Her Cowboy Bears (BBW MMF Menage Shapeshifter Romance) Read online

  Her Cowboy Bears

  BBW MMF Ménage Shifter Erotic Romance

  By

  Tabitha O’Dell

  Copyright 2015 by Tabitha O’Dell

  All rights reserved

  Cover photo image credit: aarrttuurr & romancephotos| depositphotos.com

  Contents

  Her Cowboy Bears

  Also by Tabitha O’Dell

  About the Author

  Her Cowboy Bears

  The thing I remember most were the hands. So many hands. Hands touching me, my hands touching them, and their hands touching each other. We didn’t need words, only touch, and the two men led me to the greatest pleasure I could have ever imagined.

  I hadn’t gone looking for love, or sex, or whatever we had was. I’d gone looking for adventure and I guess I found it in the wild plains of Wyoming, with the Rocky Mountains at my back.

  While my friends had all decided their adventures would be spent backpacking through Europe or hitting the beaches in Mexico, I’d always wanted to try my hand at being a country girl, even if it was only for a little while.

  I was also planning my adventure much later than any of my friends. They’d all gone out and seen the world while we were still in college, but we’d graduated over a year ago and with no real job prospects, I finally gave up and announced I was going to spend a few months in Wyoming.

  “Caitlyn, no,” my best friend Alana said when I announced my plans over a round of beers. “Come on, you’ve never even left Chicago.”

  “So?” I asked. “Now I’m leaving the city. It’s only for a few months and it’s a ranch that does this kind of thing all the time. They take ‘city slickers’ like me and turn them into real country folks. I can do this.”

  “Please don’t take this the wrong way,” Alana said. “But, um, well, you aren’t really in the kind of shape most cowgirls are.”

  It was her polite way of saying I was too fat to go on this kind of adventure. Part of me wanted to go on the defensive and yell at her but she wasn’t entirely wrong. I’d never gone to a gym before, I loved snacks just a little too much, and I knew that hauling my ass over a four thousand acre ranch would be a challenge, but I didn’t want easy street. A challenge was exactly what I was after.

  “I know, I know,” I told her, trying to appreciate her concern rather than be insulted by it. “But I think it’ll be good for me. The pay is shit, but it’ll be great exercise and who knows, maybe I’ll lose some of that weight.”

  “It’s not just the weight,” she said, her face furrowing with concern. “You’re leaving behind your whole life.”

  “You went to China for six months!” I shot back at her. “How is that any different?”

  “Because I did that when I was twenty and it was a college semester,” she replied. “I didn’t just go for fun, I was in school. And I was young and didn’t have a life here yet.”

  “And I do now?” I asked. “Alana, my job sucks, I’m single, and I’ve already found a subletter for my apartment. It’s the perfect time for me to do this. It’s only for a few months and then I’m back again.”

  “Just be careful,” she said as she leaned back in her chair. “When do you leave?”

  “Next week,” I told her. “I fly out of O’Hare and land in Jackson Hole, as weird as that sounds. It’s me and three other people and the guys who run the ranch pick us up there.”

  “Are the other people all from Chicago?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I told her. “They didn’t tell me where everyone is from, which I get. People’s personal business and stuff. I just know it’s one other girl and two guys.”

  “Well, I wish you good luck,” she said with a tip of her beer. “And Caitlyn, please know I won’t judge you if you decide to come home early.”

  “I know,” I said, but I had already vowed to see this through. Three month working the ranch would fly by, and what I didn’t tell my best friend was that if I liked it, I might just see about staying there for good.

  I spent my last week in Chicago shopping for clothes to wear on the ranch. Most of the things that I owned were simple skirts and blouses for my crappy office job, and none of that would do in Wyoming.

  I stocked up on jeans, boots, and plaid shirts along with a heavy coat. I was going in August, but the nights might get cold and I would be there until October. Warm cloths would be necessary.

  The night before I left, I couldn’t sleep at all and I was at the airport so early that I had nothing to do but sit and drink coffee after coffee until it was time for me to fly out, but I didn’t even care. My adventure was about to start.

  The lack of sleep and the overload of caffeine didn’t make for a fun flight and thankfully I slept through most of it, but when I arrived in Jackson Hole I was so groggy that I almost forgot to get my bags from the luggage carousel and I went to the information desk like I’d been instructed to by my new employers.

  “Um, hi,” I said as I approached the desk. “I’m supposed to be meeting the people from the Hollyhock Ranch here at three and they told me to see information.”

  “Oh yes,” the pleasant woman behind the desk said. “The pickup is up the hall and out the sliding doors. Most of the ranches have their name on the vehicle they’re driving, so just look for that.”

  “Thanks,” I said as I grabbed my bags and hauled them in the direction I’d been told.

  It was only when I’d gotten outside that I wished the guys from the ranch had told me anything about the other people I’d be meeting. There were people everywhere and I had no clue who was on their way to the ranch with me and I didn’t think I had a choice but to sit back and wait.

  No, a voice inside me said. Don’t just give up.

  The voice was right. I’d spent my whole life being quiet. Now I was far away from home, far from everyone I’d ever known, and there was no reason for me to be so meek. It was time to change things.

  “Hi, excuse me,” I said as I went up to a group of people that matched the boy-boy-girl description I’d been given. “Are you going to Hollyhock?”

  “No, sorry,” the girl said.

  “No problem,” I told her and went on to the next group.

  I’d hit three different groups of people when I finally heard, “Hey, you’re the girl looking for the people going to Hollyhock Ranch, right?”

  “That’s me,” I told the guy. He was tall and skinny with a line of lingering acne on his jaw, but he had kind eyes.

  “This way,” he said. “We’re still waiting on the truck.”

  I followed the tall guy toward two other people – a man and a woman – who were both waiting by the curb. The other guy was short, but built strong with huge muscles.

  The other was a girl who was my age, but other than that we couldn’t be more different. She was tall with long blonde hair, perfect features, and long willowy legs. She was gorgeous and my heart sunk a little.

  “Hi, I’m Caitlyn,” I introduced myself in an effort to be polite.

  “I’m Max,” the tall gay said. “And this is Isaac.”

  “And I’m Ophelia,” the pretty young woman said. “Where are you from?”

  “Chicago,” I offered.

  “You ever been on a ranch before?” Ophelia asked.

  “No,” I admitted. “Have you?”

  “I’ve dabbled,” she said as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. “And I own three horses. This should be a breeze for me.”

  Instantly I got the impression that she had it out for me and my chin quivered, but my savior came in the form of a beat up pickup with the name Hollyhock stencil
ed on the side.

  “You our new ranchers?” a man asked as he leaned out of the passenger window.

  My jaw went slack when I saw him. When I signed up for this, I pictured two older men needing help around the ranch in their old age, but this guy looked to be about thirty, with a square jaw and bright green eyes topped off with a cowboy hat. He was unbelievably hot, and when I saw the driver, I lost it all over again.

  They were a perfect duo. Tall, hot cowboys and now they were my bosses.

  I was in heaven.

  “You’ll need to squeeze in the back,” the driver said. “And throw your bags in the back there.”

  We did as we were told and shuffled into the back. No one bothered with a seatbelt – we couldn’t even find them, and our drivers introduced themselves.

  “I’m Eli,” the man in the passenger seat said. “And this is Austin.”

  I was in shock. I couldn’t believe these two men would be who I was working for. They were so hot, so unbelievably hot.

  And I knew I had no chance with Ophelia around.

  You’re not here to flirt, I reminded myself on the drive over from the airport. You’re here to work.

  I stuck to that motto when we got to Hollyhock Ranch. It was even bigger than I expected, absolutely massive, with an old farm house at the end of a long lane off an old dirt road.

  “It’s only three bedrooms,” Eli told us. “So you’ll need to bunk up.”

  “Great,” Ophelia said with a roll of her eyes, but she was the only one that offered any form of protest. The rest of us just grabbed our bags and made for the house, but she stayed behind and waited until one of the guys offered to get her stuff for her.

  “She’s going to be a real pill,” Max whispered to Isaac. It wasn’t meant for my ears, but it made me smile all the same. The girl might be beautiful, but that didn’t mean she could hold her own on the ranch.

  I couldn’t allow myself to get cocky, though, and when four am came the next morning, I learned that lesson well. My alarm was a banging on the door to the room I was sharing with Ophelia and I climbed out of bed to get dressed while she only pulled the covers over her head.

  “We need to get to work,” I told her. “The warned us it was a four am wakeup call.”

  “Whatever,” was all she said and I let her be. I couldn’t force her out of bed.

  My first day on the ranch was probably the hardest day of my life. Between feeding the horses, saddling them, and getting out to check on the cattle before the sun even rose, I was exhausted before lunch.

  And then there was the other work to be done. Tossing hay, cleaning stalls, feeding the animals. My bones ached and I nearly skipped dinner to sleep, but when I sat at the table with my new coworkers, I was filled with the best sense of accomplishment.

  Dinner was also the first time we saw Ophelia all day, and she came downstairs fresh as the morning sun.

  “Sorry about that,” she purred at our new employers. “Jetlag and all.”

  “Well, you get a pass today,” Austin said as he handed her a plate. “But we expect you working just like everyone else tomorrow.”

  “No problem,” she assured him. “No problem at all.”

  But it was a problem. Sure, she actually got out of bed, but Eli and Austin stuck her with me to learn the things I’d learned the day before.

  “Just show her the ropes,” Austin told me, and when he put a reassuring hand on my shoulder, I just couldn’t say no.

  But all day Ophelia whined, complained, and insisted I do her share of the work. Even the stuff with the horses she couldn’t manage, despite the fact that she claimed to own three of them herself.

  “This is gross,” she moaned as we cleaned out the stalls. “When do we ride the horses?”

  “When we’re told to,” I told her as I chucked more soiled straw out of the stall. “Come on, we need to get this done before dinner.”

  That was nearly impossible when I was essentially working alone, but it was worth it when Eli stopped by and told me he was proud of how fast I was learning. Our bosses were so encouraging and nice, and thankfully they didn’t put up with Ophelia’s shit for long.

  She lasted the span of a week at Hollyhock. I hadn’t meant to overhear the conversation, but when I stumbled on it, I was over the moon. They’d given her so many chances in the span of a week and now they were telling her she had to go.

  She didn’t even put up a fight. She had just mumbled okay and I barely got out of sight before Eli and Austin walked right by where I’d been eavesdropping. I had to run back to the stable to make sure they didn’t know I was where I shouldn’t have been, but somehow I made it just in time to have them walk in behind me.

  “Um, hey,” I said as I shovelled more manure. I hated how good I was getting at shovelling shit, but after only a week, I could already feel the muscles in my arms getting bigger. My back hurt all the time, but it was a good ache. The ache that came with getting in shape.

  “Hey Caitlyn, big favor to ask you this afternoon,” Eli said. “Would you mind driving Ophelia back to the airport? She’d decided she doesn’t want to continue working here.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” I said. “But sure, I can take her.”

  “Good,” Austin said. “We knew we could count on you. There’s a GPS in the truck. Have a shower and head out.”

  “Will do,” I told them and nearly skipped all the way back to the house. Not only was Ophelia leaving, but Eli and Austin trusted me enough to get her to the airport and back

  The ride to the airport was awkward to say the very least. It was a three hour trip just to get there, and at least I had a little cash to get some fast food while I was away from the ranch, but being stuck in the truck with Ophelia for three hours was silent torture.

  “I’m really sorry it didn’t work out,” I offered as I drove the truck down the highway. We had already put most of the trip behind us, and it had taken me that long to say those seven words.

  “I’m not,” Ophelia said. “I thought that place would be fun, but it was just work. Who needs that?”

  I do, I wanted to tell her, but I said, “It’s not for everyone.”

  “Whatever,” she shot back. “‘I’m glad to be done. I thought I’d like working for Eli and Austin, but they’re just weird.”

  “What?” I asked, suddenly regretting opening my mouth. I didn’t think they were weird. They were nothing but nice.

  “Come on, just cause they’re hot doesn’t mean you can’t have noticed them being weird,” she said.

  “I haven’t,” I countered. She was probably just blaming them as a defensive technique. It would be easier than realizing she’d done it to herself.

  “That’s probably because you sleep like the dead,” she said. “You didn’t see them leaving at weird hours of the night”

  “You probably dreamed that,” I told her while I kept my eyes on the road.

  “I swear I didn’t,” she insisted. “Those two are up to something. Probably a pot farm way out at the edge of the ranch or something. They take off at like midnight on their horses and don’t come back ‘til morning. It’s really weird.”

  “They’re probably checking on the cattle,” I told her. “That’s kind of part of owning a ranch, you know.”

  “Then why not get us to help them?” she asked. “If you guys are there to work, then why not put you to work? It doesn’t make sense.”

  I hated to admit that she had a point there. I didn’t want her to be right. Eli and Austin were nice guys and they made the butterflies in my belly dance. I liked working for them, I really didn’t want them to be doing anything illegal.

  “And don’t get me started on the weird noises at night,” Ophelia went on. “Those aren’t normal animal sounds I keep hearing.”

  “I’ve never heard anything,” I told her, and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the turn off for the airport. I wanted to be rid of the girl. I wanted to be rid of her right now.

  “B
ecause you sleep through it!” she said. “Seriously, tonight, stay up as late as you can and watch. They leave in the middle of the night and then they don’t come back until morning. And the noises, damn. I cannot wait to be out of this stupid state.

  I almost told her the feeling was mutual, but I pulled up to the passenger drop off and gave her the politest good-bye I could muster before I was finally rid of her.

  “Good riddance,” I whispered when she walked into the airport. All her excuses were so stupid that I had to laugh.

  Yet on the trip back to Hollyhock, I couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said. What if she was right? What if Eli and Austin weren’t exactly what they seemed? I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew I would have to find out the truth if I was going to be able to look them in the eye again.

  I didn’t even bother with my planned fast food trip on my way home from the airport. My time I got back on the highway, my head was too lost in itself to do anything but drive and the sun had set before I got back to the ranch to find the four guys sitting around the kitchen table playing cards.

  “Hey Caitlyn,” Eli greeted me when I walked in the door.

  “How did it go?” Austin asked.

  “Fine,” I lied. “She apologized for leaving and then got out of the truck.”

  “Well, it’s for the best,” Eli said. “Want to join us?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” I told them. “I’m going to go lay down I think.”

  “Good call,” Austin agreed. “A drive like that will wear you out pretty quick.”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled before I started climbing the stairs.

  I said I was going to bed, but I didn’t even get under the covers. I had to know if Ophelia was pulling my chain and I waited for everyone else to go to bed before I sat down by my window and watched to see if anyone would leave the house.

  The clock in my room ticked and ticked and I almost gave up when midnight ticked by, but then I heard footsteps downstairs. Not even a couple minutes later, two figures left by the back door and headed toward the stables.