The Crown Jewels (37 page)

“Thank you, Crit. I’m lucky, too. He’s a good man,” I said, smiling up at my big brother. I was so happy he was here to walk me down the aisle. After the competition, he had spent a week in the hospital, but he had recovered completely, and now he had a reputation as being one of the toughest cowboys around, as well as a few new scars to impress the ladies with.

“I know he is. I’ll forever be in debt to him for carrying you out of that fire. And to Lee, too.”

Lee had come out of the whole thing as the true hero. Turned out, if he hadn’t been staying out at LaCroix’s place, he wouldn’t have seen the flames through the trees. If he hadn’t seen them, he wouldn’t have gone in before anyone else got there, and seen Jesse lying unconscious in the barn.

He had saved Jesse’s life.

We’d all forever be indebted to him.

Especially Jesse, who after waking up in the hospital the next day, had tearfully confessed to setting all the fires. He didn’t really know why. But the deaths of our parents had sent him on a self-destructive spiral that had quickly spun out of control. He felt ignored and neglected, disconnected and lost, and trapped in the past. We had all been forced to give up any dreams of the future to help run the farm after the accident. It was a hard thing to accept. I understood completely.

I had felt the same way, but somehow the four of us just never found a way back to each other after the accident.

But all of that had changed now. Our family had bonded together again, and even if it had to be over more tragedy, I was thankful for it. Seth and Crit had forgiven Lee and Beau completely, both of my brothers graciously apologizing and thanking them both for their bravery. Jesse had thanked Lee profusely for saving his life. Lee had even apologized to me, even though he had no recollection of that awful night, and after everything else that had happened, I had decided the right thing to do was to forgive him completely.

I could even say that we were all becoming great friends now.

And as I drank in every one of their faces as I walked down the aisle, with Beau’s handsome face waiting for me at the alter, with Jesse, Finn and Lee standing next to him as his best men, I said a silent prayer of gratitude for my family and friends.

Sometimes, when all else fails, and there’s nothing left to do - you have to hope against hope that everything works out.

And sometimes, with the help of a little bit of magic, it does.

THE END

The Hope Brother Series - Book Two

By Honey Palomino

“Hope never abandons you, you abandon it.” ~George Weinberg

“How many women did you invite, Eva?” Lee Haggard asked after pulling Eva out to the balcony of her bedroom and away from the group of women waiting by her bed.

“I know it’s more than I told you,” she replied, stroking Lee’s arm reassuringly. “But really - what’s the difference between three and seven?”

“Four, Eva! Four! That’s eight more eyes than I agreed to. Hell, I’m not just a piece of meat for you to display to your friends,” Lee growled.

Eva smiled, reaching down and cupping Lee’s famously enormous package.

“Of course you aren’t, sweetheart, you’re better than a
dead
piece of meat. You’re
alive!
” she squeezed him firmly and rubbed her ample bosom against his arm seductively.

“This is just weird, Eva. I went along with it the first time,” he said, pulling her hand away. “But you’re making feel like…like a fucking whore or something.”

Eva’s eyes squinted and then instantly lit up.

“That’s it! Stay right here!” she insisted, pressing her palm against his chest, and then turning and running back to the waiting crowd of eager women.

Lee shook his head, and looked out over the balcony and up at the bright moon that hung over the tall pine trees that surrounded Eva Montgomery’s property. Why Eva insisted on holding this little party at her house, the very same house she shared with her husband, who just happened to also be the sheriff of Sugar Hill county, was beyond him.

If he had to guess, he’d have to say she liked the risk of being caught. Hell, if he was being honest, he’d have to admit he was guilty of getting his thrills from it, too.

There was something about pushing the envelope to the edge of danger that made him feel alive.

As if to remind of him of exactly how alive he was, his cock twitched expectantly. Eva usually just invited a friend or two for a little roll in the hay and he was gone as soon as it was over.

But she had something else in mind this time. He agreed to her shenanigans during a drunken late night hook up, and now that he was faced with the additional women in the room, he was regretting it.

He wasn’t just some circus act with a big dick, and to hell with Eva if that’s what she expected him to do.

He had just decided to leave when Eva came running back out with a sly grin spread across on her pretty face, her black mane flowing down her shoulders, thrusting a straw cowboy hat full of money at him.

“What’s this?”

“Admission fees,” she said, pulling out a twenty dollar bill from the top, and tucking it into her bra. “The rest is your cut.”

Lee took one look at the money, then gazed through the French door and into the eyes of seven women expecting something from him. Something that he could easily give them, if he just adjusted his standards a little.

“All this money just to see it?” Lee asked.

“Yep.”

Lee’s head began spinning - all the odd jobs he had done over the years to survive, all the back-breaking work he had done under the blazing Texas sun, all the mind-numbing bullshit he had put up with from asshole bosses with power trips…he had hated every second of every job he ever had.

His only other choice had been to work on the family farm, and he had done that, too, but it wasn’t any better. Hell, parts of it had been worse. Working with the Haggard family was not all that it was cracked up to be.

And now, here were these women, throwing money into a goddamned cowboy hat, just to see what he was so used to whipping out just for fun?

“No way,” he replied, loud enough for the other women to hear, shaking his head as he began walking back in to leave. They parted to allow his large towering frame pass by, their eyes filled with disappointment at his words.

“Why not?” Eva called to his back. He paused, reaching for the door handle.

“It just wouldn’t be right,” he said, tipping his hat. “Sorry, ladies.”

“Wait! What if we do it privately? One on one?”

The women began nodding in excited agreement.

Lee turned back to them, and shook his head again, “I don’t know…”

“C’mon, Lee,” Eva asked, sidling up to him.

“I’d pay double,” a soft voice spoke up, her drawl thick and smooth. Dixie Clark was a debutante married to the mayor of Sugar Hill. Dixie did nothing to hide the fact that the Mayor was a little too busy with his job to properly attend to his wife. Hell, she told anyone that would listen how horny she was. She pulled a huge wad of cash from her bra, peeled off three hundred dollar bills and threw them in the hat that Eva was still holding.

“I’d pay triple…for a lot more than a showing,” Lucy Martin, murmured from behind Dixie with a wink thrown Lee’s way. Lucy was the widow of the County Commissioner, who was also the heir of one of the biggest oil dynasties in Texas. She added six more hundreds to the pile and smiled expectantly at Lee.

Lee’s eyes squinted, he took a deep breath, and walked back to the women, taking the hat from Eva and staring down at the overflowing pile of bills.

“I think this could be a lucrative adventure for you, Lee, for both of us,” Eva whispered hastily. “I could coordinate everything for you…private appointments, you know? Sugar Hill needs a man like you, Lee.”

“I’ve been here all along,” Lee replied.

“That’s true. And you’ve done so much for the community,” she drawled, a mischievous grin spreading across her pretty face. “It’s time you let us give something back in return, don’t you think?”

“Goddammit, Eva, you are one crazy bitch,” he replied. She laughed delightfully and clapped her hands again. She kissed him on the cheek, and he shook his head before turning back to the women, a sly grin on his face.

“Let’s give these ladies what they came here for,” he said to them all, as he slowly pulled open the snaps on his pearl-buttoned black western shirt. The room filled with appreciative moans as he shrugged it off, leaving only his hat, jeans and boots on his tall frame.

“Alright, now, y’all ready?” he asked, his fingers on the button of his tight Wranglers. They all nodded enthusiastically, and Eva, Dixie and Lucy all sank to their knees in front of him.

He shook his head and smiled, as he unzipped his jeans, exposing the most famous pleasure ride of Sugar Hill county.

A chorus of ooh’s and ahh’s escaped from the lips of the curious women. Eva looked on proudly, as if she had created the magnificent masterpiece herself.

Dixie’s hand floated through the air between them, reaching out to touch the twitching temptation.

“No touching!” Eva said, slapping her hand away. “Terms of each individual private appointment will be negotiated -
with me
- ahead of time.”

Lee raised an eyebrow, impressed at her business sense, his head spinning with possibilities that had never crossed his mind before. Possibilities of financial stability, without breaking his back - the one thing that had eluded him for years.

Hell, they always said find what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life.

“Get a good look ladies, because you won’t see another specimen this fine in all of Sugar Hill,” Eva stated.

“You’d know, too,” Dixie said to Eva.

“Don’t be jealous, Dixie,” Eva retorted.

“Well, I’d believe this was the best with or without your slutty comparisons,” Dixie replied. “When do I get my appointment?” she asked, her eyes glued to Lee’s throbbing perfection in front of her. She inspected it visually, each curve, every throbbing vein, the perfect skin stretching enticingly, begging to be touched, to be utilized for exactly what it was put on God’s green Earth to do -
please women
.

“I’ll be in touch,” Eva said, jumping up, clapping her hands. “That’s all for tonight, ladies. If you want a private session with the exquisitely skilled and endowed Lee Haggard, you’ll have to go through me. Get in touch, be generous, be discrete, and we’ll all be much happier women, I guarantee! Alright, everyone out!”

Lee took a few steps back and did his best to wrangle his stubborn stallion back into its stall, as the women streamed out of Eva’s bedroom, one by one flashing him a smile and murmuring words of approval as they passed.

After the last one had left, Eva and Lee stood in the room alone. Eva closed the door and turned to Lee with a triumphant smile.

“We’re in business!” she exclaimed.

Lee’s eyes dilated, his body yearning for release.

“That may be, Eva, but if I don’t do something about this raging stallion between my legs, it’s going to explode into a million pieces and we’re going to be out of business faster than a bull coming out of the chute.”

Eva’s eyes sparkled. She reached down to the hem of her silk dress, pulled it up and over her yoga enhanced thighs, and threw it on the floor.

Her nakedness was a stark reminder of the cage that Lee’s monster was aching to escape from.

“It’s all yours, cowboy,” she drawled, her finger tracing her sex in a seductive offering.

Lee growled with hunger. Sex was his favorite drug, the one thing that allowed him to escape from his demons, the one delicious ride that made life worth living.

Within seconds, he was fully naked, except for that ever present black Stetson. He sank into Eva like a man dying of thirst, his hunger coursing through his body like a wildfire that possessed his every thought, his every movement, consuming his soul until he was rocking against her like a bucking bull with only one intention - release.

When he found it, Eva was right there with him, her hips bucking up into him, the dance, the ritual, the savage hunt for the elusive waves of pleasure was performed as one, until echoes of bliss rang out onto the balcony and into the trees, drifting up into the seductive pull of the bright moon, as they lay panting and spent beside each other.

Eva laid her head on Lee’s muscular chest, her fingers trailing through the hair on his chest.

“We’re going to make so much money,” she whispered.

“I reckon we are,” Lee replied, kissing her forehead.

They lay there silently staring into space, their heads spinning with ideas and their eyes full of dollar signs.

CRIT

“This town is getting too damned big,” I complained to my brothers, Seth and Jesse, as I maneuvered my truck around a sleek black Mercedes. A Mercedes that was illegally parked in the loading zone near Norma’s diner in downtown Sugar Hill that I normally used to unload Norma’s delivery, that is.