Smokin' Cowboys: A Contemporary, Reverse Harem Western (Loved By Three Book 1)

by Poppy Flynn

  ‘Seems to me, you should let them boys make up their own minds about that. Just because those minxes got their greedy little sights set on one or other of them, don’t mean the feeling’s mutual.’

  Harrumph! Ellie snorted indelicately. “Whose side are you on anyway, Gran? I’m trying to make myself feel better here, you could at least agree!”

  ‘They responded to you, didn’t they? Might have gone further if it hadn’t been for the interruptions.’

  Great, now she was talking to a ghost. Scrap that, not even a ghost. That would actually make more sense… she was just talking out loud to a memory. Probably even more crazy than talking to herself!

  And yet, strangely, the conversation had made her feel better and helped to pull herself together.

  “And just what does that make me Gran? According to that kind of logic, then I’ve led all three of them on. That’s surely got to be a sin in somebody’s book.”

  If Gran wanted an argument, then that one should shut her up. The thought was almost enough to put a smile back on Ellie’s face - even if it was a rather wry one.

  Checking the drawers and cupboards to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, Ellie decided to take a shower.

  It was while she was washing off the dirt and grime of an eventful day, allowing the hot spray to soothe and relax her muscles, that she realized she hadn’t told anyone about Blaze and the foal, so they could keep an eye on them overnight.

  Well, there was no way she was going to search any of them out after everything that had occurred that evening.

  Sighing and casting a longing eye over at the comfy pajamas she had brought to change into, Ellie realized that she’d have to get dressed and look in on the animals herself. No matter what the provocation, she couldn’t let them suffer for other people’s mistakes; hers included.

  She trudged back up to the attic and changed into a clean pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.

  The kitchen was silent and empty when she ventured back down the stairs. She didn’t know what they’d done about dinner, but clearly no one had worried unduly about her, since there didn’t appear to be a covered meal or any leftovers in sight. She was glad it helped her resolve, even if her tummy chose that precise moment to grumble its complaint.

  She poked around in the fridge and made herself a quick ham and cheese omelet along with an insulated mug of coffee to take with her, before heading out to the stable.

  She was pleased to see that both Blaze and her baby seemed to be doing just fine. Not wanting to disturb them, but not wanting to keep going back and forth from the house, either, she perched herself in a little nook between hay bales and feed sacks and must have eventually dropped off to sleep. She awoke from steamy X-rated dreams of stroking hands and passionate kisses, powerful lust and steamy encounters to the sound of heavy footsteps crunching across the concrete floor. She stiffened to begin with, thinking it must be one of the Carson’s, then relaxed when Tono came into sight.

  “Hey,” she greeted him quietly, so he wasn’t startled by her presence.

  “What are you still doing up, Ellie, girl?” he asked affectionately. “I thought you’d be out for the count by now.”

  “I was just checking on Blaze,” she replied noncommittally, hoping she sounded suitably casual. She wasn’t certain she’d pulled it off.

  “Well, she looks just fine, so you can get back to your bed now.”

  A half-formed idea sprung into her head. “Actually, are you on your way to town? Do you think you could give me a lift back to my car?”

  “Tonight?” Tono’s eye’s beetled together in surprise. Ellie just shrugged.

  “Well, if it’s not too much trouble, that is.” She dipped her head and avoided his gaze.

  “Well, I don’t rightly see why it would be any trouble. Just wondering why you’re cutting out in the middle of the night when everyone’s asleep. You need to get somewhere?”

  Ellie glanced at him and shuffled from foot to foot. She felt awkward now.

  “Look, it doesn’t matter. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, I just thought…” Her voice trailed off with a slight hitch and she looked away.

  She sucked in a bracing breath. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, trying for bright and failing miserably. She started to walk away, but Tono caught hold of her arm and pulled her to a halt.

  “What’s going on Ellie?” he asked gruffly, searching her face, and she knew he’d caught the telltale glaze of tears in her eyes even though she blinked them quickly back.

  “I…” she sucked in a shuddering breath. “They want me to leave and I don’t think I’ve got it in me to stay until the bus comes past on Monday.”

  “Huh! So, they’ve settled on them city girls, have they? And here I thought they had a lick of sense between the three of them.” He scratched behind his ear and shook his head.

  “But what’s got you so upset that you’re after leaving in the middle of the night?”

  She gave him a tiny, sorrowful smile that didn’t touch her eyes. “It’s all gone to hell in a hand-basket, Tono.”

  He gazed at her seriously for a long moment, then gave a single brief nod. “I’ll take you back on one condition, and that’s that you tell me what kind of stupidity has got into those boys’ heads to be cutting loose a gem like you.”

  “You know about the wife thing, then.” It wasn’t really a question, more of an observation, but he answered her anyway.

  “That I do. Wasn’t sure about the sense of it, but I thought things were looking up when you came along.”

  Ellie nodded her agreement. Wasn’t like she’d be telling him anything he didn’t already know then.

  It was a scant ten minutes later when Ellie slumped back against the headrest and stared out at the inky night as they bumped along the roadless tracks back towards Libby.

  During the trip, she told Tono everything that had happened. She didn’t feel like she was making excuses or telling tales. Hell, he’d seen some of it with his own eyes, and it wasn’t like she needed to convince him of anything. Besides, none of it mattered anymore, did it? This time tomorrow she’d be far away and all of it would fade into a distant memory.

  If her heart didn’t give a little pang - okay, so it wasn’t so little - at the thought, then it would all be good.

  “I hope Cody saw you right,” Tono said bluntly when she’d finished.

  “I saw an envelope addressed to me on the kitchen dresser,” she told him with a shrug.

  “You saw?”

  “I left it there. I don’t want their money. That’s not what I came here for.”

  Tono said nothing for a while. The silence stretched, but not for long.

  “So, where you headed? Back to your family?” he asked casually.

  Maybe it was because she’d just spilled her guts about everything else that she told him the truth.

  “I don’t know. I don’t have any family.”

  “None at all?”

  “No, my Gran raised me after my parents were killed in a car accident. She died a few months back.”

  “So, where do you call home then?”

  She looked at him then, through the intermittent, orange light of the streetlamps, now that they’d joined the highway. She was determined not to say ‘nowhere’. She didn’t want his pity, and she was damned if she was going to wallow in her own.

  “Anywhere I want, Tono,” she said instead, forcing cheer into her voice. “Anywhere I want.”

  It was the early hours of the morning when they got back, and Tono insisted she get a proper night’s sleep before she headed off. It seemed there was no way he was taking no for an answer.

  “I’ve got a spare room and its made up ready. You’ve had a long, emotional day, and it’s not like you’ve got a destination in mind. May as well sleep on it and set off when its light and you’re refreshed.”

  She’d tried to argue, but he was adamant. “I don’t want you having an accident on my conscience because you bee
n drivin’ too tired. Not when you’ve got no cell phone to put my mind at rest,” he told her with a note of finality.

  She only really protested out of politeness because she didn’t want to put him out. She would only have driven just outside town and parked up to sleep. Might as well have one more night in a comfortable bed. She’d cook him a nice breakfast and maybe a few treats in return, she decided.

  Except by the time she got up in the morning, he was gone. It wasn’t late, only just turned eight thirty, but she’d slept longer than usual, undoubtedly from having such a late night.

  She found a note in the middle of the table in his kitchen.

  ‘Had to make a call. Help yourself to breakfast and take the time to plan your trip. I’ll be back by mid-day.’

  Well, she couldn’t leave without saying goodbye. That would be incredibly rude after everything he’d done for her. Plus, she didn’t have any keys to lock up his property either. Taking him at his word, she made herself some food and then raided his remarkably well-stocked pantry for baking ingredients so she could at least keep to part of her plan.

  There was nothing in the new chapter of her life she was about to embark on, which wouldn’t wait half a day, after all.

  Chapter Ten

  To say Cody was not in the best of moods would have been an understatement. He’d had a late night, been forced to cook his own dinner - dinner for everyone, in fact, - after a long, tiring day when all he’d wanted to do was come home to a hearty meal, a hot shower and maybe a bit of TLC. Instead, he’d been forced to deal with Ellie’s impertinent behavior - he still hadn’t got to the bottom of that one, but he would - and hand out her marching orders.

  He’d hoped everything would settle overnight. He’d even suggested they all sleep in this morning, since he, Syrus and Ezra were going to make a late start. Clearly he’d been taken at his word, because there was no sign of the four girls and there was no sign of breakfast either.

  Filling the coffee pot, he leaned against the counter and turned to his brothers.

  “Well, it looks like we’re fending for ourselves again this morning.”

  There was a perfunctory knock at the back door, while he was talking, before Tono strode in.

  “That’ll be because you sent Ellie packing,” he said, without so much as a ‘good morning’.

  Syrus frowned but gave Tono a two-finger salute as he walked through to the utility.

  Cody raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t like the vet to be so brazen, but he was clearly steamed about something too if the look on his face was anything to go by.

  Ezra, always the chirpy one, poured coffee and brought everyone a mug.

  Sitting at the kitchen table, he grinned at the older man. “Thanks for the fish, Tono. Really saved our bacon last night, since Ellie didn’t bother doing the cooking.”

  Tono just looked at Ezra with an uncharacteristically stony expression.

  “Don’t rightly know why you’re thanking me. Ellie caught those fish, right here in the creek. She came in and got them all cleaned and prepared before coming out to help me with Blaze’s foal, since your mare got herself in a fair amount of trouble during the labor.”

  Ezra jerked his head towards Tono just as quickly as he did and Syrus walked back in at the same time. The three of them talked over each other for a second or two.

  “What do…”

  “Ellie…”

  “She gutted…”

  Tono shook his head and held up his hand. “You’ve got a fine young colt, thanks to Ellie, I might add.”

  “Blaze has had the foal?” Surprise there from Ezra.

  “I see no one bothered to tell you then, and I know for a fact that that Cora girl knew what was happening, since she stood right there getting her panties in a wad while Ellie telephoned me to come out.”

  “What kind of trouble?” This from Syrus.

  Cody squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He was missing something.

  Lifting his head, he looked Tono square in the eye and motioned to his brothers to stop with the questions.

  Then he took a sip of his coffee to help him gather his thoughts.

  “Okay, one thing at a time, and back to the fish.” Somehow that small point seemed to hold more significance than it should. “You didn’t bring them, but you know Ellie caught and cleaned and gutted them; how?”

  “Because they were hung in the sink in the barn when I got here. She left them there when she went to check on Blaze, then forgot about them when she realized the mare was having birthing problems. When I arrived, they were in the way, so she brought them in the house to clean before she came back out to help me.”

  Okay, so maybe he’d been a little hard on her yesterday after Cora said she’d been messing around all day and had skipped out on her responsibilities to make dinner, but…

  “What do you mean, Cora knew?”

  “I already told you once,” Tono said with a scowl. “That no good floozy was standing right there listening, giving Ellie a hard time, even though the girl told her it was an emergency and she needed to ring me. I could hear her in the background while Ellie was on the phone.”

  “What phone?”

  “Well, the office phone, of course. What did you think she was going to call me on?”

  “I…” Cody paused and thought about it. “I assumed a cell phone,” he said slowly.

  “And she may well have done that, but since she doesn’t have one, she had to use the landline and look up the number in your address book.”

  There was silence for several long moments as all three brothers stared at Tono.

  “Well shit!” Syrus cursed.

  Cody hung his head and fisted his hands into his hair, thinking back to the conversation the previous evening.

  “And let me tell you, you have that lass to thank for the fact that you still have two healthy animals out there, since she recognized Blaze was having birthing difficulties. Foal had its head retained. Lucky it wasn’t a tragedy all round.”

  “I’ll apologize to her when she gets up, but it’s not the only reason…” he began, but Tono cut him off.

  “You won’t because she’s not here.”

  “What do you mean? How can she have gone anywhere?” Syrus asked in surprise.

  “Well, despite you tearing her off a strip and throwing her out, she spent the night checking on Blaze, since you weren’t of a mind to listen to her, when she tried to tell you. When I passed back through, she asked if I’d give her a lift to her vehicle, since it’s parked up at mine, because she didn’t want to stay here any longer.”

  Cody threw a quick glance at the dresser. Both the envelope and something else were missing. The latter made him frown and sift through his memory. The books were gone.

  “Where are Cora’s recipe books? Did Ellie take them?” he asked in disbelief.

  Tono slapped his palms against the table and lifted half out of his chair.

  “You really don’t have half the sense I credited you with boy! Why in God’s name would you think those were Cora’s books?”

  Cody’s eyebrows hit his hairline in surprise at the vet’s outburst. Then he glared right back at him.

  “Because Cora used them to make the wellington thing and the pancakes,” he said slowly, as if he were talking to a child.

  “No, Ellie used them to make the dinner and the pancakes and the muffins and the flapjacks and the others took the credit,” Tono replied equally slowly and probably with the same analogy in mind. “The books belonged to Ellie’s Gran. One of them’s a kinda scrapbook. It even has photographs in it of Ellie and her family, which I have seen with my own eyes. Not to mention that I was here, if you remember rightly, when Ellie made the pancakes that day & she was kind enough to feed me breakfast before coming outside to help me. Struck me as how you were a mite rude to the lass when we came back in; polishing off what she cooked and berating her for not being there on time. But I let i
t go. Obviously a mistake on my part. I should have spoken up right then, might have saved that little girl a shed-full of upset.”

  “She’s upset?” Syrus had always been the tender hearted one.

  “Well now, what do you think, son? She’s tended to you three like a proper little housewife; cooked and cleaned and mended and not only did the others take the credit, but you tore her a new one and sent her on her way after everything she did. She even mentioned how them young ‘uns claimed to have shared the housework when all they did was arrange a few flowers and how she thinks someone messed with her chili.”

  “Well, at least she took the cash I left to reimburse her,” Cody said with a sigh. He felt sick to his stomach, but at least he had the comfort of knowing he’d paid back any out-of-pocket expenses and probably extra besides. He’d been more than generous, regardless of how angry he’d been.

  “Hate to tell you this, Cody, but she didn’t take it. She told me how she didn’t want your money and that wasn’t what she came here for.”

  Cody’s head twirled around to take another look at the cabinet. “Then where’s the envelope gone?” He looked to each of his brothers, but all he got was a shrug in return.

  “But… I don’t understand why she said nothing,” Ezra said, spreading his fingers out wide.

  “And what was she supposed to say? She only had suspicions, and most of those were after the fact. And look how you treated the poor filly when she got locked in Blaze’s stall,” Tono retorted without remorse.

  “Oh, come on now,” Cody argued. “That must have been an accident. I’m sure none of the girls would have done something that dangerous.”