by Tara Rose
She waited until she’d pulled out onto Main Street to let out a yell of frustration. The windows were up and the AC was on, so she didn’t think anyone would hear her. Could she have been any lamer? She’d spent years fantasizing about both men but not acting on it. And they’d spent years being polite and even friendly at times to her, but had never expressed even the slightest interest in seeing her outside of work. What had possessed her to say such a thing?
And even more important than that, what was up with the sudden compliments and the lust she’d glimpsed in their eyes just now? Overtiredness? That had to be it. It’s not possible that they’d been interested all this time but she’d missed the signs. Then again, she hadn’t exactly been looking for them, so it’s entirely possible she had missed them.
Thoughts of Pete Chesterwood drifted lazily through her mind, like wisps from a forgotten dream. Entire months went by now in which Loreen didn’t think about her ex-fiancé, but she wasn’t surprised they’d surfaced at that moment. She’d be married by now, maybe with kids, if Pete hadn’t gone out to the parking lot that night, four years earlier. He’d been an ER resident, and a damn good one. Too good. Too caring. Too willing to step in where he shouldn’t because he loved what he did. He loved being a physician, and had embraced it with the same passion he’d embraced everything in his life.
But he should have waited for the cops that night. If she hadn’t been busy with a patient she would have been able to talk him out of following the two visitors who got into a fight in the waiting room. She would have persuaded him to wait for the police, who had already been called. And he wouldn’t have been stabbed by one of the visitors, and he wouldn’t have died two hours later from his injuries.
She couldn’t go back and change any of that. All she could do was move forward. But she was lonely. She was so lonely. And apparently she was now inventing an interest from two doctors who barely spoke to her.
Loreen banged both hands on the steering wheel and yelled in frustration again. She had the most pathetic dating life of anyone she knew, and she had no clue how to change that. She wasn’t even sure it was worth the energy at this point. She worked all the time, but that was because she had nothing else to do. If Doctor Gorgeous or Doctor Man Hunk were waiting for her at home, she’d cut her hours in a heartbeat just to spend time with him.
Loreen pulled onto Lilac Way and shook her head. Now she was just being ridiculous. Harmless small talk in the parking lot. That’s all that had been. She’d go to sleep, and when she returned to work in a week, everything would be back to the way it had always been.
And she’d continue to fantasize about Adam and Travis, the way she had for years.
Chapter Two
Adam woke and sat up, fearful for several seconds that he was supposed to be in the ER and had overslept. Then he remembered he’d worked until this morning, and now had a week off. He hadn’t wanted to take vacation time, but Doctor Everett Montgomery Sinclair, supreme asshole and head of the ER, had pretty much forced him to take it. Adam hadn’t taken more than a day off at a time since returning from Iraq two years prior, and Everett said he’d been getting too many complaints from the nursing staff about Adam’s surliness. Therefore, Everett had concluded, Adam needed time off.
Surliness, my ass. Adam crawled out of bed and got into the shower. If he was surly it was because his life was empty outside of work, and he still couldn’t shake the images that chased him in dreams. Images of war-torn Iraq and the horrible wounds and scars that battle leaves on the human body and spirit. Images of children with injuries far worse than Mindy McAllister’s broken tibia or the cuts on both her legs from glass.
He’d returned to Iraq too many times out of a sense of guilt and duty. That and the fact that nothing ever happened in their little corner of northwest Indiana, so each time he’d returned home to Racy he’d been bored. The occasional gunshot wound or fracture kept them fairly busy, but in the grand scheme of things, and compared to what he’d seen off and on for eight years, what happened in Racy was small potatoes.
But his adrenaline junkie days were over. He’d had enough. The problem now was that he didn’t know what to do with all this pent-up energy and horrible longing. He didn’t mean to come across as surly. He was haunted and lonely, so that’s how it manifested itself because he couldn’t very well tell everyone how he felt. He was haunted by eight years of treating the effects of war, up close and personal. And he was lonely for the life he thought he’d have by now with Lissa.
Adam turned off the water and leaned against the wall, trying to stave off the memories that still overwhelmed him, and failing just as miserably as he usually did. Lissa Calla had been his fiancée until a car bomb took her life three years ago. A neurosurgeon with a brilliant future, she’d been the only woman Adam had ever let crawl under his skin. Until now, that is.
His memories of Lissa were almost always tinged with guilt nowadays, because he found his thoughts drifting from to her to Loreen. The one time he’d told Travis about his secret crush on Loreen and the guilt he felt because of it, Travis had told him to grow a pair and ask her out already. Until Adam had thrown it right back in his face. Travis had a thing for her, too, but he had more walls built up around his heart than Adam had ever seen. He and Travis were a sorry pair.
Adam dried himself off and put on sweats and a T-shirt, recalling the countless discussions he’d had with Julie Carruthers, Racy’s kick-ass psychologist, about these very subjects. Julie had never been in battle or worked in a country where defending your life was an everyday occurrence, but she’d counseled victims of abuse. She understood the long-term effects of it, and she understood why Adam had felt both compelled and reluctant to return each time.
She’d also nailed him on the fact that he’d been using his work overseas to hide from his real life back here in Racy, as much as she’d pointed out to him that burying himself in his work now and being cold to everyone wouldn’t bring back Lissa. Adam knew that. And he also knew that Lissa would want him to move on and be happy. What he didn’t know how to do was take the first step.
For a submissive, Julie could be downright dominant when the need arose. He’d told her that once, but she’d merely smiled and changed the subject. She was a sub to Racy detective Sean Brennan and philanthropist Maddox McCree, who also ran Racy’s BDSM club from his mansion on Birch Lane, but she never discussed her personal life during their sessions. She knew all of Racy’s dirty little secrets but kept them inside like she was Fort Knox herself. Adam admired her for that. She was one of the few people in Racy with whom he regularly interacted that he didn’t have to hide his lifestyle from, and that was refreshing.
Adam flipped on the TV and found some mindless show so he could simply veg out for a while. Racy’s BDSM community was large but close, and they kept to themselves for the most part. He knew of only a handful of people in it who worked at Memorial, Travis among them. But there were also those at Memorial who opposed the lifestyle, and they were vocal enough about it that Adam and Travis both had long since learned to keep their private life just that—private.
He envied Doms like Sean and Maddox. They could talk freely about it and not worry. Sean was one of three Racy detectives who were Doms. Chad Bristol and Harrison Kelly were the other two. And two sergeants were in the lifestyle as well. Carson Decker and Garrett Amato were now both Doms to Teresa Rodriguez.
And Maddox didn’t give a shit who knew he was a Dom or that the BDSM club in town was run from his house. But then, he didn’t have to give a shit. No one would dare harass him, and he couldn’t be fired for his choices.
Adam, on the other hand, had to maintain an aura of professionalism at all times, and that included pretending to be as straight-laced and conformist as possible. Most of the staff called it aloofness or even arrogance, rather than professionalism, and he knew that. But they didn’t understand. They didn’t see the struggle inside him everyday. And he had few people with whom he could turn to when he ne
eded to talk about it.
Even Travis didn’t understand it completely because he’d never been engaged. He’d never been in love. At least, not that Adam was aware of. He was simply detached. He had been that way since Lissa was killed. It wasn’t that he’d been in love with her, but watching what Adam had gone through had scared Travis enough that he’d closed off his heart to the possibility of loving and then losing someone.
That was no way to live, but neither was the life Adam had now chosen. He was forty-two years old. If he didn’t find a way to break this cycle soon, he’d end up being as much of an asshole as Everett was. And Adam didn’t want that. He wanted joy in his life. He wanted a woman to love and cherish, and if he were lucky, she’d be a sub as well. But he was willing to trade even that right now for someone who could help him find his way out of this darkness.
* * * *
Travis woke at two in the afternoon and felt more rested than he had in weeks. It always amazed him how even a few hours of sleep, knowing he wouldn’t be woken by a beeper or someone nudging his shoulder, revived him. He took his time in the shower, going over in his mind every detail of the night before as he’d worked side-by-side with Loreen, taking care of the four teens who’d been in the accident.
Her blonde hair was always pulled back in a ponytail at work, and he usually had a rough time not staring at it. Travis had lost count of the times he’d imagined tugging on that hair, not enough to hurt but just enough to get her attention, while he licked every square inch of her body, and then begged her to do the same to him. Her cornflower-blue eyes were straight out of a painting. And that body…lush and curvy…just the way he liked them. How the hell was such an enticing woman unattached?
Then again, if he’d been engaged to someone who’d been killed, he might work to avoid the possibility of it happening again as well. That’s what Adam did, after all. But he was miserable for it, while Loreen had a sweet smile for everyone.
Travis had heard the stories of Loreen’s fiancé, Pete Chesterwood, being killed. He’d been in Iraq at the time with Adam, but word had reached him. When he and Adam returned for good two years later, Loreen had merely nodded and thanked them both for their condolences, but Travis knew she was simply putting on a brave face. He’d glimpsed the pain in her eyes.
But still, after four years, she rarely dated. Many had tried but she almost always said “no.” Travis had often wondered if she’d refuse him, too. He had no reason to imagine she wouldn’t, so he hadn’t asked. And he knew Adam carried a torch for her, but as far as Travis knew, Adam had never asked her out either.
Being turned down for a date was every teenage boy’s worst fear. What most women didn’t realize was that the fear didn’t stop when they reached adulthood. It only got worse as the years went on. But at thirty-eight, he was tired of spending weekends at work or alone in his condo, watching mediocre TV shows and drinking warm beer.
He and Adam both served as Dungeon Monitors at Maddox’s club once in a while, but watching wasn’t any fun. Travis wanted to be in there, topping a sub. He wanted way more than that, but also realized that he made no effort toward that happening. He was too afraid of rejection, which was crazy, but there it was.
He’d heard the nursing staff whispering. He knew women found him attractive and charming, but everyone assumed the same things. Either that he was a player, or that he was already attached and had a wife and kids waiting for him at home. The latter was a ridiculous assumption in this town, where everyone knew everything about their neighbors. And the former had never been true about him. He’d never taken any relationship for granted, no matter how short-lived.
Travis dressed and peeked outside. It was a gorgeous June afternoon, and he needed a walk. His condo was right down the street from Adam’s, so he stopped by to see if he wanted to join him. The two were friends, but rarely spent any time together outside of work. They were either too busy working or sleeping. But right now, Travis needed some male bonding time, even if all they did was stop in Kitty’s Pizza or Luke’s Bar.
Kitty’s was new to Racy, having taken the spot where Cathie’s Printing had been before the tornado last May. Once the buildings downtown were rebuilt, Cathie Snyder had decided to continue her business out of her home. Kitty Carlson was new to Racy, and had already made a name for herself with her pizza shop.
Travis liked the pizza and other items on the menu, and it was certainly better than the food at Luke’s, although the place with its white-and-red striped theme didn’t have the right atmosphere for drinking a beer with a buddy and shooting the breeze. Plus, it was almost always packed with teens on the weekends. Travis wasn’t in the mood for that today.
After the tornado, Luke Rodriguez had relocated his bar from Market Street to Riverfront Drive, which hadn’t taken as much damage as Market. Luke, along with building commissioner Chase Taylor, was a Dom to Alexa Monahan, who co-owned Racy’s fetish shop, Tye Me Up, with Racy native Kari Tye. Kari was also in the lifestyle, and her Doms were Noah Wells and Adison Kincaid.
Adam answered the door right away, leading Travis to believe he might have been doing the same thing as Travis had just been doing. Watching TV and trying to figure out what to do with his time off.
“Hey, want to go to Luke’s and grab a beer with me?”
Adam glanced behind him. “You driving?”
“I thought we’d walk.”
Adam shrugged. “Okay. Great idea. Give me a minute.”
* * * *
On Saturday afternoon, Loreen called her sister, Stacy, to see if she could hang out, but she was busy with her husband and their daughters. Of course they would be. It was summer, and it was the weekend. Her nieces had more activities than any ten adults Loreen knew. All three played soccer, and Leslie, the oldest, was in marching band, and was friends with Mindy McAllister. Stacy asked if she wanted to come to the soccer field, but Loreen begged off. The idea of watching happy couples cheering on their kids depressed the hell out of her.
The few single friends she had were all busy as well, so Loreen walked toward downtown Racy. She admired the reconstructed buildings that had been destroyed in the tornado last May. They’d had a celebration on the third of last month, marking the one year anniversary. The buildings had all been original, and had been restored so they’d have the same look.
Some businesses were gone for good, and others had been moved to different locations. At least one building that had housed apartments was now an upscale clothing store. Also new to downtown were a pizza shop as well as a salon.
She considered stopping in for pizza, but wasn’t really in the mood to eat alone inside a restaurant. She always felt sad for people she saw doing that. She’d walk around a while instead and then go home and make dinner. She was used to being on her own, but today for some reason it bothered her more than usual. She didn’t know if that was because Adam and Travis had haunted her dreams all day, or because of some other reason.
The dreams had been vivid and erotic, and instead of arousing her as they usually did, this time they’d only accentuated the stark reality of her life. She was living in the past, and had invented a fantasy life to replace the one she couldn’t have. That was no way for a person to live. She was only thirty-five. It’s not like any chance of a meaningful relationship was long gone. Men asked her out all the time. She simply never said “yes.” It was easier to pretend she was too busy to date. If she didn’t become involved, her heart wouldn’t be broken.
But that kind of thinking only added to her loneliness. And Loreen was tired of it. She didn’t want to live this way any longer. She had a lot to offer the right person. Or persons.
Loreen chuckled as she turned the corner onto Riverfront Drive. Persons? Get a grip, girl. The only two men she’d consider having a relationship with at the same time were Adam and Travis, and she had no reason to believe they’d seriously consider such an arrangement. She knew there were ménages in Racy. Everyone did. But the fact that they were successful did
n’t mean that anyone and everyone could make something like that work.
She was still chuckling to herself as she approached Luke’s Bar, drawn to the new sign he’d recently hung. The colors were vibrant and fun, and she wondered if he had plans to update the inside as well. She didn’t see the two men who came around the corner from behind the building until she smacked right into the chest of one.
“First she talks to herself and now she’s laughing at herself.”
Loreen put up her hands to stop her forward progress, ready to apologize. Travis’s sexy grin stopped her cold, and all she could do was stare at him and Adam in turn. Talk about a happy coincidence.
“What were you laughing at?” asked Adam.
Heat rose to her face. “Oh, nothing important.” She glanced at Travis. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see either of you. Did I hurt you?”
“Not a bit.” He pointed toward the entrance. “Is this where you were headed?”
“No. I was just taking a walk.”
“We were about to go inside and grab a beer. Want to join us?”
Loreen smiled. Happy coincidence or not, she wasn’t going to argue with fate right now. “I would love to.”
Chapter Three
Luke’s Bar was indeed going through updating. Sections of the flooring were new, and he’d added the same vibrant colors to the lighting inside as were now outside. In one corner, a raised platform was being built. There weren’t too many people inside yet, but she knew it would be crowded in a few hours. She and her friends came here sometimes on the rare occasion Loreen took a Friday or Saturday night off, and it was always packed.
Luke came over, his hand extended. “Well, I have to put this date on the calendar. Both of you out on a Saturday night at the same time? And with a woman? Are the planets aligning or something?”
