Six Pack Ranch: Books 1-3

by Vivian Arend

  The future was feeling mighty fine.

  Jaxi looked at the community people gathered around, faces gleaming at them with delight. Blake’s fingers interlocked with hers as he led them firmly down the path toward the outdoor barbecue reception.

  “You sure we need to stay for this?” Blake whispered in her ear. “’Cause I got plans.”

  Jaxi poked him in the side. “We have a whole lot of tomorrows for sex but we’re only getting married once. Behave.”

  Blake grumbled under his breath. “I want to get to the good stuff.”

  They were swept apart into a sea of well-wishers.

  Everywhere Jaxi looked she saw family. Matt and Travis manned the barbecue with Mike, grilling a steady stream of thick steaks. Joel was in charge of the music, and she smiled as he raced to make sure everything was ready at the large dance area they’d built on the lawn. Jesse mixed drinks and flirted with the girls while he restocked the large ice-filled buckets with long-necked beer bottles. Marion, finally free of her cast, visited with Jaxi’s parents while Daniel hovered at her side.

  Jaxi watched Blake as he spoke with their friends, laughing and receiving congratulations from their neighbours. Her heart filled with joy at the realization she was living her dream.

  It wasn’t long before they were back together, swaying on the dance floor for a first dance. Jaxi slipped into his arms and sighed with happiness.

  “You’re looking mighty sexy in them boots, Mrs. Coleman.” He twirled her a bit and let her skirt flare against his legs. “You going to tell me if you’ve got panties under that pretty little dress?”

  “Of course, I’m wearing panties.” Blake’s face fell a little. Jaxi lifted a brow. “You going to pout because I wanted pretty undies to remember this day?”

  “You’ll have plenty to remember it by without needing some bits of fluff and lace.”

  She was sure she would, but still.

  “Think of it this way. You enjoy unwrapping presents, don’t you?” Heat swelled between them, and Blake drew her closer, his fingers splayed possessively over the open keyhole in the back of her dress. She rested her head on Blake’s shoulder, dancing close and easy. She waited until he relaxed completely before she spoke again. “Of course, if you don’t want to unwrap I made sure nothing would get in your way.”

  Jaxi counted slowly, aiming for ten. Before she’d reached five, Blake jerked for a moment, and they stumbled. He recovered in time to keep them upright but she’d felt the increase in his heart rate.

  “You saying your panties have no crotch? Hot damn, are you trying to kill me right here on the dance floor?” He nudged his erection harder into her body. “Now we have to keep dancing until I can walk past my ma without blushing and embarrassing everyone.”

  She laughed.

  His voice, dark and husky, drifted over her skin like a caress. “There will be a price to pay.”

  “I love paying my debts. You can strip-search me later.”

  He stumbled again, and this time the laughter welled up from deep inside her until it burst out and flowed over them both. Swaying on the dance floor, family and friends all around, Jaxi felt the satisfaction she’d been working to achieve for so many years. She’d finally come home, and it wasn’t the land or the house or even the family she’d just joined.

  It was Blake, and he was all the home she’d ever need.

  Bonus Chapter: The Beginning

  Lazy Days of Summer, fourteen years earlier

  The screams rising from the coulee had changed in the past ten minutes from fun to fearful. Blake flicked the reins to head Midnight over to see which one of his little brothers was in need of getting his britches tanned. Because sure enough when they weren’t fighting for each other, they were fighting each other.

  Blake let Midnight take her head as she picked her footing down the steep trail that led toward the swimming hole where loud shrieks continued to echo off the clay embankments. Individual voices grew clearer and Blake grinned. It wasn’t often Travis ended up on the hurting side of the equation.

  He rounded the bend and darted his gaze over the scene. Chaos was in full reign. His youngest four brothers and a spare little boy, all in jean cutoffs and nothing else, were covered from head to toe in dark mud. Joel and Jesse, the six-year-old twins, raced in circles, waving their hands frantically while they shrieked at the top of their lungs. Twelve-year-old Daniel was attempting to pry the skinny newcomer off Travis with one hand, his free hand swatting the air with desperate jerks.

  Travis screamed again—the eight-year-old was madder than Blake had ever heard the little bully. His attacker was the only one in the area not hollering or swearing at the top of his lungs. Blake watched as the kid swung and connected another solid blow to Travis’s jaw.

  Time to stop the fun and games.

  “Enough, you little hoodlums.” Blake dismounted and waded in, ready to pull the combatants apart and deliver a timely big brother from hell speech. “Every one of you, get your…”

  Then he realized what was causing all the arm swinging and at least half the swearing. Just to the side of the main fight lay a giant wasp nest.

  It appeared to have been ripped clean in two.

  Blake felt a little like swearing now himself. “Daniel, get the twins back to the house. Take Midnight, and clean her saddle completely after you get hosed off.”

  Pausing to make sure Daniel nodded in agreement, he turned his attention to the screaming boys at his feet.

  Wasps whizzed around them, and he felt the first sting on his leg. Pulling hard, he lifted the still-swinging blond banshee, grabbed Travis by the wrist and toppled the three of them into the shallows of the swimming hole. “Get ready to hold your breath. Travis, I mean it. Stop screaming and take a big breath. On the count of three.”

  He pulled them all under, pushed off the bottom toward the middle of the stream and allowed the gentle current to float them for a good ten count before letting their heads pop up to the surface of the water. The angry buzz was still audible but fading as he hauled his squirming cargo to the shore, dragging the boys over the grassy bottom to the lower edge of the trail.

  “Get on up there. Now! Get home and let Ma deal with you. Little idiots, what were you thinking?”

  Travis knew enough to sense Blake’s patience was gone. He turned and raced up the hill without even complaining that it was someone else’s fault. The other kid. He didn’t seem to know it was time to stop fighting and start running.

  “You ain’t my boss.” Eyes narrowed, chin jutting out as he glared up at Blake. It would have been funny if they both weren’t dripping wet and filthy.

  “I am now, Slick. Get on up there. My ma will see to those welts before we get you home. Unless you’d prefer I take you home now and let your folks deal with you?”

  The skinny little thing didn’t look more than five years old. Pale wisps of hair stuck up where the mud had washed off, but the dirt seemed permanent on other portions of the creature. “They ain’t there. My mom’s gone to town for grub. I can take care of myself.”

  Blake counted to ten. There was no way he could go home and tell his mom he’d let some little tyke wander off without his folks—wasp-stung, filthy, and pounded from fighting Travis.

  Even though it looked like the little beast had gotten the better of that particular deal.

  “What’s your name, kid?”

  “Jax.”

  “Jack?”

  He was given the you’re-too-stupid-for-words look. “J-A-X. My name is Jackson, but Momma and Daddy call me Jax.”

  “Well, Jax, you gotta come home with me for a bit. If your folks are gone, you could probably use a little dinner. We’ll hose off the mud and get something to eat. I think my ma’s got leftover chicken around we could nab. Deal?”

  Blake knew the second he mentioned food that it would work. The kid was skinny as all get out. Jax scrambled up the embankment and trotted next to him, little legs working double time to keep up with
Blake’s wide stride.

  At seventeen Blake was getting into his full growth. He was tall enough already that this little guy seemed awfully short.

  “How old are you, Jax?”

  “Seven.”

  That was surprising. Jax couldn’t be any bigger than the twins.

  “I’ve never seen you around before. Did you just move in?”

  “The blue trailer on the edge of the road. Ma said it’s a dump, but I think it’s okay.” Typical kid, he kept stopping to check out the grasshoppers and spiders that scurried off the trail as they quickstepped toward the house.

  Must be the new renters that he’d overheard his parents talking about. The dad had signed on with one of the local hauling companies. Hard work. Jax’s dad would be gone for days at a time. Blake took another look at the kid. His little face and arms were covered with swelling welts, but he hadn’t made a noise of complaint about them.

  “So you wanna tell me what happened down at the swimming hole?”

  Jax looked up at him in surprise. “I ain’t one of your brothers. You gonna let them tell you what happened, right?”

  Blake frowned. “I figure you can tell me just fine. You won’t lie to me, will you?”

  Jax stopped dead. “Lying is for babies and cheats. I ain’t no baby and I ain’t no cheat.”

  “So, tell me. What happened?”

  “Me and Joel and Jesse were swimming and playing a game and Travis came and said he’d make me eat a frog. So I told him that frogs were a deli-cat-zee and only the really important people could eat them so I thought that was a really fine thing.

  “Then he said I had a stick up my butt and he was going to teach me a thing or two. So I said he was too stupid to teach me anything. Then Joel tried to tell him something and Travis pushed him into the mud. Of course Jesse tried to help Joel and Travis pushed him down too. Then Daniel started yelling at Travis and Travis said some bad words and then he tried to push Daniel into the mud and Joel and Jesse were trying to jump on Travis and then…”

  Blake stared in amazement. Usually when he asked his brothers what happened he got “he looked at me funny so I hit him” as an answer. Not a five-minute nonstop detailed play-by-play.

  They’d reached the house, and there was no sign of any of the rest of the culprits except for a pile of filthy wet shorts lumped by the still-running hose. Blake pointed Jax toward the pile.

  “…well, I slipped and fell in the mud and I thought maybe that could be the end and we’d just play for a while. You know, we were all dirty, so why not, but Travis came over and pinched me…”

  Yeah, that was Travis. He fought dirty.

  Blake stripped off his wet things and turned the hose on himself. Ma put up with a lot, having six boys around the house, but he knew better than to enter the house covered in river water and mud. Even if he went through the basement door straight into a shower.

  “…but when I climbed the tree he called me a coward.” Jax finally stopped talking and put his hands on his hips. “I ain’t no coward. So when I spotted the nest I thought it would be a good idea and—”

  “Jax. Talk while you take off your stuff. I’ll hose you down.”

  “Oh. Okay. So I pulled off the nest but I kinda fell and when I landed I must have made a funny noise because Travis called me a ‘pig in the wallow’ and it made me really mad so I walked up to him and told him at least I wasn’t an ass without a barn and then I pulled that nest apart and things kinda just happened after that.”

  The shorts dropped quick like and Jax turned in the spray to let Blake rinse off his back. Welts rose everywhere, and Blake turned down the pressure on the hose. It had to hurt like the blazes.

  Then the kid turned around and Blake noticed for the first time what he probably should have figured out sooner.

  Jax was a girl.

  Rocky Mountain Haven

  SIx Pack Ranch, Book 2

  Rocky Mountain Haven

  It’s the quiet ones that take you by surprise.

  * * *

  Beth Danube’s emotionally abusive husband is dead and buried. So is her heart. It’s no big deal, she has all she wants: her three little boys and a fresh start in a small Alberta town. What she doesn’t want is another man in her life—not now, maybe not ever.

  After ten years of unsatisfactory, missionary-position sex, she never expected her libido to reawaken. One look at sex-in-boots Daniel Coleman in a Calgary bar, though, blows the dust off her sexuality.

  Sensing an edge of desperation, even fear, beneath Beth’s come-on, Daniel finds himself giving in to the powerful urge to let his normally subdued desires run wild. The lady wants non-judgmental, non-vanilla sex? She’s got it—in and out of the bedroom.

  At first, friends with blazing-hot benefits is more than enough. Then she realizes Daniel is burning away the protective fortress around her heart…and the guilty secret she dare not reveal.

  * * *

  Warning: One woman determined to retake control of her life, a man with the single-minded purpose of offering her—and her body—everything she needs. Inappropriate behavior in barns, change rooms, and oh-my-gawd phone sex with a cowboy.

  For all those women who are brave in ways that people often can’t see on the outside—doing what’s needed for their children and themselves. Your strength amazes me.

  1

  Calgary, Alberta, July

  She nursed her drink, waving back at her little sister who was jammed on the dance floor with a hundred other people. Beth tried not to peek at her watch again, instead checking out the myriad faces under the cowboy hats around her. She’d never seen so many boots and buckles in her life. Another round of Yahoos rose into the air from a few well-lubricated throats.

  While she appreciated Darleen’s attempt at cheering her up and—how had she put it?—“pulling her back to the land of the living”, the bar scene had never been her thing.

  It definitely wasn’t tonight.

  One song ended, melding into another ear-shattering rendition of someone done somebody wrong, and Beth held the cool glass of her drink against her temple in the hopes it would slow the throbbing.

  “There she is. Hey, Beth, look what I found on the dance floor!” Dar approached the table like a runaway train, dragging not one but two cowboys by the hand. “They’re identical twins,” she shouted with glee.

  Beth raised a brow. They certainly were, from the tops of their Stetsons, past the mischievous grins and the tight faded jeans to the worn shitkickers.

  “Well done. Now you need a wandering gypsy and the arctic explorer, and you’ll win the scavenger hunt.” She offered a hand to the first of the gorgeous specimens. “Beth.”

  A warm hand clasped her fingers and gave a firm shake while a pair of piercing blue eyes gazed into hers. “Jesse Coleman, that’s my brother Joel. I can’t help you with an arctic explorer but I might know where there’s a gypsy or two.”

  Beth laughed. “Sorry, but Darleen is a little enthusiastic at times. I’m attempting to keep her centered in reality.”

  He rearranged a chair and sat in it backward, his mouth-watering smile growing warmer. She sipped her drink. He was hot and kind of cute, but too young for her. Way too young.

  “You dancing tonight, Beth, or just exercising your imagination?” Jesse asked. His admiring gaze caused physical reactions she’d missed for far too long. Maybe it was time to spread her wings again. She forced herself to take a slow perusal of his body before smiling her approval. His eyes darkened with interest.

  That was the kind of response she needed to see.

  “Beth doesn’t dance since the accident,” Darleen piped up before she could answer for herself. “Oops. Sorry, sis. Shut mouth, throw away key.”

  Beth found both the boys staring and resisted the urge to sigh in exasperation. It’s not as if she had planned on keeping it a secret.

  She leaned back in her chair and hauled out her leg with its thick supporting brace. “I dance just fine, Darleen, o
nly I take up more room than is available on the floor. You go ahead, I’ll watch.”

  The other twin spoke, adjusting the chairs until there was enough space for them all. “I’m happy to sit for a while. It’s been a long day, and the dancing’s pretty much worn me out.”

  Darleen rested on the arm of Joel’s chair, her body leaning toward him. Beth coughed then glanced away. Her sister was grown up and could make her own decisions, but she didn’t want to be in the know about any specific sexual escapades. From the looks Joel was bestowing on Dar, the potential for something to happen was high.

  Besides, Beth had her own agenda tonight, and perhaps the young hotshot seated next to her would be a willing volunteer in her research project. She sipped her drink and checked inwardly to see if she’d had enough to alcohol yet to loosen her inhibitions.

  “Why’s it called the Six Pack Ranch?” Darleen picked up a conversation they’d obviously started on the dance floor. She now sat firmly in Joel’s lap, and Beth blinked at having missed the movement that put her there. “You said the ranch has been around for generations, but six-packs are fairly new.”

  Jesse laughed easily. “There are so many Colemans in the area, with all the uncles and cousins, folks decided it was easier to stick each of the clans with an additional title. Like our cousins, the Whiskey Creek Colemans—their south boundary runs parallel to the creek. Our spread is officially the SP Ranch after the first initials of the original Coleman brothers who established her, but the smartasses in town decided it stood for Six Pack a few years ago and the new handle stuck.”

  Beth raised a brow. “The smartasses? Why would they do that? Usually nicknames have some basis in reality.”

  “You’re pretty fixated on reality, aren’t you, sweetheart?” Jesse leaned over and took her hand in his, stroking her fingers. If she weren’t so sure she might have taught him only a few years earlier in one of her high school math classes, her enjoyment would have been greater. Now she wondered if he was even of legal age to be in the bar. “You’re right, there’s more. Picture six boys growing up on the ranch. That started the idea. Plus, there’s this…”