Still, I stood on the front steps of Usher House and watched them slip into their car. Ames behind the wheel. Eliah smiling and waving from the seat next to him.
I took myself to the greenhouse while I waited. The scent of soil and damp heat welcomed me into their folds like an old friend, and I stood on the cobblestone path winding through my little sanctuary, watching the glass film with condensation and darkness. I stood there too long before pushing myself to gather up my gloves and trowel from the preparation table and setting to work.
Gardening had always been a consistent friend. A mindless endeavor that required no real thought. Flowers didn’t care that I was an orphan. They didn’t demand I be a certain way in order to uphold the Usher legacy. Here, in my little box of Eden, I was allowed to simply exist. Life had no further meaning beyond the feel and crumble of dirt beneath my fingers.
“You should wear shoes.”
The low murmur of a man’s gruff rumble had me dropping my spade and spinning to face the figure on the path behindme. My heart fluttered in my throat as I brought the shadow into focus.
“Uncle Marcus.”
As rugged and handsome as his sons, Uncle Marcus held all the beauty I hoped to expect in the future from my two. Ames had his solemn intensity, that simmering scrutiny that could make a grown man shift with discomfort. While Eliah had his calm. The gentle way he handled every situation. He was easy to make smile and when he laughed, it was with the full weight of his chest.
But he was a man.
My boys were men. Each respectfully twenty-seven.
But Uncle Marcus has his silver strands at the temples, faint lines and that aura that a man who has done and seen all there is to see wields with such little effort.
And, if I were allowed to be honest with my feelings, at least to myself, I selfishly desired far more than I should.
“You could step on something.”
Stupidly, I dropped my gaze to my naked toes. Filthy beneath the hem of my dark skirt.
“I like the feel of earth beneath my feet,” I said, and earned the ghost of a smile quirking his lips.
He drew closer and the air in the cramped space thickened as it always seemed to do when he was near. My heart puttered a little too fast beneath my ribs, a frantic dance I tried to bottle down.
Inappropriate, was what Mrs. Pym would call it.
Step or not, Uncle Marcus was my Godfather and entrusted with my wellbeing after my parents’ death.
There was also the matter of his sons. I had already capped my quota for taboo the moment I let them both into my bed. It didn’t help that both Eliah and Ames had decided just two weeks before to let their father have me — if I wanted.
If I allowed it.
In their mind, the older man was exactly what we needed to solve the situation we’d been facing the last several years. That situation being my stubborn innocence. Uncle Marcus was a man who had been with women and would have a clear understanding of how to … deflower me.
I was giving it serious thought since Ames suggested it. I gave it too much thought, especially in the most inopportune moments. My head immediately filled with images of him above me, large, capable hands guiding his sons. His deep voice gentle the way it got when he was talking to me.
The very idea had me flustered and tongue tied around the older man. My face warmed and places I’d only ever let them touch grew damp.
Ames found it amusing. Teased me relentlessly … while holding me pinned to the mattress, fingers between my thighs. His breath, hot in my ear, asking if I would let his father do this. And not stopping until I’ve confessed.
Eliah would merely grin like it was endearing and tell me,“What’s the harm?”
A ridiculous thing to ask.
All of it felt right and it shouldn’t. Being with them felt right, but their father? Three men? How selfish and gluttonous could I allow myself to become?
“Can I help?”
I blinked out of my thoughts and focused on the man turning my thoughts to pudding.
“You’ll get filthy,” I blurted, eyeing his crisp, white button down and dark trousers.
Broad shoulders lifted beneath that soft fabric, and I found myself mesmerized by the power of them.
