Labor Day in Lusty, Texas [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Menage Everlasting)

by Cara Covington

  I don’t envy them, except perhaps for the prospect of becoming a mother. I can only imagine the wonder of having someone who is totally yours and will love you unconditionally. I think someday I would like to have a baby. Everyone here already believes I’m widowed—Mother was right when she suggested I claim to be just that. It does make being on my own much easier and, to a certain extent, respectable. I’ll have to think about being bold and doing something that might be considered scandalous.

  Mother also mentioned several times that Grandmother Sarah and Grandmother Amanda have both penned journals, guides to new brides on how to manage two or more husbands.

  That got me thinking. Why shouldn’t I write one on how to manage without even one? That had been my plan, when I first bought this book, but now that I’m at the sticking point, I think I want to write about what life was like for me there, and what it is like now.

  Truly, I feel as if I left one reality for another. Sometimes it doesn’t even seem as if Lusty and Abilene are on the same continent, let alone in the same state. Life in Lusty…how do I describe it?

  Abigail felt her eyes grow heavy. She let the book close and slide to the mattress beside her as she turned, snuggled her pillow, and closed her eyes. Chasing her as she relaxed more deeply was a question she hoped her grandmother answered at some point. Abigail had been in this place less than a day and felt the love.

  What had stopped Maude from feeling that love? What had she needed from her family that she hadn’t received?

  Chapter Six

  “Everything all right over there, Abigail?”

  She looked to her left, to where Carson Benedict rode beside her on a big, beautiful black horse named Pericles.

  She grinned. “It’s all coming back to me! I’m so glad you suggested this. I’m really having fun.” And she was. In that instant, she realized it had been a very long time since she’d said those words, since she’d felt the reality of those words.

  “So are we,” Michael said. He was to her right, astride a bay gelding named Blizzard. One thing she already knew about the brothers Benedict. They shared an interesting sense of humor when it came to naming their horses.

  She herself was riding a paint quarter horse, a sweet filly name Laurel. She reached forward and gave her mount another stroke along her neck. Of all the things Abigail thought she might do in Lusty during her visit, riding a horse over well-trod trails wasn’t one of them. It had been years since her mother had taken her for riding lessons. At the time, Abigail had been thrilled because her mother had accompanied her on those Saturday morning jaunts. She and her mother didn’t share a lot of personal moments. As it turned out, teaching one’s daughter to ride a horse was one of the few family traditions her mother passed on to her.

  Vanessa explained that Maude had taught her to ride. Therefore, Vanessa was teaching Abigail to ride. Vanessa asserted, in her usual no-nonsense way, that it was a mother’s duty to introduce her daughter to her heritage.

  Her mother never once said whether or not she expected Abigail to do the same some day. Likely the understanding, in Vanessa’s mind, needed not be put into words. There was no great sense of family tradition that she could look back upon, perhaps because the only other family tradition Abigail could point to was a tendency toward unwed motherhood.

  Though she herself felt no shame in the circumstances of her birth, she understood it wasn’t something to be boasted about to society at large. She knew herself well enough to understand that was why she wasn’t scandalized being faced with the number of ménage marriages in Lusty, glass houses and stone throwers aside.

  Also, being a student of history, she understood that ménage relationships had been around since…well, pretty much since recorded time. Usually, of course, because the recorders of the annals of time were men, the grouping referenced most often was one man with two or more women. The concept of having a harem found its roots in ancient times. Had things really not changed so much from then to now?

  “Is it only ever two or more men and one woman?” Oops. She didn’t mean to ask that out loud. Oh well, it’s done, now. Might as well run with it. “I mean, I’ve figured out that my great-grandfathers were also lovers and I’ve learned that your great-grandmother Amanda was married to two men who were lovers. I was just wondering.”

  The men took a moment to answer, and she began to wonder if she’d blundered. Finally, it was Michael who responded.

  “That’s a reasonable question, Abigail. I think there’ve been a couple of families made up of two women and one man—and the women were, naturally, lovers. I’m not certain why it doesn’t happen more often.” Michael shrugged. “As Grandpa Charlie said last night, Lusty was founded on the concept of each person living their life as they choose. Ménages can be in any combination that happens when three or more people fall in love, and that’s always been a given. That principle—the freedom to love or not—encompasses traditional marriages, of which we have several here, or no marriage at all—for both men and women—of which we’ve had several, too. Our uncles Peter and William and our aunt Sarah are the prime examples there. All three are in their golden years and have never married.”

  “I hope I’m not being too presumptuous, asking such delicate questions.” Now’s a great time to ask that, after you’d already done so. Abigail told her inner voice to be quiet.

  “Of course, you’re not. How are you to know unless you ask? We’re just delighted—surprised, but mostly delighted—that you’re not in the least put off by how we live, here.” Carson’s tone, his sincerity, soothed her. “Many in so-called polite society are appalled when they find out. Or act appalled. I’ve never quite figured that one out.” He shrugged and then grinned at her. “It’s why, out in the larger world, we keep to the norms of society. And truly, how we live is no one else’s business.”

  Abigail wondered that Carson’s thoughts seemed to echo her own. It was as if they were on the same wavelength, mentally. “I could turn that sentiment right back to you both.” She looked from Carson to Michael. “According to that same so-called polite society, I’m a bastard. That label doesn’t carry the degree of disgrace it did for your grandmother, Amanda, where her very prospects were limited by that same society because of the circumstances of her birth.” She’d recalled quite a bit of the history of the families here in Lusty that she’d been told the night before. She hoped, someday, someone wrote it all down. She thought it would make for one hell of a story. “But it’s still a stigma, being ‘illegitimate.’”

  Both men actually winced. “I hope no one ever said that to your face,” Michael said.

  “And if they did, and we ever come across any of them? Point them out to us, please.” Both men sounded very fierce. Abigail was left with the distinct impression that no one would dare say such a thing to her in front of these two men.

  “That was a long time ago, when I was a child.” Though the sting had remained for a very long time, she mostly didn’t think about it much. Nor did she think about her so-called status.

  “It’s a ridiculous distinction,” Michael said. “And ludicrous for anyone to even consider such a thing, in light of all the other transgressions there are in the world today involving dishonesty, perfidy, and the like.”

  “Michael is a professor of literature, but he’s a student of history, as well.” Carson’s pride in his brother’s achievements was obvious.

  “I’m a student of history, too.” Abigail grinned. Then she looked ahead to the trail they were on. She saw some trees, and the way they were situated made her think there might be a water source there.

  “Is that a stream? I assume we’re still on Benedict land.”

  “It is, and we are.”

  Carson clicked his horse forward, and she followed. Michael brought up the rear and she wondered why this—being situated between them in such an innocuous way—felt so right.

  After a few more minutes, they were under the trees, the shade cooling the temperature s
lightly. The stream wasn’t very deep, but clear, and the water appeared to move well. Abigail stopped her horse when Carson stopped his and dismounted. She shivered as he came over, reached up, and lifted her down from the saddle.

  And laughed when her legs wanted to give out. Of course, he caught her, with Michael very close behind, helping. Oh my. For the first time in her life she began to suspect there was a whole other side to arousal than she’d known existed.

  “We’ve got you, Abby.” Carson’s whispered words bathed her lips in his moist breath. Drawn, unable—no, unwilling to resist, Abigail lifted her face toward his.

  “No one has ever called me Abby.” No one had ever stirred her the way this man and his brother did. Somehow, that seemed very right.

  “Good. That’s ours, then. Which begs the question.”

  Abigail didn’t ask because instinctively she knew what the question would be. She didn’t want to think the words, let alone say them. She wanted, simply, to feel.

  So instead, she licked her own suddenly dry lips then let her eyes flutter closed as Carson lifted one hand, cupped her cheek, and lowered his mouth to hers.

  She thought she knew what to expect, but the reality stunned her. This was her first real kiss. Her first carnal, heart-pounding, thrill-throbbing kiss. Heat and excitement swirled inside her, lifting her libido from the dank drawer it had lived in for so long. Carson’s flavor sank into her as she danced her tongue along his. His lips suckled her mouth, and Abigail wondered that she didn’t begin to combust right then and there.

  Michael moved against her back, pressing her closer into Carson. She became conscious that both men were aroused. She shivered in the knowledge that this, at long last, was passion.

  She wanted every drop of it she could grab. Abigail went wild. She angled her mouth, her tongue rejoicing as she drank Carson Benedict down. When he moved, when he lifted his lips from hers, she cried out, a feral protest.

  And moaned in erotic pleasure when Michel’s lips replaced his brother’s. Michael had turned her into his arms and held her close, one hand combing through the strands of her hair while the other gripped her bottom. Everything she’d ever read about the headiness of kisses came true in that moment. Her arousal soared, her stomach dropped, and it was wonderful! That sudden, lighter-than-air feeling proved more than an emotional metaphor when Michael brought her down to the ground, to a blanket Carson must have laid out for them.

  Michael eased his lips from hers. He took a moment to smooth back her hair. His gaze met hers and when he licked his lips, Abigail felt her clit quiver. She didn’t think it was perspiration alone making her panties damp.

  Michael stretched out on her left, and Carson laid down on her right. “As much as we want to, we’re not going to make love to you here,” Carson said. “We’ll wait until we’ve a more private bower for that. We just needed to taste you.”

  “I needed that, too. I…” She felt her cheeks heat. “The two of you are incredibly potent.”

  Both men beamed. “Good to know,” Michael said.

  “Would you like to play?” Carson’s gaze met hers, and she thought in that moment he likely could talk her into anything. “What our older brothers used to refer to as heavy petting?”

  Michael ran a finger down the front of her top. “It involves one of us three removing just two articles of clothing.”

  “Hmm, I wonder which one of us that would be?” She’d never done this, never flirted. It felt strange and wonderful at the same time. Both men grinned, and she did, too. Then Carson turned her face toward him and gave her a very short, but sweet, kiss.

  “We want to see you, touch you, taste you. Will you let us, Abby?”

  The passion in his eyes thrilled her and enthralled her. She swallowed, hard, because it felt as if all the spit in her mouth had dried right up…and headed for points south. “Yes.”

  Oh, this was so much more exciting than when she’d actually had sex! Michael slipped the buttons of her blouse from their moorings, and a warm breeze caressed the flesh of her chest as he spread the material away from her. Carson’s hand slid beneath her back, and she felt the tension of her bra release.

  Working together, the Benedict brothers had her topless in seconds. Their fascination with her breasts made her nipples pucker and her clit throb. More aroused than she’d ever been, she whimpered when they stretched her arms above her head and held them captive.

  They used no more than a finger each, trailing a path from her neck to a breast, circling the plump flesh, coming close to but not quite touching her nipples. As her arousal soared from so slight a touch, her inner muscles began to contract in a way that felt sexy as hell, as if she already had a cock inside her and her woman’s flesh was gripping, holding it prisoner.

  “You’re so damn responsive.” Carson lifted his finger to turn her face toward him. “So hot for us.” He lowered his head, and his mouth covered hers.

  His tongue plundered, and his lips commanded, and Abigail dove deep into the molten pool of passion he offered her, temptation on the most seductive of platters.

  When his lips left hers to trail a hot, moist path down her neck, Michael turned her face to him and kissed her. Instantly her dive into passion became deeper, darker, and infinitely more compelling. She could taste both men on her tongue, and the flavor combination shivered through her. Here was the lust of the ancient cult of Eros, the heat and passion that had sent men to war and women swooning. Not a myth, not some lie cast by men to entrap females, not unattainable, but real and here and now.

  Michael’s tongue enslaved hers so that it danced where he led. He drank her down, a tiny suction that pulsed in her blood and made her hips begin to rock.

  Then he, too, left her lips to lay a trail of kisses to her breast. He placed a soft kiss on her nipple then lifted his head and watched his brother.

  Carson used his tongue to circle her nipple. Then he sucked it into his mouth, drawing hard, then gave it a tiny nip. Abigail screamed as a wave of orgasmic bliss swamped her, wave after thrilling wave of ecstasy far and above any other. Her eyes closed, her back bowed, as she chased that rapture, holding it close. She felt her legs spread and a hand, a barely-there touch rubbing quickly back and forth over her slit, on top of her clothes. Her climax surged, and all she could think, all she could want, was more.

  Chapter Seven

  Abigail had been born into and raised by a household of women. But that experience in no way prepared her for this.

  The kitchen of the Big House, she’d been sure, was one of the most spacious she’d ever been in. That was, until it came time for processing the berries grown by Mattie’s sons, William and Peter Benedict. The men were bachelors and farmed together just on the outside of town, the south end. Carson, Michael, and their brothers had referred to the pair as the Bachelor Uncles. Abigail had wondered about that. The men were friendly, tender to their mother and their aunt, Grandmother Chelsea. She didn’t want to ask why they were bachelors but recalled what Carson and Michael had said. Freedom to live life as a person chose to, in Lusty, was not just freedom to live in a ménage marriage. It was also freedom to be single.

  Though once or twice, when she saw them looking at Miranda or Kate or Bernice, she wondered if that was wistfulness she saw in their eyes. Had they loved, and somehow, it hadn’t worked out? She didn’t think it was a question anyone could answer, even if she did ask—and that, she simply wouldn’t do.

  The uncles arrived early in the morning and carted in the biggest harvest of strawberries Abigail had ever seen. Springtime was the best time in Texas for strawberries. Though she knew, theoretically, the berries could still produce in summer, it was just too hot for the crop to be as good as it was in the spring.

  After accepting sweet tea, and chatting for a bit, the two men left, bidding the women to have a good day. Shortly after, more women began to arrive.

  Abigail was pleased to meet more of the family. The new arrivals were Samantha Kendall, Miranda’s daught
er-in-law, as well as Madison Jessop, married to Terrance and Andrew Jessop. Behind Madison came her daughter-in-law, Joan, and Pamela Jessop, married just two months before to James and Adam, who were doctors. Pamela and Madison were now cousins by marriage. Abigail thought she was doing well until Miranda told her that, actually, she and Pamela were more closely related, as the doctors Jessop were the sons of her brothers-in-law, Warren and Douglas Jessop.

  Abigail nodded and decided she’d check with Kate later and try to get it all straight in her head.

  In all, counting herself, there were now ten women in the kitchen, ready to make jam. This was an organized endeavor, with an assembly line that would make any factory manager proud. Abigail sensed this was a family practice dating back generations, and oh, how thrilled she was to be included in the work!

  Mattie and Chelsea were ensconced in chairs beside a large tub that had been brought in for the occasion. They took the berries, washed them, then passed them on to the next pair of waiting workers. Miranda and Kate hulled the berries, and gave them a few slices with their paring knives, and passed them on to Abigail and Bernice.

  She and Bernice dumped the berries into a large pot, a couple of quarts at a time, and crushed them and then poured them into the large kettles that would, when full, be set upon the stoves. Madison and Joan added the sugar and began the long simmer while Samantha and Pamela prepared the jars and lids—washing, drying and then sterilizing them.

  Huge fans were brought into the quickly heating room, and although the kitchen did have air conditioning, the older women—Grandmother Mattie and Grandmother Chelsea—preferred the fans and open, screened windows.