by Diane Leyne
Satisfaction, Texas 1
Finding Satisfaction
Jess Archer is a woman on the run. It's just her and her dog and a hundred thousand dollars in stolen drug money heading to Texas and her brother for help. When she learns he's out of the country for a week, she has to find a place to hide out and finds herself in Satisfaction, Texas, where she meets rancher Murphy Smith and blacksmith Cole Reacher who introduce her to the joys of a ménage.
Their happiness is short-lived, however, when her ex, Detective Lance Dent, tracks her down looking for the money and her drug sniffing dog that he’s promised to sell to a drug cartel. If he doesn’t deliver, he knows he’s a dead man, so he’ll do anything to achieve his ends.
Things go from bad to worse when Lance decides to sell Jess, too, and it’s up to Murphy and Cole to rescue her.
Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys
Length: 46,049 words
FINDING SATISFACTION
Satisfaction, Texas 1
Diane Leyne
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
FINDING SATISFACTION
Copyright © 2014 by Diane Leyne
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62741-210-0
First E-book Publication: January 2014
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
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www.SirenPublishing.com
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DEDICATION
To friends and family. You are who make it all worthwhile.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
About the Author
FINDING SATISFACTION
Satisfaction, Texas 1
DIANE LEYNE
Copyright © 2014
Chapter 1
Jess Archer took Interstate 10 through Arizona and New Mexico towards El Paso, which had been her original destination. She’d waited until she was half an hour outside El Paso to call her brother Tait. Technically, he was her half-brother and they had different last names, but they were very close. He’d be able to help her. He worked for one of those shadowy, quasi-governmental organizations that it didn’t pay to ask too many questions about, and he would know how to help her. She should have called him right away, even before she left Chicago, to tell him why she was coming to visit, but even using a burner phone, she was worried about being overheard, tracked, found.
When she finally called him, she wanted to curse when his assistant answered and had been noncommittal, telling her only that he’d been called away unexpectedly on business and should be back in a week, if all went well. She knew what that meant. He was on assignment, and she wasn’t sure when he’d be back. She hoped a week was truth, but who knew. Her brother’s job hours were somewhat erratic, to say the least. If he wasn’t back by the end of the week, she’d try Aaron, his best friend, and if she could get him, he would know how to get in touch with Tait. She trusted Aaron because Tait trusted him. They were almost like brothers, they were so close. If she couldn’t get through to her brother, she wasn’t sure what she’d do. She had Tait’s e-mail address to try if she couldn’t get him on the phone, but she wasn’t sure how much she could commit to e-mail. There were people watching everywhere.
Jess swore under her breath and hung up as the polite male voice on the other end of the phone offered to take a message. She thought of identifying herself as Tait’s sister, but she didn’t want to leave any more of a trail than she had to. The owner of the voice worked for her brother’s company, so he was probably trustworthy, but even if he was, he could inadvertently make things worse by calling the wrong authorities about her problem, thinking he was being helpful. Unfortunately Lance had a lot of contacts in law enforcement and she couldn’t take the risk that word would get back to him. When she got a chance, she decided, she’d send a short, vague e-mail to Tait’s private e-mail address. He wouldn’t get it while he was on a job, but he’d check it as soon as he was done and he’d get in contact with her. She just had to wait it out.
Jess realized she should have contacted her brother as soon as she realized something was very, very wrong and she made the decision to go to him for help, but as they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty. At first, she had just wanted to put distance between her and Lance and whatever he was involved in, without delay. Besides, it’s not like it ultimately would have changed anything. Tait would probably still be out of the country, but she could have found someplace furth
er away from El Paso to hole up while she waited. Now she was practically in Texas. Damn. What to do, what to do?
Hopefully, most people wouldn’t think of tracking her down here in the south. She was a known city girl and she’d left a trail that pointed northwest, but the people she was running from had resources. Granted, a few people who knew her really well might think of her brother, but most of them didn’t realize that he was actually her half-brother and didn’t share a last name, which meant even if they knew about Tait, they might not be able to find him. She’d always been careful, even with her good friends, to never mention where he lived or worked or what he did for a living due to the nature of his work. He was involved in a lot of high risk and highly confidential work for the government, not that she knew a lot of details, just enough to know not to talk about what he did and to worry every time he went on one of his assignments. Even at the depths of her infatuation with Lance, she never even told him much about her brother. Of course, Lance didn’t care about anything except Lance, so it was an easy secret to keep from him.
A week, the man on the phone had said. Jess had to find somewhere to hole up for a week until she could get to her brother and he could help her get out of the mess she was in. She wanted to do the right thing. She planned on doing the right thing. She just didn’t know who to trust. Her brother would make sure she was safe. He had contacts and would know who to talk to in order to help her out of this mess.
She decided just to drive for a while without making any abrupt change of direction. She’d just be a tourist on her first visit to Texas. No. She’d be someone who’d headed south looking for work. Maybe she’d stop in one of the myriad of small towns she’d been driving by and find a place to hole up, maybe even get a job. She could wait tables or work in a store. And she’d find a place to stay where she could pay cash. Credit cards could be traced. She’d use the cash from her new job to pay for a place to stay. Maybe she could rent a room in a house. That would be off the grid.
She’d just blend in, she decided. Her ride already blended in. The old Jeep she’d picked up a few days ago in Tulsa was sturdy. It had a soft top and no windows. The owner had shrugged when she’d asked about them.
“They are plastic and held in place with zippers. If someone wants to break in, they will. So why bother? Leave ’em off and enjoy the fresh air. And if you have anything you need to keep extra safe, there’s a hidden compartment in the back of the bed of the Jeep, flush with the tailgate. As you can see, it’s carpeted like the floor of the trunk so it’s barely noticeable, and even if someone does see it, they can’t get it open.”
He’d been right on all accounts. It was wonderful driving down the highway like this. She turned and looked over to her sole companion, one who had been with her for five years now and whom she loved above all others, Murphy. She reached out and gave him a rub on the shoulder. He looked back at her and thumped his tail once before sticking his head back out the window. Murphy approved highly of cars without windows.
In the end, she decided to just keep driving, continuing on Interstate 10. She’d decide eventually whether to switch to Interstate 20 and head to Dallas or remain on 10 and continue southeast to Austin, but for now, she was just enjoying the view.
The terrain was fascinating, or would have been if she hadn’t been so paranoid about being followed. Jess sighed. In the four days since she’d left Chicago, she hadn’t spotted a tail. She’d been careful, doubling back a couple of times and changing vehicles. Her trust Prius was still parked in her spot below her condo in Chicago. Her clothes were in her closets. Her purse was on the counter with her ID and all of her bank cards.
She’d acquired a new cell phone in Oregon from a fellow she’d met during an article a few years earlier. York was a technical genius who didn’t always stay within the law, but he was basically a good guy and her brother Tait had put them in touch for her story on surveillance. It was no ordinary phone and she wasn’t even sure it was legal for her to have, but it was almost untraceable, even with the battery in.
“Nothing’s perfect,” he warned. “Sooner or later, someone who is very determined or who has contacts in very high or very low places will be able to track it. To be on the safe side, leave the battery out when you aren’t actively using it.”
She gave him a hug and promised to be careful as she and Murphy headed further south.
She’d stopped at a Walmart in Arizona and bought a gym bag, jeans, T’s, bras, and underwear and then taken them to a laundry and run them through the washer and dryer a few times so they looked well lived in. She also stopped at a thrift while she was waiting on the dryer and purchased a pair of cowboy boots that were clearly not new, but looked clean and well cared for.
Then she changed and disposed of every stitch she’d left Chicago wearing, including her brand-new four-hundred-dollar Jimmy Choos. That had been the hardest thing she’d done. She loved those shoes, but sacrifices were necessary when you were on the run with one hundred thousand dollars of stolen drug money in the trunk of your car.
* * * *
She was just coming up on the split and would have to choose Austin or Dallas, when she spotted the red Corvette flying along in the opposite direction. Her heart started pounding. Maybe it wasn’t him. There were a lot of red Corvettes on the road, surely. Maybe it was just a rich Texan with gaudy taste in cars? And even if it was Lance, he wouldn’t be looking for her driving a Jeep, would he? How would he even know what she was driving? If it was him, which it probably wasn’t, he was probably headed to El Paso to see if she was at her brother’s place.
She was almost certain that, if it was him, she hadn’t been spotted, when she saw the red car in her rearview mirror abruptly swerve from the left lane to the right, clearly looking for an exit.
Damn. Was it him? Maybe she was just being paranoid and the driver of the red Corvette had just been careless and almost missed their exit. It probably wasn’t him. That would have been too much of a coincidence, but could she take a chance?
“What do you think, Murphy? Could it be Lance?”
Murphy gave a little growl at the sound of his name.
“Right you are, Murph. Better not take a chance.”
She hit the gas. Austin or Dallas? Austin or Dallas?
And then she saw it. Just before the interstate split was a small turnoff. She took it without even noting the name. She was going to get herself good and lost in west Texas until her brother returned and could help her get out of this jam she was in.
She drove for about half a mile, passing the usual service stations and fast food establishments that you’d expect to see clustered beside a highway, before she saw the sign. She was now entering Kinsdale County, and she had two choices. Five miles to the left was the town of Kinsdale, population twenty-five thousand. To the right, ten miles on, was Satisfaction, Texas, population twenty-five hundred.
“What do you think, Murphy?” Murphy looked at her and yawned before thumping his tail twice.
“You’re right. Satisfaction it is. Let’s just hope the Rolling Stones were wrong and we’ll find a little satisfaction of our own.”
Turning, she stepped on the gas. She was in the middle of ranch and oil country now. She passed miles of farmland. She didn’t see any other vehicles, just cows and more cows. Occasionally, she spotted a small oil derrick in the distance, but mostly it was just cows.
She could see Murphy was interested. He was a German shepherd dog. His ancestors had been bred to herd, even if today they were mostly service dogs, working with the police and the blind. Murphy had originally been a police dog, specializing in sniffing out illegal drugs. When he was two, he’d been stabbed in the line of duty trying to protect his human partner. He had been given early retirement with full honors. At the time, Jess had been doing a story on police dogs and had fallen in love with Murphy. Normally he’d have gone to live out his life with Officer Chad Hamilton, the partner he’d saved, but one of Chad’s daughters had developed se
vere allergies to dogs, so she’d convinced him to let her adopt Murphy. That had been three years ago, and it had worked out great for everyone. Chad visited Murphy regularly, and he and his wife Letty had become good friends of Jess’s. He’d even introduced her to his buddy Detective Lance Dent, who worked in the Narcotics Division. That, however, hadn’t worked out so great for Jess.
Things had started off great with Lance. He’d been charming and attentive and had loved Murphy too. In fact, with her job’s erratic hours, he’d spent time with Murphy and even looked after him for several days at a time when she was following a story.
Eventually, though, she had seen that Lance was a narcissistic asshole and had broken up with him, but he had insisted on still being able to spend time with their dog, so she still had to see him once a month when he took Murphy. The dog, though, had become less and less happy about the outings and she’d been working toward telling Lance that he couldn’t see Murphy any more. The first time she’d brought it up, she’d mildly suggested that he didn’t have to waste his weekends on Murphy and he’d gone ballistic and had actually scared her, suggesting that he keep Murphy permanently, if she didn’t like the current arrangement, and she could see him monthly.
Reluctantly, she’d let him take the dog, but she’d been afraid and had waited anxiously for their return. She wasn’t even sure what she was worried about, but he never even showed Murphy much affection. Was he taking him monthly because he could and he knew it pissed her off? Or maybe, just to have an excuse to see her again? Regardless, something had to change, but she hadn’t been sure what to do.