Love Under Three Titans

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LOVE UNER THREE TITANS

Copyright © 2012 by Cara Covington

E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-844-9

First E-book Publication: July 2012

Cover design by Les Byerley

All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

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All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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Love Under Three Titans
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Maggie Morrison struggled to catch her breath. Her heart raced, her palms sweat, and it felt as if something she’d eaten had decided to roll around in her stomach.

What the hell is going on here?

“Are you all right, Miss Maggie?”

Richard Benedict’s question snapped her back to the present. There he stood, just inches away from her, still holding onto the hand she’d offered him in greeting. The lights above them seemed to shimmer in his blond hair, and his blue eyes reflected concern, and something that might have been mirth. She clearly had his complete focus. A slight smile kissed his lips. She couldn’t help but stare at those lips and wonder what they might feel like against her own. That almost-grin transformed him, made him look younger, somehow, and more attractive. Maggie told herself to banish the thought, but it wouldn’t go away.

At Richard’s left and right shoulders, his brothers Trevor and Kevin, respectively, stood quietly, their gazes locked on her.

Neither man gave anything away in their expressions. Trevor, the darkest of the three with brown hair and chocolate eyes, tilted his head to the right just slightly. She had the sense he was “tuning in” to her. Kevin, blond like Richard, had eyes of the most startling aqua. Something about him told her that he thoroughly loved life. The impact of being the center of attention for all three of them together was potent.

Maggie turned her gaze back to Richard. Her own smile began to bloom then and there, without even consulting her brain. “Yes. Thank you. I’m fine.” She tugged her hand, meaning to end this handshake that seemed to have such a strange effect on her. Richard didn’t seem inclined to let go. “May I have my hand back, please?”

“If you insist.” Richard let go and slipped both his hands into the front pockets of his smartly tailored pants. “I know you’d rather stand with Ginny and the rest of the Kendalls during the ceremony, but as this is a Kendall family Commitment Ceremony, most of them will be at the front, surrounding the celebrants.”

Maggie looked to the front of the community center, and sure enough, the Kendalls, en masse, had gathered, awaiting the guests of honor.

“It occurred to us that, as this is your first time attending one of our celebrations, you might like to have someone act as your guide, as it were. Kevin, Trevor, and I would be happy to serve you in that capacity and answer any and all questions you might have.”

Maggie
did
have questions, dozens of them. She’d missed the ceremony last week for Penelope Primrose with Josh and Alex Benedict. She’d hoped to have been in Lusty by then, but there’d been a last-minute snag in closing the deal on the sale of her property in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey. She’d only just managed to finally arrive in town this very morning.

Today’s ceremony celebrated the union of Tamara Jones with Morgan and Henry Kendall. The grooms—was that even the right term?—were the brothers of the men Maggie’s own niece Ginny would very soon be marrying.

A part of her felt as if she’d stepped through some fantasy-land looking glass into a world she didn’t recognize.

Maggie looked from the assembled Kendalls at the front of the hall back to the brothers Benedict. She found the entire concept of one woman marrying two men confusing as hell, and she didn’t know how long she could hold off before she started badgering Ginny with questions.

Now that she thought about it, it would be better to ask these three men all those pesky questions, rather than her niece and her niece’s future in-laws.

Some of what she wanted to ask might offend them, and Maggie didn’t want to make things difficult for Ginny, not even one little bit. Not now, when the young woman was finally happy and about to begin living her very own dream come true.

Truth was, she didn’t care if the brothers Benedict were offended by her questions, or not.

“All right. Thank you. As it happens, I do have more than a question or two.”

Richard raised his right eyebrow. “How could you not have questions and be confused, under the circumstances?” He held out his hand to her. “I’ll get us as close as I can, so you can see and hear everything as it happens. We’ll have to weave through the crowd, so take my hand. I don’t want to lose you.”

Maggie didn’t know if she wanted to experience all those strange sensations again. Then she realized that whatever had happened to her just moments before when she and Richard had shaken hands probably had nothing at all to do with him. Likely, she’d simply worn herself out rushing around like crazy the last couple of days. She hadn’t gotten much sleep or even really taken any downtime at all to unwind.

In short, she was completely frazzled, running on empty, and her state of exhaustion was obviously playing hell with her imagination.

Maggie had never fully appreciated how much work could be involved in a long-distance move. Not until she’d decided to relocate from Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, to Lusty, Texas.

“Miss Maggie?”

Richard’s voice dipped low, assuming an intimate tone that rippled her flesh and fluttered her belly.

She met his gaze, and when he looked down at his still-proffered hand, she also looked down and realized he was waiting for her to take it. Well, of course he was.
Hell, I zoned out again
. That could not be good.
Note to self, get to bed and go to sleep as soon as possible
.

“Oh, sorry. Of course.”

She put her hand in his and nearly wasn’t able to control the shiver that slid through her with the touch of his flesh pressed so closely to hers.

“You don’t have to apologize for anything.” Richard flicked a glance over her shoulder, and she knew he was looking at his brothers for a moment. Then he met her gaze again. “You need to take better care of yourself. You’ve pushed yourself too hard, moving home.”

She decided to ignore his first point and focused instead on his second one. “You mean moving
from
home.”

“No. Lusty’s your home
now
, isn’t it?”

She didn’t know if she’d ever seen such a serious expression on a man’s face before. It almost seemed to her as if the point he’d just made was of great importance to him.

In the face of such sobriety, she felt a little flustered. “I… Yes. I guess it is.” She sensed a power in his stare and wondered why it was so hard for her to look away from him.

Richard nodded once, his smile a subtle stretch of his lips that conveyed satisfaction and did something to her respiration. Then he began to lead her through the large crowd that had gathered, forming a semicircle several rows deep behind the Kendall family.

For a brief moment in time, Maggie’s world contracted to the heat of his hand in hers and the press of his brothers’ bodies following so very close behind her. Their masculine scent arose and intertwined, one with the others, into a single potent aroma that went straight to her head—and other parts of her body she didn’t want to think about just then.

Richard stopped, drew her toward him, and leaned in a bit closer. “Oh and, Miss Maggie? You can feel free to ask the three of us anything you like.
Anything
at all.”

Maggie didn’t know what to say to that. Fortunately just then the guests of honor arrived, and the gathered crowd broke into enthusiastic applause. Looking around, Maggie had to figure there were at least a few hundred people in attendance, and the noise they made—clapping, whistling, and cheering—totally distracted her.

Tamara, Morgan, and Henry made their way to the front of the hall and the beautiful bower that had been decorated with white and red flowers and streamers. They stopped when they reached the front row, each of them taking the time to embrace the senior Kendalls and another man, one Maggie felt pretty certain she hadn’t met before.

“That’s Goodwin Hornsby, Tamara’s uncle.” Richard kept his voice to a whisper. His hot breath caressed the shell of her ear, and she shivered. “She left home to live with him when she was just sixteen. She considers him her father.”

Maggie wondered what had happened between the young woman and her actual parents. Biology alone didn’t really determine parenthood, as far as Maggie was concerned. She brought her attention back to the ceremony as Kate Benedict joined the celebrants at the bower. Kate turned to face the assembled guests, and since the celebrants gave her their attention, Maggie figured she was going to conduct the ceremony.

“Is Kate a member of the clergy?”

“No. Grandmother is the head of the combined families,” Richard said. “And head of the Town Trust.”

Trevor stepped close to her on her right and spoke softly. “Most often, either she or Aunt Samantha officiates at these Commitment Ceremonies.”

Kevin stood behind her, and he, too, leaned in to whisper to her. “Usually if it’s a Kendall ceremony, then Grandmother officiates, and if it’s a Benedict one, then Aunt Samantha does.”

“So then…it’s not a legal marriage, what they’ll have between them?” Maggie thought back over the bits of conversation and information she’d taken in to date. Thinking back, she recalled that Ginny had most definitely used the word
married
.

Richard shook his head. “There’s always a legal marriage at the heart of every ménage family. The laws of the land state there can be but one ‘legal husband.’ In our families’ tradition, that man is whichever man is the oldest one. The marriage is performed before this Ceremony, usually by a member of the clergy, or the Magistrate of Lusty, or a Justice of the Peace in Waco.”

“So…Morgan and Tamara are already legally married?”

“Yes. But as far as most of us are concerned,
this
is the more important ceremony,” Richard said.

Trevor took over the commentary. “We call it a Commitment Ceremony, because basically each member of the ménage family pledges themselves, their lives and hearts and fidelity here, one to the others.”

“You mean the men pledge to each other, too?”

She expected Kevin to answer because they seemed to be taking turns. But Richard did instead. “In the case of a heterosexual ménage family, such as this one, the men promise to support each other and to form a single cohesive unit for the care and protection of their woman and the children they hope to have together. It’s the men’s responsibility to ensure that no jealousy ever arises between them and that their wife is never left feeling as if she’s torn by loving one man more than another.”

Maggie felt relief that the major points she was having the most trouble understanding were the ones Richard had just brought up. “That’s the part I don’t understand. How can she not love one more than the other? They’re not the same man. And how can the men not be jealous, one of the other?”

“No, they’re not the same man. But each husband offers something unique to his wife, meets certain needs in her. They’re not the same, the husbands, but they
are
equal. And they don’t get jealous because they understand that they are each as vital to the happiness and success of the family as the other. The family doesn’t function without them all.”

“Well, except the eldest is more or less the head of the family.”

Maggie heard humor in Kevin’s voice.

“Well, of course he is. That’s only as it should be.” Richard managed to sound not only matter-of-fact but a little smug, too.

Maggie turned to look at him. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. You’re the eldest in your family?”

“I am. By ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes isn’t really much time.” Maggie wondered about the look in Richard’s eyes, but she really didn’t want to think about it too deeply.

“Why Miss Maggie, ten minutes can be everything.”

Maggie opened her mouth to give him a smart-ass retort—she really wanted to—but Richard ran his thumb over the back of her hand, and whatever it was she’d been going to say completely evaporated from her mind.
Good grief, I really do need to get some sleep.

Richard had turned his attention back to his grandmother. Maggie followed suit, just in time to meet Kate’s smiling gaze.

“Welcome, everyone!” Kate spread her hands, palms up, and looked out at the gathered guests and then focused on the three before her.

“Love happens when we least expect it. It can begin to bloom with just a glance across a crowded room.”

It felt as if Kate was looking right at her, but then Maggie reasoned the older woman had to be looking at someone else, maybe even one of her grandsons. Why would Kate Benedict be looking at
her
?

“Or”—Kate turned her smile back to the three Kendalls in front of her—“it can even fall out of the sky and land right at your feet.”

Everyone in the Kendall family snickered at that, and Maggie turned to Richard.

He leaned closer to her, and his scent and his heat became a double whammy that nearly made her knees buckle. She inhaled sharply and told herself it was only out of surprise at the unusual reaction, and
not
to take his aroma even deeper inside herself.

“I’ll tell you after the ceremony. We’ll grab a quiet table somewhere, the four of us. My brothers and I will be at your complete disposal.”

“I…” Whatever she was going to say was completely lost as Richard once more looked toward his grandmother. But as he did, he maneuvered himself a bit closer to her.

Maggie realized that she had Richard brushing her shoulder on her left side, Trevor—or Trey, as he was called—on her right, and Kevin standing so close behind her she could swear she felt the beat of his heart on her back. But none of those things were what was bothering her the most.