by Reece Butler
Simon carefully shut the Bible and moved it aside. Had God sent Marci Grant as a last chance for marriage and children? Just in case, he’d be aiming a few prayers at both sets of ancestors.
He opened Beth’s diary again. I have a such a need for loving, day and night! she’d written.
“So have I,” he said quietly.
He had lots of cousins, and Lance of course. But he wanted what Donny and Keith had with Aggie. A woman that turned a quiet house into a loud, loving home. That was what his ancestors did when they married. Bachelors who’d shared a small cabin didn’t care about anything but what was necessary. Things such as gingham curtains or a jelly jar of flowers on the table took energy better spent improving the ranch.
But when a woman arrived, everything changed. The men came home to hot food, a clean home, an eager wife and, in time, rambunctious children. Roles for men and women had changed over the years, but it took time for that to seep down to the countryside. Many women were ranchers, equal partners with their men. That valley tradition had started in 1870 when Elizabeth James married Trace Elliott and got his younger twin brothers as a package deal.
Back then, women and children were legal property of their husbands and fathers. Most had little say in how their lives were conducted. They could be beaten, raped, and tied up so they couldn’t run away. Some of the first wives in Tanner’s Ford had had those things happen. One had even been sold to a brothel by her fiancé. But instead of being shamed, they’d been praised for surviving and gone on to live far happier lives.
Each rancher since then had made sure their woman had an equal share of the ranch on paper. There was also a tradition of marrying strong-minded, intelligent women. When a man was raised by such a woman, and surrounded by aunts and cousins who were the same, he got used to it. Simon had met lots of women at college who giggled and pretended they were stupid as if it would make him feel smarter. Or maybe they weren’t pretending. But the males who fell for that, or wanted a woman to walk three steps behind on the left, were not men. Not in his book.
Beth Elliott had demanded a lot from her three husbands, and given at least as much in return. She’d lived in a home identical to this one. He looked around the pleasant kitchen, which was the original cabin. Benjamin and Louisa Elliott had shared it the first winter with Finan and Sunbird MacDougal. They had three children between them. But in spite of the crowding, three of his great-grandfathers had been conceived that winter. His namesake, Simon, and twin brother Jack Elliott, along with Ross MacDougal, were born the next autumn.
He touched the table where Marci had settled her ass for some of his tongue work. This morning was just the latest in a string of sexual escapades contained within these log walls. He did some quick math.
“There’s been one hundred and thirty-six years of hot sex in this room.”
He snorted a laugh and started reading the diary, out loud because it made it all seem so real.
Trace loves my apple turnovers, but he didn’t mind waiting for me to cut them out. Not when Jack had the children for an hour. He didn’t even bother to clear the table, just unbuttoned, lifted my dress, and bent me over. Oh my, did I need that thick cock inside me! He rode me hard, just the way I like it. He used those fingers on my nipples, pinching and pulling to make me fly higher. Soon I was screaming, one peak after another as—
“Holy Hannah!”
Chapter Eleven
Simon slammed the cover of Beth’s journal closed. He pushed the book away as if it was on fire. He shuddered, heart pounding. He shouldn’t be getting horny reading about people who’d been dead for a hundred years getting it on. But his cock was throbbing as hard as last night when Marci dropped her clothes. Would she want to get back to what they’d been doing when Donny showed up?
“I bet the same thing happened right here.” He looked at the scarred table. Donny and Keith had used it with Aggie, he’d just used it, and he bet every generation had as well. “No wonder it’s never been moved, sold, or burned. Too many good memories in each generation.” He caressed the heavy harvest-size table. He could see lifting Marci’s dress, bending her over the table and doing what Trace did for Beth.
There was still no sound from the barn. His hand went out as if by itself, and pulled the journal over. Maybe if he started somewhere else he could learn some history that did not involve naked ancestors doing things that made him horny and, dammit, jealous!
July 30th. Molly Tanner and Meggie Wright are both nearing their time. They are nervous like all first-time mothers, but are pleased they have each other for comfort. The husbands, of course, are fretting worse than the mothers. Meggie’s child will be our first grandchild. I don’t know how I feel about being a grandmother when I’m not yet thirty, but it won’t be stopping me from doing whatever I choose!
Hope MacDougal came down with a fever and Amelia was quite worried, but she pulled through. I think the Bannock plant medicines work far better than what Doc Henley was trained to use. But he’s willing to take knowledge wherever he can get it. The willow-bark tea was very helpful to lower Mary Barstow’s fever. The sheriff was worried sick.
Simon looked at his leg. The white cast was so damned heavy and awkward, that he’d cursed it. But he’d been able to drive himself to the clinic where nurses and doctors would do their damnedest to fix anything. Some of them were royal pains in the behinds, like Doc Meshevski and Brenda, but their hearts were in the right place. He was in for a few weeks of nuisance, but then he’d be fine again.
It would’ve been different in 1873.
Back then, there was a good chance his bones would heal in the wrong position if he didn’t die of infection. He could have been crippled. How could a man, on his own with a wife and family, cope? That was another reason Tanner’s Ford ranchers had three men protecting and providing for their families. Men who had accidents far from the ranch died with no one to know until their bones were found, scattered by animals.
Their wives would wait, hoping they’d return, coping as best they could. And when no husband returned to a prosperous ranch, word would spread. He’d read histories of women who’d had no choice but to marry the man who showed up at her door and informed her he was taking her along with the ranch. Some were good men who took their time to ease the wife into her nightly duties. Many were not. One drunk preacher and she became his property, along with everything her dead husband had owned. Sometimes rumors suggested the new man had arranged for his predecessor’s death.
It never happened in Tanner’s Ford because they took care of their own.
And over a hundred years later, they were still taking care of each other. Donny was out there doing the chores Simon should be doing, slowed down by a pesky city gal likely asking too many questions. But then Marci would take care of Donny’s wild tribe so he and Aggie could take the baby to the doctor.
He hated to admit it, but Marci was turning out to be different than what he expected. Not only was she a good cook and great with Sophie, she wasn’t shy about demanding orgasms. She didn’t give in to him just because he growled, and her being in the barn meant she was trying to do whatever she could to help out. Less than twelve hours and the woman was getting under his skin. What the heck was he going to do if she waltzed out of here as soon as he could hobble around?
He leaned forward and scrubbed his head with both hands.
“Well, cowboy, you’d best do whatever you can to make her want to stay, at least until Lance comes back. And that means satisfying her with lots of hot sex, yes-siree.”
His stiff cock lined up with his stiff leg. He couldn’t do much about either one of them. Usually when he got sexually frustrated, he went out and chopped wood or did something else that was so exhausting his mind went blank. He couldn’t do it this time thanks to his leg, so he’d jump into the past. He turned back to the book.
Mary Barstow had the same sort of fever that took Louisa and Benjamin Elliott when Trace and the others were children. Finan MacDougal was a ho
rrid man, but he did keep the younger Elliotts alive by taking them into his home. Mind you, all he wanted was free labor, especially when he moved them, lock, stock, and barrel, to a new ranch in Texas. We were so relieved when Amelia had those twin boys. Those Texas MacDougals will never get control of the MD Connected ranch in Tanner’s Ford!
He carefully shut the book and pushed it away.
“Well, that solved my horniness.”
Unless he or Lance had sons to inherit the ranch, there was a damn good chance those Texas MacDougals would inherit this time around. The original deed from that crafty son of a gun Laird Finan MacDougal, Chief of the MacDougal clan in America, had set it in stone. The ranch was never to be sold. Just like in Highland Scotland, where the old Laird had grown up using his huge claymore sword daily, the clan was more important than the people in it.
The MacDougal Clan needed land to hold for future generations. Nothing was more important.
His parents thought they were going to be fine with three sons. They’d raised Fergus to hold the leadership of the Clan as well as the ranch. But then he was gone. Nothing would ever replace his mother’s precious firstborn son. Though Lance, a couple of minutes older, had then become heir to the Clan, it had never been acknowledged. Simon was expected to take over, having had little training. His father’s daily disappointment that he wasn’t Fergus still hurt.
“I’ll never be as good,” said Simon.
He might have been a great history teacher, though. He’d talked to all the families around Tanner’s Ford and gathered up all the old family diaries. At the time he was furious his aunts insisted on keeping them under lock and key. He was in college when the news came about Fergus. Simon had put aside his dream and come home to keep the ranch going.
But unless they had legitimate heirs, they’d be facing the same situation as their ancestors in 1871. Simon scrubbed at his hair in frustration. He wanted to have lots of hot sex with Marci Grant. But more, he wanted her married to him and producing MacDougal sons and daughters.
“I don’t know a damn thing about her, other than what she told me. It could all be a pile of horse hooey.”
But there was no one else he’d even consider spending more than a week with, and that would be in a hotel room far from home. Marci was his last chance. He’d see how she was with Donny’s kids this afternoon, and how well she coped with cooking on that wood stove.
He leaned back in the chair. Family lore said that Great-Granny Amelia was a lousy cook. Sunbird, Nevin and Ross’s mother, did all the cooking along with her sister, known only as “Auntie.” He could stand to have a lousy cook if she was a good wife and mother.
Did Marci really make those brownies? When he saw Doc Meshevski on Monday, he’d demand to know where she’d found Marci Grant, and if that really was her name. Until then he’d check out her cooking skills. He reached for the diary.
“And her bedding skills, as my great-grannies would say.”
Chapter Twelve
Marci let the kitchen door bang behind her as she ran into the yard. She knew her face was flaming at being caught in near orgasm. She stopped at the sight of the huge raven perched on top of the barn. It tilted its head and regarded her as if she was a tasty bug. The dogs rushed out to greet her. The black bird leaped gracefully off the roof, swept down, and landed on the largest dog’s rump. The dog gave a startled wuff and took off. The bird rode him like a jockey until the dog got too close to the bushes. Then he flapped away making a sound too close to laughter for Marci to think it was accidental.
Was the magnificent bird a half-wild pet? She’d always had a fascination with ravens, having read some urban fantasy stories where they changed into human form. She shrugged it off and entered the barn.
Thankfully, Donny didn’t say a thing other than a quick good morning. Simon’s cousin had her watch him work at first, then she did the jobs while he corrected her, and then he let her do it on her own. They’d fed the horses using individual buckets hung on posts, a separate one for each animal. Now they were cleaning the stalls. The dogs lay nearby, content to be part of the process.
“Is Sophie feeling better?” she asked as they used forks to remove the dirty straw. Donny’s fork could fill her wheelbarrow in one load. She took about eight to do the same job. Half the time the fork wobbled and she dropped part of her load.
“She was sleeping like a baby should when I left.” His deep chuckle reached over the stall partition. “Keith was feeding the older three while Aggie napped. Something tells me I’ll be reading the bedtime stories tonight while they have a bit of a romp.”
Marci choked at his bald statement. This was the country, and sex was part of life. The hush-hush snickers of an Eastern city had no place here. To thank their neighbors for helping Simon she’d have to make sure the older children had a couple of sleepovers while she was here. Otherwise when did the couple—triple?—have a chance to share their bed knowing they wouldn’t be interrupted by little feet?
“Does that bother you?” he asked when she didn’t reply. “Agatha marrying both of us, I mean.”
Heat flared up her face. “It’s none of my business,” she choked out.
“That’s not what I asked,” he said dryly.
She realized he was leaning over the stall watching her. She stood up and turned, wiping stray hair out of her face.
“To be honest, I’d just told myself that I would have your children for a few sleepovers while I’m staying here with Simon.”
His eyes lit up. “You’d do that?”
She nodded. “I love kids, and if the others are anything like Sophie, they’re adorable.” He grimaced, making her laugh. “Yes, I’m sure they’re loud and exhausting, but that doesn’t mean they’re not still adorable.”
“Marci, if you could manage that, I’d do anything you wanted.” His white teeth flashed. “Would you like a hint on how to handle Simon? If he gets into those diaries, he’s liable to read them all out loud. Our ancestors worked hard, and played hard. They were a lusty bunch.”
Heat flooded her face in memory of Simon’s mouth between her legs. Donny raised a knowing eyebrow but did nothing other than wink and go back to work. She groaned and thudded her head on the wooden stall. That didn’t help so she took her wheelbarrow, rolled it between the stalls, and dumped it.
“Few men are suited to share their wife with a brother, cousin, or close friend,” said Donny when she came back. He didn’t stop working, or look at her. “But ranchers in Tanner’s Ford, and a few others, have been doing it for generations. It started in 1870 after the war ended and gold was discovered. All sorts of men headed west for gold, land, or just to escape bad memories. That left many women in the East without a chance for a husband, especially ones with education or an attitude. Back then were at least 300 single men for every available woman in Montana Territory, so a Bride Train was set up to haul those unmarried women here.”
He caught her eye and grinned. “Mostly, the women who rode that train didn’t fit Eastern society. They refused the husband their father chose, were too outspoken to be acceptable, were too tall, or not pretty enough. They figured they had a better chance of finding a husband and gaining a family out here, so hopped on the train. The ones who came to Tanner’s Ford married three men each.”
“Nobody objected?”
“Aunt Dot wouldn’t let anyone see those diaries, but from the way she blushed when anyone asked, I figure they were happy. Most of them had a bunch of children.”
His grin faded to serious. He set his fork down again. She stopped as well.
“You have to understand, Marci, that there was a lot of danger back then. Everything was done by men, women, children, or animals. Everything. You ever go camping?”
She shook her head. Camping, along with anything beyond basic survival, were luxuries she couldn’t afford. Having enough food and warm clothing, especially when Nikki grew so fast, were her priorities. If she had a child it would not worry about having a home t
o come back to after school. Her child would not carry a backpack all the time to keep her few precious things from being tossed on the sidewalk when they were evicted. Why would she want to play at camping out when it was only a few steps below her daily struggle to live?
“Making a cup of coffee is easy now, just throw things together and push a few buttons. Back then you had to cut down trees then chop the wood to make a fire. You had to have a coffeepot, mugs, and coffee. You needed water, and a way to carry it. And matches, or a flint and steel. Then you had to get up early enough to start the fire, boil the water, and make the coffee before the men started stirring. And that doesn’t even hint at what was needed to make breakfast, and then clean up.”
“I hadn’t really thought of it,” she replied. “The more people, the more workers.”
“Having three men share the ranch and family worked well. If one of them died, there were two more to keep things going.”
Reading about dry history was one thing. But she was hearing about it from a man who lived a life fairly similar to his ancestors. There were many modern conveniences, but they still did the same tasks, in much the same way. The pneumatic tire on the wheelbarrow was an improvement on one made of wood, but the horses still ate as much and produced the same amount of output in the same manner.
“It makes sense the way you explain it.”
“The next generation dropped mostly to two husbands each, so it was three adults. It’s stayed that way since. If you grow up with two dads, and half the kids in school do as well, it’s normal to you. It’s just the new people coming in who look at us strange.” He winked. “Though there’s some outside women who don’t mind having two men love them. Aggie being one. We met her at college. She was a country girl at heart, but her family loved their tiny tenth-storey downtown apartment. We invited her to visit for a weekend, and, well, we’ve got four kids now.”
