A Very Lusty Christmas [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Cara Covington

  Gerald would have sworn his grandmother couldn’t surprise him. He would have been wrong. He nodded his head, and then looked over at Patrick.

  “Please excuse us,” Patrick said. “We need to be heading out now to report to duty. We’ll be home again in a couple of weeks, if we can.”

  The ladies all nodded, indicating they’d been excused. Of course Gerald and his brother took the time to kiss cheeks and give gentle hugs.

  The women in the family cherished displays of affection almost as much as the men cherished lavishing them upon them.

  When they stepped out onto the porch of the Big House, Patrick exhaled heavily. “Did you ever think we’d be given instructions by ourgrandmotheron how to make love to our woman?”

  Gerald rubbed his hands over his face. “Never. Of course the moment she said those words, I recalled that one evening around the campfire when our grandfathers got into the whiskey, and decided to give us a complete how-to lesson on double penetration.”

  “Jesus.” Patrick’s face turned beet red, which matched the heat Gerald felt on his own.

  Then Gerald laughed. “The grandmothers have written diaries that only the women are allowed to read—just as Joshua and Warren wrote journals meant only for male eyes. Kind of makes you want to read the advice our grandmothers have penned, doesn’t it?”

  Patrick laughed. “I don’t know how I should answer that, big brother.”

  Gerald slapped his brother—his best friend—on the back. “Never mind. Come on, let’s go grab our things and get on the road. It’s a long drive to the airfield.”

  It would be atleasttwo weeks before they could return for an evening and finally see their woman. He hoped to hell she didn’t find out, in the interim, the lengths to which they’d gone just to bring her to Lusty.

  They’d tell her the truth about everything, of course—eventually. But they wanted the chance to win her heart, first.

  Chapter 4

  Kate didn’t quite know what to make of the small town of Lusty, Texas. From the elderly lady who’d met her at the train station in Waco and had accompanied her here, to the folks at every one of the businesses she’d passed or ventured into, everyone had been so very welcoming.

  She’d been delivered straight to the Convalescent Home she was now responsible for running. Patients would begin arriving in just over two weeks. Kate had understood that fact even before she’d arrived, and had hoped she’d be able to get the building ready for the wounded soldiers in so short a time. But as she’d toured the place upon her arrival, she realized there was virtually nothing left for her to do.

  The Home appeared spotless, had been stocked up with supplies, and was ready to receive its first guests.

  With nothing much to do, Kate had quickly unpacked her bag—she couldnotbelieve the size of the bedroom, or thebeditself that Mrs. Jessop-Kendall had insisted be hers!—and then had taken a walk to explore her new hometown.

  Kate found herself enchanted by the small community. It hadn’t taken her very long to get her bearings. There was a dry goods store, a five-and-dime, a grocery, and an apothecary. The town also boasted its own library and doctor’s office. The drugstore was complete with a soda counter, but otherwise there was no restaurant in town.

  She’d found the kitchen in the Convalescent Home stocked with a full larder and the most modern of refrigerators. She did love to cook, so eating certainly wasn’t going to be a problem.

  Walking back toward the very large Victorian on the quiet, tree-lined street, Kate let herself take in the beauty of the building, and the almost pastoral setting in which it had been built. The Home itself was nothing short of majestic. General Erickson had told her the town had built this house near the end of the last war, and then, when it had no longer been needed, had simply closed it.

  Kate could see no sign that the building had sat vacant, for it appeared freshly painted and well maintained.

  Even the gardens had been tended to, and she found herself wondering what sort of plants one would grow here in this climate so different from the one she was accustomed to.

  As she began to ascend the steps toward the porch, the sound of automobiles approaching caught her attention. She turned and watched as two fairly new-looking Fords pulled to the curb and came to a stop right in front of the house. The driver’s door on each vehicle opened and a woman emerged, one from each car. The lady who’d driven the lead car appeared to be a fair bit older than the other one. Both presented wide smiles as they approached.

  “You’d be Major Wesley.” The older woman didn’t appear the least bit shy in inspecting her. Kate didn’t sense there was anything unfriendly in the regard both ladies subjected her to, so she smiled in return.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m Major Katherine Wesley.”

  “General Erickson sent word that you were a most capable nurse and officer, Major. Welcome to Lusty. I’m Sarah Benedict, and this is my daughter-in-law, Madeline.”

  Kate accepted Sarah Benedict’s handshake. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Benedict.” She nodded to the older woman then turned her gaze on the younger—although this lady looked to be about the same age as her own mother. “And you, Mrs. Benedict.” Both women had confident handshakes. Kate felt a slight shiver of unease, but dismissed it immediately. Benedict was a common enough name, after all, and Texas was a very large state.

  Besides, if there weren’t such things as coincidences, there never would have been a word created to describe the circumstance.

  Kate pulled her attention back to the moment. “Won’t you both please come in? I’ll brew a pot of coffee for us, if you’d like.”

  Sarah Benedict smiled. “That would be lovely, Major, thank you.”

  Kate wasn’t certain where everything was in the kitchen, but her unexpected guests didn’t make her feel nervous or uncomfortable in the least about that fact. Neither did they get up to show her where everything could be found. They sat, graciously making small talk, and allowed her to be their hostess.

  She had a moment’s thought that her own mother could learn a thing or two about being a gracious lady from the Mesdames Benedict.

  I should feel guilty for such a thought.Perhaps she should, but her mother’s loud hue and cry when Kate had informed her parents that she was being sent to Texas still played heavily on her mind, and the implied insults still stung.

  Kate believed that her mother genuinely wanted her happiness. The only problem was that Mildred Wesley believed that a woman’s happiness could and shouldonlybe found in making a socially and financially advantageous marriage.

  To hear her mother tell the tale, Kate’s being sent from home, even if it was in the service of her country, meant she was already a fallen woman.

  “Are you homesick, Major?” the younger Mrs. Benedict asked. “Forgive me for asking, but you looked a little sad just now. It must be difficult to suddenly find yourself so far from home.”

  “Perhaps I am, a little.” There was just something about these women that set her completely at ease. She had the uncanny feeling that she could tell them anything, and they would not only welcome the confidence, but guard it well. Feeling heartsick for having parted from her mother with hard words between them, Kate decided to trust her instincts.

  “My mother wasn’t pleased that I had been given orders to come to Texas. She doesn’t, I’m afraid, hold a very high opinion of young ladies who pursue any agenda that doesn’t embrace matrimony and motherhood.”

  “These are trying times,” Madeline Benedict said. “Life is changing on us all so fast.” She sat back and sighed. “Two of my own sons are over in Europe right now. Letters from over there have been few and far between. It’s a difficult time to be a mother.” She paused and looked at her mother-in-law. “Or a grandmother.”

  “I’m an only child,” Kate confessed. “Which means that I am the sole receptacle of all of my mother’s hopes and dreams. I’m trying to understand her position. I’m really not a disobedient daughter, at h
eart. At least I don’t think I am. I’m not trying to dash all her best wishes for me. I just…Ineedto do my part right now.”

  “Of course you’re not a disobedient daughter.” Madeline Benedict patted her hand.

  “And I’m quite certain that you’re not trying to disappoint her. And aren’t we all, in this time of war, simply trying to do our part?” Sarah Benedict lowered her voice. “As to the question of disobedience, I can tell you firsthand, Major Wesley, being a disobedient daughter isn’t as horrible a thing as some might think.” Sarah Benedict nodded her head, and Kate believed her.

  The coffee was ready, so Kate turned the burner down under the pot and set about putting cream and sugar, cups and spoons, on the table. A cookie jar on the counter had been filled with fragrant cookies. The scent of vanilla that wafted up when she lifted the lid made her mouth water. She put several of the cookies on a plate and brought that to the table as well. Then she poured out three cups of the beverage, and sat in one of the empty chairs at the table.

  “I don’t imagine you’ve had much of a chance to inspect your new home,” Sarah said.

  “Not completely, no. I need to memorize where everything is, but I did make a quick tour after I unpacked. I thought I’d have a lot of preparation to do in order to begin to receive patients. But even the beds are made!”

  “We built this Home to house returning soldiers in 1918,” Sarah Benedict said. “And then when it was no longer needed, we closed it. When the decision was made recently to offer this building for the use of the army, I found it both a comfort and an upset that the planning and supplying of this haven for the wounded came naturally, and that the experiences of the past rose to the surface of my memory so easily.”

  “Now, we didn’t want you to think for one minute that we expected you to do everything yourself.” Madeline set her cup down. “You’re to be in charge, of course, of the running of the Home. Jeremiah—Doctor Parker—will be by later today to introduce himself to you. He’ll be on call, and will come around on a regular basis to see to the needs of the patients.”

  “As well, several of the ladies of the families will be coming by to volunteer.” Sarah nodded. “We’ll be drawing up a duty roster to ensure that you’ll have plenty of help. Many who won’t actually be coming in to take shifts assisting you with the many tasks of caring for the convalescing will take turns cooking dinners, so you need not trouble yourself with the evening meal each day.”

  Something Sarah Benedict had just said struck an odd chord with her. “The families?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Sarah Benedict tilted her head to the side.

  “I’m sorry. I was just curious. You said ‘several of the ladies of the families,’ not, ‘several of the ladies of the town.’” Kate felt her color rising, but pushed on. “I thought it an unusual turn of phrase, is all.”

  The two women exchanged looks. Sarah sighed. “I imagine there’s a great deal about Lusty that you’re going to find curious and unusual.” Sarah picked up her cup. “You see, this town was founded by me and my husbands, and Amanda—who met you at the train station earlier—and her husbands before the turn of the last century. Most everyone who lives in Lusty belongs to one of about four different families. We’re more or less, all of us, related.”

  Kate felt her mouth drop open. “Husbands. You saidhusbands…as in more than one. So…” That sense of something off that she’d felt early came back to her now, full force. “Not to be indelicate, or forward…you mean to say that you and Mrs. Jessop-Kendall were both of you divorced and remarried?” Kate knew she sounded hesitant, but she couldn’t really help it. She was getting a strange feeling, a very strange feeling indeed.

  Perhaps in that moment when Sarah Benedict met her gaze, the older woman understood a little bit of the turmoil that seemed to be roiling through her. Kate thought that was entirely possible, for that gracious lady’s expression softened. She reached out and patted Kate’s hand.

  “No, dear. I’m afraid that I meant husbands, as in I had two of them at the same time. They were brothers, twins actually, named Caleb and Joshua. We shared many happy years together. They’ve been gone not yet a full decade, and I miss them both terribly.”

  “You had two husbands—who were brothers—at the same time.”

  “Yes. It’s the Benedict way, you see.”

  Kate took a moment to sip from her cup, and then set it down. The cup clattered on the saucer, because her hand shook, just a little. “I met two young men—officers, both—named Benedict, not two weeks ago. They were really quite…forward. They, too, spoke of ‘the Benedict way.’”

  “My two eldest boys always were far too impatient for their own good,” Madeline Benedict said.

  Kate looked from one woman to the other. She wasn’t certain what she felt at the moment, but one thing she knew with absolute clarity. “I do believe that somebody owes me an explanation.”

  “Yes,” Sarah said. “I suppose that somebody does.”

  * * * *

  “Can’t you drive this car any faster?”

  His brother spared him a brief, very annoyed look, and then put his attention back on the road again. Patrick tried to hide his smile, but he knew he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. He also knew that Gerald was driving as fast as he ever would, stickler for the rules that he was.

  “No,” Gerald answered. “We’re going plenty fast enough.”

  Patrick chuckled at hearing words his fathers had both often said. Leaning back against the seat, he exhaled heavily. “That seemed to be an ungodly long two weeks.”

  “It did. I didn’t relish having to wash those two young men out of the program so soon, either.”

  No, his tough-as-nails brother wouldn’t be happy that he’d had to tell two would-be aviators that they just didn’t have what it took to fly in wartime. A man needed sharp instincts and even sharper reflexes if he wanted to avoid being smeared into the ground or shot all to hell.

  “There really was no help for it. Those two Oklahoma farm boys likely will make much better mechanics than they would flyers.” Patrick understood the magnetic pull of aviation. He and Gerald had both succumbed to the lure of the skies when they were little more than kids themselves. He supposed he had just never given it any thought before now, how lucky he was that he could do that which he loved.

  Perhaps loving something and being unable to fulfill that calling might be one definition of hell.

  “What do you think of the Valiant?”

  Patrick exhaled heavily and shook his head. “That bird they have us flying sure as hell isn’t a Hurricane.” An understatement if ever he’d made one. “I can certainly see how the Valiant earned its nickname, ‘the Vibrator.’” Patrick looked over at his brother. “I wasn’t very impressed with it, that’s for certain. About the only good thing I can say is that having trained in ‘the Vibrator’ will make the next plane our trainees handle seem like a smooth ride to them.”

  “There is that. I checked the maintenance records on the one I had up today. I just thought it coughed and sputtered a bit more than I liked, but it’s a little hard to tell with all the regular shaking going on.”

  “The records check out?”

  “Yes, those boys are vigilant about the service of those birds, and in keeping good records, too.”

  Patrick focused his attention on his older brother. “Something’s bothering you.”

  Gerald exhaled heavily. “Just a sense, really. When I had that plane up in the air today, I had an odd sense that something was just not right with it. But I couldn’t put my finger on what, exactly, gave me that impression.”

  There’d been a couple of times in the past when Gerald’s intuition had proven sound, so Patrick didn’t dismiss his brother’s “odd senses,” not one little bit.

  “Could you request the craft undergo a thorough check?”

  “Well, I did ask just such a question. In response, I was reminded of the base’s motto.”

  Patrick gri
nned. Goodfellow Field, named after World War I local hero John J. Goodfellow Jr., had a motto, as did most units of the United States Army. That motto was, “Ever Into Danger.” He nodded and said, “Next they’ll tell you that if these training conditions were good enough for Jimmy Doolittle and his men…” He didn’t complete the sentence.

  “I’m just going to shake it off. I hate when I get those sensations, though. Makes me want to watch my back every damn minute.”

  “I’d put it aside for now, brother. But I wouldn’t dismiss those feelings, not completely.” And since he did love his brother and considered him his best friend, Patrick determined to watch Gerald’s back a little more closely than he usually did.

  Silence ate up a few miles, and then Gerald sighed. “I’ll tell you what else I hate. That we had to report for duty just as Kate was coming to town,” Gerald said. “Of course, I know everyone would have made her feel welcome. But still, I just feel as if we should have been there for her.”

  Patrick grinned at his brother. “One thing we can count on the women in our family to do is to make newcomers feel welcome.” Having spent some time abroad over the last few years, and having a good look at how other people lived, Patrick’s pride in his family had been newly invigorated since coming home.

  “Do you suppose she’s figured things out yet?” Gerald asked. “That we more or less arranged for her to be there, for us?”

  “Unfortunately, that’s the other thing that we can count on the women in our family doing—banding together as sisters.” In fact, though he would likely never admit it to another man other than his brother, he was proud of them for that, too.

  Gerald looked at him for just a moment, his grin wide. “Good. I wouldn’t want her to feel overwhelmedandalone.”