Oak, Sophie - Found in Bliss [Nights in Bliss, Colorado 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)
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Nights in Bliss, Colorado 5
Found in Bliss
Eight years after being tossed aside by the husband who took her son away, Holly Lang finds herself caught between two lovers—the exotic and dangerous Alexei Markov and the gentle but haunted Dr. Caleb Burke.
A former hit man for the Russian mafia, Alexei has been in witness protection while he testified against the mob. Now that he is done, he will do anything to earn Holly’s love.
Dr. Caleb Burke is a walking contradiction. His love for Holly is obvious, but he keeps her at a distance. Underneath his gruff demeanor is a tortured soul that only Holly can heal.
As their passions burn out of control, Alexei and Caleb discover someone is trying to kill her. The only way to discover the identity of the killer is for all three to face up to the secrets of their past and work together to fight for everything they have found in Bliss.
Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys
Length: 97,330 words
FOUND IN BLISS
Nights in Bliss, Colorado 5
Sophie Oak
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
FOUND IN BLISS
Copyright © 2011 by Sophie Oak
E-book ISBN: 1-61926-251-7
First E-book Publication: December 2011
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
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Regarding E-book Piracy
This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.
The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.
This is Sophie Oak’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Oak’s right to earn a living from her work.
Amanda Hilton, Publisher
www.SirenPublishing.com
www.BookStrand.com
DEDICATION
To everyone who needs to know the way to Bliss...
FOUND IN BLISS
Nights in Bliss, Colorado 5
SOPHIE OAK
Copyright © 2011
Prologue:
The Road to Bliss
Denver, Colorado
Eight years ago
Holly Lang stared at the papers. “What is this supposed to mean?”
Scott Lang sighed, barely glancing up from the desk in his beautifully designed Congressional office. “It means what it says, dear. My father was right. You’re a liability. I’m never going to move out of state politics with you at my side. I’m going to make a run at Washington in two years. I can’t do that with you. Don’t get me wrong. You’re a gorgeous woman. It’s why I married you. I should have done exactly what my father told me to do. I should have screwed you until my eyes popped out and married a proper political wife.”
Rage threatened to choke her. “Well, I think you can tell your father that I feel pretty damn screwed.”
Nearly ten years of marriage down the drain. She’d done everything the bastards had asked her to do. She’d worn the right clothes, gone to all the proper parties, kept her mouth shut when she really just wanted to scream. More than that, she’d done everything he’d needed her to do. She’d dropped out of college to support him. She’d had their baby. She looked through the papers, catching on one particular clause.
“Well, I understand you mean to enforce the prenup.”
He sat back, cold blue eyes assessing her. His perfectly coiffed hair had just a hint of silver at the temples. His stylist put that in once a month. Holly knew Scott’s hair didn’t have a hint of silver. Those strands were dyed to give him a regal air of maturity. Like everything with her husband—soon to be ex—it was an illusion created to play to his voters. “That is what a prenup is for, dear.”
“Your timing is impeccable.” According to the prenup, if she’d stayed married for another six months, she was to be paid a sizable sum. At the time when she’d signed the damn thing, she’d hated that clause, hated the whole idea of a prenuptial agreement. It had seemed so unromantic. But she’d been madly in love. She’d signed it because she’d known they wouldn’t need it.
Two years in, she’d realized that Scott was a vacuous idiot who cheated on her at every given opportunity. But she’d had Nicky to think about. Her son was everything to her.
Scott’s fingers drummed along the top of his desk as though he was bored by the whole scene and ready to move on. “I’ve had this on my calendar for years, dear. I was never going to give you that money. I would have divorced you last year, but I was up for reelection, and it doesn’t look good to the voters.”
Bastard. So cold blooded. What had she ever seen in this man? “How is it going to look now? You’re kicking your wife and child to the curb. I’m sure your constituents are going to love that.”
The reptilian smile that crossed his face chilled her to the bone. In that moment, Holly knew she was screwed. He opened a manila folder. “Oh, I think they’ll understand when they see these.”
Five photos were laid out in front of her, each more damning than the next. Her stomach churned as she looked at those pictures. Whoever he’d paid had done a damn fine job with Photoshop. It really looked like her. It looked like she was standing outside a seedy motel with her husband’s bodyguard, Rick. Her hand was on his chest, his on her hip. The next picture featured a deep kiss as Rick�
�s hands delved into her blouse. She turned her eyes away from the other two. They were taken through the window and showed her riding the bodyguard, her head thrown back.
“Dare I ask who played the part of me?” Tears threatened to squeeze out of her eyes. Rick had always been nice to her, but she supposed her husband’s money and influence bought anything he wanted.
“It doesn’t really matter. Rick is ready to go on record to the press. The motel manager has proof that you’ve been going there every week for several months. It’s all lies, but that won’t matter. The press will see what I want them to see.” He pulled the photos back in and neatly stacked them. “I don’t particularly want to use these. I think it would be hard on Nicky, don’t you?”
Nicky was only nine, the light of her life. He went to a private school, and they would eat him alive if his mother was involved in a sex scandal. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to afford that school now. She would have to find the best public school she could and do whatever it took to move into the district. “Yes, it would be hard on him. We’ll go. I won’t give you any trouble.”
“You’ll go, Holly. And you won’t give me a bit of trouble, or I can make you look like the world’s most unfit mother. If you walk away now, I’ll give you that cabin of my grandfather’s, ten thousand dollars, and monthly visits with our son. If I hear a hint of trouble from you, I’ll make sure you never see him again.”
Holly felt her world fall away, tipping over and rearranging itself into something she didn’t recognize. Nicky? Her baby? “You can’t take my son away.”
His face softened marginally. “I can give him far more than you can, Holly. You have to see that. He’s an amazing kid, the best thing we ever managed to do together.”
“Then why are you holding him hostage?” The cold, flat line of his mouth told her everything she needed to know. Nicky would be the carrot he dangled in front of her to keep her in line.
“He’s a Lang. He’s not going to be raised outside of the family. I’m going against my father by offering you that ratty old cabin. He would prefer you left Colorado, but this way you can see Nicky once a month.”
Yes, she could see her father-in-law’s fingerprints all over this little scheme. Malcolm Lang had hated the fact that his precious son had married a woman with no connections. Her father-in-law made no attempts to hide the fact that he couldn’t stand her. He’d called her a cheap floozy and a gold-digging whore on a regular basis. At the beginning of their marriage, Scott had defended her, but as his career had taken off, he’d simply ignored her.
“Do we have a deal? If you refuse, it’s going to be war, Holly. Do you really want to take me on?”
Oh, hell yeah, she wanted to take him on. She wanted to smash in his cosmetically perfect face. She wanted to torch his car. She wanted to cry because everything she loved was being taken away. She didn’t have anyone. Her parents were gone. She had no siblings. She had her son, and if she fought for him, he could be grown before she saw him again.
“Where is this cabin? We’ve never gone there before.” Defeat began to settle in.
He sat back. The smug look on his face proclaimed his victory. “We don’t go because that town is a bit of an embarrassment. Why my grandfather loved it, I have no idea. It’s a town called Bliss.”
Bliss. There was nothing even vaguely blissful about her life now, but it looked like this town was going to be her home for a while.
“I want to see my son before I go.”
“Of course,” Scott said. “I’m not a monster.”
Holly waited while Scott called her son in. She held her boy and explained that she was leaving. That she had a new home. She hoped Bliss would treat her better than Denver.
* * * *
Sierra Leone
Six years ago
Caleb Burke held himself as still as possible. Night had fallen. He knew it. The crack under the door of his tiny cage had gone pitch black long ago. Cage? It was a fucking reinforced closet, and it was the only place he felt halfway safe. He could feel the wall against his back. All he had to worry about was his front, and he could hear the closet door if it opened.
How long had it been? Weeks? Months? It seemed like forever since that moment the rebels had taken over his clinic, killed everyone in sight, and forced him to march through the jungle to this place.
If only one of the fuckers hadn’t recognized him, he would be dead, his body left behind in the jungle alongside Caroline’s. It might have been a fitting end to their marriage.
His throat threatened to close up every time he thought about Caroline’s face when she’d arrived at his clinic. She’d sauntered in like she was walking into one of the shops on Michigan Avenue where she spent most of her time. She’d said she had something to talk to him about, something serious that couldn’t wait until he deigned to come home. He’d felt a bit frozen because he’d had something to talk about, too. Divorce. He’d had the papers drawn up. They gave her everything he had, all the money, the houses in California, New York, and the Hamptons, the stock. He’d been willing to sign it all away with the singular exception of his charity.
He was so glad he’d been gentlemanly and let her speak first.
He hadn’t needed to give her everything he had. She’d taken enough all on her own. She’d told him boldly that she was pregnant. Caleb had felt his world twist into something ugly. He didn’t love Caroline, but the fact that she’d cheated on him kicked him in the gut.
Especially since he knew damn well who she spent all of her time with.
And then she’d been gone, her eyes dulling before his ears had even registered the shot that had taken her life.
Caroline was dead. His nurses were dead. They’d been raped before they were slaughtered. Two sweet, vivacious girls from the Midwest who had come to Africa because Caleb had convinced them they could save the fucking world. Africa had eaten them alive. He’d had to hear their screams as they’d been used. He’d been almost relieved when it had stopped.
And the final insult had been the fact that he’d been left alive for one reason and one reason alone. His family would pay for his return. His privilege, a thing he’d spent his whole life trying to deny, had been the only thing that spared him.
His stomach gnawed with hunger. His family wouldn’t even recognize him anymore. He’d become more animal than man. He survived day to day, but it no longer meant anything.
Still, his breath caught in his chest as he heard a tiny creak that let him know someone was moving in the room outside his cage. He shrank back, the hard feel of the wood behind his back a comfort.
What would they do this time? They’d beaten him. In the early days, he’d been somewhat useful. They’d forced him to play doctor. He’d stitched up their soldiers, some who couldn’t be more than nine or ten. He’d dug bullets out and performed surgeries that turned his gut when he thought about the horrific circumstances surrounding them. He’d put the boy soldiers back together and sent them out to kill some more.
Things had changed in the last few weeks. His hands shook too much. He was too weak. He was starving and losing his will to fight.
Was this the moment when they got rid of him?
“I’m in. No sign of the target.”
The voice was quiet, almost silent. Caleb had to strain to hear, but what he heard was English. Unaccented English.
“Two Tangoes down.”
Tangoes. Military, and not the ragtag group that had taken him. American military.
The door jiggled quietly, the lock holding. And then an amazing sound. A little snick that let Caleb know the man on the other side of the door would make a halfway decent thief.
“Dr. Caleb Sommerville?”
Burke. He’d gone by his mother’s maiden name for years, not wanting to trade on the Sommerville influence. Now it didn’t matter. He nodded his head. No one would have sent in a special ops team to save Caleb Burke. Caleb Sommerville was another story. His brother, the senator, could perfor
m miracles. It was surprising that Eli would bother. He had to know that Caroline was dead. Caroline, who had been carrying Eli’s child.
“Is there anyone else?” The question was quiet coming out of the soldier’s mouth.
In the deep gloom, a single ray of moonlight cut into the small shack, illuminating his savior’s chiseled features. Dark hair, dark eyes, and a square-cut jaw marked the man who reached down to untie him. This was the way he spent most of his time now, bound in a box, only taken out a few times a day to eat and use the latrine.
“Only me. Everyone else is long dead.” His voice sounded raspy. His throat felt like he’d gargled sand. He’d given up talking long ago.
“Can you walk?”
He nodded and fought back a groan as the blood started circulating into his hands again.
“Excellent. My name is Lieutenant Meyer. I’ll be your rescuer today. This rescue of your person is brought to you by the United States Navy and SEAL Team 8. We hope you have a nice rescue, and please feel free to fill out the questionnaire at the end of the trip. Tips are welcome.”
Lieutenant Meyer had a strong sense of snark.
“Sorry, my CO says my sarcasm will get me killed one day. Let’s get you out of here while they’re too drunk to notice we’re leaving. And you can just call me Wolf.”
Lieutenant Wolf Meyer put a hand out and hauled him up. It was the first human contact he’d had in months that didn’t cause him to shrink back.