by Jenny Penn
Kansas Heat 2
Kansas Nights
Headstrong and determined, Kathy isn’t about to leave Amanda Johnson’s future to fate. She’s out to prove her friend’s innocence and isn’t shy about getting her evidence. Things quickly go awry when Kathy decides to take on the head of Amanda’s security detail.
Jack Harrington doesn’t have time to play games with Kathy. He’s on a mission and it doesn’t have anything to do with that temptress. The only problem is she won’t stay out of his case and he can’t seem to stay out of her bed. Life isn’t made any simpler when his old friend, Collin Hitchens, shows up to lend a hand.
Assigned the task of keeping Kathy occupied and out of the way, Collin finds himself just as captivated as Jack by the luscious librarian. It isn’t long before all three are trapped in a whirlwind of lust that threatens to spin more than just their lives out of control.
Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys
Length: 125,865 words
KANSAS NIGHTS
Kansas Heat 2
Jenny Penn
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
KANSAS NIGHTS
Copyright © 2012 by Jenny Penn
E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-956-9
First E-book Publication: August 2012
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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KANSAS NIGHTS
Kansas Heat 2
JENNY PENN
Copyright © 2012
Prologue
Sunday, August 10th
“You see, we were going to pledge our love and go down on our knees and do whatever dumbass thing you demanded to make up for the mess we made of everything the night of the ball.”
Jack Daniels almost snorted outright at that pussy-ass statement, but managed to mind his manners and hold his disgust in. Flipping off the speakers, he gave Amanda Johnson and the Reese brothers their privacy. After all he wasn’t there to record the details of their sex lives. Jack had one, and only one, goal to accomplish—finding Will McKinney’s accomplice. Then he’d work that line all the way back to the sons of bitches who had put more than a half dozen federal agents into the ground.
The need to see justice burned all the brighter as things seemed to dead-end with Will McKinney. Killed a few weeks back, the bastard had managed to go to his grave without leaving a clue as to who helped him steal millions in drug money. Blood money, Jack corrected himself, thinking over everybody who had died in the sudden war raging all around this dick-hole of a town.
The death toll went higher than that and became a hell of a lot more personal for Jack. Everybody wanted to find the money. Jack wanted to find the sons of bitches who had set this all into motion. He might not know much, but he knew Will McKinney hadn’t acted alone.
Not shockingly, that worthless piece of garbage didn’t have enough friends for Jack to connect Will to anybody. The most solid clue that they had, a list of clients Will turned tricks for, had turned out be a diversion with most of the names fabricated. Some, though, weren’t. It would require time to unravel that mess.
Of course, it was unlikely that whoever had planted the log had put themselves in it, leaving the list of suspects depressingly small. The only people known to have any kind of routine contact with Will McKinney were Eddie Dyne, who worked for him, and Amanda Johnson, who inexplicably liked him. Neither of which were really good candidates.
Eddie Dyne might have been a grouchy bastard, but he’d been cleared for the simple fact that he didn’t have the ability to pull off the hit on the safe house. Forty years ago, he might have had the connections and the friends, but the man appeared to be as lonely as Will. That left Amanda in the limelight. She certainly had the friends, the crappy relatives, and all the baggage in the world to make her look like a prime suspect on paper. Jack didn’t buy it, though.
The woman might be all sorts of unpleasant, but she appeared to honestly care about Will. Besides, Will had run from her. If Amanda had been involved, she either would have gone with him or chased after him. No, it didn’t make any sense. It didn’t matter how many ways Jack turned it over in his head, nothing added up. They were missing something. That just bugged the crap out of him.
* * * *
“I’m telling you that it doesn’t add up.” The pitcher in Kathy’s hand clinked as the ice tumbled over and out into the glass. Tea rushed in a golden tide after the sweating cubes until they bobbed near the top of the lip. Only then did Kathy tip the pitcher back up and pass the glass toward Rosy, splashing tea all over the place as she did.
“You got…what? All this money that gets stolen from down at the Shade Tree?” Kathy snorted, settling back into her porch seat with her own brimming glass. “Who the hell takes money to the Shade Tree? Hell, the whole point of having money is so you don’t have to stay at the Shade Tree!”
“Yeah? I got something better than that.” Rosy shifted in her seat to lean in
close, a sure sign the gossip was good. “Mavis Rey, you know Cynthia’s aunt?”
“Blonde, big…” Kathy waved her hands out far from her chest, having to fight off the giggles as she intentionally oversized the gesture. Mavis didn’t just have big boobs. She also had an obsession with push-up bras. The result was something like a shelf that was legendary throughout Humble, Kansas.
“Oh, yeah. That’s Mavis. Now she works over down at the county hospital and she heard from a coworker whose brother works for the county coroner that the man that got shot up in that room was all bloodied up, like he’d been beat first.”
“Beat?” Kathy reeled backward with that suggestion. “Well that just makes everything even more screwed up. I haven’t heard anything about that.”
“Probably because a five year old could beat Will’s ass,” Rosy muttered before snickering and raising her glass up in a salute. “Hell, I’d beat his ass for what he’s putting Mandy through if he wasn’t dead already. Can I get an Amen?”
“You can get more than that, because I’m not going to let this stand.” Kathy lifted her own glass to knock it against Rosy’s as her friend appeared to suddenly shift moods.
“Oh, no.”
“Yes.” Kathy nodded and took a deep swallow, refusing to acknowledge Rosy’s growing pout. “Amanda is our friend and she needs help. What are we going to do? Sit back and let the police handle it?”
“Yes?”
“Ha!”
“You’re going to get in trouble.” Rosy shook her head, clearly disapproving as usual of Kathy’s enthusiasm. “And that isn’t going to help Amanda.”
“I’m not going to get into any trouble.” Kathy knew that might very well be a lie, but didn’t let that fact stop her from huffing with pure indignation. Friends since kindergarten, she knew just how to guilt Rosy. “Why do you always think I’m going to make a mess of things? You think I’m stupid?”
“No!” Rosy snapped before stopping short to glare at Kathy. “Don’t even try it, Kit Kat. You know I think you’re the most intelligent, beautiful woman alive, but that doesn’t change the fact that you like to get into trouble.”
“Fine, I’m a troublemaker.” Kathy wouldn’t argue that, appeased in part by Rosy’s flattery even if it wasn’t subtle. “But I’m still right about this and you know it. Things don’t add up and police, they’re not on Amanda’s side. I am.”
“God help her.” Rosy heaved a dramatic sigh before lifting her glass once again. “Here’s hoping you don’t end up in jail.”
* * * *
Jail. When had everything in her life become about avoiding that less-than-reputable institution? Marion didn’t know. It hadn’t started out like that, though. Back in the beginning, when she’d been only eighteen, Marion had lived for fun.
Those days had slipped past, though. She’d thought they’d been lost forever until she’d met Will McKinney. Laid to rest days ago, he’d been buried along with Marion’s hope of ever laughing again. Will might not have been a bright man or even a good-looking one, but there was no better party to be had than getting lit up and naked with him.
Marion sighed, casting a look over her shoulder at the large lump hidden beneath the covers. No amount of pills or alcohol could make George fun. Not that it much mattered. George was rich and powerful, which was just why Marion had doped him into getting her pregnant. That had been decades ago, though.
Back then Marion had been excited about moving into a house with air-conditioning and a bathroom with real tile in it. Money changed life, so did privilege. She’d known that even at eighteen. What Marion hadn’t realized was that it didn’t necessarily make life better. Of course it didn’t make it worse, either.
As bored as she was with her life, Marion could at least use her money to afford a few thrills. That’s what Will had been, a way to pretend like she wasn’t a sixty-year-old grandmom. Dennis never treated her like one of those. Now, there was a man who hadn’t changed much over the years.
Just as good looking as ever, Dennis was also as rough and dirty as he’d been as juvenile. Sex with him was always hot and hard and oftentimes degrading. Marion knew it was wrong to like it that way, but she couldn’t deny that she did. That was the real secret.
Even if the world found out about her and Will or the pills and sex they shared, Marion could cope. People finding out what Dennis knew…Marion shuddered, unable to even think of what would happen. The backlash would probably be worse than going to prison.
Risks were supposed to come with the possibilities of rewards, but Marion didn’t have anything to gain this time. She did, though, have everything to lose.
Chapter 1
Monday, August 25th
“A beer, and another round for the tourist.”
“Not a problem, Kat.” The bartender snatched up the twenty that slid his way and, with a wink at Jack, moved off to fill the order. Jack Daniels didn’t return the big man’s smile or bother to glance in the direction of the woman who had just slid onto the barstool next to him.
“Aren’t you going to say thanks?”
Tired of the female fan club he seemed to attract every time he came into this rinky-dink town and not at all interested in putting up with the forward advances of a woman who referred to all the guards protecting Amanda as “delicious pieces of meat”, Jack still tried to be as polite as he could muster as he set his finished drink down.
“I’m not looking for company tonight, but thanks.”
True to her forward nature, Kathy Coben didn’t take that pointed hint and back off. The woman just laughed, a deep-throated, almost-lusty sound. “Maybe not company, but how about a little gossip? Isn’t that something you’re looking for, Mr. Daniels? A little information?”
Jack stiffened at the insinuation in her tone, uncertain if Kathy was playing a game or honestly knew something she shouldn’t. Catching her amused gaze in the speckled wave of the mirror behind the bar, he glared back a silent warning, but it didn’t ease the smirk from her lips.
“I’m not one to listen to idle rumors.”
“Oh.” Straightening up like a prissy blue-hair, Kathy turned her chin up and away from him. “Shame. I guess I’ll go tell Larry, from The Holler, what I learned about Will McKinney.”
She paused, letting that sink in. It did. The very thought of her talking with a newspaper reporter filled Jack’s gut with a dread that had his whole body tensing. It didn’t matter what she knew or didn’t, Kathy Coben knew how to cause trouble. That was the last thing Jack needed more of.
“Larry always likes a little gossip for his column.” Kathy fluffed her hair and glanced around the bar. “Oh, and look. He’s here tonight.”
Blackmail hadn’t been listed as one of Kathy Coben’s crimes, but it fit the rest of the list. Jack didn’t tend to take kindly to criminals, much less ones who were trying to shake him down. Turning slowly on his stool, Jack had the perfect set down to send the irritating woman away, only the words disappeared on him the moment his eyes locked on her.
“Damn.”
“Damn?” Kathy cocked her head as confusion tightened her features. “Damn what, Mr. Daniels?”
Lord, but she was cute—almost fucking adorable with those rosy cheeks and twinkling brown eyes. Then there were those lips, full and arched and beckoning all sorts of dirty deeds. She looked just like the plain, boring picture he’d seen in her file, but flushed and animated with life, the woman before him could have stopped traffic in her little yellow sundress.
“You’re getting damn close to annoying me.”
That was the blunt truth. He’d been without a woman for the last four months. It didn’t matter that every time he came into town Jack had women volunteering left and right to ease his itches. With his investigation at a dead end and Amanda Johnson’s life in constant jeopardy, he couldn’t afford the time or waste the attention it took to even get involved in a one-night fling.
Not that he’d exactly been disappointed, given Humble’s meager o
fferings when it came to a nicely turned leg or a well-stacked rack. Kathy had more than that to offer. The little woman knew how to breathe deep enough to keep any man distracted by the sight of her breasts heaving against the thin cotton of her dress. As if that didn’t make a man’s cock swell, she’d even perfected a soft, sexy tone that had his balls sweating with the sudden need to be sucked.
“Well then maybe I’ll take my interests elsewhere.”
Slipping off her stool, Kathy left Jack glowering at her ass as it sashayed its way across the room toward where Larry sat in the back. Scrawny and kind of geeky, Larry Harold was Humble’s one and only reporter. He wrote for The Holler, which he also owned and printed and delivered. It only came out once a week, on Sunday’s with coupons.
While Larry didn’t represent much of a threat, Jack still couldn’t risk the chance that Kathy might actually know something. Not that Jack suspected Kathy knew anything more than the way to her bedroom, but as a good friend of Amanda Johnson’s, she theoretically could know something valuable.
If not, then he could at least console himself by making Kathy scream, and beg. Some part of Jack really wanted to hear her beg. Then he’d fuck the crap out of her. He’d make that ass bounce so hard for so long she’d be wobbling around for days.
Jack saluted that vow and downed the rest of his scotch. Smacking the glass back on the counter, he shoved back his stool and went after the bright splash of yellow now snuggled into the side of some weenie. He’d punish her for that later right along with making him chase after her and threatening him with another man.
