Independence Day Lusty Style [The Lusty Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  The Lusty, Texas Collection

  Independence Day, Lusty Style

  How could she have just met the man of her dreams—times two? Bernice White discovers they do things differently in Lusty, Texas.

  Both Caleb Benedict, a Texas Ranger, and his twin brother, Jonathan, a rancher, know Bernice is the woman meant for them. Caleb convinced her to come to Texas. Now they both hope to convince her to stay for the rest of her life.

  All Bernice knows is that for the first time in her life she understands what all the romance writers have been writing about. She knows loving two men is outside of convention, but to her it feels very, very right.

  But what none of them know is they’re being watched, and they’re being followed. And soon, this unknown enemy will make his move—and the only question is, will forever love turn to heartbreaking tragedy?

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

  Length: 64,337 words

  INDEPENDENCE DAY, LUSTY STYLE

  The Lusty, Texas Collection

  Cara Covington

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  INDEPENDENCE DAY, LUSTY STYLE

  Copyright © 2016 by Cara Covington

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-68295-473-7

  First E-book Publication: September 2016

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2016 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  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

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Independence Day, Lusty Style by Cara Covington from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Cara Covington’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Cara Covington’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Independence Day, Lusty Style is my 50th title for Siren-Bookstrand. I can hardly believe it! It feels like not that long ago I had this dream to be a published author—a dream that seemed not only far away, but one, the realization of which, was completely out of my hands.

  And then I attended the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Daytona Beach in the spring of 2006. There I was given the opportunity to pitch the first novel I had written specifically to sell—Made For Each Other—to Siren Publishing. My appointment was with the publisher herself, and it must have been fate, because a few short months later, my novel was accepted.

  From that moment to today, I’ve had so many life experiences, some wonderful and some more terrible than you can imagine. And yet through it all, I’ve not only been able to write, but have seen my words published. That wonderful something inside me that allows me to deal, to process, and to share—that gift—has flourished. At a time when I thought my life’s journey had reached a plateau, I was given the chance for growth and a new beginning.

  I have so many people to thank.

  I’m grateful to my Publishing House, Siren-BookStrand, a group of very professional women and men who do all they can to help their authors. I continue to be very grateful for Amanda Hilton, because she continues to say “yes”.

  I’m grateful to my family, who’ve been very understanding that they now have to share their wife/mom/granny/great-granny with this amazing career I never could have imagined.

  But mostly I am grateful to you, the readers.

  My wonderful Street Team, led by Lisa Buchanan-Phillips and Tammy Faris, is the best Street Team in the world. Period. A huge thank you goes out to my beta readers, Angie Buchanan Jones and Tammy Faris. Ladies, you always have a suggestion or two that makes my work better. And I am grateful to the many thousands of readers who over the last nine years have invested time and money in the books I’ve written. So many of you have written to me, and nothing moves me more than when I hear from you.

  So thank you to everyone who’s had a part in my being where I am today. I hope I can continue to write the stories you want to read, and be worthy of your time and attention.

  Cara Covington/Morgan Ashbury

  Paris, Ontario

  August 22, 2016

  DEDICATION

  To my husband, David, who’s been my number one fan, even before there was a published book. Thank you for being a constant in my life.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  INDEPENDENCE DAY, LUSTY STYLE

  The Lusty, Texas Collection

  CARA COVINGTON

  Copyright © 2016

  Prologue

  The grounds
of the Big House were decorated as always in their traditional Fourth of July red, white, and blue finery. The Independence Day picnic on the lawn surrounding this huge house was a family tradition, and one that was particularly special to Bernice Benedict. She and her husbands had pledged themselves to each other right here during the family’s Fourth of July celebration in 1973. It had been a Wednesday, a beautiful, perfect day. All around her, Benedicts, Kendalls and Jessops, along with Parkers and Joneses, had cheered when Grandmother Chelsea had pronounced them a new family. She’d never forget the wonder of that day.

  Her face colored when she thought of the way she and her beloved men tended to celebrate their anniversary privately, two weeks before Independence Day. That private celebration commemorated an intimate date that was known and special only to the three of them. That was our spiritual wedding, the very first time the three of us made love after declaring our love—and the first time we became one flesh, together.

  Bernice stood back and simply admired the large wrap-around porch, remembering so many days and evenings spent right there, sometimes just her and her men and sometimes with other members of the family. Her mother-in-law, Kate, who’d become a mother to her in every possible sense; her daughter, Susan, and her daughters-in-law, Kelsey and Penelope. Her niece, Julia, and her best friends, Samantha Kendall, and Anna Jessop, and her sister-in-law, Abby.

  All of those wonderful women were here today, along with others who, in recent times, had become a part of the family.

  “I say it’s time for us to take a break and have some sweet tea.” Addison Benedict Jessop-Jones came up and slipped her arm around Bernice’s waist. In the ten months this new niece had been in Lusty, Bernice had seen a remarkable transformation in the woman. Addison had come to them more battered of spirit than any of them knew at the time. The events of last fall had been heartbreaking, yes. But they’d been formative, as well.

  “Sweet tea sounds good, and I know for a fact there are several pitchers of it in the fridge, ready to go.”

  July could be, and often was, blisteringly hot in Texas, though today the temperature was just in the nineties. Long used to the weather here in the south, Bernice could honestly say she didn’t miss the winters of New York any longer. Oh, she still liked to go Christmas shopping there, touch base with old friends—not all of who were people.

  Christmas just wasn’t Christmas without a visit to Macy’s.

  By the time she and Addison made it up to the porch, the other women had decided it was time for a break, too.

  “Ladies, the decorating is finished, at least as far as it is ours to do.” Bernice grinned. “I know Matt and Steven have a crew over at the warehouse loading up the picnic tables. We all also know they prefer to work on their own.”

  The women chuckled. Ari nodded. “We can fix their decorating when they’ve all taken themselves off to Angels to congratulate themselves on a job well done.”

  The nodding heads and the smiles of the younger generation showed Bernice that nothing much ever changed at the heart of it all.

  “Carrie and I did some baking just for today,” Tracy said. “Let’s head into the house.”

  Carrie, Tracy, and Susan were in charge of serving refreshments, so the rest of them went inside and arranged themselves around the great room. Kate had seen to it Caleb and Jonathan had provided lots of extra chairs in here before they’d headed off to help the men with the tables.

  Taylor Kendall had a team in charge of the smokers that had been set up outside at the New House. There’d be plenty of brisket for tomorrow, as well as grilled steak and chicken and pulled pork. Everyone pitched in and brought food. There was usually a very good variety and plenty to spare.

  Bernice had two large kettles of chili on slow simmer in the kitchen and several loaves of bread rising.

  The spring had been wet enough this year that the fireworks display Craig and Jackson Jessop planned promised to be the biggest one in years. This holiday would be, as she was certain every single one of the last forty-three had been, the best one ever.

  “It’s looking good out there.” Kate met her in the great room, her smile, as always, contagious.

  “I was just thinking the same thing.” She looped her arm through Kate’s as they stood for a moment and watched the women—many of them new to Lusty but every one of them family. Ginny Kendall and Bernice’s daughters-in-law, Kelsey and Penelope, had been the first of this generation to come and find their heart’s desire, right here in Lusty. And the others that came in—so many happy, beautiful women, who were beautiful inside and out—just made the family so much more than it had been, and not just in numbers.

  Lusty was so much richer for each and every one of these dynamic women.

  “I was thinking.” Kate said only that, her voice not overly loud, but the talking stopped as every eye in the room turned to her. Oh, how I truly want to be her when I grow up. Bernice turned her attention to her mother-in-law, a woman who really hadn’t changed much in the last couple of decades.

  “What were you thinking, Grandma Kate?” Addison asked.

  “Well, as you all know, tomorrow is Independence Day—and it is Bernice, Caleb, and Jonathan’s anniversary as well. And I was thinking that it would be wonderful if our Bernice would share with you how she came to Lusty—and fell for those two smooth talkers I raised.” Kate laughed. “Caleb and Jonathan are so much like their fathers.”

  “Oh.” Bernice hadn’t been ready for that request. She wasn’t much of one for taking center stage. Not that she felt inferior in any way—she’d always been a woman who’d known her own value.

  “I’d like to hear that story,” Ari Benedict said.

  “So would I!” Addison met her gaze. “Please, Aunt Bernice?”

  Carrie and Tracy wheeled in the tea and coffee and pastries, and everyone took a few minutes to get themselves some refreshments.

  Bernice was feeling just sentimental enough to want to tell the story of her falling in love with the man of her dreams, times two.

  “What year did you come to Lusty, Aunt Bernice?” Ginny asked.

  “It was 1973.”

  “It was a different world then than the one we’re in now,” Kelsey said.

  “Certainly it must have been a safer one.” Jacqui Kendall added.

  “It had to have been.” Nancy Jessop Barton shook her head. “I’m so glad to be here in Lusty and not in D.C. these days. It’s getting dangerous out there.”

  Bernice saw Kate seated in her favorite chair, made sure she had her refreshments, and then sat down in another of the large armchairs.

  This was a good place to start her story, because she’d been thinking of those far away times, just recently. She’d been remembering and looking back through her scrapbooks, and had even looked a few things up on the Internet. She let her thoughts settle, and then she began. “Safety—or the perception of safety, I suppose—is a relative thing. Actually, the times weren’t all that much different then than they are now—except the terrorist events did tend to take place over in Europe and the Middle East, and not here. There’d been an armed attack at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, resulting in the deaths of twelve people. As well, the early seventies saw, in what was called in Northern Ireland and in England “the troubles,” bombings by the PIRA faction against the Ulster loyalists and British government. And the Baader-Meinhof gang, also known as the Red Army Faction, which operated in the then West Germany, was named by that government as a terrorist organization.

  “Here, at home, it was the time of Watergate, when everyone in the nation waited to see if a president was going to be impeached. And the stock market posted heavy losses in January, which was actually the beginning of a two-year long recession.” Bernice looked around the room. She had the attention of every woman present. “It was also the time of the Women’s Liberation Movement. I remember thinking at the time that I really didn’t want to burn my bra. I rather liked it, and I’d gotten my employee discount o
n it.” She paused and the younger women chuckled.

  “I don’t mean that to sound irreverent. I was rather slow in coming to the realization that the women’s movement spoke to something I’d begun struggling with first-hand. I was a sales clerk at Macy’s, you see, and I loved it. Yes, I’d gone to college, but I discovered the openings were few and far between for a liberal arts major. So I worked as a clerk at Macy’s, and I took business management courses at night. But getting a business degree didn’t seem to matter. There really was a glass ceiling, and it wasn’t very high off the ground in those days, either. I wasn’t a complainer by nature, but I had begun to think that I should try something new, seek out a new line of work, as the one I was in didn’t look promising for advancement. And then one day I looked over, and I saw him. The man I hadn’t even realized I’d been waiting for all my life, a man who happened to be in New York City by a twist of fate…”

  Chapter 1

  Caleb Benedict, Texas Ranger, stood in the open door of his superior’s office. For the last several years, he’d worked out of company B, headquartered in Garland, just outside Dallas. When he wasn’t up to the commute back to Lusty, he’d stay over at one of the penthouses at the Kendall Plaza, a hotel complex owned by the family. But today was Monday, and he’d made pretty good time from the family ranch on the edge of Lusty in to work. As soon as he’d hung his hat in his cubicle, Jock O’Malley, the man he sometimes partnered, told him the boss was looking for him.