by Tara Rose
When he came, she made soft noises in the back of her throat until he finished, and then licked the tip of his cock when he pulled out. “Oh my God, Miranda. That was magnificent. Thank you, baby.”
“My pleasure.”
He helped her off the dresser and pulled her close, breathing in her scent. He didn’t want to let the moment pass, but finally released the embrace. She excused herself to the bathroom, and when she emerged, he and Bo were both half asleep on Davis’s bed. He could barely keep his eyes open.
She crawled between them and curled up in his arms. Davis inhaled her warm, musky scent once more, wishing she and Bo both lived here with him. Then they could do this every night. Never in his wildest fantasies had he imagined something like this would happen to him. But now that it had, he couldn’t picture not having Miranda in his life.
He didn’t even mind that Bo was part of this, which surprised the hell out of him. Sure, he and Bo had been friends for most of their lives, but they’d never shared a woman in bed or out of it. They’d never even discussed such a thing, especially after Rhea had been caught cheating on him. Bo avoided doing so much as smiling at another man’s wife for a long time.
But of course this wasn’t the same thing at all. This was consensual, whereas cheating never was. And Miranda had gone through the same thing on her end with Mark, so she’d cut off an arm before she’d hurt someone in such a way. He could bank on that. They both could.
He pulled her closer and listened to her softly breathe. On her other side, Bo began to snore gently. He hoped that what they’d just done hadn’t hurt Bo’s wound. He didn’t want to explain to Elvis Sinclair, the orthopedic surgeon who had sewn up Bo’s leg, why he had to return to the OR and have it done all over again.
Davis let his mind wander to all the fun and exciting things the three of them could do if they were together all the time, and he finally drifted off to sleep with a big smile on his face.
* * * *
Friday morning, the hospital was buzzing with the news that Bobby James’s attorney had been granted his motion for a delay to the start of Bobby’s trial for one month. He claimed to have found proof that there was another person present at his home that night, and needed time to add this dynamic to his case. According to the attorney, this mystery man was the one who actually pushed Bobby’s deceased wife. She then sustained her fatal head wound from the ensuing fall.
Nearly everyone Miranda spoke to thought that was pure bullshit, since Jimmie’s memory of that night coincided with the statements that Timothy Saunders and Patty Harrell had given the ADA the prior month. Timothy had implicated Bobby James in the death of his wife, Loretta, which hadn’t shocked anyone once they heard the entire story.
Patty Harrell was Kay-Jean’s mother, and she lived a hermit like life now. The night that Loretta James passed, Patty had still been married to Jeremy Harrell, who was a mean drunk and used to beat her up and then force himself on her routinely. Miranda, like most of the people in town, had only heard the details of the night of Loretta’s death once Jimmie recalled all the events. On this particular Friday, Miranda heard that same story repeated in bits and pieces throughout the day.
That night, Patty had taken all she was going to take from her husband, and called her brother, Timothy Saunders, for help. When Timothy arrived at the house and realized how badly his sister was hurt, he called Cletus Adams, Jeremy’s friend, to beg him to talk some sense into Jeremy. Then he called his pastor at the time, Bobby James.
Cletus had finally realized how out of control his friend Jeremy was, and called EMS that night for Patty. When Bobby arrived at the house, he had sided with Cletus and Timothy on calling EMS for her. But Bobby hadn’t counted on his wife showing up at the Harrell house that night. Apparently she had followed her husband there, and once Loretta realized what Jeremy had done to his wife, she had wanted to call the police as well as EMS.
Bobby had talked his wife into coming home first before speaking with the cops, and Cletus had come back to the house with them. While Timothy accompanied his sister to Sin Hospital, Jeremy followed Bobby, Loretta, and Cletus back to the James’s home. Jeremy and Cletus had argued at the house. Jeremy knew that once the ER personnel at Sin Hospital saw how badly Patty was hurt, the cops would be called regardless.
Bobby argued with both men, and at one point Loretta walked away from the three men, saying she was calling the police, and that it should have been done a long time ago. Jeremy pushed her hard from behind and she fell, striking her head on the edge of a table. She never regained consciousness, and based on what Jimmie had seen that night, his mother died right there on the floor in their house even before EMS arrived.
Jimmie clearly heard his father and Cletus conspire with Jeremy to say it was an accident. Jeremy left town that night, and to this day no one knew where he was. Patty had finally been able to get a judge to grant her a divorce several years ago. Cletus left shortly after Bobby’s arrest last month, and now the police were looking for him as well.
Jimmie didn’t recall another person there that night, and Timothy knew of no one else who could have been there. Patty told the ADA the same version of events up to EMS taking her to Sin Hospital that Timothy had. Bobby said nothing about that night to anyone, per his attorney’s instructions. So who this mystery man was, no one had a clue. And nearly everyone Miranda spoke to that day believed Bobby or his attorney had made it up as a last ditch effort to save Bobby from a conviction.
Miranda didn’t know what was true or not, but she knew it was the biggest scandal ever to hit Sin. It had certainly caught everyone’s attention, far more than Vivian and Luke moving in with Preston, Kay-Jean’s brother Danny setting fire to Savannah’s home, or Savannah, Noah, and Jimmie moving in with Ethan.
Friday evening, Miranda was busy enough that she stayed at the hospital rather than going home. She didn’t want to have to keep driving back and forth all night. Once Davis finished his shift in the ER, he came to the radiology department to keep her company. Bo’s cousin Randy drove Bo to the hospital around nine o’clock so he could spend time with Miranda and Davis. Miranda laughed until tears ran down her face at Bo’s retelling of the conversations between him and his cousins during the day.
“First off,” he explained, “they were all mortified when I didn’t show up last night. Apparently, they had been calling my phone, which I forgot to bring along when Davis picked me up yesterday afternoon. So the damn thing is ringing in the house but they didn’t hear it. Rosa wanted to call the police, but Randy talked her out of it.”
“That sounds like Rosa,” said Miranda. Rosa was Randy’s sister and Miranda remembered her as a nervous thing who always found trouble even when there was none.
“Well Travis isn’t any better. He’s the one who tried to help me wipe my ass the other night.”
She laughed again. Travis was several years younger than all of them and still lived at home with his parents. She imagined he didn’t have much else to do, and thought he was being helpful to his cousin.
“And then this morning of course I come in after Davis dropped me off, all smiles and just wanting to crawl back into bed so I could dream about Miranda again, and they’re on me like fleas. ‘Where were you?’ ‘Why didn’t you answer your phone?’ ‘What happened?’ ‘We thought you were dead.’ I was like what the hell are y’all talking about? I’m a grown man!”
“Didn’t they realize you had left your phone behind?” asked Davis.
“Not until I found it on my nightstand and showed it to them. So finally they let me be and I went back to sleep, but then I woke up when the pain in my leg got real bad.”
Miranda frowned. “We didn’t hurt it last night, did we?”
“No. I hadn’t taken a pain pill since yesterday afternoon, and plumb forgot about it.”
Davis chuckled. “You were feeling no pain last night, that’s for sure.”
“Exactly. So I got up to take one and I was limping a bit, and they starte
d in on me again. Rosa wanted to call Dr. Sinclair and I told her I’d kick her ass to the curb and banish her from my house forever if she did that.”
Miranda didn’t miss the way Davis glanced at the brace on Bo’s leg. He was wearing shorts again, and she imagined they were more comfortable than fitting that brace over jeans. Not to mention the dressing underneath it was bulky.
“Is your dressing still dry?” asked Davis, his gaze sharp.
“As a bone. Nothing we did last night hurt me.”
“So what happened next?” asked Miranda. “After you told Rosa you’d toss her out of the house if she called Elvis?”
“It’s so weird to hear you call him by his first name,” said Bo, grinning.
She smiled. “We tease him a lot by calling him Dr. Presley, but don’t say I told you so.”
Bo laughed, and it was good to hear him do it. She’d been as worried as Davis that he might have done too much last night. “I won’t. I’ll save that for when I want him to take this damn thing off early and he says no.”
Davis started to say something but Bo cut him off. “Anyway, after I convinced Rosa to put down her phone, I called Davis to tell him I was losing my mind and needed to get out of the house. He said he was stuck here, so when you called and said you were, too, I convinced Randy to carry me over here. But first Rosa insisted I eat a supper big enough to feed half the town.”
“You’re going to be more than ready to move in with me when all this is done,” said Davis.
Bo raised his brows. “Is that what I’m doing?”
“You both can if you like.”
Images of being with them 24/7 flashed through Miranda’s mind. “When did you decide that?”
He gave her a grin that made her wish they could sneak off alone somewhere. “Oh, somewhere between you pulling that monster vibrator out of your bag and seeing you naked on top of my dresser.”
She chuckled, and then she walked over to kiss him just as the phone on the desk rang. Miranda groaned and answered it. When she hung up, she swore softly. “Bad trauma coming in. You two better make yourselves scarce for a while.”
Davis rose. “Not a problem. Come on, Bo. We can hang out in the doctor’s lounge near the OR. No one is ever in there.”
“Is that so?” he asked. “Maybe Miranda should join us when she’s done?”
“The door doesn’t lock,” said Davis. “Too risky.” He gave her a quick but very hot kiss. “Call me when you’re done. We’ll stop by for a while until I get too sleepy to drive Bo home.”
“All right. But I’ll see you both tomorrow, right?”
They each grinned in a way that had her immediately suspicious. “Oh, you bet you will,” said Bo. “We have a surprise planned for you.”
She was about to beg them to tell her what it was, but the sound of voices in the hall reached their ears. As Miranda went to work, she couldn’t help smiling. Her life had just become absolutely perfect, and she couldn’t wait to see where this led all three of them.
Chapter Nine
When Miranda finished she called Davis, and he and Bo came back to the radiology department for a while. But it was clear within a few moments that Bo needed rest, so Davis took him home. She didn’t leave the hospital until three in the morning, and once she got home, she sent Davis a text letting him know she was there.
She slept until noon, and then took a long shower and made herself something to eat. When her phone rang she snatched it up and answered it without looking at the caller, thinking it was the hospital, but then smiled at the sound of Bo’s voice.
“Davis said to let you sleep as long as you wanted, but I couldn’t wait any longer. Are you out of bed?”
“Not only am I out of bed, but I’ve showered and I’ve eaten.”
“Perfect. Come out on your front porch.”
“What? Are you here?”
“Yes. Come outside, beautiful.”
She disconnected the call and sprinted for the front door. When she opened it, Bo and Davis sat in the wicker chairs, and Davis had a guitar in his lap. “Finally.” He stood. “Have a seat. We have a surprise for you.”
She kissed them each quickly and then sat where Davis indicated. “What’s going on?”
“Well, you reminded me of how many musicals Bo was in while we were in school, and then we got to talking about how much I miss playing this thing, and how much he misses singing, and then we just started jamming. And now, we want to play a few songs for you, and then take you for a drive.”
Bo pointed toward Davis’s car. “I even had Rosa pack us a picnic basket full of food. We could eat for a month on what she put in there.”
She laughed while her heart soared. This was the most spontaneous, romantic thing anyone had ever done for her. “When did you come up with all this?”
“Yesterday while you were working, and then this morning while we let you sleep.”
“I can’t wait to hear this.”
Bo cleared his throat, and then took a sip of water from a bottle he’d placed on the table. He nodded toward Davis. “Ready when you are.”
Davis strummed a few chords, and she realized she hadn’t heard him play since they were teens. He was much better now, and she was mesmerized watching him and listening to him. When Bo launched into a very impressive rendition of Rockie Lynne’s Lipstick, Miranda danced in her chair and mouthed the words along with him. Goose bumps broke out over her arms and legs at the sound of his voice. He was even better than she remembered from school, and he looked into her eyes as he sang which made her heart melt.
It would be so damn easy to fall in love with these two. So damn easy.
After they finished Lipstick, they launched into Kenny Chesney’s Anything But Mine, and Miranda had to blink back tears, especially when Bo took her hands in his as he sang. The last song they serenaded her with was Lee Brice’s I Don’t Dance, and she clapped until her hands hurt, and whooped and hollered until her voice was hoarse.
“You all are really, really good. You could be at the Grand Ole Opry. I mean that.”
Davis snorted and Bo shook his head. “I don’t think so, beautiful, but thank you for saying it.”
“You don’t think your voice is just as good as any of those men whose songs you just covered?”
“No I do not.”
“And I haven’t played regularly in years,” said Davis.
“Well, I loved it.” She put her hands over her heart. “Thank you so much.”
“All right,” said Bo, standing up and stretching. “Ready for that ride?”
“Will you be okay?”
“Of course. I’ll sit in the back seat so I can prop my leg up. Davis can be my chauffeur.”
He winked at her, and her heart gave a little lurch. “Where are we going?”
Davis grinned. “To the park. Maybe we’ll make out in the woods.”
She giggled. “Oh, I see. You two have an ulterior motive here.”
“Duh.”
They drove to Radnor Lake State Park because it had the least barriers for Bo to navigate while walking around the breathtaking lake. They didn’t want him to have to try to walk through woods or along narrow trails. It was also very crowded, but she’d expected that because of the warm weather and the fact it was a Saturday.
They found a picnic table and ate part of the food that Rosa had packed, making small talk about hospital gossip and who the mystery man might turn out to be at Bobby James’s trial, or if his attorney had merely been stalling for more time.
By the time they headed back to Sin, Miranda’s face ached from smiling so much, but there was no way to help that. She’d never been this happy. She and Mark had been so young when they’d married, and neither one had been mature enough to handle such a commitment. She briefly wondered whether he and Rhea were truly still together, and then realized she didn’t give a shit.
Bo and Davis had never seemed as immature as Mark even when she’d dated them in school. And now, they were perfect.
How was it she’d never seen this side of either of them? Then again, she hadn’t gone out with them long enough to really get to know them. But those days were gone for good. She wasn’t going to give this up. Not until they ended it. And she hoped they never did. This was everything she’d always wanted, and it actually made her nervous to realize how easily this had happened.
Did anyone deserve happiness like this? Did they feel the same way she did? Surely this was just as surprising to them. She only hoped they were enjoying it as much as she was, and didn’t want it to end, or she’d feel very foolish when it did. Should she tell them how she was feeling, or was it too soon? Would they think she was nuts? Or worse, would they think she was becoming too clingy?
This was worse than being in high school because she’d been through so much in her life, and she knew how precious solid relationships were. She knew how quickly things could go south without enough clues around to warn a person it was heading that way. She and Bo each had been blindsided by Mark’s and Rhea’s betrayal. Neither one had seen it coming because they’d hidden it so well.
What she had now with Bo and Davis was precious, and she wanted to cherish it. She needed to nurture it and make sure it lasted forever. Miranda would accept nothing less in her life from this point on.
When they returned to her house, they watched TV for a while and then Miranda became embarrassed when she kept drifting off to sleep, until she realized that Davis and Bo were doing the same thing. All three laughed and agreed they’d obviously not had enough sleep the night before, or, in Miranda’s case, that morning. She blamed her crazy schedule at work, but the guys both told her she wasn’t used to that much sex.
“Oh, and you both are used to it?”
Davis snorted. “She’s got us there. No, baby. We’re not either, that’s for sure.”
“Complaints?”
