“James…honey.” She purred.
“And is what you did any better, James?” Ryder asked.
At least he had the decency to look embarrassed.
“What do you mean by that, sir?” Lacey’s dad asked.
“James signed his rights away when he and Tia divorced. That way it got him out of his support payments and it made him free to start a new family with your daughter and begin his climb up the social ladder using all your contacts to get him where he wanted to be.”
* * * *
The older couple glared at James and Lacey.
Helping his wife to stand, he shook Ryder’s hand, thanking him for his honesty, then turned to the other couple and said, “We’ll be leaving on the first available flight. I don’t want to see either of you at the house for the next month. I think you two deserve each other, but for God’s sake leave the poor child alone. And James, I expect your resignation on my desk by Friday. I can’t have someone I can’t trust working in my company.” Then Lacey’s parents left, leaving James and Lacey to face the mess that they had made.
“Do you see what you’ve done?” Lacey screeched at him with tears in her eyes.
James took Lacey by the hand and pulled her into his arms. Looking over her head, he said in an icy voice, “This isn’t over. Not by a long shot,” and led Lacey out of the café.
Everyone was waiting for Ryder at the truck when he came out.
Shay ran straight to him and jumped into his arms for a big hug.
“Did you beat him up, Uncle Ryder? He looked all angry when he and Lacey left,” she said.
“No, kiddo, I didn’t beat him up. As much as I wanted to, violence is not the answer to a problem,” he told her.
Sam leaned back against the truck in a fake swoon, the back of his hand lying against his forehead. Dan just stood there, staring at his brother as if he had two heads.
“Okay, now go back into the café and send out the real Ryder. You know, the one your space pod is holding,” Dan said.
“Just ignore those two idiots, Shay. They’re just jealous that I get to carry you around for awhile.” Ryder smiled and kissed her gently on the cheek.
Shay giggled and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Seriously, Ryder, you were in there for a while so what did you say to them that made them so upset?” Tia asked.
He put Shay into the backseat of the truck, then closed the door and climbed in. Taking his lead, the others also climbed in.
“Let’s talk about this when we get home. Right now I just want to make sure that you and Shay are safe at the house.” Waving bye to their dads, they all headed home.
Chapter 6
They took the long way home so that everyone would have a chance to cool down, at least that’s what Ryder told himself. Actually, he needed to calm down before they all started discussing that asshole, James. What kind of man would do that to his own child? He was glad that he wasn’t able to comprehend the brain of that type of person. To him and his brothers, children were the greatest gift a woman could bestow on a man. Smiling at the thought of seeing Tia’s belly swell with their child calmed him enough to head for home.
Pulling into the garage, right away Ryder noticed that the side door of the house was open. He looked at his brothers noting they saw it, too.
“Stay in the truck until we come and get you. I’ll leave the keys with you, Tia, and if you hear anything you take off over to Simone’s.” Ryder’s body was tense as if he was going into battle.
“You’re scaring me, guys,” she whispered as she leaned forward into the front so as not to let Shay know she was upset.
“It’s probably nothing, baby girl. We just want to check the place out to be sure.” Sam patted her hand as it rested on the front console.
Dan pulled her back into his arms and spoke softly into her ear. “We always lock the side door when we leave. It’s the only one that isn’t wired into the alarm system yet.”
She tensed in his arms when he told her that.
Not wanting to upset Shay, he gave them both a big smile and got out of the truck and headed toward his brothers.
* * * *
Looking over at Shay, Tia could see the questions in her daughter’s eyes.
“The guys are just gonna go and check out a few things in the house while we wait here. There’s nothing to worry about, sweetheart,” she told her daughter, knowing that that wouldn’t be an adequate answer for long.
Tia watched as the men entered the house. All three of them had gone to the gun cabinet in the garage to retrieve their weapons.
Trying to break the tension, Shay whispered to her mom, “I thought Canada was a kinder, gentler nation. Those guns seemed pretty handy to me.”
Tia looked stunned at her daughter and laughed. “Sometimes, Shay, the things that you pick from your brain and let roll out of your mouth amaze me.”
Hugging her tight, they turned their attention back to the open doorway and waited for some sign from inside.
After about ten minutes, Sam was the first to appear again through the doorway, casually placing his gun back in his shoulder holster. Next was Ryder, tucking his in the back of his jeans and then Dan, with his gun already shoved down the front of his cargo pants. Brave man, Tia thought and was happy when she saw them all go to the cabinet and place their weapons back inside and lock it.
Climbing out, Shay started firing questions at them. “Was there anyone in there? Were we robbed? Oh, wait until I tell the twins about this.”
Tia also exited the truck and was greeted partway by her men.
“Someone had definitely been in the house, sweetling,” Dan said as he kissed her cheek and hugged her to him.
Lifting his head from her neck, he continued walking into the house with her. Ryder piggybacked Shay, and Sam followed close behind.
Putting Shay down in the living room, Ryder smiled at her and told her to go and call the twins and tell them all about the excitement. Without a backward glance she was off up to her room to call the girls.
“Now that Shay is out of the room can one of you please tell me what the hell is going on?” Tia didn’t mean to sound so shrill, but after everything that had happened she didn’t need them to start keeping secrets from her.
“As I told you, baby, someone has been in the house. Nothing was taken, but they went through the bedroom as if they were looking for something. Drawers were left open, and some of your clothes were on the floor,” Dan said.
“Oh, my God, why did you send Shay up there then? I don’t want her to see that.” Tia started toward the door but was stopped by Sam.
“We already put everything back, sweetheart. We wouldn’t send her up there otherwise.”
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” she asked.
“They won’t find any prints, and we’re pretty sure we know who it was.” Ryder took her hand and led her over to the couch. Sitting down, he pulled her onto his lap and cuddled her close.
“They were after something specific, kitten. Something that they think you have and the only person who would want to do that would be James.”
James had been really pissed off when she had seen him leaving the café earlier. Ryder must have said something that set him off big time.
“Just what exactly did you say to him to get him worked up enough to break into your house?” she asked, looking directly into his eyes.
* * * *
Ryder sighed and decided that from the look in her eyes he’d better tell her everything now instead of her finding out from some other source later.
“When we were at the café, Lacey said more to Shay in the washroom than she admitted to you, baby. She told Shay the only reason she and James wanted her to come live with them was so that Lacey’s parents would get off her back about grandkids and they would loosen the strings on her trust fund. It seems Lacey doesn’t want to ruin her figure by getting pregnant, so if Shay was around for awhile it would make her parents happy.”
Ryder didn’t want to tell her everything, but the only way for them to build her trust was total honesty.
Continuing on, he said, “Lacey has been playing the part of the darling daughter for a long time. Her parents had no idea exactly what kind of woman she’d turned into. Her mother was extremely hurt, and her father was livid. Lacey had told Shay that once her parents eased up on her finances that she and James would travel the world and leave Shay in a boarding school.”
“That fucking little bitch, I’ll cut her heart out and serve it to her for breakfast.” Ryder was stunned by her venom, and by the look on the faces of her men, so were they.
“Her parents also had no idea that James had signed his parental rights to Shay completely away and that he was more interested in using them to climb the social ladder than anything else. They’re on their way back home and told Lacey and James that they weren’t to show their faces for the next month, and then her father fired James.”
“Jesus, Ryder, do you know how much that job meant to James? It was everything to him. He was so sure that it would help him elevate his social stature that he would do anything they asked him to do.” Tia leaned against his shoulder and sighed.
“We think that James either broke in himself or had someone break in to see if they could find the document he signed regarding Shay.” Sam spoke, sitting in one of the large overstuffed chairs. “Do you still have it, sweetheart?”
“It was in my purse, which was with me. I hadn’t had a chance to get a safety deposit box at the bank yet,” she said.
Dan walked over, picked up her purse, and started riffling through it. Tia jumped up off of Ryder’s lap and snatched it away from him.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” she yelled at Dan.
“We need to put that document in our safe,” he stated, looking at her as if she was an idiot for asking.
“I know what you were looking for, Dan, but what gave you the right to go through my purse without my permission?” Digging her hand in her purse, she found and then handed over to him the document.
* * * *
Stammering and knowing that he was on thin ice, Dan was a little embarrassed by his quick actions. “Sorry sweetling, I didn’t even think about your privacy. I apologize. I just wanted to get that document away from you so that he wouldn’t have a reason to come after you. If he ever hurt you…” He turned away from her, not wanting her to see his pain.
Tia placed her purse on the coffee table and put her arms around him from behind, resting her cheek against his broad back.
“Dan, look at me.” She pulled on his arm trying to get him to face her. When he wouldn’t budge, she released him and walked around to his front.
“Your apology is most definitely accepted, and I understand why you did it. Now look at me and tell me how you feel right now.” Her voice broke his resistance, and Dan raised his head to look at her.
“I feel like I want to kill him, sweetling. The thought of him hurting you and Shay ever again makes me crazy. If I could, I would wrap you both up in cotton to protect you from ever feeling any kind of pain again.”
Jumping into his arms, Tia kissed him all over his face and said, “James can’t hurt me anymore, sweetheart. He has no hold over me at all. My heart belongs to you, Sam, and Ryder. If I believed in fate and all that mumbo jumbo, I would say that it always has and was just waiting for you to find me.”
Ryder and Sam joined them in a group hug. Then each man pulled her into his arms to deliver their own special brand of kiss, all of them whispering in her ear how much she meant to them and what they wanted to do to her when they finally got her alone in that big bed upstairs.
* * * *
Breathing heavily after all the kisses, Tia sat down on the couch again and gestured for the men to join her. “The one thing that does worry me about all this is that James is right about one thing. He’s always gotten whatever he wants, and sometimes I think he hasn’t exactly been on the right side of the law to do it.” Tia shivered as she told them about how when Shay was a baby and they had had an argument because of his long hours. He had given her a scary smile and told her that once his boss was out of the way his hours would get better. A week later his boss was killed in a car accident when his brake lines were cut. The police never found out who did it, but Tia always suspected James had something to do with it.
“Well, baby girl, he hasn’t run up against the Kinsey family yet,” Sam said proudly and pulled her back against him.
“You know that all three of us were in the military but what you didn’t know was that while in the military we worked with agencies from all over the world. We were part of a special task force that was created after 9/11. Our country lost some good people as well during that attack and so did Britain and a lot of other good countries. So we were asked to head this group to not only monitor the more major crime elements of the world but to take out as many as we could. So James is small time in comparison.”
“Simone was also special ops for the US military for ten years, kitten,” Ryder added.
“Our big sister is kick-ass when it comes to a one-on-one fight. I don’t know how many times she’s knocked one of us on our butts.”
Dan laughed and said, “Yeah, I remember when we had just finished our first tour and had come home on leave. Simone was home at the same time, and we thought we’d all sneak up on her to surprise her. But she surprised us when I was flipped over her shoulder, Ryder was laid out on the ground by her back kick, and Sam couldn’t walk properly for two days.”
Sam physically flinched at the memory.
“I’ll have to get her to show me some of her moves so that I can keep you three alphas in line.” Tia chuckled.
“No way, kitten, all you have to do to keep us in line is shake that gorgeous little ass of yours in our direction and we are your slaves,” Ryder said and leaned over to kiss her lips.
* * * *
Ryder wanted to keep it light and sweet, but the moment his lips touched hers all coherent thought left the building. He pulled her onto his lap, never breaking contact with her lips, his tongue delving into the recesses of her mouth. Sam moved closer and started stroking down her back, along her thigh until he came to the hem of her sundress. Slowly he started to work his way up under the dress, getting closer to her wet heat until she grabbed his hand through her dress and broke away from Ryder’s kiss.
“I don’t want to have to stop, but since Shay is just upstairs and we still have to go to Simone’s, I think we should save this for later when we’re alone in our bedroom.”
Dan walked over and lifted her off of Ryder’s lap, kissing her deeply. “You’re right, sweetling, we have to be more cautious with Shay in the house, but you’re just too hard to fucking resist sometimes. And when you start making all those wonderful little sounds it makes us all crazy to have you.”
She smiled, and as he placed her feet on the floor she kissed his chin. “You know, Dan, when I first met you everyone told me that you didn’t talk much. It seems to me that you’ve done a hell of a lot of talking lately.”
“I only speak to intelligent people. And since I find most people stupid”—he looked at his two brothers and smiled then glanced back down at the woman who had come to mean so much to them—“I don’t talk much.”
His two brothers grumbled something under their breaths, but when she asked what they said they both told her it was nothing. Before she could get them to give her a proper answer, Shay came barreling into the room.
“Mom, James is coming up the walkway and he’s got Lacey with him. He can’t take me with him can he?” she cried and wrapped her arms around her mom’s waist.
Soothing her hair back from her face Tia lifted Shay’s head so that she could look directly into her eyes. “He’s not taking you anywhere, pumpkin. No one here is going to let him anywhere near you. Now I want you to go up to your room and stay there. We’re going to have Simone come over and bring the girls with her. You guys
can go for a swim or something while we talk business with James.”
* * * *
Shay perked up at the thought of spending more time with the twins. They were becoming closer and closer, and it made Tia’s heart fill with joy to see her daughter happy. Shay did as she was asked even though she wanted to know why James was here, she trusted the triplets to take care of her and her mom and knew they would answer any question she asked them, truthfully, when it was all over. So she headed into her room to wait for the twins.
Ryder had called Simone while Tia was talking to Shay, and when he came back into the room he told them that they would all be there within about ten minutes.
A knock sounded at the door, and even before Dan went to answer it, Shay already knew who waited on the other side.
“What can we do for you, Jackson?” he snarled, not opening the door all the way.
“I need to speak with Tia regarding our daughter, so if you don’t mind tell her that I’m here and that either she gives me what I want or we can spend the next few years in court.”
Tia grabbed the edge of the door and opened it wider to allow James entrance. “Come in, James, but don’t make threats that you can’t back up.”
“Oh, I can back them up, Tia, believe me I can,” he said and walked past her straight into the living room
* * * *
Ryder growled when James walked into the room. Sam had to grab him by the arm to keep him from stepping forward and punching the arrogant little prick in the face. He had to remember what he told Shay earlier. That violence didn’t solve anything. It may make him feel a hell of a lot better, but it didn’t solve problems, and in most cases it only created more. He wanted to show Tia that they would be great dads for Shay and the six or seven other children they would have with her.
“It looks like you’ve done well for yourself, Tia. This is a beautiful place.” Lacey threaded her arm through James’s and smiled at the triplets. Lacey frowned when she got no reaction from any of the men.
Bailey, Debbie - For Tia's Pleasure [Men of Kinsey 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 11