Rix claps her hands. “Winning tactic is more like it. Look out boys.”

  “Two can play that game,” Bruce answers, stepping up right behind his wife. None of us hear what he says in her ear, but her whole face flushes pink and when he steps back to give her room to take her shot, I swear her knees are knocking.

  I guess Bruce has his own strategy. Whatever it is, I approve.

  Because it’s game on.

  4

  ALLYSON

  The barn wall rattles as Bruce pins me against the wood, his breath hot on my ear. “Al, you know damn well what you’ve been doing to me and what it’ll cause.”

  I do. I know exactly what I’ve been doing – grabbing his ass to mess up his shot, then sticking my butt out as I took mine, and better yet, sitting on Bruce’s lap while Rix and Willow played against Mark and Brody. I’d been quite intentional about my wiggling and bouncing as I cheered for that game, hoping it’d lead to this exact moment, when Bruce makes me pay for teasing and taunting him. “Who me? I was just sitting there, minding my own business when you dragged me off like a caveman.”

  I’m gonna get it. I can’t wait.

  He slides his hand under my dress, gathering it at my waist and lifting my exposed leg to wrap around his hip. When he squeezes my ass sharply, heat shoots straight through me and my hips buck until I can feel the bulge behind his zipper straining to get at me. I have known this man and his body for years, but somehow the sheer size of him still makes my mouth go dry. I know his strength, have felt every bit of it, but the fact that I’m the one that steadies him, the one that pulled him out of the dark he once lived in, makes me smile.

  “I’ll show you caveman,” he grunts. The next thing I know, he’s lifted me like I weigh nothing, pinning me so tightly against the barn wall that I feel secure, though I’m basically floating in the air. Both my legs wrap around him now, as I hold on for dear life.

  That puts his cock right where I want him, if only there weren’t layers of clothing between us. Still, I squirm, rubbing myself on him shamelessly. “You lost on purpose, didn’t you?” I gasp.

  Our first inning had resulted in three points for the ladies team, and by the time me and Katelyn got to twenty-one, Bruce had been throwing wide and far, never even hitting the pole I know he can put ringers on. He’d let me win.

  Though technically, the game continues. I can hear Shayanne teasing Luke as they play the next round.

  “Maybe,” he admits as he moves me up and down the ridge in his jeans too, working us both.

  “Why don’t you let me say a proper thank you then,” I purr, meeting his eyes before dropping my gaze between us meaningfully.

  His eyes darken instantly and I feel his response against my core. Slowly, he lowers me until my feet hit the barn floor, but I continue, dropping slowly to my knees. My dress puddles around me, but I’m not worried about a little dust and dirt.

  I undo Bruce’s jeans and take him out, my hand wrapping around the velvet over steel length of him. Giving him a tight stroke, I look up to find him staring down at me like I’m an angel sent from heaven above, but we both know he brings out the devil in me. Sticking my tongue out, I lap at the drop of pre-cum already rushing over his tip. “Thank you.”

  As I take him into my mouth, he grits out, “No, thank you.”

  Smiling around my mouthful, I suck him deeper into my throat, swallowing as much of him as I can and then retreating to cover him with worshipful licks from base to tip, and driving him crazy in the process.

  When I finally give in and suck his soul out through his cock, his hands hit the wall above me, searching for support. The booming sound is sharp in the quiet barn, but there’s no one to hear us but the horses.

  “Fuck, Al. Fuck, yes.” The words are basically grunts akin to the caveman I accused him of being and when he gathers my hair in one hand and takes my mouth, I work to keep suction on him. I don’t want to lose a drop and my man is about to give me all he’s got.

  I feel his balls grow tight against my chin a moment before he begins to jet hot cum into my throat. Hungrily, I swallow and swallow as he holds my head still, keeping me right where he wants me. Which is exactly where I want to be.

  When he’s done, I lap along his length once more and then wipe my mouth, returning to the prim and proper lady I sometimes try to be as Bruce puts his now-soft cock away and adjusts his jeans. He helps me up, pulling me from the floor.

  “Pretty girl, you should’ve let me fuck you so we’d both get off because time’s up.”

  My mouth falls open to protest, but there’s no chance to argue because there are three sharp knocks on the barn door. “Get dressed, you two,” Bobby yells. “Mark says lunch is ready and Shayanne won’t let us eat until Allyson gets a plate.”

  I meet my husband’s eyes and giggle. “Guess that means we won.”

  “This isn’t over,” he vows.

  I press a kiss to his full lips. “I know.”

  We’ll have a great day with the whole family, but later tonight, when it’s just the two of us, he’ll make sure I know how much he loves me and wants me. Not that I ever have a doubt.

  5

  JAMES

  Lunch is a madhouse. Or it would be to most people, but I had years of life on the road with mannerless cowboys who’d fight you for a corncob, much less something like Mark’s ribs or Willow’s potato salad or Shayanne’s anything. Damn, that girl can cook. Though to be fair, some of her best dishes are the ones she’s learned to make at Mama’s side. Those two are thick as thieves and just as dangerous.

  Still, to me, the roughhousing and shit-talking seems pretty on par for a big get-together with food. We at least make sure the kids get plates filled with samples of everything.

  For the most part, all of us Bennetts and Tannens follow the adage of ‘if we eat steak, our kids eat steak’ and they get prime choice ribs just like the rest of us do. All except for my girl, Cindy Lou, who is currently on a vegetarian kick. Yeah, go ahead and laugh… a rancher’s daughter who turns up her nose at beef. Who has ever heard of such a thing? But we respect it, as long as she doesn’t try to tell me or any of her uncles that we can’t eat the cattle we raise. As far as I’m concerned, it just means an extra serving or two for me.

  Mama taps her mason jar glass with her fork, stopping all conversation. Sitting at the head of the big picnic table we built for these special occasions when we all come together as one, she’s still the boss lady in charge of us all. “I’d like to say a few words,” she starts, “but please, keep eating. Don’t let it get cold while an old lady chatters away.”

  While we do as she says – we’d be fools not to – we do slow down the shoveling of our food into our mouths in favor of giving her some attention.

  “I want to say that I’m thankful for my blessings, each and every one of you.” She looks around the table, meeting the eyes of every man, some her sons by birth and others by choice, women whom she loves like daughters, and a pack’s worth of children who mostly want to escape the confines of the table in favor of running through the closest pasture to chase after Shay’s goats the way Cooper and Mindy apparently promised they could. “You have made my days long and my night’s short, in the best of ways, and I love you all for it.”

  “Are you dying?” Ford bluntly asks. Brody shushes him quickly, but I’m pretty sure it’s Rix’s glare that has his mouth clacking closed.

  Mama laughs, unoffended. “No, I’m not dying. Not yet, at least,” she answers Ford. “But when the good Lord takes me to be with my beloved John, that’ll be just fine too. I’ve lived a good life.”

  “You’re living a good life,” Mark corrects her. “Dad would be proud of you.”

  “He’d be proud of us all,” she declares.

  He would be. Dad and I had a good relationship as far as fathers and sons go. Sure, we fought and we argued, but we loved each other, and I don’t think he’d be surprised at the good men we all turned out to be. Well, he’d probably be shocked about the Tannens, but that’s understandable given what he knew then and what we all know now.

  Once upon a time, I tried to run away from this place, this life. Ran as far and fast as my talents could carry me… all to end up right back here, where I’m meant to be. As sentimental as Mama seems to be today, I’m feeling it too.

  I look around the table at my brothers and their families, then out at the land around us. And when the wind blows through, lifting Mama’s hair and tossing Bobby’s hat to the ground behind him, I smile. “Hey, Dad. Love you too,” I whisper in my mind.

  We’re all here. All home.

  6

  BRODY

  The sunset stretches over the horizon like a painting, huge and blazing as it sinks down over the western mountains. It’s beautiful and as I sit in the wooden chair James built a few months back, I feel… complete.

  That’s the word – complete.

  I look at my brothers, then the Bennetts, and something shakes loose inside of me. “The creatures outside,” I murmur, staring down at my hands, “looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again… but already, it was impossible to say which was which.”

  “What?” Luke asks, his brow furrowed as he hands me a mason jar filled with Mama Louise’s special blend of sweet tea. The special blend is that it’s full of whiskey and can take out a full-grown man if he’s not careful. “Did you call us pigs?”

  I chuckle as I answer, “It’s the last line of Animal Farm.”

  “Still not hearing a no,” Luke prompts a bit more seriously.

  Bruce pops me in the shoulder, damn near making me spill my tea. “Explain before I let ‘em atcha.”

  I shrug, mostly to ease the pain from his backhanded hit. I’d say he doesn’t know his own strength, but he most definitely does. “I meant that, right now… sitting here… there’s no difference. Bennett, Tannen. Tannen, Bennett. We’re all the same.”

  “Speak for yourself,” James says, stretching his arms overhead and his legs out in front of him like he’s posing for a magazine cover. “I’m clearly the sexiest man here. Pretty sure the Cowboy Channel even said so, once or twice.”

  He’s not lying. They probably did. James was all the rage in the bull riding pros for a lot of years, gathering praise and buckles like he was collecting Pokémon, something I’ve only recently learned about because of the kids Ford goes to school with.

  “Well, you’re definitely the man most full of bullshit,” Luke counters, kicking his brother’s foot.

  Everyone laughs as Luke continues passing out tea to everyone. The ladies are all inside, doing the dishes. Not because we’re chauvinists, but because Mama Louise declared that they’d cheated at horseshoes and therefore, lost the tournament. Mama’s inside with them, ‘supervising’, which likely means listening to them laughingly curse and cuss about us while she scoops up her famous cobbler and regales them with advice about marriage to an ornery man.

  She would know. For all I’ve heard about the late, great John Bennett, I know that man never knew a day’s peace being married to a firecracker like Louise Bennett.

  “You’re right,” Bruce says solemnly.

  I peer at him, shocked. “Me? Right?” Out of the side of my mouth, I hiss, “Quick, someone write that down… the day Bruce said I, Brody Tannen, was right about any damn thing.”

  “Never mind,” he snaps.

  When I grin, conceding to him, he continues. “Few years ago, I would’ve bet money none of us would be sitting here like this. I -” His voice falters.

  My brother, the hardest shelled nut of us all, breaks. Not into tears, but he does clear his throat roughly and take a deep swallow of tea.

  “I know,” Mark tells him.

  Encouraged by the next generation of Bennett patriarchs, Bruce says, “I thought I’d lost it all. My heart, my family, my land. Every damn thing. But here we are.” He glances around us at the fading light dancing over the wide-open acreage we roam freely across as one big family. “Turns out I just needed Allyson.”

  “Well, and me,” Bobby taunts. “I’m the moneybags that got the farm back. Or did you forget?”

  Bruce frowns at our brother. “No, dipshit. I didn’t forget.”

  “I’m the one that bought it… and sold it,” Mark adds.

  “Fuck all of you,” Bruce growls, taking another drink.

  “Careful or that’ll give you whiskey dick tonight,” James tells him, gesturing to his glass with his own.

  I laugh. “He already fucked Allyson in the barn. They’ll be snoring away by ten p.m.”

  “You’re one to talk, old man.” He throws the insult at me like I give a shit that I’m the oldest Tannen.

  “Might be old, but I can still kick your ass.” Silently, I add, and stay up past ten p.m. to fuck Rix. I saw her getting dressed this morning and the pink panties she has on under her jeans have been dancing through my mind all day. At the thought, I shift in my chair, giving my dick room to breathe.

  “Ooh…” a chorus rings out through the group as they mistake my movements for fight prep.

  “Oh shit, they’re gonna wrestle,” someone says. Probably Luke. My sister is a bad influence on him. “My money’s on Brody.”

  Yep, that was Luke.

  James whispers, “Twenty on Brutal. I mean, his name’s literally Brutal, and he’s got tackle experience on his side.”

  “Brody’s scrappy though,” Luke argues.

  “We can hear you,” I inform them both, but they don’t give a shit, both grinning and Luke opening his arms to invite us to tussle in the middle of the circle like this is Fight Club, not a pleasant family get-together. To my brother, I ask, “You wanna go?”

  He shakes his head. “Nah, I’m comfy in this chair with my tea. And I have plans later that do not involve Allyson gluing me back together.”

  “Again,” I tack on to his statement. It’s the hard truth of farm life – we break, we bend, we bleed, and sometimes, the best we can do is glue or staple or stitch ourselves back together.

  “Hey, did I tell you about the horse I saw in Washington?” Luke interjects suddenly. “Damn thing threw me to the ground on day one. Split my eyebrow open.” He points to his brow, though we can’t see anything in the fading light. “Had to glue it shut.”

  Ah, there’s the link. “Shay know about that?” I ask.

  He recoils, “Hell no. She would’ve come out there and kicked the horse’s ass. He didn’t mean nothing by it, just got spooked. He was good by the time I left.”

  We all chuckle. “She would’ve done that,” I tell Luke and he nods knowingly.

  Looking around again, I realize something. “She’s the link. The one that started this chain reaction, connecting Bennett and Tannen, Tannen and Bennett. Though it nearly ended before it started when I found out about you two. I damn near killed you.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” he counters.

  “I wanted to,” I say truthfully. “But you’re right, I wouldn’t have. Shay would’ve killed me first.”

  He grins proudly. “That’s my girl.”

  “It’s all of them,” Mark says quietly, his sage wisdom ringing through us all. “The women. Mama too. They’re the links. We’re just the dangly bits that get brought along with them.”

  “Huh, you said dangly bits,” I echo like the twelve-year-old boy I haven’t been in a long time.

  He doesn’t let my moment of juvenile laughter deter him, continuing right on. “I think we’re the ducks,” he says hollowly.

  Ducks. Ducklings.

  It’s what Mama Louise calls the kids as they line up behind her, weaving this way and that as she leads them around the yard like the Mama’est duck of them all. In a way, the women are that for us, leading us men here and there… like their ducklings.

  “Oh shit, we are,” someone says as we all come to the same realization simultaneously.

  “Quack, quack,” I deadpan. “Wherever Rix wants to lead me, I’ll fucking follow. Straight to hell or right to heaven. I’m in for the long haul with her.”

  “Me too.”

  “Me three.”

  In the end, we all nod, agreeing that we’d follow our wives anywhere. They lead us around by our dicks anyway, and our hearts.

  We go quiet, staring into our teas and in the silence, I can hear the tinkling laughter of the ladies inside. “We got a good thing here, fellas. Family, friends, whatever you want to call it.”

  “Brothers,” Bruce says.

  “Brothers,” Mark agrees.

  I hold my glass to the middle of our group. “To a brotherhood I never wanted, but one I’m fucking glad to have.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Luke says, clinking his glass to mine.

  Bobby closes his eyes for a second and I peer at him questioningly. When he opens, he taps his forehead, “Writing that down as inspiration.” With a grin, he knocks his glass to mine too, then around the group before taking a sip. “Always thought if I could see those bright lights of Nashville, I’d never come back here. Turns out, those lights just led me back to you assholes.”

  “And Willow,” I remind him.

  His grin is lovestruck drunk. “And Willow,” he agrees.

  “So we’re stuck with your caterwaulin’ around here?” James asks, not meaning any offense but just shit-talking like brothers do.

  Bobby nods. “For a bit longer. I’ve got a few months before my next deadline, but the music’s flowing, and the trips will be shorter. My days of months-long tours might be over for a bit. At least until the girls are older.”

  “Out and backs are where it’s at,” Luke says, talking from experience after his years of doing just that for his horse training and breeding programs that take him all over the world. “Just long enough to make ‘em miss you, but not so long that they figure out they can do it all without you.”

  “Shayanne already knows that,” I deadpan.

  “I fucking hate it when Sophie’s gone.” If the Cowboy Channel saw James’ pout right this second, they’d rescind their Sexiest Cowboy label for sure. “She’s been going clear over to Henderson county. Has to spend a couple of days to see about the livestock over there and it sucks every time.”