Page 16 of Buck Wild Orc Cowboy (Brides of the Lonesome Creek Orcs #3)

Sel

T he second I stepped into Jessi’s kitchen, the smell of coffee and cinnamon drifted around me. Warm and soothing—I hoped. None of my brothers were around, but I wouldn't expect them to be, they'd be working in town now that we were open to tourists.

Jessi stood at the counter, stirring something with her sleeves pushed up. Gracie sat at the table flipping through her phone, though she shot me a smile. Beth and Rosey sat across from her with mugs in their hands. They also smiled my way.

“Sel.” Jessi’s face lit as she crossed the kitchen and gave me a big hug. “What a nice surprise. Is everything alright at the bakery?”

“Everything's fine.” Mostly. I hoped so.

What sort of advice might they offer?

“Would you like something to eat?” she asked.

“I'd love that.”

She was one of the best cooks I knew.

Beth nudged a chair out for me with her foot as Rosey shifted hers over to make room.

Gracie tucked her phone away. “Post made.” Gracie had done an amazing job boosting our online presence.

Beth rose and crossed to the counter. “Tea?”

“That’d be great.”

I sat, and Beth handed me a full mug. I nodded my thanks. Jessi brought over a fresh-baked muffin on a plate and settled in the chair beside me.

“How are things going?” Rosey asked, fixing her eyes on me.

“Busy. I hired a woman named Holly. She’s got a youngling, Max. He's twelve.”

“Is she married?” Beth asked, taking a sip of her tea.

“No. She isn’t.”

“A single mom, then.” Sympathy filled Gracie's face. “That must be tough. What are they like?”

“Max is amazing.” I was gushing already, but I couldn't help it. “He listens with every part of him, like he’s trying to learn the world all over again. It’s hard not to love that kind of openness. It pulls something from you.”

Gracie leaned forward, her bright gaze locked on mine. “And Holly?”

“She’s…” I thought of the woman I was quickly coming to adore.

“There’s a steadiness to her. It's not fake strength or pretending. Just…toughness and grace, side by side. She moves like someone who expects the world to fall apart around her at any second, but she still holds her head up. It makes me want to hold back the sky.”

The women shared a long look, their mouths universally twitching upward.

“She's the kind of woman who has stayed kind even after the world gave her reasons not to,” I said, sounding defensive even to my own ears. But I wanted them to understand. “I don't know how she does it.”

“That’s…incredibly sweet, Sel.” Gracie raised her brows. “How’s she fitting in at the bakery?”

The tea warmed my palms. “Amazing.”

“Ah, amazing.” Jessi snickered and nudged Beth's side. Beth appeared to be struggling to keep her face serious, though I wasn't sure why.

“I moved them into my house,” I said. “It's more comfortable than the hotel. I have two bedrooms. They were sharing a bed at the hotel.”

Rosey eyes sparkled. “Girls, we could be dealing with only one bed here.”

I frowned, not sure what she meant. “I have two beds. One is mine, the other is in my second room. Max is sleeping in that one.” I could be missing some kind of human nuance. They kept looking at me like I'd announced we were sharing my room. Was the current arrangement improper?

“Only one bed,” Beth breathed. “Ruugar and I only had one tent, and it was… amazing .” Her bright laugh rang out, echoed by the other women.

My ears burned, and I wondered if I'd somehow stepped into another realm, not Jessi's kitchen.

Jessi sobered first. “Does Holly know?”

I blinked, still feeling lost. “Know what?”

She pointed to my arm. “About that.”

“Holly, right?” Gracie asked with a grin.

I slapped my palm over the mark, but it was obviously too late to hide it from anyone. “She can’t know. Not yet.”

Rosey’s lips parted. “Why not? You’ve claimed her, right?”

“It appeared after we—” I stopped, coughed once. “After we kissed.”

They might be silent for now, but their shared looks told me a lot. I finally figured out what they were talking about.

“I'm sleeping in the barn,” I blurted out. “In the hay loft. Not in the only one bed.”

Gracie nodded, still grinning. “For now.”

“For always.” I grumbled. “Where else would I sleep?”

“If it gets cold…” Jessi glanced out the window above her sink. “Where's a good snow storm when you need one?”

“It's summer.” My frown shot into place again. “It's not going to snow.”

“A hurricane might do it, too,” Gracie said thoughtfully. “Natural disasters are wonderful bonding moments.”

“What are you talking about?” I shouted.

“Now, now.” Rosey patted my arm. “We're trying to help here.”

Alright. Well. I had come to them for help. “No natural disasters.”

Gracie tapped her chin. “I'll do some research online. There must be a way to make this work.”

Human women were complicated, but I'd already seen this with Holly. “I came here for advice on how to woo her.”

Even saying it out loud made me feel like I’d stepped outside of my own skin. I wasn't raised to talk. But I couldn't sit quietly while she slipped away.

“Ahhh,” the women breathed as one. Their eyes started sparkling again, and grins rose on each of their faces.

How could they do that when they hadn’t said a word to generate such a sound?

Gracie leaned forward, tapping my arm lying on the table. “You’re in love.”

The instinct to deny rose quickly, but I stopped it.

I thought about Holly, about the way she said I was different.

Special. How Max looked at me like I mattered.

“I think I’m falling. It hasn't been long but…” I held up my arm, showing off the mark that…

alright, I was happy it was there. I never thought I'd find someone new.

Hadn't even been looking. But the fates had brought Holly into my life, and I'd be a fool to look away.

I stared down at the tea in my mug. “I don’t want to scare her. Her ex…it was bad. He hurt her.”

Jessi burst to her feet. “We'll kill him. I'll grab Grannie in town, and we'll go on a rampage.”

I tugged on her arm, urging her to sit again. “I appreciate your offer and Grannie's no-doubt eager participation. But I offered this already and Holly said no. I think she and Max ran from him. If he was here, it would be over already, but he's not.” And he'd better not come after them.

“Tell Dungar,” Rosey said. “He can get more use out of that sheriff's badge.”

A solid idea. My brothers would help. I'd fill them in as soon as I could.

“She doesn’t trust easy,” I said. “Max either. But that doesn't mean I don't want her in my life, that I'm not willing to do anything to win her heart.”

They all nodded, solemn now.

“I want to earn her,” I said. “For real. But I don’t know how.”

Jessi patted my hand lying on the table. “Then you’re already halfway there.”

Beth bit down on her lower lip. “We'll help you all we can.”

“I appreciate that.”

Gracie tucked some hair behind her ear. “Love moves slower for many human women. We're more cautious, especially if we've been burned. They need to know they're safe, first.”

Beth nodded. “Especially that.”

She'd know. She was a runaway bride when she and my brother, Ruugar, met.

Well, they'd met months before she ran from her wedding, when she and her fiancé came to Lonesome Creek to tour their upcoming wedding venue.

Her father was forcing her to marry his business partner, and Beth had been raised in an isolated way.

With no way out, she'd waited until the evening of the wedding and snuck out the barn's side entrance.

Ruugar followed, and while he was hiding her from her fiancé, they fell in love.

I nodded. “She's worried. Rightly so.” I’d seen the way she stiffened when the bell above the bakery door chimed. Like she was bracing for impact. “I know it'll take time for her to feel safe here, to trust me to help her feel secure.”

“Strategies, ladies?” Gracie asked, pulling out her phone. “I'll take notes.” Her gaze met mine. “And email them to you.”

“Thank you.” I think.

The air shifted as they went from casual to focused.

“I could give you general advice,” Jessi said.

“Like being honest and letting her get to know you slowly.

Letting her set the pace. But I also think it's important for you to do things together that allow you to get closer.

You need to get to know her better so you can discover things you could do for her that'll make her life easier and make her feel secure.”

“And make her fall for you,” Rosey said.

“As you know, Ostor and I met at a bar.” She grinned.

“When a jerk was harassing me, he stepped in and made the other guy stop.

That warmed me to him fast. Then we chatted, and I could see he was a kind, sincere guy.

That's when I invited him to be my fake date to my sister's destination wedding in Cancun. The long weekend together gave us time to get to know each other in a casual setting.”

Jessi leaned against Rosey's shoulder. “And fall in love.”

“That too. Only one bed played a role in that. No harm in admitting it.” Color rose in her face. “I mean, we didn't…you know. Not right away.”

Gracie looked up from her phone. “Within days, though, am I right?”

“You know how these guys can be. Did you expect me to hold out longer than that?”

The other three shook their heads.

“Only one bed again,” I said. “I understand what one bed means, but I think there's more to this than me having one bed in my bedroom.”

“It's a romance trope,” Rosey said. “From novels. Where the couple is forced to share a bed.”

“I don't have any interest in forcing this,” I said quite firmly.

“It's romantic.” Gracie's smile deepened. “In Rosey's situation, when they checked into the hotel, the hotel only had rooms with one bed available, so they chose to share it.”

I cocked my head, frowning. “Rather than Ostor sleeping on the floor?” That would be the gentleorc thing to do.

“If it makes you feel any better,” she said, “he offered. I told him it would be okay to share. Floors are hard.”

As are hay lofts. Stiff straw poked my skin all night long.

“But forced proximity can lead to closeness,” Jessi said. “Greel and I shared a bed from the start. I wasn't letting him sleep in the barn or on the sofa.”

“They're small. The sofas, that is,” I said. I couldn't imagine sharing a bed with Holly. Couldn't imagine waking up lying next to her. Would I even be able to sleep, or would my cock…

I shouldn’t think about my cock and what it might want to do. The odds of her liking me as more than a boss were slim. Getting near my cock? Even slimmer.

“I don't think it would be right to manipulate myself into her bed,” I said.

“That's why we love you, Sel.” Gracie rose and gave me a quick hug before returning to her chair and lifting her phone, taking notes. What was she writing down?

“So, ladies, how can we maneuver this into an only-one-bed situation?” Rosey asked with her eyes sparkling.

“For now, not at all,” Beth said. “Not if we expect Holly to one day join our tea and muffin club. It sounds like she needs gentle wooing, not anything with a hint of pressure.”

“I agree,” I said, relieved.

Jessi nodded. “Good point. There are other tropes we can work with.”

I needed to look up the word, tropes, online.

“How else can we maneuver them into close contact, then?” Rosey frowned. “Nothing with pressure. Just for fun. I'm not exactly sure what to suggest.”

“What about streaming images?” I asked. “I ran into Hail on my way here, and he suggested I watch some to get ideas.”

Rosey's frown deepened before her face smoothed and she smiled. “We've seen a lot of movies, but I think you could be on to something there. The one I’m thinking of is an old one, but something like that might work.”

Gracie looked up from her phone. “Which one are you talking about?”

“ Oklahoma . Remember how they bid on picnic baskets and whoever won got to enjoy the meal with the person who made and donated the basket?”

Beth clapped her hands. “Awesome. I love that idea. Ladies? How do we coordinate this?”

“The thing to do is have Holly put together a basket and donate it. Sel will bid,” Jessi said.

“I will. I wouldn’t let anyone else bid.”

Jessi grinned. “We could rope in some tourists and make this an activity. They'll be all over it. And best of all, we can donate all the proceeds to a good charity.”

“I don't think she'll want to have her time auctioned off,” I said. “She's afraid and with good reason.”

“Hmm.” Her frown reappeared. “Then you'll have to make one, and she can bid on yours.”

“And if she doesn't? I have a mate even if she will never be my mate. I don't want to have a picnic lunch with anyone else.”

Gracie set her phone on the table. “Leave that to me.”

“Alright.”

I left not long after that, guiding my sorhox back to town and leaving him to meander to the outer plain to graze.

Holly cried out in terror from inside the bakery.

I grabbed the sword I kept in a cabinet outside the bakery and stormed inside to save her.