Heather's Challenge [Cattleman's Club 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Jenny Penn

  “Morning, mom.” Without sparing her much more than a second’s glance, he brushed past her as he plodded toward the refrigerator. “What’s for breakfast?”

  “Uh…”

  “I tell you what, Taylor, why don’t we go out and get something?” Her father offered as he refolded the paper and dropped it onto the table.

  “Can we go to the Pancake Pyramid?” Taylor swung around eagerly, all but jumping for joy when his grandfather nodded. “Cool! I’ll go get dressed.”

  With that Taylor tore off down the hall, leaving Heather’s scowling at her father as he drained the last of his coffee from his cup before shoving back from the table.

  “You know that place is greasy,” Heather complained, unable to stop herself.

  “I know, but I just saved your bacon,” her dad retorted. “So a thank you would be in order…and so would a shower.”

  “Yes, dad,” Heather agreed, knowing better than to argue with him. That didn’t mean she resisted antagonizing him just a little. “You know, next time I’ll just call ahead and you can take him out to breakfast and buy me some extra time.”

  Her father snorted at that as he dropped his cup into the sink. “You know there wouldn’t be a next time if you would just go ahead and marry those two boys already.”

  Heather’s jaw about hit the floor, but there was no time to respond to her dad’s comment before Taylor reappeared dressed in clothes that clearly deserved to be in the hamper. Not that she had any room to make a comment. Not that morning.

  Keeping her mouth closed, Heather counted herself lucky enough that Taylor hadn’t noticed the condition of her own outfit. If he did, he made no comment of it as he raced out the back door with his granddad following at a much slower pace. Finally, though, Heather was alone and more than ready for the shower her father had mentioned.

  Heather took her time, not in any hurry to rush off to the bakery that morning. Tina could handle things. Apparently she’d have to, because by the time Heather as done getting, Konor and Alex had arrived to whisk her off for a surprise that Heather just naturally assumed would be a proposal if not, at least, breakfast.

  So she couldn’t be faulted for her surprise when instead of heading off to any restaurant they pulled in under and old and warn sign welcoming guest to Magnolia Bluff Plantation.

  The drive was pitted and overgrown with weeds and led to a house that appeared to be in even worse condition. Three stories high with a wraparound porch and windows large enough to walk through, it had clearly once been a magnificent home but had fallen into ruin. Now the paint was chipped, the windows smashed, and chunks of the porch’s railings had been lost to time.

  That was, no doubt, just the beginning. Heather wasn’t even sure she wanted to imagine what the inside was like, though it turned out to be in much better condition than she suspected. She got the full tour and not from Konor or Alex. Taylor was the one skipping around and all but jumping up and down as he led her through room after room with an excitement that assured Heather that the situation was serious.

  Then again, she’d known that when she’d arrived to find her father’s pickup truck parked in front of the house. They were clearly up to something, and given Taylor’s hard sales pitch, Heather could easily guess as to what.

  Taylor was in love and the source of his affection was on the top floor at the very end of the hall. That’s where a piece of paper had been stuck to one of the old, wooden doors, the sloppy handwriting all too familiar.

  “This is going to be my room,” Taylor declared as he threw open the door with a grand gesture that normally would have amused Heather. Not right then. Right then, she had a different pressing concern.

  “Is anybody else hot?” Heather asked weekly as she fanned herself with her hand.

  “And look, Mom, there is another room right through this door,” Taylor pointed out excitedly, completely ignoring her question. “Konor says they’re going to turn it into my very own closet and bathroom. It’s going to be like I have a wing.”

  “There is no AC in this house…is there?” Heather came to that horrifying realization as she glanced around the room. They’d gone through nearly the whole house now and she’d yet to see any signs of a single vent cut into either the floors or the ceilings.

  “I can have a TV over the fireplace and a little fridge over there and a futon… my room will be rockin’!”

  “You do know that heat rises, right?”

  “And you can see out this window where were going to build the gym and parkour course.” Taylor pointed out through a shattered glass plane toward the enormous back yard.

  “Even if we did put in air conditioning, it would be a fortune to cool a house this size.” Heather commented as she glanced around the room. “That is, if this house can even be insulated enough to keep the cool air in.”

  “Do you know we could put a zip line from this window all the way down to the gym!” Taylor spun around looking half ready to jump out the window right then as that idea clearly popped into his head. “And how cool would that be?”

  “And just how much is that going to cost?”

  A gym, a commercial kitchen, a cabin for her father and a workshop for his tools, not to mention a total restoration of the old and clearly dilapidated main house and—Heather had been silently counting up the bill as Taylor babbled happily on. Now he wanted to add a zip line?

  “There is no way.” Heather shook her head responding to her own thoughts, though her words came out sounding different to the men around her.

  Konor and Alex had trailed behind her and Taylor along with her father as they took the full house tour. They’d remained a silent shadow that until that moment hadn’t responded to a single one of the questions Heather had aimed at them. That is until right then.

  “Now hold on a second, honey.” Stepping up to side with Taylor, her father was quick to point out that the house was solid.

  The exterior wasn’t rotted and the foundation wasn’t cracked. The floors would shine with a little work and the plaster just needed a new coat smoothed over it to freshen up the walls. Konor, thanks to his connections through the fire department where apparently almost every fireman worked a second job in construction, had enough buddies that would help out to have the whole house rewired with the plumbing brought up to code. Most importantly they could install air conditioning and foam-fill the exterior walls, all for the cost of materials alone.

  “And you could pick out everything…even reconfigure the layout.” Alex tried to tempt her with that idea as he joined the argument.

  Suddenly Heather found herself surrounded by three hopeful male smiles and one puppy-eyed boy and couldn’t help but be touched by their united stance. All four were obviously in love with the house and their dreams of it. Still, Heather couldn’t help but worry over the cost.

  “It just isn’t…very practical.”

  “Well, honey, that’s sort of the point,” her father informed her with a gentle smile before nodding toward Taylor and reaching a hand out for him. “Come on, squirt, let’s let your mother and the guys talk everything over.”

  “But—”

  “Come on,” her father insisted, cutting Taylor off as he dropped a hand onto the boy’s shoulder and started shoving him toward the door. “You can show me again where you want your tree cave to be and we can start working on some designs. Got to get it just right, you know?”

  Her father’s voice faded away as he corralled Taylor out the door and back down the hall, but not before her son shot her a pointed look that Heather could read quite clearly. He didn’t want her to screw this up. He was excited…and he should have been.

  The room Taylor chosen was nearly three times the size as the one he had stuffed full of clutter back at her dad’s house. Add on a private bath, a walk-in closet and a view of nothing but the stars and forest not to mention the fireplace and what kid wouldn’t love to have a room like that?

  The only problem was not many parents could
afford to give their child that kind of luxury. A child with three parents, though, might be able to live the dream. Heather studied the two men watching her with open trepidation and knew that they expected an argument out of her just as she knew she should probably give them one.

  There was nothing practical about the house or their dreams, but as her father had pointed out, that was kind of the point of dreams. They weren’t supposed to be practical. They were supposed to be fantastical. That seemed to be Konor and Alex’s specialty.

  They didn’t see limitations. They simply saw challenges and thrilled at overcoming them. More than that, they inspired her to try, too. That was a gift that Heather would thank them for one day, but not today.

  Today she had a point to make.

  “I really would appreciate it if you two wouldn’t get my son all excited about possibilities you know I can’t afford.” Heather pulled herself up haughtily as she managed to look down her nose while glaring up at them. “It’s cruel.”

  Heather expected either instant denials or explanations, but wasn’t naïve enough to expect an outright apology. She’d nevertheless anticipated an appropriately apologetic tone. What she got was a heavy pause of silence as Alex and Konor exchanged a look before Alex turned back toward her to answer for the both of them with a tone far too sharp to contain even a hint of remorse.

  “And we’d really appreciate it if you’d stop thinking in terms of ‘I’ and started thinking in terms of ‘us’ because we can afford this.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Heather scoffed, shocked that they were even daring to argue with her. “That has nothing to do with my point.”

  “Which is?” Konor pressed.

  “My point is that from now on you should talk to me first, particularly about big decisions, and stop using my son…” Heather hesitated before pointedly correcting herself. “Our son as leverage.”

  That seemed to catch both Konor and Alex off guard and required another silent exchange between the two that ended with Alex nodding at whatever unsaid agreement they reached, leaving Konor to turn back and address her.

  “That’s wasn’t our intention,” Konor assured her. “We just wanted to make sure Taylor liked it because we know how important his opinion is to you.”

  Heather could accept that as long as it didn’t happen again. She made that clear with a simple explanation. “The most important opinion to me is mine.”

  “Of course,” Alex agreed without a hint of hesitation and enough sincerity to soothe Heather’s concerns.

  “But that does bring up the question…just what do you think?” Konor asked, appearing to brace himself for her answer.

  “Well,” Heather sighed as she gave the large room another glance. There were six more just like it on this floor and seven more on the one below and not a single light fixture in any one, let alone outlets.

  “It’s not exactly practical.”

  “What do you mean?” Alex scowled. “Of course it’s practical. “Just think about it. There are fourteen bedrooms in this house…one for every kid.”

  “What?” Heather gaped up at him, her heart seizing with panic as she began to realize that Alex was crazier than she’d ever imagined, but this time his insanity was far from contagious. “I am not having fourteen kids.”

  “Well, of course not.” Alex snickered as he broke into a wide grin. “That would be insane.”

  “But still we need the space,” Konor insisted, glancing over at Alex as if taking the argument to him. “I mean, first off, we’ve got to put in bathrooms.”

  “And closets.”

  “A play room, of course.”

  “And a media room for us,” Alex added on, checking off another finger as he kept track of the number of rooms. “Not to mention a study, so the kids have a quiet place to do their homework.”

  “And a quiet place to work on making the kids,” Konor reminded him with a pointed grin in Heather’s direction.

  “A master suite.” Alex nodded along without even bothering to glance up. “We’ll need at least two closets and a bathroom.”

  “Make that three closets and a sitting area.”

  “A sitting area?” Alex reeled back in shocked sounding offense. “What the hell do you do with a sitting area?”

  “Sit.”

  “Okay, then.” Alex rolled his eyes and checked off another finger. He stared down long and hard at his hands, appearing to calculate things in his head before he finally glanced back up and issued his ruling.

  “I think we can get seven kids’ rooms. With Taylor taking one that leaves six, which is three apiece. That sound good to you?”

  “I don’t really care about the number.” Konor shrugged. “I just want to make sure they’re all boys.”

  “Oh God, yes!” Alex whispered as he finally cast a glance in her direction. “No. Girls. Got that?”

  Heather smiled, aware of just what they were trying to do but not about to be so easily distracted. “What I got is that you really like this place. Taylor really likes this place, and I still have no idea of what the plans are or how much they are going to cost.”

  Heather paused as she caught sight of Taylor racing around the backyard excitedly. He was happier than she’d ever seen him. That mattered. That mattered a lot. He still wasn’t getting a zip line.

  “Just think about it, Heather,” Konor coaxed as he pressed in closer. “We’ve got the connections and skills to do the work.”

  “And you’ve got the vision.” Alex smiled down at her as his tone dipped seductively. “We know you do.”

  “Is that right?” Heather knew when she was being buttered up but had to admit Alex was better at it than her son.

  “Anything you want. Any way you want,” Alex pledged, placing his hand over his heart. “All you got to do is say yes.”

  Heather considered that for a moment before finally giving into her curiosity and asking the question that had been bugging her the most. “What exactly is a tree cave?”

  “It’s like a man cave…but for kids and in a tree.”

  “Oh…you just renamed a tree fort—”

  “—so that it sounded cooler? Yeah.” Konor shrugged as if that were nothing, but it wasn’t so little to her.

  It went to prove just how thoughtful they were about Taylor’s feelings. They would have been there for him even if Heather had rejected them. Of that, she was certain. Not that she had any intention of rejecting them.

  With Taylor’s laughter floating through the broken window and her heart racing, Heather took a deep breath, preparing to dare to give into her dreams and reach for the visions of a big family swaddled in love and blossoming with joy.

  She knew life would probably not be that easy, but it would be worth it. With that in mind, she shouldered her way between Alex and Konor to step up to the window and glance down at the creek cutting a path between the magnolia trees.

  “I think I might see a spot where the grass is growing thick and soft, and I’m sure the frogs and crickets would be glad to serenade us.” She cast a smile back over her shoulder looking from Konor to Alex. “That is if you were thinking of planning a romantic proposal beneath a whole universe full of constellations.”

  It seemed to take a moment for her words to register, but when they did both men had opposite reactions. Konor broke into a wide grin even as the scowl returned to Alex’s brow.

  “Really?” He sighed, looking completely dejected. “You want a whole romantic…who-ha? I can’t just give you the ring?”

  “I’m not saying ‘yes’ until I’m impressed,” Heather swore.

  “Fine,” Alex caved with ill grace. “But we’re honeymooning at the club.”

  “Fine.” Heather agreed, certain now that all her dreams really were going to come true.

  THE END

  WWW.JENNYPENN.COM

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  I live near Charleston, SC with my two biggies (my dogs). I have had a slightly unconventional life. Moving almost ev
ery three years, I’ve had a range of day jobs that included everything from working for one of the world’s largest banks as an auditor to turning wrenches as an outboard repair mechanic. I’ve always regretted that we only get one life and have tried to cram as much as I can into this one.

  Throughout it all, I’ve always read books, feeding my need to dream and fantasize about what could be. An avid reader since childhood, as a latchkey kid I’d spend hours at the library earning those shiny stars the librarian would paste up on the board after my name.

  I credit my grandmother’s yearly visits as the beginning of my obsession with romances. When she’d come, she’d bring stacks of romance books, the old-fashion kind that didn’t have sex in them. Imagine my shock when I went to the used bookstore and found out what really could be in a romance novel.

  I’ve been working on my own stories for years and have found a particular love of erotic romances. In this genre, women are no longer confined to a stereotype and plots are no longer constrained to the rational. I love the anything-goes mentality and letting my imagination run wild.

  I hope you enjoyed running with me and will consider picking up another book and coming along for another adventure.

  For all titles by Jenny Penn, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/jenny-penn

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com