A Clean Sweep [Suncoast Society] (Siren Publishing Sensations)
Page 1
Suncoast Society
A Clean Sweep
Essline Barrone left Sarasota after graduating high school and never looked back. Sixteen years later, her neatly organized world in Spokane grinds to a halt when her mom drops the bomb that Essie’s father died.
And their hoarded house is at risk of condemnation.
Mark Collins carries a torch for Essie from their brief high school romance. Now she’s returned, and it’s up to Mark and his brothers to help her save her mom’s house while TV cameras film the whole thing. But Mark, Josh, and Ted have a secret—they’re looking for a strong-willed submissive to share their bed and their lives.
Essie feels torn between a tidy, self-sufficient existence, and the three brothers who insist she’s perfect for them. Can Essie empty the clutter in her heart and spare room for the three hunks who want nothing more than to help her make a clean sweep of her emotional baggage in exchange for a new life together?
Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 78,389 words
A CLEAN SWEEP
Suncoast Society
Tymber Dalton
SIREN SENSATIONS
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Siren Sensations
A CLEAN SWEEP
Copyright © 2014 by Tymber Dalton
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62741-822-5
First E-book Publication: May 2014
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
If you have purchased this copy of A Clean Sweep by Tymber Dalton from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.
Regarding E-book Piracy
This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.
The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.
This is Tymber Dalton’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Dalton’s right to earn a living from her work.
Amanda Hilton, Publisher
www.SirenPublishing.com
www.BookStrand.com
DEDICATION
For Sir. Because He’s always helpin’.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
While the books in the Suncoast Society series are stand-alone works that may be read independently of each other, the recommended reading order to avoid spoilers is as follows:
1.Safe Harbor
2.Cardinal’s Rule
3.Domme by Default
4.The Reluctant Dom
5.The Denim Dom
6.Pinch Me
7.Broken Toy
8.A Clean Sweep
Many of the minor characters who appear in this book also make appearances in—or are featured in—other books in the Suncoast Society series. Purson Gibraltar, who makes a cameo appearance in this book, can also be found in my Good Will Ghost Hunting series. All titles are available from Siren-BookStrand.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Author's Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
About the Author
A CLEAN SWEEP
Suncoast Society
TYMBER DALTON
Copyright © 2014
Chapter One
Wednesday morning, barely five o’clock Spokane time, Essline Barrone stared at the cheap push-button phone in her hand. She could hear the dial tone droning on since her mom had hung up, but she just couldn’t process the news.
Dad…dead?
It didn’t seem possible. Edgar Barrone wasn’t someone who died. He was the man who gave heart attacks.
He didn’t die from them.
She finally realized the receiver was buzzing at her and hung it up. It was only pure chance her mom had reached her on the landline in the first place. Normally, they kept the phone unplugged and checked the voice mail once a week. People who needed to get in touch with her or her roommate, Amy, had their cell numbers. They only used the landline on the rare occasions they needed it. It came free with their cable and Internet package, or they wouldn’t have had it at all.
Essie’s parents were not people she gave her cell number to. Unfortunately, her cell phone had taken a swim in the toilet the previous day, and she’d used the landline to call Verizon to find out about a replacement that evening. She’d forgotten to turn the ringer off and it had awakened her from a sound sleep.
She heavily sat on the couch as shock settled in her system, nearly physically weighing her down.
Dead.
It didn’t seem possible.
She hadn’t talked to her mother in over five years. Not that she’d wanted it that way, but Edgar Barrone ruled his house with an iron fist.
It was one of the things she’d been happy to escape when she left home for college the day after she turned eighteen, almost three months after graduation. She
hadn’t set foot on their property just outside of Sarasota in the sixteen years since that day. She’d last seen her parents at a cousin’s wedding in Tampa six years earlier. Her mom had looked tired and sad then, even more so than Essie remembered.
When her father started in on her mom about something stupid at the reception, Essie had stood up to him, for her.
That had earned her years of silence from her father, and only cards at the holidays and on her birthdays from her mother.
Maybe now I can have a relationship with Mom again.
She felt horrible about the thought. Then on the heels of that, angry that her father had put her in this position in the first place.
Amy walked through, looking bleary and half asleep. “Was that the phone?” She stopped when she got a look at Essie. “What’s wrong?”
“That was my mom on the phone.” She looked up at Amy, who’d also been her college roommate, and was her best friend. Amy Lionel and her sweet, welcoming family were the only reasons she’d moved out to Spokane after graduation.
Well, that, and she’d wanted a fresh start, a clean sweep far away from her angry, dysfunctional father.
“What’s wrong?”
“Dad’s dead.” The words still felt foreign in her brain, much less coming from her mouth.
Amy gasped. “Oh, no!” She rushed over and hugged her. “I’m so sorry! What happened?”
“Mom found him this morning. They say it looks like he died of a heart attack or something.”
Questions spun through Essie’s mind. Her mom had been skim on the details, but Essie suspected the story was worse than what her mom had told her.
I found your father on the floor.
It couldn’t have been that simple.
Not if the house was as bad as she remembered it. And chances were, in the sixteen years since Essie had left home, it was probably worse.
Much worse.
* * * *
Essie had already called her boss to arrange two weeks of vacation time, made her airline and rental car reservations, and had been gathering things to pack when the second phone call came through on their seldom-used landline.
The man’s voice sounded slightly officious and vaguely accusatory. “Is this Essline Barrone?”
Her fingers tightened around the receiver. “Yes?”
“My name is Inspector Jack Davis. I’m with the Florida Department of Children and Families, Adult Protective Services. I need to talk with you about your mother. She listed you as her next of kin and gave me your contact information…”
Twenty minutes later, Essie was sitting on the couch, staring at the phone, stunned.
Again.
Yes, the day could get worse.
Much worse.
After explaining she’d been estranged from her parents because of her father’s actions, the inspector’s tone and approach had softened a little. It didn’t change the fact that the house would be condemned by Sarasota County if they didn’t get it cleaned out and repairs made immediately.
From the way he described it, she knew it had to be bad. Likely even worse than he described, but she didn’t want to think about that now.
For now, her mom was staying across the street, at a friend’s house, so they wouldn’t take her into protective custody.
Thirty days.
What the hell am I supposed to do?
She didn’t want her mother to be homeless. She knew the house was paid off, but how much would it need in repairs when they got the mountains of utter crap her dad had hoarded over the years shoveled out of it?
She quickly did a mental rundown of her own finances. She wasn’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but she did have a small and growing nest egg in her savings. She was a vet tech, luckily with a very good relationship with her boss. He would give her unpaid time off if she needed it, in addition to her paid vacation time. She could also tap into another two weeks of paid vacation she’d rolled over from the year before.
Amy returned to the living room, fresh from the shower. Her sleep had been blown, too, a fact for which Essie felt vaguely guilty. Now awake, Amy had started getting ready to drive Essie to the airport while Essie packed.
“Now what?” Amy asked. “You have that look again.”
Essie tried to think about how to say it. Amy had never been to her parents’ house.
No one had ever been to her parents’ house when Essie was growing up. No friends, no relatives. If there was a repair her father couldn’t make himself, it stayed broken or he replaced the item.
She’d gone out of her way not to describe her dad to most people, just leaving it at they had a contentious relationship and were estranged from each other.
Only Amy knew she’d grown up the child of a hoarder, and of a woman who felt too weak to stop him.
Essie finally settled on just relaying her conversation with the inspector to Amy. Amy, her best friend and roommate, who saw her every day and literally knew her better than anyone else. If Essie couldn’t tell her, she couldn’t tell anyone.
When she finished telling it, Amy walked over and sat next to her on the couch, draping an arm around her shoulders and holding her close. “Are you going to be okay?” she asked. “I know you bought the ticket already, but your mom didn’t ask you to come home. You don’t have to go. You don’t owe the man shit.”
Essie rested her head against her friend’s shoulder. “I know. I kind of need to. I can’t leave her to deal with all of that alone.”
“She made her choices over the years. She’s an adult. You gave her plenty of chances.”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t live with the guilt if I abandoned her now.”
“Okay. Remember to call me if it gets too rough. No matter how late or early, I’m here for you.”
“I know.” Amy was an ER nurse, used to dealing with people at their worst. Either one of them could have afforded to live alone, but since Essie didn’t mind when Amy’s boyfriend Pete stayed over, and they’d just sort of grown into the habit of living together, they found it easier to be roommates.
It wasn’t like Essie had a man in her life. She’d tried.
Unfortunately, the ghosts in her head were stronger and louder than any logic that tried to break through.
Amy easily tolerated Essie’s spartan habits. Essie had learned how to compromise with Amy, now certain her friend’s decorating and housekeeping style would never come close to her father’s hoarding ways. Amy was laid back and flexible compared to Essie’s rigidly structured, in-control nature. Amy taught Essie how to have carefree fun without sending herself into an anxiety attack over it.
It was an arrangement that worked for both of them.
And Essie didn’t have to explain herself to Amy, explain why she refused to buy a printed book if it was available in electronic format.
Why she never bought DVDs or music CDs, and instead bought digital.
Why she used an app on her iPad that utilized the camera to scan paperwork, unless it was something like a car title for which she had to keep the original, which she then saved on redundant backup sources before shredding and disposing of the paper copies.
Why she always went for the paperless billing option, and frequently refused to deal with companies who wouldn’t offer paperless.
Why she never brought new articles of clothing into her room without getting rid of at least the equivalent—or more—pieces at the same time.
Why she preferred not using paper plates, and making sure the sink never had a dirty dish in it.
Why she preferred to go to the store more than once a week, rather than stocking up extra items.
Why the only “clutter” she allowed in the kitchen were the magnets on the refrigerator.
Why they had the cleanest trash and recycling bins in the apartment building.
Why she kept a small, twelve-volt vacuum in her car’s trunk and used it nearly every day.
Essie drew in a breath and let out a long sigh. “This is
really going to suck,” she softly said.
Amy nodded. “Probably. In more ways than one.”
* * * *
At the start of his day, Mark Collins was the first one into the office. He was just getting ready to sit down behind the double-sided desk he shared with his brother, Josh, when the office phone rang. Juggling his coffee and his laptop case, he managed to set both of them down without dropping either, and still grabbed the phone before it stopped ringing.
Yay, me. “Collins Cleaning Management. Mark Collins, speaking.”
“Hey, Mark? It’s Jack.”
His heart sinking, Mark was already reaching for a notepad and a pen. They’d worked with Jack several times over the past few years.
It was never good when they did. Not because of Jack himself. He was a nice guy.
But because of the situation requiring Jack’s involvement in the first place.
“What do we have?” Mark asked.
Jack had been busy that morning for several hours already. As he read off the particulars, Mark sipped his coffee and noted them. An elderly woman called 911 early that morning to report she’d found her husband unresponsive on the kitchen floor.
When EMTs arrived, the man not only had no vital signs, but had likely been dead for several hours, based on his body temp and rigidity.
And they’d had to climb through mountains of stuff, as well as excavate a path, to get to the patient and remove the body from the home.
They called the medical examiner’s office, as well as the sheriff’s office.
Who had then called in Jack Davis.