Three Times a Lady [Hell's Delight 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Karen Mercury

  “Yes, we decided it’d be a good coming-out event for them. People should behave maturely and reasonably, at least, in a public baseball diamond, right?”

  “You’d think. You can’t bank on anything in Hell’s Delight, though. No, I mean what’s up with you and the sexy gaucho? He’s gay, Autumn, but I’m getting a definite Walk of Shame vibe between you.”

  Autumn could feel herself blush, and she eagerly accepted the cold Guinness her friend had uncapped. She took a couple of swigs while formulating her reply. At last she had to gulp and speak. “Well, we haven’t actually—there hasn’t been actual—”

  Katrina filled in for her. “You haven’t actually fucked.”

  Autumn nearly did a spit take from relief and shock. “Well, yes, that’s what I mean. We’re getting there, though. He’s definitely not gay. Bisexual, I’d say.”

  Katrina’s jaw hung low. “All right,” she at last said, patiently. “Now I’m going to ask the million dollar question. What does Noel have to say about you putting the moves on his boyfriend?”

  Autumn swallowed more beer. “He says nothing. Because he’s always there when it happens.”

  Katrina continued to stare glassy-eyed at her, as though she hadn’t just heard. Autumn was about to repeat herself when Katrina snapped to life again. She barked, “So you’re their third. You’re their woman?”

  Autumn felt shy. “It sure looks that way.”

  “You’re in a ménage.”

  “Yup.”

  “You’re back together with Noel.”

  “Sure. Katrina, stop looking at me like I’m a Martian!”

  “But Autumn!” whined Katrina, slapping her knee. “Have you completely forgotten what Noel did to you? He could never be trusted to keep it in his pants! He’s just way too social of a guy.”

  Autumn knew she’d have to defend her choice. She was prepared. “Yes, but that was then. He’s been totally faithful to Ewan for a year now.”

  “Well.” Katrina looked sideways at Ewan, who was avidly chatting with Alex. “Who wouldn’t be? I mean, look at him. Wait! Noel Butler is also one of the most desirable guys on the planet. You’re not worried he’ll get bored with being faithful?”

  Autumn had to admit, “He could. It’s not out of the realm of possibility. I’m just going for it now, Katrina. I mean, I’m stuck moving back to Hell’s—”

  “Stuck?”

  “I mean I have no option other than to move back to Hell’s Delight. Even though my dad’s safely in Leafy Pines now, I still need to be here for him. Right now I’m just getting to know the men.”

  “Are you…” Apparently Katrina was trying to say something even more horrifying than the events she’d just comprehended. “Are you in love with them? Because I’m telling you from practical experience. That’s the only way to make it work. If you’re just having some trivial fling, forget it.”

  “Why forget it? I haven’t really analyzed my feelings. I know that I never managed to fall out of love with Noel. Now I’m feeling pretty powerful feelings for…” What was Ewan, what was his role? “For Noel’s lover.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet.” Katrina was such a goof. If Autumn didn’t know any better, she’d say Katrina was the one secretly in love with the Hardscrabble cow boss. “I say it doesn’t work if you’re not seriously in love because then one person will inevitably get jealous. There will be an imbalance in the power structure and one person always feels left out or unappreciated. But, for instance in the sort of love between Shane, Alex, and me, we don’t keep a scorecard. I can be fucking Alex in the grape arbor, and Shane comes home and says what’s for dinner, you know?”

  “Really?” Autumn squeaked. She was getting warm just thinking about it. So far, the most she’d dared do with Ewan was kiss, but Noel hadn’t thrown out the slightest protest at anything between them…so far. “Yes, Ewan was just telling me about some triad going on at the Lay-Z-Boy? Hannah and JD have a third, too? Who?”

  “Colt Gatling, the Lay-Z-Boy owner.”

  Autumn’s head swiveled to view JD Harmon’s ass in the tight baseball pants. The professional pitcher had left the major league after a few shoulder injuries. But in no way could Autumn imagine him sucking that strapping Colt Gatling’s cock. “And it just…works out fine?”

  Katrina shrugged. “As far as I know. The key is to not keep a scorecard. It helps when I remind myself that Alex is a man, so how can we be compared?”

  “Apples and oranges,” Autumn said, echoing Noel and Ewan’s words.

  Katrina pointed at her with the bottle. “Exactly. Remind yourself if you see them sucking dick or whatever—Noel just felt like some cock at the moment. It has no reflection on you. It’s not like you have a cock, right? Apples and oranges.”

  “Hey, Autumn.”

  Autumn looked up, surprised no one else had approached her yet. Their ploy had worked. Outside of the nightclub atmosphere, people were more respectful of private space. Autumn shaded her eyes. She couldn’t tell who the guy was, but she obviously knew him. “Hey,” she said unenthusiastically.

  He squatted behind her on the bench. Oh. It was the guy from the Pit, Earl’s friend with the camo do-rag. A good-looking guy, he wasn’t missing any teeth, and for some reason didn’t seem to belong in the California foothills. Must be from out of town. “Hey. So you did wind up getting back together with Noel Butler? I thought you had your own great life in Colorado and didn’t need him?”

  Autumn frowned. That was some presumption coming from a guy she’d only met weeks ago. Still, one never knew. Camo do-rag guy might turn out to be someone important. In her job she already had enough enemies. She didn’t need more. “I forget your name. You’re a friend of Earl’s.”

  This seemed to throw him off track. “Earl’s, right. I’m, ah, Burt Chance.”

  Autumn shook hands with the guy, still unsure what he wanted. “Burt. Did you go to Sam Brannan High?”

  “Oh, no. I just met Earl because we’re in the same plumber’s union. So tell me. Are you giving up your great life in Golden? Because I wouldn’t if I was you. It sounds like you have a real cushy life going there, prosecuting people. Must be fun.”

  Something was incredibly off about Burt Chance. Why was he so damned interested in her and Noel, and in particular about her life in Golden? “Oh, it’s not all that, Burt. I need to be here to take care of my dad. Were…were you in Golden, too?”

  At this, Burt stood. Once again, he was a muscular silhouette against the azure sky. He didn’t answer her direct question about Golden. “I just don’t understand why you’d leave your job in Golden. Why? Ask yourself that. Finding out why would be the key.”

  And Burt Chance was gone.

  “That was weird with a beard,” said Katrina.

  “Have you ever seen that guy?”

  “I think he was at the Pit the other night when Noel sang. But before that, no.”

  “That’s the only time I saw him. He claimed to be a friend of Earl Goggins. At least, he was sitting next to him.” An idea began to form on the outer edges of Autumn’s awareness. She spoke before the idea was even fully realized. “Hey, by any chance, wasn’t Earl Goggins in the Army? Didn’t he serve in Iraq?”

  “Oh, yeah, or Afghanistan, one of those places. He saw combat, I know. He’s receiving some disability to help pay for his rent. People put up with a lot of weird shi—”

  Autumn shot to her feet, stretching a long arm over Katrina to grab the collar of Ewan’s shirt. “Ewan! See that guy heading toward the street? Oh, fuck, he’s gone. Come on! He went that way.”

  Ewan didn’t question her. He just leaped admirably into action, bounding down the grandstand stairs in the direction she pointed.

  He yelled over his shoulder, “Alex was just telling me the storage unit was also rented in the name of I.P. Freeley, the Sacramento vet. But he paid cash, so anyone could have used that name.”

  “Well, we know Freestyle wouldn’t put his own face on that fake wanted poster. Maybe t
he poor guy is his next victim. There! You see that van parked in front of that realtor’s office? That’s where the guy ran.”

  As they jogged closer to the van, a sick feeling welled up in Autumn’s stomach. Yes. There, in very childlike hand-lettered words, it said “Helping Hand-Jobs.” Autumn yanked Ewan’s sleeve to make him stop. There was no sense drawing attention to themselves by running toward a van that clearly could make a getaway. Instead, Autumn memorized the license plate. “Your truck!”

  The hand-job van moved urgently off down Jack London Street. By the time they could jump in Ewan’s truck and he pulled into traffic, even with Ewan flailing his arm out the driver’s window, there were ten cars between them. However, some vehicles turned off before the edge of town, so there were only three in the way by the time a red light caused them to split up.

  “Run it!” shrieked Autumn, pounding on Ewan’s bicep. “Run the damned light!” But some asswipe ahead of them had stopped for the light, so all they could do was sit there lamely and watch as the hand-job van moved out of town toward Auburn.

  “Fuck.” Autumn was already texting Alex.

  Put APB out on license plate 2FLT893. That’s the Helping Hand-job van and we just lost it.

  “Fuck,” sighed Ewan, at last allowed to drive through the intersection. “I can’t believe we can’t catch this fucker. He leaves enough stupid-ass clues. He’s like one of those arsonists who show up at the scene of the crime to watch it burn, watch everyone’s reactions.”

  “Shit. Pull over in front of this bank.”

  Autumn’s phone had instantly chimed her back from Alex. She read his text aloud.

  They found out who paid for that House of Pain membership. It was one of the short-listed vets from Tremaine’s unit.

  The FBI has it covered. Don’t take anything into your own hands.

  Autumn looked out the truck’s windshield. “Oh, as if we’d do something like that.”

  She had to text Alex back about Burt Chance, no doubt the nom de plume of the same guy Alex was talking about.

  Chapter Twelve

  I’m coming.

  Noel laughed at his text. He typed, I’m coming to give you a helping hand-job.

  They had been laughing about the mysterious van ever since Ewan had first seen it outside Noel’s old house. They wondered why a serial killer would paint such a ridiculous fake company name on his murder van. As Noel texted, the FBI was surveilling the House of Pain, probably in a corny fake van of their own, waiting for the masturbating van to make an appearance. The trio couldn’t figure the whole van thing out, so they made jokes about it.

  Noel wasn’t kidding about the hand job, though. He had already put a very strong industrial hook into the kitchen ceiling of Autumn’s apartment, knowing Hannah wouldn’t mind. Right now he had a box tucked under his arm, and he wanted to get its contents safely installed on that hook. He had just told JD Harmon, proprietor of Positive Vibrations, that he didn’t want a bag. It was one thing for Noel Butler to be seen and photographed walking down Jack London Street with a black box depicting a steel suspension bar. It was another thing if the box was inside a bag that blared the Positive Vibrations logo. A steel suspension bar could be for anything. Pull-ups. Loading and unloading. Other sorts of exercise.

  I can’t wait, Autumn texted back. I’ve been wanting a hand job for weeks.

  Chuckling, Noel darted down the alleyway next to Delight Hardware. My cock is up and hard for you. It was no lie. He went inside the heavy metal door set in the old Victorian brick of the building and leaped for the clanging stairs.

  I am wet and waiting for your hand job.

  Noel had never had as much fun in his entire life as he had the past month. Reconnecting with Autumn was a sheer joy. She brought such gladness into his heart. He had never wanted to lose her in the first place. His many entreaties that he would change had fallen on deaf ears. Autumn had been right. He would never have changed. Time was the only thing that had been effective in changing him. Maturity, experience, and time. He was accustomed enough to the rock star life now that it wasn’t like a kid in a candy shop scene for him. He didn’t need to prove anything—well, not nearly as much anymore. He didn’t need groupies hanging all over him. There were only two lovers he wanted, and he was dead certain of that.

  “Ah, my love,” cried Noel as he swept Autumn into his arms. They kissed, but he was too full of talk to kiss her long. “My precious,” he murmured against her mouth. Standing her up straight, he took the box to the kitchen counter and started opening it.

  “Ewan’s out calving,” said Autumn. She looked delicious and retro in nothing but some stirrup pants, socks, and a curve-hugging sweater.

  “I think he’s done with that,” said Noel, looking at the metal horseshoe bolt that came from the box. “Do you have a Phillips screwdriver, I hope? I think he’s just looking after the newborn calves now.”

  Autumn shrugged. “Oh, that’s what I meant. Here.” She slid open a junk drawer and rummaged around in it. Now she spoke in a whole new, higher voice. “Noel? I was listening to that demo tape on your iPod.”

  Noel stilled, but he had to take the screwdriver from Autumn. His only option was to act casual. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She stood close behind him as he fiddled with the bolt, the tips of her breasts brushing his back. “That song that seems to be titled ‘Red Daisies,’ when did you write that? It sounded familiar.”

  Noel would have to give up the goods. There was no sense in lying. He was just uncomfortable talking about their dramatic past—times when he had mostly been the one in the wrong. He screwed the bolt onto the ends of two eighteen-inch chains that would suspend the bar. He was glad he could look at the bar as he talked. “Well, originally I wrote it back when we were kids. I think it was on that demo tape that we hid behind Sam and Mia’s wall, so I just reconstructed it from memory. It’s the same one you and Rick remember.”

  “I do remember. And my father sure does, too.” Autumn rubbed the back of his neck with her fingertips. “It reminded me of that time we were hiking in that field near Sam and Mia’s, and we thought we saw a bunch of red daisies. They turned out to be something else, of course. I don’t think daisies grow wild in California.”

  Noel turned and pulled the stepstool from where he’d folded it next to the fridge. Briefly he wondered if it was tacky, talking about their past love while hanging a suspension bar from the ceiling. But he did it anyway. “Right. So later on, I bought a bouquet of red daisies…” He allowed his sentence to drift off because it was too painful to talk about. That was why he’d tried to resurrect the song from memory a few months ago. In his experience, the most painful or emotional songs were usually the biggest hits. Clayton had picked up on it and had layered it with a burning melody and catchy groove. Clayton had remembered the red daisy bouquet, too.

  Autumn held the stepstool steady by leaning on it with one arm. She held Noel’s calf with the other. “You asked me to marry you with that bouquet. I said yes.”

  Noel nearly stumbled, he was so surprised Autumn had brought that painful crap back up. “You said yes at first. How does this look? Says it supports two people, but we’re only going to do one.”

  “How long can I hang from it?”

  “Oh, I’ve got suspension cuffs, don’t worry. I’ve got it all covered.” Noel got down from the ladder and went to his flight bag on the couch. He was ardently crossing his fingers that Autumn wouldn’t continue with this line of conversation. He nodded at Autumn. “Take off your sweater. I want you to try these on.”

  She did so as they wandered back to the kitchen. But she wasn’t done with the uncomfortable conversation. “Yes. I first said yes because I loved you so dearly, so passionately. Then I realized it would be a mistake.”

  “Well, it’s not a mistake now. Here. Let me buckle one on.” She was wearing that lacey push-up bra that made her boobs look so big. She would look even more banging, if such a thing was possible, if he’d
bought a collar for her.

  Autumn held up a wrist, but yanked it close to her waist. “What do you mean, ‘it isn’t now’?”

  Noel closed his eyes patiently. His band was known for their sensitive, evocative, intelligent music. Ninety percent of the songs had the word “love” in the lyrics. But he was having a hard time telling a woman he loved her. “Now. Us being together now isn’t a mistake. Back then, I had a lot of maturing to do.”

  “Me too,” Autumn whispered, perhaps handing him a bone, encouraging him to continue.

  Now she petulantly let him buckle the cuff on her wrist with her lower lip sticking out. Noel sighed deeply. He was just going to have to come out with it. “Autumn, I still love you. I never stopped loving you. Three months ago I remembered the lyrics as best I could because I was living back here in Hell’s Delight—here, let me buckle the other one on—and I knew the passion, the emotion would make a great song. Clayton and I both remembered what it all meant. He remembers how messed up I was for a long time after you dumped me. Shit, I remember being so down Sam and Clayton had to literally haul me out of bed and stick me in the shower.”

  “That’s sweet,” she whispered. “I still love you, too.”

  Noel shared a glance with her. “It seemed like you might still love me. I’d never have risked Ewan’s love if I didn’t think it would work out with you, too.”

  She asked softly, “But how, Noel? How are we going to work it out? You love two people?”

  “I think people can be in love with two people at once, aye. I think there can be two ‘loves of your life’ simultaneously.”

  “So you love us both equally?”

  Noel looked at the wall, thinking. “Aye, equally. If one can quantify something like that.”

  Autumn looked relieved for some reason. She did look smoking hot in the cuffs, and Noel led her up the stepstool. He joined her precariously on the top step because he had to hook her wrists to the chains dangling from the bar. “Oh, good.” They were squashed close together on the small ladder, and Noel just wanted to kiss her with joy. She loves me. “I’m glad you think so, because I’ve fallen in love with Ewan, too.”