Love Under Two Adventurers [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Cara Covington

  “But he told you about him.”

  “Oh, no, Blue Eyes. He only told me about Daniel in the most general and impersonal of terms. That they were together, they’d had a fight, and he’d left him in Jakarta and come home. The guilt was there, it didn’t need expressing. A blind man could see it. He’s blamed himself, all these years, for Daniel’s death. If he hadn’t fought with him, they would have been in England when the Tsunami struck.

  “The real lowdown on their relationship I got from some people I met in Haiti who’d known the two of them back then.” Cody shook his head. “Daniel had major issues with his sexuality, and from what I have come to believe, from all I learned, he was a complete narcissist.” Cody turned his attention to the roast he was braising in the large sauce pan. “Greg has been more open since we came here, but still, sometimes getting him to open up about the stuff that’s bothering him is worse than pulling fucking teeth.”

  Rebecca had stopped peeling potatoes, because she really couldn’t believe what Cody had just said. “Um, pot? Meet kettle.”

  Cody met her gaze and she read the confusion in his eyes. Then he blinked, and it was as if a shutter came down. Talk about emotional distance.

  “Totally different set of circumstances. I’d talk if there was anything to talk about. It’s just nightmares, Rebecca, and they’ve been easing up some. If they bother you that much, I can sleep in the bedroom downstairs.”

  He thought they were easing up because he hadn’t had one last night? One night? Rebecca could have argued with him that she was pretty sure he’d had a couple of flashbacks during his waking hours, too. But she didn’t.

  Instead, she said, “They only bother me because they hurt you, Cody. It pains me horribly to see you suffer with those nightmares. I told you that.”

  His expression cleared and he stepped close and placed a soft kiss on her lips. “Thank you for that, Blue Eyes. But I’ll be fine, really. I just need a bit of time to finish getting over the incident.”

  How had she ended up in love with two men who were both experts at avoidance? She closed her eyes for a moment as she tried to get her growing temper under control. Why was she the only one who could see that if they kept on this way, they were headed for a disaster of mammoth proportions?

  Rebecca wondered how the hell to get them all as naked, emotionally, with each other as they seemed to love to get physically. If they couldn’t do that, if they couldn’t be completely open and honest with each other when they were alone, the three of them, together, then what hope did they have for finding their very own happy ending?

  Each of her men claimed they wanted forever. Well, damn it, forever took work. It took being open and honest and not closing out the people you were supposedly in love with!

  Rebecca knew if she didn’t step away for a few minutes, she was going to explode. Her temper had been brewing since leaving Grandma Kate’s. She needed to scream or kick a tree, or…or something. The potatoes were ready, and she set them beside the stove so Cody could see them and put them into the pot with the roast beef, when he was ready for them. She rinsed her hands at the sink, and wondered that she could feel as if she was in a bubble, insulated, on the outside while it felt as if everything was boiling over on the inside.

  “I think I’m going to go and stretch my legs.”

  Cody must have retreated behind his own thoughts, because he only made a bit of a grunting, noncommittal kind of sound to acknowledge her statement.

  Sundown was still a good couple hours away, and the temperature had held all afternoon in the high seventies. She didn’t need a jacket, or her purse, or anything, really, except time alone and space to think.

  She pulled the door closed gently behind her and inhaled deeply. She hadn’t stopped appreciating how good the drier Texas air smelled compared with the air on the West Coast. Seattle had been so very different in so many ways. A good city, to be sure, in a good state. This, however, was Texas, and Texas was in her soul. Texas was home and formed every single definition of normal that she knew.

  She needed, more than anything right now, to breathe this good Texas air and get her unusually volatile emotions under control. She needed to walk and walk and walk so that her legs tired and her brain had a chance to think.

  There had to be a way to get those two men to see the sweet light of reason. There had to be a way to wake them up to the reality of the dangers inherent in holding back and refusing to face the issues between them.

  Maybe if she power walked, the answer would come to her.

  * * * *

  Connor expected to step into a sleepy kind of western sheriff’s office, with Adam Kendall sitting with his boots on his desk, playing checkers with his brother Jake while the deputy sat dozing in his chair.

  Instead, he stepped into chaos.

  “What do you mean, she’s not in the cabin? How could she not be in the cabin and how the hell do you not know where she is?” Jake Kendall’s voice couldn’t hold any more anger as he held his cell phone to his ear and listened to the response.

  “Captain Cornell, is your trooper still at the car? Damn! Okay, how long will it take him to get back there?” Adam held the phone to his ear with his left hand and waved them into the office with his right hand.

  “Jasper, we need you here, now. We’re heading out to the cabin. We have a situation.” Matt Benedict also held a cell phone to his ear. Standing by his desk, he looked as if he was yearning to run.

  “Grab a couple of rifles and go find her, now!” Jake Kendall said. “What’s happened? I’ll tell you what’s happened. That crazy stalker chick is there, do you hear me? They found her car right at the entrance to the private lane, and we have no idea how long it’s been there. Yeah, I thought that would light a fire under your—” He pulled the phone away from his ear. “Fucking cousin hung up on me.” And then he grinned, but it wasn’t really a nice grin at all.

  Jake Kendall resembled a wolf with a really mean-looking snarl on his face and a bloodlust building in his soul.

  “The driver of that car is suspected in four homicides in Washington State, and she’s stalking one of my people—Rebecca Jessop. That lane leads to a private home that’s on Benedict land. If your man follows the tire tracks, he’ll get there. No, sorry, the gate is operated electronically, only. There’s no emergency bypass. We’re on our way now. Won’t take us more than ten minutes to get there.” Adam hung up his phone and reached for his hat.

  “There fucking will be an emergency bypass,” Jake said. “I’ll get right on that little thing. As soon as we make sure Rebecca is okay and that crazy stalker chick is in custody.”

  Adam nodded. “Okay, let’s ride.” He looked at Connor and Melvin. “Y’all want to come along?”

  “Absolutely,” Mel said. “We’re both armed.”

  “Good.” Adam headed out the door.

  He and Mel got into the backseat of Kendall’s cruiser, and Connor buckled up as the sheriff stepped on it and peeled away from the curb. He put his siren on and barreled through the red light.

  “I take it this isn’t why you wanted to meet with us, Jake.” Mel shot Connor a glance.

  “No, that’s another matter we’ll get into later.”

  “How about you bring us up to speed with this situation?” Connor asked.

  “A woman named Naomi Lake had been stalking our cousin, artist Rebecca Jessop, in Seattle,” Adam said. “The cops there nearly grabbed her but she got away from them. They knew she was headed here. More thorough examination of the electronics she left behind gave them a huge break. She’d gotten a credit card under a different name, and had been making payments on it via online banking, out of her regular checking account.”

  “Not smart,” Connor said.

  “No, she crossed her fake I.D with her real one. We’d no sooner gotten a call from the Seattle PD with that alias—Caroline Jeffries—then we also got a call from the Texas State Police. They wanted to let us know a car had been left, keys in the ignit
ion, on a road leading into Lusty. They were concerned that the tourist was lost or injured and were giving us a heads-up. They’d checked, you see, and the car came back as a rental.”

  “And when you called the rental company, the name on the rental contract was Caroline Jeffries.”

  “Yeah. So I had Jake call Rebecca’s cell phone, but she didn’t answer. So he called Greg’s cell to alert him and Cody to keep Rebecca inside and to lock the doors—”

  “Only to discover she wasn’t inside the cabin at all.”

  “No, she’d apparently gone for a walk—and as near as Cody could recall, she’s been gone for more than twenty minutes,” Jake said.

  “Is Rebecca armed?” Mel asked.

  “Jake?” Adam asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Of course not,” Adam sighed, disgust dripping from his words. “This is turning into another cluster fuck.”

  Because Mel had told him all about the recent happenings in Lusty, Connor understood very well where Adam’s exasperation was coming from.

  “How far out are we?” Connor asked.

  “Not five minutes from the private lane. And I can open the fucking gate, as I have a gate control. We’ll drive in, and if that woman is walking along the path, swear to God, I’ll be tempted to just run her down.”

  “Whether she is or isn’t, we’ll be ready to roll out.” Connor pulled his weapon from its holster and checked it, same as he always did before an op. Military or civilian, the rules of engagement were basically the same. Then he took off his seat belt.

  “Good.” Adam met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “Once we get onto the track, I’ll roll the windows down.”

  “For air?” Jake asked.

  “No,” Connor said. “So we can hear gunfire, if there is any.”

  “Fuck. I think I’m the only one in this vehicle not armed,” Jake said.

  “I’ll pop the trunk when we stop,” Adam said. “You can grab the rifle.”

  “Just get us there, brother, and I’ll tackle her with my bare hands if I have to.”

  Connor resisted the urge to grin. He had no doubt, despite those words, that Jake Kendall would not make a tricky situation worse by going off half-cocked. Beside him, his partner was equally prepared, gun drawn. He met Mel’s gaze and nodded once.

  This would be the first time they’d stepped into potential danger together, and it was good to know Mel was doing the same thing he was—getting into the zone, mentally, ready for whatever happened next.

  The cruiser slowed only long enough to wait for the gate to the private lane to swing open when Adam flipped the switch. Connor took in the site of the parked Buick—the rental car—and the State Trooper’s vehicle just now arriving on scene. That car pulled in behind Matt’s cruiser which was following them, and then they were bouncing over rough terrain as they headed south.

  Not two minutes later the sound of gunfire came through the open windows.

  Chapter 20

  “What’s happened?”

  Greg met Cody’s gaze and saw in his eyes the same dread there that surged through his blood. “That crazy stalker bitch found us. Jake says she’s here, on the property—just out there somewhere.”

  “Fuck.” Cody headed toward the door, but Greg grabbed him, turned him around.

  “Scoop up that rifle. I’ll go grab the other one at the back door.”

  “No, you take this one. I don’t know how to fire a gun.” Cody shrugged.

  “Seriously?” Then Greg shook his head. He knew not everyone knew how to use a rifle. Learning how to aim, shoot, and properly care for a weapon was one of the things he’d learned growing up, something he’d never really thought about.

  But not everyone in the country did the same.

  He cleared his mind of useless, trivial thoughts. His Becca was in danger. He had to move, now.

  “Sorry, no sweat. Let’s go.”

  They didn’t close the door behind them. Greg simply stepped out into the late afternoon sun. “Becca!” He shouted her name and waited a beat, but heard nothing in return. The ground was hard and dry, which meant she’d left no footprints. He had no trail to follow.

  “She walks when she’s pissed,” he said. “Fuck, I didn’t even realize she was pissed.” He scanned the area, looking for her. “My fault? Becca!”

  He realized he’d been uncommunicative once they left Grandma Kate’s. He’d fallen back on an old habit, and withdrawn. He could see the opportunity in what he’d just been offered, but he could see the trap in it, too, and he’d pulled back and hunkered down, emotionally.

  When the fuck am I going to grow up? He knew that habit he had of pulling back was off-putting. Cody had told him so more than once.

  If anything happens to her I’m never going to forgive myself.

  “We both have a role in her anger,” Cody said. “Does she know this area well? Does she have a favorite, private thinking spot?”

  Greg stopped. “Yes, she knows the area, and no, no private spot that I know of. But despite knowing the area, she wouldn’t have just gone off in any direction. I think she’d have followed the car path. She has a crappy sense of direction. She’d figure there’d be less chance of her getting lost if she followed the lane.”

  “If she wasn’t too mad at us to think of that.”

  “She’d never be too mad to ignore basic safety.” Then Greg sighed. “Except she did, because she went out unarmed.”

  “She’s got quite a head start,” Cody said. “How fast would she be walking? Maybe we could run and catch up with her?”

  “No. She speed walks. Get in the truck, I’ll go grab the keys. And my phone.”

  “Good plan. Let’s hurry, lover, and find her.”

  Greg didn’t have to be nudged twice. He ran into the house, grabbed the keys off the hook, scooped up his phone, and was pushing speed dial as he got into the F150 cab behind the steering wheel.

  “Jake, where are you?” He hit speaker and set the phone down on the console.

  “We’re just about to turn onto the lane.”

  “Okay we’re headed toward you. We’ll keep our eyes peeled. Let’s leave this line open.”

  “I’m all for that.”

  Greg decided she must have followed the track, and steered the truck in that direction. Cody rolled down his window, and Greg followed suit.

  He drove slowly, giving them time to scan both sides of the lane, just in case she had veered off.

  There were, he knew, a few large boulders here and there where a person could perch and think, if they had a mind to.

  She’d left the cabin about twenty or so minutes ahead of them. If she’d power walked, as he knew she sometimes did, she could have quite a lead on them. This private lane spanned twelve miles from cabin to county road. But it wasn’t flat, not by a long shot, and it was too fucking rough to drive fast on.

  Ahead, the land rose subtly and then dropped just as gradually several times—the uneven ground just one of the characteristics of being on the edge of the Hill Country.

  “I think I’m going to spank her for scaring me this way,” Greg said. He kept his voice down, hoping his cousin on the other end of the phone couldn’t hear him.

  “I’d like a piece of that,” Cody said.

  Greg smirked. “We both know where it would head, then.”

  “That’s good for me, too.”

  A snort sounded from the phone and Greg realized Jake had heard him just fine. To hell with it. It’s not like he doesn’t understand these things.

  They continued on, the truck bouncing more than a little as they slowly made their way toward the entrance to the lane. He steered the truck down one slightly steep slope that had rutted somewhat—the one they usually drove around in order to avoid the ruts. He slowed the truck’s speed just a little and cursed the bounce when his head hit the roof of the cab.

  His gaze flicked to the dash clock. They’d been driving nearly five minutes and he figured they were nea
rly, but not quite, a couple of miles from the cabin.

  “Fuck there she is! Jesus Christ, she’s got a gun!” Jake’s shout put fear in Greg’s heart.

  From up ahead and from the cell phone, the sound of gunfire exploded in the afternoon calm, and Greg’s heart caught in his throat. One shot, then two more. And just bare seconds later, three more explosions followed by the rapid report of at least two other guns getting off a series of quick shots.

  “No! No! Don’t kill me! Please, oh God, please, don’t kill me!” Cody threw himself to the floor of the cab, his hands over his head as he shrieked in terror.

  “We got her! That crazy bitch is down! Get here, Greg!” The cell phone clicked and he knew Jake had hung up.

  Greg slowed the truck as he reached down toward Cody. His lover lay curled up on the floor of the truck, trembling. His sobs broke Greg’s heart.

  Greg kept his attention split between the rocky path he was driving and Cody.

  He dropped his hand onto Cody’s head and stroked him gently. He didn’t know if Rebecca was okay or not, but he had to have faith that the others—who had reached her—had the situation in hand. He burned with the urgency to hold her in his arms, but this lover needed him, too. “It’s all right, Cody. You’re safe, sweetheart. Come back to me, now. Come back to me. We have to go to our woman. Rebecca needs us.” He felt his man tense under his hand, and then felt him give a shuddering sigh.

  “Oh, God, Greg. What have I done?”

  “No, it’s fine. They have her. Come on, now. It’s fine. Let’s go to Becca.”

  Cody nodded, straightened slowly, and shoved himself onto the passenger seat.

  He was still shaking and looked pale as a ghost, but he was all right.

  At least he was, for now.

  * * * *

  Rebecca had slipped into her power-walk mode and had let her steps carry her where they would. She loved the cabin, always had. She supposed that eventually, though—probably sooner rather than later—they’d have to find a house in town to suit the three of them. Something they could come back to occasionally. Or maybe they could build a new house on one of the many parcels of land available to be leased.