The Navy SEAL's E-Mail Order Bride (Heroes of Chance Creek) Page 17

  “Do you think Mr. Redder would remember who he sold them to?”

  “He’s bound to. He keeps records of everything.” When Stella raised an eyebrow Maya shrugged. “That’s what Deal says.”

  “If he’s right it’ll be the first helpful thing Deal’s ever done in his life.”

  Regan decided to steer the conversation away from this apparently controversial subject. Maya had pressed her lips together in a thin line and her face was turning pink. “Can you take me to the auction house some time?”

  “I’d be glad to.”

  “How about we make the men some lunch.”

  Chapter Sixteen

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  Two weeks later, Mason surveyed the ranch with satisfaction. The pastures were ready for cattle, the barn and stables were in good repair. Even the Hall’s exterior looked better than it previously had. Alex had turned out to be the best with heights, and he’d joined Mason on the roof to replace its missing shingles. The rest of the men had measured up the broken windows and installed their replacements.

  Regan had made headway on the Hall’s interior, with help from the Turner women. She’d painted most of the first floor, had dug layers of grime out of the corners and crevices of the old house, and spruced up everything she could. They had a long way to go, but they’d made a good start.

  Today Mason’s task was to sand all the hardwood floors with a large electric sander he’d rented for the day. Then he’d need to get busy staining and sealing them with polyurethane. They’d set their wedding for the third week in June, and while the Hall would remain a work in progress, there was no reason they couldn’t have the floors done by then.

  Regan was gone for the day with her new friend, Maya Turner, but he didn’t mind the solitude. In fact, he felt more content than he had in a long time. None of his brothers could report progress on the marriage front, but he had faith it would all turn out. Meanwhile, he enjoyed the hard physical work and the sense of accomplishment he felt at the end of each day.

  His favorite time was when he and Regan sat on the back porch and watched the sunset, drinking a beer together before heading up to bed. He had the feeling he’d be just as happy to sit with her there forty years in the future as he was right now. Each time he saw his diamond engagement ring on her finger, he felt a surge of satisfaction. It wasn’t the fanciest ring, but Regan hadn’t seemed to mind when he slid it on her finger a few days after they’d gotten engaged at the finish line of the Course. These days when he looked at her he saw the same happiness shining back at him in her eyes as he felt in his heart.

  Mason had just turned off the loud sander to take a break when the front door banged open and Regan shouted to him.

  “Come here! I’ve got your wedding present.”

  “Isn’t it a little early for that?” He made his way to the front hall where she stuck her head in the door, her thick auburn hair caught up in a French braid.

  “Engagement present then. Come look!”

  He followed her out the door in time to see two men in coveralls with Redder’s Auctions blazoned on the back lifting a large, solid walnut dining room table out of the back of a delivery truck. He saw chairs stacked inside the truck, too.

  He took the stairs down two at a time to inspect the furniture more closely. “That’s our table. Where’d you find it?”

  “Maya helped me,” Regan said, joining him. “She introduced me to Art Redder and he helped me track down some of the things Zeke sold. I found a display cabinet and a couple of end tables from the living room, a painting of the ranch that Redder says used to hang in the front hall, and the cast-iron bunk beds from the bunkhouse.”

  Mason chuckled. “I hope you didn’t pay too much for those.”

  She shook her head. “I got those back for free. They didn’t fit where they were supposed to go and they’re so heavy the man who bought them said he kept putting off hauling them away. He was glad to see them go.”

  “The table and chairs were the most important.” He ran a hand over its broad, scarred surface. “My family made a lot of memories around this table.”

  “I can’t wait to make some of our own.”

  Mason pitched in and helped carry the overlong table into the formal Hall dining room.

  He couldn’t wait either.

  Chapter Seventeen

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  Now two of the handsome military heroes from the Wife Wanted ad had come to life. Austin arrived at the ranch late in the afternoon on the Thursday before Regan’s wedding to Mason. Mason had been waiting for his brother’s arrival for weeks. Austin was home for good now that all his obligations to the Army were fulfilled.

  The last few weeks had been so busy Regan couldn’t believe how fast the time had gone. She’d cancelled her insemination appointment right after she accepted Mason’s proposal, and had taken a quick trip back to New York a week later to box up her things and return the key to her apartment. Since then she’d worked as hard and as fast as she could to get the Hall into shape.

  She’d gotten help from Emma, Stella and Maya to plan a small family wedding to be held on the wide back lawn. If the weather had turned rainy, they would have moved everything inside the house, but their luck held and the weekend ahead of them was forecasted to be uniformly sunny and warm.

  Stella and Maya knew everyone in town and helped her locate a caterer and party rental company. Emma insisted on making her cake and Regan spent a fun afternoon with her pouring over the possibilities and tasting several varieties of cake and frosting. All three of them had accompanied her to pick a dress out at Ellie’s Bridals.

  In the end she chose one with a sleeveless boned corset and a sweeping skirt. As she stood on the pedestal to model it to the others, she felt like she’d stepped into a fairy-tale. She’d never worn anything so beautiful.

  “There, what do you think?” Ellie, the owner of the store, asked, fluffing out the full skirt and stepping back to survey her handiwork.

  “It’s gorgeous. And your hair is to die for!” Emma fingered her own blonde ponytail. “You look like a princess.”

  “She’s got such a tiny waist!” Maya stood with hands on hips, evaluating her.

  “That’s the one. It’s got to be,” Stella said. All of them nodded.

  Regan’s heart had swelled. All of her dreams were coming true. She wasn’t going to be alone for the rest of her life. She wouldn’t have to be a single mother trying to do everything herself. She’d have a husband, a family—a home. She almost couldn’t believe it.

  While her sister would be her maid of honor, Emma, Stella and Maya had all agreed to be her bridesmaids, since it turned out to be too difficult for either of her old best friends to fly out to Montana for the wedding. Austin was to be Mason’s best man and his other two brothers would stand up with him as well. Her parents and Mason’s mother were flying in on Friday evening. Zane and Colt would arrive earlier that day. Saturday was the wedding. Every time Regan thought of it she had to take deep breaths.

  She and Mason came out to greet Austin as soon as he drove up in his rental truck. He’d flown into the Chance Creek Regional Airport, but told them he preferred to drive himself home. Regan held back while the brothers executed a semi-awkward man-hug, but then stepped forward to shake Austin’s hand.

  He was as tall and broad as Mason, with intelligent eyes and an intensity she remembered Mason possessing when she first met him. Maybe that was from his recent stint in a conflict zone. Austin shook her hand, then tugged her in for a hug. “You managed to trick this beauty into marrying you?” he said over his shoulder to Mason. “You’re a lucky son-of-a-gun!” He released Regan and she stumbled back, overwhelmed and embarrassed. “God, it’s good to be home,” Austin went on. “I can’t believe the Hall is home again.”

  “I know what you mean.” Mason grabbed Austin’s bags and led the way inside.

  “I’ve never seen the place so empty of cattle before. It’s not right.”

  “We’ll start look
ing for horses as soon as I’m back from my honeymoon and soon enough the place will be crawling with critters,” Mason assured him.

  “It’s nice in here. You painted. The floors look great, too.” Austin looked around the first floor appreciatively. “A lot of the furniture is still missing, though.”

  “Regan’s been tracking it down piece by piece.” He led Austin into the dining room and showed him the table and the chandelier she’d located soon afterward. “She found this at least. And we bought you a new bed. Now that you’re here you can help us with the rest.”

  Austin nodded. “I didn’t think Zeke had it in him to strip the ranch like this.”

  “Me, either. But it’s not too far gone. We’ll fix it up again.”

  Regan trailed the brothers as Mason showed Austin the rest of the repairs they’d made around the place. They walked the length of the closest pasture down to the banks of Chance Creek, talking all the way about their respective deployments and other family gossip.

  “Got a girlfriend?” Mason asked his brother at one point.

  “Maybe.” Austin smiled but didn’t elaborate. “How about the Course?” He turned toward the woods at the edge of the large lawn. “Is it still there?”

  “Still there. We’ve run it a couple of times.”

  “Oh, yeah? Bet I can beat you now. Never could catch you when we were kids.”

  “Bet you still can’t.”

  A moment later the two men had taken off, racing like boys across the grass toward the start of the obstacle course. Regan laughed, but quickly jogged after them. She didn’t want to miss this.

  “Regan, call the start.” Mason and his brother were crouched and ready at the starting line, taut with anticipation for the race.

  “On your mark. Get set. Go!”

  She stepped back as both men leaped toward the monkey bars. Across them in seconds, they were off, pounding through the woods toward the vertical wall. Regan sprang forward in time to see both men hit it at a dead run, their fingers gripping the top of the wall, their feet kicking against it for purchase until they hauled themselves up and over and disappeared.

  Regan ran forward to try to see more of the race, but they moved so fast she could barely keep up. She had a glimpse of them pounding through the tire course on the ground, another of them army crawling under the lengths of barbed wire. She raced along the central path as they hit the next few obstacles, then bit her lip as Austin and Mason charged up the incline logs to the balance beams. Surely one of them would break his neck.

  They set off across the horizontal logs at a dead run. Regan clapped a hand to her mouth. When they both made it to the far end she finally let go of the breath she’d been holding.

  They raced to the vertical salmon ladders and swung and grunted their way up to the top. Regan cut back to meet the men at the finish line while they completed the other obstacles. When she reached the edge of the forest, Mason and Austin had just begun the final dash.

  She couldn’t tell who was ahead from here. They looked neck and neck, running so fast their feet ate up the ground. These weren’t the kind of showy body builders she’d seen in fitness centers in New York City. These were men who used their bodies as weapons. Men who defended their country. Men who would fight to the death.

  She held her breath as the two men raced right past. If one of them had won, Regan couldn’t tell.

  “I won!” Austin crowed, coming to a stop, his shoulders heaving as he bent over and braced his hands against his thighs, winded.

  “Are you kidding? I won,” Mason countered, walking in a small circle and breathing hard, too.

  “It was a tie,” Regan said definitively. “Now go on home and wash up for supper.” She chuckled at their equally disgruntled expressions.

  Chapter Eighteen

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  That night, Mason settled down to sleep with Regan. “Ready for a full house?” He kissed her shoulder, drawing her close under the covers. She’d given up on nightclothes since, as she put it, he kept taking them off of her as fast as she could put anything on.

  “I think so.”

  “Nervous?”

  “A little. I keep thinking there’s something I’ve forgotten.”

  “I know exactly what you forgot.”

  “What?” She half sat up, but he drew her down again.

  “To make love to me.”

  “Mason.” But she giggled as he kissed her neck and then trailed his lips down to her breasts. “I’m serious.”

  He sighed. “Do you have a dress?”

  “Of course!”

  “Shoes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Food?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Alcohol?”

  “That goes without saying.” She tweaked his nose.

  “And I know you’ve got a preacher, since I’m the one who lined that up, so we’re all set. Quit worrying!” He tugged her close and kissed her before she could think of anything else to say. He didn’t mean to be distracted from accomplishing this mission: making sweet love to her as many times as she let him.

  He allowed his hands to slide over her body, luxuriating in every sweet curve of it. He was already hard and ready to go—his body knew just what to expect when they went to bed—but he also knew they had time and he meant to make the most of it. The next few days would be busy ones and their honeymoon would be all too short before it was back to the grueling work schedule they’d kept up since they’d arrived home.

  He rolled over onto his back and pulled Regan up on top of him. She straddled him happily and he sighed when he felt her silky softness pressed up against him. It would be so easy to shift his hips and push inside her. She was as ready as he was for that, but he wanted to take this slow and enjoy every minute of it.

  She rocked her hips lightly and he groaned. “You look good up there,” he said, cupping her breasts. She always looked good.

  She smiled. “You make me feel beautiful when you look at me like that.”

  “You are beautiful.” He stroked one of her breasts lightly, then the other, then lifted them one at a time to his mouth. Regan sighed and leaned forward to make them more accessible. He took his time, used his tongue and teeth to caress her until she moaned.

  In time Mason slid his hands down her back, over her ass and up again, each time settling her a little closer until he could tell she was as desperate as he was for him to slide inside.

  Still, they spun things out, taking time to kiss hungrily, nip at each other’s skin and stroke each other until Mason hummed with longing for more.

  But when she pulled away from him, slid down between his legs and took him into her mouth, he groaned and lay back, allowing her to have her way with him. She took him in, then slid him out, her mouth caressing the length of him. She stroked her hands over his powerful thighs, pulling him in deeper until it strained his very ability to maintain control. When he tangled his fingers into her hair and moved with her, she slid her hands under his ass and pulled him closer.

  “Regan.” His voice was husky. After a few moments, he reached down and tugged her back up on top of him. “I can’t wait.” She pushed up with her knees and settled back down on top of him, pushing him slowly inside.

  Mason nearly lost it right then. She felt so good—hot, wet, inviting him to stroke in and fill her. With his hands gripping her hips, he pulled out and surged in again. Holding back took every ounce of willpower he’d ever had, but he was damned if he would cut this short. He meant to make love to her all night.

  Soon they found their tempo, the friction between them driving them to ever higher heights. Regan rode his thrusts with the abandon of full trust, letting him plunge in and out and take everything he needed. He watched the rise and fall of her breasts and his gaze on her body seemed to make her more wanton. She arched her back, met his thrusts and when her release came she cried out with the joy of it. Mason joined her, grunting as he bucked against her, fingers digging into her hips, splayed over h
er ass. He let himself go and she teased him along into a release that left him limp with utter exhaustion.

  She collapsed on top him and he circled her with his arms, content to stay like this for the rest of their lives.

  * * *

  Regan was glad she’d had a day to get used to Austin before Zane came home. If she’d met them together she would have struggled to tell one from the other. With their dark hair and piercing hazel eyes, they were almost as handsome as their older brother.

  Almost, but not quite. Zane was quicker to laugh than Austin, who could be cheerful one minute and dead serious the next. She thought of Austin as being the older twin although Zane informed her he’d come into the world five whole minutes before Austin made his appearance.

  No sooner had Zane arrived and they’d settled him in a bedroom at the Hall, then they were back at the airport picking up Colt. He was blond, with a nervous energy and quick wit that told her he’d be a handful. In a quiet moment after they returned home, Mason confirmed this. “Whatever Austin, Zane and I choose to do, Colt picks the opposite path. I can’t believe the Air Force lets him near their planes—expensive ones!”

  “Are there any other kind?”

  Later, the brothers convened on the back porch, beers in hand, to catch up. Regan’s family and other guests would arrive the following day, so this was the first and last chance for the brothers to be alone together. Regan tried to busy herself inside and give them some privacy, but Mason insisted she join them, too. “You’re family now.”

  As they filled each other in on the news, Regan found herself smiling. She liked these rough and tumble brothers with their gallant manners towards women and winner-take-all attitude toward the rest of mankind.

  “You found yourself a hell of a woman, there,” Zane spoke up. He raised his bottle. “To Regan. May we all be so lucky!”

  The others raised their beers and toasted her.

  Colt emptied his drink and set it down. “You never told us how you got Mason to change his mind.” When Mason raised an eyebrow he went on. “You said you had a few tricks up your sleeve to convince him to stay here and fix up the Hall.”