Ryan motioned toward the back. “Take her over there and wait. ”
Holly moved to the back, her horse clopping obediently behind her. While she waited for Ryan, she smoothed her hands over the mare’s neck. She was a beauty. Gentle looking. Her head bobbed appreciatively as Holly stroked her mane.
A few seconds later, Ryan walked up, leading his mount behind him. “You ready?”
Holly nodded. As Ryan moved ahead of her, she cast an appreciative glance over his body. Damn, the man filled out a pair of jeans like no one else. He looked exceedingly masculine in his lambskin-lined coat, cowboy hat and scuffed boots. And his ass. What could she say about a man who had an ass that begged to be touched, fondled and squeezed?
She squeezed her legs together and picked up her pace. She was a walking hormone. But who could blame her after the night she’d experienced? Her cheeks warmed to the point of discomfort when she thought of all they had done. She couldn’t wait to do it again.
“Do you need help up?” Ryan asked, his voice close to her ear.
She jumped and looked around. Hell, she hadn’t even realized they’d walked outside. Hard to notice the cold when her entire body was erupting in flames.
She flushed and turned her attention to the horse. She was short, and it was a long way up into the saddle.
She looked back at Ryan. He grinned and in one swift motion, he wrapped his large hands around her waist and hoisted her up as easily as a sack of potatoes.
“Misty’s a good mount. She’ll follow my lead, so don’t worry about it. Just enjoy yourself,” Ryan said.
She smiled down at him. His hand lingered on her leg then he squeezed it before he walked over to mount his horse.
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They picked their way through the snow around to the front of the cabin and down the drive to the road. Holly glanced back at the cabin. It was fully ensconced on the mountain as if the brothers had carved their home right into the surface. Snow covered the roof, and smoke drifted lazily from the stone chimney. It looked like a scene straight from a Christmas card. And it was now her home.
Her chest tightened, and she had the absurd urge to grin like a kid in a candy store. Home.
Life was a strange chain of ironies. She’d learned that quickly enough. Only in the demise of her dreams had she actually found them.
But would it work out?
A shadow of doubt marred her jubilation. She’d thought Mason was the answer to her dreams. Wealthy, seemingly doting on her, protective. The stuff a girl’s dreams were made of. Or nightmares.
Was she making the same mistake again? She sure hadn’t given any more thought or care to this decision than she had the one to marry Mason, and it had landed her in a kettle of hot water.
She frowned. If there had never been a Mason, if she had never made such a monumental mistake, if she hadn’t desperately needed a place to run and hide, would she have been drawn to the brothers and what they offered?
She fought to try and place herself in the frame of mind she’d been in before she’d ever met Mason, but found it impossible to match the woman she’d become to who she’d been.
Her head hurt. She was trying too hard to analyze her feelings. She knew what she thought she felt for the brothers, but what if she was wrong? What if her attraction to them was merely a measure of self-preservation? Gratitude for the safe haven they provided?
Fuck a duck.
It wasn’t fair to them. They wanted a woman who could love all three of them, not a woman who couldn’t think for herself, who was a weak mess, one who’d made one bad decision after another.
“If you frown any harder, you’re going to screw up that pretty face of yours forever,” Ryan said mildly.
She glanced up, guilty heat suffusing her cheeks. She hadn’t even been paying attention to him, her horse or where they were going. And Ryan knew it.
“Sorry,” she said in a low voice. “I was just thinking. ”
Ryan shrugged. “It’s why I asked if you wanted to go out for a while. You looked like you could use a break. ”
He turned back around in his saddle and stared ahead, silence looming between them once more.
She sighed. He wasn’t pushy. She liked that. But then none of the brothers had pushed her hard. Adam could be demanding. Any fool could see that, but he hadn’t pressed her boundaries.
“It’s beautiful here,” she said, focusing her attention on Ryan.
He nodded. “No place on earth is more beautiful than the Rockies. ”
He loved it here. She could tell by the way his eyes scraped across the landscape. Some of the bleakness and torment he wore like a permanent tattoo disappeared, replaced by satisfaction.
“How did you all end up here?” she asked.
He shrugged again. “We grew up on a ranch. It was only natural that we’d want one of our own. And we like to hunt. So we decided to combine those factors and make our living at it. ”
She thought on that a moment. The cabin they lived in was large. Though they didn’t take meals in the dining room, the room sported a table that could easily sit two dozen people. And there were several rooms she hadn’t explored yet. An uneasy thought crept into her mind.
“So when it’s hunting season, there’ll be lots of hunters in the cabin?” she asked.
He studied her for a moment as if delving into her thoughts.
“Are you worried about what they’ll think?” he asked, his tone slightly challenging.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I mean I don’t know how I’ll be presented. How do you introduce me to other people?”
“As our woman,” he said.
Her stomach turned over. On the one hand, it did funny things to her, the idea of three sexy as hell men claiming her as their woman, but on the other hand, it could be awkward as hell.
“You’ll get used to it,” he said.
She felt her cheek warming again as another thought struck her. One she hadn’t considered, but in light of their very different relationship, she wasn’t sure.
She cleared her throat, wondering how to present such an awkward question.
Ryan sighed. “Just say it, Holly. Whatever’s on your mind. I don’t bite. ”
She stared up at him, sure she was growing redder by the minute. “It’s just that I wondered, that is I wasn’t sure…” She took another steadying breath. “You won’t want there to be others, right?”
His eyes darkened and a scowl twisted his features. “I’ll kill any other man who touches you. ”
Her breath eased from her in relief.
Ryan scrubbed a hand over his chin. “Holly, just because we have a different situation, in that all three of us are fucking the same woman, it doesn’t mean we’re going to be sharing you with every man who crosses our path. You’re ours. You belong to us, heart and soul, and if another man so much as looks at you, we’ll rip off his dick and cram it down his throat. ”