Page 20 of Claimed By the Cowboys
After her post-lunch hour or two nap, I would wake Maisie for afternoon arts and crafts or outside activities and games to help prepare her for gym and art and music classes in the next school year.
On shopping days, one of the twins would drive us into town and help us load the cart with groceries and pack the brown paper bags of goods in and out of the bed of the truck before I started dinner. Otherwise, Maisie and I were left to our own devices between early afternoon and sunset.
Most nights, dinner was shared between everyone, provided Zeke and Dakota weren’t out in the field. After the meal, we had all gotten into the habit of dividing and conquering the remaining evening chores—me whisking Maisie off to bathtime and toothbrushing while Zeke or the twins cleared the table and did the dishes.
Depending on Maisie’s mood, we all took turns rotating reading her a bedtime story or two. When she was overtired, Maisie would often refuse anyone but Zeke and his golden singing voice spinning her soothing lullabies.
In the few weeks since I had landed at Blackwood Ranch, I had begun to feel more and more at home. Once I had gotten settled and opened myself to the patterns of my new life, the days had a comfortable flow. Maisie, with her easy personality and her readily offered warm affection, had made it effortless to love her. Settling into my new life at the ranch had been going fairly smoothly…for the most part.
While not a deal-breaker in an otherwise perfect setup, the ruler of the roost and pack lead, Clayton Blackwood, had proved to be more prickly than I had initially thought. I had assumed that Clayton—Clay to his friends and pack mates—would have eventually warmed up to me in the first week or so after he’deaten a couple of my baked goods and seen how well Maisie and I were getting along. Unfortunately, he seemed to be stuck on the fact that I was a “city girl,” who had come in to ruin his carefully curated country life, when I’d only hoped to do the exact opposite.
Even though he had a gruff and unfriendly exterior when it came to dealing with me, Clayton couldn’t be sweeter with Maisie. That little girl had so clearly been the apple of Clayton Blackwood’s eye since her first minutes on this earth, and there was absolutely nothing he wouldn’t do for her… including being civil to me.
Besides Clayton, I had other things to worry about.
That morning, Maisie insisted that we pack a picnic lunch to take down to Zeke and Dakota, since the two of them had been busy moving hay around the sheep pens and horse stables all morning.
The whole affair had started out innocently enough, Maisie and I putting on our sundresses and broad straw hats after packing up a selection of sandwiches, cold salads, pickles, and fresh fruit, along with a big thermos of ice-cold lemonade.
Maisie helped me carry the basket of goodies down to the open field beside the sheep pen, the two of us taking our time to spread out the big plaid blanket, using rocks to pin down the corners.
As she gleefully helped me unload the basket, I found my eyes wandering to Dakota and Zeke. While working in the midday sun, their biceps strained against the cotton confines of their shirtsleeves. Dakota’s white tee was nearly transparent with sweat, and Zeke’s red one was dark and damp down his muscular back.
While the Pack Adamar alphas had been very conscious of their physiques and appearances; spending plenty of time at the gym or expensive salon appointments, not to mention burningentire fortunes on some of the finest menswear money could buy, none of them had bodies like Zeke or Montana. Incredible sculpted muscles carved from daily, back-breaking labor.
I had done my best to busy myself with unwrapping sandwiches and opening the potato and macaroni salads, but I couldn’t help but be distracted as first Dakota, then Zeke removed their felt cowboy hats and shucked off their work gloves before peeling out of their soaking T-shirts.
“Miss Piper!” Maisie pulled on my skirt to regain my attention as she handed me a container of cut strawberries she couldn’t seem to open. “May I please have some help with the strawberries?” her little voice asked innocently.
“Sure thing, Maisie.” I smiled, prying the plastic lid off the container of fruit.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Dakota and Zeke again, both of them glistening in the sun with perspiration, their sculpted muscles like those of Greek gods in the light.
I mean, seriously, Zeke seemed to have abs on his damnabs. Dakota was rocking insane pecs and a six-pack, but the deep groin cuts at the edges of Zeke’s obliques kept snagging my eye, pulling my gaze down to the big silver buckle of his belt.
Without meaning to, I found myself fantasizing in the blink of an eye, imagining what those flawless bodies would feel like under my hands—under my tongue.
Piper Elizabeth Collins, you get your head out of your hoo–ha right this instant!a little voice scolded deep in my mind.
What had I been thinking? Here I was, in a beautiful place, working with a little girl I was becoming increasingly attached to. I didn’t need to be thinking about my employers like they were sides of beef from their own cattle ranch.
Even if I had been left, shall we say, somewhathungryand wanting after my break with Pack Adamar.
Long before the breakup… if we’re being honest.
In my first few long nights at the ranch, crying under the moonlight from my bathroom skylight, or in the yellow light of the fridge in the early hours of the morning while I scrounged up anything I could find for an emotional support snack, I’d thought about just how pathetic my relationship with Pack Adamar had gotten before I found them screwing the concierge on her desk.
Lance and the others were well endowed, sure, but plenty of ladies will tell you that size is one thing andskillis another. There were many times that I left my intimate sessions with Pack Adamar feeling less than satisfied.
“We have lemonade!” Maisie yelled, and Dakota and Zeke eagerly approached us and our picnic blanket with their shirts still off.
As soon as they arrived at our little blanket island in the grass, their scents were nearly overwhelming. That fresh rain and mineral earth smell of Dakota, and the sweet and tangy mystery juicy fruit of Zeke had me clasping a hand over my heart to slow my increasingly heavy breathing.
“Well, aren’t we the luckiest men in the world!” Dakota cried triumphantly and swung Maisie up into the air as she giggled in delight.
“The luckiest papas on the planet!” Zeke grunted out as Dakota tossed Maisie to him.
Zeke caught her easily and swung her over his head, Maisie’s little arms outstretched like an airplane.
