“Ginny, what am I going to do?” Cindy asked when her crying had slowed enough for speech again.
Ginny took a deep breath. “Okay, Cindy, first things first. Where are you?”
“The hospital.”
Trying hard to hold her frustration in check, she took a deep breath. “Which hospital?”
“The one in Redding. I’m still in the emergency room.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Yeah, my leg and stuff, but all that matters is Rick.”
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. First, I need you to be strong for me, Cindy. Then I’m going to make a few phone calls to arrange things and I’ll be on my way to you. I should be able to be there by lunch. I need you to hold it together until I get there. Okay?”
“I’ll try, I promise. Thank you, Ginny. I am so sorry for all of this.”
Ginny ended the call and stood staring at the phone in her hand for a few seconds. She felt lightheaded and numb. She couldn’t seem to bring her surroundings into focus, only aware of the fact that Cindy and Rick were hurt, possibly badly, and Cindy needed her. Regardless of how things had been handled before, she knew she had to go.
She had no idea what it all meant. Maybe Cindy just needed a shoulder to cry on, but maybe she also wanted to apologize for the way she’d acted. Even though it had been hard to deal with, Ginny knew it was an understandable reaction. From what she’d heard from other people, it was hard to predict exactly how anyone was going to deal with a first-time poly experiment. Many people who’d thought they wanted it, thought they could handle it, surprised themselves with reactions that they hadn’t expected and didn’t understand. She needed to go and settle things with Cindy and Rick one way or the other.
“Are you okay?” A voice startled her, and she looked up to see Allie coming up the front steps, apparently back from an early-morning walk.
“Um, no. Not really.” Ginny took a deep breath and bent down to put her shoes on, trying to stop the tears that were pooling in her eyes and threatening to overflow. She grabbed her purse and stood up, swiping a hand over her face.
“Oh, my God. What’s wrong?” The smile left Allie’s face and she put a hand on Ginny’s shoulder. “What’s happened? Did the guys do something bad? Do you need medical attention? The police?”
Ginny opened her mouth to say that no, she’d had a great time with the guys, but suddenly she wasn’t so sure that she wasn’t actually upset about them. They’d had a wonderful night together, but now she was leaving. When—if—she came back, they’d be gone. They no doubt had different women all the time. Even if she decided she wanted more than the one-night stand they’d negotiated for, it didn’t matter. They had been perfectly content to fuck her and call it good.
“No,” she sniffed. “They were great.”
Allie opened the front door and held it for her. “Come on back in then and have some breakfast and tell me what’s bothering you.”
“They—that was just a one-night stand,” Ginny explained as she went back in to pick up her duffle bag. “I just needed to experiment a little.” She couldn’t add that there had never been the option of it turning into anything else, even if she might want it to. She obviously wasn’t cut out for one-night stands. It had almost killed her to leave Rick and Cindy before they’d had a chance to see if that relationship could have worked, and now she was getting attached to two guys who had no interest in continuing what they’d started either. It was better to go back and resolve the thing with Rick and Cindy, at least if Rick—
She choked, unable to complete the thought. “I got a call. I need to go to Redding. Thanks for everything.” Giving Allie a brief hug to apologize for her rudeness, she quickly went down the stairs and headed for her car before she broke down completely.
On her way home to pack she called Carly, explaining that she was leaving to deal with an emergency. Then she hit the highway, trying to sort out how she felt about Rick and Cindy. She’d liked them a lot, and she respected the life they’d built. Their marriage had seemed solid and happy. The news about their accident was incredibly sad, but she wasn’t sure why she felt such guilt about it. They had been her best friends and for a little while she’d been convinced that they could make polyamory work for them. But Cindy’s reaction had made her feel like she had done something terrible, that she’d come between a happily married couple. Maybe she needed to hear Cindy admit that she hadn’t been the cause of their problems. It wasn’t like Rick had run away with her or anything. She wasn’t even sure if she had been falling in love with Rick, at least not the way she’d been falling for—
No. She couldn’t go there. She wasn’t falling in love with Jeremy and Liam. That just wasn’t an option. They were fun and sexy as hell, but she had a life in Grandpointe. She had been working hard to make friends and figure out what she wanted, and she’d given up the idea of a poly household. It would be stupid to assume that poly could work with them, just because they happened to be gorgeous and funny and everything you could want in a guy—or two.
That didn’t help. Tears coursed down her face as she drove, and she wasn’t sure if she was crying for Rick and Cindy, for Jeremy and Liam, or for herself.
Chapter 4
“Wake up, dude. She’s gone.” Liam woke with a start as Jeremy slammed the door and sat heavily on the end of the bed.
Scrubbing his face, Liam frowned at his partner. “I’m not surprised, the way you snore. Wait, what do you mean she’s gone? Is she just in the bathroom or did she run screaming from the building?” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. “I’m still mostly asleep here, so work with me.”
“I mean she left. I hate to tell you this, but that wasn’t me, dude. You must have woken yourself up.” Jeremy’s normally lighthearted tone was completely gone, telling Liam that something very serious was going on. Jeremy could never resist a little banter, but his heart obviously wasn’t in it. After a moment, he went on. “I woke up and her spot was still warm, so I went to see if she was downstairs. I heard her telling Allie good-bye, and it sounded like she was crying.”
“Maybe she had to go to work. I know that always makes you cry,” Liam joked, trying to cheer his friend up.
“No.” Jeremy stood looking out the window, his voice completely expressionless. “She was saying that last night was just a one-night stand. She doesn’t want anything else to do with us.”
Liam was completely awake now. “Are you sure? Maybe you misunderstood her.”
Jeremy turned to stare at him, looking older and more serious than Liam had ever seen him before. It was unnerving. “I didn’t misunderstand her. She said she was going to Redding. That doesn’t sound like she’s coming back anytime soon. Even I couldn’t get that wrong.”
“No, I guess not.” Liam fell silent, staring down at the floor between his feet. He’d had plenty of one-night stands in his life, and so had Jeremy. They should be able to chalk it up to experience and move on, shouldn’t they? Why did this one feel so different? Why was it so disappointing that it was over?
Because he’d thought Ginny was the one. At first he’d expected Jeremy to lay claim on her for himself, but Jeremy seemed determined for them to share her and after a little while he’d come to accept it as the ideal situation. He’d had no idea how it would work if she wanted both of them, but there had been something that told him it was her or nobody. If he was going to be waking up in bed next to Jeremy, then Ginny had goddamn better be there between them, because that just wouldn’t fly otherwise.
“I’m going to take a shower,” he said finally, getting up. He just couldn’t stand the pitiful expression on Jeremy’s face—mostly because he suspected he looked the same. He would come up with a plan in the shower to get her back. He was always the one to come up with the plan. He just had to put his mind to the task. As he lathered he tried to concentrate, but the thought “she’s gone” kept repeating itself over and over in his brain, shoving out any useful ideas and pull
ing him into a pit of despair.
When he went downstairs later, Jeremy was sitting on the front porch, still looking like a puppy that lost its human. There was a cup of coffee next to him, but it was obviously untouched and cooling.
Jeremy turned dead eyes up to him. “I guess this means no date for the play party tonight.” Without any emotion in his voice, the feeble attempt at a joke fell flat.
“Come on,” Liam said, tapping him on the shoulder. He went past his partner and started down the porch stairs.
“Where are we going?” Jeremy had gotten up and followed him out of habit, but not with any of his normal vigor, Liam noticed.
“To the diner where she works. I’ll bet her boss can tell us something. We’re cops, aren’t we? So let’s investigate this thing and see what happened.”
Fortunately, the diner was quiet, so they took seats at the counter while Carly brought them mugs and water, her face serious and sympathetic.
“So what can you tell us about Ginny leaving?” Liam said as she poured their coffee.
Carly flashed him a look that suggested she was wondering if this was an official investigation. Jeremy sat with his chin in his hand, staring at the wall in a depressed silence. “She called me this morning saying she had to go see Rick and Cindy.”
“Who are Rick and Cindy?”
There was a brief hesitation as if Carly were debating how much to tell them. Then she sighed. “They were the couple that Ginny was involved with before she moved here.”
Liam glanced at Jeremy and saw that his jaw had tightened, but nothing else moved. “How involved? How long ago? Do you know?” he asked Carly.
She shook her head. “I don’t know all the details, but she told me they’d experimented with poly and it hadn’t gone well. I’m not sure how far it went, or anything like that. Just that Cindy had some issues and Ginny left because she thought it would be best for everyone. That was about six months ago, I think.”
“So now she’s gone running back to them?” Jeremy almost spit out the words and Liam put a warning hand on his shoulder. Jeremy’s face was dark with anger and there was a vein pulsing in his neck. Ginny might be gone, but it wouldn’t do them any good to piss off her friend.
“It’s her decision,” Liam said firmly, before Jeremy could say something he might regret later. “If she thinks she can make it work with this other couple, and that’s what she wants, then it’s not our place to object. We had no claim on her. Yet.”
Jeremy had fixed Carly with a hard stare, as if she were a suspect in a particularly gruesome crime and he’d found her behind a bush with a bloody hatchet in her hand. “Did she say that? She’s going back to see if she can make it work with this other couple?”
“No, not exactly.” Carly squirmed uncomfortably. She began wiping down the counter, even though there was nothing on it. “But—”
“But what?”
“Well, your friend is right,” she said finally, putting the rag down. “She didn’t go into the hunt with the idea of it leading to anything permanent. She wanted to see if the poly thing might actually be possible.”
“So we were an experiment? We meant nothing to her?” Jeremy’s voice had gone quiet now, something Liam knew was even worse than his visible anger. Almost everything about Jeremy was exaggerated. If he was jumping around yelling like a lunatic that meant everything was normal. When he got quiet like this, then you had to worry about what was boiling under the surface.
“So why did she go back now?” Liam cut in.
“Well, she wasn’t very clear about that,” Carly admitted. “She said she’d had a call, that Rick and Cindy were hurt and she needed to go see them.”
“Hurt as in physically or hurt that she’d moved on?” Liam asked, frowning.
“I’m not sure. She sounded like she’d been crying. I took it that there had been some kind of accident, but she was so upset I didn’t ask her to clarify.”
“So it’s possible that she could have meant she told them about us and they realized they didn’t want her to move on?” Jeremy’s fists clenched.
Liam shook his head. “Dude, you’re paranoid. There’s no reason to assume that’s what’s going on. Not that I want her friends to be hurt, but let’s not jump to the conclusion that she used us to make them jealous or anything.”
Both of the others turned to stare at him, and Jeremy’s mouth was hanging open. “Man, I hadn’t even gone there. You really think she did that?”
“That’s a horrible thing to say!” Carly sounded outraged. “Ginny wouldn’t do anything like that, and if that’s what you think—”
“No, that’s not what I said,” Liam protested, but the front door dinged and they all turned to see Allie and Brad walk in.
“Hi.” Carly moved away from Liam and Jeremy and got out two more cups. “Coffee?”
Allie nodded. “Sure, but don’t let us interrupt you. We just came in to ask your advice about something.”
“It’s not a problem,” Liam said, gesturing to the empty seats at the counter. “Please have a seat.”
“Yes, have a seat. We’re done with our discussion,” Carly said pointedly, turning her back on Jeremy and Liam as she poured coffee for Allie and Brad.
“If you don’t mind,” Allie said, accepting her cup from Carly and settling herself on a stool. “Carly, the male model for the Rent-a-Dom photo shoot fell through. We were hoping you could help us brainstorm who else might be willing to do it.”
“It shouldn’t be too hard to find somebody, should it?” Carly asked. “There are lots of attractive people in the community. Or Charlie should know some models.”
“Charlie doesn’t have time to bring anybody in from out of town,” Brad said. “We do have some girls here that would be good, but not that many are willing to be featured in national ad campaigns. Unless you want to do it?”
Carly laughed. “No, I don’t think so. But I do have an idea. Why don’t you ask Alice? She does own the beauty shop. If anybody has the right connections, it would be her.”
“Nice going, dude,” Jeremy hissed at Liam while Carly and Allie discussed their model situation.
“What?”
“Pissing off Ginny’s boss,” Jeremy whispered, scowling at him. Obviously Jeremy was taking the high road, as if he hadn’t made the suggestion in the first place.
“I didn’t mean she’d done that.” Liam tried again. “I was just saying we shouldn’t—”
“Yeah, yeah, deny it all you want.” Jeremy tossed a couple of bills onto the counter. “We should probably get out of here before you get us lynched or something.”
* * * *
The waiting room was almost empty except for one lone woman sitting in the corner crying softly into a tissue. She had obviously been a patient herself in the very recent past. There was a cast on her leg and every part of her skin that could be seen looked swollen and bruised. Her brown hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail and the face she raised to Ginny was lined with pain and worry.
“Oh, sweetie.” Ginny rushed to kneel carefully in front of her, mindful of the cast, and taking the hand that wasn’t clutching a handful of tissues. “How is—Is he—?”
A fresh wave of sobs answered her, and Cindy shook her head violently.
“He’ll—he’ll be okay—I think,” she hiccupped finally, making a visual effort to pull herself together. “They finally came out and talked to me. He’s in surgery now. They said they have to fix his broken nose and stitch up his scalp but they think he’ll be all right. I’m so glad you came, Ginny.” She began sobbing again and Ginny got up to take the chair beside her, turning it to pull Cindy into a hug.
“It doesn’t sound too serious, thank goodness. Why are you so upset, if he’s going to be okay?” She couldn’t resist asking the question after the other woman had cried hysterically for a few minutes. “Are there going to be lasting problems or something?” It seemed like an abrupt way to ask, but she couldn’t think of any other way to
phrase it.
“No, I don’t think so.” Cindy sniffed, pulling some fresh tissues from the box that Ginny handed to her. “It’s just—I feel so terrible. What if he’d died? I acted so badly—” She broke down again.
“You acted badly when?” Ginny asked as soon as Cindy had regained a little control.
Cindy sniffed. “Well, when you were with us, for one thing. I was terrible to you, and to Rick. I’m so sorry, Ginny.” This time, though, she didn’t burst out crying. She sat staring breathlessly at Ginny as if expecting an attack of some kind.
Ginny returned her gaze for a minute, her thoughts racing. Cindy had behaved badly, but she seemed to be truly sorry for it now. Ginny knew she would feel like an asshole if she held a grudge against someone who was so obviously remorseful.
“I’ve never been in your situation, Cindy,” she said slowly and carefully, “so I honestly don’t know how I would react. I can’t blame you for feeling threatened. It’s probably a completely natural response. At least you were brave enough to try poly. Most people wouldn’t even go that far.”
Cindy gave her a weak smile. “Thank you, Ginny. That’s very generous. Rick and I did a lot of fighting after you left.” She paused and began ripping the latest tissue into tiny little pieces, apparently unconsciously. “I didn’t think we were going to make it for a while. There was so much to work out.”
“I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.” Ginny squeezed her shoulders and Cindy slumped against her.
“It’s not your fault. I made him feel bad for wanting to try poly, and that was just wrong. I thought I would love having another woman around to help with household stuff and do things together, you know? You seemed to be the perfect choice. So pretty and sweet, and good at things I wasn’t, like cooking.” She sighed. “But then those things actually started bothering me. Whenever Rick would compliment your cooking, or you would do something for him that I hadn’t thought to do, it made me mad. I knew it was just insecurity, but I couldn’t seem to stop it. I would see the thought and know it wasn’t true, but I’d act on it anyway. I was just so afraid that he was going to see how much better you were than me that it drove me crazy. I know he didn’t think of it that way, but it was just so hard not to believe those thoughts. I wasn’t even thinking about how happy you could have made him, made us really. I was only obsessed about how bad I looked in comparison. It was horrible of me. I’m so sorry.”
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