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  If only she could totally disguise her emotions.

  But then she would be someone else entirely. And it was exhausting trying to maintain such a façade twenty-four hours a day. She didn’t want to have to do that again.

  “Grace.” Matt sloshed the dregs of his coffee around in his cup. “You mind if I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  What did he want to know? Please don’t ask about Jack. Please not that. She wriggled in her chair, suddenly aware of the sensitive skin of her back next to her corset. The scars itched. As if they wanted to remind her that Jack had been her husband. Jack had been the man she’d given herself to forever. Jack had not been pleased with her.

  “Why…uh…why’d you sleep on the couch?”

  Grace’s mouth fell open. She’d forgotten to remove the blanket and pillow. Of course it appeared strange. Why would a woman choose to sleep on the couch when she had a perfectly good bed?

  She closed her mouth. Flickered her eyes from Matt to Blake then down at her empty plate. The eggs in her belly lay heavy now and she wished she had eaten less.

  How to explain?

  “Grace?” Blake touched her arm and she jumped, pulling her arm away rapidly. If he began caressing her again in that tender way of his she feared that she would break down and tell them everything. Her layer of protection was cracking like sun-baked mud, proving that it had been temporary, fake, not who she really was at all.

  Blake’s eyes widened and she stared into them. He seemed hurt. As if she had wounded him by pulling away. But why? How could she have hurt him?

  She slowly placed her arm back on the table next to his. She didn’t want him to think she feared him. But perhaps she did. Just a bit. Feared the effect that he could have upon her. A whiff of human compassion and she was done for! All she had been through had not hardened her. Instead it had weakened her so that she was soft as the inside of a loaf of fresh, warm bread. One touch and she held the impression of Blake’s hand upon her surface and deep in her heart.

  “Sorry.” Grace offered Blake a small smile. “I’m just a bit jumpy is all. I didn’t mean to pull away like that. I’m not accustomed to human contact.” Not tender human contact anyway.

  “S’okay.” He smiled briefly but it didn’t reach his big brown eyes.

  What should she tell them about the bed? The truth?

  But if she did that, if she told them that her husband, the man who should have loved her and cared for more than anyone in the world, had repeatedly beaten her because she constantly displeased him, what would they think? Here she was, eating with them, laughing with them and starting to relax with them. Would they, if they knew about Jack, begin to see her as he had? Would his darkness seep into this new…what was it…friendship…and soil it? Could she allow that? She desperately didn’t want to do anything to compromise whatever joy she could find in these two men. However fleeting that joy might be.

  So she made a decision.

  “The uh…the bed…it’s really old and terribly uncomfortable. Full of bugs too.” Yes that ought to do it. No one enjoyed being eaten alive when they climbed into bed.

  Matt wrinkled his nose. “Yuck!”

  Blake shook his head. “And you’ve been stuck with it all this time? Didn’t your husband think of getting rid of it?”

  She chewed her lip. “Nope.” She was gripped by guilt as she deceived them but it wasn’t an enormous lie. Not really. She did hate the bed and it she had never slept well in it. How could she with Jack at her side? “We didn’t have the means to replace it.” More lies.

  She poured them all more coffee then took the pot to the fire. As she turned back to the table she caught a glance that the men exchanged. It was intimate. It was as if they were communicating silently. It made her feel, for a moment, like she was on the outside of something and her heart sank.

  They were friends. They knew each other well.

  She didn’t know them. Not really. And she felt bad for lying to them too. But telling anyone the truth about Jack would just be too hard. Surely most men would agree with the way he’d treated her? Jack told her that a sound beating was how all men kept their wayward wives in order. Though when she reached back into her memories, she couldn’t recall a time when her mother had been covered in bruises or cried out with pain as her arm was twisted behind her back and her clothing torn from her body. But then what did she know? What went on behind a man’s front door was between him and his wife. And nobody else gave a damn.

  If only her parents had still been around to turn to. But they had both been buried long ago. Before Jack had even appeared upon her horizon. Just as well, she thought now, because they had been spared the pain of seeing the mistake that she had made. It would have torn them apart to see the shell that she’d become during her marriage. Being with Matt and Blake was making it painfully clear to her exactly how bad things had become.

  But she didn’t want Matt and Blake to know all of that. It was humiliating. She longed for them to see her differently than Jack had. At least she could allow herself that. They appeared to view her as a woman, possibly even a desirable woman. It would break her to ruin that when she was just starting to warm to it. She might just as well go up to Jack’s grave with a spade and dig herself in next to him.

  Couldn’t she just enjoy this for what it was without allowing Jack’s cold shadow to put it into the shade?

  Chapter Five

  Grace carried the full basket of eggs over to the cabin. The hens were good little layers. Matt and Blake had been at the farm for just over a month and they’d taken a large box of eggs into Deadwood yesterday to sell. There wasn’t a lot of money in eggs but it was something. And everything helped.

  When the men had left to go into town, she’d had to force herself to appear cheery and nonchalant but inside she’d been in turmoil. What if they didn’t return? What if they paid a visit to some whores? The image made her chest ache and a knot of jealousy tighten in her stomach.

  But it could be worse. What if they came back drunk and angry? Like Jack.

  She’d moped about all afternoon and early evening. Hearing their horses and the mule they’d taken to carry the produce had sent her rushing into the yard like a foolish young girl. But they had seemed just as pleased to see her as she was to see them. Blake had even brought her some red ribbons for her hair, telling her that they would match her pretty lips.

  She had blushed at his words but been secretly thrilled. And overjoyed that they had returned. If they had not come back, she did not know how she would have managed. They had fallen into such an easy daily routine. Up before dawn, they shared breakfast then the men dealt with the larger animals and any repairs that were needed, while Grace collected the eggs and saw to the cleaning out of the hens.

  If it was fine, they’d wrap up warm and share some bread and goat’s cheese about midday before finishing off chores through the afternoon. Grace prepared an evening meal while the cowboys washed up then they sat around and ate together sharing stories as they had that first night.

  And neither Blake nor Matt had changed from when they arrived. They were still kind, sincere and polite. Still gorgeous and delightful. Still arousing Grace more and more each day as she got to know them even better.

  They had become a part of the farm. A part of her life. A part she feared losing.

  Done with their chores for the day, the men had retreated to the barn. They were making one hell of a racket in there and she wondered what they were up to. They had brought a few bundles back from town with them and stowed them immediately in the barn. Grace had wanted to ask about them but had been reluctant to pry.

  Matt and Blake were rather happy with themselves all evening, as if sharing a secret. She had been a bit hurt at being left out but tried to reassure herself that it was probably nothing to concern herself with.

  Perhaps they had seen a woman they admired in Deadwood. Maybe visited the Gem saloon…lain with a whore.

  Thou
gh it should not have bothered her, it did.

  It made her blood heat up and her stomach clench.

  What if it had been Matt? With his blond hair and blue eyes. His beautiful hands and strong broad shoulders. She shook her head to clear the image of him with a soiled dove away.

  No! Not Matt.

  Then Blake? A corset-clad harlot entwined in his muscular arms, her legs around his waist. Her tongue in his mouth.

  No! Not Blake.

  Then what…on earth…was she thinking? Neither man belonged to her. Neither man was anything other than an employee and maybe…if she was lucky…a friend. She had no right to wish for either man to save his kisses, his caresses, his tenderness for her. Yet she wanted them both.

  Both!

  For herself.

  How could she be so unreasonable and ridiculous? How would that work? She was a widow who had suffered an abusive husband. She had incurred his wrath in more ways than one. Yet finally free of him, she had begun to break free of the emotional bonds he had bound her with. She could see that now. Though she still carried a fear that perhaps Matt and Blake could well turn out like Jack, she doubted it. They were different. They were warm. Kind. Caring.

  So perhaps not all men were like Jack. She suspected that men like him were out there. But not all of them.

  So was it due to her previous state of fear and self-denial that she now believed that she would burst with desire?

  Desire to be wanted. Desire to be touched. Desire to be made love to. Desire for experience. Desire to live.

  Desire for Matt and for Blake.

  Was she wicked to want them both? If given the opportunity to choose between them, she didn’t know that she would be able to. They were good men. Kind men. Caring men. She had grown fond of them as a pair and fond of them individually. They were always together and she couldn’t imagine it being any different. So…if by some amazing and highly unlikely chance…one of them asked her to be with him…could she accept? It would break her heart to think of the other one being left out. Being alone. As she had been for so long. Having suffered loneliness, she could never inflict it upon either one of the men she had grown to care for. Never.

  So that left only one course of action open to her. She would not be able to accept. If either Matt or Blake expressed an interest in taking her to wife…or even just lying with her…she would be forced to turn him down. Pain twisted her gut and she took a shaky breath. No. She could not have one without the other. Therefore, she would have neither. She would lose out. But it would not happen anyway, for why would they want to marry her? Or make love to her.

  She placed the basket of eggs on the table and removed her headscarf. She loosened the plait in her hair then shook out its waves. She loved setting her hair free now. She took a red ribbon from the mantel and threaded it beneath her hair and tied it at the top of her head. She peered into the small blackened square of looking-glass that sat above the fireplace. Blake was right. The red did indeed complement her lips and her cheeks. She appeared younger than she had done in years. More like a young woman approaching her twenties than leaving them.

  Was this also due to desire?

  She gave a frivolous giggle.

  “Grace?” It was Matt. “Come on out here a moment.”

  She skipped to the door. Her heart would break if she dwelt on the knowledge that she could never be with Matt and Blake and right now, they were here, at her farm, with her. So she would enjoy the here and now. Live in the moment. Push her fears aside until tomorrow. Bury them like a bulb that could push its head through the surface of the soil in the spring. For it surely would. But not right now.

  “We need you to make yourself scarce for a while.”

  “What?” Her heart plummeted.

  Blake appeared. “Not for long…say half an hour. We have a surprise, see.”

  She chewed her lip. “I guess I could head on down to the creek to swill a few things.” She did have some smalls that would benefit from a freshen-up in the cool, clear water. She could take a swim too. “Okay then.”

  “You’ll like this.” Matt grinned and her heart began to thud in the way that made her head feel light and her cunny hot. She knew how easy it would be to fall into his arms. Resisting his charms was not easy. But then he hadn’t pushed for anything from her other than her company. He had been such a gentleman. As had Blake. Though she thought that she recognised desire in their eyes from time to time, she might be wrong. Even though she knew that she could not be with one of them, the idea that they might not be attracted to her stung. She needed their approval. It was one of the things that made her enjoy being around them so much. And she was getting used to it.

  She parcelled up her dirty linen and smiled at them both as she passed them. Blue eyes and brown eyes. Golden hair and ebony hair. Strong masculine frames. Hard, lean bodies.

  Thick hard cocks.

  Yes, she definitely needed to cool down in the creek.

  ****

  Grace approached the yard. Her damp hair hung down her back and the cool breeze chilled her right through. But the swim had been good for her. She had scrubbed herself all over and swilled the sweat and dust from her hair. Immersing her lust-filled body in the water had helped to cool her hot, needy flesh. Hopefully, she would now be able to control her wanton thoughts around the cowboys.

  Hopefully.

  She walked through the yard and towards the cabin. Matt and Blake sat on the stoop grinning at her.

  “So, you ready for your surprise?” Matt removed his hat and combed his hand through his thick blond hair.

  “We’ve been busy!” Blake announced. His hands were splayed over his large knees. Knees that Grace longed to touch.

  “I sure am.” She took their proffered hands as they stood and allowed them to guide her into the cabin.

  She looked around the small room, peering through the gloom.

  “Not in here, silly.” Matt nudged her towards the bedroom.

  She gasped. Why was he directing her towards that room? What did he want from her? Excitement and anxiety battled within. Could she submit to him in there? On that bed? Was that what he wanted? And what about Blake? Would he watch…join in? Her cunny tingled. She had already decided that she could not choose between them but it wouldn’t be possible to have them both. Would it?

  She pushed opened the bedroom door.

  And cried out.

  “Oh my! Oh my! Oh my!” She covered her mouth with shaky hands.

  “You like it?” Blake wrapped an arm around her shoulders, leaning forwards to gaze into her face. Her flesh burned where it touched his. It was so good to be held by him. It made her long to turn to face him and hold him tight. She met his eyes. He was wary. Worried. Feared that they’d made a mistake.

  “Did we do the wrong thing, Grace?” He frowned. ”We discussed it and were concerned that it might upset you as that was the bed you share with your husband…but you said it was uncomfortable and had bugs and all so we…” He looked at Matt for help.

  “Grace?” Matt gently stroked her cheek. “Are you all right?”

  She opened and closed her mouth like a landed fish. Was she all right? What a ridiculous question.

  “Yes,” she squeaked. “I’m…just amazed.”

  “But why?” Blake asked as he led her towards the new bed that sat in the place of the old one.

  “Because you did this for me.” Grace reached out and ran a hand over the new patchwork coverlet. It was a mix of blues and purples and reds all stitched together to create the most beautiful blanket she had ever seen. She lifted a corner and peered underneath. A clean white cotton sheet covered new ticking which she suspected was stuffed with fresh straw.

  And the head of the pine frame was gorgeous.

  “Did you carve that yourselves?” she asked.

  “Well, you said that you like roses and daisies so we did our best to carve the two,” Blake explained.

  The bedstead was clean, fresh pine and all alo
ng the upper edge were intricate carvings of flowers. Daisies and roses. Her mother’s favourite flowers. Her favourite flowers.

  “Thank you both…so much.” She turned to them. “This is the best gift I have ever had.” She reached out to them both and they each took a hand.

  She moved towards them. Brought their hands to her lips. Pressed her mouth to their fingers in turn. Both of them. At the same time. Leaving neither man out. Their skin smelt of pine and masculine warmth. She breathed it in, licking her lips as it fired her desire.

  Matt gasped and she met his eyes. They were dark. His own lips slightly parted.

  She glanced at Blake. His eyes echoed the need in Matt’s. What was happening here?

  This wasn’t possible. She had dreamt of this even though she had denied it upon waking with her hands between her legs and her body coated in perspiration. Being loved by them both simultaneously.

  She took a step closer to Matt and he lowered his head. He pressed his mouth to hers. He kissed her. Gently. Slowly. She leaned into him, feeling his body all along the front of her own. He was so hard, so strong, so desirable.

  She forced herself to pull away then moved towards Blake. He wrapped his strong arms around her and returned her kiss. His mouth was firmer, more insistent. He pressed his tongue between her lips and delved into her mouth. She sighed and ran her own tongue over his. Tasting. Touching. Wanting.

  He pulled her closer and she felt his erection against her belly. He was hard. He wanted her. She wanted him. But what about Matt?

  She pulled away from Blake’s kisses and glanced at the other cowboy. He stepped closer and kissed her again while she was still in Blake’s arms.

  So they were okay with this? They both wanted her? Like this? Her stomach flipped with excitement. How would this work?