REMINDER: I write long stories. Many chapters don't have naughty bits, but those that do will be way more fun if you read the others, too! Also, although TT2 is a stand-alone novel, it takes place in the same family as Texas Trio, so you might want to read that one first! -Stefanie
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They were the oddest family Brody had ever met.
Since Kendall and Wilson had seen fit to allow it, Brody had begun dropping by the house to sit on the porch after supper two or three times a week, though he'd skirted their directive by not mentioning his true motivation to Becky.
He justified his reticence by reasoning that Becky had lived on this remote ranch for several years. She was inexperienced and would surely refuse to be courted out of fear alone. He thought once she'd come to know him and was more comfortable in his presence, she'd be more likely to consent to walking out with him.
His deeper reasons for withholding the information went without conscious mention, but peeked fleetingly from the shadowy corners of his mind. He wanted her, but he wasn't sure he should have her. He wasn't sure he
deserved
to have her.
Rebecca Connor was a respectable young woman. She wasn't just a virgin: she was a virtuous woman from an upper-class family, reared in refined circumstances which surely allowed her little contact with the seamier side of life. Even if she possessed some general knowledge of human sexuality- which he doubted- Becky would be ignorant of dark desires like Brody's own.
The more he came to know her, the more complicated and interesting she became. At the same time, sacrificing a piece of himself to be with her seemed a more and more reasonable proposition. If he was successful in his pursuit, he expected the missing pieces of his sex life would eat at him occasionally over the years, but he thought just being near Becky would make up for whatever the union lacked.
In order not to be detected, he behaved with perfect propriety toward Miss Connor and every other member of the family, on the surface paying no one more attention than the rest, he believed. And they were an unusual bunch, to be sure.
To start with, you could hardly tell the family from the hired help without resorting to an examination of their wardrobes, and even that would only place Mrs. Connor and Rebecca above the rest. On a daily basis, Kendall and Wilson didn't dress any differently from any of the men working on their ranch. To some extent, everyone dressed for dinner, and on Sundays, the family went all-out for church. Even Kendall, who didn't attend services, put on a formal suit before the family came home to dine later that afternoon.
Caleb did not dress for dinner or any other meal, but his sporadic presence at table illustrated what Brody found most extraordinary about the family, even more unusual than the three-way marriage at the head of it: the seemingly unconscious mixing of races. The only time anyone showed that they were cognizant of skin color being an issue was when they left the ranch for a trip into town.
Though folks in and around Liberty Falls reacted with varying degrees of disapproval and prurient interest to the concept of a woman with two husbands- it wasn't the only such alliance in the state, after all; this far west men outnumbered women at least five to one- there was hardly any dissension when the topic came around to a racially mixed marriage, especially when it involved a white woman.
Kendall wasn't Christian, so church wasn't an issue, but he often chose to stay in the shadows at other events, as well, keeping an eye on things without alarming the citizenry. Brody knew all about it because the family wasn't trying to keep it quiet. At home, it was a topic addressed with teasing and mock alarm, since Kendall thought having splinters driven under his nails would be more fun than plastering a smile on his face and listening to inane "conversation."
Maybe the lack of attention paid to race was partly due to Kendall being half Indian, Brody thought, though from what he could tell, Kendall and Caleb were the two most racist people on earth. They had no problem with nationalities unilaterally despised by the rest of the country- Chinese, Mexican, African, and Irish- but tribal prejudices were apparently endemic to the Indian race. After the first few times Brody heard them talking like that, he stopped trying to figure out anyone's ancestry or alliances.
And then there was Clancy. To Brody's disgust, he soon realized that spending time with Rebecca put him in constant contact with the evil elf responsible for his most recent broken nose. The leathery, one-legged devil lived in the stable, where Caleb had slept before his marriage, but unlike Caleb, Clancy spent much of his time at the house, entertaining the children, keeping an eye on the ladies while the men were away, and volunteering to taste-test everything coming out of the kitchen.
Plus being loudly unhappy with Brody's presence, of course.
Kendall and Wilson grinned silently whenever Clancy gave Brody a hard time, unless Mrs. Connor or the children were around. Then one of them would snap their fingers in his direction and, unbelievably, Clancy would shut his voluminous trap.
Mrs. Connor's kindness was surely a huge part of the family's equitable attitude, Brody thought. From her arrogant husbands right down to the meanest cowhand among them, practically everyone on the ranch loved Mrs. Connor. She treated Nanny as her mother, Yan as a daughter, and even had the nerve to swat Caleb's hand away when he stole sweets before dinner. Nanny was the only other person who could get away with something like that without losing the hand. Even the children were cautious around Caleb, and those three had no native fear of anything at all, as far as Brody could see.
That was another check-mark in the column marked odd . . . the children.
Lily was obviously Kendall's child, but the boys were a mystery. Everybody referred to them as "the twins," but Brody suspected one of them was the child of a mistress, who Mrs. Connor had generously taken in to raise as her own. After watching for a while, though, he'd seen no difference whatsoever in the way she treated them, and at times, Brody thought he saw bits of her in both boys, and small resemblances between them.
Despite the novelty of a wholesome household stemming from such an unconventional alliance, he didn't spend much time thinking about it, but Brody was damned curious about the two boys, he admitted to himself.
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At first Becky was determined to maintain a cordial reserve with Mr. Easton. She seemed unable to handle his advances with aplomb, and she wanted to avoid any repetition of the awkward looks that had passed between them in the library and parlor. Soon, however, she came to believe he'd taken either her slap or her brothers' threatening glares to heart. He paid no particular attention to her, and gradually her aloof manner relaxed into something closer to acceptance. She tried to look at him as merely another of her sister's strays. His presence was inconvenient, since she'd rather forget him altogether, but unimportant in the long run.
She couldn't help hearing what he said, however, and learned quite a bit about him during marathon interrogations conducted by Lily and the twins. Adults tended to progress rapidly from quizzing one another about their backgrounds to making shallow small talk as they became more familiar, but children were unfamiliar with the entire world: their introductory phase lasted forever. Brody obviously didn't know much about kids, but he quickly adopted a practical approach to answering their endless litany of questions with short words and gentle humor.
Why? Why? Why?
Why do dogs chase rabbits?
Why don't you have a mom?
Why don't you have a dog?
