by Cara Adams
Diane dragged the file for the movie studio over to the center of her desk. Nicholas and Curtis would be here any minute, and she needed to have thought out what to say to them. She had a few ideas, not really accounting-specific ideas, but they would make the business run better, which would add to the bottom line.
She jumped up and set her coffeepot to brewing, and the men timed it perfectly, arriving just as the pot beeped.
By the time they each had a hot cup of coffee in front of them, she had her thoughts clear in her head and began straightaway with the idea she’d thought of a while ago. “You need to give the movie studio a proper name. A short, catchy name that plays on what you do. It’s called branding and helps people to remember you. That way they come back to your business more often so sales increase. Right now people can’t identify your business in a crowd. You need to stand out.”
“If we stood out any more, we’d have graffiti on all the walls instead of just one,” said Curtis grumpily.
“Nonsense. Raegan will paint over it in no time.”
“All right, we’ll think about a name and get back to you on that. What else?” asked Nicholas.
“It’s time to get your fence up and your boom gate installed. You can’t wait until everything’s set up now the locals have discovered you.”
“Yeah, we worked that out, too. After we’ve met with you we’re going to talk to Larry and JB.”
Diane leaned forward over the file and began to go through the specifics of their business. It was a healthy one, and they were good managers, but there were always places where the margins could be tweaked for a better return.
At least they were going to get a name for themselves. Likely that was the absolute best next step. Even more important than the fence.
* * * *
Almost overnight, it seemed, the snow started to melt and Leticia was looking for helpers in her garden. “Just think about sinking your teeth into a juicy red tomato or biting into a crisp green pepper,” she teased the men in the barn.
David understood his sister was playing a game with him, so he challenged them, “Or you could help build the retaining wall at the lake. Imagine diving into our own lake on a hot day. Splashing around in the cool waters, swimming and having fun.”
Nicholas leaned against the wall and laughed. “How can I compete? Helping erect the scenery hasn’t got a hope against eating fresh, homegrown food or swimming with half-naked members of the opposite sex.”
“Playing the pity card, Nicholas,” Leticia teased him.
“It’s the only one I’ve got.”
Most of the people in the barn were laughing and calling out. David was so happy. He was accepted. They were all joking and laughing and enjoying themselves. But best of all he’d understood the rules of this game and knew how to play along. Finally, he was truly a member of the community.
“Thank you, Leticia,” he whispered to her.
“You do understand they’ll work out how to help all three of us, you, Nicholas, and me, don’t you?”
David nodded. Yes, he did. Leticia, Nicholas, and he would all get the help they needed, but meanwhile the men were happy to tease and joke, and he understood that. These were his people, his community, and they accepted him and he understood them. It was such an incredible feeling he felt like he should sing or dance with joy.
Sure enough, three of the older men offered to help in the garden, a group of young panthers went off with Nicholas to begin shifting the scenery, and the rest came with him.
“Larry and Omar have said we must always walk to the lake by the track for as far as possible to avoid damaging the plants,” he said as he headed for the track.
No one complained at going the long way around. They all wanted to protect the land.
David took them to the end of the track, where the trenching machine was waiting with a pile of pipes beside it. “What we’re going to do is use the soil we dig out for the hollow to lay the pipes in as the base of a retaining wall across the lowest part of the land. As the snow melts and the water runs off into the lake, if it’s too much and it floods, it’ll flood at this lowest point. Today, likely we’ll only get a foot of wall in, but once we have the base done, it’ll grow quickly and it doesn’t need to be very high anyway. It’s more a precaution than anything else.”
He glanced around the group, but everyone seemed to be nodding and agreeing with him, so he walked them to where JB had placed the pegs for the retaining wall. Already he and JB had dug in a foundation, setting a big pipe in at the lowest point.
JB and Luke, a human, were there already, with wheelbarrows and shovels, and JB explained how the wall would be erected.
David went back to the trenching machine and got started. He and JB had practiced with it a bit the previous day, and David was confident he could manage it. They’d marked out where the trench would run, how the pipes would be laid, and where exactly the wall would stretch from. When the pipes were in they planned to disguise them as much as possible by replacing the dirt and grass around them.
They’d gotten a diameter of pipe that was just right for a panther or wolf to run through. Omar was a large panther, but he wasn’t much higher at the shoulder than the wolves, although he was longer than most of them. But it was height that mattered for the pipes. Already David could imagine the chasing and games they’d be able to play, as well as being able to swim or jump from the pipe into the water. This really was a two-for-one deal as Galen had suggested, functional yet fun.
It was hard work, and the men were soon removing their sweaters and even their shirts as they shoveled the dirt up to where the wall would be built and wrestled the pipes into place. David hadn’t even realized it was lunchtime until he saw Jubilee and Jill arrive with backpacks full of food and a bucket of warm, soapy water for them to get cleaned up in before they ate.
He raced over to help them. “That’s way too heavy for you. However did you manage to carry it this far?”
“Oh, we cheated. We brought the truck as far as the end of the track,” said Jubilee.
David nodded. Jubilee was a hell of a smart woman. No doubt she’d think of a way to solve any problem.
The men all sat around and ate together. A few of them perched on the wheelbarrows and one on the overturned bucket, but most sat on the ground. David heaved a sigh of pure happiness. They’d all worked together in peace and harmony, and now they were all talking and relaxing together, almost like they were on a picnic or a vacation or something.
He hoped he never had to leave Carnal Connections. This place was home to him now.
And home included him being with Diane and Galen. His Dom and his woman. Life was pretty close to perfect right now.
* * * *
Verity didn’t know why she wasn’t asleep. It was past midnight and she’d had a hell of a good orgasm. Noah and Ezra always gave her the most amazing sex. But instead of cuddling up in bed between them, here she was walking around her new house, wide awake when she had to get up for work tomorrow in about six hours.
In her lovely new commercial-grade kitchen, she smoothed her hand along her beautiful countertops and patted her big refrigerator-freezer. She picked up her cell phone, which had been charging on the counter, but there were no messages on it. Well, there wouldn’t be. No one in their right mind was awake after midnight on a weekday.
She paced across to her kitchen window, which looked out over the movie studio land. In fact, their entire house was built on a sticking-out wedge of movie studio land between two roads, one to Carnal Connections and the other the access road to the movie studio.
“What the fuck?”
Verity rubbed her eyes and pushed her hair behind her ears. No, she wasn’t imagining it. A dark pickup truck had just pulled into the movie studio parking lot and two men climbed out of it. Not Nicholas and Curtis. For a start their truck was white, but these men weren’t them anyway.
She blinked then stood and watched as they got some things off the
backseat and then stood facing the front of the building.
“Holy fuck! The bastards! These are the graffiti bastards.”
She held her phone up to the window and clicked off some pictures of the men and of their truck, wondering if the license plate would be recognizable. She certainly couldn’t read it in the dark, but maybe someone like Galen, or Nicholas and Curtis themselves, could make the picture sharper. Then she dialed 9-1-1 and ran into the bedroom. “Noah, Ezra, those graffiti bastards are back at the movie studio!”
Noah woke instantly and was getting dressed as she spoke to the 9-1-1 operator. He shook Ezra, who finally stirred and threw on some clothing.
“Wait here,” Noah ordered her, and the two men ran out of the house toward the movie studio.
“Dammit! What about me? I’m the one who saw it first.” She went back to the window and clicked off more pictures, trying hard to get the license plate and the faces of the men.
She wasn’t sure whether the graffiti people saw Ezra and Noah coming toward them or heard the first sound of the police sirens, but even as she was trying to take some more pictures on her phone they jumped into their truck and burned rubber out of there, heading away from town, not toward where the sirens were coming from.
“The fucking bastards have gotten away!”
* * * *
“Where were you at midnight last night, Mr. Rees?” asked Officer Diaz.
“Asleep in bed. Where else would I be? Why are you asking me?”
“I’m asking the questions, Mr. Rees. I’d like it if you just answered them. Was anyone with you in bed?”
David flushed. “No, Sir.”
“So no one can give you an alibi for last night?”
“Well, plenty of people saw me in the apartment I share with the other unmarried men. Likely someone saw me cleaning my teeth and going into my room. If there were others still awake in the living room after I fell asleep, they’d know I hadn’t left the apartment. The only door is off the living area.”
“But if you’d climbed out the window, for example, no one would have seen you.”
“Climbed out the window? Why would I climb out the window when there’s a perfectly good door I could use? What’s happened? Why are you asking me all these questions?”
It was barely five in the morning and still dark. David had been woken by Oliver coming to fetch him to Larry’s office and he still had no idea what this was all about. Suddenly he had a terrible thought. “Are Diane and Galen all right? No one has hurt either of them, have they? Please tell me they’re okay.”
Officer Diaz looked at him and answered, “As far as I know, Sir, there’s no problem with either of them.”
“Then why are you here? What the fuck has happened?”
Oliver laid a hand on his shoulder and David took a deep breath. He didn’t want to get into trouble, but he was getting really worried about being treated like this. Then his brain kicked into gear. “Oh, wait. The last time you were here it was to do with the movie studio. Is there trouble there?”
“I can’t answer that question, Sir. But I do need to know if you have any witnesses to where you were after, say, eleven last night until now.”
David sighed. “I really don’t know. We were working hard yesterday. Almost all the men were, so most people were like me and went to bed early. But someone may have stayed up late. Jeff and Paul were still watching TV when I went to bed. You could ask them.”
“I intend to.”
Then the other officer, the one who’d remained silent all the time until now, cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Rees, I think it would be a good idea if you came down to the police station with us now.”
Both Omar and Larry, who were also present, seemed about to speak, but then Larry’s door was pushed wide open and Cameron’s tall figure, fully dressed in a business suit, white shirt, and gray tie, with polished black shoes and neatly brushed light-brown hair, appeared in the doorway.
“Good morning, Officer Nguyen and Officer Diaz. I’m Cameron Wilson. As an attorney registered with the State Bar Association of Ohio, and as Mr. Rees’s attorney, I don’t agree that him going with you now would be a good idea at all. He’s answered all your questions. He doesn’t own a black truck, and he does not fit the descriptions of the men Verity, Noah, and Ezra saw at the movie studio earlier today. Therefore I believe your interview of him has concluded. My client will, of course, be happy to answer any further questions you may wish to ask him, in my presence, at a later date.”
David felt his mouth drop open and he had to work to force it shut. Cameron had called him his client. Did he actually need an attorney? Did the police really think he was the graffiti artist? Oh, shit!
Chapter Five
Diane was not really awake but not fully asleep either when her cell phone rang. She rolled over in bed and grabbed it without opening her eyes.
“Yes?”
“Diane, it’s Leticia. Are you awake?”
Diane opened her eyes and sat up. “Yes. What’s wrong, Leticia?”
“The police have been interviewing David for ages. They think he’s the one who did the graffiti at the movie studio.”
“David? Graffiti? Why would David do that?”
“Hey, I don’t know. But Oliver asked me to pass on some messages to you.”
Diane shook her head and scrambled to get her brain working properly. God, she needed some coffee. “Wait. Oliver is with the police and David? He’s contacted you with mental telepathy?” Leticia had developed mental telepathy after she mated Oliver and William. The three of them could read each other’s thoughts sometimes, but Leticia was much better at it than anyone else. She could also communicate with David to some extent and with the other panther women a little, too.
“Omar called Oliver and told him to get David and go to Larry’s office. That was a while ago. I didn’t pay much attention. I thought they needed to fix something that was broken straightaway. Then I got the feeling David was worried about something, so I asked Oliver what was happening. He told me the police seem to think David is the one doing the graffiti, which we know is absurd. Then he asked me to send William to get Cameron urgently. Since Cameron is an attorney, I could only assume the situation was not looking good for David. After William went to get Cameron, I asked Oliver for details, and that’s how I know the story. I told him I was going to contact you, and William has now gone to tell Galen what’s happening.”
It seemed the entire community was aware she, David, and Galen were playing sexy games together. Well, their relationship was in its early days yet, and she’d rather have kept her private life private a bit longer, but it was too late now to worry about it. “David’s going to need to have an alibi twenty-four-seven from now on. I need to work out how that can be possible. I’d better talk to Galen. And David as soon as he gets out of the meeting.”
“Cameron may need to give him instructions first,” warned Leticia.
“You’re right. Thank you for letting me know, Leticia.”
“That’s okay. If I can do anything else for you, just ask.”
Diane stared at her phone for a while then texted Galen. She didn’t know if he’d have gone straight to Larry’s office or what, so texting seemed more appropriate than trying to talk to him.
We need to give David an alibi 24/7. I’ll be in my office in half an hour.
Diane jumped off her bed and hurried into the shower. Her room was one of the few bigger rooms with its own bathroom attached. As well as a bed and dressing table, there was a big built-in closet and a small dining table, which she usually used as a desk, two straight-backed chairs, an armchair, and a TV on top of a cabinet holding her books, china, and other things.
As she got dressed she assessed the space critically. If the bed was taken out and replaced by a bigger one, one that would fit three people, and she moved the table against the wall, she could push the dressing table right into the corner of the room…Yes, that’d work. The men would only be
able to keep a small amount of their things in her room, just a few changes of clothes really, stuff that would fit in her closet, which was by no means full, but it’d work. David and Galen could sleep here with her. She certainly couldn’t go to the unmarried men’s apartment, and she was pretty sure neither Galen nor David would want to sleep on the floor of the other man’s room, but the three of them in here would work.
Diane grinned. And the bonus would be that at last they could fuck in a bed. Ha! That would be the silver lining to this particular cloud!
* * * *
Galen had been just as happy with his photographs the next day when he’d opened the files to check them. Sometimes pictures that had seemed fine when they were taken suddenly developed all sorts of faults when looked at with a cool eye and a cold heart a few days later. But this time, fortunately, the pictures still showed exactly what he’d been hoping for—the intrinsic beauty in a fine piece of architecture, even though time’s decay had taken the shine away from the building’s external fabric.
Relieved, he’d spent several hours compiling his explanatory cover letter, making up his account for the time spent on the project, assembling all the files, and sending it off to World Photography.
He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been about wanting his work to be perfect, how totally engrossed in it he’d been for the past few days, until he woke late from a deep, refreshing sleep after everything was finished and sent away and by the time he emerged from his room, the apartment was silent. In fact, the entire place was silent. He wondered if there was an event on in the barn, but when he got there the place was empty. Finally he wandered around the back of the main building and discovered a group of people working in the vegetable garden and Autumn sitting on the back deck, surrounded by a pile of yarn patterns.
