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“Love you, too,” Hawk teased.
“What? You needed a boost in?” In a flash, Cannon was back next to him, pressing him against the side of the truck. Cupping the side of Hawk’s cheek, he smashed their lips together in a move that lacked finesse but conveyed every bit of the passion that always simmered between them. It also surprised her, since Hawk tended toward being the more dominant of the pair.
“Better,” Hawk muttered when they parted, his hand squeezing Cannon’s ass before he let go.
Dev leaned toward them from where she was seated, looking over Hawk’s shoulder. “Is that it? C’mon, guys. It’s my birthday.”
“Never knew you were such a watcher,” Cannon teased.
“You have no idea. But anyway…” Change of subject. Now! “You guys are the watchers. It’s nice to have a change of pace. Observe you guys instead. Kiss again! Give everyone a show.”
“No, thanks. You know how small-town gossip works,” Hawk declined. There might seem to be no people around, but tomorrow, a picture would might post on the top of the Daly community page.
It blew his mind. When he and Cannon had been in college, each getting their hospitality and tourism masters degrees, they’d never envisioned their lives here. Hell, he’d thought they’d live in Boston or NYC or maybe Chicago, where no one would notice them, not in a place with a population less than his entire graduating class.
Things had changed drastically two years ago. He hadn’t graduated and gone on to manage a hotel or restaurant. Now, for half the week, he and Cannon helped out on the Last Chance Ranch—feeding stock, fixing fences, moving hay, or doing whatever was needed at the operation. The rest of their work week was spent running the tourism portion of Briar’s ranch, a program called Ranch Escapes, which offered vacations for city-folk who wanted to play cowboy.
After that, several more hours were spent at Dev’s horse training facility. He and Cannon helped her with the animals, bookkeeping, and anything that needed to be done on her spread of land. He liked to think they were building that business together, though Dev had funded everything. Apparently, aside from the accounts she’d drain while on the run, she’d been sitting on a ton of off-shore cash inherited from her grandparents, money she could access without alerting her stepfather and his cohorts.
“I think I need to get new shoes,” she yawned as he climbed into the truck next to her, without giving in to her request for a show. “Besides being stinky, I think these have been waterlogged one too many times with mop water. The soles are making cookie cuts on my feet.”
“You should quit Leena’s,” he said, broaching the subject he’d begun before the dinner rush. She didn’t have to work at the ranch or at Leena’s. Still, she ran her ass off, and since they needed to be near, so did Cannon and Hawk—on nights like tonight.
“Robert Daly’s been talking you up,” Cannon added. “You’re getting more and more clients looking for you to train their horses. You could stay busy with that alone.”
Her lips pulled back into grimace. “And leave Leena short staffed? You guys would quit, too. Then what would she do on Wednesdays? We barely manage as it is.”
She wasn’t wrong. Most of the evening, they were one messed up order from the whole night going to shit.
Even without working at the diner once a week, Hawk fell into bed every evening bone-dead tired. It was probably a good thing, too. Though he and Cannon fucked, a lot, he ached to have Dev, too, to hold her in his arms. But she wasn’t ready.
He didn’t think she minded the idea of a menage, though. She knew how it was here in Daly. Frequently, relationships were throuples or quads. Occasionally, more. He’d seen the interest in her eyes, and she understood he and Cannon were a package deal. They’d hinted at a change in their status and given her openings. Nothing.
He’d caught her secret looks, though. She’d watched the dynamic between Briar, Jax and Ram with longing in her gaze. He’d be jealous, but her hungry appraisal always turned to seek out her own cowboys.
And they were hers, whether she was ready to acknowledge it or not.
As quick as a blink, she always shuttered away her desire, though. It was so quick he wouldn’t know it had been there if he hadn’t been looking for it.
“You know as well as we do, if she put up a help wanted sign, she’d find someone in hot minute,” Cannon offered. “With all the people moving into the new subdivision, and them breaking ground to double the number of homes there, as well as expand Main Street for more businesses, there are plenty of people looking for jobs. A lot of townspeople don’t want to commute into Gillette every day. Hell, the Bell boys drive into the city to work at the superstore there, and I bet they’d love to have jobs right in Daly.”
“Maybe…” she conceded and nibbled one side of her bottom lip.
It was funny really. She worked hard to always exude masculine vibes when she was around others, but not with them. Her very feminine mannerisms quickly appeared whenever they were alone.
“Think seriously about it,” Hawk urged. “If you stayed out at our place most of the time, you can grow out your hair the way you want and stop coloring it all the time. Whenever you have to be around people, you can wear a cap.”
“That would be nice,” she murmured and went back to gnawing that lip. He wanted to bite it, lick it, suck it into his mouth until she moaned and leaned into him, letting him feel all of the curves she worked so hard to hide.
Reaching over he squeezed her hand.
“Think about it,” he repeated.
She nodded as they reached their turn off, just outside of town. Cannon veered down the road that led toward the Last Chance Ranch. Several miles in, a sharp right turn took them down the graded road to their home and their horse facility, Redemption, which was nestled between Briar’s place and one wing of the Flying D’s enormous spread that straddled two counties.
Dev said she’d picked the name Redemption because it meshed with the theme of Last Chance. In his heart, Hawk knew it had more to do with her situation and her desire to rise above it. The same could be said about her naming her favorite horse, Phoenix.
“You check the security feed?” Cannon asked him. Their eyes met over the top of Dev’s head. Cannon’s gaze held a gravity that was at odds with his normal light-hearted personality, and an icy trickle of fear rolled down Hawk’s spine. It was always this way when they’d been away for any stretch. What had happened? Who had been there? Anyone? No one?
