Moore, Gigi - Desiree's Lone Wolves [The Double R, Book 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Gigi Moore

  “Cher, I could have ended your son’s life. You do realize that.”

  “I know. And it puzzles me why you didn’t.”

  “Haven’t I always been good to your family, Helena?”

  “You took very good care of us after Ben’s death.”

  He knew how hard it probably had been for her to admit that, how much it had probably taken for her not to say what she really wanted to.

  He remained sure Carson had poisoned her against him after all this time on the road with her alone and Remy not around to defend himself. He knew all he needed was an hour, or even less, in a room with her alone to get her to see things his way, to get her to come around. He’d always been good at getting his way and making others see things how he wanted them to. He had convinced the council of his unequivocal innocence in the case of Ben Guidry’s death, had he not?

  “I would have continued to take care of you, and the boys, had you let me.”

  “Under the circumstances that wasn’t possible.”

  “We could have worked something out, but you chose to believe the worst of me.”

  “You would have killed me son.”

  She had no idea how much of a favor Carson had done him. Duane had been dead weight around Remy’s neck for a long time, just like his mother. The best thing the boy had ever done during his time on earth had been to die by Carson’s hand.

  Remy chose to evade her accusation and simply said, “I’d do anything to make you happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I will if you give me the chance.”

  “I want my sons to be happy and have a normal life. I want them to know love.”

  Remy was almost a hundred percent certain now that Carson and Sam had mated with the beautiful Desiree. This knowledge made Remy that much more determined to have Helena as his own. He could not allow two unworthy whelps to achieve what he had not.

  “You want what all mothers want for their children. But what about what Carson and Sam’s mother wants? What about what she deserves?”

  She didn’t answer for a long time, and for a moment Remy thought he might have lost her, that he had overplayed his hand.

  Finally, Helena cleared her throat. “We’ll have to make arrangements to meet somewhere away from the ranch. I don’t want to rouse anyone’s suspicions, but especially not the boys’,” she murmured.

  “No, we wouldn’t want that,” he stated, playing it cool and refusing to gloat over his victory just yet. He knew her “boys,” and they would not let their mama come to him without a fight if they knew. The Guidrys stuck together like a little pack onto themselves, he had to give them that.

  This meant, whether they thought Helena had come to him of her own free will or not, Carson and Sam would come for her.

  This time, Remy would be ready for them when they did.

  * * * *

  “Well, this is a surprise.” Desiree managed to get out the words without choking on them. Thankfully, the receptionist had called back to let her know of his arrival, and she had a chance to prepare herself for Remy’s appearance at her doorstep.

  He smiled. “A pleasant one, I hope.”

  Desiree caught herself looking for the fangs that had done so much damage to Sam’s body at the clearing the other night then just as quickly deemed herself silly to think Remy would show his true self to her after operating under the radar for so long.

  She swallowed down what she wanted to say and plastered a smile on her face. She couldn’t let on that she knew what this man was and what he had done to the Guidry family. She knew too well of what he remained capable. “Always a pleasure, Remy.” She stood up and crossed the carpeted floor to meet him halfway between the threshold and her desk. She shook his hand and indicated the guest chair, which Remy declined to take.

  Desiree arched an eyebrow.

  “This won’t take long. I just wanted to stop by before my departure.”

  “You’re…you’re leaving?”

  “Something has come up back home that I must attend to in person. I have, however, touched base with Tamara also to let her know what is going on and that you and I will continue to work together.”

  “That’s good to hear.” Desiree nodded, trying to maintain her professionalism and not jump for joy at his news. “The something at home is nothing bad, I hope?”

  “Not at all. It’s just some business concerns that need my attention. The price one must pay when one has interests spread out so far and wide.”

  “I can imagine.” Desiree tamped down her relief that she wouldn’t have to deal with Remy so intimately from now on. In most cases, she preferred the personal touch and at least several face-to-face meetings to establish rapport. Sometimes the phone and computer just didn’t do the trick. However, in Remy’s case, she proved willing to make an exception.

  “Well, as I have a flight to catch, I’ll leave you to your work and be on my way.” Remy headed for the door and Desiree followed him, almost bumping into his back when he stopped abruptly on the threshold and turned back to her. “I’d heard there were a few mishaps at the ranch. I hope all is well?”

  “Mishaps?”

  “Sam’s…illness and your sister’s injury.”

  He tried to catch her off guard and Desiree knew it, saw the smirk when she looked at him. “Nothing catastrophic. Just nature striking back. They’re both fine, though.”

  “That’s good to hear.” He turned his back to her again just as Maia appeared at the door.

  “Well, speak of the devil.”

  “No wonder my ears were burning!” Maia smiled and proffered her hand, which Remy instantly took. “Did I miss anything fun?”

  “Not at all. I’m on my way back to Louisiana.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Is everything all right?”

  “Just business, as I was telling your lovely sister.”

  “Hope you have a safe trip.”

  Remy stepped out of the way to let Maia into Desiree’s office and smiled at them. “I intend to.” He bent his head. “Ladies.”

  Desiree counted to five in her head before she closed the door and leaned against it with a long sigh. Keeping up an amiable façade, when what she wanted to do was scratch out Remy’s eyes for hurting Sam, proved exhausting.

  “You can’t let the shifty-shifter get to you, Desi.”

  “Will you keep it down?”

  Maia snorted and waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, please. He’s long gone by now. “

  “I certainly hope so.”

  Maia crossed the room to plop down into the designer guest chair before her sister’s desk. “So, what did he have to say, other than he’s leaving town?”

  “He asked after your and Sam’s health.”

  “I’m beginning to wonder if he had spies at The Double R during his time in McCoy.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “Anyway, that’s not why I stopped by.”

  Desiree grinned, taking a seat behind her desk and folding her hands on the surface as she leaned forward to hear what latest trouble her sister was trying to get into. “Why, pray tell, did you stop by?”

  “I need some relationship advice.”

  “You…” Desiree did a double take and gaped.

  “Don’t be so funny. And I probably should rephrase that, since it’s not a relationship yet, but I’m hoping.”

  “T. Malloy?”

  “His name is Thayne.”

  “Well, at least you’ve gotten past the Doctor Malloy stage. That’s a good sign.”

  Maia sighed and stood to pace the office, ringing her hands for good measure.

  This couldn’t be good, Desiree thought. Her sister didn’t get nervous or out of sorts about much of anything, especially not men. To Maia, men were like panties and socks, to be changed frequently and replaced just as frequently when they got too worn or didn’t serve their purpose.

  Maia paused to look at her. “Not a good enough sign.”

  “What’s the problem?”
>
  “I went back to the hospital for the first of my follow-up rabies shots.”

  “Oh Maia, is everything all right? I thought the results on the raccoon came back negative.”

  “They did. That’s the problem. I don’t have an excuse to go back to the hospital.”

  Desiree frowned, confused. “Why do you need an excuse?”

  “I can’t just go to the hospital to see him without one.”

  “How about you’re interested in him and you want to get to know him?”

  “I can’t tell him that!”

  “Why not, it’s the truth, isn’t it?

  “Desi, you don’t understand.” Maia plopped back in the chair, shaking her head and covering her face.

  Her sister had always been a bit of a drama queen, but this was a little much, even for her. “Maia, what is it?”

  She pulled her face out of her hands and glared at Desiree. “I like him, all right!”

  “I still don’t understand. When have you ever had a problem telling a guy you like him?”

  “Always?” Maia threw up her hands. “Haven’t you been paying attention?”

  “Obviously not.”

  “Look, flirting and coming on to a guy is one thing. Sex and one-night stands aren’t exactly relationships, if you know what I mean.”

  Sadly, Desiree did, but up until recently, she wasn’t doing much better in the relationship department, so she wondered why her sister would think she was such an expert.

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Maia continued, “I’ve been practically a nun, worse than you, actually, since we’ve been out here, and that’s a long layoff for me.”

  “I’m not sure whether I’ve been insulted or not.”

  “Not. Anyway, what I mean is, sex is easy, it’s physical, but getting in there and baring your soul, that’s a little more difficult.”

  “And you think I’ve cornered the market on the baring-the-soul part?”

  “More than I have.” She leaned forward in her seat. “You’re stronger than me, Desi. You always have been.”

  Desiree shook her head. “No, that’s not true.”

  Maia nodded. “Yes, it is. After what happened with Jeremy—”

  “You know about that?”

  “Not at first. It took a while before it came to me. I mean, I knew something bad had happened, but not what until it was over.”

  “You never said anything.”

  “I was supposed to protect you and I didn’t.”

  “You tried to. You warned me.”

  “Not enough.”

  “You couldn’t tell me what you didn’t know, Maia.” After a long, awkward silence that Maia didn’t seem inclined to fill, Desiree added, “You didn’t know, did you?”

  “No, of course not! Not beforehand. I would have never let you go with him that night.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “You ever wonder why I pushed you so hard to Carson and Sam, that’s the reason.”

  “What, you were trying to make up for what Jeremy did to me?”

  “I never wanted to risk that what I saw—either before or after the fact—would be ignored. If there was a chance that I saw a future for you with Carson and Sam, or anyone, I had to let you know. I couldn’t hold anything back anymore.”

  Desiree came from behind her desk, realized she had been using it as a shield the way she always did, even with family. She was getting better, but old habits remained hard to break.

  She took a seat on the edge of the desk in front of Maia and took her sister’s hands in hers. “I don’t blame you for what happened. I know you did your best.”

  “Thanks, Desi. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

  “Now that we’ve settled that, let’s get back to this Thayne Malloy problem.”

  Maia sighed. “I don’t even know why I brought it up. He’s out of my league, anyway.”

  “What am I hearing from Ms. Self-Confidence Personified?”

  “It’s all an act.”

  “Well, it’s a good one. You’ve got a lot of us fooled.”

  “That’s good to know. But I think I’m going to have to drop it if I’m going to have a chance with this guy.”

  “You like him that much? You barely know him.”

  “I know, and that’s the weird part. There’s something about him, something deep and something different from any other guy I’ve known. He’s not just surface pretty.”

  Desiree smiled at the description, remembering Carson’s reaction to Doctor Malloy’s looks. There was no doubt that he was pretty to look at, and her sister was obviously smitten.

  She rubbed and squeezed Maia’s arm. “I have every faith that you’ll figure this out.”

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  “Hey, you got me, Carson, and Sam together.”

  “And that was a miracle. There were times when I had my doubts about you all.”

  “When did you find out about them being…shifters?”

  “I was wondering when you were going to ask me that.” Maia smiled. “I think I knew from the beginning, when you first started having your dreams. I didn’t believe it until I actually saw them change. I mean, knowing and seeing are two different things.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Anyway…” Maia stood up to leave. “I’ve taken up enough of your time with my nonexistent love-life. I’m heading back to the ranch. Going to help out with horseback-riding lessons for the kiddies.”

  “You really are settling into the cowboy life, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t sound so shocked, especially since you’ve got your wagon hitched to two cowboys now.”

  Desiree laughed but just as quickly turned serious. Things were nowhere near settled for her, Carson, and Sam. She didn’t for a minute believe that they had seen the last of Remy or that they were out of the woods. The man had too big a score to settle and so did Carson and Sam—their family’s honor.

  “Don’t look so down. Being with Carson and Sam is a good thing.”

  “It is, but…I’m just wondering what Remy’s going to do next for revenge. I don’t for a minute think he’s given up.”

  Before Maia could open her mouth to respond, the phone on Desiree’s desk rang. She went behind her desk to answer it and spent the next few minutes trying to calm down a panic-stricken Sam.

  When Desiree hung up the phone she could just imagine the look on her face, how pale her complexion must look, from the worried expression on her sister’s face.

  “What? What is it, Desi?”

  “That was Sam.”

  “Okay, so? What’s up?”

  “Helena. She’s…she’s missing.”

  “Missing? I’m sure he’s mistaken.”

  Desiree shook her head. “No one’s seen her since breakfast. Carson usually checks in to see how she’s doing before he heads out to the Western town. But she wasn’t in the cookhouse. The staff said she had an errand to run.”

  “Okay, so she’s running an errand.”

  “She hasn’t returned, and they’re having lunch rush. She’s always around for lunch rush.”

  “Maybe…”

  Desiree shook her head. “She’s gone, Maia.” According to Sam, he and Carson knew just where she was, too.

  Desiree grabbed her bag from her desk drawer, determined to get back to The Double R as soon as possible and stop her men before they went off half-cocked.

  “They couldn’t have gone far. Remy was just here.”

  “That’s what I told Sam, but he wouldn’t put it past Remy to have had one of the pack’s lieutenant’s escort their mother back to Louisiana.”

  “What do they think they’re going to accomplish going there to retrieve her?”

  “Helena’s their mother, Maia.”

  “What I mean is, what if she went with Remy or his escort on her own?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The man killed Carson and Sam’s father. They’re not going to let things go tha
t easily.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh.”

  “So, what exactly are they going to do? Did Sam say?”

  Sam didn’t have to say, because Desiree already knew without having any of her younger sister’s gifts.

  Carson and Sam were going back to Louisiana to get their mother and kill Remy Bastien.

  Chapter 21

  If Desiree thought the woods on The Double R were scary at night, they had nothing on the wooded area in the bayou where she and Sam had been taken to witness the spectacle.

  They had all arrived at Louis Armstrong International Airport earlier in the afternoon, met by four of Remy’s trusted lieutenants, two of whom escorted Sam and her to one limousine while the other two escorted Carson to another parked right behind it.

  If Desiree had had any doubts as to Remy’s power and wealth, they were soon erased by her and Sam’s bodyguards’ show of deference and the opulence of the limousine’s interior. The vehicle had all the trappings of comfort and success, with plush leather seats, leg room for days, and an extensive bar.

  She thought had she and Sam been so inclined, they could have easily made out and the driver and his companion wouldn’t have been any the wiser.

  None of this, however, changed the fact for Desiree that she and Sam remained prisoners, their jail a gilded cage but a jail nonetheless.

  She hadn’t expected to be welcomed with open arms at their arrival, but neither had she expected such security cloaked in good old Southern hospitality. They were treated like visiting royalty when she knew that nothing could have been further from the truth. She knew had they voiced a wish to leave, they would not have been allowed to. They stayed safe and comfortable because Remy wished them to.

  From what Desiree had learned from Carson and Sam, from what she had seen for herself, Desiree knew that Remy’s wishes could change, and he’d show no compunction when it came to dealing with them as he saw fit.

  Once she and Sam had been settled in their hotel room—again lavish and outfitted for maximum comfort and security—she’d had a chance to ask him some questions and get a clearer picture of what was going on and what their role was.

  Before their departure from McCoy, Carson had contacted the pack elders and thrown down the gauntlet, officially challenging Remy for pack rights. Despite his status as a fugitive on the run, the council granted him dispensation upon Remy’s behest.