Something New

by Cameron Dane

  He looked past her shoulder to where Rodrigo and Braden sat. “Of course.”

  Abby looked over her shoulder too. She found Braden and Rodrigo still waiting for her, patiently, as she knew they would be, and everything calmed and settled in place for her.

  I couldn’t hide them for the world.

  Abby came back to Father Jim, and the new warmth inside her absorbed much of the rancid tone from her voice. “Are Detective Crenshaw and Mr. Santiago welcome if you know I share a bed with them, and you know I care about them more than I ever thought possible to care about any one person, let alone two? Are they welcome if you know they care about me, as well as about each other, and we’re somehow making it work as a couple or a threesome or whatever you want to label it? Am I welcome now”—Abby jabbed her breast as she looked around at all the familiar nooks and crannies in this church and wished for the comfort it once offered her—“after what I’ve just told you?”

  Only the slightest flare in Father Jim’s eyes betrayed any sense of surprise. “I would not turn you away, Abigail, but I would counsel you that such a relationship is not healthy for your well-being, nor is it part of God’s best plan for you.”

  “Because I’m with both of them at the same time?” Abby asked. “Or because they’re both fucking each other too?”

  The priest’s sigh sounded like that of a parent tired of scolding a child who would not learn. “If you’re trying to shock me into a response that you think will make you feel better or if you’re lying because you’re angry that I won’t tell you what you want to hear about your mother, I won’t succumb to such tactics.”

  Rejection, frustration, anger, and hurt added to a growing knot in Abby’s stomach that she feared might overtake her if she sat with this man for one more minute.

  She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and got to her feet. Stalling at the end of the pew, she looked at Father Jim, and for the first time, pity went through her. “I guess I accept now that you’re never going to tell me anything about my parents. For whatever twistedly noble reason, I get that you’d rather let their killer remain free than tarnish their memory. What you don’t understand is that I haven’t stopped loving them.” She determinedly blinked moisture from her eyes. “Nothing you could have told me would have changed that. I love them, simple as that. The thing is, though”—one look to the back of the church, to her men, filled Abby’s voice with strength again—“I love those guys back there too, and I don’t want to sit in a building with a man at the helm who won’t embrace how much they cherish and want to take care of me. I’ve never felt more loved by anyone than I do by them.”

  Father Jim stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his chin unwavering. His black clothing and white collar, which used to fill Abby with such gladness, felt like nothing so much as a steel-enforced wall keeping her out today.

  “You have nothing more to say?” Abby asked, her arms crossed around her middle. “Like with my parents, I suppose you wouldn’t dare lower yourself to speak badly of my relationship, but your silence speaks volumes.” She looked down, caught her fractured reflection in the hammered silver dome of one of her favorite ring designs, and the memory of her mother reminded Abby why she was here. “We’re going to find my parents’ killer with or without your help. It would have been nice if you could have found it in your heart to make the task a little easier.” Abby matched his unblinking stare with one of her own. “I know you know who it was, Father.” Her voice dropped to a scratch as memories and loss overtook her. “One day I will too.”

  Abby managed to perform a quarter turn and start walking with her head high and eyes dry, but the pressure burned, and she started leaking tears not two steps down the center aisle. She picked up the pace and dropped her head as she ran, cursing herself for letting Father Jim get to her and for his putting a damper on the warm glow she’d been feeling before he sat down and opened his mouth.

  Running out of the church with Braden and Rodrigo hot on her heels asking what was wrong, Abby slammed straight into another person with a thunk.

  Abby looked up into Lorene Jones’s eyes.

  “Oh, hello, dear.” Lorene’s wrinkled skin glowed with the warmth of the sunny February day. “I was just coming to talk to Father Jim about you.”

  Every hair on Abby’s body shot on end. “Were you?”

  “Yes.” As she circled Abby, Lorene squeezed Abby’s hand, her eyes beaming with excitement. “I talked with Bill and the kids, and we would all like to invite you for dinner. I was hoping the father would like to join us. He is so pleased to have you back in our lives as well.”

  The priest’s cool disdain of a moment ago doused any momentary pleasure at hearing Lorene’s invitation. “Father Jim’s pleasure at having me back is conditional,” Abby shared. “He won’t want to sit at your table with me if I bring Braden and Rodrigo.” She reached back, found hands waiting for her, and linked herself up to warm, sure holds. “And I won’t come without them.”

  Lorene looked down at Abby’s fingers entwined with two different men’s, then to the church, and glanced to Abby, her face now pale. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

  “I just explained to the father that these two men are more than friends,” Abby stated, pushed to stand up with the men who had, without recognition, been standing up for her since before this investigation or a sexual relationship had ever begun. “We’re intimate together. They are more important to me than any other souls on this earth, and if they are not welcome in this church, or anywhere, for that matter, with me, then I will not leave them behind like some dirty secret and attend alone.”

  “What?” A frown pulled bracket lines around Lorene’s mouth and across her brow. “Do you mean… Oh.” Her voice dropped. “Oh. I don’t think… How…” Finally, Lorene’s face drained of the rest of its color. “Oh dear.”

  She understands now.

  As had happened inside the church with the priest, Lorene went silent.

  The punch struck harder in the gut than Abby had anticipated, and it caused her to flinch. “You go have your talk with Father Jim and get back to me. If you decide not to…” She couldn’t quite make herself say she would understand. Abby pulled away from Rodrigo and Braden. She needed to shield herself from Lorene’s intruder eyes as the tears started leaking again. “Anyway, that’s your choice.” She didn’t wait for Rodrigo and Braden as she took off for the car.

  The smooth black asphalt cushioned the pounding of Abby’s feet as she went from walking with speed to outright running, as if putting distance between her and Lorene could protect her from the cutting rejection. These dreams and nightmares had done more than open fissures in her memories of the day her parents died; they’d created enormous cracks in the shell she’d unknowingly put around her life.

  Abby reached the car and folded herself against one of the front tires as an onslaught of emotions attacked her. The foster-care system had taught her how to be a survivor. She’d had to let it. The only other option was to constantly get eaten up and spit out by it until there was nothing left worth picking up and trying again. But in surviving, Abby had nailed shut any doors that allowed her a glimpse of the peace and joy in her past. She’d had to do it. If she’d kept herself open and only been given glimpses of what her life used to be, the solitude she’d had to learn to live with would have crushed her.

  These dreams are opening all that up again, and I don’t know how to close the door without shutting out Mom and Dad again. Without pushing out Rodrigo and Braden too.

  Both men skidded to a halt on either side of Abby and dropped to their knees next to her. Braden took her hand and kissed the side of her head, and Rodrigo tucked one arm around her back and the other across her bent knees.

  Rodrigo rubbed his thumb in a soothing circle over Abby’s knee. “You look like you’ve gone through the wringer, Bit.” His dark eyes pinned her to the side of the car. “Are you all right?”

  Abby swiped the tear trac
ks off her cheeks. “I’m fine.” She fanned her face with her hands. “God, I feel like such an emotional idiot.” She blinked any residual wetness away and shifted her line of sight to Braden. “Plus, I shot my mouth off and definitely ruined any chance of Father Jim speaking to us again.”

  Braden glanced in the direction of the church, and his eyes grew as hard as the jade stone they sometimes looked like. “He isn’t going to give us the answers anyway. We’ll just have to find them by going around him.”

  “That was my thought too,” Abby responded. “Still, I didn’t have to let him get under my skin like I did. He didn’t even have to push my buttons.” She jammed her fist into her thigh hard enough to make it hurt. “I uncovered them and set every one of them off all by myself.”

  “Hey.” Braden wrapped his hand around her braid and tugged her face out of hiding. “This is very personal for you, honey. Accepting that it is so, and that you will experience difficult moments that you might not handle in an ice-cold manner, isn’t a sign of weakness.”

  As soon as the man paused, Rodrigo picked up where Braden left off. “For the first time since you were a little girl, you’re seeing people who knew your parents and you, and in some way or another, they all let you go. That has to hurt. It doesn’t matter that Mrs. Jones had a good reason; rejection still cuts and bleeds you out the same. You’re dealing with it almost twenty years later, so you feel dumb that you want to cry, but that doesn’t mean you are. You’re definitely not. But you have to let yourself feel it so that you can move through it, rather than trying to build a thick skin so you can better deflect it. You have the softest, most incredible skin, Bit.” Rodrigo moved his fingers under the hem of Abby’s shirt, rubbed the bare skin at the base of her spine, and pushed away some of the weight pressing her into the asphalt. “I don’t want it to get hard because you don’t dare let yourself cry in front of Mrs. Jones.” He moved his hand from Abby’s knee and put it on Braden’s thigh. “Or in front of Braden and me.”

  Abby cupped Rodrigo’s cheek, loving the smooth, warm skin that housed a solid jaw. “Were you always this amazing?”

  “I hid it under a nice armor of ‘asshole’ most of the time.” Rodrigo flashed one of his know-it-all smiles, but his eyes quickly deepened to onyx. “I don’t want anyone to think I’m weak either. But maybe I’m starting to see that it’s okay to be a little bit exposed with the two of you.”

  His elbow braced on his knee, Braden spoke through the hand partially covering his mouth. “I’ve been aching for this relationship since the night I met you two, but I have no experience navigating a successful partnership with one person, let alone two. I just want to be with you guys and take care of you.” Now it appeared as if his eyes glittered in a way he tried to blink away. “If I can’t, if I let either of you down, if I hurt you, then I won’t be able to look at myself in the mirror or think of myself as any kind of a man worth knowing.” That gaze held on Abby’s and tore through her heart. “You need this case solved,” he said, his voice gruff, “for your own sense of peace, and I’m scared as hell I’m not going to be able to do it for you.”

  Abby scrubbed at her face and knew her cheeks were dry now because of Rodrigo and Braden. “The two of you are all I need to get through this, even if we never figure out who did it.” She rose to her knees, lowered Braden’s hand from his lips, and pressed a kiss to his palm. “I meant what I said to Lorene.” Shifting, she leaned into Rodrigo and bussed his cheek. “I don’t go anyplace where you’re not welcome too.”

  Another fast smile lifted Rodrigo’s lips at the edges. “Are we having a profound moment here?”

  Braden cleared his throat. “We’re all sufficiently serious and teary. I think so.”

  Dark eyes burned hot between Abby and Braden. “Is it sinful that I’m also feeling an incredible desire to strip you both naked and fuck you right here?” Rodrigo asked.

  “Not for me, it isn’t,” Braden muttered as he adjusted the front of his jeans.

  Abby refused to let her attention stray to the church. It didn’t deserve a second more of her time. “Honestly, I wouldn’t mind flipping Father Jim the finger in exactly that way, even if it is petty of me.” She looked into Rodrigo’s eyes and let some of that vulnerability they’d just talked about show. “But even more than wanting to thumb my nose at him, I really want to see your house.”

  Eyebrows arched with definite intent, Rodrigo said, “Some great places to fuck there too.”

  Braden growled. “Let’s go.”

  He took one of Abby’s hands, Rodrigo took the other, and together they hoisted her into their embrace.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Braden pulled into Rodrigo’s drive, and nerves suddenly attacked Rodrigo as he viewed his house with new eyes. The front stucco facade, painted in a warm Tuscan amber hue, was virtually flat, with no steps or porch leading up to the thick oak front door. On either side of the door, beams reached out from the roof of the one-story home all the way to the perimeters, and on parallel below, Rodrigo had rustic planking running underfoot, serving as an abbreviated version of a front porch.

  Rodrigo scrambled out of the backseat as soon as Braden killed the engine. Moving backward up the sun-bleached paver walkway, Rodrigo watched Abby and Braden as they took their first look at his home.

  “I know it’s not much to look at from the front,” he said quickly, “but it’s the inside that is unique.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Abby rushed up the walkway to Rodrigo’s side, her gaze still running the length of the house, and then also glancing left and right at the simple drought-resistant landscaping. “It’s completely inviting. I feel like I’m at a vacation villa in Spain or Italy or Puerto Rico or, I don’t know, somewhere I can feel a cool breeze on my skin as I bask in the morning sun.”

  Braden crowded in behind Abby and met Rodrigo’s gaze over her head. “I was just going to say it’s nice and I like it, but all the subtext would have been what she just said.”

  In a wave, the tension stiffening Rodrigo’s back and shoulders fell away, and the jackhammer nailing his gut lost its power. “Right.” He palmed his key out of his pocket and unlocked the front door. “Let me show you the inside.”

  With one inward swing of the large door, Rodrigo stepped over the threshold of his home and bade Abby and Braden welcome. As soon as they entered, he shut the door behind them, leaned back against it, and beamed inside with silent pride.

  The front room ran the length of the house and served as a living-room-and-office combo. The wall at Rodrigo’s back was a cool white, the flooring beneath his feet was dark wood, and the furniture was clean and functional in warm, natural color palettes. It was simple yet inviting. He had deliberately kept everything minimal for one reason and one reason only.

  Abby dropped her purse and rushed to that very reason right now. “Rodrigo.” She put her nose to the glass. “It’s breathtaking.”

  A picture window made up the entire inner wall of the room, and a courtyard lay beyond. Enclosed on all four sides by the house itself, the centerpiece of the courtyard was a pool tiled in varying shades of blue laid out in such a way as to create an ombré effect, making the pool look so bottomless one might think it was a lagoon. The secluded yard also had ample comfortable outdoor seating as well as solid teak table and chairs, a bar, and a fully functioning kitchen area.

  Abby slowly turned around to face Rodrigo, her mouth agape. “I don’t see how this place didn’t sell in a snap.”

  Rodrigo stuck out his hand in offering. “Let me show you why.”

  As Abby closed her fingers around Rodrigo’s, Rodrigo reached out and snagged a silent Braden with his other hand and tugged the man along with them. He walked them around the west corner of the front room, came upon his open bedroom door, and pulled them both inside. Just like the living area, the inner wall of Rodrigo’s bedroom looked out onto the courtyard, which in his opinion, made one hell of a view at night. His king-size bed faced the glass, and again, s
imple furniture designs took a backseat to allow the full window wall to be the star. The bed butted the back wall, and open wood-framed arches cut into that wall at the ends.

  “Those entrances lead into a narrow walk-in closet that runs the length of the room behind the wall. If you look across the way,” Rodrigo explained, leaning his shoulder against the window, “that’s the kitchen on the other side of the courtyard. It has a full pantry that mirrors the way I laid out the closet in here. It’s the same size as this space and doubles as sort of a half casual dining area as well as having the kitchen basics.

  “And that door over there”—Rodrigo pointed to the front end of the far wall—“is the bathroom.” Abby stood the closest. With his hands shoved in his pockets, Rodrigo nudged his shoulder in her direction. “Go ahead.”

  Abby pushed open the door, and from across the room, Rodrigo heard her gasp. “Oh wow.” She moved farther in and disappeared from Rodrigo’s sight, but her voice echoed back, “It’s beautiful.”

  Braden followed Abby into the bathroom, and although Rodrigo had built it and had every detail memorized, he brought up the rear. Created to work with the corner of the house, the steam shower and soaking tub were separate pieces that butted up against each other at the corner. The tub had a step-up ledge, and the clear glass-encased shower had a stone tile bench, floor, and walls with twin showerheads that hit at different levels. A toilet and two individually set sinks rounded out the bathroom.

  “Jesus Christ, man.” Braden let out a low whistle as he opened the shower door and stepped inside. “You could fit a whole basketball team in here.”

  Rodrigo worked hard to keep the smile full of pride and ridiculous giddiness off his face. “All of a sudden Abby and I aren’t enough for you, Crenshaw?” He openly checked Braden out through the glass. “You need a whole team sharing your bed and bathroom now?”

  Braden flipped Rodrigo the bird from inside the shower. “Jackass.”

  On the outside, Rodrigo chuckled. On the inside, as he watched Braden and Abby ooh and ahh at all the little touches, he wanted to share everything about his decision to move walls and the risk he’d taken in completely reimagining this house from top to bottom. In response, he wanted Abby and Braden to tell him that everything he’d done was spot-on and great and that he’d chosen the right career and was great at what he did for a living. Instead, Rodrigo kept his explanations to a minimum and tried not to sound like a needy braggart.