The Substantial Gift [The Sunset Palomino Ranch 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Karen Mercury

  “Yes, and it’s a huge, substantial gift,” Harper joked.

  Violet was relieved they could joke about her disability. She stroked Harper’s face and joined in the soothing laughter.

  It was Sinclair who pressed the point. “You did just say it, indirectly, Violet. Right?”

  “Oh, yes,” she freely admitted. “I said it indirectly.”

  “That’s all we’re going to get, buddy,” Sinclair said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I swear to God, Sinclair. I had the most awesome pair of cherry red high heels. You would have died. You seriously would have died. I can’t imagine what happened to them. I can’t find the box anywhere.”

  That was about the fifth time Violet had brought that up. Sinclair thought it was cute. Although clearly a blue-blooded, high-class lady, Violet was a bit ill at ease in the milling crowd of hundreds. The horde of aristocrats ebbed and flowed across the poolside patio of the Kupka Desert House, a building of floor-to-ceiling glass wrapped around giant boulders. But this being Palm Springs, the bulk of the night’s activities took place outdoors on various patios and cabanas. The house’s glass pavilion loomed above them like a giant space ship, and Sinclair steered his date around by the elbow as they gripped their little drink glasses.

  “I’m sure they were gorgeous. I’ll buy you the same pair again tomorrow. Tell me where you got them.”

  Violet said, “It’s not so much the shoes per se. They didn’t cost that much. It’s the idea of where they went that’s bothering me.”

  Sinclair regarded a long table of auction items. They were all very high-end, but he had no needs or desires. He’d always been a freewheeling guy who owned very little. However, he might bid on something for Violet. That the proceeds went to the retro bowling alley was a bonus. He nudged Violet over to a Navajo blanket that he might bid on for her. Her cottage could use one. “Obviously your buddy Dex Dexler has developed more than just an interest in your Andy Warhol print.” He added cynically, “Or he would’ve taken that, too.”

  Violet elbowed him. “Right. Don is going to steal women’s shoes but leave my Adrian Belew coffee table, or my metallic Sprockets toaster. Those are worth far more.”

  “You have an Adrian Belew coffee table?”

  Sinclair knew the handsome, carrot-topped fellow to be Steffen Jung, Willow Barbieri’s de facto husband. The trio lived in the ranch house at the Lone Palm Ranch, seemingly in a similar situation as Drake, Rose, and Jesse enjoyed over at Shining Lands. Sinclair knew him from golf games and cocktail parties, and apparently Violet knew him from her Modern Committee meetings, of which Steffen was the chairman. Steffen had been moving from group to group among “The Beautiful People of Palm Springs,” a glass of champagne in his hand.

  “I do,” she answered him, seriously. “It’s in pristine 1955 condition, and on it sits a Tony Levine blue glass ashtray, although of course it’s been decades since anyone has used it for a cigarette. Sinclair here thinks Don Wexler broke into my Water Buffalo Lodge and stole my red high heels. Can you imagine?”

  Sinclair pointed at Steffen with his martini glass. “Do you know Don Wexler? He allegedly comes to these Modern meetings.”

  Steffen looked blank. “Don Wexler? Never heard of him. You’re admiring this Third Phase Navajo Chief’s blanket?”

  “I am,” admitted Sinclair. But he didn’t want to draw Violet’s attention to it, so he steered her to the next item. “What the fuck?” The next item was a private tour of Shining Lands estate given by Violet Stinson. That was a good thing to take her mind off the blanket, which had a starting bid of ten thousand dollars, as it had been in the Remington Museum. He’d have to steer her farther so he could write down a bid.

  “Yes,” said Steffen. “You didn’t know Violet was conducting a tour? Of course, you live there, so you don’t need to bid.”

  “I’d better do my laundry, then,” said Sinclair. “And get rid of all the allergy medication lying around the bathroom sink.”

  Violet added, “And some of those used coffee cups are so old they might become classic.”

  “Hey, look,” Steffen said. “There’s Kathy Griffin with Peter Fonda. They’re both on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars.”

  Violet craned her neck to see around Steffen’s shoulder, but her face remained impassive. Sinclair had golfed with Fonda a few years back, but Violet clearly had no idea who either of those stars were. So Sinclair said, “Look, Violet. There’s Adam West. He played Batman, remember?”

  “I do,” she said brightly. “Adam and I worked together on ordering the banquet tables and tablecloths. Hi, Adam!”

  Sinclair chuckled. “Who don’t you go and say hello. Tell him how great the tables look.”

  Sinclair had a twofold reason for shooing away Violet. He had to elbow aside Hal Linden, who also looked about to bid on the blanket. Sinclair wrote down $10,100 just as a place holder. He could come back later after Hal had blown his wad. “Steffen, tell me.” He touched Steffen’s arm to guide him away from the table and other people. Andy Placker of dental floss fame looked as though he’d just recognized Sinclair, and probably wanted to reserve the Shining Lands golf course. There was a fan palm where only a few people stood, and Sinclair led Steffen toward that.

  “You can tell I have deep feelings for Violet Stinson,” Sinclair started out.

  “That’s pretty obvious,” Steffen agreed. “She’s a great catch. I’ve never seen her ex-husband. I don’t think he’s ever visited Last Chance.”

  “I don’t think so either. I’m just curious about how you arrange things over at Lone Palm. Feel free to punch me if I’m overstepping my boundaries. But it seems that you’ve got a sort of three-way going with Amadeo and Willow. Am I wrong?”

  Steffen laughed casually. “You’re right. We make no bones about it. Amadeo married her so she could inherit his ranch and we could all adopt Lavinia from Russia officially. But in our minds, we’re all married to each other. We’ve made the same commitment.”

  “That’s what I want to know. We have a third, a, ah, a sort of cow boss—”

  “Harper Davies? You’re kidding.”

  Sinclair frowned. Of course Steffen would know Harper. His lover Amadeo dealt with cows all day, and probably had dealings with Harper. “Yes, him. Why do you seem so surprised?”

  “Oh, just that he’d be in a relationship with anyone. He’s so…” Politely, Steffen trailed off, probably hoping Sinclair would fill in the text for him.

  Sinclair obliged. “Dark and twisty? Yeah, that’s him all right.”

  Steffen was obviously shocked. “He’s your third? He just seemed the sort that would dive into his dark hole for another decade after what happened to his fiancée in Anchorage.”

  Sinclair felt like a skulking cheat for asking, but the temptation was too great. “Yeah, what exactly did that psycho killer do, anyway?”

  “Oh, shit.” Steffen looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. His eyes were hooded with confidence when he looked back to Sinclair. “The guy lured her to his truck by pretending to have a broken arm. He had some bulky package out in front of the mall where she stopped to get laxatives for Harper’s mother.”

  “Right—I heard that.”

  “So the guy grabs her, forces her into his truck at gunpoint. What could she do? He drives her out to some remote area and, well…”

  “Sliced her with a knife.”

  “Yeah. Many, many times. They found her a week later and said it was overkill, that he must’ve known her personally to have such rage. But he didn’t know her. He was just a whacked serial killer.”

  “Who was he? They caught him, obviously.”

  “Right. Not for another two months, by which time he’d killed another four women for a total of thirteen altogether. ‘The Peeking Ripper,’ he’d been known as for a year around Anchorage. He did peek at women, but Peeking Mountain was where he dumped the bodies.”

  Sinclair shuddered. “I can’t imagine. I seri
ously can’t imagine how Harper coped.”

  “That’s not all. Rose told us what might be the worst part. The fiancée had called Harper earlier asking him for a ride home from the mall, but he couldn’t go. He was stuck sitting with the sick mother. He was her caretaker. So she was heading for the bus stop.”

  Sinclair was struck mute. He could not imagine the guilt one would feel if they’d failed to give someone a ride, someone who later was murdered. He heard himself asking an asinine question. “And what happened to the mother? I thought he was from Texas.”

  “He is. He brought her to Anchorage when he got the job at Boeing. Oh, cool! This is the band that Violet and George Hamilton found. Supposedly they sound just like Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Perfect, huh?”

  Clapping Sinclair on the arm in a chummy way, Steffen sprinted off to chat with the bandleader. Sinclair drifted back to the party, dispirited. How fucking awful. Now Sinclair began to understand Harper’s standoffishness, his cool and collected personality. Sinclair was amazed Harper had even told Violet that he loved her. And she responded by saying nothing…

  “Hi, handsome. How do you like the band we found?”

  “Oh, you mean the band discovered by you and The Tan Man?” Sinclair was incredulous. He had no idea Violet knew so many celebrities.

  She laughed lightly. “Oh, that. Yes, George’s dad was a bandleader. I think he has personally known this band for decades. Their theme tonight is ‘South of the Border.’”

  Sinclair was so affected by the story Steffen had told him, he took Violet’s arm and steered her away from the party. The band was filing in all clad in toreador uniforms, complete with Mickey Mouse hats. “Violet, I know you love Harper. So do I. But I think we should come up with a better way of showing him.”

  “What did you have in mind? We’re constantly giving him over-the-top orgasms. Isn’t that the best way of expressing love? I believe that’s why it’s called ‘making love.’”

  Sinclair finally chuckled. Sometimes Violet could be so literal. That, or so naïve. “Yes, but humans have evolved beyond that. Haven’t we? We have all sorts of ways, like giving each other engagement rings or asking each other to dance. Those are ways of showing love.”

  “So you’re suggesting we come up with a way to show Harper love? You know I love him. Do you love him too?”

  “Of course I do, although I’m sure my love is less the romantic type that yours is. Hm. Now that I think about it, yours probably isn’t very romantic either. You’re too practical for that.”

  “I just don’t think Harper’s the sort to fall for romance. Take tonight for instance. It’s very romantic that you and I are here together. And why couldn’t Harper come?”

  “Because ménages aren’t accepted in polite society?”

  “Well, that too. But I’m talking about his financial inferiority. He’s ‘only’ a cow boss. I think his sense of inferiority is going to hobble him for a long time, Sinclair. When he looks at us he sees two wealthy people who did nothing to deserve it. We—well, I’ll speak for myself—I haven’t done an honest paid day’s labor in my life. I’ve labored, sure. Sweating in the sun in archeological digs, riding a camel, building wells in Niger—but I don’t know what it’s like to work for a wage. I think he’s always going to feel like an outsider around us.”

  Sinclair agreed. “Especially after your brother ran him off like a common pygmy.”

  “I talked to Drake about that. I think he’s coming around to my way of thinking. He really can’t say anything, either, seeing as how’s currently living with another man and woman. And Rose was hardly his financial equal when he met her.”

  “Good. Because I fully intend to continue with both you and Harper. Did you have the same plan in mind?”

  Violet stopped walking and faced him, her expression open and honest. “I do, of course. I’m just worried that our financial inequality will always cause Harper to hold us at arm’s length.”

  Maybe he was upset by the story Steffen had just told him. But suddenly Sinclair heard himself saying, “I think it might be your inability to say the ‘L word’ that holds Harper at arm’s length, Violet.”

  He could have punched himself for being so rude, but Violet seemed to be considering this seriously. “I see. I know it’s a terrible defect of mine. If I want to keep both of you satisfied, I need to overcome it.”

  Sinclair now rushed to placate her. “But I think he accepted your explanation. It did sound very lovely and poetic. You’re right. The person to whom it doesn’t come easy has given more when they express feelings.” Hal Linden wandered by, and Sinclair remembered the Navajo blanket he wanted to up the bid on. “Hey, there’s the Tan Man. Why don’t you go say hi? I wanted to look at some auction items. Ask them if they can play ‘The Lonely Bull.’”

  So Violet went off to the strains of “The Girl from Ipanema” while Sinclair strode back to the tables. He had been worrying for a while about how the three of them could continue. He had been thinking of Drake’s arrangement—or, more to the point, of the arrangement between Steffen, Amadeo, and Willow. Amadeo had legally wed Willow to give Willow and their adopted daughter a fair shot at a financial future. If they used that trio as their model, it would make sense for Violet to marry Harper. That way he wouldn’t have to worry about finances.

  That bastard. Hal Linden had written down fifteen thousand bucks for the blanket. Sinclair looked at his smartphone and saw there was ten minutes left until the close of the silent auction. He frittered away another five minutes looking at a vintage bowl of plastic fruit and a lamp with an atomic shade. He wound up bidding eighteen thousand just to make sure he beat that asshole Linden. He bristled even further when he noted that Hal had bid a thousand for the Shining Lands private tour. Bastard.

  He asked a passing Willow Barbieri if she’d seen Violet. “Yes. She was talking to a guy on the other side of the swimming pool, near that Joshua Tree.”

  That was odd. That was far away from the band, where Sinclair had instructed Violet to go. So Sinclair skirted the luminous turquoise pool, making a beeline for the odd-shaped yucca. He didn’t see Violet until he stepped to one side of the Joshua tree. With her hand folded in front of her lap, she was talking to—

  Tex Antler! Wait, Dirk Diggler! Wait, no…Whatever his name, it was that greasy bouncer who Sinclair was now convinced was in the employ of Violet’s soon-to-be-ex-husband, trying to dig up some dirt on her, as Violet had first accused Sinclair of doing. Diggler had no doubt found plenty of dirt already, since Violet was always with him and Harper. Well, Sinclair would give him plenty more dirt to shovel over to Bryan Hunt, because he was about to get his ass kicked.

  Striding so energetically he practically floated, Sinclair couldn’t resist showing his hand and yelling when he was still ten yards away. “You! Yeah, you asshole! How many times do we have to warn you to keep away from Violet Stinson?”

  Violet twirled, again covering Tex with her body. “Sinclair! He just came to invite me to some beach party that everyone is going to later on. George Hamilton is going, and—who else did you say?”

  “Leslie Nielsen!” cried the beleaguered spy or whatever he was.

  Sinclair had reached the couple, and he shook a fist over Violet’s shoulder at the cowering dolt. “Leslie Nielsen is dead, you fucking informer! What’s this fucking beach you’re trying to drag Violet to?”

  But Wexler never got a chance to explain, because like a shot from out of the blue, someone was tackling him to the ground. Wexler flew sideways so fast he was a blur, and soon he was rolling over on the ground, his limbs entwined with his attacker.

  “Harper!” Violet cried.

  Sinclair grabbed Violet by the upper arms and placed her behind him, protectively. “Where the hell did he come from?” he mused, but did nothing to stop his lover.

  Harper, accustomed to wrestling steer, got the upper hand in a flash, and pounded Wexler’s face with a few solid blows. He leaped up like Spiderman, drawin
g the flailing man up with him. He rattled him about like a cage, the other man’s head wobbling lifelessly, and Sinclair wondered if Harper had KO’d him. Blood shined on Dexler’s upper lip, which looked split.

  People were tearing over now, but only a few of the braver men stepped close enough to pretend to help. Harper was yelling, “I’ve warned you once, you greaseball. You’re as greasy as a teenager’s face, and I’m making a citizen’s arrest for trespassing!”

  While holding the flaccid Wexler up with one arm, Harper reached down to his belt to unclasp what Sinclair saw was a pair of handcuffs. He had to chuckle. It was thrilling, in a way, watching his lover beat the crap out of this guy Sinclair also loathed, and Sinclair strode forward to help with the handcuffs.

  “Someone call 911!” Sinclair yelled at the brave partygoers. Four cellphones were instantly whipped out, and Sinclair saw Steffen Jung arriving on the scene. Steffen worked at City Hall and was friends with a lot of cops.

  But just when Harper let go of Dex’s frilly shirtfront—he was wearing a tuxedo—the guy twisted in a strange, acrobatic way. Seeing as he was an agent of Bryan Hunt, he was probably experienced in running like a cowardly bomb, which was what he did right now.

  “So there!” yelled Dex as he streaked across the desert, heading directly between two Joshua Trees. “You’re never going to catch me!”

  “What is he?” asked Sinclair. “Ten years old?”

  Of course Harper streaked off after him and they quickly vanished out of sight. Maybe Violet was finally starting to see what Harper and Sinclair had seen all along. Wexler was not her friend.

  “Did you call 911?” Sinclair asked the crowd of Steffen’s friends. “Good. I want to put a restraining order on that guy.”

  “Do you know his name?” one guy asked Sinclair.

  “Don Wexler,” Violet said helpfully.

  “I doubt that’s his name,” said Sinclair. “And do we even know where he lives, or stays?”

  Chapter Fourteen