“I don’t want to—”
“Impose, yes, we know,” Henry said. He already knew where they were going to put Tamara. They just needed to make a couple of calls to get the house ready. “You’re Texan, I can tell by the way you talk.” He waited, and when she nodded, he said, “Then you know our mother would skin us alive if we didn’t show proper hospitality to a…pilot in distress.”
Tamara narrowed her eyes, and Henry could tell by the spark in them she was looking for the insult she was certain he’d just given her.
He grinned.
“I need to tell you, Mr. Kendall, that something about that grin of yours just put all my early warning sensors on red alert. What do you have to say about that?”
Henry shrugged then laughed outright. “I’d say you have excellent instincts, Ms. Jones.” He put his hands in his pockets and ambled toward the Jeep. “We’ll need the half-ton to tow your wounded bird to the hangar, I think. It’s parked over yonder.”
As he’d calculated, she fell in step behind him, not wanting him to get the last word in, he’d bet. Morgan walked beside her. Henry didn’t walk fast enough to get himself out of earshot.
“Your brother, Mr. Kendall, appears to be more than a bit of a roué.”
Henry thought she pulled that “lady of the manor” tone off perfectly.
“Yes, I know,” Morgan said, his tone appropriately sad. “Our fathers are so disappointed in him. They were hoping for another all-out letch, just like me.”
Tamara gasped, and Henry turned to see her face. She looked from him, to his brother. And then she burst out laughing. The sound, light, full of humor, and fun, settled on him pleasantly, and he wondered that of all the women he’d ever met, she was the first one whose laughter made him feel good.
Tamara had bent over at the waist, and he and his brother waited patiently for her to get her mirth under control.
When she did, Henry said, “Divide and conquer won’t work with us, love.”
“It won’t? Ah. So all this time, those innuendos you’ve been tossing out weren’t some sort of macho competition to snare the female? Just the two of you indulging in some harmless teasing?”
“Teasing, yes,” Morgan said. “Harmless? Depends on your definition, I suppose. If you mean only words shot into the air like chaff from a fighter jet, then no.”
“If, on the other hand,” Henry said quietly, “you mean that we would never hurt you, then the answer is yes. We would never hurt you or cause you any kind of harm at all.”
“That’s not how Kendalls do things,” Morgan said.
“You two have totally confused me,” Tamara said. Her brow furrowed as she looked from one to the other of them. “What is it, exactly, that you’re saying?”
Henry smiled and spread his hands. “You fell out of the sky and landed here, on our land.”
“That means,” Morgan said, “that you belong to us. And we intend, very much, to have you.”
“Not either me or Morgan,” Henry said. “But both of us. Together. At the same time.”
“Not back in time,” Tamara said. “I’ve landed in a mental health facility. Shouldn’t the two of you be in straitjackets? And where the hell is the psychiatrist?”
Morgan looked over at him. “I really like her,” his brother said.
Henry nodded. “Me too.” Then he let his gaze meet Tamara’s. “We’ll just see, Itty-Bitty. We’ll just see.”
“We certainly will.”
Tamara moved past him and got into the Jeep. That action as good as said, “To hell with you both.” Clearly she wasn’t going to let herself be intimidated or easily seduced.
That suited Henry just fine.
Chapter 3
Welcome to Lusty, Texas.
Incorporated 1881.
Everyone is welcome here.
Tamara read the sign as Morgan Kendall slowed the Jeep from country road speed to town speed. Moments before there’d been nothing but fairly flat, empty pasture land on either side of the state road. Now, they were smack-dab in the middle of a town, complete with a traffic light that turned red just for them.
They passed the Sheriff’s Department on the left and a clinic on the right. She noticed a museum, as well as a library, a hardware store, bank, and a place called Darryl’s Duds. Not one vacant storefront could she see.
Not many small towns had their own clinic, let alone a library. The little town with the strange name seems to be thriving.
“We’ll grab some lunch at Kelsey’s place first, and then we’ll head on over to the cottage so you can relax.”
“Kelsey, who married your cousins, plural, a few months ago,” Tamara recited from the quick rundown they’d given her.
Apparently threesomes were the norm in or around Lusty.
Henry turned in the passenger seat and gave her another of his way-too-charming smiles. “See? It’s not confusing at all.”
“Confusing, no. Surreal, yes.”
“You’ll get used to us,” Morgan said.
“I’m not going to be around long enough to get used to you.”
“We’ll see,” Henry said.
He turned back around and faced the front again. Tamara opened her mouth to retort then thought better of it. Nothing she said seemed to make one bit of difference to these thick-headed, macho men anyway. She decided her best course of action was to stay silent and let time prove her right.
So far, she was proud of the job she’d done, not letting these two flyboys see just how much they turned her on. All she had to do was keep this up—Good God, for at least five more days? What had she been thinking to agree to stay?
She should make arrangements to go home. It was only a hundred miles or so to San Marcos. She could drive back each morning, go home each night. That’s what she should do.
Tamara sighed. Yes, she should, but she wasn’t going to.
I like the fact that both of them turn me on. I’m an idiot, and if I’m not
