Page 4 of Cowboy Triplets Next Door

I snorted. “It only took a few minutes today. I’m going to come into town early and grab a couple dozen muffins, okay? If I get there in twenty minutes, will you still be there?”

“You can’t get here in twenty minutes unless you speed. Don’t do that.” She went into work just as early as I did but she went in to make the massive quantities of baked goods Harmony Valley consumed. Then she went back home until the diner opened.

I didn’t want to miss a chance at the double chocolate muffins I desperately needed so I grabbed my jeep keys and headed out. “I’ll be right there. Don’t leave before I get there, please. You don’t understand how much I need the muffins today.”

“You always need them just as desperately. You’re a fiend.” She snorted. “A muffin fiend.”

“Hanging up now!” I tossed my phone on the worn passenger seat of my twenty-year-old jeep and then sped away from what was once the Myers’ Ranch. The Hellstone Ranch sign I had to drive under, just pissed me off even more.

CHAPTER 4

Keaton

Sitting on the second story porch our rooms opened up to, I stared at my brother like he’d grown a second dick. I scratched my beard and shook my head. “No. You’re full of shit. What kind of prank is this?”

Gray held up his hands and pointed toward the carriage house with his beer bottle. “I swear to god. She was talking to a fucking raccoon about a sex dream she had about us.”

I looked down at the smaller house behind ours and frowned. Billie Myers talking to a raccoon? I could see it. Billie Myers having a sex dream about us? That, I couldn’t see. It made no sense.

Owen rested his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward. “She hates us.”

Gray shrugged. “Last I checked, you didn’t need to like someone to have sex dreams about them.”

“She’s too damn young.” Owen drained his beer and his frown stretched deeper. “She shouldn’t be having sex dreams.”

I rolled my eyes. “She’s in her mid-twenties.”

“And we’re in our forties. We talked about how young she was when we moved in here and nothing’s changed. She’s still too young. She has no business dreaming about us.” Owen shifted in his chair and the three of us fell silent, lost in our own thoughts.

I was thinking about the fire I saw in Billie’s eyes every time she looked at me. She hated us and she wasn’t shy about it. She blamed us for her family losing the ranch, even though it made no sense. If it hadn’t been us who’d bought the ranch, it would’ve been someone else. That someone else might not have let Billie keep her useless dairy cow around or let her stay in the carriage house for free. We were sympathetic toward her and she still wanted to rip our heads off.

“We made her beg for us in her dream.” Gray said the words like they weren’t going to hit each of us hard.

Owen grunted and leaned back. “Fuck.”

I ran my hand down my face, using the condensation from my beer to cool me off. “Stop talking, Gray.”

“I’ve kept this shit locked down for months. I haven’t looked too long or dared touch. I agreed she was too young and we were too much for her. Hearing about that dream is screwing with my head, though. How am I supposed to look at her like another employee when I know she’s dreaming of our dicks?” Gray stood up and gripped the porch railing. “I wanted to grab her angry little body and bend her over a bale of hay. She’s got a mouth on her and I wanted to use it.”

I let out a pained groan. “Stop. If you keep talking about it, I’m going to throw caution to the wind and do my best to make her dream become a reality. Despite keeping my hands away from her, I’ve looked. I know all too well the curves you’re talking about.”

“Of course, you’ve looked. We’ve all looked. It doesn’t change the fact she’s too young and innocent for us.” Owen sat back in his chair and blew out a slow breath. “Let’s be serious. One dream doesn’t make her ready to take on the three of us. We’re not sweet, gentle guys who want to make love. This doesn’t change the agreement that we stay away from her. Ruining her would be a shame.”

We all grew silent again and my dick stirred at the thought of ruining her. I stared down at the carriage house and watched as she walked past one of the windows in her pajamas with a book in her hand. She was so sweet-looking. Her big eyes and blonde, wavy bob made her look even more innocent. However, her lips were anything but innocent, I recalled from staring at them earlier in the day as she stomped by me. Full and naturally red, they made me think of all the depraved things I wanted to do to her.

“We’re in trouble.” Gray shrugged. “We’ve been here for coming up on a year and we’ve been saints in regard to Billie. I don’t think I’ll ever look at her the same, though. Not when the image of her between us is cemented in my brain.”

“You fucking opened Pandora’s Box, Gray. Before tonight, I never allowed my dick to swing twice in her direction but now I can’t stop thinking of what we all did to her in her dream and if she woke up wet.” I licked my lips. “You expect me to keep my hands to myself now?”

Gray stared up at the sky and sighed. “I know what we should do.”

“But?” Owen stared at the carriage house just as intensely as I did, like he was trying to see through the walls.

“But I don’t know if we’ve ever been men who stick to what they should do. It’s a miracle we’ve avoided her for as long as we have.” Gray sat up straight when the carriage door opened and Billie stepped out onto her porch. She sat in the single rocking chair before glancing up at the main house and spotting us.

I watched the way her shoulders stiffened and laughed when she stood up and marched back inside, slamming the door shut behind her. “If anything, I think the dream might’ve made her hate us even more.”

“Impossible.” Owen’s deep laugh filled the night air and we all watched in amusement as she started shutting off every light in the house. “Do you think she’s thinking of us talking about her dream?”

---