Three Men and a Woman_Jubilee

  Three Men and a Woman: Jubilee

  Former hockey players Keith Hutchinson, Henry Brooks, and Brody Connors need shelter from a storm—literally. They’re caught in a lake effect blizzard, and, half-frozen, they tumble through Jubilee Reynolds’s door.

  Jubilee is a young widow—alone in her home, alone in her life. She gets the three friends warmed up, feeds them, and puts them up for the night. When they leave in the morning, each of them is thinking of seeing Jubilee again. And she is thinking of them.

  In a week’s time, each of the men shows up again, unexpected, unannounced, and unaware that the others were coming. They each want to repay Jubilee for rescuing them, and they each want…her.

  Jubilee is already attached to them all. She can’t choose—even when Henry says he’s not willing to share. But Keith and Brody know their buddy. When they make their love for her public, at Henry’s own New Year’s Eve party, Henry can’t resist.

  Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre

  Length: 59,124 words

  THREE MEN AND A WOMAN:

  JUBILEE

  Rachel Billings

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  THREE MEN AND A WOMAN: JUBILEE

  Copyright © 2017 by Rachel Billings

  ISBN: 978-1-64010-142-5

  First Publication: March 2017

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2017 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.

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  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Rachel Billings takes her pen name from her hometown. She lives in western New York now, where she works, writes, and gardens. But she still misses the Big Sky.

  She comes from farmers and likes to dig in the dirt and then sit back and watch things grow. She takes a similar approach to the raising of her three children. Her husband, being a scientist, takes a more methodical approach.

  Rachel started writing stories in her head when she was five. They featured spunky girls who performed heroic acts while looking great and earning the admiration of attractive males. She knows to stick with a good theme when she finds one.

  In her day job (which happens to be a night job, too), she works to help women have stronger, healthier, happier lives. In her writing, she hopes to entertain and maybe even enrich women’s lives through romantic and erotic fiction. She does consider her work to be fantasy and realizes that some events described may not be physically possible—or entirely comfortable. Not everything should be tried at home.

  She has learned that love has power and believes that when two (or four) people love each other, many good things are possible.

  For all titles by Rachel Billings, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/rachel-billings

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  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

  Epilogue

  Landmarks

  Cover

  THREE MEN

  AND A WOMAN:

  JUBILEE

  RACHEL BILLINGS

  Copyright © 2017

  Chapter One

  Lake effect.

  Jubilee Reynolds looked up from her loom. The old Victorian her parents had left in her care was a throwback to more whimsical times. It had a large turret in the southwest corner that provided perfect natural light for weaving. But the Finger Lakes region of New York State had a fair lot of cloudy, gray days. She compensated for that with efficient LED lights that transitioned on automatically while she worked. So she hadn’t noticed until she’d felt the need for a stretch and looked around her.

  She was inside a snow globe.

  Cold air from the north picked up water from Lake Ontario and could dump lake effect snow on the area with remarkable efficiency. Like Mother Nature’s snow machine.

  She’d known to expect it—she’d heard the winter weather advisory change to a blizzard warning overnight. But lake effect was difficult to predict. In this region, weather forecasters learned to be humble, and residents learned to be prepared.

  Jubilee was, always. She had a gas generator that backed up the power lines that backed up her solar panels and tree-shaped wind turbine. She had a well for water, more than a month’s worth of food and supplies, and enough yarn to keep her busy, well, for a very long time. She had a four-wheel-drive SUV in her small barn, but she was never in a great hurry for her nearest neighbor, Joe Johnson, to come plow out her driveway.

  The weather didn’t matter much to her. Often, its only significance was whether or not she strapped on snowshoes for her daily hike in the High Tor Wildlife Management Area that was just across the road from her land.

  She was lucky that way.

  Going with that urge to stretch, she stood and walked right up to the windows. She’d worked into the late afternoon. This time of year, mid-December, dusk would come soon. Though it wouldn’t change her view much—all she saw was white now. Later, it would just be…darker white.

  Already, at least a foot of snow had fallen, enough to obscure the landscape. To her right, she could barely make out the red of the barn behind her house. To her left, where the road should be, was just a white expanse stretching between the snow-frosted trees on either side.

  And…lights. Headlights, she realized, moving slowly in her direction. After many seconds, she could see the dark outline of a large SUV. It was making very slow progress, pushing snow in front of it now because, clearly, there’d been more than a foot of snow.

  Just as clearly, the person behind the wheel was an idiot. No matter how big and macho his machine was, he wasn’t going to make it much farther. He should have tucked in wherever he was when this storm powered up.

  A few moments later, it was clear he wasn’t going any farther at all.

  Likely, he’d seen her lights and changed his mind about trying to go on. Perhaps he’d meant to turn into her driveway. With snow disguising all landmarks, though, he missed it. He found, instead, the deep ditch that ran—with water, in the spring—alongside the road. The right side of his big rig sank into it, landing the vehicle nearly on its side.

  Jubilee was about to have an idiot for company.

  She ran downstairs and switched on the lights over her big, wraparound porch. There were solar lights along her walk, but she could see they’d disappeared into the snow. After taking a
throw from her sofa and wrapping it around herself, she stepped outside.

  Jubilee often went for days without seeing anyone, especially in winter. She dressed for comfort and for work. She wore a woolen, hand-knit sweater over a turtleneck top over a thermal cami over a yoga bra, because she needed something, but she didn’t have to spend her solitary days in underwired semi-torture. Below, she was in a long, flared wool skirt with warm tights underneath, bright knee socks, also hand-knit, and shearling slippers.

  She supposed she could have topped it off with a wool hat, muffler, and mukluks, but it was what it was.

  The wind whipped snow at her as she went to the edge of the porch, though she was pretty impervious to it in her clothing.

  Apparently, she wouldn’t have one idiot to deal with, but three. Two of them awkwardly crawled out, uphill, from the driver’s side doors, one front and one back. They turned and pulled a third man out from the back—and he seemed to need help. The two held him between them, his arms pulled over their shoulders, as they struggled up the yard toward her. She’d meant to direct them to the walk, but she realized it was useless anyway. Any path they chose would be equally difficult, and her flower gardens had plenty of protection with their heavy snow blanket.

  One of them must have spotted her in the light. He lifted his head from the effort of half-carrying his buddy. “We need help,” he hollered, his voice deep and urgent.

  No shit, Sherlock, Jubilee thought, but the guy went on.

  “This one fell in some water. He’s half-frozen.”

  Oops. Jubilee stopped the snark in her head, realizing there was a true emergency. She turned and went back through her door, closing it against the wind but not locking it. Then she ran upstairs to the big master bath—her parents had enjoyed their comforts—and started to fill the deep jetted tub.

  When she got back to the porch, the three men hadn’t even made it to the steps yet.

  They were hunters, she realized. Their camo clothing was dark against the snow, and bright orange vests still hung from their shoulders. Really quite broad shoulders, she noted.

  She waited, sure she wouldn’t be any help as they pushed through the snow. But when they reached the steps, she held her hand out to the one who’d spoken. “Five steps up,” she told him.

  He had a shock of blond hair that glimmered in the porchlight, mussed now so it almost stood up in a nerdy Mohawk. They were all big men, but Jubilee thought they were lucky it wasn’t this one who’d gone into the water. He must be at least 6’2”.

  “Thanks,” he said. He reached for her hand and she braced—a lot—against his weight. His, and his friends’. “I thought you’d left us.”

  * * * *

  Henry Brooks had said they should go to the rink, see if they could get up a game. But Keith had been all hot about trying for a deer—one of his work pals, he said, had recently brought down a twelve-pointer—and Brody, just in from California, liked the idea of tromping about in the “pretty” snow.

  Snow that was supposed to accumulate to about five inches and stop by midmorning.

  Goddamn lake effect.

  So they’d been out there, he and Brody traipsing behind Keith while that one “read the signs.” Too bad there wasn’t a sign that said Naples Creek ahead. Watch your step. Yeah, that would have been good. Then maybe they wouldn’t have had to fish Keith out of the snow-covered invisible creek, found him soaked through every layer of “all-weather” gear, and had to lug him back to his stupid big, sustainable-living-my-ass SUV. And then drive him over an invisible road just to end up in a stupid invisible ditch.

  Brody had hollered when he’d spotted the lights of the house—now that he could make it out, Henry saw there was a goofy-cool turret lit up on the second floor like a lighthouse beacon. Bro had made a good call about that, but a totally bad one about where the damn driveway might be.

  Henry had thought the chick on the porch had ditched them. Well, first, he thought the chick on the porch was an old bid…okay, a woman of a certain age, as his mother had trained him to say. Then he thought she’d ditched them.

  But she was back, not old at all now that he got a glimpse of her face and a tug from a decently buff arm helping them up the invisible steps. She gripped his hand and pulled, and he held on to Keith, and Brody, at least Henry hoped, still held on at the other side.

  She pulled their abominable-snowmen-selves right into her entryway. She must have got the urgency, because she didn’t spare a glance at the mess they were making. “Undress him,” she said, even as she started in on him herself, finding the cinches on Keith’s vest. “I’ve got a hot bath running upstairs.”

  Smart girl. Brody got the idea, too, and, after he’d pushed the door shut behind him, he kind of stumbled to his knees and started working on Keith’s boots. Henry peeled the vest off Keith’s back as the woman handed it up and over. Between them, they got him out of his gloves and jacket and sweater layer. Henry noted she stepped back when it came time to work on the pants. It was a two-person job, now that the snow had cold-stiffened them up again, but Brody helped from his end, still crouched on the floor, his hair fallen out of his man-bun and flopping in his face.

  They splattered snow and water all over her gorgeous polished oak floors. “Sorry,” Henry said. “We’re making a mess.”

  She looked up at him—she was a good 5’9” or so, but he was a 6’3” former Rochester Institute of Technology Tiger hockey goalie, so she had to tip her head a bit—though all she did was nod and tell him she’d bring some towels. Then she took Keith’s hand. “Come on,” she said.

  Henry and Brody had exchanged a glance when they’d gotten as far as Keith’s skivvies and stopped where they were. If she’d been the old biddy he’d thought her, they’d probably have kept going. But it turned out she was kind of a looker—she had short, spiky black hair that seemed to scream sass, bright blue eyes that were dramatic even without makeup, and a totally kissable mouth. With the cold, there had to be some shrinkage factor going on, so they threw their buddy a bone and left him in his shorts.

  As it was, Keith was a pale, shivery, plucked-chicken mess—a far cry from the big, former Tiger hockey center and general ladies’ man he usually was—so he needed a little nudge from behind to get his feet moving. Henry kept prodding Keith up the stairs, but that didn’t stop him noticing that there was some potential for a nice, curvy body under the pretty much sexless clothing the gal wore.

  Really, it wasn’t that much different from what his great-grandmother would have worn on the farm back in the old country. Well, okay, what the tenant farmer’s peasant wife would have worn on his great-grandmother’s summer estate. In the winter.

  She led them through a really decent master bedroom upstairs—away from the cool turret side—to a great bathroom with a good-sized spa tub that was about half-full. Without fanfare, Henry dumped Keith into it.

  On his own initiative, with a groan that seemed an equal mix of pain and pleasure, Keith went under. He soaked his head in the hot water, swishing his hair around, then came up enough to roll and get his front side submerged. “Oh, God, that feels good.” He dunked his face in again, and Henry kind of wished he had a snorkel so the guy could just stay under. “Except for where it hurts like a sum-bitch,” he said on another breach for air. “Thank you, thank you.” He went under again.

  With a bit of a grin, Henry turned his gaze to the looker. “I think he’s grateful.”

  Those pretty blues seemed to sparkle with a bit of wry humor. But all she did was reach over, test the water, and move the faucet lever a little farther to the red.

  By that time, Brody found his way upstairs. He was in the doorway, stripped down to his surfer-boy torn blue jeans, old tee with an obscure video game reference, and stockinged feet. Good move, Henry thought, aware that his own outdoor gear was now dripping snowmelt on the woman’s bathroom floor. Bro seemed to pick up right off how Henry’s attention had drifted from Keith to the girl.

  He follow
ed suit. He ran his fingers through his sun-streaked rusty hair, then focused his soulful brown eyes on the woman. “I’m Brody Connors. The one in the tub is Keith Hutchinson. And…” He looked at Henry, obviously wanting to know if introductions had already been made.

  “Henry Brooks.”

  They waited. Henry guessed the woman was figuring she was stuck—apparently alone—in her house with three strange men for the night, at the very least. He couldn’t blame her for not really liking it. She didn’t exactly have up for a big sex party written all over her.

  Though he had to admit the idea had some merit.

  Finally, she gave it up. “Jubilee Reynolds.”

  Brody gave Henry a nudge. “You’re making more mess, man. Maybe you could go stand in that shower”—a nice slate-and-glass deal in the corner—“and peel out of your wet stuff.” Henry didn’t appreciate the interruption, but Brody was right. “And—Jubilee? You mentioned towels?”

  The guy was no more than a video game designer, but he was a rich video game designer, and, though he carried it lightly, he had a bit of the authority that accompanied scads of money. So in a couple of seconds, Henry and Jubilee were doing what he said.

  * * * *

  Keith heated up the tub a couple more times before he felt ready to get out. It had taken that long for the frostbite burn of his fingers and toes to settle down to a mild ache. He’d been cold, man. Like his buddies, he was a hockey player, so cold was part of his norm. But that little dip in the frigid creek had about turned his innards to ice. Really, he hadn’t been able to draw a breath for what had felt like hours when he’d surfaced. Hard to do when your lungs were frozen.