Free Destined by Allyson Young

DESTINED
     
    Marking Time, 1
     
    Allyson Young
     
    Copyright
© 2014
     
     
     
    Chapter One
     
    Oh lord, she was mucking this all
up. She’d waited until the celebration of her homecoming from vet school was
over, lain awake in her lonely bed all night thinking about this moment, waited
for her men—she hoped—to finish morning chores and join her for this offer.
    Sinclair Renton stared up at the
two most beloved faces her world encompassed, both boasting strong, handsome
features, bronzed from all the hours working outside on the ranch. Two pairs of
eyes, one the blue of the prairie sky in full summer, the other the midnight
blue of late fall evenings, stared back at her with identical expressions of
shock … and something else. Something she wasn’t experienced enough to
interpret, but what she thought—hoped—was a spike of desire and longing. Ashton
hid his feelings better than Craig, but she was sure he felt things for her.
And there was a shimmering flicker in his brother’s gaze. Please Lord that she
hadn’t misinterpreted all those signals over the years. She’d waited so long.
Waiting until she had something to offer, more than only herself.
    The lust consuming her every waking
moment around them was , right now, seriously
undermined by Craig and Ashton Russell’s predominating incredulity. Sinclair
hoped her interpretation of those other, muted, responses was accurate and
would save the day. If only she could do this right…
    Rose, their housekeeper, was away
visiting family, so there would be no one to cramp their style. She’d even dressed
for the occasion and thought she had the convincing argument.
    “Sinclair, honey. You can’t know what you’re saying here. We’re your brothers.”
    “You aren’t.” She desperately
strove to calmly reason with Ash. As the elder brother, twenty-nine to her
almost twenty-two years, he was the one to convince initially. “You’re my foster brothers. Big
difference. I’m not a little kid anymore.”
    “No, Sinclair.” Craig weighed in,
his face taking on a somber look, his gaze now an inscrutable deep indigo. “You
were raised with us, like a sister. It’s not right you have these feelings for
us. You’re confusing them with … something else.”
    Seizing on his hesitation, she
burst into speech. “I’m not confused. I’m definitely not. Yes, I grew up with
you, thanks to our—your—wonderful parents. And yes, you came to look out for me
and treated me like a pain in the ass little sister. But that started to change
when I hit puberty.”
    Hadn’t
it? Not that she could fault them in any of their behaviors. No one could.
They were honorable men in all their dealings. She loved them for that quality,
too, and so many others.
    How could an indistinguishable
arctic chill freeze both of them into formidable, offended, hunks of manhood? Of course. She’d
insinuated they had crossed some kind of line. She hurried to correct it.
    “It was me. I developed different
feelings for you, and while I know you probably thought it was some kind of
adolescent crush, those feelings haven’t changed. Not over the years. Well,”
she amended, “I’m an adult now and presumably have adult needs and desires, but
essentially I feel the same things about you. Both of you. Even if you never gave me reason to think you were interested.”
    Until she went away to school and
their happiness and pleasure during her infrequent visits back home told her
something different, no matter how they stuttered and corrected themselves. Not
to mention the very frequent phone calls and email contact. As brotherly as
those were set out to be, she knew it went beyond familial feelings. And then
there was the way she caught them looking at her when they thought she was
unaware. Like she was lunch. The same way she
considered them.
    Craig lowered himself onto a dining
room chair as if his legs would no longer support him, and Ashton followed
suit. She watched as they exchanged a