Twin Cowboys for Tamara (41 page)

Tamara walked down the plush-carpeted, cream hallways on her way to David’s, stopping to chat with a couple of clerical staff here or nodding her head at other lawyers there before she finally arrived at the area just outside the senior partner’s office.

“You can go right in, Tamara. He’s waiting for you.”

“Thanks, Dorothy.” Hand on the knob, she took a deep breath before she opened the door. She went into the posh burgundy and cream corner office of the firm’s youngest partner. Next to her own stellar track record, David proved one of the major reasons Tamara had been allowed to go home to Colorado for so long without worrying about job security.

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Twin Cowboys for Tamara

305

She knew David had spoken for her at the partners’ weekly meetings, though at the time she hadn’t been as concerned about her career as she had been about her father. Now she didn’t have that concern hanging over her head. No, she only worried about the shambles she had made out of her love life now.

Was it too late to go back, tell Jess and Jax that she loved them and she wanted to make a go of it? Two months didn’t seem like particularly long to ask a man to wait, but then she’d never come out and given them hope that she considered being with them. She’d pretty much severed all ties, and Jess and Jax had followed her lead.

They had every right to move on with their lives and take love where they could find it. It just pained her to think that they had.

Jax didn’t strike her as particularly patient in most things, but she wasn’t sure how much he had changed where affairs of the heart existed, wasn’t sure how much being with her had changed him.

She’d like to think she’d left an impression on the brothers that wasn’t easily forgotten, like to believe she hadn’t left a bad taste in their mouths and completely turned them off of love.

David stood in front of the window with his back to her, Bluetooth headset securely in his ear as he spoke to someone on the other end.

She admired his broad back, the freshness of his white, designer shirt, sleeves rolled up just below the elbows.

Tamara had always found him attractive, in a purely blond, blue-eyed, aesthetic and different kind of way, nothing on the level of how attractive she found Jess and Jax. Those two boys gave hot, sexy and lust whole new meanings. It would have been easy to discount her feelings for them
as
just lust if there wasn’t anything else to them, but there was so much to them besides the physical.

She respected their work ethic, respected that they loved what they did, and that they brought so many people joy during the course of a day. She enjoyed their smiles and diverse personalities and senses of humor. She admired their intellect and sharp tongues when they engaged in word play in or out of the bed with her. But must of all, Ebook piracy is stealing. It is a federal offense.

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she liked the way they felt, smelled and tasted after sex, enjoyed the protected way she felt cuddling next to them and knowing that she remained the most important thing in the world to them at the end of the day.

Did she need any more proof than this that she loved them?

Tamara swallowed hard then cleared her throat to let David know she stood in the room. “David, you wanted to see me?”

“Tamara! Great! Have a seat. I’ll be right with you.”

She sat down in one of the Eames chairs before his large maple desk, listening as he began wrapping up his call while he made his way behind the desk and took a seat.

He smiled at her, and her heart leapt for no other reason than she hungered for affection from the opposite sex.

This wasn’t good. She couldn’t go around mooning over one of her bosses just because he showed her a little warmth no matter how sweet and idealistic she thought him.

But before she could further castigate herself for her emotional indiscretion, David’s look turned serious and probing as he leaned forward in his seat and folded his hands on his desk. “How are you doing? And before you give me the old party line about everything being fine and work being the best therapy, I’m interested in knowing how you’re really doing.”

Tamara just smiled, thinking she could make him regret his question if she gave him what he wanted. Finally, she just shrugged.

“I’m about as well as can be expected, I suppose.”

“That good, huh?”

“You asked.”

He chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “I have some news that I think might cheer you up a little.”

Tamara frowned. “What kind of news?”

“Ms. Pines’…sons convinced her to end her seclusion to come in for a visit and discuss in detail her latest venture.”

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Tamara’s heart started to race. Nothing like meeting a “new”

client and love to make it go pitter-patter. She supposed she’d have to settle for just the former for now. “What venture?”

“Ms. Pines is interested in investing in a ranch in Colorado.”

Her heart beat even faster at mention of the location. “I’m a New York attorney.”

“She’s perfectly aware of that, but wants you on this particular undertaking. I’ve even suggested some of our contracted lawyers and referred her to counterparts in that state, as much as it pained me to do so. But she wants you to handle this deal.”

At Tamara’s long, confused silence, David added, “Of course there’s a considerable commission involved should this transaction go through successfully.”

“Why does she need a lawyer on the deal? I mean, is there some issue with the property?”

“Why don’t I let her explain things to you? She’s waiting in the conference room with two young men I’m sure you’ll want to meet.”

“Her sons?”

“None other.”

Something smelled fishy to Tamara, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on why she felt this way and didn’t dare voice her suspicions to David. What if her doubts proved unfounded? She’d come off irrational and paranoid—not good looks for a lawyer who handled multi-million-dollar deals on a regular basis.

Tamara got up and stared at the door behind David’s desk that led to the conference room. Her heart pounded erratically in her chest.

Why did she feel like there was more to this than just what involved her job?

Was it because David looked at her with a genuine smile on his face and not one of those suck-up-to-you-despite-how-I-feel-becase-you’re-an-excellent-lawyer-and-I-need-you-on-this-deal looks that the other partners gave her sometimes when they thought she wasn’t looking?

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Tamara approached the door, put her hand on the knob and glanced back at David, whose smile hadn’t left his lips. In fact, it reached his eyes and made them twinkle. He looked like a father walking his daughter down the aisle—proud and pleased.

“You’re not coming?”

“I’ll be right out here just in case, but I think you can handle this group on your own.”

She nodded and opened the door, stepped inside and had a moment to close it behind her before the two men standing on the other side of the room at the head of the conference table turned to face her, and she realized who stared back at her.

Before she could register her surprise, the woman sitting between them in the chair swiveled around to face Tamara too, a wide grin splitting her beautiful features.

Tamara grinned, not feeling duped, just intense joy and relief.

“Ms. Pine, I presume?”

“That’s Mom to you.”

“And these are your
sons
?” Tamara waved her hand at Jess and Jax as they circled the table and purposefully advanced on her from opposite sides.

“More like future sons-in-law, but I won’t quibble if you won’t.”

Tamara had so many questions, the least of which, how they had managed to drag David in on their scheme. “Are you really interested in investing in The Double R?”

“I consider it an investment in the future. And these two gracious gentlemen have agreed to sell me the shares that would have gone to you.”

Tamara arched a brow. “You’re going to live on the ranch?”

Her mother shrugged, a cagey look in her eyes. “At least some of the time. I have to admit it makes a nice summer getaway.”

Compared to The Hamptons or Bermuda, she wasn’t so sure, especially not for someone as urbane as her mother, but whatever floated her mother’s boat.

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She turned to Jess as he paused in front of her, felt the heat of Jax’s presence behind her, butterflies fluttering in her stomach as if this were their first time together.

She couldn’t believe her mother approved of this, couldn’t believe they had all cooked up this scheme to get her to….to what?

Tamara pulled back just as Jess bent his head for a kiss and stared at him. “What if I don’t want to give up my job and New York?” She couldn’t believe she asked it, that she sabotaged her future yet again.

But she had to know where their heads proved to be as well as their hearts.

“We don’t want you to think of being with us as having to give anything up. But just in case you wondered, we’re prepared to sign over not just the shares willed to you, but our own shares too,” Jess said.

“Give up the ranch?”

“You’re more important to us,” Jax said.

“But what will you do for a living?”

Jess chuckled. “We’re not total farm boys, Tam. We did go to college. We’ll figure something out.”

“And if worse comes to worse, we could always live on yours or your mother’s charity for a while,” Jax teased.

Tamara laughed because she knew good and damn well neither of them would do anything of the sort. But she considered their willingness to please, appreciated that they would make the effort for her. Just knowing that made all the difference in the world.

“I love you both, you know that?”

“We wondered,” Jess said.

“I never had any doubt,” Jax said.

“That’s why I can’t do this.” She looked from one twin to the other, saw the crestfallen looks on their faces and rushed to clarify. “I mean I can’t let you give up what you love doing, not even for me.”

“Are you sure?” Jess asked.

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“Because we took the liberty of having your boss draw up the papers just in case. All it will take is your Mom’s and our signatures and—”

Tamara quieted him with a sound kiss on the lips, then turned to Jess and gave him the same treatment before her mother stood and cleared her throat.

Tamara shook her head to clear the sensual fog that seeing the twins had invariably put her in. “Sorry, Mom.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just be sure this is what you all want.”

Tamara heard the doubt in her mother’s voice and saw the hopeful look in her eyes, as if the promise of Tamara’s successful relationship could heal her own past mistakes.

She exchanged looks with the twins as they exchanged looks with each other before they all turned to her mother as one and chorused,

“We’re sure.”

Before Jeremiah called her all those months ago to come back to the ranch, Tamara had doubted anything good could come of her going home after so many years. She now knew that not only could she go home again, something good could come of it—something like love and reconciliation.

Her twin cowboys had taught her that.

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Twin Cowboys for Tamara

311

The Double R – Ten Months Later

Carson Quarry watched the ceremony between the clearly happy couple from a distance, sitting on his stallion on the outer reaches of the gathering—a part of the service, yet strangely separate.

Watching Jess and Tamara take their vows, surrounded by family and so many loved ones should have been a joyous experience, but it proved bittersweet for Carson knowing that Jess and Jax Reynolds had something that he and his brother Sam would never have—a mate to call their own.

One woman to love, to protect and to make love with—that’s all it would take, all they needed and wanted to complete them. It seemed to be too much to ask for.

Carson turned to his younger brother sitting on his stallion beside Carson, followed his brother’s glance toward Tamara’s sister Desiree and shook his head.

He’d been watching her too, lured by her elegant, copper-brown beauty ever since she, her younger sister and their mother had arrived on the ranch ten months ago late last spring. He’d immediately placed her to a section of his mind marked
off limits
, that. She could not be for him and Sam for too many reasons to name, the least of which being her humanness.

But Sam’s youth made him believe love conquered everything.

Even after all that he and his brother and Mom had been through in the last ten years he believed this.

Poor deluded kid.

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Carson sadly smiled and applauded as the preacher brought an end to the ceremony, and Jess and Tamara passionately kissed.

Jax stood in the wings, ostensibly the groom’s best man, but everyone at the service knew that Tamara would be keeping house and making a family with both brothers. It proved a sweet set-up, one that Carson could only imagine and one that made his groin and heart tight with longing.