Monroe, Marla - A Home with Them [Men of the Border Lands 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Marla Monroe

  “Okay, time for bed. We need to get up early in the morning and get to work.” Wyatt helped Jessie clean up the food.

  They put the bread in the refrigerator since it would be safe from bugs there, not that she had seen any since they’d been in the house. In fact, she couldn’t remember seeing many bugs at all on the drive out of Barter Town once they’d put her up front with them. She was used to lots of bugs back home. If they didn’t have them here, she’d be ecstatically happy.

  They climbed onto the mattress fully clothed and pulled the cover up over them before turning off the flashlight and listening to the dark. Jessie was sure she’d never fall asleep in a strange place, but the next thing she knew, morning light was shining in the windows.

  * * * *

  “Hey, guys, it’s morning.” She shook Kent since she didn’t want to hurt Wyatt’s arm.

  “Hmm?” Kent opened one eye and squinted at her. “Are you sure?”

  “Silly.” She crawled out of the covers and off the mattress.

  Wyatt groaned and rolled over to look up at her. “You sure are chipper this morning.”

  “We have a new home. I can’t wait to get to work on it.”

  “She’s going to work us to death, you watch,” Kent complained.

  “Come on guys. If you find me the coffee, I’ll boil up some for you.”

  That got Kent up and going. He scratched his head and then his chest like a typical male. Then he unlocked the front door and walked outside.

  “Shut the door, its cold out there,” Jessie complained when the cooler air hit her bare feet.

  “Women, can’t make ’em happy.” Kent laughed and closed the door.

  Wyatt finally climbed out of the covers and stood up. She launched herself at him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  “What?”

  “I’m so happy. We have a home. It’s going to be great.”

  “You need to realize it’s going to be hard, too. We have to live without electricity, and garden and live off the land.”

  “I know, don’t rain on my parade.” She pouted.

  He chuckled and patted her on the head. “Let’s see about breakfast.”

  Kent walked back in with a tin of coffee and a giant smile on his face.

  “What?” Wyatt and Jessie asked at the same time.

  “There are deer eating in our backyard.”

  “Oh! I want to see!” She ran to the back door and peered through the window. Sure enough, a buck and two does grazed in their backyard.

  “This could pose a problem for the garden,” Wyatt said.

  “Oh, I’m not worried. You’ll have them on our dinner table before the garden comes up.” Jessie smiled at them.

  “I could do that now, if you want,” Kent offered.

  “Not till I’ve cleaned this kitchen well. It’s dirty.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Wyatt asked.

  “After we eat and have coffee, I want to drag all the furniture from the kitchen into the living room. Then you can bring in the box with the cleaning supplies. After that, you probably need to look around the house and see what there is around here. I can handle cleaning by myself. You need to see about the outside stuff while you have good light.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Wyatt said with a smile.

  They fixed skillet toast after Jessie cleaned a frying pan and had toast and pears for breakfast. She watched as the men shoved the furniture out of the eat-in kitchen and pulled the fridge out from the wall so she could clean behind it. After they finished that, the men disappeared outside while she got to heating water to clean with.

  Three hours later, she had a spotless kitchen and was busy working on the dining area. It felt good to be moving around doing something, and not stuck in the cab of a truck wondering what was ahead. As soon as she finished the dining area, she started on the pantry. She checked expiration dates and threw away lots of canned meat. Most of the veggies and fruit were safe. She cleaned cans, jars, and shelves. Her stomach rumbling reminded her it was past time to eat.

  She walked out the back door to look for the men when a cow came meandering up to the porch and looked at her. She wasn’t sure if it was dangerous or not, so she didn’t move. Finally, after it realized she wasn’t going to do anything, it walked farther into the yard.

  “What are you doing?” Wyatt asked from inside the kitchen.

  “Looking at this cow.”

  “What cow?” He walked outside and laughed. “I’ll be damned. We have a cow.”

  Kent walked up. “That’s not all we have. There’s a fully functional horse barn over there.” He pointed to the side where a building stood. “And there’s another barn that must be for storing hay on the other side of the horse barn.”

  “So the people that lived here owned horses. What happened to them?” Jessie asked.

  “All the stall doors were open, and the barn doors were as well. I’d say they let the animals out to run wild,” Kent suggested.

  “Why did they leave? Nothing is wrong here,” Jessie wondered out loud.

  “Could be that they got sick and left, or they couldn’t handle not having electricity. There’s not much telling,” Wyatt said.

  “Do you think they’ll come back?”

  Chapter Seven

  “I think that if they were coming back, they’d have been back long before now.” Wyatt smiled and rubbed her arm before turning back to look at the cow in the backyard. “Think we can herd it into the barn?” he asked Kent.

  “I think so. Basically everything I’ve heard about cows is that they are dumb animals.”

  “Well, be careful, that dumb animal weighs three times more than you do.” Jessie left them on the back porch.

  “Any suggestions?” Wyatt asked.

  “How about we just walk up to it and push it?”

  “You want to push an animal that weighs about what a car weighs.”

  “Hey, you asked,” Kent reminded him.

  “Okay, go get some of that rope you stole and bring it back. We’re going to rope it and lead it to the barn.”

  Kent returned with the rope, and Wyatt made a loop with it and approached the cow. It moved farther away. He tried again, and again the cow moved off.

  Kent was beside himself laughing.

  “Get over here and stand so that it won’t go that way.” Wyatt was fast getting exasperated.

  The cow started to move off toward Kent, then thought better of it and tried to move forward. Wyatt looped the rope over its head and pulled it tight around the animal’s neck. Then he pulled, and the cow pulled back.

  “Fuck. This isn’t working,” Wyatt said.

  “Let’s try this.” Kent walked to the side of the animal and popped it on the flank and yelled at it.

  The cow moved in the right direction. They got on either side of it and popped and yelled until they had it in a stall in the barn.

  “Now what do we do, farmer Wyatt?” Kent asked.

  “Gather some grass and put it in the bucket for it to eat.”

  “Great, now I get to cut grass.” He left Wyatt with the cow.

  Wyatt laughed and walked back out to find Jessie petting a calf.

  “Think this belongs to that in there?” she asked.

  “Could be.” Wyatt took the rope and put it over the neck of the calf and led it into the barn and put it in the stall with the cow. It immediately began sucking teat.

  “Guess it does,” Wyatt said when Jessie joined him looking over the stall door.

  “Where’s Kent?” she asked after a few seconds.

  “Getting grass for the cow to eat.”

  “I bet he loved that.”

  “He was a little amused.”

  Jessie leaned in to Wyatt. He enjoyed the feel of her against him. He could smell the sweet smell of lemon for some reason.

  “You smell like lemon.”

  “It’s the cleaner I was using. Its lemon scented. It sure isn’t me. I probably smell like a pig. I�
��ve been sweating, and in all sorts of dirt.”

  “More than likely Kent and I smell worse.” He chuckled. “We’re going to be glad for a bath tonight.”

  “That reminds me. You need to check to see if the hot water heaters are gas or electric. If they are gas, they need the pilot lights lit. If they aren’t, we have to heat water for baths.”

  “Damn, things are so complicated.” Wyatt shrugged. “I’ll go check that now, because if we want a hot bath, the water needs time to heat up.”

  He left Jessie on the back porch sweeping and took the matches with the flashlight to the hot water heater in the basement. It was gas. Thank God. He lit it and checked out the rest of the cellar. It had lots of cobwebs, but not much else. There were shelves where a few canned goods sat, but not many. Mostly, it was dirty.

  He went upstairs and found the water heater for the bathrooms up there and lit it as well. When he came back downstairs, it was to find Kent kissing Jessie. He instinctively started to stop them, then realized there was no reason to anymore. They were in a safe place, the best that he could determine. He couldn’t keep them apart forever. Not living with each other as they were.

  Instead, he backed up and walked outside. He could admit to himself he was jealous more of not being a part of it than of his brother. He liked seeing them kissing. It had made him hard. Living with them together was going to be difficult at best, especially as much as he wanted her. But he couldn’t ask her to be a wife and lover to two men. No matter what he and his brother had discussed at one time.

  She deserved to be treated like a queen. He planned to be sure she had everything they could give her and make life as easy for her as possible. What was he thinking? Life here was going to be damn hard no matter what they did. She’d do fine, though, because she was strong.

  “Hey Wyatt, what are you doing?” Kent asked.

  “Looking out over the yard. The front needs some work, or it’ll take over the house. We need to cut back as much as we can to let as much light in as possible. With no electricity, we’re going to be relying on the sun.”

  “Wonder about getting solar panels to help with conserving energy by heating the house up. Otherwise, we’re going to be sleeping in front of the fireplace all winter.”

  Wyatt nodded. Kent was right. They needed to be thinking about winter. It was already pretty damn cool in the mornings, and they were just getting into spring.

  “I hate to say this, but I think we need to be making a list of things like Jessie does.”

  Wyatt tested the porch swing and found it solid. It would be nice to sit out here with her on a summer evening. He sighed. Only it wouldn’t be him, it would be Kent. It was really better that way anyway. They were closer to the same age.

  “Why the frown?” Kent asked.

  “We need to talk about Jessie when she’s busy somewhere.”

  “What about her?”

  “Just stuff. Later.” He got up and walked back in the house to find the woman in question polishing the kitchen table.

  “How does it look?” she asked him.

  “Looks good. You ready to put it and the chairs back in the dining area?”

  “Yeah, thanks. Did you get the hot water heaters lit?”

  “Yeah, we should have hot water for showers later.”

  “Then I better go clean a bathroom.”

  Wyatt watched her grab her little tray of cleaning supplies and head upstairs. The house had four bedrooms and three bathrooms, with a half bath downstairs next to the living room. There was a walk up over the garage that he hadn’t explored yet. They had too many other things to do right now.

  “Where is Jessie?” Kent asked, walking into the living room.

  “Cleaning a bathroom. Come on and help me. She wants these put back in the dining area again.”

  “She sure has been busy today. She’s going to sleep well tonight.”

  “I think we all will. How much grass did you get in the bucket for the cow?” Wyatt asked with a grin.

  “Plenty. Where did the calf come from?”

  “It walked up after you went to get the grass.”

  “You know what that means, don’t you?”

  “What?” Wyatt asked.

  “Fresh milk.”

  Wyatt shook his head. Leave it to Kent to think about food.

  “What did you want to talk about? She’s busy now.”

  Wyatt drew in a deep breath and motioned for Kent to follow him outside.

  “Look, we’ve found a home here, and I think we’ll do fine. I know you’ve wanted to date Jessie for the last five years and all. I guess what I’m saying is, I’m not going to stand in your way anymore. She deserves to be happy, and I know you will make her happy.”

  “Um, Wyatt. She isn’t going to be happy without you, too.”

  “I know we talked about making it a threesome, but Kent, that’s asking too much of her.”

  “You’re not asking her. She’s accepting you. Don’t hurt her and turn her away.”

  “I know you’re not having this conversation without me.”

  Wyatt cringed. He hadn’t heard her come up.

  “Jessie, you and Kent have been eyeing each other for years. I’m not going to interfere anymore. That’s all.”

  “But you don’t want to be a part of it. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No, I mean—damn it, Jessie. It won’t work.”

  “What won’t work? Our loving each other? The three of us caring for one another? I think it will.” Wyatt stuck his hands on his hips.

  “Wyatt, don’t do this, man.” Kent shook his head.

  “How can you stand there and talk to me about fucking the woman you love? Doesn’t it bother you at all, Kent?” Wyatt asked.

  “It’s not like you’re some stranger I don’t know. You’re my brother, and I know that you love her and will take care of her if anything happens to me. Seeing her wrapped in your arms only turns me on.” Kent pulled Jessie back against him.

  “And what if seeing her in your arms just pisses me off?”

  “Does it?” Kent asked.

  Wyatt slapped his hand against the porch post and turned away.

  “It doesn’t, does it? That’s what has you so upset. You like seeing her in my arms. You like the idea of making love to her with me.”

  Wyatt looked out over the backyard, trying to calm down. He needed to get control of his emotions to have this conversation with them. Hell, he’d only wanted to talk to Kent and settle it that way. Having Jessie in it only made it harder.

  “Wyatt, I love you. Do you not love me?” Jessie’s wrapped her arms around his waist.

  He closed his eyes and tried to feel what was going on inside of him right then. Was it lust or love? He fucking didn’t know. All he knew was that, yes, he wanted to fuck her. He wanted to watch his brother fuck her, but he didn’t know if it was more than that or not.

  “Jessie. I care about you. I don’t know how I feel about you other than that.”

  She ran a hand down his abdomen and wrapped it around his cock through his jeans.

  “Is this for me as someone you care about, or as a woman you want?” she asked.

  Wyatt grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away from his cock. It was one of the hardest things he’d had to do lately. Fuck, he wanted her.

  “Come on, Jessie. Let’s go see about that bathroom. I think Wyatt needs some alone time.”

  “Jessie—I’m sorry.” Wyatt let go of her wrist and waited until they’d left the porch.

  He felt like a hole had opened up inside and was swallowing him. He’d never told Kent about Leslie. He’d loved her more than anything the year he’d had at college before the catastrophes. It was as if they’d just clicked and were inseparable from then on. They had almost the same class schedule and were majoring in the same thing. He had really thought they would be together forever.

  He hadn’t said anything to his family about her because he wanted her all to himself for a
while. He didn’t want them harping about bringing her home and introducing her to them. He wanted to know everything about her before he did that. Then all hell broke loose, and he lost her.

  One day she was there, and the next she wasn’t. He had come back from a weekend at home to find that she hadn’t come back to college. He’d called her cell and her home number only to get out of order messages. He finally found out that her hometown had been demolished by a tornado, and almost everyone had been killed.

  He couldn’t get any information about what had happened to her, and even when he made the trip there and witnessed the devastation, he continued to hold out hope she was alive somewhere, waiting on him to find her.

  Several weeks later, their hometown was hit, and he found himself taking care of Jessie and his brother in a world that was fast changing course. Now he was being asked to be part of a ménage relationship, and he didn’t know for sure that he loved Jessie the way she deserved to be loved.

  Wyatt let out a long breath and walked out to the back of the yard to where the trees started. He studied the landscape without really seeing it. How were they going to survive in this new place if they were at odds with each other? He had to figure out how to make Jessie accept that he just wasn’t sure how he felt, and not let it tear them all apart.

  A movement in the woods caught his attention. He willed himself to be still and waited to see if it would happen again. For long moments nothing stirred, then a lone wolf walked into a shaft of sunlight that penetrated the wood’s dimness.

  Not good. He hadn’t even considered that there would be wolves out here as well. Naturally there would be. It was their environment. He needed to warn the others to be careful and not go off alone anywhere. Even here, in their new home, there were unseen dangers to worry about.

  He waited for the wolf to continue on its way before he backed away from the trees and returned to the house. They needed to have a family meeting and discuss the dangers and their next course of action. He and Kent had found a lot of equipment in the other outdoor building. He hoped it would be enough to get them started as a farm. They had about five months of warm weather left before winter hit. They needed to put aside the emotional crap and get to work.