Awakening Veronica [Divine Creek Ranch 17] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Heather Rainier

  Grace smiled, imagining Hank’s reaction to that question. “Not openly, but yes. Since he’s an elected official, he stays well below the radar.” Grace and Kate had talked before about the differences between Lusty, where the ménage and other alternative lifestyles were practiced out in the open, and Divine, where they were still very much the minority of the population. Grace knew Kate was discreet and trustworthy.

  “You know, I’ve always thought there was something about that man. Couldn’t put my finger on it. He’s not exactly…”

  “Pushy? Domineering? No, he’s not, although I’ve seen him take complete control of situations when it was called for. He has a burden for taking care of people in need of protecting. I think they might get along well. If Veronica wanted to stay on for a bit and enjoy the peace and quiet of ranch life while she writes that series, she’s more than welcome to extend her visit. I’d love to get to know her better.”

  “Would you mind if I revealed your alternate identity to her?”

  “No. It would be hard to hide that fact, and I see no reason to do that. Plus, it’d be kind of cool for Rachel and me to have another author in our genre in the area for a visit. I’m sure the guys would enjoy showing Veronica around the ranch, too.”

  “Then it’s settled. I know Veronica will be in capable hands.”

  “Very capable, I’m sure.” Grace could barely contain her glee. “While she’s down here, if you’d like, I can get in touch with Ace and Kemp, and maybe Duke Rivers and Gage Randall. They could teach her how to protect her privacy and her persona online, as well as look at putting a stop to that troll’s harassment of her. They can be extremely persuasive.”

  “I’ll leave that to you to organize. One last question and I’ll let you get back to those adorable men of yours.”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you have a vacant pasture that’ll be available the day I arrive?”

  After the last details were worked out, Grace ended the call and went back to searching the scrapbook.

  “Judging from what I heard of the conversation, someone is in need of a place to stay and rest for a while?” Jack asked as he placed a warm, comforting hand on her knee. She tried to picture herself navigating the waters of a public persona on her own and shuddered. It was challenging for her, with the wonderful support system she had, and she couldn’t imagine doing it alone.

  “Thank you for being open to Veronica staying in the old foreman’s house. I think she’ll like it there.”

  “Sounds like she’s having troubles.”

  Grace laid her palm over his work-roughened hand and said, “I think a stay in Divine is exactly what she needs.”

  “What are you doing, darlin’?” Jack asked as he looked over her shoulder.

  “Justine needs some pictures from last Fourth of July for a school project. I told her I’d see what I had.”

  She slid her hand over a picture in the lower left corner so she didn’t have to look at it and carefully removed another picture from the page. Jack kissed her shoulder and lifted the picture she removed to look at it.

  “Justine and Beau are growing up fast.”

  “I know. Thanks again for giving him a weekend job with your framing crew.” Her nephew Beau would be finishing high school the following May before going off to college in the fall. Only a year behind him, his sister Justine was a junior at Divine High School.

  “The boy’s not afraid to work. I like that.”

  Grace turned the page and slid her palm over another photograph as she lifted another picture from the page.

  “Why do you keep doing that, darlin’?” Jack softly asked.

  “Doing what?” she replied as she tried to close the scrapbook. Jack stayed her hands and flattened the album and pulled it a little closer. “You keep covering up pictures of you. Why?”

  With a sigh, Grace let her fingertip drift across the candid photograph taken of her from the rear while she carried on a conversation with a family member. Her ass was enormous. “I’ve put on so much weight in the last couple of years. I’m heavier now than I was when I met you, Jack.” Heat crept up her neck and her lips trembled. “I’m not voluptuous anymore. I’m fat.”

  Jack let out a long sigh, and she sensed it when Adam looked up from his computer and laid it aside. Jack tilted her chin so she was looking into his ocean-blue eyes, but she felt it when Adam drew near, too. “Darlin’…” With that one empathetic endearment, his heart resonated in his voice.

  Adam tilted the scrapbook so he could see the image and said, “I don’t care for that picture either, but for a totally different reason, baby. Number one, that’s not how I see you from that angle, and also because I don’t like how tired you look in that picture. You’d been sick recently, you hadn’t been sleeping well, and you were worried about finishing that manuscript.”

  She could hear Adam’s heart in the rough timbre of his voice. Will I ever believe them when they tell me they think I’m beautiful? Believe it enough for self-acceptance to last? Guilt followed as she tried to swallow the lump in her throat. Why do I make them keep reminding me of this? It’s like telling them I don’t believe them.

  A fresh wave of fatigue swept over her and a tear streaked down her cheek. “It’s always one thing or another.”

  Jack kissed her shoulder, his beard stubble rubbing through the thin fabric of her robe. “But all those issues resolved themselves. Remember? You got well and the book was done in plenty of time.”

  “You’re still not sleeping as well as I’d like, though,” Adam said as he stroked her knee. “Maybe you should go see Emma.”

  She’d actually considered making an appointment with their doctor but when it came to mind, it was always an inconvenient time. Her schedule was so busy some days she didn’t know which end was up. Just having two of her men clustered around her made her feel better. “Maybe I’ll do that.”

  Adam cleared his throat and said, “Rose Marie has been a handful for you lately, too, hasn’t she?”

  Grace nodded. She wasn’t going to put the blame on their three-year-old daughter but the little girl had recently discovered that she had opinions of her own, many of which ran counter to her mother’s. Some days felt like a competition.

  “She’ll outgrow this stage. I know she will.”

  Adam leaned forward to kiss her forehead as he placed the scrapbook and the loose pictures on the coffee table.

  Ethan jogged down the stairs and came into the living room. A smile crossed his lips as he surveyed her in the blue robe. “Feel better?” When he made eye contact, he frowned. “What’s the matter?”

  Adam rose to his full, imposing height and reached out a hand to her. “Nothing a little tender loving care won’t fix.”

  Chapter Two

  Hank Stinson removed his pearl-gray cowboy hat as he walked through the front door of the Dancing Pony nightclub. He placed the Stetson on the bar and put out his hand to shake with the man sitting at the next seat down.

  Travis McDaniel grinned and turned to him for a back-slapping hug instead.

  “Welcome home, Fishcop. You stayin’ this time?”

  Travis had started out as a humble game warden in Texas, only his career had taken a circuitous route. In recent years, he’d been in Washington, DC, working for changes that would help the whole country rather than just a few territories. Hank had heard the frustration in his voice the last time Travis had called.

  Travis chuckled as he sat back in his chair. “You get right to the point, don’t you?”

  “Last time your visit was so damned short I didn’t have a chance to ask so I figured I’d better get it out first thing.” He nodded at Phil when the bartender held up a beer glass and pointed at it. He was off duty for the rest of the night, and after the day he’d had, he was due a beer and some relaxation time with his oldest and closest friend.

  Travis sipped from his beer bottle and then angled in his seat so he could speak face-to-face with him. “I’m here for at lea
st a month, until after Thanksgiving. I’m considering taking early retirement. The leaders in Washington are incapable of enacting any meaningful legislation because they’re afraid of losing their political funding. I’m tired of playing the game and I’ve been in long enough I could get out with a good pension and find something closer to home to occupy my time.”

  “That’s music to my ears, man.”

  “I put out some feelers a couple of months ago and one of them offered an interview. It’s a corporate position as a private consultant, doing what I’m already doing, offering solutions for wildlife management and agricultural development. The bonus is that it involves educational programs. I’d love to get into a classroom setting teaching the next generation. I have a meeting in a couple of weeks. Until then, I’m here to relax. It’s impossible to get anything done where I’m at now and this position would give me a chance to make a difference.” Hank could clearly see the light in his eyes as he talked about it.

  “So you’re in a holding pattern?”

  “Until the meeting, yeah. I’ve heard that there are a number of qualified applicants and I’m not sure I want to live in California again. I miss Texas. I miss the Hill Country.”

  Hank weighed his words before he spoke, torn between wanting the best for his closest friend and wanting to influence him to stay in Divine. “You remember a conversation we had years ago, before you transferred to Wyoming?”

  Travis took another sip from his beer and his eyes took on a faraway look. “Sharing a woman? You’re appointed to your current position by the voters. Do you still think about it?”

  Hank put down the beer glass and pointed at his temple, where more and more silver was crowding out his formerly jet-black hair. “I turned forty-four this year. There will come a point where I’ll be too old to compete with the younger guys coming up in the sheriff’s department. I don’t begrudge them their chance to make a difference in this community. I just don’t want to arrive at the end of my tenure as sheriff and realize that my years of service have cost me more than just a few silver hairs. Walking into a dark, quiet house at the end of shift has been getting to me. I wondered if you still felt the same way we did back then.”

  The other dream—one he’d all but given up on—also because of his elected position, hovered in the back of his mind but didn’t fully surface. He didn’t know if Travis still enjoyed the same Dominant tendencies he did, but he’d content himself with having one dream come true. Hoping for both felt greedy.

  What if we found our one and she was receptive to being dominated?

  “If you’re asking after all this time, that must mean the thought of sharing a woman, loving the same woman, has been on your mind.”

  “Frequently, yeah. Some things have changed since the last time you visited. Remember Jack Warner, Ethan Grant, and Adam Davis?”

  A deep chuckle rumbled from Travis’s chest and he sat back in his seat. “They’re kind of where this dream started. How are they?”

  A disquieting knot of emotion churned in Hank’s gut as he recalled the first time Jack, Ethan, and Adam had shared their secret dream of sharing a woman—not just for sexual pleasure but for a lifetime. He knew the emotion stirring in him wasn’t jealousy, but it still burned. Want. He wanted what they had with Grace. He longed for the peace he saw in Jack’s eyes when the subject of Grace came up.

  “They found her.”

  “They did?” Travis’s tone made it clear he was shocked. Hank thumbed through the pictures on his personal cell phone until he found the right one. He turned the phone so Travis could see it. “This was taken on Fourth of July. That’s Grace.”

  Travis took the phone from Hank, looked more closely, and his eyebrows did a brief, appreciative jump. “She’s beautiful. Looks familiar, too.” A grin spread across his face, and he glanced at Hank and said, “She have a sister? I’ve got a thing for curvy women.”

  “Me, too, man. Yeah, she has one already-married sister. Charity.”

  Travis paused and looked closer. “Stuart?”

  Hank nodded. “Used to be.”

  “She was a shy little thing and Charity was a pistol, as I recall.”

  Hank nodded and then chuckled. “Speaking of pistols, they also have a daughter. Little Rose Marie. She’s three. A lot has changed since you last visited Divine. Among our generation, Grace is the center of the first ménage I know of in this area. There are others from our parents’ generation, but they’re all still very much in the closet.”

  “You said the first ménage. There are others?”

  Hank licked the beer foam from his upper lip and nodded. “Several. Including people you know.”

  “I’d like to hear more about that, maybe get caught up with some of them.”

  Hank hoped that meant Travis still thought about their discussion years before. One night, when they’d gotten rip-roaring drunk, long before Hank ever conceived the idea of running for sheriff and before Travis had moved on to his first posting away from Divine as a game warden in Wyoming, they’d talked about sharing a woman.

  Both of them were so territorial back then, and they’d agreed that the only way either of them could ever share a woman with another man was if it was the two of them…and no others, ever. Their beer- and lust-soaked imaginations had run away with them, and they’d both fantasized about the kind of woman they could love together and what they could do with her if they were ever given the taboo opportunity. That original fantasy had led him to gradually discover other needs he had as a grown man that extended beyond the bedroom. Needs that were left mostly unmet.

  Hank settled back in his seat and said, “Tell you what, why don’t you relax for a few days. I’m off on Tuesday and we could go fishing if you’d like. I have an invitation to a wedding next weekend, and it includes a plus-one. Why don’t you come with me? You could get caught up with some more friends.”

  “Dude, when I said I was willing to share with you, I didn’t mean I wanted to date you,” Travis said and then barked with laughter, shielding himself when Hank raised a fist.

  “The wedding involves a ménage. Remember little Maizy Owen?”

  Travis gaped. “Itty-bitty Maizy Owen is old enough to get married?”

  Hank burst into laughter, relishing the shock he was about to deliver. “Trav, she’s in her early thirties now, and yes. She’s getting married. Three big dudes.”

  “Three? Hell. They’ll break her. Last time I saw her she was nearly small enough to fit in my pocket.”

  Hank snickered. “She might be but she’s got all three wrapped around her pinky finger. Her brother Patrick is also part of a ménage.”

  “Oh, hell. I bet two of his kids in ménages went over well with Old Man Owen.”

  “It wasn’t easy for them. Hasn’t been easy for a lot of them. There’s a faction here that takes delight in pointing them out, trying to shame them, make them feel bad for the way they live their lives, even though they don’t rub anyone’s noses in their private business. Maizy’s even had to contend with her own sister, Roberta.”

  “Prissy Owen? She doesn’t have much room to talk if I’m recalling right from her wild child days.”

  “That’s the one. But I gotta say…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Seems to be working for them. Maizy’s a school teacher and she had a hard time with the school board for a while, but it all worked out, at least in the short term. Old Lady Dumphrey was up in arms for a while but wound up being one of her biggest supporters. It was weird.” Hank’s backside still stung every time he thought of the elderly teacher and her oaken paddle. She’d had quite a swing back in the day.

  “Dumphrey? You mean from fourth grade, Dumphrey? She’s still alive? Man, I remember when she lit my ass up with that paddle of hers.”

  “Yeah, and cantankerous as ever. Speaking of paddles…” Hank leaned close and spoke softly so he wouldn’t be overheard.

  Hank saw the answer to his unspoken question in his friend’s eyes a
s he looked at him in the mirror behind the bar. “DC was a no-go, of course. I went to a few munches when I was out of town but didn’t make a strong enough connection with any of the subs to make travel worth it. Made some good friends, though.”

  “Sorry, man,” Hank said, tilting the beer to his lips. “Sucks to flip that switch and then realize the sub of my dreams—our dreams, I guess—isn’t out there.”

  Travis looked at him and pointed at his temples that were still mostly dark brown. “I’m not quite ready for the nursing home yet, old man.”

  “Maybe working together we can find her, if you wind up staying this time. So what do you say? Want to be my date for the wedding?”

  Travis snorted at his word choice and nodded. “Why not. I’m here for at least a month. I’ll have to see what happens with that meeting in two weeks, and I’ll go back to DC after Thanksgiving.”

  “Thought you politicians had cushy hours and took off around all those holidays.”

  There was a trace of disillusionment in Travis’s features that got Hank’s attention. He’d said he was considering early retirement. Maybe he was serious.

  The timing couldn’t have been better. Hank would need to be deciding soon whether he wanted to run for another term as Sheriff of Divine County, or retire to the private sector. He loved his job but the thought had a certain appeal.

  “So has life in Divine been as boring as ever?”

  Hank had to laugh. “Let me tell you some stories and you decide, Fishcop.”

  * * * *

  Saturday morning, Veronica sat in the plush leather seat of the Colibri and tried to focus on the open document on her tablet. The Texas Hill Country landscape zoomed past in her peripheral vision, making her queasy. She wasn’t sure what was worse, being at a higher altitude in an airplane and having a wider panorama to tune out, or being closer to the ground in a helicopter and being unable to escape the sensation she was falling.

  Research. This is research, damn it. Detach yourself. Pick it apart. Breathe. You’re not falling. You’re perfectly safe. She darted a glance out the window and a wave of cold anxiety washed through her in the luxurious but close confines of the helicopter. Her distant cousin, Henry, was piloting the ultra-extravagant conveyance on its way to Divine, Texas.