by Lexi Blake
“And Nell would say we deserved it. Do you understand the chaos that Nell taking over city hall would bring? I think you are underestimating how important the office of mayor is to Bliss. And I think you would do a hell of a job. It’s up to you. Laura will come around. I can work on her. If you want to give Miami a shot, I’ll make sure it happens. Nate has connections with the DEA, and I’m sure he can give me some serious recommendations. I can try Miami PD maybe.”
He didn’t like the thought of Cam on the streets. He didn’t like it at all. “But you love it here.”
Cam sat forward, a sad smile on his face. “And you’re my partner. You gave it a shot. I won’t have you miserable. We’ll find a way. We’ll compromise because we’re a family. I’m going to go talk to our wife. You think about it for a while. We’re supposed to be at Trio for some weird ceremonial thing that proves Wolf’s girl isn’t an alien queen. I have to go fire up the Detector 6000. Stef made it special for the wedding. You won’t want to miss it.”
He walked out the door, leaving Rafe alone in Hiram’s tiny cabin.
There would be no Detector 6000s for Cam in the Miami PD. There wouldn’t be Big Game Dinners or Winter Festivals where Sierra could ride ponies. There would be no crazy town hall meetings.
He looked around. Hiram had lived alone for the last fifty or so years, but Rafe couldn’t tell from the pictures on the wall. He stood up and stared at that wall. Forty or so pictures hung in cheap frames, but somehow they made a rich canvas of the man’s life. There were old black and whites, one of a very large family. The man who was obviously the father had a grim look on his face, and the others were crowding in, looking similarly stoic. Only one boy was grinning like a loon.
Hiram. Maybe he’d never fit into that large, serious family, but he’d kept the photo. There was a picture of Hiram and a woman who looked a whole lot like Max and Rye Harper. They were dressed in late seventies clothes. She was smiling at the camera and holding up a trout she’d caught, but Hiram’s face was toward her and he practically glowed.
There were pictures of Hiram with Stella and a young Stef, with Jamie and Noah’s dads and mom out at the Circle G. He recognized some of the locals who had been here long before him because Stella had taken him through her albums one night. There was a picture of Hiram handing out diplomas to Max and Rye and Stef and Callie.
The last one caused Rafe’s throat to tighten. It was a picture of Hiram holding up Sierra Rose.
Hiram had come to the small party that welcomed his daughter. Hiram had picked her up, pronounced her perfect, and welcomed her as the newest citizen of Bliss.
Tears filled Rafe’s eyes because he finally realized something.
Sierra had already lost a grandfather. And if Rafe took his family out of Bliss, she would lose a whole family.
Blood. All his life it had been pounded into his brain. Blood made a family, a long line of DNA that connected him to ancestors who the history books talked about.
But here was a whole life laid out in faded pictures and knickknacks, and suddenly it was lovely to him. Hiram’s history didn’t span Europe. It was all about a lifetime spent in Bliss. It was about a world of friends who became family. They didn’t need blood. Hell, half the time they didn’t have anything in common with the singular exception of where they lived, but somehow it had worked for Hiram.
Because he’d been open. Because he’d made his decision and he hadn’t looked back. He’d moved forward. He’d forged his own life, his own path.
Wasn’t that all a father could ask for his child?
Rafe sat back and allowed a wealth of history to play in his brain.
Invitation to A Meeting of Men
Chapter Fourteen
Leo, Shelley, and Wolf
Leo needed a drink. Or five. But he was pretty sure he should stay away from the tonic, because in about three minutes he was going to be brutally dehydrated. This afternoon seemed to never end. He would glance at his watch, but he’d left it behind with his clothes.
He pulled the flap on the sweat lodge and steam threatened to overtake him. He crawled through anyway, his eyes blinded momentarily by the intense heat.
Leo made it through the steam and found the sitting area. He sat back on the bench Mel had thoughtfully provided. In the center of the lodge was a small fire and a bunch of rocks covering it. Mel had a bucket next to him. He took the ladle from the bucket and doused the rocks with water, sending heat into the already humid air.
“Welcome, my spiritual sons.”
God, he wished his “spirit dad” had some clothes on.
Wolf leaned over and whispered. “You know for a skinny dude, he’s got an awfully big—”
Leo elbowed his brother. He was not going there. He did not want to know what his momma saw in Mel. “Thank you for hosting this get-together.”
He couldn’t call it a party. A party wasn’t a bunch of naked dudes drinking rotgut whiskey while only Julian and Jack maintained their dignity. It was more like hell.
Mel smiled. “It’s my pleasure. Your friends seem real nice. Except that Julian fella. He’s got the look of a hunter about him. There are natural alien hunters in the world, you know. Born to protect our Earth. I think I should talk to him about taking up the fight.”
“You should totally do that,” Wolf said encouragingly.
Wolf loved the surreal.
Leo loved reality. “I think Julian is busy with his businesses. Mel, we wanted to talk to you about something else.”
Mel nodded. “I figured you would. That’s why I wanted us to spend some time in the sweat lodge. This is a place for men. Now, I know you don’t have a daddy around to talk to you, so your momma asked me to explain some things to you.”
“Actually, that’s what we wanted to ask you about,” Leo began.
“Sex is nothing to be afraid of, boys,” Mel said with a grave seriousness.
“Oh, god,” Wolf whispered, his eyes going wide. “We’re going to get the sex talk.”
Mel leaned forward. “You see, when you marry a woman, she’s going to expect certain things of you, including physical affection. I want to make sure you boys understand how to bring a human woman to pleasure. It’s different than what your alien instincts will tell you. Women have different parts than men. I brought some magazines to show you.”
Leo held out a hand. He was not going to sit in a tent with Mel and look at seventies porn magazines. “We know about sex.”
“God, you’re no fun,” Wolf grumbled.
Mel nodded sagely. “I tried to tell Cassidy that you two probably understood, but she was real insistent that you were both pure.”
“Mel, I’ve been married before,” Leo pointed out.
“Oh, well, then you understand.”
“But I’m totally pure,” Wolf said quickly. “I could use some pointers.”
“You’ve fucked your way through half of Southern Colorado. I don’t even want to know what you did overseas.” He wasn’t going to indulge his brother’s deep love of the surreal. “Mel, we do need your help, though it’s not with sex.”
“Alien issues?” Mel asked.
Leo managed to not scream. Maybe he should switch his psychological efforts from Max to Mel. “No. It’s a family issue, though it turns my stomach to call that man family.”
Mel’s eyes narrowed. “Are you talking about Robert?”
Well, at least they were off the aliens. “Yes.”
“If you’re thinking about reuniting with your father, I’m going to ask you to reconsider. I know you missed having a daddy, but he’s no good.”
Well, Mel proved he could be sane from time to time. “I don’t want to have anything to do with the bastard. He found me, not the other way around.”
Mel’s eyes closed briefly. “If he’s back then he wants money. You should know he’s going to try to blackmail you. Whatever he comes at you with, tell him no and I’ll take care of the situation. You boys don’t have to worry about anything. You
concentrate on your wedding.”
“He’s done this to Ma before?” How much had his mother kept from him?
Mel sighed. “Every now and then he gets out of jail and he comes looking for cash. When you two were kids, he would threaten to have her institutionalized so she would lose custody unless she gave him everything she had. She would save up money for years at a time, and he would walk in and take it all because she didn’t have anyone to lean on.”
“I’m going to kill the fucker.” Wolf practically growled beside him.
Mel gave Wolf a hard stare. “No you are not because if anything happened to either one of you, your momma would lay down and die. She spent her whole life protecting you.”
“Did he hit her?” His mother would never talk about those years before his father had walked out. Leo was almost certain there had been some physical abuse.
“Yeah,” Mel said, taking a deep chug off his water bottle. At least Leo hoped that was water.
Well, he’d always wondered why his parents had split. His mother wouldn’t talk about it, preferring to discuss alien invasions when he brought the subject up. He’d had a couple of theories. He’d always worried that she’d driven him away with her special brand of crazy, but now he was pretty sure he knew the truth and it made him love his mother all the more. “She took it until the day he hit me.”
Wolf sat up, his head brushing the top of the tent. “Leo?”
It was a dream he’d had since childhood, but now he realized it was more like a memory. His father standing over him, a shadowy figure with no real substance. His mother screaming and then telling him everything would be all right.
His mother had been stronger than he’d ever given her credit for.
Mel reached out and put a hand on Leo’s shoulder. “You made her strong, Leonardo. Her love for you and Wolfgang made her real strong, and you have to honor that by staying away from the bastard. It’s what she fought all her life to do. She gave up everything so you wouldn’t have to know the truth about the man who calls himself your father.”
“Shit.” Wolf let his head drop to his hands. “How could we not have known about this? Chase told me about the police report, but I didn’t think it was this bad. She only filed the one.”
Leo hadn’t seen the report McKay-Taggart had compiled for Julian a few years back. When he’d come out of the main building feeling completely vulnerable because his junk was hanging out, he’d found Chase and Wolf discussing the facts of the case. It hadn’t surprised him that Julian already knew everything. But hearing it from someone close to his ma somehow made it more real. “Mel, we can’t let him hurt her anymore. We’re not children. It’s time we took care of her.”
“No.”
Leo waited for a moment, but Mel didn’t say anything more. “You can’t say no.”
“I sure can,” Mel replied simply. “Your mother belongs to me now, and this situation is something for me to take care of. And I am serious about that.”
If he knew Mel, Mel would probably handle the situation by calling aliens down on the asshole. “I don’t want Ma to know he’s here.”
“She won’t. I’ll take care of it before the wedding. Don’t worry about it.” Mel sat back. “Now, are you sure you two know about orgasms? Because they’re very important to women. They get real twitchy when they haven’t had one in a long time. And the women around here have guns. They ain’t afraid to use them on a selfish son of a bitch.”
“Mel, you can’t just throw that information out there.” They needed to talk about this.
One of Mel’s surprisingly muscular shoulders shrugged. He actually didn’t look as skinny out of his normal coveralls. “Sure I can because I have it handled. Don’t you go worrying about it. I told him what would happen if he came back.”
The hits kept coming. “He’s come around since we grew up?”
“Sure,” Mel replied. “He got out of prison after doing a stretch for bilking old ladies out of their social security checks. It was right after Wolf had come home from the Navy, and Cassidy was real worried about him. Robert showed up and mentioned that maybe he should reconnect with his poor injured kid.”
Wolf huffed. “I wasn’t so injured I couldn’t have shot the shit in the face.”
Wolf had been a little lost after his injuries cost him his SEAL career. Leo knew exactly why Robert’s threat would have scared his mother. Wolf had been vulnerable, looking for something to make his life meaningful. A good con artist could potentially have worked Wolf over. “Did Ma pay him off?”
“Nah.” Mel waved that thought off. “She came to me. She wasn’t alone this time, and she was smart enough to not try to hide it from me. She knew I would take care of the problem for her.”
“Okay, well, he never contacted me, so I have to assume you did something,” Wolf said.
Mel nodded. “Sure, I did. I sent the fucker back to jail. He was on parole. I made sure he missed a parole meeting. While he was my guest, we talked about a couple of things, including what would happen if he ever approached my woman again. It looks like I should have been more detailed about the consequences. Cassidy says I get too focused on one thing and forget about how important the details can be.”
Leo found himself staring at Mel, perfectly shocked. “You distracted him so he couldn’t get to his meeting with his parole officer?”
Mel shook his head. “Oh, no. Distraction isn’t the right word. He was real insistent about making that appointment. So I tied him up and we had a nice long talk. But I’m not a horrible son of a bitch. I also told him about the alien invasion. This time I’m going to let the fuckers take him, if you know what I mean.”
Mel was crazy, and that was kind of cool. Maybe Mel and Julian had more in common than either would admit.
“You totally kidnapped him,” Wolf said, respect plain in his tone.
Mel waved that off. “Nah, not according to some very carefully selected alibi witnesses. And there were plenty of people at Hell on Wheels who saw him drinking. That Sawyer fellow is a good man no matter what Nate says. He’s been good to our whole hunter society. He also sets up a real nice sweat lodge.”
Leo laughed. He’d spent a whole lot of time being worried about his mother and crazy Mel and it turned out that crazy Mel took damn fine care of her. He looked over at his brother. “What do you think?”
Wolf smiled, wiping a hand across his hair. “I think we’re getting married tomorrow and we should trust our Ma to know what she wants.”
And she wanted Mel. Mel had been the one standing beside her and taking care of her. Leo turned to him and gave him a deferential nod. “Thank you for taking care of this, Mel.”
Wolf held out a hand. “Thank you.”
Mel shook it. “That’s real nice, boys, but I’ll always take care of your momma. I love her. I’ve loved her since I saw her across the crowded medical examination room the aliens were holding us in. She was so beautiful in the stark white lights. You see, they think they can blind you with those lights, but we hunters have trained ourselves to be able to see through it.”
Mel started in on how he’d met their ma on an alien research ship.
And Leo forced himself to listen because sanity, he’d learned, was sometimes in the eye of the beholder.
And his mother had more than earned his respect and love and tolerance.
If he could show her that by accepting her nutty, loving, protective boyfriend, then Mel had just become family.
Chapter Fifteen
Stef and Jen
Jen stared at her sleeping husband and wondered why she asked a man to do anything. She’d asked them to bring him in and help her get him tied down. It was a simple operation. No fuss. No muss. There were two Harper twins and only one Stef. It should have been easy.
They had shot him with a tranq gun. That was their brilliant solution. To shoot him. With drugs.
And then they’d tossed him in the back of Rye’s truck. Naked.
She was going to
give Holly and Rachel an earful about their dumbass husbands. There wasn’t a brain among the four of them. Next time she would call the women together. Marie would have been humane about bringing Stef in. Maybe.
But she had a decision to make and she needed to do it before he woke up.
She stared at her gorgeous husband. He was tied to the bed, his arms and legs spread. Every inch of his tanned skin was on display. How long had it been since she’d simply stared at him like the work of art he was?
She tugged at the silk straps of her nightgown. She’d been surprised to discover that there was a whole line of sexy maternity nighties out there, but the one time she’d been brave enough to wear it, Stef had wrapped a robe around her because he didn’t want her to be cold.
He was still the perfect man she’d married and she…wasn’t.
Her gray-eyed boy. God, she loved him. And he was going to be so mad at her.
Maybe she hadn’t thought this through.
“Jennifer?”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Stefan.”
She hated the fact that she was nervous. He was her husband. They were married. She shouldn’t be nervous about trying to sleep with her husband.
“Would you like to explain to me why the doc shot me and my friends dragged my naked body home and apparently tied me to the bed?” His head had come up and those glorious gray eyes were arctic as he stared at her.
She actually swallowed. She could blame it on pregnancy brain. Yes, that’s what she would do. Hormones. Lots of hormones. “Well, I didn’t expect them to shoot you. I merely asked for Max and Rye to bring you here and tie you up. I guess I didn’t think about the fact that you would be naked, though I do like the view.”
Maybe flattery would help.
“Why?”
That should be apparent. “Come on, Stef.”
“Jennifer, I asked you a question. I intend to have the answer, so unless you are going to keep me tied up here for the rest of our lives, or you’re planning on playing out a Lifetime movie, I would suggest you begin your explanation. Every second you delay is another set of very nasty punishments. You should understand, my love, that these punishments are not erotic treats for you.”
