Hard Luck Ranch (2 page)

Emma laughed again. “Of course, I have to disagree. Wes and I have discussed every topic under the sun in our letters—except, of course, for you.” She glanced toward Wes. “But I will agree that meeting him in person is different altogether. It simply proves that his eyes are as warm and brown as I pictured them.”

Everett hesitated to answer. A note in her laughter made him pause. It was nerves he heard jangling through her words. The woman was living on them. He realized how callous he was being, questioning her, taking out his frustration with Wes on her.

To have come here to Texas from clear across the country took guts—and desperation.

“You must be tired,” he said curtly, stepping back to tip his hat to her. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

“Ev!”

Wes’ voice stopped him just outside the door. He turned halfway back toward the house.

“Yes?”

“You will be at the wedding, won’t you? Reverend Maybee promised to marry us as soon as Emma arrived.” Wes turned solicitously toward his bride. “Can you be ready in an hour or so, sweetheart?”

Before Emma could agree, Everett broke in. “The lady looks dead on her feet, Wes! Show some consideration. You two will be just as married if you have the ceremony tomorrow as you would be today.”

Then he wouldn’t have to picture the two of them fucking like bunnies tonight.

Damn it, of all the terrible things he’d secretly predicted of Wes’ unknown bride, he’d never imagined that he would want her.

Wasn’t it bad enough that he was already in love with Wes?

Chapter Two

It helped that the hard-eyed sheriff was gone but Emma hardly knew what to say to her husband-to-be. Her husband. Soon it would be the truth.

She sat upstairs in the big bedroom—
his
bedroom—and surveyed the results of a long hot bath and bit of careful dressing. It helped to slip her fingers between her thighs and play with her pussy until the tension drained from her body, leaving it pulsing with energy and satisfaction. Tonight, perhaps, it would be Wes’ fingers in her cunny. He looked more than capable of showing her how it was truly done. She shivered with the thrill of anticipation.

Emma had to admit that Hard Luck Ranch hardly lived up to its name. It boasted of all the amenities of her former home and it also held the benefit of being empty and not yet stamped with any particular personality.

It was a place she could make into a home.

Emma met her wide open blue eyes in the mirror. Its blurry surface softened the anxiety she knew was lurking in them, as well as the tremble she could feel on her lips. She’d brazened out that initial introduction well and yet…

After his friend had left, Wes had seemed distraught. He’d hidden it well behind his smile but she could sense it strongly. That man, Everett, meant a great deal to her future husband. Which probably meant she would be seeing more of him in future.

Emma frowned at her reflection. Wes was attractive, there was no doubt about that. He accorded perfectly with the image she’d prepared in her mind, that of a perfect spouse. He was kind and warm and anxious to please. Yes, he would make a good husband.

But Everett seemed the opposite. He was a cool man, she could tell, but then again he would need to be reticent if he were to police a town on the edge of civilization like Desert Rose.

She wanted him to like her. More than that, she needed him to. She sensed that Everett Montgomery held a great deal of sway with her future husband and, if he wanted to, he could drive a wedge in her new marriage. She would not let that happen. Wes was all she had now and she meant to hold onto him.

* * * *

“Whoa, slow down there, honey. You’ll swallow the glass too, if you’re not careful.”

Everett slammed his tumbler down on the bar counter and gestured for a refill. He wasn’t in the mood for any of Annie’s banter. Not today.

The barmaid took one glance at his face and shut her mouth with a snap. She refilled his glass without a further word.

But some people weren’t so tactful.

A soft touch on his shoulder made him look up. And swallow. But it wasn’t whiskey that was caught in his throat. It was guilt.

“What is eating our handsome sheriff today?” asked Kimberley Danton, proprietress of the Rose Parlor, the town’s best—and most expensive—brothel.

“Leave me alone, Kim,” Everett growled.

Instead of obeying, she slid into the high wooden chair beside him and nodded to Annie. A drink appeared almost instantly before her—bright pink and tinkling with ice. Only those who knew her well recognized the drink as pink lemonade. Like the lady herself, the drink was sweet but slightly acerbic.

“Oh my, this does sound serious,” Kimberley murmured. “What is the matter, sugar? You can tell Auntie Kim.”

‘Auntie’ Kim was no more than a few years older than Everett but despite the luscious dress and expert makeup, no one would mistake the woman for younger than her thirty-odd years. She wore her age like her profession, without any hint of shame.

Everett gazed down into his glass. “You can’t help me, Kim. No one can.”

“Not even Kenneth?”

He shot her an unfriendly glance. “Don’t even mention your brother to me.”

Kim pushed aside her drink and leaned in close. At that hour of the morning, the tavern adjoining the Rose was nearly empty but a few diehards still sat around the fireplace repeating the same old stories they’d been telling since they’d been the young men who’d lived those adventures.

“What’s wrong, Ev? Did you and Ken have a squabble? Because he’s been as prickly as you are now ever since last week.”

Everett stuck his jaw out mulishly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He was aware that his dignity was the fragile kind that the drunks he arrested sometimes showed.

“You’re pickled, Ev. Let me get you a room upstairs. It wouldn’t do to have our town sheriff seen in public like this.”

He pulled away from her hand. “Then it’s a good thing I’m not in public, ain’t it? No conscientious citizen of Desert Rose would be caught dead in this place nor in your fine eshtablishmens next door.”

Everett stared into the long mirror peeking through the bottles of liquor behind the bar. Through it, he could see glimpses of his tumbled hair and his bloodshot eyes.

“Take Wes Miller, for inshance,” he went on. “I predict you won’t be sheeing any more of Wes, Kim. Ishn’t it a shame? That means you won’t get to meet hish pretty little bride either.”

The mention of his friend’s name brought a gleam of comprehension to the madam’s violet-blue eyes.

“Wes got married already, didn’t he?” Her thin face was thoughtful. “You were banking on the fact that he wouldn’t take to his mail order bride or that she wouldn’t cotton on to him but it didn’t turn out like that, did it? He liked her and she liked him and now they’re husband and wife. And there’s nothing you can do about that, is there, sugar?”

Everett felt a muscle in his jaw working so hard it might pop right through the skin.

“He’s my besh friend, Kim.”

“He’s more than that, isn’t he?” she asked gently. She pitched her voice so low it was just a bare breath of air. “Ken loves you, Ev, if that means anything to you. Let Wes go. He’ll never return your feelings.”

“He’s my besh friend,” Everett repeated, shaking his head.

Kimberley looked up and nodded at a figure standing at the far end of the bar. A moment later, a steaming cup of black coffee landed on the counter in front of the sheriff.

He pushed the mug away with a scowl. “I don’t want thish—”

“You may not want it,” a new voice said, “but you surely need it, partner.”

Partner. It was a word that got bandied around an awful lot and, depending on the context, it could mean anything from friend to bastard. But this man who stood before Everett, his hands resting lightly on the bar’s polished top, meant it just as the dictionary defined it. He and Everett were partners in bed and outside of it—but not yet partners in life.

Everett’s scowl deepened although he picked up the mug and took a swallow of coffee.

“I’m not in the mood, Ken.”

Kimberley vacated her chair, leaving the two men alone in that part of the saloon.

Kenneth Danton had his older sister’s thin mobile face and alert violet eyes. In a man, they were oddly disconcerting.

“As far as I can tell,” Ken countered in a low, pleasant voice, “you’re always in the mood, partner. Even after you’ve already fucked all of the vinegar out of me.”

“Shut up!” Everett looked around swiftly but finding only the doddering dedicated drinkers on the other side of the room, he returned his attention to his coffee. “Leave me alone, Ken.”

It was easy enough to say, but Kenneth’s words had already conjured up erotic images that he would have a hard time getting out of his head. ‘Fucked all the vinegar’ out of him. He’d done a lot more to Ken the last time they’d met, but Ken had also wanted more. A real relationship. A commitment. After two years together, off and on, it wasn’t too much for the other man to ask but it was more than Everett had to give.

His heart wasn’t his own anymore. It belonged to another man. Always had.

“You look dead on your feet,” Kenneth told him, reaching out a friendly hand. “Come on, partner, let’s take you upstairs and get you into bed.”

Everett didn’t budge. “Ken—”

For once it was Kenneth’s mild voice that showed a hint of steel. “Come on, Ev. No arguments. Not today.”

Everett followed the other man without another protest.

* * * *

Kenneth’s room was at the end of the tavern’s second floor, right next to the back entrance to the Rose Parlor. He ran the Rose Tavern, his sister ran the parlor, and together they made a good living. A very good living. They serviced far more than just Desert Rose and its neighboring towns. Men came from as far as Galveston and San Antonio to partake of the Rose’s offerings, which included a beautiful mixed race Indian woman and two sisters from China.

But, with his sister’s assistance, Kenneth had gone to college in the state capital. He’d come back to Desert Rose only as a temporary stop on the way to a big bright career in the city. Except he’d gotten to know Everett Montgomery during that brief stopover and the temporary visit had become a permanent settlement.

He loved the tall blond sheriff and he would never accept a life without him. Even if that meant sharing his heart with Wes Miller.

“Lay down.” Kenneth gave Everett a small push to propel him across the big bedroom and down onto the bed. “Let me make you more comfortable.”

He’d intended no more than to undress Everett and tuck him under the covers, but pulling down his trousers revealed Everett’s thick golden cock and Kenneth couldn’t resist sliding his hand up and down its generous length. Everett’s dick was already semi-aroused. From thinking about Wes, Kenneth guessed, hating the other man for a brief, irrational moment.

But he couldn’t really hate Wesley. He’d fallen in love with Everett knowing how he felt about his lifelong friend. The only saving grace was the fact that Wes didn’t return Everett’s feelings in the slightest. Everett had always been firm about that reality. But that didn’t quite explain how Everett had come to nurse such a slow burning torch in the first place.

There must have been some incident in the past that had first lit that fire…

Kenneth was too afraid to ask. He didn’t want to hear the story of some boyhood romp, of the two friends tussling together in a hay loft or out in the wide open range, how they ended up kissing and tugging on each other’s dicks until they were both panting and hard.

He didn’t want to picture how Everett’s face would look, lit with love as he kissed another man. As he lowered his golden head and took Wes’ cock gently into his mouth…

Lost in thought, Kenneth involuntarily squeezed Everett’s dick, wringing an almost painful groan from him.

“Love me, Ken,” Everett moaned. “I need you.”

They were heady magic words and Kenneth didn’t need any further formula to dip his head and suck up the head of Everett’s rounded cock. His cheeks hollowed as he sucked on the smooth tip, laving it with the flat roughness of his tongue. He held his teeth firmly back, cushioning them with his lips so that he gave the perfect fluid rhythm.

He loved this man and he loved this cock, better than any other he’d ever touched or tasted.

“God, yes,” Everett grunted, reaching his hand out to tangle his fingers in Kenneth’s hair.

His need was obvious as Kenneth slitted his eyes open to stare up at Everett’s tortured face. But his eyes were tightly shut. Was he thinking of the man kneeling before him or was he thinking about Wesley?

Kenneth no longer wanted to know—but that didn’t mean he didn’t care. He cared far too much.

Abandoning his thoughts, Kenneth surrendered to the pleasure of giving. With one hand, he lightly chafed the base of Everett’s member while he drew most of the shaft into his mouth. Now the thick head touched the back of his gullet, making him fight against the instinctive need to gag. He hummed a little, soothing sounds that helped him calm down and ignore the erection growing in his own trousers. This was about Ev, not about him.

The humming caused Everett to twist, his hips writhing in helpless desire as he tried to fuck Kenneth’s wide open mouth. The movement forced Kenneth to draw back or else risk violently gagging on his lover’s penis. Everett moaned as the cool air touched his dick where Kenneth’s warm mouth had just been.

Kenneth licked up and down Everett’s shaft. He squeezed down around the base, trapping the blood in it and keeping it relentlessly hard. Everett’s groans sounded like the hard snorts of a wild mustang running against the wind.

Kenneth stared up at this man he loved, his stern face completely altered by what he was doing to him. Then he bent his head and took Everett’s penis inside him as deep as he could manage until the familiar battering touched the back of his mouth. This time he managed to suppress his reflexes and savor the hard shape and size of the cock he held against his tongue and palate.