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

by Cara Covington

  One wouldn’t think that was a very smart business strategy, yet returns on investment—according to the bank statements she’d seen so far—were really quite good.

  She’d worried, when the brothers had explained how they didn’t like to keep records, that they might be in default of their taxes, but the inclusion of tax returns and receipt of payment of municipal, state, and federal business and income taxes she’d discovered in the second box reassured her that such wasn’t the case.

  Still, those particular documents made her curious.

  “You can ask us anything, Anna.”

  Anna looked up from her desk. Craig and Jackson were both standing just inside her office door. Her gaze flicked up to the clock. The morning had flown by. It was nearly noon already!

  When she turned her attention back to her employers, she tilted her head to the side.

  “We can see questions in your eyes,” Jack explained. “So please feel free to ask us anything. We can’t expect you to do a thorough job organizing things if we’re not completely forthcoming.”

  “All right, thank you. I just noticed that your other investor is the same entity as the one that is filing your tax returns. I hope this is a company you can trust. ‘LTT.’ What is that, exactly?”

  Craig and Jack looked at each other and grinned. Then Craig said, “Come along to lunch, Miss Office Manager. We’ll tell you all about it as we eat.”

  A delaying tactic? Since the entity didn’t seem to have a full name listed, Anna wondered for a moment if they were trying to hide something by distracting her.

  Then she told her inner imp to shut up. She had only known Craig and Jack for a couple of days, but already she knew something about them that made her like them a lot. They really were as open and honest as they appeared to be, and they didn’t have any hidden agendas.

  They’d been completely honest with her from the first moment, even when that honesty showed them in a less than flattering light.

  The truth of the matter was that there existed a part of her that couldn’t quite accept that these men were as genuine as they appeared. She didn’t need a degree in psychology to know why that was so, either.

  If she fully accepted them as being as wonderful as they really were, she’d begin to fall for one of them. That smacked too much of her mother’s grand scheme for her life, so of course she wanted to resist that at all costs.

  But as she tidied her desk and then reached for her purse, she wondered if all of her mental maneuverings wouldn’t turn out to be a case of too little, too late.

  Be honest with yourself, Anna Doreen. The real problem is you’re already falling—but not for one or the other of these men. You’re falling for both of them.

  Anna wanted this job to last. So as she rose from her desk, she vowed to do all she could to put an end to her useless feminine reaction.

  * * * *

  Going slow with Anna was already proving to be damned hard. Hard. Don’t even think that word in the same sentence as Anna’s name.

  Craig imagined he had somehow split into two separate men, one who was sitting here enjoying being in the company of Anna Cooper, and the other a raging beast who wanted to scoop her up, take her home, and plunder—and the beast was gaining strength. He flicked a look at his brother, Jack. The man had his gaze locked on Anna, signaling his entire focus was on her alone.

  Craig liked learning about her. He opened his analytical self so that he not only took in what she told them, but also what she showed them. He’d met her face-to-face for the first time on Thursday, but already, he knew quite a bit.

  When it came to numbers, to facts and figures, and the written word, Anna Cooper was a woman filled with confidence. They’d had a handful of conversations to date, times when she’d made an observation, or asked one question or another, seeking clarity. In those times, he discerned that her mind worked quickly and well, and was clearly in control. She made connections swiftly, and was able to sum up the heart of a matter with minimal words and stunning exactitude.

  Her sharp mind was to him, and he knew to his brother as well, sexy as hell.

  She’d also shown herself to be in possession of a sense of humor that matched his and Jack’s to a tee. They were known in the family to be fonts of the wry one-liner, and he’d already had more than a hint that Anna was one too.

  But here, in this quiet restaurant, with soft music playing and dim lighting combining to produce an almost romantic atmosphere, their confident young woman had vanished, replaced by one less self-assured, and—unless he missed his guess—hungry for not only attention but approval.

  The women he knew well—albeit most of them were family—didn’t know how to be unsure of themselves.

  Anna Cooper, it would seem, didn’t know how to own her undeniable feminine appeal. He wondered what her life was like, how she’d come to be a twenty-one-year-old woman with absolutely no guile, and absolutely no confidence in herself as a woman.

  The waiter took their orders—Craig frowned when Anna only requested a large garden salad and unsweetened tea. That wasn’t much of a lunch. But he bit his tongue, because for all he knew she’d had a large breakfast, or was planning to have a large dinner that evening.

  Once they were left alone again, Craig noticed Anna seemed a bit nervous. He met his brother’s gaze. Jack had picked up on that, too. It was on them to see their woman relaxed. Craig looked down for a moment. Anna was their woman, even if she didn’t know it yet.

  “What made you decide to become a business major?” Jack was as taken with Anna as Craig was. With his natural insouciance, he did a better job of hiding his inner Neanderthal. He also demonstrated his keen insight by asking about something career-related, bringing her thoughts away from the personal—and the potentially romantic setting.

  Craig wondered at the expressions that chased each other across Anna’s face just then. He hoped that someday he’d be able to read her every nuance.

  No, you don’t. You hope that she’ll continue to surprise you for the next fifty or sixty years.

  “Well, I’d originally wanted to study archeology. My parents, however, pointed out to me that archeology, as a major, wasn’t a very practical choice for a career. Digs are dependent upon the generous donations of university patrons, for the most part—as are museums. They were right, of course. I can work in business and pursue a hobby in archeology or history, far easier than I could the reverse. As for business itself—well, my father is a businessman and so I guess you could say it’s in the blood.”

  “What business is he in?” Craig asked.

  Anna grinned. “What many in our state consider the only business—oil.”

  Jack blinked. “Is your father Edgar Cooper?”

  Anna looked surprised by Jack’s guess. “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “We’ve never met him,” Jack said. “But I have heard he’s very good at what he does.”

  His brother could have been an actor. Cooper-Syd Oil and their family company, Benedict Oil and Minerals, had been competitors off and on over the years. Of course, he and Jack didn’t have a hand in that business, personally. Their uncles and cousins were more hands-on in that sector. But being members of the Lusty Town Trust, they were kept apprised of developments as they happened.

  “I know that my father has the reputation for being a man of iron will.” She shrugged. “He doesn’t talk about his work very often, but I’ve been to his office a few times, and I confess I’ve read a couple of articles written about him.”

  Craig had no idea what Anna was thinking about to put that tiny smirk on her face, but he liked the look of it.

  “Now turnabout is fair play, gentlemen. You were going to tell me about your silent partner in venture capitalism—LTT. That cheeky grin you both assumed when I asked about it got my curiosity piqued.”

  “Have a strong sense of curiosity, do you?”

  “I can have, if the situation warrants it.”

  Good Lord, the woman doesn�
�t even realize she’s flirting with us. How had this angel kept her innocence intact for so long? But even as he asked himself that question, his inner Neanderthal asserted a three word explanation—because she’s ours.

  “You mentioned an interest in history, Bella. LTT is a part of our rather unique family history, dating back to the late 1800s.” Jack sat forward.

  “From a time when our great-grandparents settled on ranchland west of Waco,” Craig said, “and founded their own small town and named it Lusty, Texas.”

  “I’d never heard of your town,” Anna said, “until after our initial telephone interview on Wednesday.”

  Craig smiled. “Good girl. I thought you might have taken it upon yourself to find out what you could about us. No, don’t be embarrassed. That tells us both that you may be young, but you’re far from stupid. Of course,” Craig added quickly, “we both already knew that within minutes of meeting you face-to-face.”

  “I should also probably confess that while the information I gathered mentioned you were related to the Benedicts and the Kendalls—Texas names I recognized—it didn’t say how.”

  “And your curiosity has been stewing,” Jack said.

  Anna laughed, because Jack’s tone had nicely conveyed their pleasure that she’d been and still was curious about them.

  “It’s been more that stewing,” she said. “It’s been fermenting.”

  Conversation was interrupted by the waiter serving their lunch. Anna’s quiet thanks to the man was another indication of her character. He’d shared meals with people—business associates, not friends—who acted as if the people working in restaurants were beneath notice, let alone simple expressions of gratitude.

  They ate in companionable silence for a few moments, which gave Craig time to think about how he wanted to present their family history to Anna.

  No sense in prevaricating. Just out with it.

  “Two of our great-grandfathers were two men from Waco—Adam Kendall, a Texas Ranger, and Warren Jessop, a lawyer who’d come to Waco from back east. They were lovers, and one day they went to the train station to meet the cousin of one of their best friends, a young woman arriving from Richmond by the name of Amanda Dupree.” He looked at Anna, waiting to see if she was shocked or disgusted by that juicy tidbit. But he saw only interest in her eyes. “Their best friends—and our other great-grandfathers—were two brothers, twins, named Caleb and Joshua Benedict. And those men were together married to a woman named Sarah. Amanda was Sarah’s cousin, though they’d never met until Amanda arrived in Waco.”

  “Did your great-grandfathers marry Amanda, just as their friends had married Sarah? Is that where the name ‘Jessop-Kendall’ came from?”

  “Yes. Of course, none of this was made public at the time, as you can imagine. The family history still isn’t common knowledge, for that matter, nor is the fact that several families in Lusty practice ménage marriage even today. But back to the history—those six people did something extraordinary, aside from the two family units they created. They set aside personal land and incorporated a town, one that was governed by a town trust. The land could never be sold, ensuring that their town could never be taken over by the narrow-minded.”

  “Ah, I get it. LTT. Lusty Town Trust?”

  Jack looked at Craig. “I don’t know about you, brother, but I am totally smitten with this woman’s sharp mind.”

  Anna blushed at the compliment—and more, Craig suspected, at the realization that this meal did in fact hold more potential for them all than being a simple business lunch.

  “Yes,” Craig answered. “To both of you.” He waited a moment for Anna to meet his gaze. He hoped what he saw in her eyes was interest. Slow. You’ve given her the idea. Now let her think about it for a while. “We invest our own money in our ventures, but we also invest a portion of the Lusty Town Trust’s money as well. The Trust is currently being managed by our uncles, Martin and Nicholas Kendall—although they are slated to turn that over to their son Preston within the year.”

  “Ah, and it’s the Kendalls, then, who’ve ensured you’ve stayed on the good side of the State of Texas and Uncle Sam with regard to your taxes.”

  “Which is the reason we’re both not in jail,” Jack quipped. “But of course, that doesn’t help us track our actual business activities. The uncles always told us that this was our business to manage—and rightly so. Unfortunately, we’re both completely hopeless when it comes to that.”

  Anna looked down at her salad—he followed her gaze and thought she might actually hate the contents of that large bowl. Then she looked up and met his gaze.

  “Thank you for enlightening me. You’ve given me a great deal to think about. I happen to believe there’s no such thing as too much knowledge.”

  Craig met his brother’s gaze. He read the hope there, and felt the emotion echoed in his own heart.

  With her words, Anna Cooper had given them a gift, of sorts. She’d accepted them, and their family history, without judgment.

  Only time would tell if she would accept the two of them on a far more personal level.

  Chapter 4

  “I thank you...from the heart of my bottom...for believing in me. You’re the best. Yeth, the beth broffer in the whole world.” Gareth Sanders nodded his drunken head vigorously to back up his statements.

  And then, thank God, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed into his chair, passed out.

  Carl Sanders held the ice cold beer to his forehead, the sensation an immediate relief to the pounding behind his eyes. Gareth had really tied one on. Carl mentally shook his head, because doing so in reality would just make his head throb again.

  He needed for them to be careful, to hold off celebrating until they had a fat check in their hands. That’s why he’d encouraged Gareth to keep drinking. He knew his brother had a low alcohol tolerance. Now, at least, he’d be out for most of the night. Not that Carl was expecting to hear from his marks tonight, but in his business he’d learned to expect the unexpected.

  If those two dropped in...shit. Not that they would, but again, he liked to be ready for any scenario. They had his and Gareth’s address, and what better way to verify that than by knocking on their door?

  Setting his beer down, he hefted his brother out of the chair and, in a fireman’s carry, took him down the hall, and dumped him on his bed. It was after eight. If those two did drop in, he could say his brother had overdone it and was in bed early—all true, and shaded the right way, the truth could be a lie.

  It’s what Carl excelled at.

  He settled himself in one of the living room chairs and sighed with contentment. Not so strangely, now that Gareth was in the other room, his headache began to recede.

  Of all the cons he’d masterminded over the years—and there had been more than a few of them—he had to give himself kudos for finally coming up with the perfect scam.

  As with all the best scams, the key to success was research—and Carl had done his with regard to computers. He’d read up on that thing developed and being used primarily between universities, dubbed ARPANET. Eggheads in academia and the military had been working on that “network” since the 1960s. Much of the reading he had done was hard to understand, but some articles had given him just enough of a comprehension that he felt secure in his knowledge.

  He had no doubt whatsoever that this concept of “personal computers” would fizzle. One of the articles he’d read in one of the business journals, written by a man he figured knew whereof he spoke had said as much. Ken Olson had founded a successful computer company, Digital Equipment Corporation, long before Carl had ever heard of all this techno-stuff. He figured if such a man could say that there was no reason anyone would want a computer in their home, then he must know what he was talking about.

  But there were suckers, as PT Barnum observed, born every minute. That core truth had been at the center of Carl’s life since he’d been a kid.

  It seemed to him as if folks these days were on a sci
ence fiction kick. What, to their minds, could be more “scientific” than for them to believe that soon their lives would be run by the push of a button? They were all looking to live in the kind of world they saw on their televisions when they watched Star Trek.

  Carl had been able to put together this scam not only thanks to research, but to the unwitting help of his brother, Gareth. Little brother was a nerd, and ate up scientific journals and all the speculation that was contained within their covers. He’d taken courses in college and was in fact truly working on what he called “programs” aimed at what he believed was the best money-making opportunity to be afforded by the personal computer—gaming. Gareth’s genuine enthusiasm and natural naiveté were crucial to Carl’s pulling off this con.

  Really, once he’d gotten the lingo down, he talked a damn good game, even if he did say so himself. This was going to be not only his easiest gig, it was going to be the most lucrative.

  Once he’d nailed down the nuts and bolts of the idea, he went looking for investors. Pure dumbass luck had led him to Craig and Jackson Jessop, two nerds from some Podunk town right here in Texas. He’d haunted the library, reading not only the scientific journals, but some financial ones as well. He’d investigated the brothers and found them to be a couple of odd ducks who apparently had access to a lot of cash. He’d picked up a few rumors, and the jury seemed to be out as to whether the brothers themselves were loaded, or if they were just the front men for a cabal of some sort.

  Carl was sure it was the latter, because the men didn’t dress rich or even act rich. His nose didn’t twitch while he was around them—which meant that his sixth sense that usually could spot a wealthy mark wasn’t vibrating.

  Still, he had proof the men at least approved ventures in the past, and that was all that mattered to Carl.

  They’d had lunch a few days before, and the men had seemed very interested in Carl and Gareth’s proposal. He’d let Gareth explain his idea, and that had been, in his own opinion, nothing short of inspired.