Adam’s chin hit his chest as his head snapped forward under the force of a palm smacking him in the back. Killian sauntered past, and Adam could hear the silent taunt in Killian’s smirk. So maybe he did need pointers, but Adam was willing to learn.
“We’re smiling because you are such a beauty to look at.” All charm, Killian took Rachel’s hand and prodded her into a turn. A gallant gesture in appearance, Adam knew Killian was just trying to check out her ass. “And you just get prettier every second.”
Rachel stopped him from trying to seal that overly mushy compliment with a kiss. “Food first.”
Seeing his opportunity to take the spotlight, Adam forced Killian back from Rachel by simply threatening to walk through him. On his way past, Adam returned Killian’s previous smack before roping an arm around Rachel’s waist. “Food it is, then.”
He escorted her to her car, but he had to leave her to drive herself. Adam was certain that was not proper boyfriend behavior, but she’d have to cope. They didn’t have much more than a half hour left to their dinner break. It appeared to be even less time by his estimation when he pulled into the Bread Box and saw the little parking lot packed full of emergency vehicles.
Pittsview didn’t get a lot of action, and he guessed all his fellow deputies and the firefighters had decided the occasion deserved pie. It also meant they would have to walk the gauntlet of hellos and speculative looks as Adam and Killian ushered Rachel through the horde camped out in the middle of the dining room. That alone shaved off nearly three whole minutes.
“It seems awfully busy for this time of day,” Rachel commented once they’d gotten her past the gaggle of men.
Adam followed her right into the booth’s bench seat before responding. The move smoothly forced Killian to sit alone. It also earned him another smack to the back of the head. Adam ignored it. Focusing instead on Rachel’s words, he scowled when her attention stayed on the other men.
“Ignore them.” Adam certainly intended to, but before he could change the conversation, he earned his first frown.
“They’re all cops and firemen,” Rachel leveled at him like an accusation. “Did something happen tonight?”
“Nothing much,” Killian answered from behind his menu, completely oblivious to Rachel’s darkening scowl. “The old barn out at the Davis ranch burned, but that’s—”
“What?” Rachel’s outraged gasp had Killian’s gaze peeking over the plastic edge. Adam caught his eye as Rachel snapped her glare between the two of them. “When?”
“If you’d let me finish, I’d tell you,” Killian shot back, his menu now forgotten.
“Well, then tell me.”
“God, you’re bossy.”
“Tonight,” Adam answered before Killian’s comment could provoke an all-out argument. This was supposed to be the charming and wooing phase of the date, not the antagonizing phase. All he received for his efforts, though, was Rachel’s scowl turned on him.
“Tonight? Why didn’t you call me?”
Now Adam frowned. “Why would we?”
“Because I’m a reporter. Somebody from the press should have—”
“Andy was there.” Killian grinned, obviously thinking he’d fixed it when a second later, Rachel blew up all over both of them.
“Andy? Andy was there? Of course he was.” She nodded at her own answer. “Who else would it be? If there is some real story like a fire or something, everybody calls Andy. Now, if it’s about some pastel-dyed egg hidden in the grass with a bunch of two-year-olds running around with poopy diapers, that’s when my phone rings.”
Settling down into a simmer, Rachel’s eyes narrowed with malicious intent on the huddle of men. “They never think to call a woman because they’re just a bunch of men.”
“Oh, don’t start that shit.” Killian snapped his menu down, more than willing to rush headfirst into trouble. “It doesn’t have anything to do with Andy being a man. It has to do with the fact that the old fart keeps a scanner in his house. Trust me, nobody bothered to call him.”
“So he just shows up?”
As stubborn as she was cute, Rachel apparently didn’t intend to let this topic go. Her intense determination on this subject started him thinking. From her continued muttering, he could tell his woman was in need, and that’s just why she had him.
“He just shows up and asks questions. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Well, because you’d have to first own a police scanner,” Killian retorted. “Then you’d have to be so lame as to sit around listening to it for hours on end.”
“Yeah.” Adam grinned, feeling victory in his grasp. “Or we could just call you.”
Score one for him because Rachel’s frown turned upside down into a glowing smile. “You could?”
“Sure,” he agreed easily, making it seem like no big deal despite the warmth creeping into his blood as she stared so hopefully at him.
“But it would be after everything was under control.” A sneaky little son of a bitch, Killian had tried to worm in on Adam’s well-earned googly eyes.
Not about to be upstaged or forgotten, Adam upped the ante, knowing Killian wouldn’t be able to keep up for long. “Hell, I bet we could even help you with some research and things like that. I mean, if you want to get into crime reporting.”
“Better yet, we could probably let you know who to be interviewing, help you set all that up.”
“Or you could do a heroes piece and interview some of the cops and firemen. We know all those guys.”
“I could teach you to shoot a gun.”
Now that one sucked, and Adam let Killian know it with a smirk. Like Rachel would want to play around—
“That’s so sweet. I’ve always wanted to learn.” Rachel’s response had Adam doing a double take. Damn if she wasn’t giving Killian the look that should be focused in Adam’s direction. “But I’d definitely appreciate anything you could tell me about this fire.”
Not about to stay down, Adam looped his arm around Rachel’s shoulder and pulled her right into his side. “What do you want to know?”
Chapter 12
Saturday, April 19th
“She wants to infiltrate a prostitution ring?” Paused and with her hands full of dough, Heather gave Rachel that mom look she liked to give Taylor. Rachel didn’t need a second mother or even an extra conscience, so she just shrugged before popping one of chocolate chunk bites into her mouth.
Tiny little cookies, they had pecan slices mixed in with the chocolate, making them irresistible to Rachel at any time. Heather had left a whole rack of them cooling not a whole foot from where Rachel sat perched on her stool, which went to show who the real dummy in the room was.
“And why in the hell would she want to do something like that?”
“Oh, you know Kitty Anne,” Rachel retorted, her cheek chipmunked out with another cookie. “She’s bored.”
Kitty Anne was one of Rachel’s oldest friends. She’d been born in Pittsview, but her family had moved to the big town of Dothan when she’d been twelve. That was way too late to break up a best friendship, so they’d kept it up all these years, despite the fact that they no longer bore much resemblance to the little girls who’d had so much in common.
About the only thing Rachel had left in common with Kitty Anne was a tendency to get bored. While Rachel’s wild streak led her to try a new hobby, like candle making, Kitty’s led to a job-of-the-year mentality and a man-of-the-week track record. Blonde and drop-dead gorgeous, Kitty could pull off that kind of lifestyle while Rachel was just thankful for the past three weeks.
“I do know Kitty, and I know she wants your help with this insane idea.”
Rolling her eyes at Heather’s know-it-all tone, Rachel felt cornered by what she knew would come next. “It’s not so crazy.”
“Which means you agreed to…” Pausing again to straighten up and fix Rachel with that no-nonsense motherly look, Heather waited to hear the answer to her implied question.
&n
bsp; “Cover the whole thing in an exposé for the newspaper.”
Heather started to nod slowly as she appeared to consider Rachel’s response. “And would that exposé be on her being raped or murdered?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Rachel groaned, but Heather had already dismissed her to go back to working on her dough. “She’s not going to get hurt, Heather. She’s just going to make some interesting friends and explore some options and see where it all leads.”
Heather laughed outright at what Rachel knew sounded like a weak excuse. “And why exactly are you going along with this? As busy as you’ve been lately, I wouldn’t think you would be bored enough to be this stupid.”
“I’m not being stupid,” Rachel retorted with no real heat. That must have annoyed Heather because she came back with a low and dirty blow.
“Yeah? So Killian and Adam approve of this operation?”
She stiffened up at that accusation. “I don’t need their permission, Heather.”
“Are you sure about that?” Cutting through the dough log she’d formed with her hands, Heather started laying out the bread for its final rise before going into the oven. “Because you did have to check with them before agreeing to meet Kitty in the first place.”
Rachel wished she could say no, but Heather knew better. She’d been standing there when Killian and Adam had given her the third degree over Kitty. “They were just curious because I never mentioned Kitty before. They weren’t really giving me their permission because I sure as shit would never ask for it.”
Heather snorted at that. “The very fact that they feel a need to know about every facet of your life and invade its every aspect should tell you something.”
It did. It told her no matter how much she might want to label their association as a fling, Killian and Adam were just as stubbornly trying to turn it into a relationship. Any moron could see it. They were with her all the time.
They slept in her bed every night, ate meals in her house, called her during the day to check up, scheduled things for them to do, and had even started to systematically move their things, bit by bit, into her house.
That wasn’t the only territory of hers they’d started to invade. When they’d first volunteered to help funnel some information to her on stories, Rachel had thought it would be a rare kind of thing, given that there was rarely any interesting crime in Pittsview. That hadn’t stopped Adam or Killian from intruding right in on her career.
It had started right after she’d published her interview with Patton Jones and come up with the concept of running a Heroes and Survivor series in every Sunday paper. She’d mentioned it once, and then suddenly, Killian had a surprise for her. It had turned out to be a she, a Mrs. Abigail White, specifically. Mrs. White had been caught in a car fire after an auto accident.
Her tale had been more heartbreaking due to her long and painful recovery, which had made Killian think she’d make perfect press. He hadn’t been wrong, and Rachel hadn’t been dumb enough to turn down the opportunity to do the interview.
Still, the very next day when Adam had turned up retired Captain Daniel Baker, Rachel knew a problem was developing. Captain Baker had served twenty-three years with the Marines without ever getting shot, only to retire to the country and end up with two bullets in him when he’d interrupted a gas station robbery.
Like Mrs. White, Captain Baker was worth a story and it had only been the beginning. Every night now, they came home eager to tell her what new idea they’d cooked up while on shift. It just rubbed her the wrong way that Andy was finally red with envy at her front page success, and she couldn’t take almost any of the real credit. While she knew both deputies meant well, they made her feel almost like a puppet.
So did Heather by brutally pointing out what Rachel would prefer to ignore for the time being. “Well, if you’re going to write an article on Kitty’s adventures, you’ll definitely need their approval. Who knows? Maybe you can follow up the ‘Heroes and Survivors’ series with ‘Pimps and Hoes.’”
“You’re not funny.”
“But I am right.”
There would be no point in arguing. Heather always had to have the last word. She was technically correct. “So what if Killian and Adam previewed my articles to give me their opinions? That’s what…”
“What? That’s what a fling does?” Heather slapped the last tray onto the rack and began shoving the long, slender shelving system toward the other side of the kitchen. “Because to me, two men that not only give you their opinion, but also facilitate all your recent articles, not to mention assist you by bringing you ideas, are after something more than sex. That’s just way too much work for some ass, and you know those boys don’t have to work that hard.”
Rachel did know. Killian and Adam could have almost any woman they wanted and could make any woman beg for things she’d never dreamed of wanting. Rachel was still panting over the memories of that first night herself. That had been fun.
Not that the past few weeks had been any less climactic, but neither man had brought out his arsenal. No whips, no clamps, no rope. If she was lucky, they might tie her to the bed with some of her old scarves, which was a very boyfriend thing to do and not so much a wild boy thing to do. Rachel sighed.
“Maybe I should make them work harder for it. They do like the chase.”
That had Heather pausing as she began to pull out the trays of now cooled down chocolate chunk bites. Holding one barely inches from Rachel’s nose, Heather gave her an honestly confused look. “What?”
“Huh? Oh, nothing.” Rachel didn’t want to have that discussion, but she did want some cookies.
“Hey.” Heather swatted her hand as Rachel snatched two more off the tray. “Those aren’t for you.”
“They’re for my party.” The words came out distorted by the mouth full of chocolaty delight filling her mouth.
“They’re for your guest at your party,” Heather corrected before returning right back to Rachel’s sore spot. “Which those two deputies planned for you, down to approving the guest list, and if that doesn’t say control issues, I don’t know what does.”
That’s why Rachel had gone out to Dothan to meet Kitty for lunch. She hadn’t introduced her yet to Killian and Adam, so they hadn’t included her in their surprise birthday party. When she’d explained to them her tradition of going out with Kitty on her birthday, they’d both confessed to having planned a party and immediately begun questioning her about Kitty.
It really would have helped if they’d consulted Heather when they’d thought up the idea of a party. Then, at least, Heather wouldn’t have been half as put out as she so obviously was now. Neither Heather nor Kitty approved of Killian’s and Adam’s growing control over Rachel’s life. The ladies believed the men were up to something.
Rachel knew they were, and she knew just what it was, too. “Yes, they have control issues, but really, what is that compared to great sex?”
“Sex isn’t everything.” So said the woman who only got laid once a year. Then again, Rachel was pretty sure that Heather knew what a climax was. Something Rachel hadn’t until she’d met Killian and Adam.
“It is in a fling.”
“And you’re not having one of those.”
“Yes, I really am.” Rachel believed her words, too. It didn’t matter how much Killian and Adam tried to make their situation into something more permanent. This thing between them would never work out because once they got what they wanted, they’d lose interest in it…In me.
It was the chase they loved, not her. They had proved that on the first night. What else explained their need to hunt her down and break into her house? It wasn’t lust based on overwhelming sexual attraction. Rachel did not inspire that kind of interest in any man. Well, they certainly didn’t come running after me because of my amazing charm and seductive flirting.
Nope. That hadn’t been it. In fact, Rachel figured the only thing she’d done that had earned their notice was run away from them. Me
n like Killian and Adam probably didn’t have a lot of experience with the word “no” when it came to women. It must have really gotten them good that she’d outright fled. That would explain why that first night had been decadent with punishment and the rest a symphony of sweetness.
Thanks to her rejection of them as relationship men, they’d gone to the other extreme, becoming playful and teasing…And certainly not like men. Rachel snickered at her own thoughts. Maybe she should tell them just that and enjoy their response. That would certainly give them something more entertaining to prove than that they could be counted on to put the seat down.
A more mature woman would have confronted them and discussed the issue in order to advance the relationship further. Rachel was not that woman. Instead, she preferred to overindulge in the moment and suffer the consequences later. It was sort of the same way she felt about chocolate. Besides, she reasoned that there would be consequences no matter what, because at the end of the day, no matter how hard they tried, Killian and Adam were not relationship men.
“You’re dick whipped,” Heather spat in utter disgust. “That’s what you are, letting those men boss you around all the time, and don’t think I don’t know what they’re like in private. They’re Cattlemen, and I know just what that means.”
That wasn’t any lie. Heather probably knew more than Rachel, given her long term fuck-buddy status with one of the oldest members of the club. They might only get together once a year, but after ten years, that still gave Heather the greater wealth of experience. Rachel almost envied her friend’s knowledge and her uncomplicated agreement.
“They’re not half of what you accuse them of.” Unfortunately, that was the truth.
“Look,” Heather upended a large bag of flour into a mixer that rested on the floor with the bowl lip reaching her hip, “far be it for me to tell you what to do—”
Penn, Jenny - Rachel's Seduction [Cattleman's Club] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 14
