Her belly did a slow roll, sending fresh cream out onto her panties. “What are you saying? That you want me f-for sex? To be part of a-a ménage?”
“No, darlin’.” His eyes darkened, flickering with some unnamed emotion. “What I am saying is, I want you to give yourself the chance to get to know us and to let us to get to know you. No pressure, no obligation. And no sex, unless you ask for it. Just…think of it as a vacation.” He grinned. “A vacation at the Hot, Hunky, Bad-Ass Commando Spa, where your every wish will be granted and you will be waited on hand and foot—uh, feet. You gotta admit it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You’d have to be crazy to turn it down.”
She just stared at him, at a complete loss for words. Her life was officially out of control. She felt like she was being swept away on the crest of a tidal wave, unable to get off, unable to change direction, unable to stop it or even slow it down. The thought scared her. But what scared her even more was the sense of relief that swept through her at the same time. Relief that, for a while at least, she wouldn’t have to worry about what she was going to do, where she was going to go, or how she was going to get there. She wouldn’t have to pinch pennies to keep from spending money she didn’t have. And along with that relief was a sense of excitement. These three hot, hunky men were looking for a woman they could all love. A woman like her, with curves in all the right places. A woman who could find the courage to love them back equally. How could that possibly work? They obviously thought that she might be that woman. What kind of idiot would she be to deny herself this opportunity to explore her sexuality with, as Simon put it, three hot, hunky, bad-ass commandos?
I can’t believe you’re actually contemplating this! Your father must be rolling over in his grave!
My father can go to hell. Oh, right, sorry, I forgot. He’s already there. He has no say in my life anymore, so back off.
“Okay,” she relented, “but only if you let me help out with the groceries, so you don’t think I’m a mooching, money-grubbing parasite.”
Simon laughed, almost giddy with relief. “Speaking of mooching, money-grubbing parasites, we need to get outta this bathroom so Phil can get started on our breakfasts.”
“Wait one more second,” Lucas said, lifting his bag off the floor and balancing it on the corner of the sink. “Kylie, are you allergic to any medications?” When she shook her head, he extracted two alcohol wipes, two vials and two wrapped syringes. He handed the alcohol wipes to Helen. “I’m giving you a tetanus shot and a shot of amoxicillin. I’m also giving you a prescription for amoxicillin and one for Lortab. That’s a pain killer. Even though the feet are tough, they’re also very sensitive. This is the tetanus.” He inserted the needle into the vial through the rubber cap, measured the precise dosage he wanted and handed the syringe to Helen.
“Roll over onto one hip, sweetie,” she said. “I need to pull down your pants. This goes in the thigh.”
Leaning onto her left hip, Kylie let Helen pull down the pants to her track suit and swipe her skin with the alcohol before slipping the needle into her thigh. In the meantime, Dr. McKay prepared the syringe of amoxicillin. He handed it to Helen along with a flat metal box, like an old-fashioned pencil box. “Put the syringes in this,” he said. ‘I’ll dispose of them properly when I get back to the clinic.”
“Roll farther onto your hip, honey,” Helen instructed Kylie. “Unfortunately, this one goes in the butt, so I’ll need to pull down your panties, too.”
Kylie rolled her eyes and caught Simon staring down at her, a wicked grin on his face.
“Okay,” she said irritably, as Helen exposed her right buttock, “this little tidbit of information wasn’t even on the schedule, so you can just close your eyes, Mister Rafferty.”
“Too late, darlin’, I’ve already seen that lovely, pink ass. Besides, she’s done.”
Kylie felt her pants being pulled back up followed by Helen’s pat on her butt. “I didn’t even feel it,” she exclaimed, rolling back to a sitting position.
“I’m known for my painless shots,” Helen simpered.
Simon bent down and picked Kylie up in his arms as if she were weightless. “Thanks so much for your help, Mrs. Voorhees.”
“Helen.”
“Sorry. Helen. It was lovely to meet you. Bring your husband over to the airfield and I will personally take you on our deluxe helicopter sightseeing tour at no charge. I insist,” he added when he noticed she was about to protest. “Lucas, thank you. Good thing you were here this morning. Any instructions for Kylie?”
“Keep her feet dry.”
“You need to see her for a follow-up?”
“Yeah, bring her in in four days. Let’s make it the clinic, though, and not the diner’s bathroom.” He held out his hand. “Mrs. Voorhees.”
“Helen.” She smiled.
“Helen. It was a pleasure meeting you. Thank you for your assistance. And speaking of assistants, I’m in need of an office nurse, so if you know of anyone who’d like to move to the thriving little town of Passion Lake, have them give me a call.”
“Will do, Dr. McKay. Simon. Kylie.” She patted Kylie’s knee. “Lovely to meet you honey. You let your handsome young men look after you. They seem absolutely lovely. And you look like you could use a little pampering.”
Kylie smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Voor—Helen,” she amended at the older woman’s hiked eyebrows. “It was lovely meeting you, too. I hope you and Mr. Voorhees enjoy the rest of your vacation. Thanks for all your help. Sorry to be such a bother to everybody.”
“Sweetie, you’re no bother at all. Now, I’d better get back to my husband before he sends in a search party.” She led the little parade out of the bathroom, with Simon carrying Kylie bringing up the rear. Kylie was surprised to see Brandi standing outside the door. No wonder nobody tried to come in while we were in there. Brandi was out here directing traffic. The thought made her smile. She was beginning to really like the town of Passion Lake, Virginia. She’d never met so many genuinely nice people before.
“Okay, Brandi,” Simon said on his way past the teen, “tell your dad he can put our breakfasts on now.”
“Is Ms. Ferrell all right?” she asked, a look of genuine concern on her face.
“She’ll be fine. Just needs to stay off her feet for a week or so. We’ll take good care of her, don’t worry. Would you mind returnin’ the chairs to wherever they came from and bring Kylie’s shoes and the Walmart bags out to our table? Are we still at the same one?”
“Yeah, I put a Reserved sign on it.”
“Thanks, Brandi,” Kylie said, touched by the thoughtful gesture. “I can’t wait to taste your dad’s cooking.”
Brandi grinned. “It’s the best. I’ll bring you some fresh coffee.”
Brandi was right. It was the best. The eggs were moist and fluffy, the blueberry pancakes light and the size of Frisbees, the syrup pure maple, the bacon thick-sliced, and the hash browns crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. And Kylie ate every last bite.
“Now that’s what I like to see,” Simon said with an admiring smile. “A woman who actually eats and doesn’t just push the food around on her plate.”
Kylie snorted. “You don’t get a figure like mine by pushing food around on your plate.”
He frowned. “Are you puttin’ yourself down, darlin’? That has to stop, Kylie. You are a nicely rounded, curvy little bundle of femininity. Not every man likes women so skinny their hipbones could slice a cucumber. You’re perfect for us.”
“Um…”
“Sorry.” He put his hands up. “No pressure, honest.” He took a money clip out of his pocket and peeled off four twenties. When he caught her staring at them, he just smiled. “Brandi’s college fund. C’mon, let’s get you home before the other Hot, Hunky, Bad-Ass Commandos come lookin’ for us.”
He picked her up and she put her arms around his neck. She’d always wanted to be picked up and carried. Especially by a man who was strong enough not to wheeze with ever
y step. Strong enough to make her feel secure in his arms. Simon Rafferty was definitely strong enough. He carried her out of the restaurant, followed by Brandi, carrying the Walmart bags and Kylie’s shoes. Brandi opened the passenger door and Simon bent and set Kylie gently on the seat. Then he leaned in across her body, his left arm brushing against her breasts, and buckled her seatbelt.
“I’m not helpless, Rafferty,” Kylie said sarcastically. “My hands work just fine”.
His grin was wicked. “Sorry, darlin’. You’re just such a temptin’ little morsel. Couldn’t help myself.”
Her cheeks heated. “No pressure, remember?”
“That wasn’t pressure, darlin’. That was sheer admiration.”
Wow. A girl could get used to talk like that.
You have no business getting used to talk like that. You are on the run. People are trying to kill you. The minute you can walk, you’ve got to get as far away from here as you can. Even if you don’t give a shit about your own safety, you have no right to endanger theirs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Geez, can’t a girl dream?
After a brief stop at the pharmacy to pick up Kylie’s prescriptions, the ride to the Raffertys’ large Victorian house took about fifteen minutes. They rounded a bend in the long driveway and the house came into view. It was a massive, three-story Victorian farmhouse, with matching porches sweeping grandly across both the first and second floor fronts. The second story porch ended in an open cupola at the left corner of the house. Another, larger, two-story cupola at the opposite corner was topped by a Turkish dome. The house was painted a pale yellow with tan window frames, darker tan accents and white gingerbread trim. In spite of the lacy look of all the gingerbread, the house’s angles gave it a distinctly masculine feel.
As soon as they pulled up in front of the house, two mirror images of the man sitting next to her came out the front door and down the steps. Both of them went around to the passenger side and opened the door. The closest one said, “Hi, Kylie, I’m Caleb.”
“And I’m Ash,” said the one standing right behind Caleb, giving her a wink and a teasing grin. “Welcome to the Hot, Hunky, Bad-Ass, Commando Spa, where guest satisfaction is our primary objective.”
Laughing, she met Caleb’s eyes and her heart stopped. A steel band tightened around her chest, squeezing the air out of her lungs. She felt as if she’d been zapped with a bolt of lightning. The current passing between them was so powerful, it raised the hairs on her arms. His hand came up to cup her cheek, his heat sizzling her skin. “Oh, sugar,” he said in a low voice that rumbled over every nerve ending in her body, turning her bones to water. “You feel it too, don’t you?
She tried to look away but found it impossible. His gaze held hers as if it were a physical force binding her to him. Holy crap! What was she getting herself into, here?
Caleb’s chest tightened. Jesus Christ! Her scent enveloped him, bubbling through his veins like the finest champagne, hardening his cock so fast he nearly swallowed his tongue. No wonder Simon had been so sure about her. The connection between them was so much more powerful than he’d anticipated, he momentarily lost focus. This beautiful woman was everything they’d been searching for all their adult lives. He knew it with a certainty that stunned him.
Releasing her cheek, he reached one arm beneath her knees, slid the other behind her back and pulled her sideways off the truck seat into his arms, being careful not to knock her feet against the door.
Kylie just put her arms around his neck and studied his strong, masculine profile. He was identical to Simon and Ash in every way, except…he seemed bigger somehow, more alpha, more…more. The sheer force of his personality made him the first brother one looked at. His thick black hair was slightly longer, curling at his nape and around his ears. Ash’s hair was like Simon’s. It was going to be impossible to tell those two apart.
As she looked at Ash over Caleb’s shoulder, she got lost in the endless sapphire blue of his eyes. She bit her lip, feeling overwhelmed. “I’m sorry to be such a bother. Maybe I should just stay at the Bed and Breakfast and live off of room service until I can walk again.” Yeah, like I can afford that!
“And how are you going to get to the bathroom?” Simon asked, coming around to join his brothers. “Or take a shower if you can’t get your feet wet.” He was carrying the two plastic Walmart bags. Kylie stared at them, unable to stop thinking that those two measly bags held everything she owned in the world. The sudden sense of hopelessness that swept through her sent tears welling in her eyes. Oh, crap, here we go again.
To her utter astonishment, Caleb bent his head and pressed his lips to the track left by the first tear to roll down her cheek. “Don’t worry, sugar,” he murmured. “We’ll take good care of you. And you’re not a bother, so stop frettin’, okay?” It was phrased as a question, but it was definitely an order. An order from a man who was evidently accustomed to giving orders and expecting them to be obeyed.
Kylie gulped. Uh-oh. What was she getting herself into? For someone as determined as she was to stand on her own two feet—so to speak—and take charge of her own destiny, she seemed to have placed herself in a situation that might well prove to be completely untenable.
And then what was she going to do?
“How are your feet feelin’?” Caleb asked as he lowered her into a comfortable recliner, raising the lever to bring up the footrest.
How do you think they’re feeling? They hurt like hell. “Fine.”
Caleb straightened and frowned down at her. “Okay, sugar. Now, that right there? That was not quite true, was it? How can we possibly give you what you need if you’re not truthful with us? Please don’t feel you need to be stoic or tell us only what you think we want to hear. We value total honesty in this house.”
Biting her lip, she eyed him warily. “I don’t want to be a burden to anyone. I mean, you’ve been so kind, offering to let me stay here, I just don’t want you to feel like I’m taking advantage or anything.”
Ash walked over and placed his hand on her shoulder. “We would never think that, Kylie. And, believe me, if we didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here. Now let’s try this again. How are your feet feelin’?”
“They’re throbbing. It’s like they have their own separate heartbeat.”
Simon stepped forward, handing her a glass of water and a white pill. “This is a pain pill, darlin’. You’ll be takin’ one every four hours. There’s no point in bein’ in pain if you don’t have to.”
She flashed him a smile. “Thanks, Simon/”
“Much better,” Caleb murmured as the three brothers watched her swallow the pill. “Now, Kylie, Simon said your house exploded?”
She nodded.
“Can you tell us exactly what happened? If you’re in some kind of trouble, we’d like to help, but we need to know exactly what we’re dealin’ with.”
She stared at him, blinking owlishly, gnawing on her lip. “I-I don’t know.”
Ash approached her chair and handed her his iPad. On the screen was the front page of The Philadelphia Inquirer. The banner headline read, “House bombed, woman missing.” The article ended with, “If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Kylie Ferrell, please contact the Philadelphia Police Department.”
“You need to tell us everything, Kylie,” he said gently.
She hesitated for a moment before saying, “Then I guess maybe I should start with the murder.”
CHAPTER THREE
A look passed between Simon, Caleb, and Ash. “Yeah,” Caleb said, “that would probably be best. And don’t leave anything out.”
“Okay.” She folded her hands in her lap, a prim gesture that the Rafferty triplets found totally endearing. “For the last five months I’ve been working as a bookkeeper for an awful man, a CPA named A. J. Moretti. I was his office assistant, a job which consisted mostly of doing all the bookkeeping for several of his clients. Clients who came in wearing five-thousand-dollar Italian silk suits
, accompanied by bodyguards. Clients who were”…she gave a delicate little shudder…“intimidating. Okay, that was a lie. They scared the hell out of me and when I left last Friday afternoon, I made up my mind to call in on Monday morning and tell him I quit. But he called me around eleven-thirty that night, just as I was getting ready for bed, and said he needed me to come back into the office. It was an emergency. It wasn’t the first time he’d called me back to work late at night. So I went. In hindsight, probably not my best decision. But I thought it would be better to tell him in person that I quit. I was tired of his assuming that I had no life and was at his beck and call at any hour of the day or night.” She shrugged.
“When I got there, I knew right away something was wrong. The office was dark and the light switch didn’t work, but there was enough light coming in from the street to reveal that the place had been ransacked. A light was on in the inner office, but there was no sound. The door was slightly ajar, so I pushed it open. My boss was lying across his desk, his head in a pool of blood from a gunshot wound right in the middle of his forehead.” She shuddered. “The place had been torn apart.”
She looked up to find all three Raffertys watching her, their eyes full of sympathy and concern. “I wanted to run. Just…back out the door and leave, let somebody else find him, but I-I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t have been right. So, I called the police.
“They took me to the station, questioned me for hours. Practically accused me of killing him myself. It was awful, just awful.” She shook her head. “I was terrified they were going to arrest me and charge me with murder.” Her throat thickened with tears as the memories came flooding back. Those two burly cops towering over her, so close they were practically on top of her, deliberately invading her personal space and making her feel caged in and trapped. Hammering away at her with rapid-fire questions, accusing her of keeping two sets of books. “I’ve never been so scared in all my life.” She shivered, a move that did not go unnoticed by Caleb, Ash, and Simon. All three sets of shoulders were tense, as if they were having to fight themselves not to pick her up and pull her onto their laps to hold and comfort her. But they stayed put, encouraging her simply with their presence and their words.
Passion's Fury (The Doms of Passion Lake Book 2) Page 5