Poppy's Passions Read Online Free PDF Page B

was the leaning toward family that made the three of them sit down one night and really talk for the first time in their lives.
    Over a case of beer, they'd hammered out the details of the sort of relationship they needed. They could do more, protect, and care better for one woman they all loved, rather than three they loved individually.
    It wasn't easy to sacrifice exclusive sexuality and love. The fact they would share one woman in bed and wait their turn when they wanted alone time was a hard thing to accept, but they were willing to compromise and make sacrifices for the woman who deserved the best they could give her.
    Their fathers’ relationship was a great ball of sacrifice stemming from their childhoods. Thomas and Paul's father died young, leaving their mother with nothing but twin sons to raise alone. She'd struggled because there was no one to help after Simon Paraby's death. His dads and brothers talked about her often. She'd been a spitfire, able to take care of herself even during the hardest times.
    Simon's brother Sam had been around when their grandma struggled, but Cody heard from his own mother why Grandma Paraby had never gone to him for help. Unlike Simon, Sam Paraby was a real bastard.
    Duane was his son. He'd been a dirty, bruised boy. Because they shared a name, Thomas and Paul shared their food and toys when Duane's lunch bag was empty and he played alone at recess. Sam was an abusive drunk who killed his wife. The situation left Duane with mixed feelings, ones of regret for not being able to help his mother, but also of disgust for the one he'd been sired from. Thankfully, by that time Duane was nearly grown and the next year he joined the army.
    Before he left, Duane and the twins discussed what an ideal relationship should be. They knew they were predisposed to screw up. Duane was terrified of becoming a drunk, Thomas and Paul were afraid of dying young and leaving a woman alone. They decided if they had a chance, it would be best if they worked together.
    Thomas became a lawyer while Duane nursed on the battlefields in Vietnam. Paul turned what had been a floundering farm into a paying ranch. When he got back, Duane went to medical school and became a doctor. The relationship with Mary hadn't been an overnight event, and they had struggled because they all had dominant personalities. Thirty-seven years later they still worked together and put aside their full desires to see to the happiness, welfare and pleasure of one very special woman.
    Cody couldn't ask for better parents. When he and his brothers had been young, they'd heard the fights and arguments like all kids, but unlike their peers they'd also seen the content, happy look on all of their parents’ faces, especially their mother. Cody wasn't a genius but despite his humble brain, he was able to see he and his brothers would have been settling if they'd done anything but find the same arrangement.
    It wasn't an easy prospect. Most women who'd been raised with the qualities they needed—honesty, loyalty, humor and compassion—were one-man sort of women. Their fathers counseled them to not settle for the first woman who would have them. Cody took the advice to heart, because a lifetime with the wrong mate had all the makings of hell in his mind.
    In college, women his own age hadn't interested him. Even when he found one who was mature and intelligent, there was always something he couldn't get past. Michael had been serious enough about a woman to become engaged but it hadn't worked out. When he canceled the engagement the only explanation he gave the family was “she wasn't the one.” And Trevor, Cody knew, never focused enough to be in love.
    They'd been patient a long time. Years, in fact, until Michael's thirty-fourth birthday when they'd buckled down and began the search for the right woman. They'd started going out together, but always found themselves culled apart by women looking for a single man for a singular good