Their Mountain Love Read online

  

  Menage Mountain 4

  Their Mountain Love

  Lacy desperately needs a job, but can she handle one with two drop dead gorgeous men as her bosses? She knew the job seemed too good to be true.

  Jet and Tanner are too busy with their jobs to take care of a house and can’t cook worth a damn. They advertise for a cook and housekeeper but imagine their surprise when the woman of their dreams applies. Now they have to figure out a way to move her from employee to wife.

  Lacy fights her attraction to the two men but finds it is a losing battle when they turn on the charm and seem more interested in getting her in their bed than having her make their beds. They’re her bosses and off limits, but someone needs to tell them that.

  Genres: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre

  Length: 46,579

  THEIR MOUNTAIN LOVE

  Menage Mountain 4

  Marla Monroe

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  Their Mountain Love

  Copyright © 2018 by Marla Monroe

  ISBN: 978-1-64243-581-8

  First Publication: December 2018

  Cover design by Les Byerley

  All art and logo copyright © 2018 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.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book or print book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at [email protected]

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  For all titles by Marla Monroe, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/marla-monroe

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  THEIR MOUNTAIN LOVE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  THEIR MOUNTAIN LOVE

  Menage Mountain 4

  MARLA MONROE

  Copyright © 2018

  Chapter One

  “We need help, Jet.” Tanner was tired of trying to work and keep everything else going around the house.

  Tanner and Jet had moved to Menage Mountain along with many of their friends from back when they’d all been in the armed forces. They’d worked together at some point despite the fact that they came from all branches of the military. One thing they shared in common was their need to share a woman. They believed that two men could better take care of a woman both physically and emotionally. As long as one of them was alive, she’d never have to worry.

  They’d finished college before moving to the mountain. Jet had earned his degree in software development while his best friend, Tanner had gotten his in finance. While Jet wrote programs for financial institutes, Tanner was a financial analyst. They were both so busy they didn’t have time to eat much less cook and take care of a house.

  Neither man had foreseen that they would ever be as busy as they were. While they planned to find a woman as their own, they wanted to work as hard as they could to provide for her. They wanted to secure their finances so that they wouldn’t have to work that hard once they had her in their lives. For now, they needed a housekeeper and cook.

  “Where are we going to find someone who will be willing to work for us way up here?” Tanner asked, tossing his pencil on the desk.

  “Well, until we advertise, we won’t know that. I’m tired of sandwiches and having to do laundry and clean house on Sunday every week. We don’t get enough time to relax even at night.” Jet sighed. “I never expected that we’d be so damn busy that we couldn’t handle the house, as well.”

  “We agreed to double up on the work so that when we found our woman we could back off, but still have plenty of money to take good care of her,” Tanner said.

  “I’m not complaining about working hard, just that we don’t have enough time to relax and get all the housework done. I don’t want a woman we’re dating to come here and see a pigsty.”

  “Neither do I, but where do we advertise? There aren’t a lot of women in the area who need jobs.” Tanner ran a hand through his hair.

  Jet knew his friend was frustrated about more than the housekeeping issue. He was working for a company that wanted him to help them realign their investments, and it was stressful to work with the kind of money he was dealing with.

  “Look, I’ll handle finding someone while you deal with your new client. You helped me last month when I was tied up. I can do this.” Jet figured there had to be someone who needed a job. Of course, they would want someone who could cook. That might be a little more difficult.

  “Fine. I’ll leave it up to you.” Jet turned back around and got back to work.

  Tanner shut down the program he’d been working on and stood to stretch. He walked out of their office toward the kitchen. He needed something to eat, and he was sure his friend was starved, as well. He pulled out the ingredients for sandwiches once more as he tried to formulate an ad in his head.

  He figured he could advertise in the local paper that came out on Sunday and the one in Billings in case there was someone who might want to relocate. First, he needed to write down the ad and make sure it sounded right, and then he’d call the papers and take out the ad.

  He ate his two sandwiches before carrying the other two plus a beer to Jet. His friend grunted his thanks but didn’t say anything since he was on the phone with someone. The man was always on the phone talking to someone about money. It wasn’t anything Tanner would ever have enjoyed doing. He liked writing programs and creating skintight structures that hackers couldn’t get through for financial companies. He’d even written the program that Jet used for work.

  Tanner returned to the kitchen and pulled up the Internet on his phone to search for the newspapers’ numbers before calling them to place the ad he’d written down while he’d eaten. Once that was accomplished, he walked back to the office and jumped back into the program he was working on. All they had to do now was wait and see if anyone answered their ad.

  * * * *

  Lacy scrambled to get to the elevator before the door closed. She didn’t want to wait for another one. She was late as it was. God, she hated her job. It was a dead-end, boring profession. She rode the elevator to her floor then squeezed off to jog toward her office.

  “You’re going to end up fired if you keep this up,” Gail, her best friend pointed out when she slid into her desk right on time.

  “I know, but I can’t stand being cooped up in this building all day,” Lacy said.

  “You need to find a different job where you aren’t surrounded by four walls all day,” Gail said like she always did.

  “So far nothing has
come up that interests me any more than this does. No reason to trade in one boring job for another.”

  “Maybe there’ll be something interesting in the paper this weekend,” Gail said.

  “One can hope. Want to go out tonight?”

  “Sure. Mike is working late. I’m game.”

  “Perfect. We’ll get something to eat and celebrate the weekend with a few drinks. Mexican sound good to you?”

  “All I can say is Margaritaville here I come,” Gail said with a huge grin.

  “Ladies? I don’t see you working. Do I need to dock your pay for visiting instead of working?” Ms. Pettigrew hovered inside their shared cubical and frowned down at them.

  “No ma’am,” they chorused.

  The bullish woman walked away, no doubt to catch someone else talking when they were supposed to be working.

  “Maybe I need to look for another job, as well,” Gail whispered.

  Lacy giggled, then got to work. All she did was enter information into set parameters. It was boring, and by the end of the day, her eyes were crossing. She couldn’t wait for five o’clock to come around.

  The moment they were free, she and Gail headed to the local Mexican joint in Billings that they loved. Chips, salsa, and two frozen margaritas later, they were ready to order.

  “I’m telling you that Mike is going to ask me to move in with him soon. He keeps telling me he wants to spend more time with me when he isn’t working. He already insists that I stay over on the weekends,” Gail said.

  “What am I going to do when you move out? We’ve been together since we were college roommates,” Lacy said.

  “You’ll be fine. We’ll find a good roommate for you. I won’t leave you high and dry,” Gail said.

  “Still sucks.”

  “We need to find you a steady boyfriend, so you don’t have to worry about finding another roommate. Maybe we can find someone tonight.”

  “One night doesn’t a roommate make,” Lacy said.

  “True. But with your awesome cooking skills, you would make some man a happy hubby. I still don’t see why you aren’t working as a chef somewhere,” Gail said.

  “I’m not that good. Besides, I didn’t go to school to be a chef. I went to be a secretary and look where that got me.”

  “An intellectually stimulating profession where you can broaden your horizons while sharpening your computer skills,” Gail quoted from the advertisement they’d both applied for.

  Lacy giggled. “We should have known when they hired both of us that it wasn’t going to be nearly as stimulating as the advertisement said.”

  “Well, it pays good, even if it is boring. Can’t say the same for some of the secretarial jobs we applied for.”

  “True.”

  “So, what are you eating tonight?” Gail asked.

  “Carnitas with onions. Lots of onions.”

  “Onions and looking for a man don’t mix, girlfriend.”

  “The margaritas will clear out the onion breath,” Lacy assured her.

  “If you say so.”

  Once they’d finished eating, they walked down the block to their favorite bar and squeezed in to find a table. As soon as one came available, they tagged it and waved their hands to order a drink.

  “I’m sticking with margaritas. What about you?” Gail asked.

  “I’ll have a screwdriver,” Lacy said.

  “So, look around and point out who you might like to meet,” Gail said.

  Lacy looked around but none of the men she could see, who weren’t already with a woman, really appealed to her. They were all small, business types. She longed for a man’s man. Someone who was strong and muscular and would take charge in a relationship. Then again, she also wanted someone who would cater to her. If a man like that existed, she hadn’t found him yet.

  “So?” Gail asked.

  “They all look wimpy to me. Maybe we need to try a different bar next time,” she said.

  “You’re too picky. What about that guy over there? The one at the end of the bar? He doesn’t look wimpy,” Gail suggested.

  “Yeah, but he looks married like he’s trolling for a one-night stand. See how he checks out the legs of the women walking past him toward the bathroom?” Lacy pointed out.

  “Maybe you’re right. Doesn’t mean he’s married, but if he’s basing his decision on whether to ask a girl to dance on their legs, he isn’t relationship material.”

  “Let’s just have fun and not look for someone for me. We’ll try a different bar next weekend. Maybe Mike can come with us, so we can dance while he holds down the table and watches our drinks,” Lacy said.

  “Good idea.”

  They stuck around talking about work and what they planned to do the next day through two more drinks, then called it a night. They walked back to the restaurant where they’d left their cars and said good night. Gail was going to spend the weekend at Mike’s house, leaving Lacy to travel alone to her place. Normally, they carpooled to and from work, but on Fridays they each took their own cars.

  She locked up the apartment then got ready for bed. She wasn’t the least bit sleepy, so she grabbed her Kindle and scrolled through her books to find something that would hold her interest. She had a voracious appetite for reading and often went through three or four books a week. She read everything from horror to mysteries to thrillers, but for tonight she chose a romance book to help her get to sleep and hopefully dream about her tall, dark, and handsome man. One who would sweep her off her feet and give her hot, raunchy sex for hours on end.

  Right, those kinds of men actually existed in the real world.

  Not.

  Chapter Two

  Housekeeper needed who can cook and keep a clean house. Looking for someone with the skills to handle the expenses as well as the general day to day upkeep of a large home. Cooking skills should exceed sandwiches and soup and experience with handling a household of two would be a plus.

  Lacy’s eyes kept gravitating back to that ad. Why she didn’t know since it was nothing like what she’d been searching for. She wanted something that would pay well and provide some adventure in her life. She was tired of entering in numbers and information into a database all day. Sure, it paid well, but money wasn’t everything, right?

  Who am I kidding? I need the money to pay off my student loans.

  Still, that advertisement intrigued her. What sort of salary would they pay and what would the hours be? How many meals and what kind of meals would they expect? She loved to cook. If she’d had the money, she would have gone to culinary school, but she’d had to stick with what she could afford, even with the addition of a student loan. She’d have been paying off culinary school until she’d turned seventy.

  The sound of “It’s Raining Men” told her that Gail was calling her. She smiled and hit answer.

  “Hey, girlfriend. Whatcha know?” she asked by way of greeting.

  “Not much. I’ve been reading the paper to find you a new job before you get fired.”

  “I’m not in that much trouble,” Lacy said.

  “Close enough.” The other woman sighed. “There isn’t much to choose from though.”

  “What about that job where they’re looking for a housekeeper and cook?” Lacy asked to see what her friend had to say about it.

  “Seriously? They probably have five kids with snotty noses and a house that looks like a cyclone hit it,” Gail pointed out.

  “Maybe not. Couldn’t hurt to call and check into it, right?” Lacy asked.

  “You’re serious.”

  “Kind of, yeah. I mean there’s nothing else there.”

  “You didn’t go to school for housekeeping, Lacy.”

  “I’ve been looking for something else for over a month now. Who knows? It might pay well, and it sounds like a better position than managing a quick stop, which is about all that is out there right now.”

  “Well, if you’re that desperate, call and check it out. If it sounds halfway decent, then a
pply for it, but I’m telling you they probably want more than just housework and cooking. They probably want you to pick up after their kids and watch them or take their dogs for walks or some crap like that,” Gail said.

  “Duly noted. I’ll keep that in mind,” Lacy said.

  “Call me back after you talk to them,” Gail said.

  “I will.”

  Lacy hit End then pulled the paper over to where she’d circled the advertisement in red and punched in the phone number before she talked herself out of it. It rang four times before someone finally answered.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, I’m calling about the ad in the paper. Have you filled the position yet?” she asked.

  “No. We’re setting up interviews for next week,” he said in a deep voice.

  “Can you tell me more about what you’re looking for?” Lacy asked.

  “We work from home and have long hours, so we need someone who can manage the house for us and cook. You’d be responsible for grocery shopping, keeping everything stocked, cooking two meals, and keeping the house clean. Have you had any experience in keeping house or cooking?” the man asked.

  “I used to keep my parents’ home for them. They were busy people, as well, so I kept everything going and prepared all the meals. They often had guests, so I’m used to more than just soup and sandwiches,” she said with a smile.

  “Do you have your own transportation?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Billings. Is this not in Billings?” she asked.

  “No, it’s in Cozy. We’re about an hour from Billings. Unless you plan to relocate, it wouldn’t work for you to drive all that way.”

  “I might be willing if I can find a place to live. What is the salary range?” she asked.

  He quoted a very generous one that made it more than interesting. She wouldn’t have benefits though.