Three Men and a Bounty (15 page)

He didn’t want to believe that anyone associated with James could be intolerant or as hateful and mean as the men who’d tried to brand him at Whitfield’s ranch.

Chris looked at his surroundings, impressed with the simple but comfy furnishings.

The bare floors were polished to a high shine and covered with a turquoise and burgundy Navaho rug.

A fire crackled in the stone fireplace, giving the room a warm, welcoming glow.

Chris had just enough time to admire the living room before Lucy rushed him and Troy through it to the kitchen where the appetizing smells of seasoned meat, potatoes, and vegetables filled the air.

His stomach immediately started to growl.

Lucy laughed and patted him on the back. “Sounds like someone’s hungry.” She turned to James and scowled. “And someone else hasn’t been taking care of this chil’.”

“Oh, that’s not true. James is powerful good about taking care of me. We just got…caught up in the woods and…”

James pulled Chris to his side before he could say anything else.

“I’ll show these two the rest of the house and then they can wash up and get ready to eat your delicious meal.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Lucy said.

Her chuckle followed them through the spacious house, and Chris felt James’ grip on his shoulder tighten as if to give Chris strength.

James showed them the rooms on the first level of the house, which consisted of the living room, kitchen, dining room, and a book-lined study.

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Chris had never seen so many books in one place except a library.

He wondered if James had read all of them and blurted the question before he could stop himself.

“Not all of them, but a fair amount.”

Chris wandered over to the shelves, running his fingers over the spines with a sense of awe. What it must be like to be so smart, smart enough to read any of these books and be a U.S. Deputy Marshal. It made him wonder what James saw in him besides a warm body. Sure, he could read and had digested his fair share of dime novels, but he wouldn’t go as far to call himself learned by any means.

Chris turned to James and noticed him begin to fidget after a while, his complexion turning an enticing and flattering red.

“Your admiration is showing again.”

“I can’t help it,” Chris confessed.

“I know what he means,” Troy said from his place at the threshold.

“Not you, too.”

Troy ducked his head, shuffling his feet like a little boy who had gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and Chris laughed, glad he wasn’t the only one impressed.

“What is it with you two? I’m just a regular old man with a little more book smarts than most and a few breaks under my belt. I’m no one to idolize or admire. I do my job, and that’s it. Just so happens it’s something I like doing.”

“Risking your life to save mine wasn’t your job. You could have let Bart kill me, and no one would have batted an eye.”

“I would have batted an eye,” James said.

“And that’s what makes you different from everyone else in that bar.” Chris turned to Troy. “Except you.”

Now it was Troy’s turn to blush.

Chris smiled at the ability he had to make each man so uneasy, reveled in that power for a brief moment, realizing that just because he was the youngest among them didn’t mean he was the powerless
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one in their relationship. If made him feel like he belonged, that for once his opinion counted, and he was worth more than the sex between his legs.

“How much time before we have to make an appearance for dinner?” Chris asked.

“What ya got on your mind, kid?” Troy grinned

Chris shrugged, suddenly shy, unable to say what he wanted. He thought it would be easier to show Troy and James what he wanted but didn’t want to be rude to their hostess. Besides, after getting a whiff of Lucy’s vittles simmering in the kitchen, he figured he’d eat first and worry about what he and James and Troy could do for entertainment together later.

“Let’s finish the tour. I’m anxious to see the rest of the house and then eat.”

“Your wish is my command.” James escorted them both upstairs where he showed them two large, airy bedrooms with swanky bedcovers on the roomy four-poster beds and matching bureau, nightstand, and rocking chairs in each room.

The second room seemed more lived-in with a well-worn Stetson and gun belt hanging over the back of the rocking chair and a pair of boots at the foot of the bed beside an old trunk. Chris guessed that this was James’ bedroom just as James confirmed it.

Before Chris’ imagination could run wild with what thoughts of the personal treasures that lay in the trunk and all the things James and Troy could do to him on the big bed, James showed him and Troy to the water closet down the hall.

Suitably impressed with the facilities, Chris asked where Lucy and Caesar stayed, and James explained that the pair lived in a cabin on his property, right behind the main house.

Chris couldn’t remember being anywhere near as fancy as James’

house other than a hotel and said as much to James’ satisfaction.

Still, despite his obvious pride, it seemed like James didn’t like talking about his possessions or how he had gotten them.

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Chris could understand that and decided not to bring it up again unless James did.

“Y’all about finished up there? Supper won’t keep forever!”

“Guess we’d better be getting downstairs,” Chris said.

James cupped his face with one hand. “There’ll be time enough for what you had in mind. If you plan to stick around, that is.” He glanced at Troy with the same questioning look, and Troy flushed.

Chris grinned, thinking he wasn’t the only young’un in this relationship despite Troy’s being almost a decade older than he.

Being with James and Troy made him feel less alone. They made him feel like he wasn’t worthless after all. He liked the feelings and wanted them to take hold.

Chris looked from James to Troy and back again. He thought twice about saying what lived in his heart but, in the end, couldn’t help murmuring, “I’ll stick around as long as you want me to.”

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James watched Lucy as she brought various platters and bowls of colorful and aromatic food to the table, acting in her typical bossy and maternal manner, fussing over and making sure everyone had enough on their plates. He appreciated that she made Chris and Troy feel as welcome as visiting dignitaries and thought coming home had never felt so right before. Even the normally soft-spoken Caesar got into the act, talking politics and farming with Troy and getting Chris to talk about his life in New York before he’d come out West.

Though James had more than half-suspected the boy wasn’t from around these parts, the confirmation proved more surprising than Troy’s background as a farmer.

Through Lucy and Caesar, James learned more about his

companions than he had ever hoped to learn on his own, especially in the limited time they’d spent together. That was Lucy. Like Nell, she held nothing back and had a way with folk that just made them drop their guard and talk about themselves. It was a way he hadn’t always appreciated when the couple had first turned up at his door looking for work just after he’d put the finishing touches on his house.

Though it had taken a while for him to warm up to Lucy’s outgoing manner, he’d finally come to like and trust her and her husband, something he didn’t do easily after so many years on the trail. He hadn’t trusted too many men or women since taking up with the Choctaw so many years ago.

James sensed the same wariness in Chris and, to a lesser degree, Troy, though the boy had come around nicely since they’d all been together.

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Of course, a body couldn’t help but come around with Lucy on the case. The woman didn’t allow shyness on her watch and appeared to have appointed herself Chris’ substitute mother.

Chris didn’t seem to know what to do with all the attention aside from settling back and accepting it in his quiet way.

James sat back himself and smiled as he let out a notch of his belt to accommodate a belly full of Lucy’s delicious meal. He thought, however, that the woman didn’t know who she dealt with. Chris may have appeared the picture of angelic innocence, but James knew how wild he could be in the bedroom, how he could bring James to his knees with just a lick of those unusually full lips.

“Well, you four just make a body feel right proud packing away my vittles like this,” Lucy said, and four sets of appreciative male eyes all turned to her.

He’d been dealing with Lucy for long enough to know that she loved being the center of attention but loved even more to serve and please those she cared about. Sparing her only a glance, James focused most of his attention on the other men at the table, heart skipping a beat as his gaze fell on Troy and then Chris.

How had he gotten so lucky? Sure, he hadn’t considered himself so lucky a few nights ago. He’d considered himself downright cursed to be in the vicinity of Barrow’s when that difficulty had started. Now he knew better. He knew that Chris and Troy had been sent to him and that the three of them were meant to be together.

James hadn’t been so fatalistic in a long time, not since he left the Choctaw. He saw reason to be now. All the signs that had led him to the two men made him feel like their being together proved destiny.

When Lucy got up to start clearing the table, James snapped out of his daydream to see Troy and Chris offer to help with the dishes like the gentlemen they were. All he could think about was the very ungentlemanly things he wanted to do with them both in his bedroom.

He wanted to finish what they’d only started at Troy’s little secret
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cove. Lucy shooed Troy and Chris away as if reading James’ mind, knowing how much he wanted to get his two guests alone.

“Go on, now. Git. You’re guests. Make yourselves to home. I’ll get these done, and me and Caesar will be out of your hair lickety-split.”

Troy and Chris looked from Lucy to each other and finally back at James as if for approval. That’s when he winked at them and caught the two men blushing something fierce.

He liked that he could do that to not just one young’un, but two.

He liked how they both wore their emotions on their sleeves despite how hard they tried to hide them.

James wondered if he was any better at hiding his feelings from them. He knew he didn’t get nearly as red in the face as the other two men, but he was sure his face flushed. He’d felt the heat in his face as well as the rest of his body from some simple little innuendo either Chris or Troy had said or some simple thing they’d done.

“Well?” Lucy cocked a brow and planted her fist on a generous hip. “What are you chil’en waiting for? Get to stepping out of my kitchen.”

“Yes, ma’am—Lucy,” Troy and Chris chorused and headed

toward James already standing at the threshold waiting for them.

He led the way out of the dining room to the stairs, the silence deafening as they all climbed.

James didn’t know whether he should keep up appearances and make Chris and Troy comfortable in the guest bedroom or just let them stay in his room with him. Once Lucy and Caesar left for the evening, it would be just the three of them, after all. There would be no need to keep up appearances. The house and land belonged to him free and clear, making up his private domain where his rules applied.

He had built the house miles away from his nearest neighbor for a reason—privacy. He’d never imagined that he’d have more reason for it than just to keep to himself and relax after being out on the trail.

However, now he had the perfect reason, the best two reasons for his
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seclusion under his roof right now. They all stopped at the second landing, Chris and Troy waiting as if to hear his decision out loud, as if they knew how hard it remained for him to make a decision about their status.

He knew what their status was in his heart. He wanted them, thought he was damn near close to loving them, about as close as he could be to loving any human being in so short a time.

Wanting and loving the two men and taking them up on what they were offering him were two different things. Sure, he could tell himself he was entitled to have them anywhere and any way he could, but that line of thinking didn’t come anywhere near being realistic.

James sniffed at the term.

Realistically, Troy shouldn’t even exist. Which told James one thing—that the conventions that ruled polite, normal society didn’t apply here, to them. And the things he wanted to do to and with Troy and Chris couldn’t be considered polite in any circles.

James’ critter got right antsy when he visualized the locked trunk at the foot of his bed and all the international trappings within. He thought he’d go mad if he didn’t get into his room, naked, with these two men as soon as possible and put at least some of his little contraptions to use with someone other than himself.

Chris placed himself between James and Troy and took a hand of each larger man.

Leave it to the little smart aleck to make the first move. And Chris considered James brave? There was nothing braver than taking the lead, taking the reins in a relationship. For sure, the risks Chris and Troy took just revealing themselves and trusting James with their secrets, feelings, and insecurities were a sight more than any danger he’d ever faced in a shootout. He’d go to his grave believing this, too.

Dwarfed by James and Troy flanking him and seemingly unfazed by the differences in their heights, Chris led them to James’ bedroom, waited for him to open the door, then led them the rest of the way into the cozy insides.

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Troy closed the door behind them and arched his brow at James as if to say, “What are we going to do with this one?”