Claiming Kara [Fate Harbor 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Caitlyn O'Leary

  Josie’s brown eyes twinkled. “Kara, only because you asked so nicely will I go back to see if I have any in my emergency reserve.” Kara winced as she heard Josie’s warm laughter wafting back to her as she made her way to the kitchen.

  “What the hell was that, sis? I can’t remember the last time you were such a bitch to somebody who clearly didn’t deserve it. Are you all right?” Eric asked, concern etched in his features.

  Josie came back holding up a small, pink box. “Here you go. Give me a call tonight, okay? I want to hear how your date went with Jim last night, and we can talk about next Saturday’s exhibit. Is Jim still escorting you?” Josie asked.

  Kara hunched her shoulders, trying to smile at her friend, but she was beginning to feel a little hounded. “How much do I owe you?”

  “They’re on the house. I always keep some in the back for you and Karen, just in case,” Josie said with a grin. Kara was touched. She was so lucky to have such great friends.

  “I’ll call you tonight and give you the lowdown on Jim. Thanks for the rolls, you’re a lifesaver. When do I get to babysit Lissa again?” she asked, referring to Josie’s three-month-old baby girl.

  “You name the day you’re available, and I’ll find a reason for us to be gone.” Josie giggled. Then she turned to Eric. “What can I get you, Eric?”

  “Do you have some peanut butter brownies I can take to the guys at the firehouse?” he asked. Josie packed him up a box, and then Eric walked with Kara back to her Bronco.

  “So, who’s Jim? You two must be pretty serious, if he’s escorting you to your exhibit next Saturday.” Eric slipped his hand into the side of the box, retrieving a brownie as he eyed his sister.

  “Yeah, he’s a nice guy. We’ve been dating for over a month. I figured I’d introduce him to everyone next week.”

  “You sleeping with him?” With his first bite, Eric wolfed down half the treat. Kara stared at him incredulously, and it wasn’t because of his eating habits.

  “That’s really none of your business.”

  “So you haven’t had sex with him,” he confirmed. “Why not, if it’s been over a month?”

  “Eric, I’m not having this conversation with you,” she said in a heated voice.

  “Look, Ben and Quinn—” he started.

  “Stop! Just stop right there. I’m with Jim now. He’s here. He lives here. He’s the man who’s interested in me. I don’t want to talk about what might have been, or what could be. I want to talk about what is. What is, is Jim. He’s a really nice man, whom you will meet on Saturday.” She grabbed the other half of the brownie from her brother’s hand, popped it into her mouth, and opened the door to her car, leaving him with his mouth open.

  * * * *

  By the time she got home that afternoon, she was excited to see that the glass was ready to be poured into the molds. It was her first time to use the molds and the new glass mixture and she felt as giddy as a kid going to her first carnival. She carefully donned all of her protective gear. It was fine to be excited, but there was no reason to be stupid enough to end up in the hospital with burns. Been there, done that, she thought ruefully. She picked up the crucible from the kiln with specially made tongs and carefully poured the hot liquid into the plaster mold.

  After she was done, she was sweating and trembling from the weight of the crucible, the heat of the molten glass, and having to handle all of it with a pair of tongs. This was the reason she had such good upper body strength, and she always liked to wear sleeveless dresses to show off her well-defined upper arms. But right now, said arms felt like overcooked spaghetti. When she was finally finished and everything was safely put away in the studio, it was almost 8:00 p.m. She still owed Josie a phone call, which she figured she could do from the bathtub.

  She fed Butch and Sundance, crawled into the bath, and flipped through her phone. She ignored the two calls from Eric, and the three calls from Dane. Obviously, Eric had talked to their brother Dane, so best to avoid them. She saw that Trixie had texted her back and had added her vases to the exhibit. God, she loved working with competent people. She also saw that Jesenia had called and probably wanted to go out, or to talk about supplying flowers for the exhibit. Kara would call her tomorrow. So, now was the perfect time for the Josie gabfest.

  “It’s about time you called! I’ve been waiting all day.” Josie didn’t even say hello, but her greeting made Kara smile.

  “Hello to you, too, Mary Sunshine! How is life in love and as a mom?” Kara asked, still smiling.

  “How’s life as a famous artist? Who lives on a secluded forest compound, surrounded by ferocious security dogs, and is now seeing a hot, new Seattle surgeon?” Josie asked.

  “Well, when you put it like that, my life rocks,” Kara said with a laugh.

  “Tell me all about surgeon boy,” Josie demanded. “How far around the bases have we gone?”

  “What are you? My mother? Geez, Josie!”

  “Geez, Kara! You’ve been holding this really cute guy off for over a month, and last I heard he hadn’t even gotten to touch a booby. So, what’s the deal?” Kara squirmed in her tub and grabbed her glass of cabernet sauvignon off the floor to take a large swallow. “Are you drinking? Cause if you are, that’s not fair,” Josie whined into the phone.

  “Yeah, well—you’re the one who wanted to have a baby, so until you stop the breastfeeding thing, no drinking for you. Serves you right anyway, after asking me all these intrusive questions,” Kara said indignantly.

  “Intrusive, my ass,” replied Josie. “I noticed you sent a whole hell of a lot of ‘intrusive’ my way when I first got together with Chance and Sam. I think you just wanted to live vicariously through me,” Josie huffed.

  “Maybe I did, so sue me,” Kara huffed back at her. “Don’t tell me that the shine is already off that particular apple. I know damn well that you don’t need to be living vicariously through me and Dr. Jim, so what’s with all the questions? You’re not reporting back to my brothers, are you?”

  “Hey, I don’t deserve that.” Suddenly Josie’s voice was serious. “I’m just a little worried about you, Kara. Karen and I both are. It seems like you might be settling.”

  “So, are you and Karen talking behind my back, or what? Because I just played twenty questions with her this morning!” Kara said indignantly, sitting up straight in the bath.

  “Kara, now wait just a minute—”

  “I’m sorry, forget I said that. Can you please forget I said that? Please?” Kara waited. There was nothing but silence on the phone. “Please, Josie, I didn’t mean to sound like I was in high school. I know you both only have my best interests at heart, I swear I know that.” Kara listened intently and heard Josie sniff.

  “Ah, Josie, did I make you cry?” Kara asked.

  “No,” Josie said in a trembling voice.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I’m behaving like an idiot. This whole thing has me tangled in knots. I don’t know how to explain it all,” Kara wailed.

  “It’s okay, honey, just talk. Say whatever comes to your mind, just get it off your chest,” Josie encouraged.

  “Okay. Remember, you asked for it, and I’m not going to make any sense,” Kara warned. “I’m not going to sleep with him next weekend, but I am the following weekend. My dogs hate him. What am I going to do? I like him. He’s nice. He smells nice. He’s a nice kisser. He’s a doctor. He likes me. I’m worried that he might love me. Did I tell you that my dogs don’t like him? I have to shower every time I come home from a date with him before they’ll let me play with them. Josie, I’m thirty now. I’m going to turn thirty-one this year. I want to get married. I want a baby, too. He’s nice. What do I do?”

  Kara set the phone down on the side of the tub and hit speaker, and then picked up her bottle of wine and refilled her glass. She took another large sip—not a gulp, just a very large sip—of wine, while she waited for her friend to make heads or tails of what she had just said.

  “First, I’
m glad he’s nice. Nice is really important. What woman wants a deep-down asshole?” Josie asked.

  “Thank you!” Kara toasted the phone. “I always knew nice was important,” she agreed vehemently.

  “But nice is just the flour of a recipe, you know? We still need to add in the other ingredients to make up the dessert. For Olivia, we needed to make up chocolate cake. For me, it needs to be a brownie. For Jesenia, it needs to be a torte almandine. For you and Karen, it needs to be cinnamon rolls. They all need flour, but after that, they all need very different ingredients.”

  “But we all agree, we have to start with cake flour, i.e. nice,” Kara said into the speaker phone, taking another large sip of her red wine. Finally she was feeling the effects of the bath and the wine. The conversation was beginning to tense up her muscles, though.

  “All of us can agree that we need nice. We need flour. What else do you need in your treat?” Josie asked.

  “Mmmh?” Kara sighed, but the phone picked it up, and Josie heard.

  “Kara,” she said sharply. “Jim is nice. What else does he do for you?”

  “He ummm…he ummm…” Kara bent over the side of the tub and picked up the towel from the floor and put it behind her head, and stretched back, resting her head against the towel. After she was comfortable, she took another large sip—not a gulp—of her wine. Damn, now she had to refill her glass again.

  “Okay, let me ask it from another angle. What do you need from your treat? What does your treat, your man, need to provide to you? Provide for you? Do you even know what you want, honey?” Josie asked in a soft and supportive voice.

  “Yeah Josie, I do know. I know that my treats have to be here. They have to want to be with me. He—they—won’t send me away. They can’t say they want to be with me, and then keep finding more important things to do. So, if you ask what Jim provides, well, he wants to be with me. He likes me. He won’t leave me. He’ll stay with me.”

  “Honey, you have two dogs that will stay with you. There’s got to be more than that,” Josie said in that same reassuring tone. Kara lifted her leg out of the tub and watched as the water sluiced down her skin back down into the bathwater. She was taking the time to consider what her friend had said, and then answered straight from her gut, from her heart.

  “I want what you and Karen have, I want a family. I’ve been waiting for a long time for fireworks. But now I just want nice, and a family. Is that so wrong? I’ve been on eighteen first dates in the last year and a half, and this is the first guy who has made it to the second date, Josie. I’m a picky bitch. I’m going to sleep with him, and I’m probably going to marry him, and count myself lucky.”

  “But you don’t love him,” Josie wailed.

  “I can learn to love him,” Kara assured her. “I’ve learned how to unlove someone. Okay, two someones. How tough can it be to learn how to love just one someone? Especially when they’re nice and smell good?” she asked. Oops, now her voice was beginning to sound sad. No more wine for her.

  “All I want is for you to be happy,” Josie said softly. Kara was worried she could hear a tremor in Josie’s voice.

  “Josie, I promise not to do anything foolish. I’m going to think everything through very logically and make the smartest decision I know how to make,” Kara assured her.

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” Josie sighed. Kara could hear Lissa crying in the background.

  “So when do I get to babysit? I need a Lissa fix,” Kara complained.

  “Plan on coming over on Wednesday at five o’clock and just spending the night, because I don’t know what time the three of us will be home. So, bring the puppies. We have plenty of fenced-in space for them to play. We won’t want you driving home so late.”

  “Josie, it’s a twenty-minute drive home, and I’ve lived here all my life.” Kara laughed.

  “Sam and Chance will worry. They’ll insist on following you home, and then it’ll ruin the momentum of the night out, if you get my meaning.” Josie giggled, and Kara joined in.

  “I don’t want to interfere with you and your men’s mo-mentum. More like mo-jo, if you ask me! Okay, I’ll pack a bag. Are you sure about Butch and Sundance? They aren’t really puppies anymore. I can put out their food, and they have their huge doghouse outside, anyway. So, it’s fine to leave them alone all night.”

  “Are you kidding? Sam will love taking them on a run around the lake Thursday morning.”

  “Yeah, of course he’d enjoy that, because my traitorous dogs like Sam, but they don’t like Dr. Jim. Can you please explain that to me, Josie?” Kara demanded. Josie just laughed. Kara heard Lissa crying harder in the background.

  “Sounds like Little Miss really wants to be fed, so I’ve got to go. If I don’t see you sooner for a cinnamon roll fix, I’ll see you on Wednesday. I really appreciate the babysitting services, Kara, thanks a lot!” Josie said before she hung up.

  “No worries, thank you for the ‘baby fix’!” Kara said before she hit the “end” button.

  Chapter 6

  “Kara, can you stir the gravy, honey?” Kara stopped shredding the lettuce and went over to the stove so she could stir the contents of the saucepan like her mother asked. Cooking wasn’t her forte, but she loved being in the kitchen with her mom, helping out. They were down to placing the last items for the meal on the table, and everything was almost complete. But Kara always liked to stay the last few moments in the kitchen, to wrest as much quality time with her mom as possible before the mayhem ensued around the table. It was probably just a survival instinct since they were outnumbered by five other men in the family.

  “Okay, the gravy’s started to bubble, Mom. Now, what should I do?”

  “Conn!” her mom called for one of her dads. A man the spitting image of Eric ambled through the swinging kitchen door and immediately deduced the dilemma, picking up the heavy saucepan.

  “Where’s the gravy boat?” he asked as Ilsa Johansen pulled it out of one of the cupboards. He poured the gravy into the container, then placed the pan back onto the stove. “Looks great, ladies,” he said as he kissed each one on their cheeks. Both women gave the man a big hug. “Should I gather everyone?” he asked.

  “Ten more minutes,” Ilsa said.

  “Gotcha, beautiful.” He winked as he left the kitchen.

  “Okay, honey, now it’s just the salad, so we can have a glass of wine, and then have supper. I’ve missed you!” Her mother smiled at her. Kara looked at the woman who had raised her and realized that she had missed her, as well.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I have no idea why I haven’t been over more often.” Kara shook her head in surprise.

  “I do,” her mother stated firmly. “If you think about it, you would know why, too.” She started chopping up the bell peppers and radishes that were going into the salad while Kara continued to shred the different lettuce and spinach leaves. Finally, she looked sideways at her mom.

  “Seriously, I don’t get it. Why do you think I haven’t been over here?”

  “It’s been hurting you to see me with your dads, because it’s what you had your heart set on with the Shotbrook brothers.” And just like that, Kara had to work damn hard to fight back a sob. But there was no way to stop the flood of tears from falling. Her mom was there, just like she had always been, her rock, holding her. She thought she heard the sound of the swinging door, but nobody came in so she must have imagined it. She was safe in her mother’s arms.

  After five minutes, she was feeling a little better, at least well enough to grab a dishcloth out of the drawer to run cold water over it and put it on her face. Thank God she didn’t normally wear make-up, otherwise everyone would know she’d been in here crying, and she just couldn’t handle any awkward questions. Finally, she looked at her mom.

  “So, how did you know?”

  “You’ve become a serial dater. It’s been entertaining, but it’s so not you. In the beginning, you came over with such funny stories, but then you came over less an
d less, and you got sadder and sadder. Your fathers finally figured it out. First they noticed that you weren’t as affectionate toward them during the past few months. They thought they’d done something to hurt your feelings. Let’s face it, you were always the apple of both your dads’ eyes, so for you not to hug them and talk to them is a big deal. One Sunday dinner, Dane brought up how Ben and Quinn were doing with their fishing enterprise, and Conn said you looked gutshot, and that’s when he put it together. It wasn’t so much you were having trouble with them as your dads, but for the first time you were seeing them as brothers in a ménage relationship like you wanted to have with Ben and Quinn Shotbrook.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mom. I didn’t even realize I had done that. Oh my God, I have to go and apologize,” Kara said, aghast.

  “No, you don’t. They’re your dads. They love you and understand. The three of us are worried about you. Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure, anything.” Kara couldn’t believe she had been behaving so badly. God, what else could she possibly fuck up?

  “Why haven’t you just gone up to Sitka and told them what you want and need? Why have you been just sitting around waiting the last two years for them to pull their heads out of their asses?” Ilsa Johansen asked with a bite. It was clear that she was less than pleased that the two men had not been treating her daughter as well as she thought they should. Kara knew that her mom had to be really stressing as her tears turned into sobs, but she just couldn’t help it. “Oh, Mom, I did. I did it eighteen months ago,” Kara gasped out between sobs. Ilsa held her daughter tightly. When the swinging door opened again and Ilsa saw the heads of her two husbands peer in, she again shook her head, and they backed out. She continued holding her daughter.

  “Tell me what happened, Kara,” Ilsa coaxed.

  “They’re so stupid.”

  “Well, that’s perfectly clear,” her mother said crisply. “But when did you go? I don’t remember you making a trip to Alaska.”