by Lori King
Instead of facing them in the kitchen, she found herself walking out the front door in search of fresh air so her thoughts didn’t suffocate her. She stopped at the edge of the porch stairs unwilling to step out into the sunshine and leave them completely behind. There was a pull deep in her chest to go back in there, and sink into the arms of one of the other brothers.
To let them soothe away the unease that Parker’s experiment had caused inside of her. But to do it would be admitting that Parker and Hudson were right. It would be admitting she felt something for them, and she wasn’t ready to be that vulnerable again after the events of the last several hours.
“Are you okay, Rachel?” Rogan’s voice skittered over her jumpy nerves, and she held her ground, refusing to turn around and face him. Instead she just nodded, silently staring out into the vast nothingness of the grassy fields.
Rogan moved up behind her, but he didn’t touch her. He was close enough she could feel the heat from his body through her clothing. Her traitorous libido reacted to his nearness, and she felt her pussy grow wet. This was ridiculous. No man should have this kind of power over a woman, and yet she was surrounded by them.
She moved down the porch steps, and took a seat on the bottom step, putting much needed distance between them.
“Rachel, what happened earlier…”
“What? What exactly happened earlier, Rogan?” she snapped, tossing her hair over her shoulder, and flashing an irritated glare at him.
The frown on his face grew deeper, but he moved closer, taking a seat on the steps next to her. “I thought we made it pretty clear how we felt, but…” his voice fell off when she didn’t respond.
If she stayed another minute, there was no way she would be able to avoid getting her heart broken times four. Four men equaled four painfully tragic break ups. Besides, this whole weekend was meant to be a fun exploration of herself, not the beginning of a happily ever after.
“Rachel, talk to me,” Rogan’s voice brought her back to the front porch steps, and she tipped her head up to the sun, soaking in its heat. It was a sign that nothing had changed. She could still hear the imagined whispers of love in her ears as she stiffened her resolve. If they weren’t strong enough to say it when she was face to face with them, well then, she wasn’t going to let it concern her either.
She stood, and turned to face Rogan. “Rogan, this weekend has been…memorable, thank you.”
Really she meant to walk away and leave it at that, but Rogan was having none of it. Faster than lightning he was on his feet and grabbing her arm to spin her back around so she had to face him. “Are you fucking kidding? Memorable? Thank you? That’s all you have to say after the last two days?”
The blood drained from her face as she stared into his dark eyes. Hurt radiated out of him, and she felt terrible for it. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Rogan. It’s been amazing, sexy, erotic, delicious, mind blowing…a million adjectives would describe it and yet not one word can do it justice, but I need to leave now. I promised you all the weekend, and now it’s time for us all to get back to the real world. Let me go, Rogan, you don’t want this.”
“I don’t want this? Do you even hear yourself? You have four of us who want to be everything you could possibly need, and you’re going to just walk away?”
Honest anguish was hard to overlook, but Rachel knew she was doing the right thing. She couldn’t stay. Once these four realized how the community would look down on them for this kind of relationship, they would break it off, and rip her heart out.
So what if other people did it all the time. Those people didn’t have lives and careers built on the kindness of the people in this community. A town where she had lived her whole life.
“Yes, Rogan. I’m going to just walk away like we agreed to when I said I would come out here Friday night. One weekend, with no talk of tomorrow. No promises that can be broken, no feelings that can be hurt, and if you don’t let me walk away we’ll both regret it.”
She turned and walked into the house, hesitating when she again heard the other three brothers’ voices in the kitchen. Instead of facing them she walked deliberately down the hallway to get her things from Parker’s room. Flashes of her pleading and begging the four men to make love to her threatened to overwhelm the tentative grip she had on her decision, so she rushed to collect her things and phone the one person she knew wouldn’t judge her actions. Her best friend, Zoey.
It felt like hours but mere minutes passed before Zoey’s battered sedan came rumbling down the Brooks brothers’ drive. Rachel stood on the edge of the porch trying to decide whether or not she should go back inside the house and say goodbye, or just leave. Ultimately, she needed a clean break to protect her own shaky heart, so she walked away.
Down the steps. One…two…three…four…to the pavered walk that lead to the drive. Her bag clutched in her grip like a lifeline, and her eyes boring into the questioning gaze of her closest confidant.
“What’s going on, Ray?” Zoey’s concerned voice nearly broke down the line of Rachel’s spine, but she managed a sharp shake of her head as she climbed into the car.
Before Rachel could second-guess her decision, Zoey had them turned around and flying back down the gravel drive. In the side mirror, Sawyer and Rogan stood on the edge of the front porch—one looking furious, and one looking heartbroken.
It was on the edge of her tongue to tell Zoey to turn back, but the memory of Mitch’s perfidy still burned in her brain. She couldn’t take it if any of the four Brooks brothers let her down, and it was inevitable if she stayed. Without another look back, she turned to Zoey and began to share all of the sordid details of the weekend.
Chapter Thirteen
Hudson couldn’t believe that Rachel had actually left. The whole weekend had gone nuclear and he didn’t have a clue how to fix it. All he wanted was to make her feel wanted and desired, yet somehow they had hemmed her in and made her feel claustrophobic and paranoid. So she ran as fast as her sexy slim legs and black cowboy boots could carry her, right out of their lives. It was a disaster.
Now Parker was pissed, Sawyer was sulking, and Rogan was…well…Rogan was in a daze on the front porch staring down the road in the direction that Zoey’s car had taken Rachel. Hudson wasn’t sure what his own reaction was. He felt like someone had shoved a fist into his chest and yanked out his heart by brute force. A lonely sense of abandonment filled his stomach, and when he caught a glimpse of himself in the side-mirror on the car, all he saw was a vast nothingness in his own eyes. He was nothing without Rachel. They were nothing without her.
In a strange way, this whole weekend had sealed the deal for him in terms of who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He had absolutely no doubts about his choice, but knowing she had doubts was killing him.
After she left, Hudson sat in the kitchen at the dining room table thinking back through the entire weekend, and wondered if there was anything they might have done differently to give her more security.
Ultimately, he gave in and popped the top on a can of beer before he headed into the back bedroom where the five of them had spent the last couple of hours in sexual euphoria. Ropes still hung from the bedposts, and lying at the foot of the bed on the floor, was a shiny silver belt buckle in the shape of a star. It winked at him, teasing him with what might have been, and he had to swallow back the burn of tears behind his eyelids.
As he picked it up and slid it into his pocket, a sense of determination began building in his gut. Rachel was his woman. She might not completely understand it yet, but she wasn’t going to find it easy to just walk away from the Brooks brothers without a backwards glance.
Within minutes he was in his truck and headed into town, a plan already formulating in his brain. This love story wasn’t over yet.
****
After hours at Zoey’s place moping and moaning about her heartache, her best friend had done what only a good best friend could do. She kicked Rachel out and told her
she was being stupid.
Of course, Rachel didn’t listen, and chose to go home instead of driving herself back to Brooks Pastures. She wasn’t willing to risk getting hurt by those four men, even if Zoey thought she had found her soul mates. There was just too much at stake.
However, seeing a bouquet of white lilies waiting for her on the porch, along with a tiny white envelope, left her feeling like a heel for the hurt she was causing the four of them. If there was any way to avoid it, she would, but in this particular situation, she had to choose between protecting her own heart and protecting theirs.
The note was simple, and hand written. It said, “Rachel, We’ll be here when you’re ready. Love, Hudson.”
It was kerosene to the flames of sorrow already burning inside of her. Hudson. Sweet, kind, gentle Hudson somehow understood she left because she was scared. It meant more to her than she could have verbalized, and it was a good thing no one else was around because the tears began flowing like a river again.
She spent the rest of the day torn between tears and determination. Space and time. That was what she needed to let go the weekend, and forge ahead into the future. If there was an easier way, she would have gladly jumped on it, but the only thing she felt she could do was pretend like nothing had happened. Zoey was the only one that knew about the weekend’s antics, and that was how Rachel wanted it to be.
Except that every couple of days, she received a new little reminder from them. There were lilies the first day, a bottle of bubble bath in her mailbox on Thursday, a bag of SweeTarts showed up on her desk at work the following week, and so on and so on. The only note she ever received was the one from Hudson that Sunday afternoon, but she knew he had a big hand in the other gifts.
Each time she found a new surprise her resolve weakened, but yesterday was the kicker. When she got home from work there was a small gift bag tied to the front door handle. Inside she found a tiny pink box that held the most delicate silver charm bracelet. There were only four charms dangling from the pretty links, a silver heart, a cowboy hat, a pair of handcuffs, and a teddy bear. Her heart had nearly burst out of her chest as she took in the four reminders. One for each man, and each with more significance than they probably even knew.
It was time to admit to herself that loved them more than she could possibly have anticipated. She wanted to be with them, but she had no idea how to take back what she had said, much less what she had done. It was her call to walk away from them, and they were leaving it in her court to come back. If only they understood how hard that was.
****
Two solid months of misery later, Rachel sat in her office with an uneaten handful of saltine crackers next to her computer monitor, and a diet ginger ale in her hand while she waited for her mom to log on to Skype. She spoke with her mom weekly, and every week she had been purposely vague about her love life, so as not to rouse her suspicions. Now, there was no more avoiding it. It was time to make the biggest announcement of her life to her mom.
Rachel was pregnant. There was no denying the four over-the-counter pregnancy tests she had taken, or the doctor’s blood test, which assured her she would be having a baby next winter. Her worst nightmare had come true, and she didn’t know what to do now.
Her stomach twisted and turned, and she had been nauseous almost since the moment she walked out the door of the Brooks brothers house, so she hadn’t realized she had missed her period until just last week. All of her focus had been on avoiding facing any of the four brothers, but now she had to face the reality in front of her, and she had to tell them.
She had pleaded with the doctor to explain how her birth control had failed, only to get a shrug and, “Sometimes, these things just happen.” Now, just as she had feared, she had no idea which brother was the father.
There was no way they would want her now. Not when she had rejected them so soundly, and ignored all of their little gifts. She would be lucky if they even acknowledged she was breathing, much less that she carried one of their offspring.
The tinkling sound of her computer drew her back into the real world as her mother came online.
“Hi, sweetheart!”
“Hi, Mama.”
“Oh, baby girl, I’ve missed you.”
“I miss you too, Mama.”
“You look tired, are you working too hard down there? Maybe you should take a vacation and come up to Oklahoma to visit me.”
Rachel snorted out a laugh, “You know I wish I could, Mama, but if I don’t work, I don’t get paid. I do miss you like crazy though. I actually have some news.”
Her mother instantly looked suspicious, and her eyes narrowed. Rachel would have laughed if the situation weren’t so serious. “Is this about that Mitch asshole? Is he bothering you again?”
“No, I’ve told you before that Mitch and I are through. He seems very happy with Connie, and I’m very happy to let her have him. Actually, I haven’t spoken to him in a couple of months.”
“Okay, so if it’s not guy trouble—”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t guy trouble.”
“Aha! So there is a man in your life! I knew you were hiding something. You’ve been acting strangely ever since you and Mitch split up. Who is it?”
“Do you remember the Brooks family?”
“Brooks Pastures, of course I remember them. I went to school with Susan Brooks. It was terrible when she got sick and died, and then John died shortly after. They had four sons didn’t they? Which one are you seeing?”
Rachel set the can of soda down and stared at it, trying to figure out the right words.
“Rachel? What is it honey?”
“Mom, I actually have seen all four of them.”
To her surprise her mother laughed, “Good for you! I was worried about you after Mitch was such an asshole. I’m not sure I would have chosen to sneak around with four brothers though.”
“No, Mama, you don’t understand. I slept with all four of them, at once. It’s a long story, but they asked me out to their ranch for a weekend of wild and crazy sex, and I was lost and hurting after yet another shitty end to a shitty relationship, so I said yes, and it was amazing, but now…”
“But now?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Her mother’s face fell, and she froze in place. After a few seconds, Rachel actually tapped the computer mouse thinking that somehow the computer had frozen.
“Mama, did you hear me? I’m pregnant.”
“I heard. I just don’t know what to say. I want to congratulate you, because a baby is a blessing but, Rachel, sweetheart, you’re so young, and I’m so far away, and wait a second…whose baby is it?”
Rachel just shook her head as tears finally spilled down her cheeks. They were the first tears she had let loose since the day she left the four brothers behind, and they felt horribly good.
“Well this is quite a conundrum. What did they say when you told them?”
“I haven’t yet. I don’t know how.”
“Oh, baby, I wish I could be there to hold your hand and help you through it, but this is something only you can handle. If they were just a weekend fling and they don’t want any part of this baby’s life, then you will just pack up and move up here with me, and I’ll help you raise him or her.”
“I can’t do that, Mama. My career is here in Texas, and besides, they knew there was a chance when we realized we had forgotten the condom. No, I have to face the music and tell them. I just haven’t worked up the courage.”
Her mother was silent for several beats.
“Whatever you decide to do, baby, just know that I love you, and I will support you. If you need to come up here and lie low for a bit I have a spare bedroom.”
“Thank you, Mama. I love you, too.”
“I have to go, sweetheart, but call me as soon as you’ve told them. Okay?”
Rachel nodded, and waved at her mom before the video screen clicked off. The moment she was alone in the silence of her office she let the leaky
dam burst and she cried all of her fear and shame out onto her desk.
Just like her mother, she was alone with a child and walked a precarious line of indecision. Her mother had known about her father’s affair for months before he admitted it. Firmly believing he would give up on the tramp he was seeing and come back to his family. When he didn’t, it ruined both her and her mother’s lives. If the guys decided they didn’t want anything to do with Rachel and the baby…well at the moment that was just unimaginable.
Her phone rang, and she reached for it, pleased to see Zoey’s name pop up.
“Hey, Zoey.”
“Uh oh, did it go that badly? Is your mom pissed?”
Rachel laughed a little, “No, in fact she was very supportive. Concerned for the baby and me, but supportive. She offered to let me move in with her.”
“What? You can’t go to Oklahoma!”
Now Rachel chuckled a little. “I’m not. She just offered, which was very sweet of her considering she’s in a two bedroom place that’s barely big enough for her, much less her daughter and a baby.”
“So, if she was supportive, why are you crying, Ray?”
Rachel held her breath for a moment, thinking about it. Zoey was as close as a sister to her. They shared all of their secrets, and Rachel had been completely honest with her about why she had been at the Brooks brother’s ranch, without going into too much detail about her sexual escapades.
“What if they don’t want us, Zoey?”
Zoey’s laughter filled her ears, and Rachel frowned at the phone. “Girl, those four have been moping around like wounded animals for two months! They show up everywhere they think you will be, ask everyone about you, leave messages on your phone, send flowers to your door, and otherwise beg you to give them a chance. I love you, Ray, but what the fuck is wrong with you?”
