to do with the ranch business. He was so private about everything else, I didn’t feel like I knew him at all yet.

  You know what his tongue feels like inside you, a little voice reminded me. Excitement blossomed in my belly at the thought. Would they want to taste me again tonight?

  “We haven’t had a good bookkeeper in a while,” Sawyer said. “Not since…”

  “Maria?” I asked.

  “I’m going to work on my car,” Waylon said, pushing his hat lower and stomping out.

  “Okay, then,” I said. “I guess I hit the nail on the head there.”

  “Not Maria,” Sawyer said.

  “Ah,” I said, nodding. “Your brother, then.”

  Holden nodded. “Waylon took it hardest.”

  I was pretty sure they’d all taken it hard, but it had been Waylon’s fiancé. At first, I’d thought he had no feelings to hurt, but now I knew why he’d built those walls around his heart. My heart went out to him. I knew what it felt like to be cheated on, discarded for someone else. I knew how that betrayal felt, and it was bad enough when I’d gone through it. I couldn’t imagine how much it would hurt if the girl he betrayed me with had been Haley, the closest thing I had to a sister. I probably would have died.

  I stood and plucked my jacket from a peg near the door. “I’ll go talk to him.”

  19

  Amber

  I was halfway to the shop when a disheveled, wheezing, red-faced Mrs. Grimes came rushing to intercept me. I froze in midstride. Somehow, I’d forgotten about her. But of course the guys hadn’t roughed up an old woman and left her in a ditch somewhere. Which was a tiny bit unfortunate, because she looked like she was about to rough me up. I had no idea how to fight, let alone how to fend off cowgirl justice.

  “You little hussy,” Mrs. Grimes huffed. “I know what you did, and you’re going to pay for it.”

  I held up both hands. “Um, please don’t hit me?”

  “You deserve everything you’ve got coming to you,” she snarled, her round face contorted into an ugly mask of hatred. “Trying to seduce a godly, married man!”

  “What?” I asked, dropping my hands. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” she said. “As if spreading your legs for your own stepbrothers wasn’t enough, you had to go after a hardworking, honest man like my husband? And to get him fired when he refused you! You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said. “Look here, I don’t know what your husband told you, but I definitely did not go after him. Not that there’s anything wrong with your husband, I’m sure he’s great and all, but not my type.”

  “Oh, now you’re dragging his name through the mud? You think you’re all that, with your young little body and that swishy hair of yours. But my husband is above temptation from harlots like you.”

  “I’m sure he is,” I said, edging towards the shop, hoping Waylon would step out and come to my rescue. But it looked like this time, I was on my own.

  “You may not know a lick about morals, so let me tell you this,” Mrs. Grimes went on, stalking closer and closer as she spoke. “My husband is an upstanding citizen of this community. He would rather lose his job than compromise his reputation. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the men of that house.” She nodded towards the lodge, which was painfully silent.

  “No one is doing anything to damage their reputation,” I said.

  “Oh, save me the excuses.” She stuck her pointy little index finger right in my face. “No one will believe the lies of a slut like you when this comes out. And mark my words, it will come to light. You can’t keep filth like this hidden forever.”

  “As nice as it’s been talking to you, I’m just going to go on and take care of the horses,” I said, edging towards the barn.

  “You’ll burn in hell for this day,” she said, her eyes flashing with sick gleefulness. “The devil will ram his fiery pitchfork right up that flapping flytrap and fry you over the flames of hell like a piece of meat on a spit.” She thrust an imaginary pitchfork at me, and I jumped back with a yelp, slipping on the snow. Mrs. Grimes used my imbalance to her advantage, giving me a hard shove.

  I pinwheeled my arms, flailing for a second before falling flat on my ass. Okay, that was it. I’d played nice, been a good, diplomatic senator’s daughter. But I wasn’t going to be pushed around by this old bat. I leapt to my feet and pushed Mrs. Grimes’s shoulder. She rocked back and then forward, trying to get her own balance on the slippery snow.

  Instead of falling, she pitched forwards, grabbing my arms with both hands. We circled, each trying to wrestle the other’s feet out from under the other.

  “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” I asked, trying to knock her sideways.

  “You want to talk about mothers?” she asked, stomping on my foot as we continued gripping each other’s arms like we were caught up in a demented dance. “What will your mother have to say when she finds out you’ve been diddling your own brothers?”

  “Stepbrothers,” I growled, yanking my foot from under hers and kicking out at her shin.

  “I’m sure she’ll be happy to find out exactly what you’re out here doing,” she said. “On your back for all three of them, I bet.”

  “What, are you jealous?” I asked. “You sound like you’ve thought this through an awful lot. Not that I blame you. A girl can have her fantasies, am I right?”

  Mrs. Grimes’s mouth dropped open in a giant huff, and her face turned red with rage. Or hell, maybe it was embarrassment. I mean, a girl couldn’t help fantasizing about all three of the Westling boys pleasuring her at once. It was only human.

  “You filthy Jezebel,” she howled.

  I decided to forgive her for lusting after my men and for judging me so harshly. It was probably just jealousy. After all, she was stuck with Mr. Grimes. I knew how much it sucked to find out the guy you thought was perfect was actually a cheating, other-girl’s-pussy-eating piece of shit.

  “I forgive you,” I said.

  Her eyes burned with more rage than I’d ever seen on anyone’s face in my life. “What?”

  “I know it sucks to love a cheater,” I said. “So I forgive you for blaming me.”

>   I thought I was being the bigger person, but obviously Mrs. Grimes did not agree. The next second, she kicked me in the shin so hard I yelped and lifted my foot. My other foot slipped, and I tumbled to the ground again. But this time, I was holding onto Mrs. Grimes. She sprawled on top of me, then flopped over, slipped and collapsed onto me again.

  “Ooof,” I moaned as the air shot out of my lungs.

  Mrs. Grimes scrambled to her feet, trying to look all high and mighty even with her hat halfway over her eyes, snow stuck all over her coat, and her arms wobbling for balance.

  “I’ll make you pay for this if it’s the last thing I ever do,” she said, drawing up a ball of spit and hocking it right onto my face.

  I screamed in disgust and hurled snow at her, flailing on the ground as I tried to grab her legs. She kicked a spray of snow into my face before she tottered off.

  Sitting up, I wiped the spit off my face. I decided right then and there to start carrying pepper spray again. And maybe take a class in self-defense.

  I was officially not a fan of cowgirl justice.

  20

  Amber

  I’d almost forgotten why I was there, but once I scraped my ass up off the ground, I headed for the shop. This time, I wasn’t fueled by righteous rage at my mistreatment. In fact, I kinda wanted to keep this one to myself. I wasn’t exactly proud of the fact that I’d just had my ass handed to me by a doddering old lady.

  Waylon was leaned up under the hood of his car, like usual.

  “Did you fire Mr. Grimes?” I asked.

  “What kind of question is that?” he asked, standing and fixing me with those black, unreadable eyes.

  “Well, I thought you did,” I said. “I just wondered what was going to happen to Mrs. Grimes.”

  “I got no beef with her,” Waylon said, leaning back down with his wrench. “Unless you do.”

  “No,” I said lightly.

  “You think we’d let that bastard stay here after what he said to you?” Waylon growled.

  “No, I was just wondering about her,” I said. “You think she’ll want to stay on? I mean, you did just beat up her husband. At least, I assume that’s what you did. Not that I know. I wasn’t following you and spying or anything. You can ask Holden. I was with him the whole time. I just figured since he’s not working here, he wouldn’t be living here, and Mrs. Grimes—.”

  Waylon stood abruptly, fixing me with his intense gaze.

  My words cut off mid-thought, and I gulped down more of them. “Sorry.”

  “Whatever Mrs. Grimes wants to do, she’s welcome to do,” he said. “As long as she’s not fucking with us or what’s ours.”

  Did that mean me? The thought gave me another thrill of excitement and pride. I was theirs. And they were mine.

  “And if she is?” I asked. I didn’t want to tell him she’d slapped me around, since I hated the thought of them beating up an old lady. Not that they’d do that. Right? Surely Wyoming justice took into account a person’s gender.

  “Is she?” he asked.

  “No, but hypothetically, what if she was?”

  “Let’s worry about that when the time comes,” he said, studying me intently. “We got plenty to worry about already.”

  “Like the ranch?”

  Waylon’s back stiffened. “Like the ranch,” he agreed.

  “What if you sold, like, a little piece of it?” I asked. “Could you get enough from the sale to save the rest?”

  “We’re not selling the ranch,” he said, his hands curling around the edge of the engine well.

  “I just meant a little piece.”

  He glared death rays at me. “No.”

  “Okay,” I said, holding up my hands. “I was just trying to help.”

  “A bookkeeper who wants to sell the ranch,” he growled in disgust, then twisted savagely on something in the engine. A curl of fire licked to life inside me. Damn, he was sexy, even when he was pissed. Maybe especially then. I imagined that bolt was my nipple he was twisting, and my knees quaked.

  I shook my head, clearing away the nighttime thoughts. Today, we had business to attend to. And I was determined to be a professional if I worked here, just like they were. If such a thing as professional ranchers existed. They took it seriously, going out before dawn every morning and working until dark most days. If I was going to play my part, I was going to work just as hard.

  But with a few more hours of sleep.

  I’d known he wouldn’t go for selling part of the ranch. That’s why I had put that idea in his head first. Now I could revisit my real dream.

  “What about renting out the cabins?” I asked, then rushed ahead before he could shoot me down. “Mrs. Grimes can clean them after guests, or I will, if she leaves. I’ll decorate them with an authentic cowboy vibe so guests can feel like they’re being all rugged and rustic, but they’ll be staying in comfy cabins.”

  Waylon grunted. I stepped up and put a hand on his sculpted bicep.

  “I’m sure you’ve seen going by on their way to the Tetons. Imagine letting them stay here, holed up in a warm cabin while having ready access to the mountains. It’ll be cheaper than up in Jackson Hole, but close enough to get back after skiing and stay the night. And we could offer horseback riding lessons. Holden’s an excellent teacher, as I can attest to myself.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Waylon muttered.

  “Really?” I’d expected to have to work on him a little more, wear him down. At first, I was thrilled. But a chill went through me, too. How bad must it be that he was agreeing so readily? I supposed I would see when I started doing the bookkeeping. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be good.

  21

  Amber

  A few nights later at dinner, Holden served us all beef stew before sitting down to join us. It was the perfect meal for a cold winter’s night, and for once, the wind had fallen silent outside.

  We were in the middle of dinner when Sawyer’s phone rang in his pocket. For a second, the guys all froze, which made me freeze. Were girls still calling them, and if so, why didn’t they just answer and tell the other girls to bug off? This wasn’t the first time someone had called while I was there and they didn’t answer.

  Did they have that many girls on reserve for cold winter nights like this?

  “You gonna answer that?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.

  “Nah, it’s not important,” Sawyer said, offering me a smile that for once didn’t reach his eyes. He silenced his phone without removing it from his pocket.

  “Any word on Grimes?” I asked, trying to make conversation.

  “I ran into Mrs. Grimes this evening,” Sawyer said. “She had some things to say.”

  “Is that right?” I asked, popping a piece of potato into my mouth. If they could play mysterious, so could I.

  “Uh huh,” he said. “I think we came to an agreement in the end.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “It seems she’d be better suited for a job somewhere in town.”

  Okay, maybe I couldn’t play mysterious. I wanted to know the whole story, and I was too freaked out by the possible repercussions of the Grimeses living in town to hide it.

  I gulped and looked from one of my stepbrothers to the next. “Are we going to be okay?”

  “That depends on what you call okay,” Waylon said.

  “Whatever happens, we’ll weather it together,” Holden said, leaning in to cover my hand with his. My hand completely disappeared under the massive size of his. Damn, I wanted those hands. All over my body. Every night.

  “Do you think she’ll start shit in town?” I asked.

  “No telling,” Sawyer said. “But we should be ready for it if she does.”

  “Ready for the world to think I’m a total whore,” I said, laughing a little. It was only funny because I was still a freaking virgin, but somehow, I was also the world’s biggest slut. I only wished I had the credentials to live up to that name.

  “We’ll
be here for you, no matter what happens,” Waylon said. “That’s a promise.”

  “It won’t change the way we feel about you,” Sawyer said, reaching over to slide his hand under mine. His fingers laced through mine, Holden’s hand still covering them.

  “And you’re not a whore,” Holden said, squeezing my hand. “You’re perfect.”

  “I don’t know about perfect,” I said. “But I’ll work on the whore part.”

  They all looked at me blankly for a second. But hey, If I was going to be labeled a whore, I might as well make the most of it, right?

  Whatever happened, whatever people said about me, it would be worth it if I got to be with any one of them. And I didn’t have to choose just one. I could have all three of them. I couldn’t wait to see just how good it would be.

  “Well,” I said at last. “If they’re going to talk, let’s give them something to talk about.”

  A Note From the Author

  Thank you for reading Wrangle Me, Cowboys. If you enjoy reading about Amber and her cowboys, make sure to leave a review. A couple lines is all it takes, and I’d be so happy to hear your thoughts!

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  Keep reading for a short excerpt of book 3 or CLICK HERE to find Book 3 on Amazon.

  Excerpt of Book 3

  Ride Me, Cowboys

  By Alexa B. James

  Amber

  As I rode Van Gogh back into the yard after an afternoon ride, I spotted a U-Haul truck in front of the Grimes’s cabin, and a wave of relief and excitement went through me. Relief because the creepy Mr. Grimes and his holier-than-thou wife were leaving. Excitement because that meant the five cabins behind the lodge where I was living in sin with my three sinfully sexy stepbrothers would be empty.

  After more than a month of resisting the idea of renting the cabins to tourists, Waylon had given in. Which meant I had a new project, and if there was one thing I loved, it was a project. Which might have had a tiny bit to do with the fact that I was a bit of a project myself.