by Jory Strong
All her memories contained the parents who’d raised and loved her, who’d always been there for her. And whether it was truth or fantasy, it was hard to look at the pictures and think Desiree had given her up only for the money. It was easier to believe it had been about both of them gaining a better life.
“I’d like to take a stab at finding the trailer park.”
“Mad,” Shane said, swinging around to get in front of her and walking backwards. “You know what we find there isn’t going to be pretty.”
“I know.”
“So let’s head to Stanford. Bio-dad’s clue this time is simple enough I didn’t even complain. True?”
“True,” she said, warmth surrounding her heart.
He glanced at Tyler. “Your vote’s for skipping Sacramento and going to Stanford, right?”
Tyler’s hand squeezed hers. “Right.”
“There you have it, two against one. Majority rules.”
Shane stopped when he hit the Jeep. He tugged her to him.
Tyler let her go.
“Majority rules?” Shane said.
She touched her fingertips to his lips. They were straight and serious, and still managed to be totally sensuous.
“Not this time. I need to do this. I need to see where she came from.”
Tyler leaned against the Jeep, a short reach away. She put her hand on his chest, trailing it up and down over the buttons on his shirt.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said.
Shane made a little growly sound. “We don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m not going to get hurt. I think I’ve already confronted the worst of Bio-dad’s revelations. He’s always known where I am. He made it so there was no way I could find him, even if I wanted to. He paid my mother off when it seems pretty obvious she loved me. And in a way he’s paid me off too.”
Shane repeated the growly sound, only this time it was deeper and longer.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It really is okay. He’s bought some of my time. He’s made me curious about him, and I don’t hate him. Beyond that, I don’t know what I’ll feel about him when I meet him, or if I’ll want to have anything to do with him afterward. But I’d do it all over again, not just to keep Mom and Dad from losing their house, but because it led to you and Tyler.”
Shane huffed out a sigh against her fingers. “Let’s get this over with then.” But he grasped her hair and brought her mouth to his, the touch and twine of his tongue trying to persuade her to change his mind.
It made her smile inside. It sent a shiver of warning through her, one that was repeated moments later when it was Tyler’s mouth doing the persuading as he held her against him, in arms that conveyed strength and a willingness to protect her against harm.
She didn’t want to leave those arms, except to return to Shane’s. But at the same time, it was too easy to see where that would lead. The longer she was with them, the harder it would be to keep her promise to Elijah.
Success in a band, the kind of success he would have had if he’d lived, meant being on tour. Being on the road a lot, especially at the beginning, grabbing at every opportunity for exposure and being grateful to do even a fifteen-minute opener for a headline band.
It’d be different if she concentrated on being a songwriter—
She squelched the thought, though her fingers tightened in Tyler’s hair.
He deepened the kiss. Or she did.
And when he released her, Shane swooped, evening out the time so that neither of them had kissed her longer.
Releasing her, Shane asked, “Still want to stop in Sacramento?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s hit it then.”
In the Jeep he took her hand. “You’ve heard a lot of stories about Tyler and me growing up. Now it’s time to hear some about you. Right, Tyler?”
He leaned forward, capturing a lock of her hair between his fingers. “Two against one, and this time majority does rule.”
“This time it does,” she said, filling the time to Sacramento with the best of her memories.
* * * * *
Tanya’s description of where she’d been when Desiree pointed toward a trailer park led them to a sprawling tree-lined neighborhood of singlewides and doublewides, of parked campers alongside those that lived on truck bodies.
“This looks pretty nice,” Madison said, surprised by the mature trees and the well-kept lawns.
Shane stopped next to a pack of kids clustered around a soccer ball and eating ice cream.
“Know where a lady with the last name of Owens lives?” he asked.
They looked at him blankly.
“What about someone who’s into pixies? You know, kind of like elves?”
A couple of kids exchanged glances. One of them shrugged. The other pointed in the direction they were heading. “There’s a house that way that’s got a bunch of statues in the yard.”
“Is that way still on this street?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.”
He pulled forward. Madison’s heart thumped harder.
The trailer was a singled wide with white paint and a dent in one corner. The yard was red landscape stones and potted plants to better show off a community of pixies.
They snoozed on their backs and sides under flowers on long stems. They gathered cross-legged in a circle around one red pot, as if admiring the blooms. They danced around another pot and played along one side of a narrow concrete walkway.
They were obviously loved.
Shane turned toward her, letting the engine run. “This could be good enough.”
She took a deep breath. “No. I need to take it further.”
Tyler rubbed her hair between his thumb and forefinger. “We can’t talk you out of it?”
“No.” Though her skin went hot and cold.
Shane twisted the key. The Jeep went silent.
They got out. At the walkway she clasped their hands, squeezed. “Thanks for being here for me.”
“As if you could get rid of us,” Shane said.
She released their hands, leading the way to the door and ringing the bell.
A woman answered, similar enough in appearance to Desiree to be her mother.
My grandmother.
The thought brought a disorienting lightheadedness.
Madison leaned backward, the warmth and solidness of Shane and Tyler’s presence becoming an anchor.
“What do you want?” the woman said, her voice balanced between curious and unwelcoming.
Good question. What do I want now that I’m here?
“Is your last name Owens?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Who wants to know?”
Madison’s throat went dry. It was Shane who said, “We’re with a firm of private investigators. We’re looking for Desiree Owens. You’re her mother?”
Hard-edged, ugly laughter erupted. “I’m not surprised she’s gotten herself into big trouble. I’m just surprised it hasn’t happened sooner.”
Madison relaxed, a wall of separation descending and becoming permanent. This woman would never be more than an unpleasant encounter, someone labeled Bio-grandmother, but mostly someone to be forgotten.
“So you’re her mother?” she asked, wanting it confirmed.
The woman spat. “I am. But you’re wasting your time here. She cleaned out what money and jewelry I had and took off a long time ago.”
A man’s voice yelled from inside the trailer, “Who you talking to out there?”
The woman’s expression softened. “Nobody you know.”
“Make it quick.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Madison asked, “Did you see or hear from her after she left?”
“No. Good riddance then. Good riddance now.” She glanced over her shoulder, dropped her voice to say, “She was a little slut. I couldn’t trust her around any of my boyfriends.”
Madison’s hand curled into a fist on behal
f of the mother she couldn’t remember. Bile rose at the thought of her mother being molested, being at the mercy of a long string of men brought into her life by the woman standing in front of them—until finally living on the streets at thirteen seemed like the better option.
One last question. One last rock to turn over.
“Could she have sought out her father?”
“That loser? I don’t know if she’s had anything to do with him or not. She didn’t growing up. Bastard never sent a dime. The only time I heard from him was when he wanted me to send him money, so he could buy commissary goods in prison.”
“What’s his name?”
“Dannie Pettine.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“If he’s not in prison? Probably sitting at some bar.” She glanced over her shoulder, then said, “The good ones are worth keeping happy. Hope you find her. The little tramp deserves what she’s got coming. What’d she do anyway?”
Disappeared.
“Sorry, client confidentiality.”
Desiree’s mother shrugged. “Good riddance then. Good riddance now.”
The door closed.
Madison resisted kicking the pixies that lined the walkway.
She imagined her mother at thirteen, shattering them as she left a home that had never been safe.
They reached the Jeep, and though she wanted to be held, wanted the comfort of Shane and Tyler’s bodies against hers, she wanted to get away from this place more.
This time she took the backseat.
Tyler took the front, turning to look at her. “Please tell me you’re not thinking of hunting him down.”
She shuddered. “After that encounter? Consider yourself told.”
“Good.”
“For the record, I’m still glad we came here.”
Shane fired up the Jeep and got on the highway.
Ten minutes later they exited and parked in front of an ice-cream shop.
“Chocolate would definitely hit the spot right now,” Madison said, taking their hands for the walk to the front door.
Inside the shop she ordered two scoops of chocolate while Shane went for strawberry and Tyler for banana.
“Outside okay with you guys?” she asked.
They answered by following her to a bench set in a landscaped area beneath two palm trees.
“This is nice,” she said, lifting her face toward the sun and closing her eyes, letting it burn away the aftereffects of the encounter at the trailer park.
The sudden weight in the hand holding the ice cream, and equally sudden disappearance of that weight, had her smiling, her lashes lifting.
A trace of chocolate on Shane’s lip gave him away.
“Thief,” she said, leaning in, recovering the ice cream with her tongue. “This is mine.”
“Yeah, it is.”
The huskiness in his voice was matched by eyes that held heated seriousness, that said they weren’t talking about ice cream.
What am I going to do about this? About him? About them?
She knew how she wanted to answer.
Stay.
But how? How could she do it? How could she break the promises she’d made at Eli’s grave every time she’d knelt there after placing a CD against his headstone? How could she commit to a relationship with Tyler and Shane when her parents had supported the dream of her being in a successful band for so long?
But how could she deny herself this, when she wanted it so much? When it felt so right?
She licked her ice cream, leaned over and licked Tyler’s, chocolate and banana merging, their tongues colliding and sending heat shivering downward to pool between her thighs.
She did the same with Shane, the taste of strawberry and chocolate becoming the fusing of lips, the rub of tongues, the build of need in all three of them.
She was afraid that by the time they reached Shane’s place, or Tyler’s, the two of them would retreat, taking away the opportunity for shared intimacy.
“We passed a hotel,” she said, and saw the shiver go through Shane, felt a similar one go through Tyler where her hand rested on his thigh.
“I want you both. I want to be with you at the same time.”
She wanted more, so much more, but for now this was what she could have.
A second shiver of need went through them, or maybe it was fear, that being with her would expose the desire they had for each other. But Shane nodded. And she turned to look at Tyler.
She could sense him wrestling down his fear that things would go bad and he’d lose the closeness he already had with Shane, that he’d lose the family he had in the Maguires and Montgomerys.
She wanted to use words to reassure him. She used her body instead. The press of her mouth to ear and cheek and lips. The slide of her tongue. The touch of her hand above his heart, and with its beat against her palm, knew that seeing him hurt because of her would be devastating.
He had the soul of an artist. Like she did. While Shane had the soul of a gambler, an irresistible mix of fun and possibility, a heady call to take a chance, to pick up the dice and enter the game.
Time slowed. Thickened. Heated with Tyler’s softly delivered, “I’m in.”
Her heart expanded and contracted with fierce need, with a fear that one of them would change their minds—only settled into a running beat of anticipation when they stepped into the hotel room.
Shane closed the door and locked it with a distinctive click.
She wondered if it was a subtle message that what happened in this room would stay there. Or if it was a different message, that there was no turning back now.
He tugged his T off then threw it on the dresser.
“Nice. Very nice,” she said, her body on fire, her heart pounding with a want that wasn’t merely physical.
Shane’s lashes dropped. He gave her the pouty, let’s get naked look he’d probably perfected in his teens. But for all his seeming wildness, she had the sense that he was relying on her to ease them into making love together.
She looked at Tyler, and felt the same from him. Watched as he unbuttoned his shirt, leaving it hanging open as if to force her into pushing it off his shoulders.
Tenderness welled inside her. She placed her hands on his chest, felt the rush of his heartbeat.
She slid her hands upward, her palms brushing over his nipples, eliciting a soft moan before they reached his collarbones and swept across and down his arms, ridding him of the shirt.
It fell to the floor and he stepped behind her, pulling her against him, his lips trailing kisses down her neck. His erection pressed into her.
Moisture coated her boy shorts. She reached out, ran her fingertips over Shane’s nipple ring, grasped it, heat sliding into her pussy, swelling and parting her lower lips as his lips parted and his lashes dipped.
She imagined pleasure streaking to his cock, and wanted to give him more of it. “Let’s see the rest of it,” she said, husky-voiced, further enthralled by their needing her to take charge, to break through whatever kept them apart.
Shane’s hands dropped to his belt. His eyes bored into hers while Tyler tensed against her, the two of them telling her without words not to expect the barriers to tumble completely. Not this time anyway.
What she felt for them deepened. What she wanted for them had already become thoroughly entangled with her own longing.
Like a striptease artist, Shane unbuckled, freed his belt an inch at a time.
He tossed it onto the dresser next to his shirt. Toed off shoes and socks.
Even his feet were sexy. Strong and tanned, capable of riding a board in rough ocean surf.
Her gaze traveled up his legs to his fly. She licked her lips, twisted the nipple ring, satisfaction surging through her with the buck of his hips and low moan.
He undid button and zipper. Shoved his jeans and underwear downward, exposing a cock that rose hungrily against taut abs.
She licked her lips again and it pulled away from hi
s muscled stomach.
Tyler’s hand slid from her hip to the front of her jeans. He thumbed open the button, snagged the zipper and tugged. But instead of pushing them down her legs, his hand slipped inside, burrowing beneath the boy shorts.
She moaned as his fingers grazed her swollen clit and traced the wetness of her slit. Shane stepped into her. His hands grasped the hem of her tank, tugging it off and tossing it on top of his T.
Her bra followed, the chill of the air-conditioning making her nipples tighten further. The heat of their bodies making her breasts swell.
Shane’s lips covered hers. His hands covered her breasts.
She shuddered and wrapped her arms around his neck, fisted silky strands of blond.
Shane’s tongue stroked into her mouth. His fingers captured her nipples, twisting, tugging as Tyler rubbed and pressed her clit, creating a chord of pleasure connecting her breasts to her sex.
She wanted more of their skin pressed to hers. Would never get enough of it.
“Pull my jeans down,” she said on a panted breath.
Shane shuddered. He wondered if he was ever going to last long enough to get Madison on a bed. If he was even going to last at all this time when every jerk of her hips drove the part of Tyler’s hand not covered by the boy shorts against his cock.
What was he thinking when he answered her siren call to strip?
Her hips pulsed and Tyler’s hand once again ground against his cock, making it impossible to deny the answer. This, getting this was what he’d been thinking. But somehow, even if it killed him, he’d wait Tyler out. He’d wait for some sign Tyler was bi.
To make the first move and have Tyler recoil…
He couldn’t do it. One sign. That’s all he needed.
His dick spasmed against the back of Tyler’s hand. Part of him wanted to use his grip on Madison’s nipples to urge her downward, to feed her his cock while his tongue battled Tyler’s. Part of him knew that if they didn’t get her to the bed soon, he’d come where he stood.
He released one of her nipples, covered Tyler’s hand with his in self-defense. Turning the focus of the torment onto Madison.
His hand slid lower on Tyler’s, allowing Tyler to rub her clit while he plunged his own fingers into her wet slit.
