One Bride for Five Brothers Read online

  Easy now, big guy, I tell myself. No sense in fitting her for a crown just yet.

  “You're up early!” she calls out when I am close enough to hear.

  “Been up since dawn,” I inform her. “Farm work starts early. Do they teach you that in college?”

  “Most of what I learned in college was about spreadsheets and the history of marketing,” she yawns, stretching her arms over her head. “Does that translate?”

  “You should to talk to Charlie about that. He's the one with a spreadsheet for brains.”

  “I'll do that,” she smiles, standing up and leaning over the rail as I walk up the path. She's cute in low-slung jeans and a tight tank top. No bra, and her nipples are dark and obvious through the fabric, standing up like two thumbs. I lick my lips, wishing we had the day off.

  “So are you here to put me to work?” she winks.

  I tip an imaginary hat. “Yes, ma'am. Time for you to earn your keep.”

  “All right!” she hoots. She jumps once, making those beautiful tits bounce inside the tank top, then dashes back through the front door with her coffee cup. In five seconds she's back on the front porch, the heels of her work boots heavy on the floorboards.

  “Am I dressed okay?” she asks with a grin. Her blonde ponytail swings from side to side in the early morning light.

  “Everything about you is perfect,” I sigh, shrugging. “You might find out you were made for this. You can drive stick, right?”

  Her face smiles freezes in mid smile. “Drive… as in stick shift? I mean… no? Is that required?”

  Great. I knew she was too good to be true.

  “Well, I guess I know what we’re doing first! Follow me, princess.”

  The old blue pickup is parked right behind the cabin. I swing around to the passenger side and hop in. The driver side door creaks as she opens it, then hoists herself into the driver’s seat by grabbing onto the steering wheel.

  She yanks the seat forward, closer to the wheel.

  “Geez, you guys are all so tall!”

  “Man, you're so small,” I shoot back. “But that shouldn’t keep you from making this work. Okay, you know how to drive an automatic, right?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Of course I know how to drive. How do you think I got here?

  “Not in a stick shift, apparently. So, what you’ve got down there as far as extra pedals is a clutch. You work that with your left foot whenever you want to switch gears. You’re gonna start with one… which is up here…”

  I take her hand and put it on the knob, jiggling it back and forth through the neutral position, then up towards one.

  “And then to change to second gear, you’re gonna hit the clutch, then pull back, like this…”

  With her tiny, smooth hand under mine, I pull the gearshift back toward second gear.

  “And so on… Third, fourth, fifth, you’ll hear when the engine revs high enough that you need them. So. You ready to turn the engine on?”

  She bites her lower lip and stares at me.

  “Seriously? Just like that? What if I screw it up?”

  “Luckily, there's not a lot of traffic in the orchard,” I shrug. “Now, you have to hit the clutch and the brake at the same time to start the engine. Make sure you’re in neutral.”

  She scowls beautifully, her fair eyebrows wrinkling together in the center as she stares at the gear shift, then checks her feet. I see her butt raise up off the seat as she depresses the clutch and brake at the same time.

  The engine starts right up, filling the cabin with a manly roar. She gasps with delight.

  “I did it!”

  “You sure did, darlin'. Now get us into first gear. Then ease up on the clutch and down on the gas at the same time.”

  “Ease up on the… down on the…” she mutters to herself, slowly shifting her weight to her right side. Her left hand is white knuckled on the steering wheel as she shifts to first gear then…

  The truck lurches, sputters, and dies.

  “Oh, shit! I killed it!”

  She throws both of her hands up, as though protesting her innocence.

  “Try again, Vanessa. Everybody does that sometimes. You'll get it soon enough.”

  She pulls an apologetic face and cringes. “Are you sure you don't want to just drive? Maybe if I watch you do it…”

  “You’ll never get it if you don't do it,” I tell her gently, plucking her right hand off the steering wheel and placing it back on the gearshift.

  Her fingers are trembling, slightly moist. Part of me wants to rescue her from her discomfort, but I know she can do it.

  “Okay, okay,” she mutters. She talks to herself while going back through the paces and starts the engine again. I hear the engine spin up as she moves slowly to balance the clutch against the gas, then we move forward a good eighteen inches before the engine cuts out again.

  “Shit! Why won't you move!”

  This time, she starts again all on her own, even without a word from me. To my surprise, it's absolutely smooth and we start rolling down the row, the engine rumbling confidently like it should.

  “I'm doing it! I am totally doing it!” she exclaims.

  “Yeah you are,” I grin. “When you feel the engine RPMs get too high you want to go into second gear. You'll just depress the clutch and slide the gearshift down. But you don't have to go too fast… You don't want to run over Tim and Tom again or anything.”

  “Again?” she repeats, her brow furrowed in concentration.

  “Oh, you can ask Hank about that sometime. No big deal. Stuff happens on a farm.”

  “This is great,” she grins, her cheeks pink and dimpled.

  We angle toward the road to the very edges of the orchard, then stop. I remind her to engage the parking brake even though we’re on level ground. It's just a good habit.

  “We need to clear this for saplings,” I explain. “Branches, boulders… just get them all in the back of the truck and we’ll haul it over to the pile over there.”

  She nods, looking around and brushing her forehead with the back of her wrist.

  “That's it? Just move the stuff from here over to there?”

  I shrug. “Yeah, you'd be surprised how much of farming is moving stuff from one place to another. It'll give you a good workout.”

  We spend a good hour chucking rocks into the back of the pickup, working together to move some branches and piles of brush. She's a good worker I notice, uncomplaining and stronger than she looks. After a little while, her blonde hair is sticking in tendrils to her cheeks but she's in good spirits, huffing and seemingly delighted every time she finds a new boulder to kick out of its place.

  “Shit, this is heavy,” she huffs, wedging her heel against a rock. “I feel like this is… Oh!”

  I’m at her side in a flash, sticking an arm out in front of her protectively. Could be snake, could be a…

  “Bunnies!” she gasps. Automatically she reaches down as if she's going to touch them. I grab her wrist and pull her back, encircling her in my arms.

  “You can’t touch them, you know. The mom won’t come back if she smells you.”

  She glances up at me, panting, smiling. The sun lights her eyes up like little blue flames. Suddenly she pushes up on her toes and catches my mouth in hers, kissing me sweetly. I taste the salt, taste the strain and work she's just been doing.

  “Of course I know that,” she breathes, winking. “I just wanted to get your arms around me.”

  “Oh, you did, did you?” I ask, brushing her hair up off her forehead. She fits so nicely in my arms, I could sweep her up, take her over to the pile of hay, spread her out…

  “It feels good,” she sighs. She wriggles against me, brushing her hips against mine. Instantly I'm hard and eager. I remember her mouth, that sweet, pillowy hole, right there…

  “Vanessa, we can't.”

  Her eyes darkened. “We can't? But just yesterday…”

  “Yesterday was amazing,” I tell her. I set her d
own gently and take a half step away for safety. “Completely amazing. For all of us. But we have an agreement among ourselves…”

  She shakes her head. She crosses her arms in front of her chest and pouts sweetly. Oh, who would know, right? She wants me, I can tell.

  “Vanessa, it's what's best for our family. Try to understand.”

  “So, let me get this straight. You guys really expect to always be… at the same time? All of us?”

  I shrug. “Not forever. Certainly there could eventually be some one-on-one time. But not right at the beginning.”

  “What's at the beginning?” she pouts.

  I struggle for the words to explain it. How do I make it all sound normal? How do I not scare her off?

  “Listen, there's definitely a part of me that would like you all to myself. But I have to think about the family. Once we’re on the same page…”

  “So this is for real?” she quirks an eyebrow at me. “It wasn’t just a one-time free-for-all? You really are all for one? Like you said?”

  “And one for all,” I nod sincerely. “And we want to make sure that you like it like that too. That you're ready.”

  She purses her lips, nodding and glancing away. After a few seconds, she looks at me again.

  “I'm ready,” she nods.

  I suppress a chuckle. “You don't know that for sure,” I caution her. “It could take a while. We’re willing to wait, Vanessa. We’re willing to work you into this, to go as slow as you want —”

  “I don't do things slow, Stan,” she quips. “It’s like driving stick — you don’t know how it’s done til you’re doing it, right? I don't wait for things… I don't hesitate. I'm a grown woman, and I know what I want.”

  My eyebrows go up. “Oh really? You're really wanting to —”

  “All of you,” she interrupts, nodding emphatically. “Yes. Let's do it. Then we’ll know.”

  Chapter 10

  Vanessa

  Dad was right, getting everything back into the moving truck took almost no effort at all. It was like closing up an umbrella. Dismantling a Lego playset.

  Just to make it easy, I put all my stuff back in the Subaru and figured I can navigate everything to the cabin, probably find a path through the orchard. I suppose I could've asked the guys to help me, but I didn't want to antagonize my dad or grandstand in any way.

  As I trudge through the kitchen with my last suitcase and a duffel, I catch my mom’s eye. She's just standing at the counter staring at me with her chin tilted.

  She smiles wistfully, her eyes dancing over my features, hair, shoulders. She looks like she's memorizing me, like a Polaroid snapshot.

  “I wish we had more time together,” I say awkwardly, setting my stuff down on the floor. “Maybe when you're done in Wyoming you can come back and stay a while?”

  She smiles, nodding.

  “I'm sorry about the college thing,” I explain in a rush. I feel like this might be my last chance to actually put it all into words. She probably doesn't expect it, but still, I think I need to hear it out loud.

  “I gave it a good try, you know? But it's just not for me. Not like that anyway. Not finance and marketing. Nobody really gets me there. I'm always on the outside of everybody's social circles… and I can't seem to find a way in.”

  She shrugs, tapping the counter with her fingertips.

  “I did try,” I say defensively. “I had a roommate, girls in my dorm. I don't think friendships would have made a difference anyway. It just wasn't an environment that held any value for me, Mom. There's nothing I can do about that.”

  She turns around, opening cabinet doors to reassure herself they’re empty. I just wait for her to look at me again. When she finally does, her expression is almost blank. Maybe a little sad, but mostly blank.

  “It's your life,” she says suddenly, taking me aback. “Whatever you decide, Vanessa, it's yours. Make the most of it. That's all your dad and I would ever ask you to do.”

  Then she smiles, her face youthful and sincere. She looks like me, like I’m looking in the mirror. I rush across the kitchen to her, hugging her tightly and fighting back not-exactly-happy, not-exactly sad tears.

  With a wave, I disengage myself and grab my stuff, then hightail it out of the house before I have a chance to linger too long. That feels like a completely satisfactory end to a chapter with my mother. I’ve just gotten her approval and maybe even a small admission that I have at least a little bit on the ball.

  My dad is conspicuously loitering near the Subaru and takes my stuff for me to put in the trunk. He gives me a wistful grin and gentle squeeze of my shoulder.

  “It's not too late, you know,” he mumbles. “You could come to Wyoming? Maybe not to your grandma’s, and not back to school either? But a new adventure with us?”

  “Aw, Dad, I think I have my adventure all mapped out,” I sigh, wrapping my arms around his middle and squeezing him tight. He dips his head to kiss me on my hair, then sighs deeply.

  “Yeah, I guess that was just wishful thinking,” he admits. “That's what I get for raising an independent thinker! You are just gonna do what you want anyway, right?”

  “You bet I am,” I tell him.

  In is eyes, I see pride mixed with disappointment. I hope he comes out on the pride side. But I can't solve this for him. Suddenly I feel like I need to be away, like I need to be really on my own. I pop a kiss on his cheek and get my butt in the car, ready to roll down the driveway and up through orchard, back to my little cabin.

  Still, it feels like they’re miles behind me. It's just a symbolic gesture, I suppose, but I'm finally doing what I want to do, on my own terms. I'm finally moving forward with a life I can call my own. Not some cookie-cutter version of life, but something exciting, something daring and thrilling…

  Am I really ready for this?

  I hold my stuff back into the cabin, half amazed at how everything just seems to fit in its own niche. There's even a space for my guitar on the hearth. There's even a bookshelf that's just right for the books that I brought. Everything slots into place, like it was meant to be.

  Here in this fairytale cabin, I feel like I'm on the verge of something new. Like I'm in the first chapter of a brand-new story, one where I am the star. The heroine and the princess. The magical fairy and the sorceress all at once. I make any kind of future I want.

  And what do I want?

  With a happy sigh, I flip open the chrome tabs on my guitar case and pull it out. It's a beautiful Yamaha, slim bodied with a cream finish. I take it to the front porch and sit in the bench with my feet up on the rail. It settles into my lap like a pet, like a familiar dog, warm and ticklish under my fingertips.

  It feels like I have haven't touched it in ages. My fingers move over the fretboard, dancing over the shapes of chords, plucking out simple melodies one right after another until the air is filled with the sound of music.

  It's absolute joy, this simple freedom. This liberty to make something of my own, with my own hands. Something as complicated as music, yet as simple as music.

  I'm ready. Whatever comes next, I’m ready for it.

  Chapter 11

  Tim

  “I think we should just invite her to dinner and see what happens,” I shrug, keeping an eye on my brothers for their reactions. Tom shrugs automatically, and I see Charlie and Stan nod. Hank takes a deep breath and holds it in, before letting it out as he rips at the chainsaw cord again.

  “This stupid thing,” he mutters. “Stan, I thought you were going to fix this?”

  “Yeah… I think I got distracted,” Stan explains. He backs up and tips his head to look toward the roofline of the barn. “You think those shingles are going to hold up for another winter? Should we get to work on that?”

  “I think you should get another chainsaw.”

  “Yeah, I think we heard you,” Charlie quips. “The roof looks okay to me. I don't see the point in making improvements if we’re just going to be getting out anyway.” />
  Tom looks at me meaningfully, jerking his chin toward Charlie. Neither of us is convinced that Charlie really has this international deal locked up, but he's keeps talking about it like it’s settled.

  “Stan?” I call out. “You want to weigh in on our global domination tour?”

  Stan rubs the stubble on his jaw. “What are you talking about?”

  I stab the shovel into the dirt so that it stands upright. “Well, is it for real? Is that what we’re doing or not?”

  Charlie scoffs, clearly hurt. “What's that supposed to mean? That's what I said, isn't it?”

  “Hey, I know what you said,” I explain with my hands up in a gesture of innocence. “I'm just saying, is it for real? Like, really real? Are we supposed be looking around for a real estate agent or something so we can sell the old homestead?”

  Stan raises his eyebrows at Charlie and they stand for a second, communicating silently. I have to wonder what's been going on that I don't know about.

  “There's definitely some… possibilities,” Stan finally says. “But yeah, nothing settled yet.”

  Hank coughs into his hand. “Bullshit!”

  “It's not bullshit!” Charlie replies. “Didn't I get us that bottling contract for the wine? Didn't I get us into Boston and New York?”

  Hank rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that's not the same thing as a European expansion, is it?”

  “Shit, man,” Charlie mumbles. “You guys sure are tough to please. What do you want, engraved invitations?”

  “That's a start,” I shrug. “It would be nice to have something concrete, anyway.”

  “You'll see,” Charlie mutters. He shakes his head in disgust. “Just be ready. I'll let you know pretty soon.”

  Stan claps him on the shoulder, squeezing encouragingly. “Just do your thing, man,” he advises him. “Either way, we’re fine, right? We can stay in the orchard or go find something new. It’s all fine. Long as we’re together…”

  Hank sucks his teeth. He rips on the cord again and the chainsaw chugs for a second, then dies.

  “This stupid thing,” he growls.