“I know, Mr. Bryson, but we can’t wait any longer. We need the three of you to tell us what the hell happened out there. Ryder Kinsey gave us his statement, but it just doesn’t make sense,” the young detective said.
“What is your name, detective?” Kane asked.
“Oh, sorry, sir, I’m detective Mark Cullen, and this is my partner, Asher Haynes. We’re not trying to yank your chain or anything, we just need to understand why this”—he quickly flipped through his notebook—“this Jenny Black would shoot Mr. Delray. From what I understand there is no romantic, financial, or any personal connection between the two, other than you and Ms. Morrison.”
Stephanie stomped up to the detective, and, poking her finger in his chest, she started to rail at the man.
“The only connection is Kane and I, that’s true, but Jenny Black is a certifiable, crazy-ass bitch who thinks that Kane is her fiancé and that they’re going to be married and live happily ever after. Ten years ago she went so far as to arrange for me to walk in on her and Kane when she was half naked, making me believe they’d slept together. I left town after that, but now I’m back, and she’s gone completely off the deep end. Kane belongs to me, he always has, and he always will. Turk is also mine, but Jenny isn’t fixated on him and also sees him as a threat to her crazy plan.” Taking a deep breath, she continued to explain the whole story to the young detective, poking him in the chest repeatedly.
Kane stood back and watched their woman at work. Damn, she was a sight when she got her hackles up and went into protection mode.
He looked over at a smiling Turk, who hadn’t even gotten out of the truck and was just sitting there watching the show.
“Detective Cullen, Jenny has gone so far as to start planning a wedding for her and Kane and this is even after he’s told her he wants nothing to do with her and to leave him alone. Yesterday she tried to run Turk and me off the road with her car, and when that didn’t work, she shot him. Now go do your fucking job and find and arrest her before she has a chance to hurt anyone else.” Stepping right up into the detective’s face, she said very quietly, “Because if she hurts one of my men again, I won’t feel a thing when I hunt her down myself and put a bullet in her brain. Trust me, detective, if I see her before you do, you won’t have to worry about a trial.”
Stephanie quickly turned away from the detective and walked back to the truck and into Turk’s waiting arms.
Detective Cullen pivoted to face Kane, saying, “I could have her arrested for threats, you know.”
Kane slowly walked to stand in front of the man, towering over him by at least five inches, and he looked down and sneered at him and said, “Just try it and see how long you last in this town. I’ll have you transferred so fast to some pissant place in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. She’s only protecting her family, and you know it.”
Clearing his throat, the young man took a step back and smiled. “I know, I know, but she can’t go around threatening people, even if they do deserve it.”
The older detective, who hadn’t said a word up until now, moved to pull his partner away.
“All we need is your official statements, Kane, and then we’ll leave you all alone,” he said.
“Let me get Turk in the house and settled, and then we’ll sit down and tell you everything. Rambette, over there”—he nodded and smiled at the house where Stephanie had just gone to—“has already told you a lot of the history behind it, but I know you guys need to know the details of yesterday. Can you come back in an hour? That gives us all a chance to shower and get Turk settled.”
The older detective nodded and headed over to the car, almost pulling the younger man behind him.
* * * *
Mark Cullen pulled away from his partner and stalked angrily to their waiting car.
“What the fuck was that, Asher? We need to get those statements, and the longer we wait, the more their memories are going to fade.”
Mark was a great cop. He had a solid reputation within the law enforcement community as well as the street gangs. He was a stickler when it came to making sure the law treated everyone equally. He’d gone to law school but hadn’t yet taken his bar exam. He loved being a cop, but sometimes it pissed him off at some of the inequalities in the law that how, just by having money and power, some people were able to skirt the law.
“Do you have any idea who those two men are, Mark?” Asher asked him as they got in the car.
“Yeah, they’re witnesses in a shooting who you just let out of talking to us,” the young man snapped back.
“Don’t be an ass. That’s Kane Bryson, one of the owners of Club Kinsey. You know, the club we want to join. And the other man is Garth Delray, who is a well-respected, retired intelligence officer from the Marines. He’s been decorated for bravery numerous times, and his memory is one of the reasons he was nabbed by intelligence in the first place. So don’t worry about him remembering anything about yesterday, because from what I’ve heard through my federal contact, he can’t forget things.”
Sitting behind the wheel of the car, Mark sat absorbing what his partner had just told him. They’d decided to try and get a membership in Club Kinsey after they discovered, during a night of way too much drinking, that they both were Doms who liked to share their partners and were looking for a submissive. Since that night they’d shared a lot of women and enjoyed every minute of it, but they had yet to find that special someone who was right for both of them.
“Shit, we’re never going to get a membership now. Why the hell did you let me go on and on and behave like such an ass, if you knew who they were?” Mark had heard so much about Club Kinsey and knew that they could find the perfect sub for them through there.
“I didn’t put it together right away, that’s why,” Asher said. “Look, I’m sure that Kane won’t hold that against you. He’s a businessman, and as long as you keep it low-key from now on, we should be okay. I hope.”
Mark looked at his friend then started the car heading back to the precinct to see how the hunt for Jenny was progressing. Hopefully, when they came back in an hour or so, Kane might have forgotten what an ass he’d been. Ah hell, didn’t Asher say something about Turk never forgetting anything.
* * * *
After settling Turk into bed and making sure he was comfortable, Stephanie followed Kane back downstairs to the kitchen.
“He looks so pale, Kane, are you sure he’s gonna be all right?” she asked.
“He lost a lot of blood, baby, but with what they gave him at the hospital, and with some good solid rest, he’ll be back to his old self in no time. You just wait and see. I bet by tomorrow he’s trying to talk you into bed with him.” Kane pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head.
This was one of the best places to be. In the arms of one of her men, she felt safe and secure, as if nothing on earth could hurt her. But it wasn’t her who had gotten hurt, it was one of them, and all because she came back to Kinsey. Maybe she should go away for a little while until they could find Jenny. If she thought she was gone, then she wouldn’t try to hurt either of them again, but she had promised Kane she wouldn’t run again, and that was a promise that she was going to keep.
“Kane, I’m scared,” she said into his chest. “I don’t want anyone else hurt because of me. Maybe if I headed back to the city…”
Before she could finish, Kane growled, “No.”
“Listen to me for just a minute, will you. I’m not running away, but if Jenny thinks that I’m gone from your life, maybe she’ll stop.”
She was trying to be strong, but the thought of anything else happening to one of her men was breaking her heart. The tears from the adrenaline rush of yesterday, which she’d held at bay since Turk had been shot, started to flow down her cheeks.
“What if next time she points a gun at you? I couldn’t stand to lose either of you, don’t you understand that?” She sniffed.
“One of the reasons for coming back here was to see you. I
know it’s dumb, but buying the paper just gave me an excuse, I think. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love the paper, but even without it I think I would have come back eventually. I couldn’t stop loving you no matter how hard I tried, and having this lunatic running around shooting the people I love makes me want to take the danger far away. And that danger, right now, is me.”
Stephanie just held onto Kane and cried. She hadn’t shed many tears since she left all those years ago. In the beginning, she always managed to keep herself busy so she wouldn’t have to feel the pain of Kane’s betrayal. And as time passed, it just became easier to not feel anything at all.
But now, even a hint of losing either one of these wonderful men was enough to have her falling apart.
“I’m sorry, Kane, I shouldn’t have come back.” Stephanie sniffed and stepped away from him.
He pulled her back against his body. “No, angel eyes. No more talk like that. I love you. Turk loves you, and if you even think of running again, your ass will be so sore you won’t be able to sit down for a month.”
“I promise I won’t run anymore, Kane.”
* * * *
Well, this certainly turned into a giant clusterfuck! She needed time to think and time to revise her plans.
Turk wasn’t supposed to be the one to get shot, that fucking bitch Stephanie was.
Pacing back and forth by her car, Jenny knew that they would all be looking for her, and she couldn’t go back to her parents’ house until they got home and could get her a good lawyer. She’d have to lay low for a few days. But where the hell was she going to go.
Then she remembered the old cabin that her dad used when he went hunting. No one would think to look for her there. She’d head into the next town, buy a few groceries, and then hole up in the cabin for a few days. The cell reception was pretty good, now that the new tower had been built, so she’d be able to contact her parents.
Smiling, Jenny got back into her car and turned it around and headed toward Ashcroft. She was so glad that the speed limit along the highways was good because she needed to get out of sight as quickly as possible. They wouldn’t be looking for her in Ashcroft, at least not yet, so she could slip into some local store, buy what she needed, and then take the back road to the cabin. Once she was safely hidden, she could contact her daddy and have his lawyers start working on getting her out of this mess.
She shouldn’t have been so impetuous today. Dammit! She’d waited patiently all these years for Kane Bryson to come to his senses, but no, he just couldn’t go along with the program. Fucking asshole! They would have been so spectacular together. She would have had him talked out of that crazy sex club in no time. Sure, it was great fun once in a while, but once they were married he’d have to sell his part of the club and concentrate on his security business. He could have his little friend, Turk, do all the grunt work while her father took Kane under his wing and showed him how to really grow his business and introduced him to all the right people, the type of people they were meant to socialize with.
Then after the first year, she’d pop out a kid and hand him or her over to their nanny and continue on being the perfect wife and mother. That was how it should be. That was what Stephanie Morrison had ruined. Kane would never want to be with her now, not after shooting his best friend. She’d have to come up with a good story if she wanted to get out of this mess.
Pulling up in front of the Quik Mart in Ashcroft, Jenny took a fast look around and then headed inside. She wanted to get supplies for at least a week so that if it took her daddy that long to get his lawyers moving, she wouldn’t have to go without the essentials. Grabbing a cart as she came in the front of the store, she quickly headed for the toiletries section. Maybe it would be a good idea if she dyed her hair. No, that would make her look guiltier. It would make her look like she was trying to hide.
What the hell was she doing? She was Jennifer Black, for God’s sake, and she was being made to run and hide like some criminal. Just wait until her parents heard what Kane and Stephanie had done to her. Then there would be hell to pay. Her parents would do anything she asked of them. She was their only child, after all, and they loved her dearly. They’d made sure she had the best of everything growing up. Good nannies and great teachers, and her dad even flew in a special chef to help her learn to cook. But the idiot chef just wasn’t up to the task, so that was one talent that she let fall by the wayside. Besides, she always had a cook and housekeeper anyway, so her not knowing how to make a pot roast or clean a toilet wasn’t such a big deal. Except now she would be cooking and cleaning for herself, and she had no idea what to do.
Think, Jenny! It came to her when she noticed a stand that was filled with cookbooks. Grabbing one on dinners, one on lunches, and one on snacks, she opened them up one by one and started mentally noting what ingredients she would need to make simple meals. She could do this. She could survive for a few days by herself.
After getting all the necessary groceries, she checked out and had the nice young man help her load it into her car.
She got back in behind the wheel, started the car, and headed to the cabin, confident that she’d be able to at least feed herself for a while.
* * * *
Kane stood leaning against the bedroom doorway and couldn’t help but laugh at Turk’s antics. He’d only been home a day, and he was already trying to get Stephanie into bed with him.
“C’mon, baby girl, I’m lonely in here,” he whined.
“Turk, you were shot in the shoulder, you have a lot of sutures, and I am not getting into bed to have sex with you. You’ll pull out all the stitches, and then you’ll end up back in the hospital,” Stephanie admonished him.
“Sugar, I need you. You’re flitting around me, and you look so good, I can’t help but want to bury myself inside you. Look at the hard-on I’ve been sporting all morning.”
Pointing to the where the sheet tented, Stephanie couldn’t help but smile.
“Dammit, Turk, I’d bet you’d be able to get it up even on your deathbed.”
“Well sure I would, honey, they gotta have a handle to carry my body out with, don’t they?” he asked with a little-boy grin on his face.
* * * *
She couldn’t help but giggle.
“I will come and lie down on the bed with you for a little while, but no funny business, mister. You need a lot of rest, so your hard-on is just going to have to wait for a few days.”
It can’t wait, baby. How am I supposed to not want to make love to you when you’re so beautiful and sexy and delicious…” Turk licked his lips at her and wiggled his eyebrows.
Crawling up on the bed beside him, Stephanie plumped his pillows and helped him to gently lie back again as she tried to fend off his free hand that was intent on getting under her shirt.
“I promise, I know just how to fix that nasty ol’ hard-on for you, baby,” she whispered to him.
“Mmm…now you’re seeing things my way, Steph,” Turk replied with a smile as he closed his eyes, waiting for her to make good on her promise.
Stephanie had to bite her lip so as not to laugh at the picture of anticipation Turk made, but she knew that this would be for his own good. His shoulder needed a day or so to start to heal before anything physical, and the only way was to get his mind off of sex.
“While you’re lying here resting…” She smiled over at Kane, who was still in the doorway. “You can start catching up on your reading. Kane tells me that he’s been trying to get you to look into some new security devices and that you’ve been avoiding reading the information. Now you have the time to do it.” Stephanie quickly moved off the bed and grabbed the pile of pamphlets, magazines, and books that Kane had brought in earlier.
“Seriously…! I’m wounded, and you want me to look at information about security!” Turk looked over to his partner, Kane, and glared at him.
“This isn’t over, buddy. You can have her to yourself for a little while, but once my shoulder feels better, I’m
lockin’ her and me in this room and not leaving until I’ve fucked her two ways from Sunday.” Turk scowled and pouted like a five-year-old who’d been denied a chocolate bar.
Stephanie leaned over and placed all the information Kane had gathered on the bed beside Turk. Kissing his cheek, she couldn’t help but smile when she looked down and noticed that the sheet was no longer tented.
“I’ll have to remember how much you don’t like doing this so that the next time I have to keep your mind on something other than sex, I’ll know one way to do it.” Stephanie couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him. He looked so adorable leaning back against the big fluffy pillows, his muscular chest bare and available for her to run her fingers across…damn, she needed to get out of here before she jumped into bed and gave him exactly what he wanted, and to hell with his sutures.
Quickly lowering her eyes, she could hear Kane laughing as she almost ran past him as she headed into the kitchen.
Juveniles…all men are juveniles! He knew exactly what she was thinking, and she didn’t like that one bit. For ten years she built a successful career and became a respected journalist, and in less than a month she felt everything was out of her control. Her body went into overdrive at just the sight of her men, and her brain seemed to turn to crushed grapes every time one of them kissed her. Hell, she needed her brain to focus. It had gotten her out of many a scrape in the city, and she needed it now more than ever. Her men were in danger, and she damn well would figure out a way to fix all this.
“You’re thinking too hard, angel eyes,” Kane said quietly, putting his arms around her waist and pulling her back against him.
“Yes, Kane, I’m thinking. I do have a brain, you know. At least I did until I got back into Kinsey. I’m not some dumb bimbo who can’t think for herself,” she said, trying to pull out of Kane’s arms.
“When I was in the city I dealt with gangbangers and drug dealers, and they weren’t the worst of the lot. Have you ever tried to get information from a sleazy lawyer? Ew…they all seem to want to get into my pants. But I talked my way out of it, and I got the information I wanted from them. With you and Turk around, my brain doesn’t work right. I can’t focus on the problem at hand, that problem being Jenny Black.”
Bailey, Debbie - Stephanie's Homecoming [Men of Kinsey 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 15
