Menage A Cowboy Complete Series (9 page)

"We'll keep the bedroom here ready for you. Just in case it doesn't go well. Promise us that you'll come back here if anything goes wrong."

I started to shake my head, thinking that even if Adam wanted me to stay that Scott may not. I did piss him off by touching whatever sore spot he had when I mentioned slumming earlier, so I wasn't sure that he would second Adam's offer.

Scott surprised me though, by backing Adam up.

"You're welcome to stay here as long as you need to. Really, Grace. Our doors are open to you. Please don't hesitate to come back."

I nodded my thank you, not quite trusting myself to speak. I was afraid that if I did, I'd burst into tears instead. I just gave each of them a hug, in turn, and drew strength for the day ahead from the solid warmth in Scott's hug, and the friendly squeeze in Adam's, and then I headed for the shower with the broken door latch.

Chapter 14

Scott

Adam turned on me as soon as he was sure Grace was in the shower.

"Grace isn't Cyndi."

"I know. That's why I meant it when I seconded your offer for her to stay here as long as she needs to. I'm just a little gun shy, that's all."

"I know that, but I don't understand it, brother."

"What's not to understand? She sued you as well. You went through everything with me. We almost lost the ranch because of her."

I was talking about the cleaning lady we had last year. She was cute as hell, and she'd made it known that keeping the ranch house clean was just the tip of what she wanted to do for us.
With
us. Only the day after Adam and I gave in and took her up on her offers, she didn't show up for work. We found out later, after the Sherriff came by to talk to us about her accusations, that we'd been set up.

She accused us of using our positions as her boss to force her into sex acts that she said she was never a willing participant in. She said we threatened to withhold her pay if she didn't sleep with us, and it was just our pure good luck that saved us.

One of our ranch hands had been wearing a body camera that day, to film the horses for a possible client. He often used a body camera instead of his phone or a video camera to film the livestock we were looking to sell online, since it kept his hands free to be able to walk the horses through their paces.

He'd gotten the idea when he was pulled over for speeding one day, and instead of getting a ticket, he ended up in a friendly conversation with the officer who pulled him over. Turned out that the officer's daughter was a barrel racer, and the officer mentioned that he'd bought one of the department's older models of their body cameras to film her for her competitions, since he already was familiar with them on the job.

Randy, the ranch hand, went out and bought one for the ranch, with our blessing and cash, so he could try it out with the next round of horse sales to go up online.

Only since he wasn't quite used to wearing it, he forgot to turn it off when he came in the house for something, and walked in on Cyndi, Adam and I in a compromising situation here in the kitchen.

Being a red blooded male, he stayed for a few minutes to watch before quietly letting himself back out.

Then later, when he heard that we'd been accused by Cyndi of forcing her, he remembered that from everything he'd seen that day, that not only was she not forced, but she was the one coming on to us.

He offered to give the Sherriff's office a statement on our behalf, to which Cyndi claimed that we probably also threatened to withhold his pay, forcing him to testify that he was a witness. It wasn't until she discovered that there was a tape, showing who the aggressor really was, that she backed down and withdrew her complaint.

We'd initially tried to keep the whole case quiet, which is why it took so long for him to come forward with it, and also why we thought we might lose the ranch. She was coming after us hard, and the only thing she wanted was money. Thankfully though, once she knew there was a video, she disappeared. But Scott was obviously still shaken over what could have been.

"What I don't get though, Scott, is why you'd let a bad apple like Cyndi affect how you see someone like Grace. True, we never saw it coming when Cyndi sent the Sherriff after us, but we did know that Cyndi was a one-time thing. Cyndi was a fuck, we both knew that. Grace on the other hand. Grace could be long term, you know? The two don't even compare."

"I know. I get that. It just triggered something when her first reaction to finding out who we were was that we were slumming. It just hit me wrong, that's all. I guess I still have a sore spot about the whole thing. I mean, what were the odds of getting Cyndi on camera coming on so hard to us? We got lucky, that's all. It so easily could have gone the other way."

"But Grace is nothing like Cyndi. Plus, we know her family. She isn't some unknown who just showed up out of the blue one day looking for a job. She's from here. Her family is from here. They're honorable people."

"Yeah I know. Maybe we shouldn't pursue her, Adam. Like you said, she's from an honorable, known, local family. She's the vet's daughter. We've already seen his reaction to the thought of her with the both of us. Maybe we should stop. Let her save what's left of her reputation around here before she gets run out of here on a rail because of us."

"You heard her last night. She is an adult, and she's right. Who or what she does with her personal life really is no one else's business."

"Ideally, yes. But this is a small town, Adam. Most people around here think that what she has for breakfast is their business. That's just how it is. It's never bothered us, but if it's going to ruin her life, maybe we should back off."

"Let's just see how today goes for her, and go from there."

I nodded, saying, "Fair enough. But she was right about one thing."

"What?"

"We do have ranch hand cowboy stuff we should be doing."

"That was cute, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, it was. Made me want to show her some of my more pressing 'cowboy stuff.'"

"Amen."

* * * * *

It was hours later before I saw Grace again. I was starting to think that her plan of showing up to work and pretending everything was OK actually worked. But then I saw her truck sitting out front, empty.

I went looking for her inside the house, and then, when I couldn't find her, I went looking for her everywhere else.

I finally found her in the hay loft above the horse's stalls.

I almost missed her, but the soft sounds of feminine crying reached my ears in the silence of the barn.

I climbed up the ladder, found her sitting on a bale of hay, arms wrapped around her stomach, and bent over, forehead to knees, sobbing.

I was torn between backing out and leaving her alone, or making my presence known. She'd obviously come up here to be alone, to cry in private, but to ignore her pain just seemed so wrong. I made my way over toward her, placed my hand on her, and said, "I'm here. If you need a shoulder."

I guess she took me literally, because she shot up from seated to standing, wrapped her arms around my neck, and buried her head into my chest, wracked with sobs.

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her closer, letting her tears fall without another word from me.

After she spent herself, I prodded some.

"I take it that it didn't go well?"

She shook her head no against my chest.

"I didn't actually see him for the first few hours. Sandy, the lady that runs the desk, gave me an odd look when I got there, but she didn't say anything. I kept busy cleaning the small animal kennels, while dad as out seeing the large ones. It wasn't until just before closing that he made it to the office. Sandy went home, and when dad and I were alone, he said, "I didn't expect you to show up today."

I said, "I'm not one to let my personal life affect my work, and since you didn't fire me..."

He just nodded and then he asked me where I stayed last night, since I didn't come home.

I asked if it mattered.

He said it did.

So I told him.

Long story short, I'm planning on spending tonight here, if you really don't mind. But I think I'll head back to my apartment by school tomorrow. I'll tell them I'm back. I need to make some money, you know? It won't be enough to pay for vet school, not by a long shot. But I won't be here. Maybe I can put a hold on school for a year. Apply for more scholarships, work. Maybe next year..."

"I'm so sorry, Grace. It was never my intent to..."

"I know. It's Ok, really. I made my choices, and I stand by them. I'll figure something out."

"Remember when you asked what we were talking about this morning? And we said we were just throwing ideas around? The ideas were about you. It's our fault that you're here, that your dad is so pissed. Well anyway, we were talking about having you stay here, with us. But above that, we were talking about paying for your vet school, since if it wasn't for being with us in the parking lot..."

"No!" She pulled away from me, shaking her head no.

"No. Thank you for the offer, really, but no. You don't need to do that. I'll figure it out without...No, I can't ask you guys to..."

"You didn't ask, Grace. We
are
offering, though. It's not like we can't afford it. You said it yourself, we're fucking billionaires. I could think of a lot of worse ways to spend some of it then to help bring another great vet into existence."

"No. It's too weird. I just slept with Adam for God's sake. It would seem like some kind of payment for services rendered or something. No. Thank you for the offer, but I'd prefer to work for my money."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"I know. I do, really. I didn't mean what I said earlier either, about slumming it. So I'm not trying to be a bitch here. I don't think you guys would really pay a vet school's worth of tuition for one fuck. I realize that it's a real, honest offer. And I appreciate it. I do. I just...I can't accept it. It's too much, but thank you for offering. It's very sweet."

I nodded. I couldn't make her accept it, but I figured that maybe later she'd be more open to the idea. Or, maybe some anonymous donor could send a contribution to her school.

No, I realized that wouldn't work. She'd know immediately who did it, and she'd be pissed that we didn't take her wishes into account.

I wished we had more time, though, to let things settle before she left. Maybe with time, she and her dad would work it out, or she'd be more open to letting us help.

With the goal of buying more time in mind, I had an idea.

"I respect the fact that you don't want that kind of cash handed to you. But Grace, what if you did work for it?"

The look she shot me told me exactly what she thought I meant, and exactly what she thought I could do with that idea.

"No! Not like that! Grace, I don't pay for sex, relax. I was thinking though, what if you worked here? For us? For the summer?"

"Doing what, exactly?"

"Helping with the animals. I know you're not a vet yet, but you grew up working with one. You could be our first line of defense, with minor vet issues. But another idea Adam and I have occasionally thrown around is having horse riding lessons. Many, many people have asked for them, but we're too busy.

With Adam handling bulls for the rodeos and such, and me running the horse side of things, for stud services, the rodeo, and selling older ones to the Swingin' D to be dude ranch horses, we just don't have time to run a riding program.

If you wanted to start one up, as a summer program, we'd pay you well. I know you won't accept special treatment like getting paid five times what we pay our other hands, but we do pay well. We pay well so we can keep good hands. We also provide room and board, meals included, above your salary. I'm assuming your old truck is paid for?"

She nodded.

"So you have no truck payment. Everything you make could go toward school. Not to push too hard, but we do also have a scholarship program. Granted they usually go to high school students just heading out to college, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't also apply."

She started shaking her head no at that, so I added, "It's run by a third party, Grace. We have no say in who receives what. We just provide the cash, and set the requirements, that's all. And it's already up and running, so you'd have to apply with everyone else and see. No special treatment. What do you say? Will you give us the summer? Set up a riding lesson business?

You'd have to do it all, the scheduling, the teaching, you'd definitely be earning your pay, believe me. This isn't a hand out, Grace, but it would get you what you need. Money that you work hard for, and time. Time here to work things out with your dad. What do you think?"

"Have you talked all this over with Adam?"

"No, not yet. But I know he'll go for it. He likes you, Grace. Hell, we both do. We want to help you, plus it would also be a selfish move on our parts."

"How so?"

"We get to keep you around here longer. Months longer. You'd be right down the hall, showering in the broken bathroom, teasing us with your mere presence. I'm joking, of course. Kind of. A little. But seriously, we would really love it if you stayed. I like having you around, you've already brought a breath of fresh, sexy air to a couple of grumpy old coots named Mitchell."

Her eyebrows flew high up into her forehead as she started to apologize about how she'd referred to our dad, "I'm so sorry I said that! I had no idea."

I just laughed at her.

"I know, that's what made it so funny. Well, that and the fact that you nailed it. He really was a grumpy old coot, but he was a great man under all that grump. He built this place. Have you had a chance to see it all yet? I could show you, on horseback. Sweeten the deal, maybe. Plus you can show me if the riding instructor I want to hire can actually handle a horse."

"Clear it all with Adam first, and I'll think about it. Deal?"