was rude."
Carrie shook her head. "No, I understand. It took me a bit to get used to the idea of the menage relationship." She shrugged. "The important thing you need to know about Lusty is that no one judges you, period. That extends beyond whether you have one lover or more. It's everything."
Yes, it was everything, and maybe she shouldn't be so timid about opening up to the brothers Benedict.
"I can see the draw of that," Julian said. He nodded, as if he'd decided something for himself. "I guess I should go out and lend a hand. It sounds as if they've finished arguing over which piece of furniture comes off the truck, first."
Carrie wondered about that entire conversation even as she tried to put her finger on why the man looked so familiar to her.
She didn't have any time to worry about it, however, for just then Brian and Chase came in on either end of a love seat.
"You just tell us where, darlin'," Brian said.
For the next hour she did just that, setting not only the furniture in the parlor, but also the dining room. The decor in that room had been more ostentatious than the cowboys - or herself for that matter - had been comfortable with.
The warehouse had certainly been a treasure trove of furnishings, linens, dishes - damn near anything anyone would need to furnish a home.
There, she'd discovered a lovely oak dining room set, a rectangular table with eight chairs, a china cabinet and sideboard with a hutch. The color of the wood - a nice, warm brown - combined with the clean lines looked as if it had been made for the house. She'd repainted the walls a soft butter shade with white trim. The multipaned windows, two of them inset into the wall side by side, completely opened the room once the previous deep green paint had been eradicated.
The men generally ate in the kitchen, but she'd wanted to give them the option to seat family. Of course if their entire family showed up for a meal it would have to be sawhorses and four-by-eight sheets of wood outside.
While the men were hefting furniture, she nipped out to the kitchen to pull the casserole she'd made the day before out of the fridge. She'd brought fresh rolls to complement the hearty spicy beef and rice meal she'd prepared.
She stood back as the men brought in the last items, the dining room chairs. She noticed that they were all looking at her as if she'd done something strange.
Who knew how these men's minds worked?
Ignoring their odd behavior was likely her best bet. "If you're hungry, there's food. Just give me five minutes to set the table."
"Wait a minute," Andrew said. Apparently he'd been elected to speak. "Are you going to feed us first before we finish?"
Carrie didn't quite understand the question. "Is there more furniture on the truck?"
"No, ma'am," Grant said. "We were just wondering."
"We unloaded and you pointed where to put everything, and...that's where it all still is," Andrew said. "Don't you want to rearrange things a few times? Try out different looks?"
The way all five of the men were looking at her told her that the Jessops had been elected spokesmen.
Carrie gave them the sweetest smile she knew how to give. She could explain that she had a computer program that would allow her to configure a room six ways from Sunday. She could tell them that she'd spent probably eight hours, all told, doing just that with the room dimensions and the pieces of furniture she'd selected.
She could, but she didn't. Instead, she just said, "Nope, we're done. Now, who's hungry?"
Chapter 6
Carrie enjoyed the view from the porch of the ranch house, which now included a pretty glider she'd nabbed from the warehouse.
Most gliders she'd ever seen would fit two comfortably, but this one had room for four.
She grinned. A lot of the furniture in that warehouse had been larger than average. It was nearly five in the evening, and she supposed she should think about making dinner for the guys.
Butterflies had taken up residence in her stomach. Carrie told herself she was being silly. She didn't have anything to be ashamed of, after all. Yet, she'd never told anyone what her life had been like when she'd gone into "the system."
She understood that the way she was - cautious, untrusting, and tending to keep people at arm's length - had to do with things that had happened after that