Shared By the Cowboys by Cassie Cole

14

Rebecca

I almost choked on my coffee.

“Aw, shit. Sorry about that.” Cody removed his cowboy hat and put it on the table next to him. “Didn’t mean to scare ya.”

I looked a question at Mason. He smiled weakly.

“I told Cody about us last night.”

“I can see that!”

“Ah, don’t be weird about it,” Cody said. “It’s all good. No embarrassment here, no ma’am. Just figured I’d put it all out there before we dug in. Although now that I think about it, maybe I should’ve waited until we all had full stomachs. Oh well, too late now!”

“It’s fine,” Mason told me. “Cody and I talked last night. Things haven’t been honest around here. We want to get everything out in the open.”

“No more secrets,” Cody agreed.

I almost choked on my coffee again. I managed to sip it down and then ask, “Secrets? I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“Of course you don’t! That’s why we’re gonna tell ya,” Cody said.

Mason removed his hat and placed it on the table reverently. He hunched over his plate for a moment, then looked up like a man who was about to give a confession to a priest.

“I need to tell you about my wife.”

My immediate thought was oh no. He was married. I was a homewrecker! But there was no ring on his finger…

“Her name was Penny,” Mason went on. “We were married for a year. Best year of my life.”

Cody nodded along with him, smiling sadly.

“Until,” Mason said, “she fell from a horse and was killed.”

“Oh my God! Mason, I’m so sorry,” I said.

He tongued the inside of his cheek and nodded once. “I appreciate that. Buried her two years ago this Christmas. I’ve had plenty of time to heal. The reason I bring it up is because we lied to you the other night, when we told you why we bought this place. It wasn’t our dad’s dream. It was Penny’s. She always wanted a ranch of her own. Of our own. A place that was ours, and nobody else’s.”

“That’s where the money came from,” Cody chimed in. “Not dad. Penny’s life insurance payout. Tough to put a value on someone’s life, but…” He sighed. “That’s the reason we’re here. Trying to live Penny’s dream.”

I reached across the table and put my hand on Mason’s, then Cody’s. “I think it’s great you’re helping Mason honor his late wife’s memory.”

Cody grinned awkwardly. “Well, that’s the thing.” He glanced at Mason. “Penny wasn’t just his wife. She was mine, too.”

I blinked in confusion. “Like, you were married to her first? And then she dumped you for your brother?”

“Not exactly,” Mason said. “You see, we were all working for the same ranch at the time. Big place south of Missoula. Me, Cody, and Blake, too. It was a tourist ranch, and Penny was one of the horseback riding instructors. We all kind of had a thing for Penny.”

“She had that quality about her,” Cody said. “Penny didn’t want to be tied down, though. So she dated Mason, and then she started seeing me too… And then she was hooking up with Blake.”

“She was bouncing around between the three of you?” I asked incredulously. “Behind your backs?”

Mason shook his head. “That’s the thing. We all knew about it. We were all okay with the arrangement, as long as it meant we could be with her. Eventually we convinced her to marry us.”

“I thought you said she didn’t want to be tied down.”

Cody smiled fondly. “She didn’t, not at first. She was like a wild horse. Took all three of us to lasso her and slow her down.”

“Technically, she was only married to me,” Mason explained. “Polygamy’s illegal, whether it’s one dude and three women, or vice versa. But when she married me, she was marrying all three of us. Even if the certificate doesn’t have their names on it.”

Footsteps on wood announced Blake before he appeared in the doorway. “You fuckin’ told her?”

Mason held out a reassuring palm, like he was calming a spooked horse. “Wanted to get it out in the open.”

“Bullshit,” Blake said, glancing at me for only a second. “This is all bullshit.”

Instead of getting breakfast, Blake went outside, slamming the front door behind him. There was an awkward silence for a few seconds afterward.

“Blake took her death the hardest,” Mason said quietly. “Even though it’s been two years, I’m not sure he’s over her.”

“He’s getting there,” Cody insisted. “Just needs some more time.”

“More than two years?” Mason asked.

“Everyone heals differently, brother.”

“It means a lot to me that you’re telling me all of this,” I said. “I can hear the pain in your voices. But… Why tell me? It’s really none of my business.”

Mason and Cody glanced at each other. “Might as well tell her,” Cody said.

“Tell me what?”

Mason rubbed his jaw with his palm. “The original plan for the ranch was to get it up and running… And then look for another woman. Someone like Penny, who the three of us could share.”

I tensed in my chair. “Oh.”

“Thought we could handle all the work ourselves, but boy were we wrong!” Cody said. “That’s why we hired a ranch hand for just three months. To help us get the place into shape, so we could find a special someone to share it all with. But then you came along.”

“Then I came along,” I repeated.

Mason stirred his eggs with a fork and then put it down. “I know it’s just a three-month contract. But now that you and I have gotten… romantic, we can’t help but wonder if maybe there’s more here. If things go well, then maybe you could become that person we all share. You, me, Cody, and Blake.”

“Or just two of us!” Cody quickly said. “If Blake ain’t interested, then no worries. And of course, if you just want to be with Mason, I’d understand. Wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit.” He slapped his brother on the back and smiled warmly.

My mind was racing. Too much information had been thrown at me at once, and I knew I hadn’t processed all of it yet. But the one thing I knew for certain was that I wasn’t sticking around for the long-term.

“I only expected to be here three months,” I said slowly. “I had other plans for the winter months, when my contract is up.”

“That’s okay!” Mason said. “The offer’s on the table. You’ve got three months to think it over. And if not? We’ll stick with our original plan. Getting the ranch up to snuff, and then looking for a woman to share it with.”

Mason gulped down the rest of his orange juice, then slid his chair back. “Time to get to work. Too much to do, and not enough daylight.”

They carried their dishes into the kitchen, leaving me sitting at the table, flabbergasted.