Rough Stock: a red hot menage with cowboys Read online

  ROUGH STOCK

  A Red Hot Ménage with Cowboys

  Written by

  New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author

  CAT JOHNSON

  Reissue by

  Cat Johnson’s Red Imprint

  When you choose a man who thinks eight seconds is a long time, perhaps you need two of them . . .

  Farmhands Mason and Clay have shared both good times and bad as best friends, but they never expected to share their boss’s daughter, April. Can two friends love one woman, body and soul, without it destroying them?

  Rough Stock was originally published by Linden Bay Romance and Samhain Publishing in 2008/2009. This edition is a reissue, reedited but without any substantial additions or changes to the story.

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  The sudden appearance of pale, silky, feminine stomach stopped Clay Harris dead in his tracks. Greedy for more, he visually devoured the smooth, firm skin shadowed beneath the new lushness of her breasts.

  He swallowed hard. “April Elizabeth Carson. What do you think you’re doing?”

  She paused to look at him, one hand stopped in mid-motion as she tugged the hem of her shirt up over her bra—her white, thin and lacy bra. “It’s hot. I’m going swimming.”

  Clay’s best friend, Mason Smith, shot him a meaningful glance.

  Mason wore a wide-eyed expression of fear mingled with anticipation as he said, “Um, shouldn’t you go home and change into a suit first?”

  “Why? The house is so far and I’m hot now.” Her guileless pale blue eyes proved she didn’t have a clue what she was doing to them.

  Clay knew exactly what Mason was thinking when he made the suggestion about the swimsuit. Their good old buddy April, who they’d met when they came to work for her father five years ago, was hot all right, but not in the way she’d meant when she said it.

  She had filled out over the past school year. April had turned eighteen and out of the blue transformed from an underweight, gangly teenage girl who they’d always treated like one of the guys, into someone who was all female.

  One look at her and all of her new shapely curves and there was no denying it.

  Clay swallowed hard. She was going to whip off her T-shirt and shorts and dive into that lake in nothing but her bra and underwear, like she had done at least once or twice each summer whenever the heat got unbearable. But this time, unlike the others, his raging eighteen-year-old male hormones would not be able to ignore it. Nor would she be able to ignore his hard-on, which was already starting to wake up just at the thought.

  “Shit,” Mason drawled, soft and slow as April did exactly what Clay suspected they both secretly wanted her to.

  Stripped down to white bikini undies and the lace bra that looked nothing like last year’s plain cotton tank-top style one, April pulled the elastic band out of her ponytail. That released a tumbling cascade of long blond curls that bounced as she ran and then dove into the clear lake water.

  Hell, this was way better than that time he’d found that stash of his father’s old skin magazines.

  But April was their friend. Now that she had turned into a woman, enjoying ogling her just seemed wrong, not to mention very weird.

  Clay felt the already stifling Oklahoma heat around him ratchet up another notch.

  He wasn’t convinced it had anything to do with the weather, even though it had never been quite this hot during the last week of the school year before. As he and Mason watched April’s progress, Clay had to think that now was a hell of a time for the weather to go wonky.

  She swam beneath the surface, gliding as easily as a fish through the water, before surfacing with a splash and a shake of her long, wet hair.

  Fish? Hell, she was more like a mermaid, and every man’s wet dream.

  “Aren’t you two coming in?” she asked, once again proving she had no idea what the two guys she called friends were thinking.

  Hands buried in both pockets, Mason surreptitiously adjusted himself within his jeans and glanced at Clay. “Um, we need to get to the farm and start breaking that green horse your daddy just brought in or he’s gonna tan our hides.”

  Barely comprehending Mason’s excuse over his own lusty thoughts, Clay nodded at whatever his friend had just said.

  “Fine. I’ll get out. It’s no fun swimming alone.” With a pretty pout worthy of a centerfold, April stood, the water sluicing off satin skin that Clay longed to run his hands over.

  His tongue too while he was at it.

  She began walking toward them, her water-soaked bra and panties so see-through she might as well have been wearing nothing. Though somehow this was more enticing.

  Clay swallowed again and nearly choked. He realized he had no spit in his mouth, even though he seemed to have plenty of sweat on his palms. He wiped them on the denim covering his thighs while what he really longed to do was reach down and adjust himself, because the seam of his stiff jeans was not doing his now wide-awake hard-on any good.

  Before them, April bent over to grab her clothes off the grass, revealing the tops of two creamy breasts. Clay had barely noticed the plump globes above the scalloped edge of her bra before. He’d been too distracted by the dusky traces of her nipples through the wet material, not to mention the barely visible outline of the pussy lips and pale curls beneath her undies.

  Mason hissed in a breath next to him. “Crap, Clay. That just ain’t right.”

  Clay didn’t take his eyes off April as she dressed, wiggling and jumping to get her clothes on over wet skin. The act was somehow as enticing as a striptease, only in reverse.

  As April sat on the grass to pull on her boots, Clay asked, “What ain’t right?”

  Mason, the dark-haired, brown-eyed compliment to Clay’s paler dirty blond, blue-eyed appearance, glowered. “You know damn well what. She’s our friend.”

  A quick sideways glance told Clay that in spite of his sudden moral protest, Mason hadn’t taken his eyes off April either.

  Clay grinned. “Yeah, but now she’s our really hot female friend.”

  Mason finally broke his gaze from the sight that consumed them both to look at Clay. He let out a resolution-filled sigh. “Yeah, she is, but how do you reckon we decide which one of us gets to take a shot at having her?”

  Shit.

  Clay hadn’t considered that. It was more than obvious, based on the physical evidence, that they both wanted her.

  Two out of the three of them splitting off to be a couple while the third stood by and watched was not going to work out well for anyone.

  “What are you two whispering about?” Suddenly, April was beside them.

  Her still-loose hair dripped down her back and over her shoulders, and insured that her white T-shirt stayed nice and wet and translucent just a little bit longer before the summer sun dried it and ruined the view.

  “Nothing. Come on. I can’t wait to get my hands on that new stock.” Clay realized the new horse wasn’t the only thing he wanted to get his hands on.

  He also realized that turning a good friendship with April into an even better one would surely be nice, but losing his best friend Mason in the process would suck.

  One last thought crossed his mind as his pants felt tighter than ever—he realized that riding a horse with a hard-on was going to really suck too. Clay sincerely hoped he calmed down before he had to get up in the saddle or he’d be one unhappy cowboy.

  Next to him, Mason pulled his ball cap lower over his eyes and concentrated overly hard on the ground at his boots. Clay would bet this week’s paycheck from April’s daddy that Mason was thinking the exact same thing.

  They both
had better rein in their hormones and their responses to her new body.

  “So Clinton asked me to go to the prom with him next week.” April’s casual announcement had Clay tripping over the toe of his boot.

  He came to a sudden, jolting stop in the road, which had Mason nearly running into the back of him.

  Clinton was the quarterback of their high school football team, on top of having a rich daddy and a full-ride athletic scholarship to one of the big schools back east. He had everything cowboys like Clay and Mason, who worked for a living, didn’t have.

  Clay could handle losing April to Mason if it came down to it, but he’d be damned before he let Clinton get April on top of everything else the privileged ass already had.

  “What’d you say to him?” He’d tried to make his question sound casual. He felt anything but casual about the answer.

  April shrugged. “I told him I’d give him an answer tomorrow.”

  Mason gave his hat a shove backwards so he could look April in the eye. “What are you going to tell him?”

  Yeah, Mason was no happier about this than Clay.

  Even if April hadn’t abruptly turned into a hottie they wanted for themselves, Clay still wouldn’t want her anywhere near Clinton. The guy had a hell of a reputation as a womanizer already and he had only just turned eighteen.

  Clinton took after his daddy, if rumors were anything to go by. Clay knew that usually there was a bit of truth in even the most outrageous gossip. It was hard to keep a secret in a small town like theirs.

  April looked from one to the other. “I’ll probably say yes. You guys aren’t going, right?”

  Mason frowned beneath the brim of his cap. “We can’t. You know we’re both signed up to ride in Elk City that day. It’s the big championship.”

  Clay nodded. “Yeah, we assumed you’d be coming to Elk City to watch us ride like you usually do.”

  April’s face fell a bit. “You guys ride in every rodeo within driving distance. I can come and see you anytime. But the prom . . . that’s once in a lifetime. You know? I kind of wanted to go.”

  She scuffed the toe of her boot against the ground and Clay couldn’t help but notice how sexy the long, lean muscles of her legs looked in those denim cut-offs and boots.

  The discussion about Clinton had momentarily deflated his formerly happy erection, but the view was stirring things up again.

  “I thought maybe if you two wanted, we could all go to the prom together.” April watched both he and Mason expectantly.

  Shit.

  Why hadn’t she told them before now that she had become a sentimental girly girl who would choose a prom over a rodeo?

  Clay frowned. “Mason and I already paid the entry fee.”

  Nearly half a week’s pay for each of them, but it was worth it. The purse, if either of them won, would way more than make up for what it had cost them in the entry fees and food stops while they were on the road.

  “Besides, your father is supplying the rough stock for the amateur division. He’s counting on us driving the horse trailer out for him ’cause he and your mama have plans that night,” Mason added.

  “Then I’ll tell Clinton I’ll go with him. No problem.” April turned on her heel and started down the road again, this time with a pissed off stomp to her step.

  She might have said it was no problem if they went to the rodeo, but it obviously was.

  Clay jogged after her. “Don’t get mad at us, April.”

  “I’m not.” She shot him a look that belied what she said.

  Clay huffed out a breath in frustration. “If you had told us you wanted to go before we signed up and paid for the competition, maybe we would have gone with you to the stupid prom instead.”

  Her stiffened spine as she walked on ahead told him he hadn’t made things any better.

  Shaking his head, Mason shot Clay a scowl that had the word idiot written all over it before he strode to catch up with April.

  Buckets of bull crap.

  Clay ran after them, now regretting that April had grown up. If this new and wonderful woman’s body came packaged with this kind of weird behavior he could do without it.

  He was sorely missing how she wasn’t just one of the guys anymore . . . until he looked up and noticed her nicely rounded butt cheeks jiggling temptingly within her shorts as she stomped down the road. That’s about when he changed his mind about his feelings regarding her becoming a woman.

  When they reached her daddy’s farm, she broke off from them with barely a goodbye and headed for the house, while he and Mason turned toward the barns.

  “Way to piss her off there, Clay.”

  Glancing up, Clay noticed Mason’s grin. “What the hell are you smiling about? We’re both going to Elk City instead of with her to that prom.”

  Still grinning, Mason grabbed a lead rope from the wall. “Yeah, but I didn’t call the prom stupid, genius.”

  Following Mason to the paddock where the new horse had been turned out, Clay scowled. Calling it a stupid prom probably hadn’t been the smartest thing he’d done in recent memory, but he wasn’t going to let Mason get away with assuming his chances with April were any better.

  “Hate to burst your bubble there, buddy, but it’s not me you have to worry about. Clinton’s daddy can buy and sell both our families with what he’s got in his wallet alone. You think that’s not going to turn her head? Shit. She goes with him and we can write off any hope either one of us had with her for anything more than just friendship.”

  Mason stopped with his hand on the gate. “Jeez, Clay. Give her some credit. She’s not stupid and her head won’t be turned by money. She wants to go to the prom, that’s all. So let Clinton foot the bill and take her. But I tell you what, a few hours of being with him and she’ll come running back to us happy to be rid of him.”

  Clay raised a brow. “You think?”

  “Hell yeah. Did you ever hear that sissy pretty-boy jock talk about anything besides football or that new sports car his daddy bought him?”

  Clay thought for a second and then grinned. “You know what? I can’t say I have.”

  April loved two things, horses and reading books. Football and cars weren’t going to get Clinton into that girl’s pretty lace panties, or anywhere else.

  With renewed hope, Clay swung the gate open and got ready for some good old-fashioned horse breaking, knowing that the minute he and Mason had the new horse in the ring, April would be down there.

  Pissed or not, the girl couldn’t resist watching them break a horse.

  Clay let his mind stray to how he’d love to break April in, until a handful of spirited, rearing horse demanded all of his attention as he jumped to help Mason.

  Chapter 2

  Mason grunted as the horse circled the ring with him laying belly down across its back with nothing but a saddle blanket to cushion his stomach as he got jostled during a brisk trot.

  He really didn’t mind being uncomfortable too much. Mason loved training horses. And he knew Clay more than loved it. Hell, Clay lived for this shit. It didn’t matter whether it was saddle horses for riding like this one, or bucking broncos for rough stock competitions.

  This particular part, though, Mason didn’t love so much. Get him up in the saddle and he was happy, but this step in the training process, though brief, just plain sucked.

  The new gelding, after many hours and many days of gentle persuading, had taken to them putting a folded blanket over his back.

  He’d even, after a bit of bucking, let them hang two sandbags over him so he’d get used to the feel of weight on his back and sides. And since Clay had been the one to hop up and lay across the back of the last horse they’d broken, it was Mason’s turn today.

  Oh, goody.

  But things were going well so far. The horse hadn’t taken off galloping with Mason, nor had he tried to buck him off. That was exactly the result they wanted. They were one step closer to getting a saddle up on him and making him a valuable sad
dle horse for April’s daddy, or maybe even a barrel horse for competition.

  Of course, tightening down the cinch on a green horse’s belly was the challenge, more than just throwing on the saddle.

  One step at a time. Once he got used to the empty saddle on him, they would try a rider.

  Right now, Mason had to worry more about losing his lunch. Next time he’d remember not to go up for seconds of the school cafeteria’s Sloppy Joes before doing this kinda work.

  Clay stood in the center of the ring, controlling the horse on a lunge line. The gelding had been trotting for long enough that Mason could feel the horse’s labored breathing beneath him and see the sweat lathering his flank.

  “Hold up, Clay.”

  Taking a step forward, Clay shortened the lunge line and slowed the horse. “Ho, there. Ho.”

  Jumping clear, Mason tried not to stumble even though his equilibrium was shot to hell after that face-down belly ride. “I think he’s had enough for today. It’s too damn hot to keep working him.”

  Clay nodded and strode up to the horse to unhook the long lunge line from his halter.

  Mason took out his bandana and mopped his face. The horse wasn’t the only one sweating in this heat. Only difference was, Mason could guzzle some water. The horse would have to wait until he cooled off a bit first or they risked shocking his system.

  Heading for the spot where he’d dropped his water bottle, Mason broke into a smile as he spotted April sitting in the shade behind a big oak tree, probably hoping they wouldn’t notice her.

  Mason swung over the top rail of the ring, grabbed the bottle and took a gulp of now tepid water as Clay joined him.

  “Do you see who I see?” Clay grinned, grabbing his own bottle of water.

  He swallowed another mouthful and nodded. “Yup, I sure do.”

  Clay let out a snort. “I knew she couldn’t stay away from the horses, pissed at us or not.”

  “Us? She’s pissed at you. Not me.”

  Clay shook his head. “You know damn well she’s not just upset I called the prom stupid, which it is. She’s mad because you and I didn’t drop out of the competition to go with her.”