When Rebecca had made the decision to stay here in the family’s cabin several months ago, she’d moved herself into one of the two downstairs bedrooms. It had never occurred to her to use the master bedroom, and trekking upstairs whenever she wanted to rest didn’t appeal to her, either. Not when she was all alone and there was nothing else to do in that very big bed but sleep. She much preferred the downstairs rooms, because of the set up of the cabin. The downstairs bedrooms were down a short hall from the great room. That sprawling space, by virtue of not only the large panoramic windows facing the southeast, but the fireplace tucked into the corner, had become her temporary studio. Standing by those windows, her easel awaited, the canvas upon it bearing, as yet, only the very early stages of a portrait.
She’d taken down the other piece she’d finished the day before. She’d wanted to leave that painting out, so she could look at it and hope on it, but in the end had been afraid it would serve as a jinx. She’d called it Forever Lovers, and she hoped the name wasn’t a jinx, either. At the moment the painting was stowed carefully in her bedroom closet.
She’d never met Greg’s lover, although she had looked him up online and knew what he looked like. But not having actually been face to face with him she hadn’t felt comfortable creating a still life. So she hadn’t painted a picture of the three of them together, exactly. She’d painted basic shapes, three nudes caught in the fluid and flowing throes of lovemaking, giving just a subtle smudge to represent motion. If one stared long enough, the faces became visible and, she thought, fairly recognizable.
It had been the first time she’d ever painted her deepest, most desperate wish.
She let her eyes scan the new portrait. Much safer territory, this one. And maybe by focusing on Grandma Kate, that woman’s optimism and can-do attitude would somehow bolster her for the days or weeks ahead.
She turned away from the canvas and headed out to the kitchen. It took only a moment to light the two-burner propane stove used for light cooking and put the kettle of water on to heat. While she waited, she wandered over to the door, and looked out over the dark, Central Texas landscape.
It had never bothered her to spend time in remote locations. So when Detective Dwyer of the Seattle Police Department suggested, for safety’s sake, that she take herself off to someplace remote, someplace outside of Seattle, that wasn’t a problem for her. Unlike some of her acquaintances, she wasn’t an avowed urbanite.
She was an avowed artist, and cherished her alone time. Rebecca shook her head. Alone time had been at a bit of a premium just lately. The last week or so had seen her driving into Lusty twice—once to attend her brothers Grant and Andrew’s engagement party—she smiled when she thought about Chloe Rhodes becoming her sister.
She liked the woman, a lot.
Then, at that very same party, two of her cousins had gone into labor. So of course, she’d had to go back to town to visit the moms and the babies. Tracy’s son, Cameron, reportedly didn’t particularly like to sleep, much. Fortunately mom and both dads divided the baby care equally so that all three were able to get some rest. Julia’s three babies on the other hand—sons Darien and William and daughter Madison—enjoyed sleeping a great deal.
Julia had confessed this was a good thing, and if they could keep it up for just another couple of days, their fathers could recover from the shock of the multiple births.
As far as Rebecca knew, it was the first time in the history of the families that a triplet birth had included a girl child.
Grandma Kate liked to talk about cycles. She often said that they were all connected, from the first of them to the last. Just lately, especially after the bizarre happenings in Seattle, Rebecca was beginning to believe her grandmother knew what she was talking about.
She took one last look out the window, satisfied that she was alone in her part of Texas. Her gaze flicked down just for a moment. One of the two rifles kept here at the cabin stood against the wall beside the front door, within easy reach.
The other was at the back door. On her bedside table, beside the light, her Walther PPK lay like an odd sort of knickknack.
All three were loaded, and ready to fire. If anyone else were at the house, Rebecca would have to find a different way to protect herself. But she was alone, had been well trained in how to handle and store weapons, and understood that while keeping a gun by the door or lying in plain sight next to her bed didn’t fall under the heading “how to store weapons safely,” it fit right in the box labeled “use in case of attack by deranged stalker.”
The kettle whistled, and Rebecca left the door to go and make herself a pot of tea.
* * * *
Greg debated for one moment taking a hotel room for the night. There were certainly a lot of them near DFW International Airport. But at this hour—just past one thirty on a Wednesday morning—the drive to Lusty shouldn’t take all that long. He’d dozed lightly on the flight and wasn’t as tired as he might have been, otherwise.
In fact, he felt energized, and knew that feeling came from finally being on home turf, in control, and doing something.
The deciding factor whether to get a room or push on, of course, was Cody. He thought his lover had suffered through quite enough of strangers and crowds for a while.
He kept saying he was fine, but Greg, quite frankly, didn’t believe him.
“You didn’t sleep on the plane, love,” he said now, looking over at the man sitting in the passenger seat beside him.
The blond hair that hung close to Cody’s shoulders seemed to lack its usual luster. Exhaustion had replaced intelligence as the dominant feature in his brown eyes. “I couldn’t sleep with all those people…” He let the sentence drop. Greg reached over and squeezed his hand—and sighed in relief when Cody turned his hand over and accepted Greg’s touch.
“You’ll like the cabin,” Greg said then. “We’re surrounded by Benedict land there, and the nearest neighbor is miles away. The only inconvenience is that for the last twelve miles of the route, we have to travel over what’s little more than a dirt path, so it’ll be a bit rough.”
“Ah, so that’s why you rented this kick-ass Jeep,” Cody said.
Crap. There were a lot of things about himself he hadn’t told Cody. They’d known each other for almost exactly two years—and had been lovers for just over six months. Greg had moved slower in this relationship than Cody had wanted to, and he still tended to hold things close to the vest.
That was a habit he’d developed not long after college—not long after meeting Daniel—and still hadn’t lost.
Now, he said, “Actually, this is my Jeep. I had it stored in Dallas, and then brought to the airport for us.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cody looked around the vehicle as if seeing it for the first time. “Naw, can’t be yours. It’s too clean inside.”
Greg laughed, delighted and relieved at that glimpse of the Cody he knew and loved. He just prayed that the damage the man had suffered in the last month—both physical and psychological—could heal here, in central Texas.
“You forget I had it stored and attended.” Then he tilted his head and shot him a sly look. “It’s amazing what you can have others do for you, if you have the means to pay for it.”
Cody exhaled, and relaxed in his seat. “I grew up going to the Hamptons every summer,” he said. “It’s okay. I think neither of us mentioned to the other that we come from money for roughly the same reason.”
“Because we’re both paranoid, closemouthed jerks?” Greg asked.
“You’re not paranoid,” Cody said quickly. “It’s foolish to let on how wealthy you are when you travel to untamed and foreign lands. And pretty hard to be open about who and what you are on the inside when those around you will judge you saint or sinner by their own whim.”
Greg didn’t miss his lover’s backhanded barb. “Then I am a jerk, because my family sure as hell would never have judged me. Not my mother and certainly not either of my two fathers.”
�
��Two fathers?”
Greg really had been a closemouthed jerk where Cody was concerned. He’d thought to hold some of himself back, and not only because he worried that Cody would deride his family as being amoral philistines. No, he’d thought that if he kept a chunk of who he was hidden, he wouldn’t fall all the way in love, wouldn’t open himself to the pain of losing that love, as he had with Daniel, or abusing that love, as he himself had done with Rebecca.
Great plan, asshole. He’d fallen in love, anyway. And he’d died a thousand deaths, anyway, waiting for word on Cody, on his whereabouts, on whether or not he could be found and then freed from his kidnappers before they killed him.
Rebecca. Damn it, he needed to tell Cody about Rebecca. He’d had enough of her evasions. As soon as he got his hands on her, he was going to give her a good shake—and then kiss her senseless.
He was going to love her so long and so well she would never turn her back on him again.
Things he and his lover had talked about in recent months gave Greg hope that he’d be able to count on Cody’s help with that little thing.
First, though, it was time to go for a little more transparency. And since they had a long drive ahead of them, he thought here and now would be the perfect place, and time, to begin.
“Remember how you told me about your brother, Gene, up in San Francisco?”
“Which part?” Cody asked. “The part about how mom and dad disowned him? The part about how he founded a commune outside of ’Frisco? Or the part about him having a husband, and a wife?”
Greg grinned. Yep, Cody’s acerbic wit was back, and with a vengeance. “The last part.”
“You said it didn’t bother you that my brother was in a happy—a very happy—monogamous ménage.”
Acerbic wit, check. Defensive edge, check. Looked like his man was on his way to a full recovery. Now if only we can do something about those damned nightmares.
“It sure as hell doesn’t bother me. In fact, I’ll see you one brother and raise you an entire town.”
He felt Cody looking at him. The man was so smart, sometimes it was scary. He’d bet at that very moment Cody was rifling through everything he knew about him, not just from the time they’d been together, but all the myriad bits and pieces he’d have learned in the beginning when he wanted to know more about Greg Benedict.
“You’re shitting me. An entire town?”
“I’m not shitting you.” The familiar words came to his tongue easily. “Let me tell you a story about an 1880s Chicago businessman, his new wife with expensive tastes, and his daughter, whom he sold into marriage to a man whose heart was as black as sin…”
For the first time in a long time, Greg let himself feel the pride and the adventure and the sense of history that was his heritage.
Cody kept silent all through the telling of the Benedict, Kendall, and Jessop family saga. He didn’t interject smart-ass observations, nor did he fidget in his seat. That meant Greg had his attention, and he was letting his mind fully take in everything he was saying.
The telling ate up a lot of miles, and when it was done, Greg waited to see what his lover would say.
Cody took his time. “So your folks…they’d be okay with me? With us?”
“Yes.” Greg exhaled heavily. “Yes, they would be.” And with the wisdom of age, he understood—maybe for the very first time—that they all likely knew already what his sexual preferences were. That would explain why not even Grandma Kate or Aunt Samantha had ever chided him about taking a wife.
“So…why am I going to be the first lover you’ve ever brought…almost…home?”
Good question. “I guess the answer to that was that I was always the one who felt…I don’t know, different, I guess. Even though I knew my cousin Jordan was also bisexual.”
“I can see why you would be a man who felt at odds. Didn’t you tell me you were the only one among your five brothers who didn’t have a womb mate?”
Greg had forgotten he’d said that. “Yes, I am.”
“Do you know what I think? I think the reason I’m the first to come home with you has nothing do with your sexual orientation, lover. I think it has everything to do with your deep fear of commitment.”
Greg snorted. “You and Rebecca. Both delusional.” He hadn’t meant to let that slip. His only excuse was that he was in shock over Cody’s insight.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Cody sat up straighter, rubbed his hands together, and nailed him with his patented smile. “Tell me about Rebecca.”
Greg didn’t know where to start. He explained that she was a cousin, but not really a cousin. That she was bratty, but not really bratty. And then, holy hell, the words just flowed. He talked about her bluebell eyes and her ability to see beauty in just about everything. He told him about her accomplishments as an artist, and his pride in her.
He talked about wanting her, and resisting her, until that one time, and he told him how he’d pretty much fucked everything up.
“You’re more screwed up than I am, pal,” Cody said. “But now I understand so much more than I did.”
“What? What do you understand?”
“Not what, but who. You.” Cody sighed. “I wish my body would bounce back, for God’s sake. I hate feeling weak and exhausted.”
“You have to be patient and cut yourself some slack.”
“I don’t feel like being patient.”
Greg felt something snap inside him. “You fucking damn near died from that infection because those bastards let you sit in one cold dank cell after another for six days with a Goddamn bullet in you. You just got out of the hospital three weeks ago, so you damn well better be patient!” Greg pulled in his exasperation as he stopped on the county road, right turn signal on, and edged toward the fencing. He inhaled deeply and exhaled the same way. Clearly, he hadn’t dealt with all of his anger yet.
“Ah, Greg? There’s no road here, babe. There’s just a fence.”
“Watch and be amazed.”
Greg pulled down his sun visor to reveal what appeared to be a garage-door opener. When he pressed a button, the gate, which was barely discernible in the fence, swung open. He navigated his Jeep carefully over a track that was seen as much in the memory as it was by his eyes with the aid of the Jeep’s headlights.
He took it easy as they drove over the somewhat bumpy and uneven pastureland. Greg could see the path, of course, and he could tell by the way Cody relaxed that he could see it, too. The clock on the dash read three twenty. He watched the odometer, and knew they weren’t more than fifteen minutes out.
He was grateful that the Town Trust inspected this path every month. He thought that might have been done very recently as it seemed to him as if the path was more worn than usual. Likely Robert would have seen to it once I called him to let him know I’d be coming. March typically wasn’t the time of year when family vied for time here at the cabin. Good thing, because he was looking forward to giving Cody and himself this break—for Cody to heal, and for him to figure out what the hell came next.
He pushed aside the whisper of thought that suggested holing up here had all the earmarks of “settling down.” They weren’t settling down, they were just taking an extended and very necessary time-out.
Memories from the last few weeks flashed through his mind. From the moment he’d heard that Cody and that dipshit reporter had been kidnapped just inside Syria until he’d gotten the call to wait on the Turkish side of the border crossing at Bab Al-Salameh for Cody’s return, Greg Benedict had lived in near-paralyzing fear. He’d barely slept, hadn’t eaten much, and prayed more than he had in all the years since losing Daniel.
“Fuck me. That is a cabin? It looks more like a freaking manor house.”
Greg returned to the present and grinned. He parked his Jeep near the front of the building, not far from the porch. He’d never brought anyone here before, but he guessed the word “cabin” really didn’t jive with the structure the families had built here.
“Does it have a pool?”
Greg thought of the en suite bathroom off the master bedroom. The spa tub might qualify as a pool. But he knew what Cody meant, so he said, “No, not yet.”
“I’m beat.” Cody looked over at him. “Let’s go inside. I want to fall face-first onto the first soft surface I find.”
Greg knew Cody hated to admit to any weakness. He must really feel like shit. It had been a long day of travel for them, beginning early in the morning—yesterday morning—from Ankara.
Since he also balked at having Greg do anything for him, he said, “Sounds like a plan. I’m beat, too. Let’s just grab our travel bags for now, and get the rest in the morning.”
They’d taken two steps toward the house when the door burst open. Light spilled out the house, silhouetting a woman. The sound of a gun being readied to fire shouted into the night, and a voice he heard in his dreams said, “Hold it right there.”
“Jesus, Becca. Give a man a heart attack, why don’t you!”
“Greg?”
His brain had trouble responding because standing the way she was with the light behind her emphasized the fact that Rebecca Jessop was gloriously naked beneath her light robe.
“That’s Rebecca?” Cody asked.
Greg gave the woman credit. She immediately disarmed the rifle and pointed the barrel toward the ground. The way she’d sometimes treated him these past several years, and all things considered, he thought she might rather just have shot him.
Then she tilted her head to one side. “You must be Cody.”
How the hell does she know that?
“Yes, ma’am. And thank you for lowering that gun. They make me kind of nervous, especially lately.” Then he looked at him, and Greg had the first sense, in a good long while, that maybe things might work out for him, after all. “Hey, there, lover? Can Rebecca count as the first soft surface?”
Chapter 3
Love Under Two Adventurers [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 3