by Zoey Marcel
“In case you said no. It wouldn’t hurt as much if it was addressed to him.”
David rolled his eyes a little, but his smile remained. “That’s brotherly compassion for you.”
Brighton smirked.
Danielle managed a crooked smile, her mind swirling with questions. “I wish I’d gotten the letter.”
“Me, too. Talk about a waste of epic words on paper. You should have read it.” Brighton took in a deep breath, expression gloating with pride. “It was something to see. Wait a minute. What was all that stuff Dominic told us about you saying you were gonna come home?”
“I told him I was thinking of moving back to McKenna Downs. I never said it was set in stone.”
“Oh, okay. Gotcha.”
David brushed her arm, reawakening the giddy butterflies in her stomach. “You hungry?”
She had a feeling she wouldn’t be turning down food for a long time afterward. “Starved.”
“Good. We’ll buy you dinner. We were just getting ready to eat.”
“I call shotgun,” Brighton announced.
Danielle grinned.
David shook his head. “It’s not shotgun if we’re sitting at a table.”
“Fine, I call grenade then.”
She tittered, not sure what to make of all of this. Did they expect her to choose between the two of them? The McAlisters didn’t share women, to her knowledge. It was a huge chunk of the reason she’d left years ago. She’d loved all three of them and hadn’t wanted to have to choose from among them or have the audacity to ask them to share her with one another.
Polyandrous relationships were the tradition in McKenna Downs.
Citizens in Stone River didn’t share their spouses or partners.
The McAlisters lived out in the country halfway between McKenna Downs and Stone River. They were like an interesting hybrid of the two towns, yet completely in a class all their own.
At the Wild Bronco Pizza & Brewery restaurant, Danielle sat in a booth, and Brighton immediately slid in next to her. David sat across from her on the other side of the table. After ordering their food, the men turned their attention to her.
Awkward.
“Well, baby, what do you think of our proposition?” Brighton asked, draping an arm over the back of the booth so it lightly touched her shoulder.
“I still don’t know what it is exactly that you’re proposing.”
“Well, marriage, of course.”
“What?” She scooted away from him and shot quizzical glances between them. “Are you serious?”
“Pretty fucking serious,” Brighton said.
David gave him a reproving look before focusing on her. “We didn’t mean to spring that on you. If you’d gotten the letter in the mail, you would have known that already. We’ve loved you for years. It broke our hearts when you gave your virginity to Emmett O’Neil years ago.”
Her eyes bugged out, and her mouth fell open. “You guys have loved me that long?”
She’d loved them since she was a teenager, used to fantasize about marrying them and sharing their bed. But they were the McAlisters, one of the richest families in the area, and she was plain, middle-class Danielle Hartwell. Being friends with them had been a nice second, even if secretly she’d always longed for so much more with them.
Giving her virginity to Emmett, whom she’d had a major crush on back then, had been safer. She loved all three of the McAlisters and didn’t want to choose only one of them. It would have hurt too much. Instead she’d slept with someone she had liked so much back then that she’d mistaken it for love. Emmett was the only O’Neil brother she’d been interested in, as hot as the other siblings were.
In her eighteen-year-old dreamer stupidity, she’d thought she could tame the player, make the bad boy propose to her after giving her innocence away to him. Yeah, because reality always worked like that. She’d been a number to him. He’d been up front about his intentions, but in her girlish optimism, she’d hoped she could change his mind about settling down. She hadn’t.
Danielle came back from the past, in awe that two of the three McAlisters that she’d loved most of her life apparently had real, meaningful feelings for her.
Both men nodded, confirming their deep, abiding attachment to her.
With all her heart, she wanted to say yes, but there were two names that came to mind. Gavin Donnelly and Cole McAlister.
One wanted to kill her.
The other probably hated her as well, but for deeper reasons. Her heart ached with regret when she thought of Cole. She’d done to him what Emmett had done to her. Only she’d done him a greater wrong, because unlike her trivial, fleeting infatuation for Emmett, Cole had been madly in love with her. It wasn’t until after they’d made love that he confessed his feelings to her and she realized what she’d done, the mistake she’d made.
She’d loved him, too, still did, but there were a number of reasons why she hadn’t been able to stay. She’d left town in tears, leaving the charm of McKenna Downs behind for the bustling noise and bright lights of Chicago. It hadn’t been a second chance or city life she’d craved, merely escape. Overpowering sounds and countless distractions to drown out the deafening silence that crushed her under the weight of every mistake she’d ever made. Her screw-ups had only piled even higher after moving there.
Last she’d heard, Cole had moved away to London. Was he still there?
Did it really matter one way or the other?
He probably hated her for breaking his heart. Or he might have moved on and found someone else to make him forget all about her. She didn’t know which scenario was worse. Both killed her.
Danielle peered down into her drink. Ice cubes bobbed on the surface of her cold water, some of them submerged below the liquid like small-scale versions of icebergs.
“Do you love us, Danielle?” David asked. “Or did we just make fools of ourselves?”
Brighton snickered. “She wants us. I keep telling you that. Well, baby?”
Her head said to politely reject them to spare them the pain of losing her when she left town again, this time for good. That, and knowing that they would be safer without her if Gavin ever happened across them with her was another valid reason not to say too much.
But her smitten heart had other ideas, couldn’t deny them the truth that they were after.
“I love you both,” she said quietly, twirling the straw in her chilly glass. “I always have, and I always will.”
“Ha!” Brighton mocked his older brother. “What did I tell you?”
David kept his eyes on her like he knew there was more to the story.
“But I can’t be with you.”
“See, David? Wait. What?” Brighton tossed her a baffled look. “What do you mean you can’t be with us? Of course you can, and you’re gonna be with us in all the ways.”
“If you don’t return our affection, Danielle, just be honest with us,” David said in a civil tone, eyes betraying his sorrow.
Her head flew up, and she reached across the table for his hand. “No. I meant it. I love you both so much it’s been tearing me apart inside for years.”
The grief faded and the smile returned to David’s face. She’d missed them both more than she thought possible. Seeing them again was like a breath of fresh air, the sweetest homecoming she could have possibly hoped for.
She wanted to say more, but like Brighton’s, David’s good looks were distracting to a fault.
David had large, beautiful brown eyes that were the shape and color of almonds. His light-brown hair was short in the back, but the front had a longer, messy look that fanned a bit in a stylish display. He was about six foot one and lean with muscle like his younger brother was.
Brighton’s style of dress was more trendy and hip, whereas David had more of a classy look with subtle nerdy undertones. He pulled it off well.
They both looked amazing and smelled so damned good it muddied her thinking.
“What’s the p
roblem then?” Brighton shrugged.
Danielle hesitated, not knowing how much information to divulge to them. The less everyone knew about what Gavin had done, the safer they would be.
Regardless, she owed them some kind of explanation.
“My ex-boyfriend did something illegal. I saw him and now he’s after me.”
“What did he do?” Brighton asked.
She didn’t answer.
David watched her closely as she swam in the crystal depths of her frigid glass. “Did he kill somebody?”
She nodded slowly.
“Whoa.” Brighton blinked at this and gave her shoulder a soothing rub. “My poor baby. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
David caressed her hand with his thumb. His masculine strength and immersing warmth comforted her.
“I can’t stay. He’ll find me and hurt anyone who gets in his way.”
“Pfft. I’m not afraid of a jerk,” Brighton scoffed with a wave of his hand.
“He has ties with the Mafia,” she said numbly.
His eyes got huge. “Say what?”
David’s thumb stopped stroking her skin. “You dated someone in the Mob?”
“He’s not in the Mob. He’s friends with a friend of the Mob, but he’s done some jobs for them before. I didn’t know that at the time, or I never would have gone out with him.”
“I figured.”
Brighton appeared contemplative before finally speaking again. “Screw it. We still want you.”
“I want you both, too, but we can’t. He’ll find me and kill us all. I only came back to town to say good-bye to my brother and then leave for good. Someplace Gavin won’t ever find me.”
“Does he know where you live?” David asked.
“No, but what if he finds out? I have to change my name or go through the witness-protection program or something.”
She tried not to get hyper, but the thought of her loved ones and friends getting involved in this dangerous situation made her sick. This was all her fault, even if she hadn’t known until recently.
“Shh. Calm down,” Brighton said. “We’ll get it taken care of. You said the guy doesn’t even know where you live. Just don’t buy a house or get a job.”
“How am I supposed to live? My name is probably going to show up in the system at some point. I need a job.”
“We want to take care of you, Danielle,” David said gently. “You don’t need a job, unless you want one. We have more than enough money to take care of you. You’ll never want for anything.”
She shook her head, eyes stinging. “I can’t stay. If I marry you, the name change will eventually turn up in the system, and he’ll find me and kill you.”
“Not necessarily,” Brighton said.
David gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “It’ll be all right. Just report him to the police.”
“How? I don’t have any proof of what he did. I’m sure he cleaned up everything and covered his tracks. I had to flee the city in a hurry. I didn’t have any time to call the police, and even if I had, there’s no evidence to support my claims.”
“So, report him anyway, and they’ll keep an eye on him,” Brighton advised.
She thought of the cleaning lady and wondered if Gavin would figure out that Deb was the one who had helped her escape. With any luck, he’d just assume that Danielle had gotten away on her own.
On the other hand, if she told her story to the cops and the cleaning lady turned up dead, that might be enough to incriminate Gavin.
“We’re not gonna let you go now that we know you want us,” David said with a twinkle of determination in his eyes.
Danielle gave him an adoring smile, but her spirit felt weighed down with worry. How was this supposed to work?
“That’s right, baby.” Brighton wrapped his arm more snugly around her and scooted closer. “You’re stuck with us, because we’re not taking no for an answer.”
The assertive words and the heated nearness of his strapping body fired a furnace inside of her. She wanted them in every way a woman could possibly want a man, but she couldn’t put their lives in danger.
“Do us a favor and report the bastard to the police when we’re done here,” David instructed her. “You’ll feel better, and maybe they’ll find proof of his crimes that he overlooked.”
“Okay. What if he finds me?”
“Not gonna happen,” Brighton said confidently.
David’s approach was more logical. “We’ll protect you.”
The server set their food down in front of them and then left after they thanked her.
“I didn’t think you guys ever shared women,” Danielle said in between bites.
“We don’t. We’re too competitive,” Brighton replied, forking a chunk of ravioli.
“You’re worth it, though,” David told her.
“Thank you.” She smiled back at him before shaking her head. “I’m not buying it. Both of you guys and Cole have always had that Frasier and Niles Crane rivalry going on.”
Both men laughed.
“It’s true. Those two just don’t get that I’m the best.” Brighton flashed his brother a “Take that, punk” smirk.
David shook his head, lips curving in a lopsided smile. “We’ll work it out. We both want you. Besides, our competitive streak isn’t quite as bad as it used to be.”
Their attention made her feel cozy and secure, like she’d finally come home and would be safe from the criminal back in Chicago.
“So where do you want to go for the honeymoon?” Brighton asked. “Italy it is then.”
She smirked. “Is that where you’d like to go, Brighton?”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, baby. We’ll go there if that’s your first choice.”
David gave her a slow smile. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather honeymoon in Australia?”
“Hey.” Brighton pointed to him. “Quit trying to influence the lady. She said she wants to go to Italy. I’ve never been out of the country and that’s where she wants to take me first.”
“But Australia, pumpkin,” David said.
“They both sound really nice,” she agreed, turning her head toward Brighton. “You’ve never been out of the country?”
“No.” Brighton rolled his eyes. “Dad says I wouldn’t be able to behave myself on a plane for more than an hour or two. I take that back. We all went to England once to hunt Cole down for a visit. He mostly lives in London, but every now and then he moves to other cities. The hermit always has to be mysterious and forget to report a change of address. Dad didn’t mind me flying that one time since he was there to keep an eye on me.”
“He’s right, you know.” David picked up his glass. “You do tend to get into trouble when left alone.”
“We won’t know that until we fly to Italy like Danielle wants,” Brighton replied.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she said sadly. “I really can’t stay.”
Brighton draped an arm over her shoulder and pulled her closer. “You will, and you’ll be glad you did.”
The three of them talked periodically while eating, but the entire time, two thoughts swirled like a broken record in Danielle’s head.
Two of the men I adore love me back.
It was the happiest day of her life.
But I can’t stay. I have to protect them.
It might have been the best day of her life, but in a way, it was also the worst.
Chapter Four
Heath Brodie drove out to Wall first to scope out the area. He hoped to find either a vacant building for rent or just the right plot of land to build his clinic on. He would either open up his veterinary clinic here or in Stone River. They were close enough to each other that it didn’t really matter one way or the other.
He walked through the small town, edging toward the outskirts. The Gateway to the Badlands, it was called. It had lovely views of both the Great Plains and the commencement of the Badlands. It was a peaceful,
picturesque location.
Something caught his eye and he noticed a young man in a car parked behind a building. His head lay back against the seat, and his mouth was open as if panting, face distorted with pleasure. Evidently he was getting a blow job from a lady. She must be good, judging by the frantic jolting and the wideness of his mouth crying out in delight when he came.
Heath was about to walk away when he saw someone’s head pop up. That somebody was Sean Friel.
Sean was the son of Aiden Friel, one of the men who owned Leather & Lace, the BDSM club in McKenna Downs. Aiden had sent his son to live with Heath’s father, Malachi Brodie, about four years ago, back when Sean was fifteen. Heath always found it strange since Aiden still lived in South Dakota. For some reason he would rather his son be raised by a preacher than by him.
For a split second, the evil thought went through Heath’s head that he had dirt on Sean. Not that he would ever spill it everywhere in front of Malachi, but it had always made him jealous that his father treated Sean better than he had either of his own sons.
Sean’s number had been called.
Nah, you’re trying to work on that not-being-a-bastard thing, remember?
Heath decided not to out the poor kid. Sean was only nineteen, for God’s sake, but knowing he had the power to ruin the spoiled little prick if he wanted to made him smug.
At that moment, Sean wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand and looked over at him. The guy’s mouth fell open and his eyes widened like saucers. He couldn’t seem to get out of the car fast enough as Heath started to walk away.
“Heath, wait!” Sean called after him in his pleasant Scottish brogue.
That was another thing Heath never understood. Why Aiden had an Irish accent while Sean’s was Scottish if they were related by blood. Maybe they lived in Scotland just long enough for the kid to pick up the accent without the dad losing his lilt.
Who knew?
Heath didn’t care. He had business to conduct.
Sean reached him, looking panic-stricken. “What you saw isn’t what you saw.”
Heath smirked at this. “I’m pretty sure I saw you sucking some guy off.”
“Is that what it looked like?”
