Her Rancher's Caress: (Taken by Cowboys: Part 3) A Billionaire Western Romance Read Free

heavy with confused emotions. The atmosphere was positively pulsating.
    “Look, Jess, we don’t want to stand on ceremony,” Nate broke in. “We’re here to talk about this situation openly and honestly.”
    She nodded, letting out the sigh that had been building in her lungs. It was refreshing to hear Nate put the situation out into the open. “Let me put on something more—well, let me put on something,” she said.
    “If you must,” Nate said softly. The muscles in Spencer’s face became visibly more taut and his expression darkened.
    Oh, god. What have I done here? She closed the door to the bathroom, hanging up her towel and slipping into her bathrobe, which was hanging by a hook on the door. Spencer and Nate looked equally ready to tear each other’s throats out—and to tear into her. The air was not just thick with emotion, she realized, but with desire. She shivered, a tremor that shook her from her core.
    She returned to the living room. Spencer and Nate had taken seats at opposite ends of the couch. She burst out laughing.
    “What is it?” Spencer asked.
    “You two,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make fun. This whole situation is just…”
    “Crazy?” Spencer said.
    “Unbelievable?” Nate chimed in.
    “All of that,” she said, taking a deep breath in.
    “That’s what we’re here to talk about,” Spencer said. “We want you to be okay, Jess. That’s what’s most important to both of us—that you’re happy and you feel good about what’s going on here. You didn’t come to Getaway to invite drama and pain into your life.”
    “You’ve had enough of that,” Nate said.
    She blinked in surprise. The way they were both staring at her from the couch, both of their faces full of concern, was bewildering. Both of these men knew her, and had known her. To have them in the same small room, laying all of their attention on her, was almost too much.
    “I’d like to say something, too,” she said, closing the opening of her robe around her and crossing her arms over her chest. “I want to say sorry. I don’t want to get in the middle of your friendship or your business partnership, and I feel like that’s exactly what I’m doing. I never want to be that girl.” To her surprise, she felt tears welling up behind her eyes. She felt miserable.
    “Please don’t, Jess,” Nate said suddenly. “I couldn’t bear to see you cry.”
    She met his gaze. Then she glanced at Spencer.
    “Come here,” Spencer said, at the exact same moment that Nate said, “Get over here.”
    The two men looked at each other in surprise. For a brief moment she was worried that the animosity would flare up again, but it didn’t. She crossed the room and sat between them on the couch. She could feel the heat radiating from their bodies on either side, even though neither was touching her.
    She glanced up at Spencer. “You’re really not mad at me?” she said in a small voice.
    He grimaced. “I’m not going to say that it wasn’t a shock to me to find you…with Nate,” he said. “But when I told you that you should feel free to pursue your interest in Nate, I meant it. You’re your own person and a free woman. I would never want to feel like I was holding you back.”
    She felt flooded with relief at his words. She hadn’t realized that there was a tight knot of guilt in her stomach until that moment, when it released.
    “How did you know that you were holding me back?” she asked. That was one piece of the puzzle she hadn’t figured out.
    “Call it intuition,” Spencer said. “I went to your cabin to find you when I got back, and when you weren’t there, I had the strangest sense that something wasn’t right. I followed my nose, so to speak, and I saw the lights on in the massage cabin, even though no one had booked it.”
    Wow. Spencer was so in tune with her that he had nosed his way to her whereabouts?
    “My jealousy flared up, I’ll admit it,” Spencer