Diane [The Town of Pearl 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (3 page)

“I’m glad to hear that. A young woman shouldn’t be out so late at night to begin with, never mind in a vehicle that isn’t in top condition,” he added, holding her gaze.

“The Jeep is three years old. I was handling the flat tire fine.”

He raised his eyebrow at her.

“I was, Mark. I’m not some teenager, I’m a grown woman,” she added.

“Are you here on your own today or did someone bring you?” Drake asked her, interrupting the potential argument. She pulled her lip between her teeth. It was a nervous habit he found adorable. Hell, she wasn’t a teenager, anyone with fucking eyes could see she was all woman.

“I came alone, how about you guys? No special lady friends today?” she replied again with a bit of attitude that wasn’t Diane at all.

“Why would you think that?” Drake asked, sounding insulted.

Diane cleared her throat. “I didn’t mean anything. I just figured since Mark frequents the boutique and picked out some nice things the other day that you might be here with someone special.”

Mark leaned closer, reached up, and moved a strand of her long brown hair away from her cheek. “We’re checking out the prospects.” He held her gaze.

“I see,” she said, and then Sage interrupted, passing her lemonade.

“Thank you.” She took a sip as she looked around the area.

They all continued to walk together and Virgo brought up the new dance floor that Sage, Lena, and Abigail were opening up in the back of the bed-and-breakfast.

“That is going to be awesome. So many people are going to love hanging out there on the weekends and enjoying the activities you have planned,” Diane said.

“Well, I can’t wait to see you out there. I know how good you are at dancing. You’ll have the cowboys lining up outside of the boutique,” Sage teased.

“No, not me. You know how shy I am.”

“Honey, you can dance. I’ve seen the videos,” Dale teased Diane and she blushed. Mark found the information interesting. Not that he was much of a dancer, but the kind of dancing he’d want his woman to do would be fun for all of them.

“That’s interesting information. Maybe you’d like to show us what sexy moves you’ve got, Diane. I know I’d love to see them,” Drake teased, and then he gave her shoulder a little nudge with his own.

She looked so sweet and shy. “I don’t think so.”

Virgo and Dale teased Diane some more and then Sage started in on her men as Melissa and her men came over to join them. Immediately Diane bent down to say hello to the baby giving Mark and his brother the perfect view of her breasts. They were full and round, overflowing from the sexy top she wore beneath the blouse. He wouldn’t be able to resist the attraction for much longer. Mark needed to set his brothers straight and get them on board.

“Hey, Diane, we’re going to meet the others by the bed-and-breakfast to see how the dance hall is coming along. Want to join us?” Colin asked.

“I’ll see you guys later. I really want to see what it looks like.” Diane headed toward the group of guys and Mark looked at Drake.

“When are you two and Lucas going to ask Diane out and let her know how you feel?” Willie asked them.

They looked at the crowd of friends around them.

“When the time is right,” Drake said.

“I’d hate to tell you guys this, but you’d better make it soon. She isn’t going to keep saying no to all those offers much longer,” Paul told them.

“No way. She’s too beautiful, and if they keep asking, eventually they’re going to break her down,” Paul added.

Drake looked at Mark. “We need to talk to Lucas. Today.”

Mark watched Diane disappear with a group of young men and he knew that time was running out. They wanted her. They thought about no other woman for the past year. It was time to stake a claim and let Diane know she was theirs. They just needed Lucas to finally agree to take the chance. It was time to overcome their fears and go after the woman they wanted.

Lucas was staring at the clock he just finished staining. The details he added to this one were so complex, he had obsessed over the design and pattern so much that he dreamt of the clocks instead of having nightmares. Moving out to Pearl, developing his love of carving combined with his appreciation of cuckoo clocks were the best decisions he had made.

He thought about how he started liking the clocks after a stint in Germany during his military career. They intrigued him, and he was lucky enough to meet a craftsman who taught him all about creating the clocks from scratch. He wondered if his brothers were enjoying the event in town, yet he didn’t feel guilty for not attending, too. As much as he wanted to see Diane, especially after Mark finding her on the side of the road late at night and alone, he feared socializing.

He was a quiet man, and liked his privacy. He heard what people said about him and the rumors about him not being right. Well, if going through the experiences he did, and not acting like life was perfect made him strange, then so be it. When had he ever cared what anyone else thought except for his brothers? They were his life, his reasons for not taking up his friends’ offers of living off the land out in the middle of nowhere. There was a time, when he first returned from serving, that he thought about moving to those places. He questioned the way people looked at him, the way he reacted to sounds and normal events around him, and he questioned his own sanity.

It had taken Drake’s equal experiences and stronger confidence plus Mark’s persistence to get Lucas to hold on and stay with them. He looked above the clock at the desk wall and the various things he had posted there. Diane’s picture, Drake had taken a few months ago was sitting in the center. How many times had he looked up at that picture and wondered if he were good enough for her? Whole enough for such a beautiful woman?

He didn’t think he could ever be intimate with a woman again where he could release himself fully. Sure, he had needs and he took care of those, out of town, hell, out of the area entirely. He wondered if there was something wrong with Drake, Mark and him for seeing Diane, deciding that they wanted to share her, yet not asking her if that was what she wanted.

They hoped that she was interested and just as attracted to them, but what if she wasn’t? Her attitude toward Mark was not so positive the other night despite Mark’s interpretation. As they were getting closer to telling Diane how they felt, Lucas wondered if he should back out now. He wasn’t good at talking, at showing his affection, and Diane could feel like she had to settle and accept him when she accepted his brothers. It didn’t sit right. The more he thought about it, the more he realized what he had to do.

His chest tightened and he felt that guilty, worthless feeling inside. It was time.

* * * *

Mark couldn’t believe the phone call he received from Blaze Weathers. Brenda’s commander called to let Blaze know that Brenda was missing and was presumed dead. Mark ran his fingers through his hair. He felt terrible. Hell, he couldn’t believe that she was dead, and until there was concrete evidence of that, he wasn’t going to mourn her.

He felt a slight tightness in his chest. It was kind of a guilty feeling even though there was nothing between them anymore. But they worked together. They shared one or two lonely nights in the field, and she had just called him recently. That bothered him more. She wasn’t working on any special cases. Her commander said she was taking time off and was about to embark on a two-week vacation.

What the hell happened? This wasn’t like Brenda.

He thought about the case they worked on a couple of years ago. He was in charge of extricating a certain wanted killer from Argentina, back to the United States. Mark had tracked him, thanks to Brenda, to Wyoming, where she just happened to be working undercover to try and snag a team of smugglers. Their cases crossed, and they worked hand in hand to bring down a pretty large organization. They were all under the command of some unknown individual in Persia. But that wasn’t Mark’s job. He got his man and aided the agents, including Brenda, with arresting over a dozen men. The worse part of that case was how close they got to identifying and capturing the Persian. But something went down back at headquarters and Brenda’s commander called them off. It never sat right with any of them.

* * * *

“What’s that serious expression for, bro?” Drake asked Mark as he walked into the kitchen. Mark was staring at some papers and glancing at his laptop computer.

Mark didn’t respond.

“Hey, Mark,” Drake repeated, and Mark looked up, appearing rather preoccupied.

“Hey, sorry, what’s going on?” Mark asked but then looked back at the computer screen as he used the mouse pad to scroll down.

“Working on something for the big man?” Drake asked, referring to all of Mark’s secret government jobs in such a way.

Mark released a sigh and then looked back at him. Drake could tell right away that something was bothering him.

“What’s up?”

“I don’t know. I mean I’m not sure,” Mark said as he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. He still looked bothered and upset at something.

“You seem preoccupied with what you’re reading on the screen.”

“Well, I am actually. Do you remember that case I was working on two years ago, when I headed out of the country and then to Wyoming for a few months?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember Brenda?” Mark ran his hands through his crew cut hair.

“Sure, she was one of the agents from out there. You guys got close.”

Mark licked his lower lip and then took a deep breath and released it.

“Wait, you got more than close. You were sleeping with her?” Drake asked.

Mark leaned back in his chair. “It was a quick fling. We weren’t right for one another, and most importantly she wasn’t right for us. But she was a good person.”

“I could tell that you cared for her. Hell, Mark, there’s nothing wrong with the fact that we’ve all had our share of women. Lucas and myself especially were on a rampage of self-destruction when we returned from serving. So what’s the deal? Did Brenda send you something?”

Mark looked up at him. “Brenda’s missing.”

“Missing?”

“There’s a group of us that more often than not turn to one another because of our specialties. It’s not an official announcement yet, but it seems that she’s either been taken or is dead. They don’t know and the team has been working diligently to find out more information.”

“I’m sorry, Mark.”

Mark looked away a moment. “She’s been seeing a guy in the bureau, Carter, for the last few months. I’m sure he’s freaking out. But then my commander heard from hers, and he said that Brenda was about to take a two-week vacation.”

“Well what happened? Where was she last? Was she working a case?”

“That’s the odd thing. No one knows. It’s suspicious. Her commander just e-mailed me and wants to talk. He knows that we’ve kept in communication. They’ve gone over her phone records and saw that we talked last week.”

“Last week? Why are you talking to her? What about Diane? What about our plan?”

“Drake, calm down. There’s nothing going on between Brenda and myself. I told her about Diane. Nothing has changed.”

“Then why were you talking to her?”

“She was asking about that old case from Wyoming. She said that she was working a similar case, something to do with embezzling money, when she came across one of the suspects we never located from that bust. The guy had disappeared right before the raid happened. Brenda, the team, and I knew that they had to have been tipped off. It was never proven, and since the operation was shut down and over a dozen big shots went down for the crimes, the government closed the investigation.”

“Do you think that case, the guy that got away, may have something to do with Brenda’s disappearance?”

“I don’t know, but it’s definitely suspicious. But it doesn’t make sense. That case was two years ago. There have been so many others since then. Hell, this is why I want out of this.”

“Shit. What are you going to do?”

Mark looked at Drake.

“Whatever I can do. She was a good friend.”

“Mark, maybe it’s time to fully retire? You know, hang up that agent badge and tell the government that you’re done? Lucas and I don’t want to keep worrying about you out there in the midst of danger. It wouldn’t be right to ask Diane to do the same if she were to accept a relationship and us.”

“Drake, I’m a highly trained professional. I’ve gotten this far.”

“Mark, things are different. Lucas and I left the service and our military gig for the government. It’s time you let it go, too, and start focusing on the things we discussed. You were there at the fair. You saw those other men hitting on Diane. She’s our woman and we need to make a move sooner than later.”

Just then Mark’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID as Lucas walked into the kitchen.

“I need to take this call. I’ll be right back.” Mark walked out of the room.

* * * *

“What’s going on?” Lucas asked, and Drake explained. “Sounds serious. How close was he to Brenda?”