Denys, Jennifer - Wife for Three [Duoterra] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (4 page)

She wondered what made him suddenly look worried.

“Look, lady. You can’t live with us without being married. Not with the laws now. Not unless you are a widow, which I sincerely doubt.”

Dammit. He is right.
She bit her lip not knowing what to do. If she went off with him without being married it would be seen as promiscuity. This, of course, was unacceptable in their society as there were so many men in need of a wife, other than via polygamous marriages which were, by their very nature, mutually consensual. Any adultery was firmly punished in archaic fashion whereby the woman would be stripped naked, her hair shaven off, flogged through town, and exiled. She frowned. The guilty man, on the other hand, was just fined, being regarded as a wretched person driven to that course by sheer desperation.

Adam continued, “Since we are too busy to get back to town, the only way around this is for you to return home.” Gasping in fear, she cried, “No! I can’t do that.” Looking at her suspiciously, he asked, “Why not? You’re in some kind of trouble, aren’t you? I knew Curt’s stupid advert would attract the wrong sort of woman.”

Sucking in a breath at his accusation, she pouted. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I just don’t want to be forced into a marriage. I want to choose.”

He chuckled harshly. “And here you are choosing three brothers you don’t know, two of whom you have yet to meet. For all you know, we could take you home, tie you to our bed, and one of us fuck you all day and all night. That’s a better life, is it?”
28

Jennifer Denys

Blushing fiercely, Brianna responded curtly, “It was until I met you!”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “So now we’ve got that sorted, I’ll say good-bye.”

“Please.”

Her plaintive cry stopped him in his tracks.

“Can’t I just stay at your place for a bit? I could cook and clean for you. I make a mean plum-apple pie.” She could see her offer was very tempting and followed it up with more pleas. “I’ve really got nowhere else to go.”

He looked undecided and ran a hand nervously through his hair again. “You could stay here.”

“What, here in this town—with those two men on the prowl?”

“Hell! I’d forgotten about them. Damn. Are you sure you can’t go home?”

Brianna nodded emphatically.

A few tense, silent moments followed during which she could see him trying to decide the right course of action. “I guess we could go to see the law enforcer and take out a marriage contract right now. It’s perfectly possible for me to sign on behalf of my brothers. That way we won’t be breaking the law, and you would be safe from Ron and Bert.”

So shocked was Brianna by this turn of events, her jaw dropped.

She had only come to Frontier to talk to Curt. Part of her wasn’t sure if she would marry him after all. It may have just been a way of escaping her uncle. On the other hand, the reaction of the two men earlier had shown how vulnerable she was. And what she had said about having nowhere else to go was true. No one would offer her a job. The woman’s place was in the home. She certainly wasn’t going to the brothel in Eden. But by going off with this man who she didn’t know, wasn’t that tantamount to doing the same thing?

“Well? If we are going to do this, we need to do it now.”
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29

She swallowed nervously and nodded slowly, still amazed by what was happening. Somewhat bemused by it all, she quietly let him lead her over to the appropriate building, and within a short time, they were back on the street again, but only now, she was a married woman.

Glancing down, she looked at the paper in her hands—her marriage contract. Despite the abundance of religious-related swear words, religion had been left behind on Earth, and marriages were not conducted by a minister or priest of any kind like the old days on their home planet, but in front of the law enforcer or town mayor. On most occasions, it was still a happy ceremony with friends and family present to see the couple get married.

That reminded her that she was now a married woman to not only one husband, but three, and Brianna was somewhat stunned.

Shaking her head, she wondered why she would feel that way, since she had come here with every intention of becoming wife to three men. However, she hadn’t expected it to happen so fast and one of them to be a man she really wasn’t very sure about—strike that—a man who made her feel
very
uncomfortable.

Hearing Adam come out of the building after her, she looked back, and a quiver of fear went through her, which had nothing to do with her new husband and everything to do with why she had come there in the first place. If her uncle came looking for her, he would immediately go to the law enforcer’s office, but then she calmed down thinking that he would find out that she was now married and that her marriage was legal, so she would be safe.

The question, though, was would she be safe with Adam and his brothers?

30

Jennifer Denys

Adam brooded all the way from town. He could feel the girl sitting beside him in the wagon that carried the monthly supplies, glancing warily at him as they made their way to the farm he shared with his brothers. He had discovered when drawing up the contract that her name was Brianna.

He knew she was uncomfortable since he wasn’t saying a word, but then he always was the silent one out of his siblings, spending his time thinking rather than vocalizing his thoughts, and this was one big thought he was having—one big moment of regret.

What the hell possessed me to marry the girl?
He knew of Curt’s plan and had thought it stupid, which made it even more reason to wonder why he had done it. If Curt had met the girl first and had taken out a contract and brought her back to the farm, he would have honored it—after having serious words with him—but why had
he
taken the initiative?

Hell, I know perfectly well why. My dick is dictating my head
.

Brianna was not only young, but lovely. She might be short, probably a whole foot shorter than him, but she had a heart-shaped face, and when she had smiled at him as she thanked him for rescuing her, a tremor had gone through him the like of which he had never experienced before. He wasn’t used to women smiling at him—other than his late mother. He’d only had one sexual partner in his life.

While his father had still been alive, he had taken each of his sons to the big town, Eden, to ensure they had had instruction at the brothel. Adam had only been a young man at the time, but it had been an experience in humiliation as he had ejaculated barely moments
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31

after getting inside the older woman, who had laughed her head off.

Consequently, he hadn’t attempted any form of social interactivity with any woman ever again. No dancing, no kissing, not even talking.

Until the day he had rescued a lovely girl from two rough men and ended up married to her.

A sound interrupted his black thoughts. The girl, Brianna, was clearing her throat nosily. He glanced around at her, irritated.

“Um, are we going to stop soon?” she asked, not taking his look as a warning to be quiet.

“Not if you want to get home before dark we aren’t.” He went back to his dark ruminations.

She was silent for a few more moments before speaking again.

“Can we please stop just for a second?”

Adam frowned and turned his head to her. She was clearly taken aback at his expression this time as she looked scared. It didn’t make him glower any less. “Why?”

Sighing, she answered quietly, “A girl has needs.”
What the hell is she on about?
He frowned more fiercely.

“Don’t you ever need to go?” Her voice was shaky.

“Go where? We’re in the middle of the wilderness with wild animals out there, lady.”

“To—The—Toilet,” she iterated patiently.

He cursed and pulled the horse to a stop, grabbing a knife known as a longblade as he did. The colonists had deliberately chosen not to have guns on the planet, but the longblade had been developed as a means of defense against violent animals—not that it always worked.

“Fine, but do it quickly.”

“What the hell do you need that for?” she asked, gesturing at the knife.

“I told you. There are wild animals out there. You don’t know how dangerous this region is. There’s a very good reason it is called

‘the wild region,’” he stated sarcastically.

She didn’t move. “So why live all the way out here?”
32

Jennifer Denys

“Good grazing.” It was, actually. They ran a herd of wilderbeast.

They weren’t the wildebeest of Earth but an animal native to the world that tasted something like beef, he understood, which had been domesticated, sort of. A lot of them were still pretty fierce and didn’t take to being herded without protest. Consequently, someone had called them wild beasts which had then become wilderbeast. And the wilderbeast lived in the region, as they fed on the shoots of the wildershrub.

The plans for the colony had determined they would not bring test-tube fetuses of various animals or plants from Earth so to avoid damaging the native ecology. They had to live on what was there already. There were some grazing animals in the plains a bit like deer.

Someone had called them bambi-meat, but the wilderbeast that he and his brothers herded was much sought after. However, few people were willing to farm the animals.

When he didn’t expand on his comment, the girl gave up her questioning and climbed down looking around for a likely spot, moving away behind some nearby bushes to do her business.

Adam got down and patted the horse that was leading the wagon, and made sure the reins were not chafing. It wasn’t actually a horse, but the animals were so close to Earth horses that they called them that. The difference apparently was that Earth horses had two ears, not three, and also had a tail.

Something rustled behind where Brianna was squatting. She screamed, and in an instant Adam had jumped away from the wagon to her side, his knife at the ready, and then he snorted. It was only an earth-burrowing rodent. He fought back a smile at her embarrassment as she fled back to the wagon.

* * * *

As they drove down the path to the farmhouse ahead of him, Adam saw someone come out of the barn walking toward the house.

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He knew straight away it was his youngest brother Eric by his hair, which was a much lighter brown than his middle brother. While Adam took after his father in coloring, his brothers had their mother’s darker hair.

Eric did a double take and then sprinted into the house. Moments later, he came out again with Curt in tow, both of them gesturing wildly. Well, it wasn’t every day that he brought back a woman to the house.
Hell, they’d never seen me bring another woman back home.

No wonder they had looks of such shock on their faces. He had a moment of glee at their expressions.

He pulled the horse to a stop in the middle of the yard, and the two younger brothers raced over to the side where Brianna was sitting, naturally, staring at her but not saying a word.

That was okay with him. It meant putting off explanations longer that he had no idea how to answer, so he got down, ignoring them.

Moving to the back of the wagon, he started to unload the supplies he had bought. It was a few minutes before their shock wore off.

“Um, Adam, who’s this?” Eric was the first to speak, his gentler nature showing in his polite tone of voice.

“Yes, has she got a name?” Curt, on the other hand, was typically impatient.

Adam ignored them both and continued his task.

It was Brianna who spoke instead. “Why don’t you ask me?” Her soft voice made a shiver run down his back.

That stunned the brothers into silence again as their heads swiveled back to the woman still sitting in the wagon. Adam chuckled inwardly. It wasn’t often his brothers were quiet, particularly Curt. He was so glad he had gotten the upper hand after his middle brother’s stunt with the advert. He’d been extremely angry over that and had hoped, since it had been a couple of months at least, that no one had noticed it or was prepared to answer it. Until now, that was.

He heard her chuckle at their lack of eloquence. “I take it one of you is Curt?”

34

Jennifer Denys

“What have you done now? Was she thrown out by some irate husband?”

As Eric turned on him, Curt pushed his brother’s shoulder in irritation. “I’ve never seen her before.”

“So who is she then?”

Finally having had enough of their tomfoolery, Adam stopped his unloading. “Her name is Brianna Thorpe, and I met her in town where she had come answering your idiotic advert, Curt.”

“Holy shit! I knew I should have gone to town this trip.”

“Someone was fool enough to come! Hell, Curt, I’ll never deride your schemes ever again!” Eric’s comment got Brianna’s back up.

“Gee, thanks, boys. I guess that fool would be me. And it seems I’ve made a big mistake.”

Adam smiled inwardly at Brianna’s terse tone.

The boys were contrite, and both reached out to help her down, but she shoved their hands away. “If I am not wanted, I’d appreciate being taken back to town.”

Curt moved forward, bracing himself against the wagon with his hands on either side of the woman. “Look, gorgeous. We never said you weren’t wanted. Well, I didn’t.” He looked back at Eric angrily and then continued, “But how come you are here? I sort of thought I’d get a message saying there was someone in town for me.” Answering him, Adam explained, “Ron and another bloke in town were hassling her. I didn’t think it wise for her to stay there.”

“But…” Eric started, and then continued, his uncertainty clear in his voice. “Does anyone know she is with you? What happens if she doesn’t like us and wants to leave and people find out a girl has been living here with us? Hell, Adam. You could be in big trouble.
We
could!”

“Oh, it’s all right. We were married in town.” Adam winced as Brianna blurted that out.