Call Me Sugar

by Lacee Hightower

  First, I want her again.

  Sweetest Jesus, I do. More than my next damn breath.

  And second, the fact that I already miss her before she’s even left my bedroom muddies my thoughts and stirs more concern behind my chest.

  This could never work.

  She deserves more.

  Find a way to convince her.

  Then convince yourself, you fucking fool.

  “He’s sixty miles outside of Springhill. Should be pulling into the ranch in less than an hour knowing Jason’s lead foot.”

  Her eyes crackle with hunger, and a smile flashes across her face that is so damn bright and ecstatic that it could light up the blackest nights on Ryker Ranch. Childish as it is, it doesn’t settle well. The heat in her eyes and brightness in her expression are for one thing—Jason is back.

  She wants to fuck Jason.

  With possessiveness, defensiveness, and greed powering through me, when I push off the bed and see her eyes do a quick sweep over me, I’m hit not only with another streak of lust and need, but also with a deep gnawing in my stomach that reminds me that we’ve barely eaten a bite of anything since early yesterday. Jen needs food.

  I slide on jeans, not bothering with a shirt. “I’ll go put on some coffee and start breakfast. Meet me in the kitchen, sugar. My baby girl needs food.”

  Her lips spread into a soft smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I need to get home and change. Morgan is expecting me for coffee. She has some new ideas for a catchier logo, and since she’s really good with that kind of thing, I want to see what she has in mind. Then I need to head on over to the museum. The summer school freshman anatomy class is coming tomorrow to look at the calf and goat for some kind of final exam project, so I was thinking I’d set up a small table with shirts and caps and a few other items. We could use the extra income. Plus, regular classes start back up in three weeks, so I need to do some planning. I’ll just grab something on the way. Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, there’s a vertical crack in the back room on the far wall. I noticed it last week, but it’s gotten worse. Does that mean we may have foundation issues?”

  “Probably so,” I answer in a clipped tone while preparing myself to hear that she also needs to make a stop by the drugstore for toothpaste, check for dust on the light fixtures, or gas up her Jeep, and only a footstep away from taking her over my lap and reddening her little ass for the line of mainly insignificant bullshit falling from her pretty lips.

  Pier and beam foundations can bring on a whole line of problems, some of which can be extensive and costly. Structural issues can be water-related, such as a plumbing leak or due to soil movement and even heat. Spurred into action by a fissure in the wall, I think of a place in San Alba I can call and make a mental note to do just that. “I probably should have brought in someone to check on moisture and mold issues with that old building. The lingering smell on the south end could have something to do with that fact.”

  “Really? So, you don’t think there’s any decaying bodies? Severed limbs or bloody knives?” She tries smiling, tries making a joke, but blanches, then runs nervous fingers through her hair before reaching for her purse.

  “Really,” I confirm, while looking down at her bare feet and her shoes that are three feet away. “No bodies. No knives.”

  “Okay. Guess I’m gonna head out.” Her words make me cringe inside, while hating the fact that her leaving is everything I don’t want.

  Hating that I want her like my last breath.

  Hating that I’m sick with worry about Jason.

  Something is bothering Jason. He never fails to check in with me when he’s traveling as he’s done this time around. I felt distress and anxiety in his short tone minutes earlier. Something’s wrong. I feel it in my gut.

  “Hey, what’s the rush?” I reach over and pick up her shoes, with the certainty of knowing damn well why she’s already two feet from being out the door, her change in attitude like a knife to the gut. Literally. Veritably.

  Damned if I want her to leave. The sudden feeling of loss is almost excruciating, a pain so great that it aches under my skin, in my blood, and in the deepest part of me—my heart. It feels like death. Agonizing, incurable, unmanageable death. I want this woman beside me. Christ, I do.

  “Thought you might need these.” I hand her the shoes then pull her against me and drop my forehead against hers while my dick wastes no time thickening against her belly. “I’ll stop by and look at that crack this afternoon, sugar.”

  Jen takes a step back and stares up at me with a look that’s unreadable then stuffs her shoes inside her purse. “Goodbye, Keith.”

  Forty some minutes later, I’ve showered and changed, picked up the house, and just finished speaking to Rock and Jed about replacing a mile of damaged fencing on the south side of the property when Jason calls again.

  “Hey, man, I’m beat. I need to go unpack my shit, rest a minute, and make a couple of calls. Get with Jen. Let’s all meet at Mendez for a late lunch. I have some news.”

  I knew it. I fucking knew it. I start pacing the floor like a caged animal, my chest tight, my head throbbing. For once, I feel like dropping to my knees and praying to a god that I’m not sure even exists. Praying for forgiveness.

  Praying for the woman I love. For the man I love.

  And for whatever this life has in store for the three of us.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jen

  “It’s a huge opportunity. It also means I’ll be moving to Maynard, Massachusetts.”

  Massachusetts? Havoc fills my mind as the pain-stricken words settle for a long minute. Tears fog my eyes. I’m numb, my throat suddenly tight. Every inch of my body howls in misery. My head, my neck, my eyes, and most especially my heart.

  Jason is leaving Springhill … absolutely positively because of me.

  “It’s for the best. I’ve thought long and hard about it this week, and I’m more than confident it’s the right thing to do. For all of us.” He looks at a somber-faced Keith. “I told you before that I would make this work out, and I’ve never broken a promise to you. I won’t do it now. The two of you are meant to be together. You always have been.”

  We’re seated in a corner booth in Mendez, barely able to speak, fighting to breathe, and unable to eat after Jason’s announcement that he’s accepted a significant job promotion to Projection Services Director, which will require him to move over two thousand miles away. With a subdued light in his eyes, Jason pushes untouched enchiladas around on the plate in front of him, while Keith stares down into a half-eaten order of carne asada with a look on his face that’s somewhere between livid and grief-stricken. My stomach feels nauseous, and everything inside of me hurts. It feels like I’ve had a fatal shot to the heart or just been told that a family member has an incurable disease. It feels like … I’ve just been told my best friend took her own life.

  All my fault. All mine.

  Pain kicks behind my chest, and tears spring up again as I look at Keith and his expression that’s laced with devastating grief and a pain that’s raw and shaky and fragile. Every muscle in his face is tense and tight, the normal shimmer to his eyes dull, like a fire withering down into ash and ember.

  Jason and I stretch arms across the table toward Keith almost instantaneously. In seconds, three sets of fingertips are brushing over three sets of hands, Jason’s eyes warm and tender while Keith’s remain cold and glazed with anguish.

  “When?” Keith wrenches and jerks his hand away. “When do you leave?”

  “Two weeks from Saturday.”

  “Two weeks,” Keith repeats softly, his eyes of sweet chocolate suffused with heartbreak and the cold harsh reality of Jason’s words.

  My fault. I caused this. I should have never returned to Springhill. I should have listened to my mother. I should have listened to my heart.

  A stifling quiet settles over the three of us that seems to linger for an excruciating hour, and the smell of sizzling spicy b
eef and enchiladas is almost sickening. Unvoiced words between Jason and Keith hang in the air like a toxic smoke while Keith swallows the last of his Guinness Dark and Jason stares at the both of us in silence.

  Miserable, uncomfortable, perplexing silence.

  Five minutes later, Keith bolts up from his chair and angrily tosses a wad of cash onto the table. “I think we’re done here.” He pushes his wallet into the back pocket of his jeans and glances at Jason then me. “Let’s go look at that crack in the wall. I’ll need to crawl underneath the building while there’s still daylight.”

  His words aren’t an offer to help, not a play on anger. This is much more than even a direct order. This is hurt, loss, devastation, and I’m on my feet in less than sixty seconds and out the door of Mendez in another fifteen, pain pummeling at my chest while I swat away the beginning of angry, gut-wrenching tears. I won’t break up a loving relationship between the most important men in my life.

  I can’t.

  I absolutely won’t.

  After nothing but ten minutes of agonizing silence between us, Keith pulls up to the front door with Jason right behind us. Keith’s still angry, still in shock, while I know in my heart none of this would be happening if it weren’t for me. There’s no mistaking. This is my fault. Mine. Completely.

  Today is a massive, eye-opening wake-up call. My mother’s words were precise, her questions logical. I shouldn’t have returned.

  You’re giving up a job you love, a job that you’re able to live nicely on, to return to Springhill?

  To run a museum of all things when you worked so hard to become a paralegal?

  Have you lost your mind?

  Do you trust Keith enough to make sure you have enough money every month to pay your car payment, Jen? Your electric bill? All the high-dollar shoes and clothing you’re accustomed to?

  Do you love that man that much?

  Don’t do something you’ll end up regretting later.

  Yes, I love him that much. God knows, I do.

  But Keith, Jason, me—it’s never going to happen the way I want it to. It’s only a fantasy. A stupid, unreal, childish, twisted fantasy. And my mother … she’s always right. Always.

  Every damn time.

  Hostility rumbles through my chest, anger growing in my belly like an ugly cancer. Seconds from snapping and white-knuckled from clenching my fists, I suddenly want to loathe Keith, Jason, and my mother. I want to shout at my mother for being right when I wanted her to be wrong. Demand she not say I told you so. I want to scream, shout, cry, and beat against Keith’s and Jason’s chests with my fists, then kick at their shins for making me love them both and for having such a grip on my heart that I was willing to give up everything just to be near them. I can’t stand the thought of living with the bitter fact that I’ve ended the love of a lifetime between two men that need to be, and should be, together. It sickens me knowing that it’s me, not Jason, that needs to pull out of Springhill, Texas, once and for all.

  Why am I so fucking weak when it comes to Keith Ryker? Why does my heart overpower my brain every damn time? Why do I ache for two men that ache for each other?

  Why? Why? Why … absolutely everything?

  ****

  Tensions are heavy, the air brittle enough to snap right in half. Keith climbs underneath the building to see if one of the piers has shifted or if there’s been a plumbing leak, while Jason and I stand and watch in knee-deep silence. We just stand here, a footstep away from other, neither of us speaking, only looking straight ahead while adrenaline races through my chest and a hundred thoughts pound at my mind. With a deep breath, I look toward a somber-faced Jason then grip his fingers because I can’t stand not to.

  “I know you hate me. You have every right. This is all my fault. Y—” My voice tries to break. “You would never leave Springhill. You would never consider leaving the man you love.” Tears sting my eyes while my body trembles like I’m in the middle of a nightmare that I’m trying desperately to wake up from, where I’m screaming and pleading for help when I know there is none. “I’m the one who should leave. And I will. Tomorrow, I’ll start making plans,” I say with dread turning my stomach to knots. “I knew better, Jason. I did. I had a great job. A nice apartment. Good friends. Good benefits. And now … I have nothing. Coulda, woulda, fucking shoulda.”

  Jason doesn’t say a word, doesn’t move an inch, and just stares ahead, coldly, at the back of the building where Keith has crawled underneath. I suck in air, my chest tightening with frustration and annoyance that’s directed toward no one but myself.

  “Jason!” I squeeze at his hand. “At least say something.”

  “You’re staying.” He turns silent again, drops my hand at my side, then roughly runs it underneath his chin while I try to calm the sudden anger stirring inside me.

  “So that’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”

  Jason faces me, his eyes bright as the stars but swirling with heavy emotion. “Sweetheart. Your running off won’t change anything. You’ll still love Keith. Keith will still love you. And I … will still love you both. That’s why I’m doing this. That’s…”

  “There’s a definite structural problem.” Jason’s voice drops at the rough tone of Keith’s voice. “There’s also this.” He slides from underneath the crawl space, his hands full of something unrecognizable but resembling vegetation of some sort, and b—bones?

  Holy fucking shit!

  “My God!” I cup a hand over my mouth, my blood turning to ice, my stomach churning with acid. When I glance down at what are the skeletal remains of something, my whole body trembles. My head is spinning with a million thoughts, my throat burning, my chest tight, my eyes blurry.

  It’s true. All the stories. All the hearsay.

  Ryker really had people buried under this place!

  Fear trembles through me, and I’m suddenly in Jason’s arms, shaking, nausea clawing at my throat, long tears sliding down my cheeks and off the tip of my nose. I knew this place was bad. I knew it carried evil in its walls. Do decayed bodies smell like cinnamon? Was Daniel Ryker really a murderer?

  “Jason.” His arms feel warm and protective but still not enough as I practically crawl up his body. “Fuck, I hate this place. Who did he kill? His wife? His family? Children? His…” Words leave me as I choke at the lump in my throat.

  “Jen!” Keith strides closer as I try shaking off the need to be sick. “Baby, no, no, no. They’re not human. See? Look close.” He holds out a piece of something long and thin. “This couldn’t have been any larger than a house cat. And look at the long snout. And this,” he adds while shifting the lifeless corpse. “I’m pretty sure humans don’t have tails.” He drops the bone fragments beside him. “This is a mushroom of some sort. There’re dozens of them. Do you smell it, sugar?” He holds the light-brown sprout closer, and I bite back bile in my throat. “They’re most definitely the culprit causing the odor we’ve all noticed over the years. These things have probably been germinating underneath this old place for years and years. They thrive in musty damp places.”

  “But mushrooms? Mushrooms smell like cinnamon?” I lean over, still shaking, and inhale. He’s right. They smell spicy, intensely so. They smell pungent, foul, like cinnamon, and I swallow a gag.

  “Oh, my God. All these years. All the times I thought this damn place was haunted. All the bad dreams. All the times I held my breath to keep from spewing. Jesus, I can’t even eat a damn cinnamon roll.”

  “Those aren’t just any mushroom.” Jason takes the two-toned cap from Keith’s hand. “I’m not absolutely positive, but I’ve seen something very damn similar. From what I can tell, these are matsutake mushrooms, sometimes called pine mushrooms. They’re not at all common in this part of the country. I saw them, even tasted them, when I was in Japan a few years back. These babies,” he says with lifted brows, “are big business, not only in Japanese cuisine, but they symbolize some kind of fertility and happiness kind of bullshit. They’re wor
th a fortune, and something tells me this may have been where ole Jigsaw got his money from. He damn sure didn’t drive those Mercedes off what he brought in at this place. I’d bet my last dollar that Ryker was growing these and importing them to Japan.”

  “Mushrooms that smell like cinnamon. No evil spirits. No ghosts or goblins in the walls.” Now I’m laughing. Doubled over, gut-filled, hard laughing. I can’t stop. I’m beside myself, in hysterics, and remembering all the times I absolutely believed evil spirits lurked around this place, that Mr. Ryker was something cruel and scary, and Rylee and all her ribbing and teasing and accusing me of watching too many horror films. Just as I catch my breath, my laughs turn to sobs, a desolate, uncontrollable kind of sobbing because my best friend is no longer here to laugh with me about all the long hours we spent talking and even arguing over Ryker and my stupid, senseless imagination. I miss my best friend. My God, I miss her so badly. And Ryker was no murderer. He was no monster or creepy bug-eyed old man burying bodies underneath the building or keeping hostages in his house. He was just a lonely old man trying to make a living, even if it involved selling mushrooms, which we have no proof of.

  Relief and solace and guilt and grief all shoot through me like pins and needles and sharp knives and burning-hot fire. The past hurts. Not knowing hurts. But loving two men and not knowing the right path to follow more than hurts. It’s agonizing torture—devastating, suffering, crippling torture—that throbs deep in my chest and through my soul.

  “I want … I want my fucking best friend back … I want to go back to that day and tell my mom I don’t need new jeans or my damn toes painted. I want you,” I whisper, looking up at Jason, “in Springhill … with Keith … with me. I want …” I start sobbing harder, and the tears just won’t stop. “My heart … it just fucking hurts. Don’t do this, Jason.”

  Both Keith and Jason come closer, and in seconds, I’m sandwiched between both of their big strong bodies, inhaling shampoo, body wash, strength, power, and male, the smell more delicious than anything I’ve ever savored. Arms wind around me, hands touch me and each other, heads drop, chests contract, while I cry and cry harder. Racking sobs have my whole body trembling as I weep in such a wretched grievous way that neither Keith nor Jason knows how to handle it.