Ecstasy in Elk's Crossing (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (2 page)

Katie was grateful for the interruption. She hadn’t intended on sharing her heart with the McGowan brothers. For the past month, they’d been talking, flirting a little, and sometimes flirting a lot. But it had always been light banter between them. Never had either side opened up so much.

She started to leave, but Aaron caught her apron, stopping her.

“If you said that all I had to do to get a kiss from you was stop the earth from spinning, I’d do it.” His lips curled into a half smile, and his tawny eyes sparkled. “And I’m sure that every one of my brothers feels exactly the same way. We all adore you.”

“You’re a flatterer,” Katie replied, tugging free her apron from his large, callused hand. “I’ll admit, it does this woman’s bruised ego a world of good.” She cleared her throat. “My heart skips a beat every time you touch me. But I’ve got to be honest with you, holding my hand is as far as anything’s going to go. Once you’ve been a man’s punching bag, you start looking at all men
very
carefully.”

* * * *

Two hours later, sitting in a saddle he’d had for more than a decade, Aaron was looking at a herd of nearly four hundred prime Angus cattle, though all his thoughts were of a voluptuous blonde in her midtwenties who had recently moved to Elk’s Crossing. She was the one with the infectious smile that, just seeing it, made a grown man feel like a teenager. And at the age of thirty-two, Aaron didn’t particularly like feeling so young and naive.

Blair, on his buckskin quarter horse named Jupiter, cantered over and came to a stop. He pushed his sweat-stained Stetson back on his head, gave his brother a smile, and said, “How long have you been thinking about Katie?”

“Is it that obvious?” Aaron wasn’t thrilled to know that his thoughts were so easy to read, especially from a distance.

“Uh-huh. I practically had to tie the boys into their saddles to keep them from floating away.”

“A little light-headed, were they?”

“That’s the understatement of a lifetime. They think the sun rises and sets on Katie.”

“The boys” were Garrett and Flynn, the youngest of the McGowan brothers, and twins. The first time they had seen Katie at the Mountain View Saloon, she had been wearing a white silk blouse with a black skirt, stockings, and high-heels. She’d smiled at them in welcoming, and both young men had simply stopped dead in their tracks and stared at her. The blouse had been modest enough, perfect attire for a hostess at a high-end steak house in San Francisco. But in Elk’s Crossing, North Dakota, to unexpectedly see such a voluptuous woman in a silk blouse had quite taken the breath away from the two twenty-one-year-olds.

“How angry did you get,” Aaron asked, “when she said some guy used her for his personal punching bag?”

“It would have been a real bad time to get my blood pressure checked.”

Aaron took his hat off and combed his fingers through his auburn hair. “About the first lesson I can ever remember Papa giving us was to always show respect to Mama, and never to lift a hand against her or any other woman.” Aaron felt a clenching in his stomach and a sudden pounding in his temples, which he quickly willed away. It wouldn’t do him any good to get furious about an injustice he had been powerless to prevent. “She pretty much lights up the whole room when she smiles, doesn’t she?”

“That she does, big brother. That she does.”

* * * *

David Haynes stood outside the apartment building waiting for one of the tenants to enter. He had been unable to slip past the security system, but maybe someone would recognize him and let him in. It hadn’t always been dreadful with Katie. In their early days, she’d made him quite happy.

But as he stood in the doorway across the street, avoiding the light, drizzling rain, David felt the anger welling up inside him once again. Things had been good, but only at first. Katie had said she loved him. He had a high-paying job as an investment analyst at one of the more prestigious financial firms in the city, and his future looked to be an unending series of successes.

Then Katie changed. She got independent and forgot her place in their relationship. She never should have gone to the cops because he had every right in the world to straighten her out.

First there was the restraining order. What a joke that had been! No goddamned judge was going to tell David where he could go or who he could see. If he wanted to talk to Katie, how was that any business of the court?

David closed his eyes and tried to forget about those moments in the courtroom, when it was announced that he was now a felon in the State of California, and that, though most of his sentence was being suspended, he’d still spend months behind bars.

The rest seemed to have happened so fast he could hardly fathom it. Some dumb-ass clause in his contract allowed his boss at the financial firm to give him the boot out the door. David had always been a high flyer, a man who made a lot of money, but he spent a lot of money, too. Having lost his six-figure income, and being unable to earn anything behind bars, he lost his condo and his Porsche.

And to make matters worse, all his so-called friends sided with Katie against him.

To hell with all of them
. David pressed himself a little tighter against the building to avoid the drizzle.
It’s Katie’s fault. I had money, friends, a great job, a hot car. I was at the top of my game. I had it all. Then she took it from me. She’s going to pay for that. I’ve got every right in the world to make her pay. Every right in the world.

From the apartment building, a young couple got halfway out the door. They were laughing and kissing playfully. Apparently the young woman was saying good-bye to the young man, but neither wanted to be the first to turn away. David hurried across the street, being as unobtrusive as possible.

“Don’t mind me,” David said as he slipped past the couple and into the building.

The young lovers hardly gave him a glance, so entranced were they in their little game of you-first.

David felt an eerie sense of déjà vu as he walked down the hallway toward the elevators. The last time he’d been in this building, two policemen had wrestled him to the floor, put him in handcuffs, and sprayed him with pepper mace.

His heart was starting to pound as he walked closer and closer to Katie’s apartment door.

It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t make her pay for what she’s done to me. It’s for her own good, so she knows she mustn’t ever do anything like that ever again.

He knocked on the door, his hand remaining clenched into a fist. Presently, the door opened, and an elderly woman looked at him above the security chain.

“Yes?”

“Hi. I was wondering if Katie is available.” David tried to keep his tone friendly, but he could hear the suppressed fury in every word.

“She moved away.”

The door was unceremoniously closed in his face. David heard the deadbolt lock being thrown into place.

When her phone had been disconnected, he hadn’t been surprised. It was what he had expected her to do. What he hadn’t expected was for her to move out of her apartment. Finding a nice apartment that was affordable was a real trick in San Francisco.

If it takes a day or a month or a year, I’m going to find her. Not letting me know where she’s moved? That’s just one more thing I’m going to have to talk to her about. That woman’s got to learn to listen and do what she’s told.
He smiled, liking the way his mind was working.

He was almost out the front doors of the apartment building when the bank of mailboxes caught his attention. He stopped, and for a moment tried to figure out just what it was that had triggered his unconscious curiosity.

It took a while, but he finally saw it. A letter protruding from the overstuffed mailbox, addressed to Katie, from some culinary society. Written in longhand, probably by the old woman who now lived in the apartment, were instructions to forward the letter to an address in Elk’s Crossing, North Dakota.

“Elk’s Crossing?” David said aloud. “Where the hell is Elk’s Crossing?”

He stuffed the envelope into his back pocket, already making plans to travel out of San Francisco, even though his parole officer had made it quite clear that he wasn’t to leave the city.

* * * *

I’ve got to go on a diet.

Katie was standing naked before the full-length mirror in her bedroom at her grandparents’ house. She had just showered, and was now getting ready for her evening shift at the Mountain View Saloon.

Thirty-five pounds would be about right. No, maybe just twenty-five. Thank goodness I mostly carry it in my boobs and hips. That way it gives me curves.

The thought made her smile, but not for long. A moment later she did the classic pinch test at the side of her stomach, and she didn’t like the results.

I wonder if the McGowan men like their women to have curves, or if they like them petite and dainty? They’re all such big men. Maybe they’d like....

She cupped her breasts from the underside and lifted them slightly. Katie had struggled with her body image her whole life. Sometimes she felt good about herself and how she looked, and other times she did not. What she found most frustrating was that her positive or negative feelings were almost always tied to other factors in her life. Like David, who at one time had made her feel like the most precious woman in the world, and later made her feel dirty, defiled, and worthless.

Think about the McGowans. When they look at you, there’s warmth in their eyes. They’d never hurt you. The twins almost swoon when you serve them their suppers. And Aaron likes it when you give him a little peek at the girls.

A half smile tugged at the right corner of Katie’s mouth. Yes, Aaron liked to look at her all right, and so did his brothers. When they looked at her, Katie felt appreciated and attractive, not just lusted after. They could make her feel pretty without ever saying a single word about her appearance.

And they’d never resort to violence. If Katie was certain about anything regarding the raw-knuckled Irishmen, it was that they wouldn’t use violence.

Katie told herself that flirting with the McGowans was all just harmless fun. Though none of them had been overt in their desire for her, Katie knew in her heart that she would always have to resist them. If she ever succumbed to Aaron’s charms, then it would surely have a negative effect on his relationship with Blair and the others. Katie hadn’t done many things that she was ashamed of, but being a divisive element in a family as close and cohesive as the McGowans would surely leave her feeling a bottomless guilt.

But there’s nothing wrong with a little harmless flirting.

She chose a black skirt suit with a ruby red blouse that, when buttoned properly, showed a little more of her ample charms than Katie normally allowed. She completed the outfit with black thigh highs and a pair of stilettos that she was convinced made her legs look longer and thinner.

She buttoned her blouse, checked herself in the mirror, unfastened a button, frowned, and then refastened it.

Flirt, don’t flaunt!

But the urge to flaunt her charms, even though she wasn’t a woman prone to doing such things, was getting stronger the more time she spent with the McGowans. They made her feel more daring than usual.

* * * *

Blair watched Katie as she spoke with Mr. and Mrs. Stackhouse, and asked himself whether she’d secretly been putting something in the food to bewitch him. He’d enjoyed the charms of his share of women and more. He was thirty years old, so it wasn’t as though he didn’t know how to behave around women.

That didn’t stop him from reacting to Katie in ways that surprised and embarrassed him enormously. When she’d stepped between him and Aaron earlier to set their plates of food on the bar, he’d caught the faintest hint of her perfume. It was a delicate, feminine scent. Almost immediately, Blair had felt his body tighten in response to her nearness, and the front of his jeans grew quite tight.

He hadn’t shared so much as a single kiss with Katie, yet he’d spent more time thinking about her than any other woman that he had met in years. She’d only been in Elk’s Crossing a month, but already there were many more customers showing up at the Mountain View Saloon. Since the foothills of the Badlands in North Dakota was remote cattle country, all of those customers were men. And Blair suspected the new customers were showing up because of Katie.

Word of a beautiful new barmaid at the saloon had obviously spread to the surrounding ranches and farms.

It was difficult enough for Blair to share her time with his brothers, but having to share it with cowboys
outside
the family was entirely rankling.

No matter how often Blair told himself that he wasn’t the kind of man who pined away for a woman, the rational part of his brain said he was doing exactly that. He didn’t like to think of himself as a possessive man, but with each passing day, he found himself wanting to possess her body, soul, spirit, and heart.

“She’s looking nice tonight.” Aaron’s voice cut into his reverie.

“Nice?” Blair replied with a slight chuckle. “You’ve got quite the flair for understatement, brother. Damn, is it just me, or is she showing a bit more skin than usual?”

“Makes it tough to keep from staring.”

“Tough? I’d say impossible.”

Aaron sighed and said absently, “I wonder what’s going to be on the TV tonight.”

“You’re hoping it’ll distract you.”

“Uh-huh.”

Blair combed his fingers through his longish hair and sighed softly. “Maybe there’s a baseball game on. If not, maybe some whiskey instead of a beer or two might be in order. Hell, I feel like a damned high-school virgin hoping to get to first base with his girl.”

The brothers shared a soft laugh, which drew Katie’s attention. She gave them a smile, and Blair felt his heart and his libido do a somersault.