* * * *
Regan could hardly eat the wedding dinner she’d prepared, excitement filled her so. Tonight, she and Seth and Hay would share the big bed the men built during the week, making their wedding night the true start of their new life together.
The day after the rain, Seth and Hay had gone into town, deciding it was time for the townspeople to get used to seeing them together. According to Hay, no one had paid them any mind while they picked up supplies for planting, lumber for the bed, and established an account at the bank.
According to Seth, Mr. Barker, the owner of the hardware store who had first sent Hay and Seth to the farm, saw them in the bank and paid particular attention. Hay had chided Seth that he was just looking for trouble. Regan saw in Seth’s eyes that Barker’s interest worried him, but as they worked together on the bed, those troubles seemed to disappear.
Hay had designed the bed himself. Following his sketches, the two dovetailed the sideboards and fit the head- and footboards. Then they set about carving, twining a vine through a tree. In opposite branches sat two hawks, looking fiercely protective of the heart nestled in the branches between them. Regan didn’t need the men to explain the symbolism. She watched them lovingly rub linseed oil into the wood until it gleamed, and then string and tighten the ropes that formed the support for the feather-tick mattress, while she sewed her sheets together to make a cover large enough. This winter she would create the bed’s quilt, building on the story Seth and Hay carved into the headboard. She loved these men so much!
Yes, she had defied every stricture of society she had ever known. But she had become the one wife of the two finest men she’d ever met, and as sure as Mary, Joseph, and all the saints resided in heaven, she couldn’t find it in herself to regret it.
“You hardly touched a bite,” Seth said, coming up behind her.
She turned into his embrace and smiled. “Too nervous.”
“That’s funny,” he said wryly, “you didn’t seem too nervous when you declared you were taking two husbands in the ceremony.” He shook his head as if in despair. “I swear, woman. We should have taken the word obey out of the vows, for you truly have a mind of your own.”
“Yes I do, Mr. Pratt. But from now on I will be singularly minded only when it comes to the welfare of my men.”
His grin made her smile even wider. “Now I like the sound of that.” He leaned closer. “Are you nervous about tonight?”
“No. Just excited.”
He dropped a kiss on her lips and then stepped back. “We are, too.” Glancing around, he asked, “Is there anythin’ I can do to help in here?”
“No, I’m fine. And Amy will come in if I need her.” She ran her hands down his chest, enjoying the shudder she brought forth. “There is one thing the three of us need to discuss, Seth.”
With a wary look in his eyes he nodded. “Go on.”
She peeked over his shoulder toward the door. “It’s about Amy and Mark, the minister.” She waited for him to say something, but he waited for her. “They’re newly married.”
He nodded.
“They were on the road last night and haven’t even had a wedding night, and just think of the lovely night we have planned.”
Seth tilted his head, studying her. Honestly, the man could be as obstinate as a mule sometimes. Couldn’t he say something to help her get this out?
“Seth, she worked in that…place. He’s a preacher without a church. They’re misfits in society, well, rather as we are, and they have no place to go.”
He huffed out a breath and folded his right arm across his chest, cupping the elbow of his left. “Regan, if you’re suggesting they live here, should I remind you that we entered into this marriage because we were far away from others?”
“But they aren’t like the townspeople. They know about us, and they don’t mind.” She rushed on while she had the words. “And Mark knows about farming. The three of you could work together, and I’d have a woman’s company, as well as help in the garden. And think of the children, Seth. We have the land, we have the space, and…and they have nothing.”
He stared, giving no hint of his thoughts. Then he sighed. “Everyone should have a wedding night,” he said. “I’ll talk with Hay, and I’m sure he will agree, probably with some god-awful quotation. But as far as their staying, Regan, that we do have to talk about. I reckon tonight.”
She threw her arms around his neck. “I knew you’d agree, Seth. You’re the softest-hearted man I know.”
“What?”
“All strength and fierceness on the outside and hard as a feather pillow on the inside. Oh, I do love you so!”
“I love you, too. Now, much as I’d like to stay like this all day, better let me get back outside and see the lay of the land with the preacher and his missus.”
“You’re right, of course.” She released his neck, but not before kissing him again. He winked and then turned to leave. When Amy came in a few minutes later to help with the dishes, her smile told Regan all she needed to know.
Chapter Thirteen
Hay didn’t know who suggested the swim, but with the heat of midday upon them, it seemed like a damn fine idea. He, Seth, and Mark had gone out to the bunkhouse and strapped the two bunks together to form a decent-sized bed. He didn’t know how he felt about Regan’s idea that they allow the two to stay on the farm. Truthfully, he didn’t know how he felt about sharing their time with Regan, about having others invading their space and their time. He felt sorry for Mark and Amy, but though they seemed gentle souls and very much in love—one had only to see the way they looked so tenderly at each other—were they really his and Seth and Regan’s responsibility?
He heaved a sigh. For today and tonight they were, it seemed. He tried to put that from his mind as he helped Regan down the sloped path to the pool where she used to fill buckets of water to haul up to the house. Pride filled him that he and Seth had already made her life easier.
Mark and Amy wandered away, toward the back of the pool, leaving privacy for the three of them to strip to their underwear and wade into the water.
Hay sank to his neck, the low temperature of the water immediately cooling and refreshing.
Regan swam up beside him. “Oh my, it’s freezing.”
“Feels good.” Fire rose inside as he took in her appearance, her nipples taut and pebbled with cold, the dark areolae showing clearly through her thin chemise. “Looks good, too.”
She smiled seductively. “You’re a lustful man, Haywood Lawrence.”
“You make me that way, Regan Pratt.”
She gave his arm a playful tap. “It’s not intentional, sir.”
“I agree. You have a natural talent for driving Seth and me crazy.” Even underwater in temperature that couldn’t be more than sixty degrees, his cock rose.
She looked around. “Where is Seth?”
Hay twisted around and then pointed about a hundred yards toward the river. “Over there. The man can swim like a fish.”
She wrinkled her brow. “But how, with only one hand?”
Hay shrugged. “He uses his legs and feet.”
“How did so much talent and goodness and intelligence end up in one man?”
“I don’t know, but for God’s sake don’t tell him that. His head is swelled enough as is.”
She laughed. “There’s no one less full of himself, and you know it. The way you two go at each other you remind me of—”
“Manly opponents in a sparring match?”
Seth surged up beside Hay. “What are you talkin’ about?”
“Regan thinks the way we act toward each other reminds her of something.”
“What, Regan?”
“An old married couple.”
“What? Regan!” Hay sputtered.
Seth laughed. “Well, Francis, we know who’s the wife and who’s the manly one in this couple.”
“Watch it, you damn bastard,” Hay said and then laughed, too.
“See what
I mean? You speak horribly to each other, and yet there’s never any heat.”
Seth moved to her side. “Tell the truth, who’s the manly one?”
“Let’s just see, shall we?” She wrapped her arms around Seth’s neck and kissed him with a heat Hay could feel a couple of feet away.
Seth pulled her against him with his arm around her shoulders. With a quick jump, she wrapped her legs around his waist. Without seeing it, Hay knew that, using Regan’s buoyancy to his advantage, Seth had pushed up her chemise and pulled down his drawers. He didn’t miss a beat spearing her and driving his pecker home. Her moan of sheer pleasure gave away her feelings.
Then she broke off the kiss and bent backward, toward him. “Your turn, Hay. Are you manlier than Seth?”
Hay swept his glance to the water’s surface. “Not at the moment.”
Her giggle was cut short by something Seth did with his hips. “Oh, oh, oh!” Looking dazed, she blinked as though she wondered what had just happened.
“Lean back,” Seth said. She did, floating with eyes closed. Hay could almost see when Seth’s rod met her sweet cunt, could almost feel his own shaft penetrate her.
He stepped forward to slide one arm under her neck for support while he suckled her through her chemise. She ruffled his hair and then cried out. One look at Seth and Hay knew that he’d come, too. The grimace that showed in his expression—half pain, half ecstasy—said it all.
“What the hell is going on here?”
As if of one mind, Seth pushed Regan toward Hay who shoved her behind him. The two spun toward the shore. Hiram Barker stood there, leering.
“What the hell do you want?” demanded Seth.
Barker ignored him. “Fascinating what a man can discover when he gets out of town now and then.”
“I said, what the hell do you want?”
Barker ogled Regan, who sank to her neck in the water behind Hay. “I’ll take a bit of that, I think, since she don’t mind sharing.”
While Barker had his focus on him and Regan, Hay sensed Seth dip beneath the water. He stepped closer to Regan. “You’d be advised to leave while you still can, friend.”
“Who’s going to make me, that crippled friend of yours?” Barker glanced around. “Say, where’d he go, anyway?”
“Right behind you,” Seth said in a low, menacing voice. His pistol’s hammer being drawn back could be heard in the dead silence that followed his announcement.
Barker chuckled nervously. “Don’t get me wrong, Mister. I thought Mrs. Stone was living out here with a man and his wife. You can’t blame me for getting the wrong idea when I see two men going at her like bulls on a cow.”
“What’s going on here?” Mark swam through the pond, Amy following at a little distance, looking wary.
“Who are you?” Barker demanded, seeming to forget Seth held a pistol on him. Hay sighed. They’d be lucky not to end up with a dead body on their hands. The man was purely ignorant, and Seth was not always the most patient of men. Especially when a stranger threatened someone or something he cared about.
“This is Reverend Mark and his wife. They work here.” Seth shot a look at Hay. Hay nodded slightly. So the decision of whether they had farm help had been made, more or less, by the cock of a pistol.
“And the reverend there just married us, so you’ll address my wife as Mrs. Pratt from now on, and you’ll do so with respect, if you know what’s good for you.”
Barker spit into the dirt. “I’ve never known any wife to act the way I just saw.”
Seth struck him with the butt of the gun, dropping the man to his knees. Hay started forward, but Seth waved him back.
“You must not a been listenin’. I said you will address her with respect. And if any of this is mentioned in town, you will pay. Do we have an understandin’?”
“Everyone will know soon enough, even if I don’t say anything. A whore in our town won’t be tolerated.”
Amy gasped. Regan started to step forward. Hay stopped her just as Seth brought the butt of the gun down again. This time a trickle of blood struck a scarlet streak onto Barker’s pale face.
“We’ll let the townsfolk know in our own good time.” Seth jabbed Barker’s hip with his foot, nearly pushing him into the water. “Now get up and get out. You weren’t invited to our weddin’ celebration.” He smiled, but Hay knew it for the sneer it truly was. “Maybe soon Mrs. Pratt will invite Mrs. Barker out for tea.”
“My wife would never sit at the same table as a—”
Seth shot into the ground beside Barker’s head. Dirt, grass, and pebbles flew up. The interloper cried out and scraped his face with his palm.
“Goddamn it, Haywood,” Seth said. “Have you been messin’ with my Colt again? The aim is off.” He looked down, all hint of amusement gone. “Got the message now?”
Barker nodded briskly. He scrambled to his feet and nearly ran toward the path to the cabin.
Seth watched until he was out of sight then dropped his arm to his side, the Colt dangling.
“Damn it all, Seth,” Hay said, breaking the silence. “You brought your gun?”
“Never know when you’ll see some nasty varmint that needs killin’.”
Hay shook his head. “Texans.” He turned to take Regan in his arms. She shivered almost uncontrollably. He took her up and carried her to the shore where the sun warmed the grass. Mark and Amy followed, Mark in his underdrawers and Amy in her chemise. Mark strode back to get their clothing. In the meantime, Seth handed her his shirt to use as a cover and then came to Regan’s side.
“Would you have killed him?” Regan asked through chattering teeth.
“No, darlin’, not for spreading tales about us, and not even for what he said about you, though I wanted to. But if he tries to harm you—if anyone tries to harm you—they’d better be ready to meet their maker.”
“That goes for both of us,” Hay added. “You’re ours and we’re yours, in every way.”
Mark and Amy joined them. “Thanks for saying we worked here. At least the people in town won’t be asking where we’re from when we go through.”
Hay raised his brows in surprise. “You don’t want to stay on and work?”
Amy looked ready to cry. “I’d love to, but I didn’t think…You heard what that man said.” She hung her head. “None of us will be accepted.”
Regan smiled. “Don’t underestimate our men,” she said. “Love can change a lot of things.”
* * * *
After the altercation, Seth was unsettled. He sat in the sun until dry, speaking little. Hay and Regan went back in the water. He watched them play a little and love a bit more. Mark and Amy disappeared again. Perhaps having them around wouldn’t be too bad after all. They seemed to want to keep to themselves all right, and that suited him just fine. Impulse had led him to tell Barker that they worked at the farm, a way to confuse the damn interloper and give them a mite of cover. That Hay agreed bolstered his opinion.
It was his earlier violence that had him introspective. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d drawn his gun on a man, a man he could have killed easily and felt nothing but satisfaction. That Regan had witnessed it made him all the sorrier. Most women didn’t appreciate violence, even when it protected them. Did she think less of him after seeing how low he could stoop?
A shadow fell over him, and he looked up. Regan’s face couldn’t be seen, surrounded as it was by a halo of sunlight, but the water rendered her chemise as good as transparent. With no trouble he saw the tips of her nipples surrounded by dark aereolae and the thick, dark thatch of hair between her thighs.
“Hay has gone to let Mark know that we’re going up to the house to take a nap.”
“We are?”
“I’m sleepy from the exercise and heat.” She ran her hand from her neck, across her luscious breast, and to the point where her thighs met. “I’m especially hot.”
Seth’s cock rose in an instant, hot, thick, and long. “Now that you mention it, I’m
feeling a kind of heat, too.”
“I’m ready to try out our new bed.”
He was more than ready, just as always when she was near. “Regan, I need to ask. Are you upset with what I did to Barker? Did it disgust you?”
Hay came up behind her and wrapped his arms about her waist, watching Seth over her shoulder.
“Nothing you do could ever disgust me, Seth. Don’t you know that by now? You were protecting me, and not just me but Mark and Amy, innocents in all this. I thought you were wonderful.”
A load lifted from his shoulders. He pushed himself up. Cupping her cheek, he said, “I’m so glad we found you.”
With a seductive smile she said, “I aim to make sure you still feel that way after our nap.” She broke away from Hay’s arms and sauntered away, hips swinging.
“And she thinks we’re going to nap?” Hay said in a low voice.
“Not a chance in hell,” Seth replied, and they scooped their clothes off the ground and followed.
Chapter Fourteen
Shadows had lengthened when they struggled out of bed, more hungry for dinner than each other. While she prepared a feast of the roast, sliced and stacked between thick slices of bread, the men banned her from the bedroom where they cleaned up for the night ahead of them. After eating, Seth and Hay sat on the steps smoking, much as they had been when she first proposed their arrangement little more than a week ago. How could life have changed so much in so little time?
The nap had been grand, but now Regan was anxious to get to the wedding night.
The sun had sunk low on the horizon when she strolled out onto the porch. “Would you gentlemen care to take this basket of food down to the bunkhouse? We aren’t the only ones celebrating a wedding night.”
“Gladly,” Hay said, taking the basket.
“Will that give you enough time to get ready for bed?” Seth asked.
She handed him a pitcher of cool water to accompany the food. “Let me put it this way—hurry back!”
A slow smile spread across Hay’s face. Seth’s eyes twinkled. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Regan [The Sisters O'Ryan 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 12
