by Gigi Moore
“I can’t.”
“So you said, but it’s not too late.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand you’re running away like you’ve always done.”
“What the hell would you know about it?”
Thayne didn’t even react to Cade’s flash of temper, just said, “I know a lot more about it than you think.”
Cade sighed, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. He let the late-afternoon sun wash over his face, wondering how Thayne could ever understand what it was like to live in constant fear when he lived so fearlessly. Unlike Cade, his brother wasn’t afraid to let his guard down and expose his heart. Even after Tiffany stomped it to a pulp, he hadn’t hesitated to step outside his comfort zone and into a ménage. He hadn’t been afraid to walk into the unknown and risk his heart and humiliation again.
And he calls me the wild one.
Cade grinned at the thought just as Thayne put a hand on his shoulder.
“What do you have to gain playing games, especially now?”
“I’m not playing games. I can’t tell her because—”
“Because?”
“I haven’t earned her love, all right!”
Thayne stared at him with a mixture of sympathy and shock. “What?”
“Don’t you see? I…I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve any of this, what we have in Elk Creek, none of it.” Cade waved his hands to encompass where they sat.
“That’s ridiculous! Are you saying you don’t deserve to be happy?”
“Not yet.”
“You can’t save the world, Cade, at least not on your own. Trust me. I’ve tried.”
“I know, and it hasn’t stopped you from continuing to try.”
“I’m sure when Mom and Dad visited you in that dream they never meant for you to be so hard on or deny yourself.”
“I’m not being any harder on myself than you are on yourself.”
“And you see how good that’s worked out for me so far.”
Cade frowned, wondering at his brother’s words. “Yeah, I do see.” Didn’t Thayne know that he was everything Cade wanted to be?
Thayne shook his head. “I appreciate the idolization, Cade, but up until now I haven’t really done anything to deserve it. If it hadn’t been for you, your conviction about this ‘mission,’ I never would have given our ménage a chance.”
“Leaping headlong into a physical relationship doesn’t require any real conviction, not with someone as hot as Maia.” Cade smiled.
“Joke all you want, but I still say you don’t give yourself enough credit. You’ve come a long way since LA.”
“Is that why you didn’t want to bring me along on this run?”
Thayne shrugged, looking uncharacteristically doubtful. “I was trying to protect you.”
“From my gifts.”
“It’s one thing assuming what happened to Tommy Cole and those other kids, but to have you go in that house and maybe see things to confirm what happened…” Thayne shook his head. “Can you blame me for wanting to spare you that?”
“There’s more at stake here than just my well-being and sanity, and if I can give some families a small measure of comfort or closure, I have to do that.”
Thayne didn’t respond, but Cade saw his jaw muscles flexing and his Adam’s apple convulsively bobbing as he swallowed.
“You have to let me help,” Cade whispered. When his brother still didn’t respond Cade frowned and asked, “What’s really bothering you?”
Thayne stared off into the distance where the Coles’ farm was located. “We’re supposed to protect each other, and I just have a feeling that letting you set foot in that house isn’t the best way to do that.”
“Stop being so ominous and overprotective. I’m a big boy and I’ll be fine. I have to be.” I have to stick around to make sure nothing happens to you or Maia. Cade didn’t say it, but he could tell that his brother heard him, and Thayne’s next words confirmed this.
“Nothing’s going to happen to any of us.”
* * * *
Maia went down for lunch with Sabrina after her lovemaking session with Thayne and Cade. She was physically refreshed but as emotionally confused as ever.
She looked forward to her cataloguing and collecting trip with Sabrina and Isaiah more than ever. The day out would help clear her head as well as add to the pharmaceutical merchandise that they could sell at the general store in town. Not to mention she always had a good time, felt less like she worked, when Isaiah came along to help.
Over the last couple of weeks Maia and Sabrina had built a sizable following of loyal customers for their herbal remedies and beauty aids. Word of mouth and Thayne’s medical expertise had been invaluable in growing their business.
Maia planned for the day when they would be able to purchase a space and hang out their shingle from where they could sell their unique wares. She looked forward to not having to depend on the fortunes or temperament of the general store owner and his business. That day wasn’t too far off by Maia’s calculations.
She wasn’t the gifted numbers cruncher that Desiree was by a long shot, but she’d be damned if her minor in business administration and record keeping hadn’t been coming in handy as she set up her and Sabrina’s books and scouted for storefronts in town.
Maia laughed at the idea that it had taken her going back in time to actually become the entrepreneur she had always dreamed of being. Not to mention she had gained one of her few, maybe only, woman friends in the bargain.
After their shaky start Maia’s first couple of days at the boarding house, she had come to realize a lot of things about Sabrina that weren’t obvious to the untrained eye or the inattentive.
Sabrina was loyal to a fault and fiercely protective of those she considered friends. She was a firm but fair taskmaster who didn’t delegate work that she wasn’t perfectly capable of and willing to do herself. Her biggest fault, indeed, was her control-freak tendencies and that she liked to do everything herself. In this respect, she reminded Maia a lot of Desiree.
However, like Maia, Sabrina was a big flirt and sexually liberated. Maia had recognized Sabrina’s beguiling, glib manner for the façade it was, a mask to hide well-deep pain of which Maia had only scratched the surface.
Maia hadn’t yet learned Sabrina’s full story, but something told her it was a doozy. She knew a kindred spirit when she met one, however, and approached her friendship with the other woman keeping this in mind.
Everything, of course, wasn’t all roses and sunshine. Despite Sabrina’s youth—surprisingly several years younger than Maia—she had been on her own for a while, an independent widow and a bossy cuss. Consequently, she and Maia often butted heads on the direction their business should take since they both knew their stuff when it came to homeopathic medicine. Maia gave Sabrina a slight edge as it concerned plants native to the area. At the end of the day, though, they always managed to reach an accord for the good of their enterprise and usually because of something sage that Cade or Thayne brought to the table.
“All right, missy, what bee got in your bonnet?”
Maia glanced up from the plant specimen she was examining to see Sabrina standing in front of her with that ever-present fist on her hip. She knew that look and figured she must have missed something Sabrina deemed important. “Huh?”
“Don’t ‘huh’ me. That’s all I’ve been getting the last hour—grunts, mumbles, and one-syllable responses. If it wasn’t for Isaiah I’d feel like I was all alone in the world.”
Maia glanced around them and didn’t see the boy, which was a miracle in itself. Where Sabrina and Maia went, Isaiah usually followed. Maia knew, however, that she and Sabrina were only tolerable substitutes in lieu of the boy’s actual fascination with Thayne and Cade. Despite living in Elk Creek surrounded by all sorts of gunslingers and cowboys, there seemed to be something about the brothers that drew the boy’s admiration. Maia thought maybe Isaiah was just one
of those sensitive people drawn to gifted auras.
For their part, Thayne and Cade understood Isaiah’s grief and loss with his father’s death to influenza the previous winter and his best friend Tommy’s recent disappearance. Their sympathy allowed no less than to let the boy tag along with them whenever feasible. This of course had cut back on Cade’s visits to the saloon and his gambling, which was more than all right as far as Maia and Thayne were concerned. They all made more than enough from their homeopathic and pharmaceutical business, Thayne’s inherited medical practice, and Cade’s cowboying at a neighboring ranch to pay their way.
“Where is Isaiah, by the way?”
“He left for home about a half an hour ago. Didn’t want to worry his mother and it’s starting to get dark. Not that you’d notice.” Sabrina slid both her hands to her lower back and firmly massaged the muscles there with her thumbs as she stretched and bent over backward. “It’s about time we should be calling it quits, too, I reckon. We can talk in more detail once we get back to the house.”
“Detail about what?”
“What’s troubling your soul today?”
Sabrina had a way of getting to the crux of a matter and definitely had a way with words.
Maia smiled at how comfortable she felt with the other woman, even when they were at odds, especially when they were at odds. Her mother used to tell her that that was the true measure of a friend—someone with whom you could be vulnerable enough to show your bad as well as good side. It was exactly the same description Maia applied to a perfect mate, and she knew that she had two of those in Cade and Thayne, even if Cade was afraid to admit it.
Maia frowned at the idea of how unfinished they had all left things earlier, how out of sorts Cade had been, more out of sorts than usual.
How could she explain any of this to Sabrina and not come off as ungrateful? She had not one but two men in her life who cared about and loved her after all, and Sabrina had none. Sure, she had plenty of male admirers in town, but so did the painted ladies and dance-hall girls in town. Maia sensed that Sabrina wanted much more than a flirtation or a roll in the hay.
She decided this was the best time to flip the script on Sabrina and asked, “Were you and your husband in love?”
Now the other fist flew to the other hip as Sabrina arched a brow. “Excuse me?”
“I was just curious.”
“Just curious, my patooty. You were changing the subject again, trying to throw me off the track, but we weren’t talking about me. We were talking about you.”
“Maybe.”
Sabrina dropped her arms and slid her cloth satchel around so that it rested more on her back than her hip. She put a hand on Maia’s shoulder. “If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay, but if you change your mind and decide you do want to talk, I’m here.”
Maia had never really had a woman she could call a friend, a true friend that she trusted with her deepest secrets and confidences. She’d had girlfriends in high school and college, superficial at best. Usually, she kept to herself, and after a while, the masses got the message. Before long, being alone and a loner had become a hard habit to break but not one she necessarily wanted to break. She liked her own company, preferred it. When she was alone she didn’t have to worry about what to say or not say. She didn’t have to worry about whether or not her visions made her seem crazy. Desiree had always been there for her, and that had helped Maia get over the friendless hump to a great degree, despite her staid older sister not always abiding Maia’s beliefs and gifts.
Sabrina was different from the girls Maia had known in her youth. Maybe it was the times she had grown up in, but Sabrina seemed much older than she actually was and gave the impression of having gone through some life experiences that Maia would never know or understand.
Her sympathy and wisdom made Maia miss her family that much more, made her miss life back on The Double R. It was the first time in a while that she’d actually thought of her former life with longing. Of course she had missed Desiree and their mom before now. She’d just pushed that part of her life from her mind, where it couldn’t hurt her or keep her from doing what she needed to do to survive in Elk Creek.
Maia wondered now if Thayne could successfully cast his mother’s spell again and send them all home, if she had the chance to go back, would she take it?
It wasn’t a thought that had crossed her mind since the spell had initially thrust them back in time. In fact, she had settled into life in Elk Creek so completely, she had almost forgotten about her other existence on The Double R.
Maybe this was where she belonged. She certainly felt at home here, and this was probably thanks to people like Sabrina, Hank, Luke, and others who had all made them feel like they belonged. That kind of warmth and acceptance went a long way to make her forget The Double R.
She loved her sisters and mother and had come to care for so many of the people back at the ranch and could never forget them. She still missed everyone, but had The Double R just been a way station to Elk Creek, a pit stop in the road to her real destiny, which was here in this time, in this place?
Sabrina put a hand on her arm and squeezed. “Well, you know where to find me if you need to sit for a spell and talk. I’m here.”
“Me, too,” Maia whispered. She just didn’t know for how much longer she would be.
Chapter 25
Prentice left Lucy reluctantly, and that had never happened to him before. Women came a dime a dozen, as replaceable to him as a designer suit and not even as important or memorable half the time, thus not difficult to discard or leave behind when the time came.
Lucy was different, something about her speaking to his black, scarred soul, way beyond the sex, way beyond the physical pleasure he’d enjoyed with her. He genuinely liked her company. He liked being with her and talking to her. He hadn’t even read her thoughts yet, still didn’t have the desire to. He preferred to let her surprise him with what came out of her mouth rather than what he pilfered from her mind.
What was that all about?
Prentice leaned against the back of the building now, Rance’s pride-and-joy saloon, and closed his eyes with a heavy sigh.
He had to get the woman out of his system. He’d only been with her this once, and already he was making plans to have her again. Prentice rarely double dipped from the same well. One taste from the same woman was usually enough for him.
Maybe once he got rid of Rance and gained the freedom to have her as and when it pleased him and without the stigma of bedding a married woman, Lucy wouldn’t seem as irresistible to him.
Prentice understood human nature better than anyone, and he knew that half the thrill of being with Lucy was the novelty and the other half was the forbidden nature of their physical relationship. Despite her husband’s dubious endorsement, bedding Lucy was tantamount to eating a stolen cookie—tasting twice as sweet because of its illicit acquisition.
He bent his knee and stomped the sole of his boot against the side of the building in frustration, only able to mollify his temper at the plans he had set in motion.
Cody had been all too happy to help Prentice stir the pot around town, planting the seeds of doubt at every turn where the Malloys and their woman were concerned. Sure, the trio had built a solid reputation among most of the townsfolk, but the uncertain nature of their liaison and their recent, suspicious arrival should prove enough to make the good people of Elk Creek question trusting them so quickly, especially where their kids were concerned. What God-fearing Christian in his or her right mind wouldn’t judge the morals of a pair of white brothers apparently bedding a black woman and the detrimental effects this presumed interracial ménage a trois would have on their impressionable children?
Prentice was counting on this type of narrow-minded, hypocritical mind-set to turn the town against the trio. Not to mention, by the time he, Cody, and their well-connected cohorts had completed Prentice’s bidding, half the town should be ready to run the trio out of t
own if not outright lynch them. Just as in the twenty-first century, money talked and bullshit walked in the nineteenth century Old West, enough so that a hanging was a definite possibility.
Prentice pushed himself off the wall and straightened his suit coat.
He had a mission to accomplish and no time to tarry. Lucy would be here when he returned, and he’d figure out what to do with and about her then.
Prentice circled around to the front of the saloon, where he retrieved his horse from one of the several hitching posts before he mounted the animal.
Despite growing up in Los Angeles, he had acquired a healthy affection for horses. It was a fondness his parents nurtured after they purchased a horse ranch upstate, a place where Prentice often found refuge from the torment of his home and school lives.
Once he had gotten over his initial fear of the large animals and learned how to ride them, he enjoyed the paradoxical freedom and control that riding gave him. Who knew the relatively useless skill he had picked up in his youthful leisure would one day serve him so well?
Prentice steered his mount toward the end of town, tracking the chaotic, hyper thoughts of his prey broadcasting over the airwaves. The signal was so strong that even with a few miles between them Prentice could still read the man’s intent loud and clear.
He hoped he wasn’t too late.
Prentice made sure he wasn’t being followed as he left the town proper and headed toward the outskirts.
He enjoyed the sunset on the periphery of his vision, the fading light giving way to stunning, diminishing shades of gold, orange, pink, and lavender on the horizon. In less than an hour he caught up with Rance and his latest victim. Despite the waning sunshine and having to pull off to the side of the main road a distance back to avoid detection, Prentice’s excellent eyesight could make out the two figures clearly.
The teen boy appeared bound hand and foot, dangling over the front of the mount before Rance as the man steered his horse toward a copse of trees.
Prentice dismounted and quietly led his horse to a nearby stream from which to drink after their arduous trek. He rubbed the animal’s nose, assuring him of his quick return.