by Lori King
“Tyce, please let me go,” she said with a strength that belied the fragile state her emotions were in. When she turned away from him, she found Xavier still kneeling in front of her. He reached out and gently but firmly gripped her chin, forcing her to look him in the eyes.
“Want to tell us about Robert Wicks?” Xavier said quietly. Sidney felt like her lungs would never expand again. Terror trickled down her spine, followed by sadness that was so overpowering she had to close her eyes against their questioning looks. Like waves each emotion swept over her, leaving her breathless and closer to the edge of an irrationally emotional breakdown. She twisted away from Xavier’s grip on her jaw and jumped up from Tyce’s lap.
“No, actually I don’t. That’s my business, and I don’t need to share it with anyone. I’m going back out to the front to help Kara.” She reached the door before she felt hands on her. Noah’s firm body pressed against her back, and he wrapped his arms tightly around her. One arm was across her chest and the other across her hips, holding her immobile while he pressed a kiss to her ear. It was a beautifully sweet touch that made her ache to share her burdens with him. “Stop, honey. Whatever it is, you can talk to us,” he murmured against her ear, and goose bumps prickled across her arms. She couldn’t tell them about Robert, and she couldn’t let them get any closer to her. It was time to leave.
“Look, I’m sorry if I gave you all the wrong impression, but I don’t want or need your help. What I need is my privacy, and my paycheck. I will finish my shift and leave my uniform in the locker tonight. Clearly I can’t continue working here.” She held herself stiff until she felt Noah reluctantly release her, and then she threw the door open and walked down the hallway. She could feel the tingle of all three men’s eyes on her again until the door shut behind her. Straightening her spine, she fought off tears as she reentered the bar dining room. She wouldn’t cry for a man again. No matter how much she wanted to.
Xavier felt as irritated and horny as both of his brothers looked. That damn woman was throwing a kink into his normally logical life, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. She had melted like butter under his hands earlier, but now she walked away like an ice maiden. It was like she was locked in a battle with herself over her own sexual needs.
“We’re just going to let her walk away?” Tyce yelled angrily at no one in particular.
“Hell no, but we need to talk first. She’s not going anywhere yet. She said she would finish her shift.” Xavier glanced down at his watch and back up to his frustrated brothers. “If we are serious about her, then we have exactly three hours to come up with a plan to keep her here. That girl is on the run.”
“What?” Both Noah and Tyce focused their attention on Xavier as he plopped down heavily in the desk chair behind him. All of his training was telling him to keep Sidney by his side until he knew what she was running from, but that was a battle he knew he wouldn’t win. She had been hurt by someone recently, and she wasn’t ready to trust yet.
Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, Xavier explained. “My search for information today found a few answers and a whole lot of questions. Sidney Rowe is actually Sidney Rowe. She is also legitimately from Greenville, South Carolina, but those seem to be the only things that she was honest about. She was raised in foster homes, but from what I can tell she was cut loose the day she turned eighteen. She has no family that I could find. Her birth certificate wasn’t even registered until she was three. I’m not sure where she is living now that she’s in Apache Crossing. The address she gave us as her home address is a local dive motel down on Highway 6. The manager there has never heard of her.”
“Why would she give us a fake address?” Noah’s face registered disbelief, and Xavier could see the frustration in his younger brother’s tightly fisted hands.
“I think she’s living out of her car. She has a car registered out of South Carolina in her name, but no other property. From what I could find, she has been dating a man named Robert Wicks for the last year. She was registered at a hospital in Greenville several weeks ago, but I couldn’t access her medical records to figure out what it was for. I have Skeet working on getting that for me. It appears that she left Greenville behind in a cloud of dust after the day she was released. No sign of her until she turned up here. About three weeks after she disappeared from South Carolina. I can only assume she gave us the fake Social Security number so that there was no way to track her.” Xavier gave an irritated huff and cracked his knuckles. He desperately ached to go jump on his bike and drive into the night. That was one of the only ways he seemed to be able to think clearly anymore.
“What the hell? Why would she just up and leave her whole life to move to Texas and work as a bartender? Do you think she’s a fugitive?” Tyce’s Marine was showing, and his gaze had narrowed as he focused in on the problem.
Xavier had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Noah was frozen in place, but his stance was pure military, with his legs spread, arms behind his back, and his jaw clenched tightly. His brothers were just as smitten with the lovely Sidney as he was. Maybe this whole ménage thing could really work.
“No, nothing like that. I had Skeet run a criminal check to make sure,” he answered Tyce with a shake of his head.
“Well, if anyone could find out information, it would be Skeet,” Tyce said with a relieved sigh.
Xavier acknowledged his statement with a nod. Leroy “Skeet” Skinner was the best hacker the US Government had ever employed, and thanks to their time serving in the Marines with him, he owed them all a few favors. “I did dig up some information on Robert Wicks as well. He’s a shady character, and it seems he has record for domestic violence and aggravated assault. Sidney is the victim listed on one of the reports for domestic violence. The neighbors called in to 911 when they heard a woman screaming, and when the police got there she had a black eye and cut lip. She told them it was from a fall down the stairs and refused to say anymore. That was almost six months ago.”
“Wow. So you think that’s why she ran.” Noah looked stunned and then furious. “I’ll kill him if I find him.”
“Slow down there, tiger. We don’t know what happened yet. Maybe she just got bored with her life there and decided to start over fresh. The first thing we need to do is get her to trust us enough to open up to us. We need to know what’s going on if we’re going to keep her…I mean help her.” Xavier rubbed at his temples, trying to ease the tension he felt there. He didn’t try to explain his Freudian slip, and neither of the other two men questioned it. The desire to have her loomed large amongst all three men.
“I’ll go get her. We will make her sit her ass down and tell us what’s going on.” Tyce was on his feet with his hand on the doorknob before Noah spoke.
“So you intend to scare her into trusting us? Yeah, that sounds like the perfect plan. Maybe if you hadn’t tried to fuck her last night she wouldn’t be so jumpy around us today,” Noah snarled at his brother.
Xavier and Tyce exchanged a glance and then looked anywhere besides Noah. He caught on quickly and sank down onto the couch with a groan. “What? What is that look about? Don’t tell me you two fucked it all up already.”
“We didn’t have sex with her, but something did happen earlier today,” Xavier finally answered.
“What happened?”
“Some kissing, touching, and her having one hell of an orgasm. We never even got our hands on her juicy pussy,” Tyce said with what looked almost like a pout on his face.
“Look, Noah, she responded to both of us, at the same time. She wants us…trust me, but she doesn’t trust us yet. After she climaxed it was like a bucket of ice water was dumped on her head, she darted out of here so fast. She left me hard as a steel pole,” Xavier said with a groan. He wasn’t lying about walking around half-hard. If this kept up, he would have to take a shower before they even closed the bar for the night.
“Maybe this Wicks guy threatened her life? She wouldn’t trust anyone if
she’s on the run, particularly anyone male.” Tyce frowned.
Xavier’s jaw clenched at the thought of Sidney being scared of him. That didn’t sit well with him at all. “So what the fuck are we going to do? Every time we get close to her, she gets jumpy and runs away.”
“It’s the sex,” Noah said evenly.
“Huh?” Both Xavier and Tyce were completely puzzled.
Noah rolled his eyes. “Okay, geniuses, I’ll spell it out for you. She has been with a douche bag for at least the last year, and it sounds like she is running to get away from him. She distrusts men because of him, and now she has not just one man to contend with but three. She has three extremely large, dominant men that are coming on to her very strongly, and she is feeling trapped. We have to cut the sex out of the equation until she trusts us.”
“Us? So now you’re interested in sharing her?” Xavier asked.
“Yes, us. We all three want her. That’s pretty obvious. So unless you are willing to concede to the two of us and walk away, it sounds like we will be wooing her as a team. She is already open to ménage even if it’s only on a subconscious level, or she wouldn’t have let whatever happened this morning with the two of you happen.” Noah growled out the last few words, the jealousy evident in his tone.
“Shit. You’re right, it’s the sex. We scared her by pushing her too hard.” Xavier shook his head in frustration. “So now what?” Tyce said, still looking slightly puzzled.
Noah got a huge smile on his face and said, “We’ve got to turn up the charm and show her how good it can be with us. Here’s how we’re going to do this…”
The three men spent the next half hour planning their approach and agreeing that they all wanted her if she would have them as a whole. If she wouldn’t have them together, they would all walk away.
Sidney sighed with relief when she reached Kara’s side at the bar. All three men with questions on their lips and desire in their eyes were just too much for her to process at this moment. Her heart was still pounding in her chest, and her head ached. She couldn’t believe that Xavier knew about Robert. What if Robert has gotten into contact with him? Does that mean he’s—found me and is here? What if he is waiting for me to be alone? She mentally shook herself, scolding her own paranoid thoughts.
If Robert were here, he wouldn’t hesitate to storm the bar and make a scene. Then what would the Dawson threesome say? Most likely they would realize that she was more trouble than she was worth and boot her out the door. Either way it seemed it was time to move on and leave the area. She would turn in her uniform tonight and pick up her check tomorrow morning on her way out of town.
She threw herself back into her work, absorbing the atmosphere of the bar she had come to think of as her safe haven and the customers that she had gotten to know. She would miss this place, and that surprised her.
A hand on her shoulder startled her, and she looked up to see her fellow bartender, Kara, at her side.
“Hey, Sid, are you all right?” Kara asked with concern in her eyes.
Sidney nodded. “Yeah, sorry, the noise just startled me.”
“You screamed like you were scared for your life. I’ve never heard anyone scream so loud in my life,” Kara said, looking surprised and less than sold on Sidney’s explanation.
Sidney tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a grunt. “I’m just a loud screamer I guess.”
“Nothing wrong with a screamer, sweet thang.”
Sidney glanced up to find Paxton Novak standing at the bar with an empty beer mug. Paxton was a local, he had lived in Apache Crossing all his life, and he was one of her biggest tippers. She gave him a flirty wink and reached for his mug. “Another round, Paxton?”
“When are you going to take me up on my offer for dinner, Sidney?” Paxton asked. His dark-brown eyes were sparkling with playfulness, and she couldn’t resist teasing him back.
“I’ll go out with you, Pax. How does the second Tuesday of next week sound? Or maybe we can go on the third thirteenth of next month?”
Paxton laughed loud and long at her teasing and took his refilled glass back. “Ah, Sidney. I’m beginning to think you will never love me as I love you.”
“Probably not, Paxton, but I will be happy to keep your beer full and smile for you,” she said with a brilliant grin, and he tweaked her nose gently.
“Your loss, sweet thang. When I make it rich in the construction biz, you’ll be wishing you had taken me up on my offer. That is if I don’t die of a broken heart from your rejection.” He lifted his hand to his forehead dramatically making her laugh.
“I’m sure you’ll survive it, after all you’ve survived all of the other women in this bar rejecting you too,” she said playfully.
“Burn. Damn it, you women always stick together. One of these days I’ll catch you in a weak moment, and carry you off to my den of passion deep in the woods.”
“Den of passion, huh? Last I heard it was a fishing cabin on the lake, and you had a family of possums under the front porch.”
Paxton winked at her. “Yeah, but for you, I would be willing to clean it up, and I promise you nights of endless pleasure.”
“Okay, Celine Dion, you better get to drinking that beer before it gets warm from all the hot air you’re spewing,” she said, shaking her head.
“You wound me.”
With a dramatic flair, he blew her a kiss before turning to go back across the bar to the table he was sharing with his brother, Derek. Sidney watched him for a moment with a smile on her face. He was such a sweet, funny guy. Why couldn’t she fall for someone like Paxton? Why did she have to be interested in the three Dawson brothers? What kind of a sicko was she? With a heavy sigh, she tossed her hair out of her eyes and went back to work, flirting, laughing, and refilling drinks as fast as possible.
A sharp whistle had her jerking her eyes over to the tables near the bar, where the three brothers stood with their Marine Corps buddies. Noah was waving his hand to get her attention. She had forgotten about the rowdy group of men. Even though she knew it meant good tips, she had to force herself to smile back at Noah. She wasn’t in a very flirty mood, but she took a deep breath, mentally steeling her nerves for some heavy-duty acting as she headed over to the group.
“Hey, guys. What can I get for you?” she asked, glancing around until her eyes smacked back into Noah’s clear blue ones. His expression was arrogant, and she understood why when she felt Tyce’s hand brush the small of her back.
“Another round of beers on the house for all of them, love.” The words were low and raspy next to her ear, and she shivered involuntarily. Looking over her shoulder, she found Tyce inches from her face, staring at her lips, his mouth quirked up in a small smile.
“No problem, be right back.” She started to turn away, but Noah caught her arm.
“Why don’t you just bring a couple of pitchers? The guys still have a couple of hours before last call. I’m sure they won’t be leaving anytime soon,” he said loudly as she glared pointedly at his hand around her bicep. She pulled her arm away, pretending to reach into her pocket for her pen and notepad, hoping that no one would notice the flush that crept up her cheeks.
“Hell yeah! We’re celebrating!” Lane’s yell distracted her from Noah’s touch and Tyce’s close presence, so she turned to him. Cocking her head and putting one hand on her hip, she let his smile wash over her, and she genuinely smiled back.
“Really? What are you celebrating?” she asked curiously.
“Laramie over there just retired!” He pointed at the man that sat across from him. She looked him over, surprised that someone so young would even be talking about retiring.
“Retired? You don’t look old enough to be retired, mister!” she said with a laugh.
“Gage Laramie, ma’am. Pleasure to meet you. I retired from the Marine’s and moved back to Apache Crossing last week,” Gage explained. His eyes scanned her body, and when they drifted back to meet hers, the look in his gaze was inviting.
“I’m officially off the clock as far as Uncle Sam is concerned. No more dust, sand, danger, trouble, boots, or sleeping bags for me.”
She laughed loudly. “Something tells me you aren’t done with danger or trouble.”
“Might be right, sugar. Wanna come a little closer and we can start some trouble together?” He wiggled his eyebrows playfully and patted his lap, indicating she was welcome there.
“Nah, I’m too dangerous for retired men. You couldn’t handle me,” she flirted back. As she walked away to get the beer requested, someone let out a long whistle, and she could feel the eyes of the whole table on her while they all laughed loudly. The guys all teased Gage about being too old for a hot little piece like her, and she smiled to herself. When she glanced back over at the table she saw that there were still two sets of eyes watching her every move.
Noah and Tyce weren’t chatting with their friends. They seemed to be ultimately focused on what she was doing. It made her nervous to know that they were observing her so closely, and she found herself fumbling as she prepared the order. When she finally had the tray loaded with glasses and a couple of pitchers of beer, she bent to pick it up and carry it over, only to find Xavier at her elbow lifting it easily from her grasp.
“I got it, baby. Grab some more napkins though, these guys are animals.” He winked at her, turning her surprise into another smile, and headed for the table. She followed with the napkins and moved around the table collecting empty glasses.
She made her way quickly around the table until she came back to where Noah and Tyce sat. Looking up briefly, she caught Xavier’s raised eyebrow from where he stood behind his brothers, and her brow furrowed in confusion. Then she realized that the last four empty glasses on the table were between Tyce and Noah and to reach them she would have to lean over the table, basically pressing herself against their broad shoulders and pointing her ass directly at Xavier.