Divine Creek Ranch 13
Tiny Dancer
The day former exotic dancer Camilla O’Neal began working at The Dancing Pony, she told co-owner Ben Lawrence and head bartender Quinten Parks that “work is work and pleasure is pleasure” and she kept the two very separate. Working with their tiny dancer brings Ben and Quinten as much pain as pleasure. After two years of secretly lusting over and loving this blonde temptress, they have a plan.
Camilla goes about her job as assistant manager at The Dancing Pony with boundless energy in outfits designed to distract. Her plans for owning her own nightclub are a driving force within her. She’d left the world of stripping and pole dancing at a gentlemen’s club behind to pursue her dreams but finds Ben and Quinten an increasing distraction from her goals. Can she handle mixing business with pleasure when her men decide it’s time to claim her?
Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys
Length: 105,693 words
TINY DANCER
Divine Creek Ranch 13
Heather Rainier
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
TINY DANCER
Copyright © 2013 by Heather Rainier
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-227-2
First E-book Publication: January 2013
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
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Regarding E-book Piracy
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This is Heather Rainier’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Rainier’s right to earn a living from her work.
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DEDICATION
Divine, Texas, has continued to grow and flourish because I’ve been blessed with a husband who understands the vital role he plays in my life. To the man who continues to inspire and encourage me, even when it has meant long evening hours with me in my office behind the keyboard and him handling the house, the cooking, chauffeuring the kids, and the laundry. Because he loves me and understands I need him now more than ever, this book is dedicated to the love of my life, Mister Rainier.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, I give thanks for the girlfriends I laugh with, gossip with, and cry with. Tonya, Jennifer, and Christi have been my cheerleaders since day one.
To the crew behind the scenes who keeps me on track…my IT consultant, Bella Juarez, thanks again for finding it when I accidentally deleted half the manuscript. My CP, Corinne Davies, who talked me off more than one ledge. My beta reader, Stormy, who does so much more than just pat me on the head, she pushes me, too. And my dear, sweet friend Morgan, who has been such a joy to collaborate with.
I owe love and so much gratitude to my street team, the Divine Divas, and their admin, Rana, whose enthusiasm for Divine inspires me daily.
To the beautiful, curvy women of all sizes who e-mail me and visit me on Facebook and my blog, thank you so much. Your kind words, your shared triumphs and challenges, and your love for Divine are such a blessing to me.
To my editor, Caroline, you intuitively push me to a higher standard and I’ll never be able to thank you enough.
To my publisher, Diana, without your continued encouragement and belief in me, I wouldn’t be able to share this love I have for writing with readers. You do make dreams come true. I’m living proof.
CAST OF MAIN CHARACTERS IN BOOK READING ORDER
Divine Grace
Grace (Stuart) Warner worked at Stigall’s Department Store and is co-owner of Harper Embroidery. She’s also invested in and works at Discretion, a ladies’ adults-only boutique located in Morehead.
Jack Warner, Ethan Grant, and Adam Davis. These three distant cousins are owners of the Divine Creek Ranch, a horse ranch specializing in the breeding of Andalusian horses. Jack is also a building contractor. Adam is an HVAC and electrical contractor. Ethan co-owns The Dancing Pony nightclub, located in Divine.
They have one daughter, Rose Marie.
Her Gentle Giant (Part One & Two)
Rachel (Lopez) Wolf was employed at Thorne Home Theater as a bookkeeper. She now does the books for Discretion and is a new stay-at-home mom.
Eli Wolf was one of the bouncers at The Dancing Pony and is now licensed as an EMT.
They have one son, Levi.
Heavenly Angel
Teresa (Palacios) Martinez worked at Stigall’s with Grace and is now invested in Discretion and works there part-time when not caring for her children.
Angel and Joaquin Martinez are brothers and horse breeding specialists who handle the breeding operation on the Divine Creek Ranch.
They have two sons, Michael and Eleazar.
Rosemary’s Double Delight
Rosemary (Piper) Garner splits her time between the family business, Cheaver’s Western Store, and her husbands’ business, Garner Custom Furniture.
Wes and Evan Garner are brothers and self-employed custom furniture craftsmen who have known Rosemary since kindergarten. Rosemary is expecting their first child.
Spurs and Heels
Juliana (Meyer) Peterson, an admitted perfectionist, was the manager of Stigall’s Department Store and is now a buyer for Discretion Boutique.
Ash Peterson, a former bareback bronc riding champion, is the foreman of the Divine Creek Ranch and runs all of the day-to-day operations.
They have a son named Will.
Maya’s Triple Dare
Maya (Daire) Warner is a registered nurse specializing in obstetric and pediatric care. She works with Doctor Emma Guthrie-Rivers.
Kendall, Boone, and Richard Warner are brothers and first cousins of Jack Warner. They are partners in The MWTD Cattle Ranch, which backs up to Divine Creek and borders the Divine Creek Ranch.
Summer’s Indiscretion
Summer (Heston) Webster and her sister Margot are proprietors of Discretion, a ladies’ adults-only boutique in nearby Morehead, Texas.
Ace Webster and Kemp Whittier are adopted brothers who are also partners in a security and private investigation operation. Ace and Kemp have assisted a number of the heroes and heroines in Divine, Texas, including their wife, Summer.
Lydia’s Twin Temptation
Lydia (Webster) Carlisle is a professional chef. She came to The Rockin’ C Ranch as a chef and wound up falling in love with both Chance and Clayton Carlisle. Her older brother, Ace, was not pleased.
Chance and Clayton Carlisle are twin brothers who own The Rockin’ C Ranch, a very large cattle operation outside of Divine.
Their Divine Doctor
Doctor Emma Guthrie is a family practitioner in Divine, Texas.
Duke Rivers and Gage Randall are cousins who were raised as brothers. They are IT consultants and also work on a contract basis for Ace Webster and Kemp Whittier.
Divine Phoenix
Lily Valentine is a Divine native, recently returned home. She is a student and works at Clay Cook Jewelry.
Clay and Del Cook are brothers who are long-lost friends of Lily’s. Clay is a jeweler and sculptor and Del is a rancher, recently returned from a long stint as a contractor for a private military company.
Sparks Fly! A Divine Creek July 4th Family Reunion
Jayne Sheridan is head librarian at the Divine Memorial Library
Seth Carter is a tattoo artist and owner of Divine Ink Tattoo Studio, located in downtown Divine. Sparks Fly! features their introduction to each other and sexy reunions with all the previous main characters in the series, centered around a July 4th family reunion.
His Tattooed Virgin
Jayne Sheridan is determined to overcome a decade of serious illness and move on with her life.
Seth Carter is a tattoo artist and owner of Divine Ink Tattoo Studio located in downtown Divine. They have a son named Toby. Jayne and Seth were introduced in Sparks Fly! Their full love story is told in His Tattooed Virgin.
I hope you enjoy the next installment in the Divine Creek Ranch Collection…
TINY DANCER
Divine Creek Ranch 13
HEATHER RAINIER
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
Mid-October…
Camilla O’Neal waved at Tom Barton as he rose from The Dancing Pony’s long wooden bar after finishing the drink she’d mixed for him.
“Thanks for the great service, shortcake,” he said with a wink. He slid a twenty-dollar bill across the bar to her after paying his tab, tipping Camilla easily triple what she’d normally received in the past. Her dreams of running her own nightclub were coming closer to reality every day. Each dollar she saved was a dollar for which she wouldn’t have to go into debt. Since she’d started wearing the sexy costumes three weeks before, the tips she earned had increased for the same amount of work.
She’d worn the sailor costume that night, which consisted of white shorts, a skimpy white button-up shirt tied under her bustline, white sailor cap, and her white cowgirl boots. In her book, boots went with everything. Plus, they were comfortable.
She watched surreptitiously as her boss, Ben Lawrence, and coworker, Quinten Parks, strode from the storage cooler located behind the bar. A needy-sounding sigh escaped her lips, which she hoped no one had heard over the country music playing on the sound system. Ben had on a black T-shirt that hugged his biceps and muscular pecs as he hefted the case onto the stainless-steel counter by the sinks. Quinten’s bulging biceps strained at the sleeves of his denim shirt as he placed his box next to Ben’s.
She wanted to reach out to Quinten and run her fingers through his dark-blond curls. He’d adopted a slightly longer haircut in the last year, and she’d been pleasantly surprised to learn that his hair was curly. He wore it in a messy style that fit his easygoing personality perfectly.
Well, usually easygoing. Not so much these days.
She felt like she was walking on eggshells with those two. Her heart fluttered as she thought of them both and she castigated herself, hoping she wasn’t as obvious as she felt. She needed to take her own “work is work and pleasure is pleasure” talk to heart. She’d always made it her personal policy to not have relationships with coworkers. They just made doing the job harder. The problem was that she wasn’t sure how strongly she felt about that policy anymore. She wanted to know them better but was afraid to.
Face it, Cami. You want them both, and you’re afraid to take that step. Afraid to risk that they’d be willing to share. It’s asking a lot. Add being coworkers on top of that. It’s a recipe for disaster. She mentally shook herself and squashed the feelings that welled in her heart as she glanced at them from beneath her lashes.
She was too close to her big goals to risk watching it all topple. She needed a good work relationship, free of personal hassles. Her eyes strayed to both men again.
Quinten was a nice contrast to Ben, whose hair was dark brown and crew cut, which complemented his darkly tan coloring and deep, deep brown eyes.
Both men seemed oblivious to her presence at the cash register as she placed money in the till.
Jake Owen’s “Alone With You” played over the sound system as the men returned to the storage cooler to bring the rest of the cases of beer. She began transferring the bottles from the boxes into the coolers behind the bar.
Of all the jobs she’d ever had, this one was by far her favorite and the one she’d miss the most when she moved on. That mostly had to do with the men she worked for. Ben Lawrence and Ethan Grant, co-owners of The Dancing Pony, were hardworking, thoughtful, and understanding bosses.
Ben, whom she worked with most often of the two, was incredibly attractive and it had taken a concerted effort over the last couple of years to not give in to the temptation to reach out and touch him. Her first management job in her chosen field was very important, so she’d learned to live with the attraction she’d always felt toward him. The work relationship had to be on the up-and-up.
Then there was Quinten, with his naughty golden-boy good looks and easy demeanor. If she could have a best friend in a work environment, it was him. They’d connected on the first night she’d worked at The Pony, but there again, the professional relationship had to come first. Quinten had tried to put his attraction into words but she’d stopped him before he could finish. That had been hard as hell, because she would’ve loved to have pulled him into the cooler that first night and muss up his golden locks for him.
Her goals had been and still were completely solidified and she couldn’t let anything get in her way. A work affair with either of the men she was attracted to could be disastrous for her plans to have her own club. Her reputation as a professional businesswoman mattered more than anything and too often affairs with coworkers damaged a woman’s credibility.
It had unsettled her lately that, despite her best efforts, her relationship with them seemed to be on shaky ground. Both men had always been protective, maybe even overprotective. But lately they’d been alpha-like, staying within easy reach of her when The Pony was crowded or when she was conversing with a male patron who was new to the club. She’d assumed their vigilance was because of the fistfight that had broken out and spread to the dance floor earlier in the fall but they hadn’t let up since then. She’d find them watching her—both
of them—but then they’d look away if she caught them. Knowing that they watched over her like that made her feel warm all over but that didn’t change the fact that she couldn’t act on those feelings.
She knew they didn’t like the themed costumes she’d been wearing, despite the fact that it clearly translated into greater profits for the club. They bristled anytime she chose to spend her occasional breaks during the evenings with her friends on the dance floor.
When she joined Grace, Rachel, and the others for a dance, it helped her to relax and she loved the physical activity. Since she’d stopped dancing at the Dollhouse, her curves had rounded out, so she took physical activity however she could but enjoyed dancing most of all.
On several occasions, she’d noticed Ben and Quinten watching her dance from their positions behind the bar. She’d wondered at the way their gazes had made her cheeks warm, considering that she’d danced without a blush while clad in considerably less clothing at her previous job at the Dollhouse gentleman’s club. Being honest with herself, she found that her gaze followed their handsome physiques around the club far more often than was probably prudent.
Ben and Quinten had mostly kept to themselves since her arrival that evening. She had the sense that they were up to something that she wasn’t “in on,” and it hurt her feelings a little. No point in wondering what was up with the two of them because they seemed to keep her guessing most days.
Tiny Dancer [Divine Creek Ranch 13] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 1
