by Gigi Moore
“Can’t be two places at once,” Cade said.
“I reckon not.” Joshua turned to follow the path Abigail and her son had taken then turned back to Cade and gave him a long, meaningful look. “That boy owes you his life.”
“I wish I could have saved Tommy.”
Joshua gave him a grim smile. “I wish you could have, too.”
* * * *
Maia collapsed back against their bed later that night, exhausted and perspiring after a demanding and enjoyable session of lovemaking with her men, thrilled to be alive.
Cade and Thayne lay on either side of her. Each man balanced on one elbow as they stared at her as if hungry for more.
Cade reached out a hand to caress her breasts, running the back of his hand down her side before resting a palm on her stomach.
Thayne gently fondled her moist folds, dipping the tip of his middle finger into her cunt before bringing it up to his mouth for a taste.
Maia shuddered as she watched him lick his full lips. Her pussy spasmed with aftershocks as her men pampered and turned her body on again. “I’m glad things turned out the way they did,” she blurted.
“No more glad than me.” Cade grinned.
“I’m not just talking about Prentice switching places with you. He got just what he deserved, even if I don’t understand exactly how it happened.”
“We believed,” Thayne said.
“We did.” Maia nodded, struggling with how to express what she felt, a rarity for her. She was grateful for so much more than their ability to have saved Cade when it really counted. “I’m glad we didn’t go back.”
Cade frowned. “You mean back to our time?”
“I like it here.” Maia looked at Cade as she said the words. She already knew how Thayne felt about living in this era, about being back in the Old West. His commitment to this life and the people of Elk Creek had never been in question. Hers and Cade’s had.
Now that she had gotten to know many of the denizens of the town and its surrounding territory, she realized that she had a commitment, too. Her commitment wasn’t just to her business partner in Sabrina, though that was a large concern. Maia had never gotten over the feeling that Wyatt and Lily Baldwin had issues in their marriage that needed attention. She wanted to do what she could to help them through their issues and maybe save their marriage. The only way she could do that was to be here in this place and time where she now knew she belonged. She looked at Cade, silently transmitting her desires and prompting him to be one of her partners in crime.
“I like it here, too.” He smiled. “It’s home.”
“You two really mean that?” Thayne asked.
“Well, yeah, I do,” Cade said, staring at Maia as he answered. “And we still have some unfinished business to take care of with more than a few people around these parts.”
Maia felt the link Thayne established between them all as he read her and Cade’s minds before he finally responded with, “Wyatt and Lily?”
Maia nodded and grinned as she hugged both men around the necks. “Although, and I mean no offense to our hostess, we have some other pressing issues to get to before we get to our troubled couple. I’d like us to get a nice little place of our own as soon as the business starts to take off a bit more. What do you two think?”
“I think that can be arranged,” Thayne said, leaning in to kiss her mouth, his fingers thrusting inside her in earnest now.
“I’m all for it.” Cade nuzzled her throat, kissing his way down to one sensitive breast and taking a burgeoning nipple between his teeth.
Maia trembled beneath their attentions, thanking Goddess for seeing fit to bestow so many gifts upon her.
She’d never before believed she deserved happiness like this.
She believed it now.
* * * *
Prentice blinked open his eyes and immediately reached for his throat.
The noose wasn’t there, and he no longer dangled from the stable rafter.
Instead, he found himself supine on a thick, rich bed of grass surrounded by a field of aromatic, verdant flowers.
He sat up, momentarily confused before he put things together. Except that he didn’t think he would have wound up in Heaven after everything he’d done.
It’s no surprise you don’t recognize this place.
Prentice turned his head at the sound of the sonorous voice and saw the man and woman approaching him from across the stunning meadow.
He scrambled to his feet, unsteady for a moment before steeling himself for their arrival.
He had a moment to glance down at his attire, not surprised by the simple cream tunic draped over his body and reaching down to his knees. His feet were bare, and Prentice automatically flexed his toes, strangely enjoying the feel of moist grass against the soles of his feet.
If he wasn’t in Heaven, then where was he?
You are in the Summerland.
He had learned about the place from his mother and father’s Wiccan texts but hadn’t put any more credence into it than he had Heaven and hell.
More’s the pity for you.
This voice was dulcet and soft, obviously the female.
Once they reached him, Prentice realized he recognized the man and woman, and his heart dropped at the knowledge of their identity.
You have no need to fear us, the man said in his mind.
Defiant, he lifted his chin a notch. “I don’t fear you.” He’d gone up against worse than these two in junior high and high school alone. He had faced down bigger bullies.
You think us bullies?
Prentice stood in a celestial field with the parents of the men he’d tried his damnedest to kill, and they hadn’t yet struck him down. Honestly, he didn’t know what to think.
We are not here to harm or punish you, said the woman.
“What are you here for then?”
We’re here to give you a chance to make things right.
“Right for who?”
Why, yourself, Prentice. You need to make things right for yourself.
Prentice listened to the woman’s voice, felt her gentle touch on his forehead, the whole while thinking that he didn’t deserve her or her husband’s benevolence. He didn’t want it.
The man chuckled.
Nevertheless, you have it.
Prentice felt himself fading. His legs buckled beneath him, and he landed on his butt in the grass. He sat panting for a moment, trying to get his bearings as his heart raced. He rapidly blinked his eyes, fighting the dizziness. He didn’t want to go wherever they thought they were sending him. He wouldn’t be forced to do their goody-two-shoes bidding. He wouldn’t.
His spirit, however, had other ideas. He felt the same pull he’d felt right before his body had pitched toward the rafter in the stable and his neck replaced Cade’s in that noose.
“I won’t go.”
Don’t fight it, child, the woman said. You are already being prepared to go back.
“Back where?”
Back home.
Epilogue
The Double R, McCoy, Colorado
A year and a half after the disappearance
The wedding had gone off without a hitch, and for this Desiree was thankful and happy, especially for the bride and groom. She didn’t want anything to mar her mother-in-law and friend Helena’s extraordinary day, especially not her.
Consequently, she had smiled her way through her duties as one of Helena’s bridesmaids at the church and made her obligatory appearance at the reception. She sat through the speeches of her brother-in-law Jesse, the best man, and her older sister, Tamara, proud of how she held things together as the very capable maid of honor. She’d waited an appropriate amount of time after the speeches had been made at the reception and Helena and her groom Jeremiah had their first dance before discreetly escaping.
Desiree knew she should be more sociable. The last thing she needed right then was solitude, and today was the perfect occasion to avoid it with so many fam
ily and friends everywhere one looked on the ranch. Today was supposed to be a happy occasion, a day of celebration, something that should have been shared with those she loved. She couldn’t help mourning the sister that wasn’t there, though. Now there was no more arguing or trying to fend off her sister’s constant attempts to introduce Desiree to her gifted side. There was no more bailing her younger sister out of trouble. There was no more criticizing her younger sister for her wild and crazy ways or telling her to straighten up her act. There was no more anything with Maia, because Maia was gone.
A gaping hole remained in Desiree’s heart now where Maia used to dwell, and she didn’t know how she would fill it. She didn’t know if she ever could.
Desiree wandered around the ranch now with no particular destination in mind until she thought about the sketch pad under her arm. She purposefully changed course, heading to her sister’s favorite spot at the pond.
Desiree found Maia’s much-loved outcropping of rocks and took a seat. She figured if she could tune into her sister’s spirit anywhere on the ranch, this would be the place to do it.
Except that when she sat with the pad in her lap expecting her sister’s beloved Goddess or some other such divinity to infuse her soul with Maia’s presence, nothing happened. She immediately felt silly for thinking she would feel her sister here, that some paranormal type of osmosis would bring Maia back to her.
Desiree opened the pad to look at her sister’s last piece.
She felt like the worst kind of thief and voyeur flipping through the pages, remembering how she’d come across the pad in the first place.
Someone from the Atoka County Sheriff’s Office had contacted the family at The Double R about some “strange incident” that had occurred at the Lively Ranch.
There had been no obvious signs of foul play, the officer explained, but there was also no evidence of Ms. Jensen or the Malloy brothers in the house or anywhere on the property. For all intents and purposes, the trio had disappeared, and as the hours turned into days and days turned into weeks with no contact from Maia, Thayne, or Cade, Desiree and her family at The Double R all knew that something was very wrong.
As the weeks turned into months with not a peep from the threesome, and not even the private investigator Jeremiah hired to look into the disappearances turned up anything, Desiree’s hope that her sister was alive and well slowly dwindled. She knew in her heart Maia would have found a way to reach out to her, somehow, someway, if she were still alive.
It wasn’t until a year had passed and The Double R was buzzing with Helena and Jeremiah’s upcoming nuptials that Desiree finally had to accept that Maia wasn’t coming back.
She went to her sister’s room and sat on the freshly made bed. The rest of the room was immaculate as well, all the furniture dusted and polished to a high shine by Maria as if she wanted to keep the room presentable for Maia’s imminent return.
At the idea, Desiree finally gave in to the pent-up sobs that had been living on the edge of her vocal cords for months. Copious tears rolled down her cheeks, her wails so agonizing and sorrowful she sounded like an injured wild animal. She felt like a wild animal in fact, out of control and hysterical as she stood in the middle of the room and released a primal scream right before she began to tear the room apart.
She stripped the bed, flinging pillows as well as breakable knickknacks against the walls.
What good did keeping things in order and intact do when Maia would never be returning to enjoy it? What good was anything?
By the time Carson and Sam burst into the room several moments later, Desiree was sitting on the lopsided mattress she’d pulled half-off the box spring, panting and disheveled.
She realized she must look like a madwoman, especially when Carson and Sam, two of the bravest, strongest wolf shifters she knew, approached her so gingerly.
Desiree spied her mother and Maria standing just outside the bedroom, both nervously wringing their hands, and immediately felt guilty about scaring them.
“Please go,” she whispered. “I’m okay. I just need to be alone for a minute.”
Carson sat on the bed with her, gently rubbing her back while Sam sat on her opposite side rubbing her shoulder.
“You know we’re here for you if you need us,” Carson said.
“We miss her, too,” Sam put in.
“I know.” She felt even guiltier at the idea that she had found the sort of happiness and love with Carson and Sam that had eluded Maia for so many years. “Really, everyone, I’m okay.” She addressed her two mates and Maria and her mother in the hallway in her best reassuring accountant’s voice—cool, calm, and collected.
Warily, they all left her alone, but Desiree knew they hadn’t gone far. The thought both elated and depressed her.
Once alone, she glanced around to see the damage she had done.
The room was a mess, not really her style. With a sense of purpose, she began the job of straightening up, and it was when she went to put the bed to rights that she discovered the sketch pad tucked between the mattress and box spring.
Desiree didn’t understand why her sister had hidden it away like this. Sure, she knew how protective, sensitive, and temperamental artists could be about their work, and her sister was no exception. When she glanced through the sketches, however, and saw the last piece, she understood the reason for concealment.
According to the date scrawled across the bottom, Maia had done the sketch the day before she’d gone to Oklahoma with Thayne and Cade, three days before they’d all disappeared.
Desiree had never considered that the two men had done anything to harm her sister. She had always just taken it for granted that whatever had happened had happened to all of them. Looking at her sister’s last picture now as she sat by the pond confirmed her assumption that the Malloy brothers wouldn’t have had anything to do with hurting Maia, simply because they had loved her as she had obviously loved them.
Desiree found it difficult to eye the sketch with any sort of dispassion. Even if she hadn’t known Maia so well, there was something provocative about the picture aside from the subject matter, something that evoked all sorts of emotions, passion being just one of them.
Desiree thought it was her sister’s best work. She would have loved to see it rendered in color and oil, something Maia probably would have done later had she had the chance.
Desiree choked back a sob at the idea that she would never see her sister again, never have to talk her out of one of her many harebrained schemes.
She missed those schemes and her sister’s flirty, outrageous, and passionate personality. Maia’s individuality had always balanced out Desiree’s serious side, and she realized she hadn’t always appreciated Maia the way she should have.
Desiree felt the tears. They were hot and salty as they slid down her face, and she sniffed. She flipped the pad closed to avoid getting any tears on the page. Even with the fixative her sister used she didn’t want to risk ruining such a beautiful piece.
She stood, ready to head back to the reception, but when she took a step forward she almost tripped over some item protruding from the dirt. Putting the sketch pad aside for a moment, she crouched down to work the item completely out of the earth, wondering where it had come from and who had buried it here.
Once she got it out, she brushed the dirt off the felt cover and realized it was some sort of diary. It had a lock on the side that, thankfully, wasn’t engaged. When she opened the book a piece of paper from inside fluttered to the ground. Desiree bent to retrieve the old, yellowing newspaper clipping. As soon as she spied the headline and the accompanying picture, however, her legs gave out. She plopped down on her ass in the dirt, mouth agape.
Okay, there had to be a logical explanation for the date of the clipping, but she couldn’t come up with any except the obvious. Her sister had traveled back in time.
Desiree stared at the clipping. The picture was grainy, and despite the woman being clad in an uncharacteristic, old
-fashioned dress and petticoats, there was no mistaking Maia and the two tall, attractive men clad in complementary Old Western attire flanking her.
She took a deep breath and settled on the rock to gather herself as she looked more closely at the picture and read the accompanying story.
Somewhere in the flourishing town of Elk Creek in Oklahoma Territory, several people stood outside a store that seemed to be celebrating its grand opening. The store was the first and the only of its kind in the town, according to the article. The sign on the storefront heralded the opening of Maia and Sabrina’s Healing Magick.
She did it!
Desiree remembered how Maia used to talk about opening her own Wiccan shop, a homeopathic dispensary and haven for physical and spiritual healing and rejuvenation. Something, however, always prevented her bringing it to fruition.
Desiree read further. It wasn’t an in-depth story, just a mention in a local paper, but she could tell the reporter was impressed with his subjects and what they had accomplished in the town during a time when women were still expected to stay in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant. No one could have been more impressed and proud than Desiree at that moment, however.
She finally got to the caption identifying the other five people in the picture with Maia.
First there was her husband, Thayne Malloy, the town doctor, and his brother, Cade Malloy, a local rancher and entrepreneur.
Desiree read further, finally getting a look at this Sabrina Walker, both envious of her relationship with Maia and glad that her sister had found a woman she trusted enough to befriend and with whom to start a business. Beside Sabrina were two handsome, rugged-looking men who were obviously smitten with her but otherwise unidentified.
Hmm, mysteries to solve.
Desiree turned to the first page of the diary, curiosity swelling in her when she read the first line in her sister’s handwriting.
Desiree, you’re never going to believe where I am and what I’ve been doing!