Sophie Oak: Small Town Siren

“I promise.” Jack’s hands securely held hers.

“So do I,” Sam interjected with a happy smile.

Abby nodded, not sure what to do. When she’d fallen back into Sam, she was pretty sure she’d felt the hard press of an erection against her backside. That was crazy. It was probably just his wallet or something else in his pocket.

She would not look down to get visual confirmation, she promised herself.

The last thing she needed was to get caught checking out their packages to see if they were ready for delivery.

“I’ll try to stay on my feet, boys.” Jack’s hands were warm and surrounded hers. It made Abby wonder what it would feel like to have those big hands all over her body. Abby could imagine that callused hand cupping her as he pulled her into the hard strength of his body.

“You all right now?” Jack pulled her away from Sam so that she was steady on her own.

“I’m fine. I’ll get those Cokes,” Abby said shakily because her every nerve ending was on high alert. She was standing between the two most gorgeous men she’d ever seen, and it was too much like a fantasy. She needed to pull herself firmly back into reality. She was thirty-seven years old and a mom. She wasn’t seventeen anymore with a gloriously firm body. Her boobs sagged, and while she tried to stay fit, she’d put on a few pounds. The boys were just playing around. She had to keep her head on straight.

She had to remember, at all times, where she was. This wasn’t Fort Worth where people mostly lived and let live. This was Willow Fork.

It struck her suddenly that maybe the men weren’t as nice as she’d thought they were. It happened from time to time that she made the mistake of trusting the wrong people. Jack and Sam had been in Willow Fork for ten years. They were pretty firmly entrenched in the community, which meant they’d probably spent time with the Echols clan.

It might, she thought warily, be a good way to show her the door.

If she started parading around with these men, it would just prove to everyone in the county that she hadn’t changed. The threats from the sheriff hadn’t worked. Maybe Ruby Echols had come up with another plan.

“What’s wrong?” Jack’s hand tightened on hers. “You looked very sad for a minute. What happened?”

“I’m fine,” Abby said, shaking her head. She moved firmly out of their reach. It was time to stop playing. “I’ll be back in a minute with your drinks.” She walked away to join Christa at the counter.

Jack watched Abby’s fine ass sway as she walked away from them.

“What just happened?” Sam asked. He slid back into the booth.

“I don’t know.” Jack’s eyes never left his rapidly retreating prey. Jack took his place across from Sam. He looked down at his burger. It didn’t look as good as it had before. “She was responding to us. She practically purred when I held her hand. I would have sworn she was aroused.”

“Maybe you just come on too strong, Jack.” Sam sounded bitter.

“Oh, I come on too strong?” Jack rolled his eyes. “Seriously, Sam. You think I wasn’t watching you last Saturday? Talk about coming on strong. You nearly sucked her toes into your mouth when we were sitting on the couch. Don’t think I didn’t see that. You are the most orally fixated person I have ever met. You just have to put everything in your mouth.”

“Well, blame my mama,” Sam shot back. “I wasn’t breastfed. It had an effect. We just need to try harder.”

Abby was talking to Christa behind the counter. Jack would have given a lot to be in on that conversation. The two women whispered, and Christa laughed lightly. Something had happened to make Abby suddenly wary. She had enjoyed their attentions for the past week. His plan had been working. From the moment he realized she might be amenable to a ménage, Jack had been carefully preparing her for it. She was a serious woman, and he intended to treat her right. They were taking it slow, allowing her to get used to being between the two of them. She had been ready to move on to kissing, and Jack intended to do that tonight. He and Sam were going to talk her into coming out to the ranch to watch a movie and then they would kiss her. Sam had argued for doing a hell of a lot more than that, but Jack was sticking to his courting plan. He wanted everything out on the table before they took her to bed. They would talk about what a relationship could be like between the three of them. He might have to rethink that plan. Now, she was afraid.

“You don’t think Christa warned her off of us, do you?” Jack really hoped that wasn’t true. Jack had a good business relationship with the café owner. Beyond that, Sam considered her husband a friend. Mike Wade was Sam’s drinking buddy. He’d hate to see that go away.

Sam snorted. “Damn, Jack, who do you think told me to open that box of books?”

Jack was relieved, but it didn’t solve the core problem. “I think we should pull back and give her some space.” If they rushed her, she could run.

“Screw that.” Sam looked a little desperate. “It’s been a month. I can’t take another night. This whole dating thing is crazy. Can’t we fuck her now and date her later?”

“No, Sam. You asked me to give this a chance, and I’m giving it the best chance I can. She’s not a one night stand,” Jack said firmly. “She’s nervous now. We need to set this on the right footing. We need to let her know we’re going to treat her like a lady. Let’s ask her out to the ranch. We’ll have a nice meal and show her around. She’ll see how serious we can be.”

Sam looked disappointed, but he rarely argued. “All right. I’ll follow your lead, but damn, Jack, don’t take too long. I’m likely to die of sexual frustration.”

Abby walked back up, two drinks in her hand. She placed them on the table. “Is everything all right with the order?”

Jack hated the flat, professional voice she was using. He needed to get her back to the vivacious woman she was. “This burger better be good, darlin’. I won’t have my product being mistreated.”

Curiosity flashed in her hazel eyes.

Sam took the ball and ran with it. “This burger here is 100% organic beef. It’s the best you can buy.”

“Really?” She looked down at the burgers. “Christa buys your beef?”

“Straight off the Barnes Fleetwood Ranch,” Sam said with a smile. “We’re becoming quite big. When we started, we barely had a hundred head of cattle. Now we run several thousand and have a bunch of ranch hands helping us out. We have a packaging plant, too.”

“We’re still smalltime, and I like it that way.” Jack could talk about business. “If we get much bigger, we’ll have to hire more hands and deal with more people. The quality will go down, too. There’s a reason organic ranching is hard.”

Abby’s eyes sparkled with interest. She was a curious little thing. “So you don’t give the cattle antibiotics?”

“No, unless they’re actually sick, of course.” Sam slathered his bun with ketchup. “We won’t let an animal go without if she needs it, but we don’t proactively dose our herd. We take care of them. They’re grain fed.”

“Yes, I’ve read about that.” Abby was clearly getting into the discussion. “Those big ranches feed them protein and sometimes they feed them other cows. It sounds horrible.”

“It’s a way for them to cut corners,” Jack explained. “It’s cheap. The public wants cheap beef, so they use the parts they can’t sell to feed their herd. It’s easier to keep the cattle in pens than to let them roam and feed naturally. It’s why we’ll have to stay small and local.”

“So you don’t pen up your cattle?” Abby pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear.