“To just leave your stuff in the hamper, where you put it, separate from everyone else’s,” Ransome said helpfully. He looked up at her and his eyes were riveted on her breasts which Val noticed were jam-packed inside that sexy bra, looking ready to spill out like so much luscious bounty. And his dick got hard. Down boy. So not a good idea right now.
“Honestly, Charity,” he said softly. “We just wanted to help out, with everything going on. We had a half load, and hell, they’re just jeans.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Just jeans? To a woman on a budget with a thirty-four inch inseam, who splurged and spent eighty-five dollars on a pair of embellished designer jeans”—her eyes seemed to blaze hotter and damned if his dick didn’t get a wee bit harder—“they aren’t jeans. They are now high-waters! Fucking capri pants!”
His eyes finally moved from her captivating cleavage down to her lower half. She was literally poured into jeans that didn’t look anything like the last time he’d seen them on her. Saying they were high-waters was being kind. “Oh, shit.”
“Oh, shit is right!”
“Damn,” Ransome said as he turned in his chair. “They’re ruined, aren’t they?”
She took deep, slow breaths, trying to calm down. The combination of fury and hurt in her eyes made him feel even worse.
“I asked only one thing. That you leave my laundry the fuck alone. What else am I going to find that’s ruined?”
Ransome scratched his chin and the look he sent Val’s way said confession was good for the soul.
Charity clued in to the look and said, “What? What else of mine did you wash?”
“Well, we didn’t actually wash them but we found a load of clothing in the washer, and we wanted to do laundry, you know, to help out, and we didn’t want to just put them in a basket and let them sit and get sour, so…”
She looked ready to cry. “Just tell me.”
Ransome opened his mouth to speak, all ready to confess and get it off his chest but Val stopped him and said, “Before we say anything else, we just want you to know that we will replace all the ruined stuff. And I don’t just mean in the future. Today. You can take my debit card and go shopping.”
“You didn’t say ‘if it’s ruined,’ you said ‘all the ruined stuff.’” Her expression transformed as realization dawned and she looked even more ready to cry. “My bras and panties. Where are they?”
“Well,” Ransome said, looking over at Val with healthy fear in his eyes. “We took them out of all those little white zipper bags you had them in and…put them in the dryer.”
Justin had warned them but they clearly hadn’t understood. He felt like every inch of skin was being flayed off as she laid into them, her voice booming with power that he had not heretofore known she possessed. Frankly, it made him even hotter even though he knew on some level contrition and repentance should be the only emotions he was feeling. She was glorious as she let them have it. “I showed you my hamper in the laundry room, the one with my name on it, when you moved in. And what did I tell you?”
Ransome started to speak but she cut him off.
“I asked you nicely, nicely, to leave my clothes for me to wash. I told you I do my own laundry. I explained why I do my own laundry. I can’t afford to replace some of those items. I have to budget to go clothes shopping. I take special care of my clothes. I don’t put lingerie in the dryer because it ruins it. I don’t put my blue jeans in the dryer because the legs shrink. I know it’s an idiosyncrasy to some but I made it clear. Leave my laundry the fuck alone!”
“I’m so sorry, angel. We’re so sorry.” Ransome said, gesturing at Val. “We didn’t mean to ruin your sparkly pants or your other stuff.”
“Where is my lingerie?”
Val said, “In the basket on the dryer.”
Hope shriveled that she was winding down and close to forgiving them when she ran in the utility room and made a pained shrieking sound. She returned with the basket, which she thumped on the table. She reached in and lifted out the first…thing and held it up. “What is this?”
Val frowned, knowing this was going to get worse. “I think it’s a bunch of your bras all…knotted together.”
“This is why I put them in those nifty zipper bags.” After a little work, she unknotted one of the bras and held it up to her. “You remember seeing me in this the other night?”
Ransome grinned at the memory and then had the good sense to stifle himself. “It doesn’t look the way it did last time we saw it on you.”
She turned a steely gaze from one man to the other, “And it never will again. This stuff is called delicate for a reason. The heat from the dryer ruined the lace and the elastic.”
Val reached out and stroked her hip. “We’re really sorry, baby. We’ll never touch your laundry ever again. I hate seeing you upset. I’ll replace everything.”
Ransome said, “It was just as much my idea. We’ll share the cost of replacing everything, angel.”
She let out a breath and nailed them with her blue eyes. “You’ll have to because I don’t have the money in my budget right now and some of this stuff was for work.” She gestured at her jeans which were undeniably never going to look the same again. As if to emphasize the point, one of the large rhinestones popped off and fell on the floor at his feet. “How many of my jeans did you wash?”
Ransome exchanged a glance with him and gave a minute shake of his head, the coward.
Val said, “All of them that were in the hamper.”
Charity nodded, several times in succession while breathing deep, her lips mashed into a flat line. Val reached in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. She kept nodding and he said, “Was that every pair you owned?”
She just kept nodding and held out her hand as he pulled out his debit card. “If there’s any problem just have them call me to authorize the purchase.”
“Purchases, you mean. Right? Grace and I are going to Cheaver’s to do a little shopping for Rose Marie. I’ll replace the jeans there and then we’re going to Discretion, because—” She waved the big knot-o-bras through the air.
Preemptively, he said, “Buy whatever you want, baby. Buy extras.” Ransome nodded in confirmation.
“—because I can’t be having this shit.”
“And we solemnly promise to never touch your laundry ever again.”
She took a deep breath, threw the bras back in the basket and trudged off still nodding, muttering under her breath, his debit card in her hand.
“This is gonna hurt, buddy,” Ransome whispered, rubbing his face and then shaking his head.
Val shook his head, recalling the way she stood in that utility room door, breasts heaving, fire in her eyes, looking like an avenging Valkyrie. “We don’t see her like that very often. She’s really hot when she’s angry.”
He turned to Ransome and his cousin smirked for just a second but hid it, possibly in fear that she might come back and catch them.
Val said, “She has to budget to afford clothing. I think maybe we need to give our girl a raise so she can get what she needs when she needs it and not have to wait to save up.”
“You won’t hear me arguing.”
Five minutes later, she reappeared, dressed in a sexy red burnout T-shirt and the sparkly jeans, only now they were cuffed up and she wore sandals instead of the fancy cowboy boots she normally wore with them. She still looked pissed off.
“Enjoy your day off shopping with your sister, angel,” Ransome said as he kissed her. “Sorry.”
She nodded, looking morose. “I’m sorry I blew a gasket.”
“That was more like blowing an engine, baby,” Val said before she turned to him and he wisely shut up.
“My budget is still recovering from Justine’s prom dress and all of her accessories, and shopping for you guys last time we were in Stigall’s.”
Yeah, it’s possible to feel even worse about this.
“Just bring me the receipts, baby,” Val said.
Charity nailed them bo
th with a serious gaze. “Just so you know, I won’t demand much from you, but this one thing. The next time you get a wild hair up your butts and decide to do my laundry, what are you going to do?”
“Lie down until the urge passes?”
“Run the vacuum?”
“Dust?”
“Do our own fucking laundry?”
“Mow the grass?”
“Knit a doily?”
“Scrub the toilet?”
“Wash dishes?”
She was smiling by the time they finally wound down and said, “You’re smart guys. You’ll get the hang of living with me eventually.”
She kissed Ransome and then Val pulled her to him and squeezed her tight, enjoying the feel of her soft, plush breasts pressed against his chest. “I love you, woman. Don’t forget to bring me receipts.”
* * * *
Charity helped Grace out of the car and then held the door open for her as they walked into Cheaver’s Western Store. The scent of leather lingered in the air as they headed toward the children’s department.
“What are we shopping for, sis?” Charity asked as she lifted a fancy toddler-sized Western shirt from a rack and looked at the price tag. “Oh, hell no.” She put the garment back while Grace chuckled. There was no way anyone in their right mind would pay that kind of money for something a child would outgrow in one month.
“The guys instructed me to shop only for basics for Rose Marie. Blue jeans. A belt. And a cowboy hat. Nothing fancy.” Grace showed her the list of Rose Marie’s sizes and measurements and they searched the racks for the proper sizes.
“So I take it she’s getting acquainted with things on the working side of the ranch now?”
Grace nodded. “Jack, Ethan, and Adam thought it might help. They want to take the pressure off of me. They were overprotective in the beginning, not wanting her to get hurt or get in the way of the workers or the horses but now it’s time she started learning. Angel and Joaquin are completely on board with her helping with small chores and want to help teach her riding and handling skills. Michael is going to help her learn how to clean hooves and brush out tails, he said.”
“Seriously? Like she’s going to be doing some grunt work? Cleaning out stalls?”
Grace nodded. “The guys won’t let her hurt herself and they said they all started when they were young, too. Ethan suggested she might have less of an attitude about it later if she grew up accepting that mucking out stalls was part of the job. I’ll admit I was resistant at first about that. But they convinced me they’d watch out for her. And I know they love her and want only the best experiences for her. The bottom line is she needs an outlet for all that sass.”
Charity nodded, knowing that for a certainty. She found another pair of jeans in the right size and then helped Grace look through the belts. Grace said, “We need to find her a couple of good pairs of kid’s work gloves, too.”
“How are things at Teresa’s?” Charity asked, having a pretty good idea after Justine had told her about the condition of their house the previous weekend.
“I think the more pertinent question is how is Teresa? When I found out what had happened, I talked them into staying with us. They had to rush home in the middle of the night, with the kids and the baby. And once Luka and Matthias’s parents found out, they came, too. It was a mess.”
“I know how I’d react under the circumstances. So how is Teresa?”
“She’s quiet, you know? But I’ve never seen her that quiet. She walked through the house and then she asked to go see the guys at the jail.” Grace shivered. “Ethan told me she didn’t say a word to them. I don’t think she could. They promised they would clean the house up for her and fix everything and she finally told them that she would no longer welcome them in her home. When the two of them asked if Angel had come to bail them out, he laughed. He told them they were safer where they were for the time being. Then their mother walked in.”
“Oh, boy.”
“I heard all of this secondhand from Jack and Ethan but they said when she was done there was a mushroom cloud. Their mother is a passionate woman and judging from what Jack could pick up of what she said in rapid Spanish, it sounds like they aren’t welcome in her home either. That even the barn was too good for them. They could sleep in the goat shed, or something like that.”
“What about the house?” Charity asked as she held a pair of jeans up for Grace to look at.
“The wall-to-wall carpeting is ruined and will have to be ripped out. There’s structural damage and property damage. Insurance should cover most of it, but they really didn’t need this headache. They’d only just recently finished with the house.”
“It’s a shame.”
“The guys won’t let me near it, both because it pisses me off and because I wanted to help clean up.”
“Ding-dong. You’re in a brace. You have a broken collarbone—”
“Had a broken collarbone. Emma said I can come out of this next week if I agreed to use a sling.”
“Which still excludes you from helping with that big mess.”
Grace shook her head. “Luka and Matthias have always been such sweet guys. I’d heard they’ve been sowing a lot of wild oats but I figured they would’ve settled down a bit by now. Something’s not right there. They were up here to work for a little bit at the ranch but since last weekend the ranch hands don’t even want them in their house.”
“That sucks. Where will they live?”
Grace shrugged. “Angel was going to bail them out today, but I have no idea where they go from there. They’re lucky none of those parents are pressing charges against them so far.”
“They’ve got a guardian angel watching over them,” Charity said as she held up a pretty tooled leather belt.
Grace shook her head, rejecting the belt. “No, it needs to be plain. Look in the boys belts, too. If she wants a pretty tooled belt, she’ll have to wait until Christmas. It’ll give her time to really appreciate it. Luka and Matthias aren’t interested in rodeo. All they seem to be good at is partying and flirting…and horse ranching. They better pull their heads out of their asses before they’re not welcome on the ranch at all.”
Charity found a plain belt and held it up. “How ‘bout this one.”
“Better.”
“So I take it this means the guys are not giving Sassypants a horse just yet?”
“No. I think Adam thought about it, the big softy, but Ethan and Jack brought it up and talked about why it wasn’t a good idea yet. She needs to earn that privilege with a little sweat equity and show them she really wants it first.”
“I think it’ll be good for her.”
“I know it already has been. You know why?”
“Why?” Charity asked, growing more curious as Grace laughed.
“Because when I told her that I wasn’t sure she was big enough to help with the horses, the first words out of her mouth were, ‘But Mommy, I’m a big girl now.’ So I’m counting on the guys to all help her learn. If she catches ‘horse fever,’ then I’ll get to shop for fancier duds for her later. Let’s go look at boots and hats.”
“Awesome. I also need to shop for jeans before we leave. You’re not going to believe what I discovered this morning.”
“New jeans?” Grace asked as they walked over to the hat department. “You know, I wondered why you were wearing those jeans cuffed up like that. I know how much you spent on those and you always wear your pretty boots with them, not cuffed up with sandals. What happened?”
“Val and Ransome decided to do my laundry.”
The look on Grace’s face was priceless. “Were they still breathing when you left?”
“Yes, and I have Val’s debit card and permission to replace all the clothing they inadvertently ruined.”
“He’s not going to know what hit his bank account,” Grace replied with a giggle. “Are you talking to them?”
Charity nodded. “To be honest, I felt a little silly about the whole thing
once I had a chance to calm down. I almost expected them to laugh at my reasons for being upset. They didn’t do that, though, but still, I’ve told them, several times, and Justin has even warned them. They didn’t listen to me. I guess I should be grateful that they didn’t just slough it off as no big deal, you know? Like it’s just clothing. They don’t understand I can’t always find my sizes, and I have to save up to shop. It’s not easy.”
Grace smiled at her, compassion in her eyes as she patted her shoulder.
Wondering out loud, Charity asked, “Did Jack, Ethan, and Adam ever do something like that, that just made you lose your cool?”
Grace got a faraway look and chuckled softly. “Remember that white corset I wore on our wedding day?”
“The one you wore under your wedding dress?”
Grace nodded. “We got back from the honeymoon and Adam was unpacking our luggage. He found it in the bedroom where I’d left it after our wedding night and wanted to be helpful so he did some laundry. He put it in the washing machine, not realizing it had steel stays in it.”
Charity cringed. “Oh no. Did it get ruined?”
Grace’s whole body shook as she nodded. “Along with the washing machine. One of the stays got ripped out and wedged.” She let out a contagious peal of laughter and Charity joined in.
“What did you do?” Charity asked when she could talk.
“Well, it was the corset I wore in my bridal portrait and on my wedding day, so it had sentimental value. He told me he thought it was ruined but I hadn’t seen the totality of the mess yet.”
“What did you do? Cry?” That was the natural assumption since Grace was so even tempered, especially where her men were concerned. Her sister was a total soft touch.
“No! I was so pissed off I couldn’t see straight. I mean, it had steel stays in it. You could feel them if you checked, but he didn’t. He just put it in with all my other delicate stuff.” She nodded and arched an eyebrow when Charity gasped.
“All of it? Loose in the washer?” At Grace’s emphatic nod, she asked, “Did he ruin all of it?”
“Mmm-hmm, everything they’d bought for me that I wore when I posed for the portraits, and items I’d purchased for the honeymoon. It was all a tangled, unraveled, steel-boned lingerie suicide, there in the ruined washing machine. The three of them couldn’t believe it when they saw what’d happened.”
Divine Charity [Divine Creek Ranch 18] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 27
