Woman on Top [McQueen Was My Valley 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Karen Mercury

  He was treating her like a child. “Sol, why are you lecturing me? I’m not marrying the guy.”

  “Yeah, well, Cass told me you were out until nearly sunrise with Opie and that beefcake game warden.”

  “Officer Gabriel Verona. And you know he’s filling in for Julian.”

  Sol ignored her. “Now if you think you’re going to follow in Xandra’s footsteps and live in some happy-ever-after cabin in the woods with not one but two guys, I’m here to tell you, Brooke. That was just a fluke. People in Bird in Hand and even Blanding may appear to accept Xandra and her, ah, her”—his voice dropped to a whisper and he looked around, as though the faire goers were hanging on his every word—“ménage à trois, but they’re just tolerating it because Xandra owns this lodge and everyone likes Nathan. And Julian. Everyone likes him, too. He’s fairly widely known for his altruistic and ecological deeds, and it actually verges on hero worship how people love him out here.”

  Brooke shrugged. “Well. That’s good for them, then, right? What do you mean, exactly—ménage à trois?”

  Sol leaned in closer. “You speak French, don’t you?”

  “I know what it means, Sol. What are you implying, though? I know Julian sleeps at their cabin, but I just assumed—”

  “Oh, you know what happens when you assume!” Sol trilled triumphantly.

  Brooke rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Sol. More power to Xandra if she can boff two utter hunks like that at the same time and everyone’s happy.” Deep down, though, she wasn’t so casual about it. She was highly intrigued.

  She knew she was in love with Adrian. It had been one of those “love at first sight” situations that—well, that she’d never experienced before. But she’d heard of it and had always thought it was possible. I’m in love with him. It felt like a fist wrenching her heart that he didn’t seem to want her. He seemed to want Gabriel. True, her gaydar hadn’t pinged with Adrian, but it had been wrong maybe five percent of the time. Or maybe the gay lifestyle was something Adrian was only now delving into.

  It had been agonizing—in addition to being stimulating as hell—to have Gabriel’s mouth licking her twat while she shared an unwavering gaze with Adrian. He had kneeled behind Gabriel, obviously very aroused to be jacking the hulking game warden into oblivion, but his gaze never wavered from Brooke’s face, and she had to think there was something to this. It must have been turning him on in some way to be watching her while pleasuring Gabriel. He can’t be gay. There was something else blocking his freedom to touch her. Adrian didn’t loathe her. He more than liked her, was Brooke’s impression. She had to find out what was standing in his way of cutting loose.

  “Not really, Brooke. It’s not all tra-la-la down the lane, especially if you’re going to skip down the same lane as your sister. People are already saying this lodge is called the Triple Play because of all the wild ménages, even though Wanda named it that back in the nineties for her love of baseball.”

  Doug Ostrovsky elbowed his way between them then, clutching a squeaky platypus.

  “You don’t have a dog,” Sol pointed out.

  Doug energetically squeaked the platypus. “I know, but I will someday soon! I need a ranch dog to herd the cattle. Hey, Brooke. Are you going to see Adrian later today? Tell him there’s a rodeo in Oakley in July.”

  Brooke frowned. “Why would Adrian care about a rodeo?”

  Sol frowned, too. “Why is Adrian still going to be hanging around here in July?”

  Doug ignored Sol. “Oh, Adrian? He sure can ride. We goofed around one day while the hands were breaking some wild horses, and Adrian stayed in the saddle almost as long as the best vaquero. How the hell did he learn to ride? Isn’t he from some hoity-toity enclave of Connecticut? He’s one hell of a buckaroo.”

  Xandra had told Brooke that since giving Doug the ranch, he’d been calling everyone “buckaroo.” “Yes, he came to Hartford, Connecticut, from Ireland when he was ten. Maybe he rode horses in Ireland?”

  Sol butted in. “Or did some of that snobby polo they do back east—you know, when they bounce up and down when they ride like they’re doing knee squats.”

  Doug dismissed this theory. “Nah. This wasn’t no bouncing up and down in the saddle. He even knew how to lasso the calves with all those fancy knots.”

  Brooke spoke before the idea even formulated in her head. “Doug, you need more help on the ranch, don’t you? I mean, Cody is great and all that, of course. But couldn’t you use more English-speaking help?”

  “It’s a safety issue,” Sol said, apparently agreeing for once. “I mean, if a giant boulder is about to fall on someone’s head, it doesn’t help to yell ‘look out for that boulder!’ if they can’t understand you.”

  Doug appeared to be mulling the idea over. “Yeah, yeah,” he said thoughtfully, squeaking his dog toy. “I should find out where his expertise lies.”

  Brooke took this opportunity to extricate herself from the lawyer’s clutches, although he yelled after her. “I want you to think hard about what I’ve said, Brooke!”

  She meandered down a new row of tables, wishing she had a dog to buy something for. She thought about the tattoo on Adrian’s forearm, the Buddhist characters, or whatever it was. He was a multilayered man, and she wanted desperately to explore his hidden mysteries. She thought about Gabriel, too. He was right. He had been the one to give her a mind-blowing orgasm. That counted for a lot in a society where men’s first and foremost concern was usually their own prick and nothing more.

  And she thought about what Sol had said. Ménage à trois. The term conjured up sordid adulterous flings with faceless partners. But if her sister was truly involved in such a ménage, it was a far cry from sordid. Since leaving Javier and his meth-dealing friends in Charleston, Xandra had really turned her life around. She was due to have her first baby in July, although now Brooke wondered who the father might be. Was her sister really banging both of those buff guys?

  If so…How exactly had she arranged it?

  “Looking for a lost pet?”

  “Excuse me?” Brooke looked up at the blonde, tanned woman addressing her. She looked as though she’d spent the past twenty years in the sun and had that leathery, tennis-playing skin. “Oh, lost pets. Not exactly. Sort of the opposite, really.” What the hell. What’ve I got to lose? “A friend of mine is a conservation officer—a game warden—”

  The woman brightened. “Oh, Julian Longtree? He’s such a doll.”

  “No, a friend of Julian’s. A coworker. Well, he’s got a frustrating case that’s just got us at the end of our ropes. There’s a poacher running around killing deer and cougar out of season just for their racks and hides.”

  As expected, this news angered the animal communicator. She got to her feet and stood face-to-face with Brooke. “The animals are in anguish,” she intoned. “They are calling out to me.”

  “Right,” said Brooke skeptically as her stepbrother came down the aisle toward them. “Can you give me any information on this asshat—on this poacher? I do know his pseudonym, the name on his fake ID.”

  “That won’t help,” said the psychic, Anna Uebbing, according to a brochure on her table. “Let me consult the pendulum. Maybe I can figure out his real name.”

  Ms. Uebbing sat and took the string connected to the one-inch metal ball between her fingers. Propping her elbow on the table, she swung the pendulum back and forth over a colorful mandala that had no directionals on it, no words.

  “What question did you ask her?” Doug asked.

  “Ssh,” Brooke whispered. “I know it’s a load of hooey, but there’s a poacher who’s been aggravating Gabriel. You might know him. He goes by the name of Thor Biswell.”

  Doug did not whisper. “That epic asshat? Hoo-ey! Hell, yeah! He’s a poacher if ever I knew one! Cody’s been long suspecting him of thinning out some of our beeves for his own barbecuing pleasure. And I know for a fact he’s cut some of our barbed wire fences to gain access to our land. I’ve seen spring t
raps set and I’m afraid our livestock might get injured.”

  “Well, that’s who we were staking out and ticketing last night. He finally came to check his illegal trap after allowing a cougar to linger in there starving for more than two days.”

  Doug shook his head bitterly. “Man. That guy’s a real case. He sits around his rundown house with his meth head friends, having white power meetings, and then at night they go out spotlighting deer.”

  “Spotlighting?”

  “Yeah. That’s when they shine a spotlight at a deer to stun it. They go ‘pop’ when they see the reflection of the eyeballs. Totally illegal. They usually just take the rack and leave the carcass. Commercial poachers selling the racks and skins.”

  Anna looked up at them quizzically. “Does this poacher live near a river? I’m getting the message that you need to wade across a river to find him.”

  Doug shrugged. “No river that I know of. His scummy house is on a hillside.”

  “Does he play music? I’m getting that there’s a guitar case in a shed, and you need to look inside the shed.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard that hatecore music blasting from his house,” said Doug. “Can’t do a damned thing about anything I’ve suspected him of. He doesn’t even play loud music past ten o’clock at night, or I could get him on that. Got some cray-cray tattoos.”

  “Oh, Airy Fairy!”

  Sol was calling out to them, mocking them for standing in front of an animal psychic’s table. Brooke swiftly paid Anna and ducked from Sol’s line of fire. She wove between the crowds of milling guests, making it out of the ballroom, where she depressed the button on her radio.

  “Brooke to Xandra, do you copy?”

  Brooke stood off to the side of the ballroom’s doors to avoid the steady stream of psychic customers. It was an odd juxtaposition, the ranchers in cowboy hats mingling with the feather-plumed, jingling psychic crowd. Many looked like genies who’d just been let out of a bottle, but again as many looked approximately normal, in T-shirts and jeans. Brooke didn’t know what to make of Anna’s divination about the guitar case and wading through some water, but Gabriel might have some ideas.

  “This is Xandra.”

  “What’s your location?”

  “I’m at my cabin.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Brooke sailed out the front doors of the Triple Play and past the snowy berms where the valet parked cars, hoping Cass wouldn’t see her. Since running into her two men—Egads, I’m already calling them “my two men”—yesterday, she had not returned to her duties at the front desk. She wasn’t cut out for a sterile, fluorescent work environment, she knew, but she had no suggestions to replace it. What did she want to do with her life?

  She had always sort of thought she’d just follow a man around, doing whatever he did. Just being the trophy wife, like Xandra had been to Javier, propping up her husband’s career. But just now, in the ballroom listening to Doug waxing enthusiastic about Adrian’s horse-riding skills, something had occurred to Brooke. She had always liked horses. She had taken horseback riding lessons as a teen and had adored it, until her father said they couldn’t afford them anymore. Their mother had died when Brooke was ten, and their father Dennis struggled to care for his daughters. He could have really used the Triple Play when he’d inherited it last year, but instead had given it directly to Xandra as the eldest child. Xandra had needed it, too, as incentive to get away from that sleazy Javier.

  Xandra had found something to do with her life, and she was thriving. Maybe Brooke could help Doug out at the ranch…“Xandra. I needed to talk to you about something.”

  Her pregnant sister let her in the cabin door. The newlyweds were in the process of designing a chalet to be named the Bait and Switch about a quarter mile from the lodge, but for now they lived in one of the luxury cabins, the same design as Adrian’s. Xandra led her to the table by the two-story-tall plate glass window, where she was evidently doing paperwork.

  “Don’t tell me,” said Xandra cheerfully. “You don’t like front desk work, either.”

  “Well, that’s part of it,” Brooke admitted. “I was just thinking of maybe doing something involving the cattle ranch part of the operation, because I love horses.”

  Xandra wrinkled her nose. “You like horses? Ew. That’s partially why I gave the cattle operation to Doug. I can’t stand riding a horse. Well, that’s a possibility. We can figure something out. Have you talked to Doug about it yet?”

  “No, because I just thought it up. But listen, that’s not what I wanted. I…” She didn’t know how to phrase this. “I was talking to Sol over at the psychic faire.”

  “Oh, how’s the faire going? Has anyone found our long-lost Leo the Cat?” Leo the Cat had gone missing in 1998.

  “I thought you believed in a lot of that woo-woo stuff? Never mind, that has nothing to do with what Sol told me. Did you know I spent the night—well, ‘spent’ isn’t the right word. I went with that new conservation officer, Gabriel Verona, on a stakeout. Yes, a stakeout! It was exciting as hell, Xandra!”

  “I believe you,” Xandra said dreamily, propping her chin in her palm. “Those men don’t just drive around giving people tickets for not putting out their campfires. They get involved in surveillance, drug dealing, even murder.”

  “I know! It’s a whole new world for me! They’re like regular cops, only manlier, because they’re out in the wilderness facing down grizzly bears and criminals. Anyway, we took along Nathan’s friend, Adrian. I’m…Xandra, I really have to be honest. I know I’m supposed to stay away from Adrian, but I just don’t think that’s possible. I think…I think I’m in love with him.”

  Xandra gasped and sat upright. “In love? How can that be? You fall in love within twenty-four hours?” She exhaled. “Well, all right. I guess it’s possible. I did. But you know, Brooke, I warned you about him. He’s a hard nut to crack. He’s severely damaged not only by what happened to him in Damascus, but what happened when he got back.”

  “What? As though the Damascus incident wasn’t bad enough. What happened when he returned?”

  “Well…” Xandra hesitated. “I don’t know how much he wants to be public knowledge. Let’s just say, he had a fiancée. And he doesn’t anymore.”

  Brooke was gripped with a need to know more. “Why not? Who broke up with who?”

  “Adrian broke up with her.” A look of obvious disgust overcame Xandra’s features. “So he’s damaged romantically as well, Brooke. You should run. Run far, far away!”

  “What did she do to him?” Brooke would not rest until she had answers. So that explains his reluctance to get close to me. He got burned by an evil woman. I can get him over that. “You’ve got to spill, Xandra. Don’t worry. I wouldn’t in a million years let him know that I know.”

  “Nathan told me in confidence.”

  “And I’ll keep it in confidence.”

  Xandra clearly struggled with the need to share her gossip with her sister and her loyalty to her new husband. Ultimately, love of her sister and of gossip got the better of her, and she conceded, “The bimbo was cheating on him. While he was being tortured in a Syrian prison! And guess who she was having the fling with? Her own ex-husband!”

  “Holy shit!” cried Brooke. “Well, that explains a lot. Was it a one-shot deal, or did she really want to be with the ex-husband?”

  “I think she really wanted to be with him. They rekindled their romance, so to speak, not just the month Adrian spent imprisoned, but a year beforehand. Unbeknownst to him! It had been going on for an entire year right under his nose—or behind his back, because Adrian, like Nathan, used to spend a lot of time overseas on missions. That’s why poor Adrian is so burned out, why he hasn’t accepted another mission. I’m sure it’s why he likes to lose himself skiing and going to the spa.”

  “Trying to forget,” Brooke said.

  “Right. That’s why I tell you, Brooke. You need to give him time to heal. Now what was Sol saying?”
>
  “Right. Sol. Xandra, Sol indicated that your relationship with Nathan and Julian was more of a…more of a ménage à trois than a roommate situation. And he warned me against it, Xandra! When he heard I’d spent the night in a truck with both Adrian and Gabriel, he assumed I was heading down the same ménage road, and he told me it would look bad for the lodge.”

  Xandra exhaled loudly. “Ah, that Sol. He needs to get his head out of the caveman days.”

  “Earth to Sol. The Revolutionary War is over.”

  “Well, yes, it’s true that I have sex with both Nathan and Julian.”

  “Wow.” Brooke couldn’t wrap her head around it. She didn’t know what to ask first. “So who is the father of your baby?”

  “We don’t know. It’ll be evident enough when it arrives, won’t it?” Xandra grinned, because Julian was half-Navajo. “Is that your only damned question? Why does Sol think you’re heading down the ménage path just because you did a stakeout with two men? Adrian’s not nearly ready to be part of a couple, much less a ménage. It takes a delicate balance, Brooke, to avoid jealousy and resentment in a threesome.”

  “I suppose Sol somehow read my mind, or accurately read the situation.”

  Xandra frowned. “Accurately?”

  “Yes. I know I’m in love with Adrian, but I suspect I’m getting there with Gabriel, too. I’m incredibly confused that I’m attracted to two men at the same time. And Xandra? We did have sex last night in the truck. Not—that, but we played around, all three of us on the same seat. I don’t know how Sol figured all this out, but he started lecturing me about not following in your same happily ever after footsteps. Why not? I mean, you seem awfully content. Who wouldn’t be? Nathan is a steamy hunk, and Julian is worshipped like a god around these parts.”

  “Well…yes. Who wouldn’t be ecstatically happy? You’re right about that, Brooke. We somehow managed to avoid all the jealousies and competition that probably comes with a lot of threesomes. I do try to hand it out proportionally and not favor one over the other, although I’m legally married to Nathan. Is that something you think you want?”