Cowboy Love in Peril [Love: The Cowboy Way 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

Love: The Cowboy Way 2

Cowboy Love in Peril

Two years after fighting to save the lives of the people he loves, retired Special Forces soldier Brandon Reed is lured into a trap when a judge is kidnapped by the vicious drug lord he sent to jail. Manny Costanza is still hell-bent on killing him and avenging the death of his son.

Wade Gardiner makes a discovery that has him questioning everything he believes and terrified he will lose everything he loves. He carries the burden alone, unable to tell anyone why he is pulling away and causing them pain.

Kimber Gardiner-Reed fears her precious children will suffer for the choices she has made and learns some harsh lessons about the realities of bringing up kids in the kind of relationship the people in her small town wouldn't understand.

Brandon, Kimber, and Wade are fighting to save their love again, and this time, the peril comes from within.

Genre:
Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys

Length:
23,384 words
 

Love: The Cowboy Way 2

Luxie Ryder

MENAGE AMOUR

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

IMPRINT: Ménage Amour

COWBOY LOVE IN PERIL

E-book ISBN:
978-1-62241-132-0

First E-book Publication: September 2012

Cover design by Jinger Heaston

All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:
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All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

PUBLISHER

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

Letter to Readers

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Cowboy Love in Peril
 by Luxie Ryder from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

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COWBOY LOVE IN PERIL

Love: The Cowboy Way 2

LUXIE RYDER

Copyright © 2012

Kimberley Gardener-Reed put her one-year-old twin girls down in their crib, laying them side by side in the same one even though it was cramped, because they wouldn’t sleep unless they could touch each other. The cream-colored walls of the nursery glowed red and gold from the rays of a glorious sunset streaming in through the window, the light playing on the fat cheeks and wispy blonde hair of her baby girls, making them look like a pair of little cherubs.

She wandered over to sit down on the wooden toy chest beneath the window, tucking her feet under her and propping an elbow on the frame. Kimber took a deep breath, glad of a moment to get her wits about her—especially after the horrible afternoon she’d had, thanks to the receptionist at Chelwood Medical Center. The woman looked totally out of place in such a rural corner of New Mexico, and Kimber wished she’d go the hell back to wherever it was she—and her snooty accent—came from.

Kimber had changed her last name when she’d gotten pregnant with the twins. She’d wanted the girls to have their fathers’ last names but there was no legal way to do that, so she’d changed her name to Gardener-Reed and that’s what she’d put on the birth certificate. Apparently the receptionist had never seen a single parent before, or at least that’s impression she gave Kimber when she kept asking if the girls ever saw their father. Dodging her questions had been exhausting but Kimber tried her best to shove all thoughts of the woman out of her head—she’d be damned before a judgmental attitude ruined her evening the way it had her afternoon.

It didn’t take her long to relax. This was her favorite time of day. The all-engrossing task of raising two delightful but willful girls exhausted her, but no matter how busy Kimber had been, there was one ritual she was loathe to miss. Watching her guys walk up the lane together, sun-kissed and dirty after a day spent tending the ranches they managed, was a guilty pleasure she rarely denied herself.

Kimber’s gaze scanned the fields surrounding Wade’s ranch, looking up and down the lanes, unsure which direction they would come from. The minute she laid eyes on them, she knew that the night to come would be a long, steamy one. They were so easy to read. Wade Gardener appeared first, his big, strong body blocking the last of the day’s sun from Brandon Reed, casting him into shadow. Wade’s handsome face was rigid with tension under his Stetson and he marched toward the house in long, purposeful strides. He didn’t speak to Brandon as they approached but that didn’t seem to matter to Brandon, because his demeanor told Kimber he was as singularly focused on getting home to her as Wade was.

A frisson of excitement went up her spine as she imagined them working side by side all day, the sexual tension heavy between them. Why they’d recently stopped acting on the chemistry between them when she wasn’t around, she would never understand, but she usually reaped the benefits of their self-denial.

She turned from the window and crossed over to the twins, kissing them gently on their cheeks as they murmured to each other softly and resisted the urge to sleep. They wouldn’t be awake for long and should rest as soundly as they always did, which was probably just as well tonight if she knew her men at all.

Kimber walked through the house and down the stairs, stepping down onto the stripped wooden floor of the open-plan hallway just as she heard screen door at the back of the house creak shut. She found Brandon and Wade in the kitchen, both of them guzzling down a glass of cold water. They were probably desperate for it—the heat had been a bitch all afternoon.

Brandon had his back to her and she watched the play of muscles under his T-shirt as he refilled his glass and drained it again. His blond hair was plastered to the back of his neck, his clothing almost transparent with sweat.

Wade spotted her first but didn’t stop drinking. Any hurt feelings she might have felt at him not saying hello to her evaporated when she saw the way his gray eyes darkened as he stared at her. His molten silver gaze raced over her body, lingering on her breasts as he took one long, last swallow of his water and then dragged a fist across his mouth. A flutter of anticipation trembled in Kimber’s gut. Wade looked almost dangerous as the sexual tension radiated off him in waves. A quick glance at his groin revealed no surprises—he was rock hard and about to burst through the seams of his jeans.

Brandon turned at that moment, his hips lining up alongside Wade’s as the pair of them leaned against the brown granite countertop. He had a huge bulge in his pants, too. Kimber’s mouth went dry and her gaze darted up to his face.

She never tired of seeing them together. Although both men were about to turn forty, they couldn’t have been more different physically. Brandon was a retired Special Forces soldier with a body like a thoroughbred racehorse, all sleek lines and long, toned limbs. Wade, on the other hand, was more like a Clydesdale, a solid wall of muscle and staggeringly strong, yet still graceful, despite his size. He’d been forced to shelve his dreams of being a lawyer and take over the ranch when his father died but he rarely complained, happy with his lot in life.

Brandon seemed a little more relaxed than Wade today, and gave her a half smile when she looked at him, but still neither of them said a word. W
hat the hell had gotten into them?

“Hey, you two.” Kimber turned away, slightly unnerved by how weird they were both acting. “You gonna go wash up while I start dinner?”

“You need to eat?” she heard Wade say, and turned to find he had spoken to Brandon, not her. When Brandon shook his head, his gaze still riveted to her face, Wade turned and asked her the same question.

“Well, I can wait and do dinner in a little while if you don’t want it yet. Aren’t you hungry, Wade?”

“For food? No.”

He took a step toward her as he removed his hat and tossed it onto the table, thrusting a hand through his dark hair. Brandon pushed away from the counter too and came to stand beside her.

“What about you? You hungry?” Brandon’s green eyes sparkled with mischief as he dropped a kiss on her temple and reached up to tug the band from her hair. “Because, if you are, you’d better let us know now.”

Kimber ruffled the blonde curls tumbling around her shoulders, sure she must look awful, but Brandon grabbed her hands, trapping them against his chest. She grinned. “I can wait. This seems more...urgent.”

Wade closed the distance between them in two long strides and swept her up into his arms. “Darlin’, you have no idea how urgent.”

The rooms passed by in a blur as Wade strode through them with Kimber in his arms. His dark brows bunched together in concentration as he took the steps two at a time and, before she could catch her breath, he’d dumped her on the bed in their bedroom and started tearing off his clothes. Brandon walked in moments behind them, his T-shirt already off and in his hand. He grinned when his gaze found Wade, standing half-naked, with his jeans and pants bunched around his ankles as he ripped his T-shirt over his head, giving the room a glorious view of his massive, muscled torso. Moments later, he kicked off his boots along with the rest of his clothing and took a step toward the bed where Kimber lay, damn near breathless at the ferocity of Wade’s desire for her. Brandon tapped him on the shoulder, distracting Wade just as he was about to crawl up the bed and do something deliciously dirty to her—if the expression on his face was anything to go by.