by Becca Van
“So why didn’t you?” Gypsy asked as she wiped the tears from her face.
“We both knew you’d come home when you were ready. You needed time to be on your own to decide what you wanted out of life. I understood that, pumpkin, and I’m sorry I tried to force you to go to college.”
“Don’t apologize, Dad. You were right, you know. I took night classes and studied hard. I was able to get my degree last year.”
Rick squeezed her hand. “I’m so proud of you, pumpkin.”
“Thanks, Dad, and I’m sorry for the way I left.”
“I don’t want to hear any more about it. As far as I’m concerned that’s water under the bridge. So how long before you can bring all your stuff back home?”
“Umm, I’ve got nearly everything I need with me. I only ever left a couple of changes of clothes in my bedroom. I’ve always got my laptop in my truck and of course my tools are in the lockable tool box in the tub. I’ll e-mail one of the girls I was sharing with and let them know they can re-lease my room.”
“Do you still have your house keys, pumpkin?”
“Of course I do, Dad.”
“Good. Now let me fill you in on what’s what with the business. I had three new guys start last week. They are great workers and I don’t have to watch over them at all. The Chadwick brothers are good and know what they’re about, so you won’t have to worry about them. Two new men are starting tomorrow. You don’t have to worry about checking references or such. I’ve been there and done that and I’ve already gone through the interview process. The two Ringer brothers will be onsite at 6:30 a.m.” He paused to take a breath. “There are only two of the old crew left.”
“How come?”
“With the economic downturn and people being wary and not buying, we got real quiet there for a while. I had to let a couple of people go, pumpkin. But some of the older guys were ready to retire and opted out by themselves.”
“So who’s left?”
“Jimmy and Dale from the old crew and I have two guys who’ve been working with us for the last two years, Joe and Guy Wrench. They seem all right but they keep to themselves mostly, but you need to watch those two to make sure they don’t cut any corners.”
“Okay,” Gypsy said.
A nurse came into the room and smiled at her father before quickly looking away. Gypsy glanced at her dad and back to the nurse and saw that she was blushing.
“Gypsy, this pretty lady is Jeanie. Jeanie, this is my daughter Gypsy.”
Jeanie came over and shook her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, honey. Your dad talks about you nonstop.”
“Nice to meet you, too.” Gypsy liked Jeanie and watched as she flitted about the room checking her dad’s blood pressure and after asking about his pain level she patted him on the hand and hurried back out. When she turned back to her dad and saw the gleam in his eye she realized he was attracted to the nurse but was trying to hide it. And from the way Jeanie had been blushing the attraction was mutual. It would be great if her father found a woman he could fall in love with again. All the time she’d been growing up he hadn’t brought any women home and, as far as she knew, hadn’t even dated. Hopefully a romance was blooming between the two of them. Her father deserved to find happiness again.
Gypsy was pulled from her introspection when her dad started talking again.
The next two hours flew by and when she glanced at her watch she saw that it was almost six o’clock. Just as she rose to her feet the door to her dad’s room opened.
Her heart stuttered in her chest when she looked at the three tall, handsome men.
She gulped as she took in their attractive features and brawny statures and felt her body respond to their good-looking visages. She’d never been so instantly attracted to one man before, let alone three, and since she’d been working and studying so hard her dating experience was minimal to nonexistent.
Her father was as tough as they came, with a muscled body from hard work, and whenever she’d brought a boy home from school or anyone of the opposite sex, her dad had always ended up giving them the third degree, so she’d stopped dating altogether. After one date and interrogation from her dad, none of them had wanted to come back. But she didn’t begrudge her dad his right to protect and look out for her and she figured the guys she had gone out with didn’t have any back bone and weren’t worth her time after all. She didn’t want to date anyone without a back bone and since none of those boys had measured up to her father, she decided not to waste her time.
“Rick, how are you feeling?” the tallest of three men asked.
“I’m okay.” Her dad turned to her. “This is my daughter, Gypsy. Gypsy, this is Leo, Perry, and Ivan Chadwick. They started working with me last week.”
Leo looked to be the eldest of the three brothers and he stepped forward as he perused her body up and down, reaching out a hand. Gypsy clasped his hand and shook it and barely contained her gasp of surprise as his large hand engulfed hers. Tingles of awareness travelled up her arm, causing her areolae to pucker and her nipples to form into hard, aching buds.
“Pleased to meet you, Gypsy.”
“Same here,” she replied and hoped that he didn’t hear the slight breathlessness to her voice. She quickly pulled her hand from his and then took Perry’s hand when he held his out to shake, and then Ivan’s. Each time she shook hands she had the same reaction to each man and she wasn’t sure what to make of it. She wasn’t sure she liked being attracted to men she was supposed to be working with. The last thing she needed was for some of the other men seeing her look at these three hunky Adonises and giving her grief about it. But she hadn’t ever let a man get to her before and she wasn’t about to start now. She was a strong, independent woman and knew how to keep men at an arm’s length. She’d been doing it for the last five years and didn’t think she’d have any trouble continuing to do so now. At least she hoped she wouldn’t.
Rick turned to the Chadwick brothers. “Gypsy is going to be taking over while I’m laid up. You don’t have to worry about anything. She grew up on a construction site and knows everything there is to know about the business.”
“We’ll look forward to it,” Leo said.
Gypsy could barely take her eyes off of him and his brothers. They were so handsome and buff and her body was lighting up from the inside. They all had dark hair, from nearly black to dark brown. Leo kept his black hair cropped short. Perry’s dark-brown strands were a little longer than collar length, and Ivan’s hair looked like it would reach his shoulders if it hadn’t been tied back behind his neck. Each of them had various shades of green eyes and she found herself literally mesmerized as she looked from one set of orbs to the other.
Her heart was racing inside her chest and no matter how hard she tried to control her breathing, she didn’t stand a chance. But she kept her breaths shallow and hoped they didn’t see or know how she was reacting to them. The three men were all over six feet tall and she felt small and feminine, even though she wasn’t standing next to them. Being in the line of work she had chosen, she’d never felt that way before and she liked it, a lot.
They were wearing jeans and T-shirts, and each time they moved her heart went into more palpitations as the muscles beneath the cotton rippled and undulated. Their shirts weren’t overly tight but when they moved their arms she couldn’t help but watch the way their biceps bulged and stretched the edges of the stretchy cotton sleeves. And they all had tattoos peeking out from beneath their shirts. From what she could see the art looked almost tribal. She began to wonder if they had Native American blood running through their veins and that thought turned her on more. She could just picture them riding their horses bareback with arrows and spears in their hands as they hunted their prey.
Gypsy was glad that Perry was now talking to her father since she couldn’t pull herself from the sexual trance she seemed to be in. If they knew how she was panting after their hot bods, she would be so embarrassed. She licked suddenly dry lips and
shifted restlessly on her feet. When Ivan turned and met her gaze and he smiled at her, her breath caught in her throat. His teeth looked so white against the tanned skin of his face. Her stomach fluttered and she felt like a thousand butterflies were trying to escape from her insides and it took her a couple of moments to realize that what she was feeling was full-blown desire.
She had to get out of there before she made a real fool of herself, like drooling. She had never reacted this way before and wasn’t sure she liked how her body was behaving and taking over her mind. She’d spent the last five years cutting men down with her tongue and fighting to remain a professional in a man’s world.
How the hell was she going to continue doing the same when she was lusting after three men?
Chapter Two
Leo had noticed the petite brunette as soon as he’d entered Rick’s hospital room. It had taken all of his control to keep his eyes on his boss and ask how he was feeling and not stand there ogling her. When Rick had introduced her he had felt like a real douchebag for lusting after the man’s daughter.
She was so little compared to his six-foot-three height and had a gorgeous, slim body, but she barely looked to be twenty years old and he felt bad for lusting after someone so young. When Rick told him and his brothers that she would be running the business while he was out of action, he looked a little closer. Yes, she was petite and young looking, but she had to be older than she looked. Rick would never let someone who didn’t know what they were doing take over the business.
He glanced at his brothers and saw that they were also having a hard time keeping their eyes off of her and he once more looked back into her beautiful blue eyes. She was so damned stunning he found himself looking at her again and again, and he was having a hard time keeping his mind on what Rick was saying.
Leo watched her from his peripheral vision as her arms lifted and she crossed them beneath her breasts and hugged herself tight. As any red-blooded male would do when in the presence of an attractive woman, his eyes were drawn to her chest. He drew in a deep, ragged breath when he saw that her nipples were hard little points pushing against her shirt. Was she as drawn to him and his brothers as they were to her? His eyes perused her body and he took in her stance. Her legs shifted closer together and she seemed to be pressing them tighter against each other. Was she aching? Turned on and trying to relieve the ache in her little pussy. He nearly groaned out loud as his cock, which had been at half-mast from the moment he’d seen her, went to fully fledged engorgement. He wanted to grab his cock and move it away from the zipper on his jeans but he didn’t want to draw attention to the fact he had a hard-on.
His eyes paused at the base of her neck and he could see the skin fluttering over her rapid pulse. And then he looked at her chest again and noticed that she wasn’t taking deep breaths. No, she was trying really hard to keep the fact that she was attracted to them hidden, by taking rapid, shallow breaths.
He met his brothers’ eyes briefly and saw the gleam of desire and satisfaction in their eyes as they, too, must have realized that she was lusting after them. All of a sudden she turned her back toward them, leaned down, and kissed Rick on the cheek. She whispered something to her father, and then with a wave of her hand in their direction she left.
Leo half turned as she walked away and his hard cock twitched as he watched the graceful feminine sway of her hips and the rounded curves of her ass until she turned the corner and disappeared from sight.
He and his brothers loved the work they did, but the prospect of being at work tomorrow had never been more appealing. He was looking forward to working for and with Gypsy Savage, and hopefully he and his brothers would be able to woo her into their beds and hearts.
He glanced at Ivan as his brother talked to Rick, his mind only half on the conversation. He just hoped that Gypsy wouldn’t be averse to a ménage relationship with him and his siblings. And what the hell was he going to do when Rick realized that they were lusting after his daughter? Would he fire them on the spot or would he give them his blessing when he realized that they wanted Gypsy for the long haul?
Leo, Perry, and Ivan had always seemed to be attracted to the same women. After competing for the women’s attention and not really feeling fulfilled with a one-on-one relationship, he and his brothers had sat down over a few beers one night, a few years back, and talked about sharing. They’d even tried it a time or two, but that had been a bust. He and his brothers had enjoyed sharing those women and had been more excited than ever in their lives, but something had been missing.
A few nights later over some more beers they had figured out that they were sick and tired of meaningless relationships. By the end of the night they had all agreed that they wanted more from life. It had been okay to have sex with those women since they had consented, but the women had only been in it for the excitement of experiencing a ménage. None of them had been ready for a long-term relationship so they had gone on their way after a night of sex.
Leo wasn’t getting any younger and neither were his brothers. He was thirty-five years old, Perry was thirty-three, and Ivan was thirty-one. He wanted to come home to the same woman every night. He wanted to shower that special someone with love. He wanted to cuddle up with the same woman every night and he wanted to have kids. They had been looking for one woman that they were all really attracted to and it looked like Gypsy Savage just well may be that woman.
He hadn’t been into the last woman that Perry and Ivan had brought home, but he’d enjoyed the sex and made sure she’d gone away satisfied. He hadn’t felt bad about using her for gratification because she had been using him and his brothers for the same thing and had consented to everything they did to her. The woman before hadn’t floated Perry’s boat but, again, she walked away gratified.
Now that they’d met Gypsy, he and his brothers were going to do everything they could to get her in to their lives permanently. Leo mentally rubbed his hands together and then brought his mind back to the present and honed in on the conversation between Rick and his brothers.
“I checked your harness, Rick,” Perry said before glancing at him, then to Ivan and back to Rick again. “The ends weren’t frayed like it had broken. The safety harness looked like it had been cut.”
Rick pushed up onto his elbows and stared at Perry. “What? Are you sure?”
Leo stepped forward. “He showed it to me and Ivan. Someone cut that harness, boss.”
“Shit. Who the hell would want to do that? I could have been killed.”
“That’s not all we found,” Ivan said. “The rails around the roof where you went over had been loosened.”
“Fuck!” Rick ran his fingers through his hair and his face paled even more.
“Have you made any enemies?” Ivan asked.
“Fuck if I know.” Rick sank back onto his pillows. “I had to let a couple of guys go in the middle of the GFC but I told them the reason. As far as I know, everyone knew that was the only choice I had to survive the economic downturn. A few of my old crew left voluntarily since they were close to retirement age.”
“What about suppliers, or inspectors?” Perry asked. “Have you pissed any of them off?”
“No. I’m a stickler for doing things right and making sure that no corners are cut. You should know that, you’ve heard me bawling Joe and Guy out and making them go back to do things the right way.”
“Hmm.” Leo rubbed his jaw. “How long have those two been with you?”
“A couple of years.”
“Do you trust them?” Ivan asked.
“Not on your nelly.”
“Do you think they could be getting back at you for making them do things over?”
“It’s a possibility. Damn. What the hell I am going to do now? I don’t want to put my daughter in danger.”
“We’ll make sure to keep an eye on her,” Perry said. “We promise that no harm will come to her while we’re around.”
The expression on Rick’s face didn’t chan
ge, but the gleam in his eyes did.
Leo was worried that their boss knew they were attracted to his daughter, but if he was aware of it he didn’t say anything. Rick rubbed his jaw again and nodded his head.
“I trust you three to look after my girl. She’s been away for the last five years and I don’t want her to find an excuse to leave again. She’s as stubborn as a mule, just like I am, and can cut a man down at the knees with her tongue, but if she takes a liking to someone she’s as loyal as they come.”
Leo nodded but in his mind he hoped that Gypsy took a liking to them. If he had anything to say about it, they would be in her life forever. And if someone was out to sabotage Rick’s business, and if they tried to get to Gypsy while he and his brothers were around, they would have to go through them first.
“Do you want us to call in the sheriff?” Ivan asked.
“No. I can’t see what they can do. We don’t have any proof that someone tampered with the equipment.”
“I disagree,” Leo spoke up. “The strap on your harness was cut. The sheriff might be able to get fingerprints off of it and or the safety rails.”
Rick sighed. “All right. You can call the sheriff but I don’t want anyone to know that the law is investigating the incident. If there is someone out to get me and they realize we’re onto them, we could be putting Gypsy in danger.”
“Don’t worry, Rick. We’ll be discreet. In fact I’ve already got that section of railing in my truck, as well as the harness. I made sure not to put my own prints on them by using gloves and there was no one left on site when I took them. We’ll stop into the sheriff’s office on the way home.”
“We’d better haul ass,” Perry said as he shook Rick’s hand. “We want to be onsite bright and early in the morning. We can’t have our substitute boss raking us over the coals for being late.”
Rick grinned. “She would, you know.”
Leo nodded. He had no doubt that Gypsy could be a feisty little thing. She’d have to be tough to survive in the construction industry surrounded by men all the time. He just hoped she hadn’t hooked up with anyone. He didn’t think he could stand it if she had a boyfriend. One of the first things he noticed about her hands was her bare fingers, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. It was dangerous to wear jewelry while working. None of them wore any type of bling, since it could get caught up in a saw or hooked on a nail. It would just be an accident waiting to happen.
