Moore, Gigi - Desiree's Lone Wolves [The Double R, Book 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read Free Page B

she’d visited Louisiana for Mardi Gras during spring break almost a decade ago.
    Was he intentionally concealing his natural accent, or was his current accent a result of being in Colorado around so many cowboys for a time? Desiree wondered. She didn’t know how, but she’d always suspected the wranglers weren’t native to Colorado, even before discovering that they had come to the ranch not much before she and her sister and mother had. There remained something decidedly not…local about them. With their rarely heard accents and dark coloring, they seemed more exotic than the native Coloradans.
    Her suspicions had been confirmed once she’d begun hanging around the cookhouse and made the acquaintance of Helena, The Double R’s head chef, several months into her stay.
    Desiree wondered about where they had come from and why they’d all left. Had they just needed a change of scenery and fresh start, like her, Maia, and their mother? Or had their reasons been more life and death?
    Curiosity getting to her, Desiree peeked from behind the jamb just in time to see the younger brother, Sam, touch the brim of his Stetson.
    “You have a good evening, ma’am. Don’t catch cold.”
    “You do the same. And I told you before, you can call me Maia.”
    “Will do…Maia.”
    Desiree noticed the way Sam’s tongue caressed her sister’s name and wondered how her name would sound on that very same tongue. She also noticed that during the entire exchange the older brother, Carson, didn’t even look their way, just kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, his chin proudly tilted up, and his steps purposeful.
    What was his problem? Did he think himself too good to talk to the Yankee interlopers? Not that Desiree wanted his attention or cared about his moods or apparent rejection one way or the other. She didn’t. She just remained curious why he seemed so cantankerous and unsociable when his brother seemed the total opposite, always had a friendly—some like Maia would call it flirtatious—and ready smile for everyone.
    Desiree watched as her sister wiggled her fingers at Sam when the two men finally disappeared from view. “Sheesh, I can’t take you anywhere.”
    Maia stepped back into the bedroom with Desiree and closed the French windows. “Just being friendly. You should try it sometime. We’ve been here long enough.”
    That was just it. She had already gone against her nature to move out here. Desiree didn’t think she had it in her to go any more against her nature to be a friendly extrovert like Maia. Despite living here close to a year, Desiree still felt like an outsider living on the edge, one foot firmly in Colorado and the other in New York. It wasn’t like she had all that much going on back in the Big Apple to hold her there.
    She’d taken her accounting degree and CPA license from the cutthroat corporate world and had been providing consultation services for a while now. With reciprocity from New York to Colorado, the Internet, and her exceptional computer skills—some like Maia would call her a geek —she was able to take her work with her and get a job with Tamara’s law firm in Eagle County. Once Maia and their mother decided to pick up stakes and join Tamara in Colorado, it had been a no-brainer for Desiree and normal for her to follow her close-knit family’s lead. For anyone who knew her well, Desiree wasn’t too much of a maverick or one to rock the proverbial boat, not like her sisters. She liked to follow the rules, color inside the lines as Maia was always saying. It made life much simpler.
    Desiree didn’t bother to respond to her sister’s little jibe, too tired to explain why she didn’t want to get friendly with the locals even if she, technically, proved to be one now. She really didn’t want to explain why she remained too cautious to get friendly with Carson and Sam Quarry, because she wasn’t sure if fear remained at the root of her feelings toward the two cowboys or something else