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  EDIE EARNS HER SADDLE

  Liebling, Texas 2

  Ava Mitchell

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

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  EDIE EARNS HER SADDLE

  Copyright © 2010 by Ava Mitchell

  E-book ISBN: 1-60601-767-5

  First E-book Publication: March 2010

  Cover design by Sophia

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  EDIE EARNS HER SADDLE

  Liebling, Texas 2

  AVA MITCHELL

  Copyright © 2010

  Chapter One

  Edie knew she forgot something.

  She looked up from the shrimp and tofu stir-fry on the stove and counted off the ingredients on her fingers. She even looked at the messy counters and tried to figure it out from what remained of the vegetables. Everything seemed to be there.

  She dipped her tasting spoon into the sauce and tried it again, touching her tongue to the roof of her mouth a few times. Nope. It still seemed off.

  Hmm.

  Then the bright light went off over her head.

  Oyster sauce. Damn.

  She wiped her hands on her apron and walked over to the fridge. No oyster sauce.

  “Lena,” she called out as she closed the refrigerator door. “Lena, do we have any more oyster sauce?”

  Her best friend breezed into the kitchen looking perkier than normal. An eyebrow lifted on Edie’s forehead. “Active night last night?”

  Lena inspected her fingernails. “Active? Whatever do you mean?”

  “Oh, please. Stop playing hard to get.”

  Lena rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. Let’s just say Wes perfected the design,” she said, her fingers forming air quotes around the last word.

  “Really?” Edie drew out the word as she crossed the room. “Sore?”

  Lena pulled out a chair and sank into it looking as if she still felt languid. “Oh, yeah. But in a good way.” She shifted around in her chair.

  “Oh, I’m so jealous. I wish I was having sex on the astronomical level.” She sighed. “Maybe someday I’ll meet two ridiculously beautiful men who want nothing but me. Maybe. Well?” Edie prompted. She nudged Lena’s arm with her own. “You can’t just leave it there. I’m living vicariously through you, so you have to give me more details.”

  “I don’t even know where to start. It just felt so real. The hot water makes it feel like the real thing, except not, you know what I mean?”

  “Mmm, no, not really. I haven’t done that kind of kinky yet.”

  “You will. And you’ll love it.” Lena’s brows drew together, and she scented the air. “Uh, Edie? Are you cooking something?”

  “Oh, no!” She rushed over to the stove and pulled the wok off the burner. “Damn it, my stir-fry is ruined. I was so excited about it, too.”

  “Let’s go get some stuff to make more, then, and we can have it for dinner.”

  “You know, even though this town may have some of the most well-stocked sex stores in the country, I doubt they have oyster sauce. They’re cultured about sex, not food,” she said loftily with her nose in the air.

  Lena scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You are such a pain in the ass.”

  “I know, I know. Oh, screw it.” Edie grabbed her purse and looked around for her keys. “I’m going into town to pick up some stuff to make fish tacos for dinner,” she called out over her shoulder.

  Edie closed the stained-glass front door behind her and hopped into her Prius. Liebling, Texas, was a small town about an hour away from Austin. The Texas Hill Country made for some beautiful scenery with its wide open sky, rocky hills, and lush greenery, and the town itself was beautiful, too, almost like a snapshot in time. The townspeople made sure to preserve all the original buildings, so whenever Edie drove into town, she felt as if she entered a small German village in the nineteen hundreds with tin roofs, wildflowers in window boxes, and climbing vines on stone walls. She promised herself she would paint some of the local scenery and do a showing of it in a small gallery in Austin someday.

  She drove down Main Street and parked her Prius in front of the local, family-owned grocery store and headed straight for the produce section, counting off her shopping list in her mind.

  * * * *

  This was not happening. Jason Chisholm shook his head and looked again.

  It was still there.

  That damn Prius was still there, parked right next to his black FJ40 with its four inch lift and black rims.

  “Damn it.”

  It sat on the gravel looking all white and perky, like the purest ray of sunshine.

  Jesus.

  All those hippies from Austin were invading. Before he knew it, there would be patchouli-wearing women with hairy arm pits setting up their protest booths so they could save Mother Earth and the damn manatees. Hippies made him itch. They made him—

  “Um, is there a problem?” a soft, rich feminine voice asked from behind him.

  Jason turned around, and he felt his eyebrows shoot to his hairline. There she was, the invading hippy, and damn, she was pretty with her light bro
wn eyes the color of sand and her brown-black hair pulled up messily with some sort of doodad. Freckles lightly dusted her nose, and she cautiously smiled as she approached him.

  “I didn’t nick your truck, I swear,” she said, eyes wide. She shifted the reusable grocery bag on her hip, and the bracelets around her wrists jangled, the sound like soft bells. The movement made the low neckline on her dress pooch out, and Jason saw a nice amount of cleavage.

  He hid his smile. She must be the prettiest girl to come to town in years. “No, you didn’t.”

  The wind shifted and picked up her dress, making the gauzy, floral print skirt dance around her small ankles and revealing her well-shaped feet encased in dainty sandals. Her toenails were painted yellow.

  Her smile faltered. “Oh, well,” her eyes darted from her car to his and focused on him once more, “why are you staring at my car?”

  “Just didn’t recognize it,” he answered, trying with all his might to stop ogling her like an idiot. He could not take his eyes off her. She was not very tall, five-six tops. Her clothing did not exactly flatter her figure, but when the wind blew the fabric against her body, or when the sun hit the right angle, he could tell she had curves in all the right places. She was not skinny, either. She looked soft and delicious and wickedly feminine.

  “Yeah, I just moved here a couple weeks ago, so that’s probably why. My best friend and I own The Sweet Spot.”

  “That’s y’alls’? I hear you’ve got the best breakfast in town.”

  “Really?” Her eyes lit up, and something in his gut clenched. She had the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. Her face was like an open book. So expressive. “Oh, thank God.” Her hand flew to her chest, and he couldn’t help but wonder if her breasts were as firm as they looked. “That’s such a relief. It’s been so hectic trying to get everything going. It’s been really busy. We’re trying to make it ours, you know? Trying to give that special vibe.”

  Her words went in one ear and stopped right there. They did not even process. All he could think about was the way her lips moved when she spoke. They really wrapped around the words, and her eyes got all intense, like she really meant what she said. She even got a little furrow between her brows when she concentrated on what she said. He wondered if she would look as intense during sex. Or was she one of those who melted and went all sweet and helpless?

  “What about you?” she asked. “What do you do?”

  “What?” Head out of ass, bro. “Oh, uh, my family owns the ranch outside of town. During the day, I help out there, and at night I run security at Cedar Ridge. My brother manages the place.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard about that place. Y’all have all the good concerts outside of Austin. I need to go check it out. It seems like you’re always busy, too.”

  She spoke with her hands a lot. Jason thought it was the cutest thing he ever saw.

  “Yeah. I enjoy it, though.”

  There were a few heartbeats of silence between them. Jason rocked back on his heels, took one last eye-full of her, and said, “I’ve gotta head out. It was nice meeting you—”

  “Oh, how rude of me. I didn’t even introduce myself.” She offered him her hand, and he took it. Her fingers felt so small and breakable in his. Jason did not want to squeeze too hard. “I’m Edith—well, Edie—Bishop.” She smiled up at him, her expression so genuine he fought looking away.

  “Jason Chisholm,” he said, his voice sounding almost as lust-filled as he felt. He wondered what the rest of her skin felt like if her hand was this soft. He held on until she gently pulled her hand back. “It was nice meeting you, Edie.”

  “You, too.” She tucked her chin down a little and pulled a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Jason’s eyes followed every move her fingers made. “I hope I’ll see you around.” She walked around him, and the wind blew her scent to him—floral, like tuberose, with something sweeter under it. He filled his lungs with it as he watched her pull out of her parking spot and drive away.

  Edie Bishop smelled like temptation, and he did not need that right now. Hell, he did not need it ever. He was still on active SEAL duty, even though his superiors did not call him out as often as they did before. He had a solid reputation back at Langley as The Closer, and he worked long and hard for it.

  Getting involved with someone as carefree and naive as Edie would be disaster. Not only would she be a distraction, but something told him she thought all people were inherently good. He knew better. He witnessed firsthand the ugly, disgusting, hateful things humans were capable of. He had been shot at, wounded, tortured. He did and saw things that would have made any other person sick. But he did his job well. He was one of the best. And he did his job so people like Edie Bishop could sleep safely at night.

  * * * *

  “He is the most beautiful specimen of male I have ever seen.”

  Lena plopped down on the bed next to Edie and dipped her spoon into the Haagen-Dazs pint they shared. “Details, please,” she said around the ice cream in her mouth.

  “Oh, God, I don’t know where to start.”

  “Hmm. How tall is he?”

  Edie leaned her head to the side and thought about it for a moment. “He’s tall,” she finally said, “really tall. Like the Hulk tall. He’s probably around six-three or four, so almost a foot taller than me, and he’s huge.”

  “What kind of huge? I mean, is he bulky huge or something?”

  Edie pictured Jason Chisholm in her mind. She had to draw him. Had to get the image on paper before it disappeared. She hopped off her bed and went to her art desk.

  Charcoals. Where are my charcoals?

  “Edie?”

  “Just a minute. I got a visual.”

  “Oh. Gotcha. Okay, I’ll stay quiet for a bit. With the ice cream, of course.”

  “Mmhmm,” Edie replied. She already started sketching Jason Chisholm’s face, the charcoals emphasizing the hard planes and grooves of his handsome face. He was not classically handsome. He was too hard for that. What made him so beautiful was the masculine, almost animalistic vibe he gave off in his stance, in the cold look in his eyes, in his gait. He moved with controlled grace, each sinuous movement precise and executed with perfect masculine finesse.

  Edie finished the outline of his face. She focused on remembering his eyes and their intensity. The color of them—a cold, glacier bluish-white—only added to their hardness. His eyes were cold and calculating, almost jaded. Edie suspected nothing ever got past his notice. He was a man who saw everything and forgot nothing. She wondered if he was the type of man who remembered what kind of panties all of his previous lovers wore.

  Her thoughts of him made her shiver. What would it feel like to have a man like him love her, for his intense eyes to focus on nothing else but her? He could completely unravel her. She knew it.

  She shook her head and forced herself to concentrate on drawing Jason Chisholm and not fantasizing about his amorous skills.

  She drew his broad shoulders next.

  Edie knew they were heavily muscled. She saw it under his plain white T-shirt. His chest and stomach were as solidly built and muscular, and his upper body tapered off at his waist to form the masculine “V” she admired so much.

  Being an artist, Edie always recognized form, shape, color, and texture. And, damn, did his form take her breath away. His legs were long and thick. His hair short, spiky, and reddish-brown. It only intensified the ice-like color of his eyes.

  Edie felt Lena leaning over her shoulder. “Wow,” Lena breathed.

  “That’s what I thought. He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?”

  “He’s intense.”

  “Oh, yeah. I just can’t help but think what he’d be like in bed, you know? If he’s so intense just standing there looking at his truck, what’s he like when he loses control?”

  Lena took the sketch pad from Edie’s lap and examined it. She shook her head when she gave it back. “Edie, I don’t know if a man like him ever loses control.”

&n
bsp; Chapter Two

  Edie and Lena stood in line outside Cedar Ridge. Apparently, the small Texas Country band playing tonight had a large following. Edie could hear the opening band playing, and she had to admit they sounded pretty good. She usually was not one to listen to Texas Country, but who knew? Maybe this band would change her mind.

  “They’re pretty good, don’t you think?”

  Lena nodded her head. “I’m excited.”

  “Me, too. But I don’t know how to two-step, though.”

  Lena waved Edie’s concern away. “Someone’ll teach you. I mean, come on. Look at you.”

  Edie glanced down at herself and thought she looked decently good. She wore her favorite pair of going-out jeans, which made her backside look quite nice, if she did say so herself. She made her top herself. It was white, with a plunging neckline and thin straps that tied in the back. She put in a small knit design in the deep V of the top so she did not feel self-conscious about showing too much cleavage. She wanted to look sexy, not slutty.

  She looked up from inspecting her outfit and looked at the people in front of them. Three more and she and Edie would be at the door.

  That’s when she saw Jason walking around the side of the building and toward the front of the line. He stopped next to the bouncer, who was almost as big and buff as Jason, and said something only the other man could hear. They shared a smirk, then Jason spread his feet apart and crossed his arms over his chest, all business.

  Edie’s mouth went dry, and she found it a little difficult to breathe. He looked better than she remembered in his black T-shirt, jeans, and black combat boots. The muscles in his arms bulged out, and the shirt barely looked as if it could contain the massive chest beneath it. And with that little smile on his face, he was lethally sexy.