Wrap Me, Cowboys
Coyote Ranch
Book Four
Alexa B. James
Wrap Me, Cowboys
Copyright © 2018 Alexa B. James
First Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher, except in cases of a reviewer quoting brief passages in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, and events are entirely coincidental. Use of any copyrighted, trademarked, or brand names in this work of fiction does not imply endorsement of that brand.
Published in the United States by Alexa B. James and Speak Now.
ISBN-13: 978-1-945780-25-7
Cover design by Ally Hastings of Starcrossed Covers.
Table of Contents
Wrap Me, Cowboys
Coyote Ranch
Book Four
Alexa B. James
1
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5
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8
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13
From the Author
1
Amber
With a shimmy of my hips, I danced across the kitchen to the tune of “Last Christmas” streaming from the satellite radio. Using my best dramatic flourish, I placed a cherry on top of the loaf of fruitcake that Holden had requested for reasons I couldn’t comprehend. I mean, it did have an awful lot of alcohol in it, but I still didn’t understand the appeal. But one of my boys had made a special request, and I meant to honor it. Holden never asked for anything, and it was the season of giving. Waylon had been his usual difficult self and told me he didn’t need anything, and damned if I could think of one thing he’d want. Sawyer was easy. He’d asked for extra blow jobs.
Outside, I heard the crunch of tires on the snow, and my heart leapt. But when I looked out, it was an unfamiliar black Jeep.
Must be a new mailman, I thought as I turned down the volume on the holiday station. Maybe the guys had gotten me something special, and I could snoop while they were out working. I’d had zero luck finding their gifts, and I’d searched the house from top to bottom under the ruse of giving it a good cleaning for our Christmas guest. Their mother, Lidia, always made sure to tell me that I wasn’t doing my job if there was so much as a throw pillow out of place on the couch.
Shoving my feet in a pair of winter boots, I grabbed a scarf and ran out the front door, winding my scarf as I went. And just as it was obscuring my vision, I hit a slick patch.
My legs shot out from under me, my arms flailed, and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air like a blindfolded skydiver. I finally hit a bit of luck when I landed in the snow instead of on the steps. I broke through the crunchy surface layer of the snow and sank into the soft whiteness below, wishing I could disappear entirely. But there was a mailman to greet and a package to collect, so I picked myself up, dusted off my sweater, and pried loose the scarf that had affixed itself to my face as I fell.
The Jeep was still idling in the driveway. I clomped over to it, trying to catch my breath after the scare. The window rolled down, and a guy in a black felt cowboy hat looked out at me.
“Sup?” I said, trying to look like I’d totally meant to faceplant off the porch.
“You all right there, miss?”
“Me? Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” I said, waving a hand dismissively. “Happens all the time.”
That part was pretty much true, but I was also stalling for time while I collected myself. I saw no mail in sight. In fact, he didn’t even have the little mail truck topper that our usual lady had. In the year I’d been there, mostly women had visited the farm trying to sniff out gossip. When a man came, it was to borrow some piece of farm equipment, and the guys had always been around. I wasn’t quite sure what to say to a strange man who’d stopped by. My New York roots had given be a healthy dose of suspicion toward all strangers.
“Anyway,” I said after an awkward silence. “I wasn’t expecting a visitor today. Did you need something? I mean, not that you can’t just stop by for neighborly reasons, because you totally can. I’m sure the guys would love to have another guy around. Not that they don’t have each other, but you know. Guy time and all that.”
“It’s okay,” he said, cutting me off before I could really get going on one of my verbal torrents.
My mind flashed to something Mr. Grimes had said about everyone lining up to get a turn with me, and how I shouldn’t be surprised that he wanted a turn, too. And Natalie saying people around here talked. By now, everyone probably knew I was up here taking it from my three stepbrothers like a champ. Hell, it had probably traveled on the wind like the first hint of spring after the long Wyoming winter, and they’d known I wasn’t a virgin the second Waylon’s big beautiful cock popped my cherry last winter.
I stepped away from the Jeep, a funny feeling edging into my tummy as the guy just stared at me. Maybe I had horse dung stuck to my face from my earlier chores or flour from my fruitcake attempt. I discretely wiped my cheek with the back of my wrist, hoping it was flour and I hadn’t touched a bunch of food while sporting a dung facial. Still, it might be better than some lonely rancher coming out here to ask if he could have a night with me to ease his holiday blues. He looked like he had the holiday blues. His soulful brown eyes were guarded and sad. He also looked vaguely familiar, so I must have seen him around town or down at the bar at some point during the past year, though I couldn’t recall a name or even where I’d seen him.
“Want me to get the guys?” I asked when he didn’t explain his presence further.
“No, that’s okay,” he said, opening the door and stepping out. He was average height for a guy, but broad-shouldered and muscular, with dark hair under his hat and a handsome, serious face. “I spoke to you on the phone,” he said. “About renting one of your cabins.”
“Oh,” I said, realization dawning. “Really? I could swear I knew you from around here. Let me just…I guess I’ll show you to it, then.”
It was our first renter this winter—Wade Johnson. I’d known he was coming, but we’d never finalized details. Apparently, he hadn’t felt the need to wait for a confirmation date or, you know, to pay. I’d expected a group of college students or at least a couple. Not just one guy.
“I wasn’t expecting you today,” I said. “But the cabin’s ready. I got them all ready before I even put the word out.”
“Good,” he said, heading for them while I trotted to keep up.
“I might need you to, um, you know. Pay?”
“I did all that online,” he said. Damn, I’d have to go check. I didn’t think he had, but then, I’d let the guys deal with it if not. They might tell me I was a pain in the ass and to forget the whole renting business, but they wouldn’t want me to get into it with this guy any more than I wanted to. He looked like he could throw me over his shoulder and carry me off like a caveman if he got the notion.
As we walked toward the cabins, I told myself I was overreacting. Not every guy was a creeper like Mr. Grimes. This guy had an intense stare, but at least he’d studied my face and not undressed me with his eyes. Still, I hadn’t lived in New York for eighteen years without learning a thing or two about being properly suspicious. No amount of money in the world could have compelled me to go into that cabin alone with Wade Johnson.
“You live on this ranch?” he asked whe
n we reached the cabin.
“Yep,” I said. “Me and the guys. They’ll be out to greet you in a little bit. They’re all busy right now, but they’re close by. I can yell for them if you want to see them, too. Just so if you see us around, you’ll know who belongs here.”
“Anyone else live here?” he asked, glancing at the last cabin.
“Nope,” I said. “Just us four.” We’d debated hiring someone new after we’d had to fire the Grimeses for being judgmental assholes, but after much debate, they had decided not to hire someone new. It had been hard on the boys, who had to work from dawn ‘til dusk without Mr. Grimes around to lend a hand. I knew they hadn’t looked for a new ranch hand because of me—they didn’t want to risk anyone finding concrete evidence about our unique relationship and calling me a slut. Worse, they’d risk someone exposing me to the media.
“Huh.” Wade said. He stood on the porch of his cabin and planted his hands on his hips while I stood at the bottom of the steps. I wasn’t going any further. “Must be a lot of work,” he said after a minute. “Don’t you have some ranch hands?”
“Seasonal,” I said, not really knowing why I was lying, but not wanting to tell him every little detail, either. Holden had told me that Wyomingites could be nosy, but this guy was straight-out prying. And anyway, what was a cowboy doing renting a cabin? We usually got skiers and college kids on their breaks. Maybe this guy was running from the law.
Wade nodded. “You live in one of these?” he asked, cutting his eyes toward the other cabins.
Now he was scoping out my sleeping place? I took a step back, edging toward the house. I suddenly remembered being taken down by wheezing old Mrs. Grimes. If I couldn’t fight off an old lady, I had no chance against this strapping cowboy. And I wasn’t actually sure that the guys were close, that they could hear me if I screamed.
“In the lodge,” I said, hoping that would keep him from getting any ideas about breaking into one of the cabins at night. There was nothing to steal in any of them, or the lodge, for that matter. Mr. Westling had promised the boys a fat check for letting me stay, but that offer had been withdrawn when he found out his sons were all banging me at once instead of preserving my virginity in a jar like one of those creepy pickled frogs in our high school biology lab. Still, we’d managed not to sink the ranch in the past year. The rental income from the cabins definitely helped.
“Right, of course,” Wade said with a nod. “And which of these cabins are occupied?” He was staring again, studying me like my life story was written across my face and he was trying to puzzle it out.
Suddenly, my guard went way up. What if he wasn’t a cowboy at all, but a New Yorker in disguise? What if he’d caught wind of Senator Durant’s scandalous daughter living an unconventional lifestyle, and he’d come out to see for himself? He might be doing all this digging to see if he could get the scoop. Which one of her stepbrothers is Amber Durant riding like a bronco every night?
My mother was playing nice—also known as pretending I didn’t exist in exchange for not bothering me about my relationship with the Westling boys. We didn’t want to risk that tenuous balance by hiring new ranch hands, and we sure as hell didn’t want to risk it by renting a cabin to a reporter. I didn’t want to tell him anything else, not even which of us lived in the lodge. Definitely not that. It was one thing to bone your stepbrother, it was a whole other thing to go three-deep on the nightly.
“Just make yourself comfortable,” I said, nodding to the stack of firewood Sawyer had piled up next to the door. “There’s wood to keep the fire going, and you’ll find the basic linens already there. We don’t provide food, though, so I hope you brought some.” As I talked, I backed toward the house.
“Sure thing.” Wade hadn’t brought out anything that looked like food, but he had a Jeep, so he could run into town if he needed it. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right with him, though. When I got back to the house, I locked the door for the first time I could remember. Then I headed straight for my computer to do some digging.
2
Waylon
Walking in from the shop after putting out the hay that night, I noticed a shiny new Jeep in the drive. I went on full alert. No one I knew drove a fancy car like that. The Jeeps around here were covered in mud more often than not. Even after a year, my first thought was that it must be someone come to get Amber. Politicians liked those sleek black cars. Her mother had been awfully quiet, but she was bound to want to see her daughter again someday.
My brothers must have been thinking the same thing, because Sawyer took one look at me and started for the house. Inside, everything was quiet. My chest tightened, and I hurried down the hall to the office where Amber did her work. The evening was getting on, and it was almost dark out. Inside the office, I could hardly make out anything but the shape of Amber’s familiar face lit by the electronic glow of the computer.
“Everything okay in here?” I asked, stepping in.
“What? Oh, yeah,” Amber said, bolting upright. “Is it dinner time already?”
She bit at a hangnail, casting guilty looks from me to my brothers.
“Don’t worry about it,” Holden said, stepping past me into the office and putting an arm around Amber. “We’ll have sandwich and beer night. Haven’t had one of those in a while.”
We’d barely had one of those since she’d gotten there. Maybe she’d changed our bachelor ways without us even realizing it. We’d given up that lazy habit since having a woman around to impress. It made us all step it up a little.
“I’m so sorry,” Amber said. “I told you I’d cook tonight.”
Holden smiled and kissed her forehead. “I still got out of cooking,” he said with a smile. “But you can help me with the sandwiches.”
I couldn’t deny being a little jealous of the way both my brothers always knew just the right thing to say to women. If it had been me, I probably would have made her feel worse somehow, but instead, she was all smiles heading to the kitchen under Holden’s arm. I reminded myself it didn’t matter with Amber. She had all of us, so whatever shortcomings she might find in me, my brothers would pick up the slack.
“What kept you so busy there, Princess?” Sawyer asked, grabbing some sandwich fixings from the fridge when we got to the kitchen. “Were you researching something exciting?”
He gave her a wink, and she slugged his shoulder. I took a seat by the potbelly stove, watching their interaction the way I always did—with curiosity, and awe, and a touch of envy.
“I was actually looking for our renter,” she said. “In case you didn’t notice, he arrived.”
“He?” I asked. My instinct had been that something was off, and now I sat up straight, waiting for her to go on.
“Yeah,” she said, setting a plate down in front of me. “It’s just one guy.”
We all fell silent for a minute. I didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t like the thought of a guy hanging around the cabins where Amber was liable to be during the day while we were out working. It was one thing to have a bunch of spring breakers out back, but they kept each other company. As resistant as I had been to the idea of renting out our granddaddy’s cabins, I had to admit, it had saved the ranch.
“He’s a little… odd,” Amber said, sliding in at the table.
Holden grabbed four beers and joined us along with Sawyer. “How so?”
“I don’t really know,” Amber said. “I mean, I guess he’s okay. I just got a funny feeling about him.”
I pushed back from the table and stood. “What did he do?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Don’t you go running out there and beating him up like you did Mr. Grimes. He didn’t do anything. He just asked a lot of questions.”
“Dammit,” I said. “I knew he looked like someone your mother would have hired to come get you. I don’t need anyone nosing up in our business. And neither do you.”
I looked at her hard until she dropped her eyes. She knew exac
tly what I meant. People might give us a pass—would anyone really blame three lonely men for wanting a woman to warm our beds through the harsh Wyoming winter? And if we liked to share, well, that wasn’t unheard of. It was the woman they’d judge, and I wasn’t having any of that. Not when that woman was our stepsister.
“We can tell him to leave,” Holden said, putting a hand on Amber’s. “We’re not going to beat up anyone.”
“Maybe he’s fine,” she said. “He really didn’t do anything.”
“Hell, let’s just go meet him for ourselves,” Sawyer said, picking up his hat from beside his plate. He and Holden followed me out, Amber close behind. The night had come on fast, and it was darkish—as dark as it got with snow on the ground. The snow crunched under our boots as we walked along the row of empty cabins toward the next-to-last one, the one that had stood untouched for three years before Amber had convinced us to rent them out. Christmas lights twinkled along the railing of each cabin, and a pretty wreath hung on each door. Amber sure knew how to fancy up a place.
“I was probably just being paranoid,” Amber said.
“Don’t apologize for having instincts,” I told her. “Out here, it’s saved more than a few men’s lives.” Not to mention I’d learned my lesson about ignoring my own instincts when my fiancé had turned out to be a cheating bitch.
“Doesn’t hurt to meet the guy,” Sawyer said, climbing the three steps. He rapped on the door, and a second later, we could hear footsteps crossing the hardwood inside.
Hearing boots on that floor, in the house where my former brother had lived all those years, brought back too many memories that I didn’t want dug up. The door swung open, and suddenly, it was more than déjà vous fucking with my head. Because standing in the doorway, just like he’d done a thousand times before, was our brother.
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