Be Our Lady [Davis Hollow, Davis Ranch 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)
Davis Hollow, Davis Ranch 2
Be Our Lady
Willie Mae Dollar is lost in a blizzard in the backwoods of West Virginia when she lands at the home of life partners Jeff Antonetti and Linc Davis. She knows they are in a committed relationship, but that doesn’t stop her from being taken with Jeff and then Linc. Although not a homewrecker, she can see where it would be great to have both men.
Jeff is very accepting of the idea. The partners have been looking for another person to add to their life, and Willie fits the bill. Linc has a problem because he has spent his life self-identified as an out, loud, and proud man. Willie challenges that and with the help of her adoptive Hispanic family tries to convince her guys that she is their lady.
Genre: Contemporary, Interracial, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 30,211 words
BE OUR LADY
Davis Hollow, Davis Ranch 2
JQ Jones
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
BE OUR LADY
Copyright © 2013 by JQ Jones
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-748-2
First E-book Publication: March 2013
Cover design by Harris Channing
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
To Jim, who let me know when I got it wrong and when it was just damn hot.
BE OUR LADY
Davis Hollow, Davis Ranch 2
JQ JONES
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One:
No Buts or Maybes
“Pinche snow.” Willie Mae Dollar’s mixture of Spanish and English would have told anyone who knew her that she was stressed as she cursed the snow as it fell in blankets. “In Oklahoma we have snow when like you’re supposed to, lightly covering the ground so that Santa Claus can land his reindeer. This is lana thick. Who lives in such a place? If Iona hadn’t asked me to get her abuela’s quilt, I’d be home with the rest of the family right now.”
When Iona Davis asked Willie to stop by her West Virginia home to get some things that Iona wanted to add to the ranch house in Oklahoma, Willie had agreed with her usual good nature. It was an adventure, driving along the back roads of a place she’d never been. Willie loved being an explorer. Whether it was the back alleys of London or the backwoods of Appalachia, she liked the sense of the unknown just the same. She’d driven old school buses in the Amazon, skidded along in a snow tractor in Antarctica, and almost foot pedaled an old Edsel in Havana but never had she been so lost and out of contact as she was on this road right outside of Mount Olive, West Virginia.
Picking up Iona’s quilt along with other knickknacks was a simple in-and-out mission. Iona wanted to have something of her own to add to the ranch house she now shared with CJ Davis—no relation and no wedding ring, although the two were rarely separated these days—Willie’s boss.
The GPS on the rental car had led her through the tiny town of Mount Olive, past the one light, the post office, a trailer that served as a barber shop, and a small diner, still open even as the night deepened and the snow came down harder.
This part of West Virginia climbed steeply into the Blue Ridge Mountains. The roads meandered along the outside of the mountains, sometimes barreling through huge stands of trees that made driving a task, as the trees, weighted down by the snow, stooped down to the top of the car. Several times Willie started as a branch brushed her antenna or a small animal, mostly rabbits, possums, and what looked like a goat, darted across the road to disappear on the other side. The goat (Willie thought it was a goat, it was covered with shaggy hair matted down with snow) didn’t dart, it stood silently on the side of the road and watched solemnly as the rental car skidded slowly up the road on a sideways trajectory. Willie was too worried about getting stuck in a ditch and living there until spring to try to turn around on the tiny road and go back into town.
As her car climbed higher into the mountain, the snow picked up in intensity, and only her headlights cutting through the deep and sudden darkness told her that she was still on the road. She was looking for two things, Iona’s house or somewhere to turn around so that she could go back to the tiny town behind her. She thought at least she could sleep in the car in front of the little diner if she could get a space larger than two feet to finish the three-point turn she felt she had to make. When neither appeared, Willie stopped as the road forked left or right, but the GPS wasn’t even trying to flash on. The car GPS had been coming on was all the way gone, and her personal GPS on her phone had her blue dot stuck in Charleston, West Virginia. Not helpful.
She had a decision that led to the left into what looked like a deeper part of the forest and a tinier road or to the right rising into the mountain and showing small signs that it was better kept. The decision now left up to her better judgment, she chose the right. The road was in better shape or at least looked like it from what little she could tell under about six or seven inches of snow already covering the ground.
After about five miles, a golden glow broke through the darkness. The glow started as a simmer that Willie mistook for headlights coming in the opposite direction, but now it had coalesced into a beacon of hope offering shelter from all the pinche snow. Willie followed light with no hesitation.
As it grew bigger, Willie saw that it was a cabin—if you called a metal and stone three-story-tall building that looked like it was over 4,500 square feet a cabin—loomed up at the end of the road. The cabin stood on huge metal stilts and included an open area that could be used as a garage. Even in the poor light and snow, Willie could see that it blended in naturally with the side of the mountain. Light bloomed out of every floor, creating the beacon that Willie had follow.
Parking the car carefully out of the way of the garage, she shrugged her way into her down coat, pulled on the knit cap her mother had given her over her close crop of curls, and slipped on her mittens over her leather gloves. She was the only girl of a family of five sons and even though she was well used to driving anything from Bobcat to tractor, but she always used her pillow to adjust for her five-foot-two-inch height. She was also the only African American in a Mexican-American family. She’d been adopted when she was two and had no issues with it. Her only attempt to look more like her parents and brothers had been when she was thirteen and tried to relax her naturally curly hair straight like the rest of the family. The bald look had not been kind to her plus her brothers still called her eight ball from time to time.
As she’d grown older, she’d accepted her breast and hips that give her a curvy figure that ran to muscle more than fat. She ran and rode enough to develop thighs she could crack walnuts with. Her mother, Adriana, often said she had hips to produce many, many babies. But then Adriana was longing for grandchildren. Everybody looked like they could have babies, even super skinny small Iona. To her mom, Willie looked like her best prospect.
Muttering her way up cleared steps, Willie snatched off the flapped fur-lined hat and tried to smooth her curls into some kind of order as she rang the bell.
“I hope this isn’t Freddy Krueger or somebody like that. I think that’s what my luck would bring. Mamá always says I’ll come to a difficult end. But it has to be one of I’s relatives. They’re all Davises up here. Wonder if this is one of the white Davises or the black. This is a weird part of the world. Mamá and Papi will never believe I got lost in the snow. It’s going be a good story, like Snow White or something, although I guess I’ll be more like Snow Black.” She rang the bell again.
“It is beyond cold out here. I hope that somebody’s home and can tell me how to get to I’s house from here or off this mountain without ending up a bear’s breakfast. What if they aren’t home? My phone’s not working. I could break in or sleep in the garage or something. That would work and I could leave an IOU if it comes to that. Who knew that somewhere this close to the nation’s capital wouldn’t have cell phone service? I’ve been in the wilds of Argentina and had clearer service than this.” She was reaching to ring the bell again when then door opened. Standing to one side was a tall—most people were tall to the five-foot-two Willie—broad-shouldered, beautiful man with light-brown eyes and a soft smile on his chiseled cheeks. Almost a foot taller than Willie, he stretched out his blue cashmere sweater to reveal a muscular chest and thick arms.
“Oh, you must be a white Davis. Hi, I’m Willie Mae Dollar, and Iona Davis, she lives up the road or somewhere close to here, told me to stop by her house and get her abuela’s quilt, but I got lost. The GPS didn’t work, and my phone’s dead. Can you believe that I can’t get service? Man, this is a nice house. Who designed it? My brother Mano is a designer, he’d love this,” Willie said. She quickly passed from the entryway into a great room that had a roaring fire. Hat, coat, mittens, and gloves came off as she carelessly peeled them off, dropping them over the arm of a leather chair before she come to stand before the fire with hands outstretched. “This is heavenly. You don’t realize how cold you get even when the heat is on in the car on days like this. I…” She stopped talking to look back at the man standing in the doorway watching her take off her outer things.
“No, you’re Jeff, I’s brother-in-law. She said you guys lived down the road from her house. Do I just drive down this road to get to her house?” Her bright-brown eyes smiled up into his as he came across the room to loom over her.
He had really nice deep-honey eyes that seem to sparkle with amusement. “You took the wrong fork. Iona lives down the left road, and Linc and I live down the right. But it’s good you got lost because her road is probably impassable by now. I’m waiting for Linc. He had an emergency surgery in Richmond. I’m getting a little worried about him. Would you like a hot drink?”
“Oh yes, thank you. I’m freezing my culo off right now.”
“Culo?”
“I should have said culata because my mamá always says I talk like a ranch hand, which isn’t surprising since I was brought up around ranch hands. It means ass, culo does, and culata is butt, which is more polite. My mamá is old-school Mexican as far as manners go, but me not so much.”
“You’re Mexican?” Jeff Antonetti led Willie through a short hall into a large kitchen and family room. His unexpected guest was an interesting force of nature. She had big brown eyes that were slightly tilted at the ends, double dimples, and curly black hair that barely covered her ears. She had continued to strip off clothes as she talked, now down to what looked like a fleece shirt and pants with long johns sticking out from that. For the first time in a long, long time, Jeff felt himself stirring in response to a woman’s body. Her ass was high and looked hard, and her breasts looked absolutely suckable. He shook his head to clear it.
In the kitchen, windows faced what Willie assumed were the mountain. The darkness that had been looming all through her drive had blotted out any opportunity to see them. The growing night was pierced only by the bright lights from the kitchen and the light from the wraparound porch. He repeated his questions as she rambled on about the snow and the drive.
“No, no, no, no, but my family is. Although I could be. There are African Mexicans in the north of Mexico, but I’m just plain old African American.” Willie perched on a tall stool around the cooking island. She smiled at Jeff’s puzzled look.
“My mother died when I was born. My father was my brother’s drill sergeant in Army Rangers. He and Moises were very close, and after a while when my father deployed he would leave me with Mamá and Papi. Unfortunately, he was killed. I didn’t have any other family and nobody came looking for me. Mamá had five boys and considered me a gift from God, so I stayed because she always wanted a girl. I love them to pieces, but it was hard having five older brothers, plus CJ and Clint always making sure I was a little lady if they weren’t teaching me how to cuss or ride or rope like a man,” Willie said.
Jeff continued cooking, quickly fixing Willie a cup of hot chocolate with a dollop of whisky and whipped cream. She stopped to take an experimental drink from her cup, sighed a deep “umm,” and finished in her explanation.
“I was not quite three years old when my dad died, so I don’t remember him very well. I have pictures and stuff, but that’s not really the same thing as remembering, is it? Well, Mamá and Papi kept me, and I love all of them dearly, but Mamá keeps harping on how much she wants grandchildren, how she’s not getting any younger, how none of the boys is even close to finding a nice girl. For me she wants me to marry one of the Gonzalez boys, even though everybody knows they’re all pigs. They’re always drinking and fighting at the honky-tonk. The
y live in a pigsty of a house a few ranches over.”
Jeff found himself falling into her eyes as they flashed as she talked about the Gonzalez brothers and the people at the ranch. As she talked, her whole body moved to help with the illustrations. Her slightly raspy voice rose and fell and even changed when imitating the people she talked about. The close cap of blue-black curls danced around her face as she moved with the intensity of what she was saying.
“Mary Knowles from the office said that she saw them.” Jeff continued working on the dinner he’d prepared for Linc, a simple meal of roasted Cornish hens and vegetables he made to complement cold weather. He liked the non-stop narrative that Iona’s little friend provided. He’d not realized how lonely he was sometimes when Linc was away. He poured her a glass of wine and realized that Willie was waiting for him to answer a question. Jeff paused as he added more vegetables to the grill to add to the meal. He’d not looked at a woman with interest since he’d been a freshman at Harvard. He stopped, stunned by the unfamiliar fissure of desire, desire for a woman. Willie Mae Dollar was still talking.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.” He smiled at her.
She broke into a rich, throaty laugh. “That’s okay, Papi says I can talk the ears off of a bull, so I’m used to people zoning out from time to time. I’ll try to stop.”
“Don’t bother, I like it. You’ll have to spend the night here. Do you have an overnight bag?”