Convincing Rowena [Passion Peak, Colorado 6] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic)

by Tara Rose

* * * *

  Rowena and Carma walked down Juniper Street, toward Sassy Brassy. Rowena glanced across the street at Expressions Salon, where Carma was a stylist. “How did you luck out and not have to work the day after Christmas?”

  “Jocelyn felt sorry for me. My family came to the ranch for dinner yesterday. All of them.”

  “Oh, Jesus. And I thought my dinner was bad.” Rowena told Carma what Cindi’s boys had done, and then she gave her the news that Emma and Sasha were probably going to be permanent Passion Peak residents.

  “At least you’ll have your niece around. Maybe there’s still time to save her?”

  “Maybe. She’s a good kid. You can just tell, you know? If only Emma would take a job out of state or something. Van and I would take her in and try to raise her the right way. Poor kid really hasn’t had a stable life. Last year she went to three different middle schools.”

  “That’s rough on a kid, especially at that age.”

  “I know.” They walked in and Rowena waved to Brassy, who looked overwhelmed already. It might be the day after Christmas, but her shop was just as busy as ever. They headed straight for the impact play toys, where Rowena pointed toward a flogger similar to the one Van had used on her the day before. “This is just like it. Only the one he gave me had been special-ordered it because it had a sparkly handle, and he thought I’d like that.”

  Carma shook her head. “Only Van would think it mattered what the handle looked like.”

  Both women laughed, and then Carma picked up a small black paddle with holes in it. “If you’re looking for something that really stings, this will deliver.”

  “I’m not sure I can handle the stinging stuff.”

  The corners of Carma’s mouth turned up. “The thudding hurt a lot, did it?

  Rowena glanced around, but no one was paying attention to them. “No, not at all. In fact, it was more like a massage. He hit me with it about fifty times and that started to get uncomfortable, but I couldn’t actually call the sensation painful.”

  Carma nodded. “Soft ones are like that. If he’d used a leather one, or some other material like bullhide or rubber, fifty throws would have had you in tears.”

  Rowena studied her friend’s face. “But you like that, right? When it’s painful?”

  Carma nodded. “You know I do. I can’t explain it, but when you feel it, you’ll understand. It’s all mixed up with the arousal it also brings. The endorphins start flowing and it’s like a drug. The more you’ve given, the more you need.”

  “Maybe I should buy a flogger that’s more likely to hurt?”

  “Maybe.” Carma slapped the paddle against her palm. “But this looks like it would, too. Is that all he did? Flog you?”

  “He spanked me a bit. And that hurt.”

  “But you liked it, right?”

  She had to avert her gaze, which was unusual when talking to Carma. “I loved it.”

  “Why are you so reluctant to admit that? You asked me to meet you here today to help you buy new toys, remember? What’s the deal?” Carma leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Did Brandt hurt you? I mean physically?”

  Rowena shook her head and made eye contact with Carma again. “No. Never. And he wasn’t into anything kinky. It’s a trust issue, you know? I mean, I trust Van of course. I’d trust him with my life. Hell, I did trust him with my life.”

  Carma nodded. “The fire. I wish you and Van had been able to prove that Trace Coleman was behind that.”

  “So do I. And now he’s gone for good. No more ghost hunting for him, fake or otherwise.”

  Carma frowned. “Trace is gone, but I heard Mateo and Blaine talking the other night about whether others will come here looking for the money and jewelry that’s still hidden all over town. I mean, we know it’s there. What’s to stop others from sniffing around?”

  “Nothing. Van and I discussed that as well. Hell, our own house is a target. What if Uncle Cal had enemies who know about the stocks we found behind the walls three years ago during the renovation, and when they hear about Trace’s story, they come looking for more?”

  “Well, even if they do, hopefully no one else will try to set your house on fire.”

  “Van saved me and Snowball that day. I still can’t believe he did that.”

  Carma touched her arm and smiled. “He’s a keeper. And he adores you.”

  “I know.”

  “But you’re a million miles away today. What’s going on inside your head right now? Talk to me.”

  “I wish I knew.” Rowena fingered a leather riding crop, imagining how much it would sting on her bare ass, and her pussy grew wet at the thought of it. “God, this is so fucked up. This stuff has always turned me on. Always. But when it comes right down to letting him do it, I freeze up.”

  “What was different yesterday? You said on the phone this morning that it was…what was the word you used? Oh yeah. ‘Super-amazeballs-fucking-incredibly fantastic.’”

  Rowena laughed. “It was. It was all that and more. It was the best damn sex we’ve ever had and that’s saying a lot.” She and Van had enjoyed a very active and satisfying sex life long before they were married, and it hadn’t diminished once the wedding bands were on their fingers.

  Carma sighed out loud. “So what the hell is really going on, then? Wouldn’t you like to find out so you can get past this and enjoy your fascination with kink?”

  Rowena held up her hands. “Don’t go there. I’m not seeing a shrink.”

  “I didn’t say you should.”

  “You were about to.” Carma had abuse in her past, courtesy of a cousin, and was currently seeing a therapist at Open Arms, along with Mateo and Blaine, to help them all work through past issues.

  “No, I wasn’t. But Bridget is helping me, Mateo, and Blaine a great deal. So don’t close off that steel-trap mind of yours forever to the possibility, okay?”

  Rowena took the riding crop off the hook and slapped it against her palm. It stung like crazy, and once again she got wet thinking about Van using it on her bare ass. “Wouldn’t I know it if I had abuse or something in my past?”

  “Maybe. But you know, people do block it out. And it doesn’t have to be physical abuse to be fucking with your head right now. It can be trust issues from something you don’t even remember. Or, you can recall it, but you don’t realize how messed up it left you. Brandt did a number on you. And you were barely out of your teens at the time.”

  “I know.” She put the crop in the basket she carried on her left arm and brushed her fingers along a paddle similar to the one that Carma had shown her. “But he didn’t abuse me.”

  “Physically, no. But he cheated on you. A lot.” Carma glanced around and lowered her voice. “He violated your trust and gave you some pretty scary moments when you were getting tested for STDs.”

  Rowena took a few deep breaths and grit her teeth. She didn’t want to talk about Brandt or her four years in Hollywood. She didn’t want to remember any of it. It was ancient history and she wanted to put it all behind her. Brandt hadn’t given her an STD, despite all his cheating. She’d been lucky. And Van knew all of the story anyway, so why relive it?

  Carma sighed again, but Rowena knew it wasn’t from frustration. She’d been friends with Carma most of her life, and she’d always been loyal. She’d kept in touch the entire time Rowena had been in California, and she knew as many details of her relationship with Brandt as Van did. She was the only other person besides Van who knew about the STD scare. Rowena recognized that Carma was done discussing it for now, but she also knew that Carma wouldn’t simply let it go, and she understood why. Carma cared about her, and was only trying to help.

  Rowena placed the paddle in her basket, next to the riding crop, and pointed toward the two toys. “Do you think this is enough for now?”

  “I think you should talk to Van and decide together what you’d like to try. He should be part of these decisions.” Carma smiled, and Rowena was glad to see the gleam back in her e
yes. “So for now, let’s go look at flavored lube and then shoes.”

  Rowena laughed. “Because you know…” She waited for Carma to say it with her. “A girl can never have enough lube or shoes!”

  Chapter Five

  Van stood on a ladder helping Larry Wilson, one of his crew members, install an empty junction box for future electrical wiring when several of his crew called to the two to come and listen to the news. Van frowned and turned his head toward them. “Unless it’s a major snowstorm coming in two weeks that’ll prevent Rowena from traveling to Racy, I don’t care.”

  “You want to see this.” The hair on the back of Van’s neck prickled at the worried tone in Jorge Fuentes’s voice. Jorge wasn’t one to be anxious about news events, so Van climbed down the ladder and stood at the fringes of the group gathered around the portable TV set.

  “And Fox News has just learned that Jason Monroe, a construction worker from Passion Peak, has also been indicted along with Coleman for several counts of intent to fraud, and has been charged himself with harboring a fugitive. Monroe’s grandfather, who allegedly had business dealings with several deceased residents of that town, is said to have hidden stocks, stolen jewelry, and money in various homes and abandoned mine shafts throughout the town.”

  A loud, collective groan went up among the group. Van swore, punching the nearest hard object which, unfortunately for his left hand, was a two-by-ten. “Goddamn it! Now every fucking treasure hunter in the country will come here. Isn’t it enough Trace was back here again trying to worm his way into every historic home in the city?”

  “Don’t forget about the mineshaft on the Stonecraft estate.” Larry’s voice was soft, but Van heard him. Trace Coleman hadn’t been in on that particular event, but his crew had been.

  Van swore under his breath. “You would think the FBI could keep this information away from the media.”

  Tommy Farley, a Passion Peak detective, had finally been able to involve the FBI when Kane Easton, a paranormal investigator from Connecticut, had come to town to find Trace. Coleman had stolen something from Kane’s grandmother’s home, after convincing her that demons were preventing her deceased husband from leaving the home and crossing over. Now, Kane lived in Passion Peak and was a Dom, along with Maverick Orantes, to Felicity Featherstone.

  “I hate that Jason’s name was linked with us,” said Darrell Simpson.

  “It was?” asked Van. “I missed that.”

  “While you and Larry were climbing off the ladder, they mentioned he used to work for Whitney Restorations.”

  “Fabulous. As if we didn’t have enough bad press when Trace was finally caught.”

  “Still can’t believe he hid Trace Coleman at the abandoned ranger station,” said Larry. “All that time the cops and FBI were in town looking for him, and he was right up there, on the mountainside.”

  “And Jason was still working with us. If I’d known he was hiding Trace, I would have turned him in.”

  Jason had hidden Trace Coleman at an abandoned ranger station north of town when the FBI were in Passion Peak two months earlier, looking for Trace. Van had eventually found out that Jason was probably working with Trace, but hadn’t fired Jason right away because he wanted to keep an eye on him for Tommy. But no one had known that Jason was hiding Trace from the cops and the FBI.

  Curt Sanders gave Van a wary glance. “At least they didn’t mention your uncle. They won’t dig all that up again.” Years ago, when Van’s father had been alive and ran the company, his uncle had embezzled money out from under his father’s nose. They’d almost lost the company because of the fallout from that scandal, and Van was still afraid it would resurface.

  He gave Curt a hard look. “Are you kidding? Ask Rowena about reporters digging up shit you think is dead, buried, and has no bearing on present events.” Once her name had become linked with Brandt Fontaine’s in Los Angeles, every time she bought gas for her car it made the tabloids. And whenever Brandt went on location and was photographed with his latest fling, her picture was plastered all over the front page alongside it, even if all some reporter did was follow her into Walmart and snap a picture of her buying tampons.

  Jorge clapped him on the back. “Hey, this town has your back, all right? We survived bad press once. We’ll get through this, too.”

  “I know. I just don’t like the idea of the entire country knowing that we have buried treasure all over town. Can you imagine what this place will be like in a few weeks?” Maybe it was good timing after all that Rowena and her friends get out of town for a while? This picturesque, quiet place was about to turn into a fucking circus.

  * * * *

  Rowena watched the story about Trace Coleman and Jason Monroe break, but she didn’t see the TV screen in front of her. Instead she recalled walking down the steps of a courthouse in Los Angeles, over ten years ago, after winning a character defamation lawsuit against one of the biggest names in Hollywood. She’d dodged cameras and microphones all the way to a waiting car, courtesy of her friends Tricia and Derrick Leebrooke. She’d also refused to make a statement at the time, on her attorney’s advice.

  She hadn’t filed the suit for publicity. She’d done it because he’d ruined any chance of a career she might have had in LA, and had done so with a string of lies that made what Trace Coleman had done look like a kid stealing cookies from his mother’s kitchen when her back was turned.

  The media had eventually learned how much money she’d been awarded, but what they’d never bothered to report along with the figure was the fact that as soon as she’d come home, she’d sunk over half of it into restoring the home Aunt Looney had left her, or that the day she won the suit was also the day she’d found out that her beloved Aunt Looney was dead.

  The rest of the money had gone to the Passion Peak school system for the construction of a much-needed new high school football stadium and long-overdue improvements to all three schools. Most of the town didn’t know that, however, because Rowena hadn’t wanted them to know. Now, she worked for a living, just like everyone else. And she’d spent twelve years trying to forget her four years in Hollywood. But watching Van’s name dragged into the public eye once again brought it all back.

  Carma was right, as she usually was. Brandt had taken her trust and dragged it though the mud, along her with reputation. She wasn’t over it. Every time she thought she was, something brought it all back, in living color.

  Rowena flipped off the TV and leaned back against the sofa, scratching Snowball under the chin the way she liked. The white fluff ball of a cat had been her constant companion now for close to fourteen years. She’d driven her home from California, and had almost lost her in a fire that Rowena would believe until her dying day had been set by Trace Coleman. She and Van would never be able to prove it, and at this point they didn’t want to try. They simply wanted to forget all of it had happened.

  But now, they’d have to relive it all over again. The entire country now knew that Passion Peak, Colorado contained hidden stocks, money, and jewelry from cold cases that the FBI was no longer interested in pursuing, since the people who had hidden most of it were all dead. But that wouldn’t stop the treasure hunters or the morbidly curious from sniffing around. In a town known for having harbored Mafia criminals at one time, all this information would do is increase its notoriety, and destroy the peace and quiet its residents had come to cherish.

  She glanced down at the cat, who looked up at her with adoring yellow eyes. “Maybe it’s a bad idea to leave you and Van alone and go to Racy? What do you think, huh?”

  Snowball didn’t answer. She certainly hadn’t expected her to, but Rowena wondered what Van would say when she asked him the same question. Had he heard yet? He and his crew were at Mystic Ridge Enterprises today. They might not know. But she didn’t like to bother him at work, so she decided to leave it alone for now. He’d hear soon enough.

  Rowena gently placed Snowball on the sofa, then rose and went into the kitchen to finish p
reparing dinner. She’d made baked chicken with mushrooms, one of Van’s favorites, and had also decided to try a new salad recipe she’d obtained from Felicity. Felicity was a pastry chef at The Cranberry Roost, Passion Peak’s upscale restaurant that overlooked Rio Blanco Lake, but she could make just about anything taste incredible.

  This particular salad featured cranberries and walnuts, plus a cream-based dressing that to Rowena made it sound like a perfect choice for a holiday dinner. She would have made it and brought it to her parents’ house the day before, but her mother told her that when she’d mentioned it to Emma, her sister had shot it down in favor of the boring iceberg lettuce, tomato, and cucumber salad they “always had.”

  Rowena didn’t care. She’d brought over rolls, the same as she’d done for years now, and this way she was able to save the salad for Van, who would probably love it, and who would certainly appreciate it more than Emma, Tom, or Cindi could.

  She had also made strawberry shortcake for dessert, which was another of his favorite things to eat. Underneath her jeans and sweater she wore the new forest green and chocolate brown corset and matching crotchless panties that Carma had helped her pick out earlier, and she was currently barefoot, but would wear the new sexy pumps he’d given her once they were in the bedroom.

  After they’d arrived home from the dinner last night, she’d opened the second present, squealing in delight all over again at the shoes she’d wanted. He had bought them for her. So tonight, she’d wear them for him.

  After she’d done all she could with the food to get it ready, Rowena lit tall tapers in the dining room as she mentally went over everything that she and Carma had talked about in Sassy Brassy. She knew that Carma meant well. Carma was her best friend and had never steered her wrong. But almost getting raped and then terrorized all summer by a cousin while staying at their home in Chicago wasn’t the same thing as what Brandt had put her through. Carma had gone through something truly traumatic. And Mateo’s former sub had committed suicide almost three years ago. They were both in therapy, along with Blaine, to support each other.