Her Alpha Saviors [The Hot Millionaires #2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (25 page)

They blinked as they emerged into daylight, Patrick’s body almost blocking the narrow entrance to the caves completely.

“Don’t look,” Jay said, turning so he carried her facing away from the dead man.

“I want to look. I want to be absolutely sure that he’s gone. He was going to push me over the precipice and make it look like a riding accident,” she said, agitation choking her.

“You must have been terrified,” Luke said, taking her hand and squeezing it.

“I don’t know what frightened me more.” Her voice sounded and felt gruff after being gagged with that filthy handkerchief. “The thought of being pushed off the plateau or having to go into the caves.”

“You’re safe now, babe.” Jay held her a little closer. “We won’t let anyone hurt you ever again.”

“Damned right!” Luke agreed.

Skye wasn’t too sure how they figured that one because presumably they’d be moving on soon. Still she didn’t care. Right now it was what she needed to hear.

They reached the path that led back to the horses. It looked far steeper than Skye remembered, but beautiful nonetheless because the sky above her head reached to infinity.

“Can you walk, do you think?” Jay asked. “I can’t carry you up here. It’s too steep and slippery. I’ve no intention of breaking your neck, having just rescued it.”

“Just give me a bunk up,” she said, slithering out of Jay’s arms and accepting Luke’s hand as her feet hit the ground. She took a moment to let the world stop spinning and then turned to her two protectors with a grim smile of determination. “Let’s do this.”

“Attagirl!”

“You go up first, Luke. I’ll help Skye on this end, and we can guide her up between us.”

Luke levered himself athletically up the rocky base, reaching the relative solidity of the path in several easy movements.

“Come on then, babe,” Luke teased. “It’s my turn to cosset you.”

Skye felt a smile break across her face when she realized that the whole nightmare really was over. Jay gave her backside a hefty push. She reached out a hand to Luke, and he pulled her up beside him. Jay was there, too, before she had a chance to draw breath. Together they helped her slowly crawl back to the plateau, where the horses still grazed as though nothing untoward had just occurred.

Skye was still trembling with a combination of fear, shock, and low body heat.

“She can’t ride back,” Jay said. “She’ll have to come on the bike with me. Can you manage the horses, Luke?”

“Sure.” He placed an arm round Skye’s shoulders and gently kissed her lips. “See you back there.”

Skye climbed on the bike behind Jay, grateful for the solid protection of his body. She wrapped her arms tightly round his waist and rested her head against his broad back whilst he negotiated the bike slowly back toward the stables. Luke, riding Satan and leading Rio, followed directly behind.

As soon as they reached the yard, Jay swung into action. Skye was mentally and physically exhausted, barely aware of what was happening. She sat in the warm tack room and watched the activity bustling round her like an actor in a play, feeling totally detached from it all. Police and paramedics swarmed everywhere. Patrick’s body had been retrieved, and they were all required to give statements. The paramedics wanted Skye to go to hospital for a checkup, but she flat-out refused.

“I just want to go home,” she said. “Nothing’s broken. I’ve got a few cuts and bruises, but there’s nothing wrong with me that a good night’s sleep in my own bed won’t put right.”

“We’ll need to take formal statements from you all,” the detective in charge told them, “but it can wait until tomorrow. We already had an eye on Talbot, but it seems he’s done a bunk.”

“Has he pulled stunts like this before?” Luke asked.

“He was involved in giving false deeds on unoccupied houses to a solicitor so they could be sold off.”

Jay quirked a brow. “How would that work?”

“People who die without relatives to leave their properties to are prime candidates.”

“But surely there are protections in place?”

The detective rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and guess who policed them?”

“Right.” Jay and Luke exchanged a glance. “Nice work if you can get it.”

“Some leave their houses to half a dozen different charities, and it can take years for them to fight over the spoils. In the meantime this gang has changed the locks and sold them on to unsuspecting sods.” The detective shrugged. “Who would suspect a solicitor when he says everything’s kosher? Anyway, he obviously got wind that we were about to make an arrest and scarpered. Still, he won’t get far.”

“Mason’s in on it,” Skye said. “He must have cleared their ill-gotten gains through his bank.”

The detective was very interested in that piece of information and grilled Skye until Jay called a halt.

“Thanks,” the policeman said. “We’ll have a word or two with Mason. We’d been wondering what Talbot and his cronies did with the money they got from their scams. Reckon I know the answer now.”

* * * *

Eventually they were told they could go home. Skye still looked wobbly, but with Jay and Luke on either side of her, almost carrying her between them, she covered the distance home without too much difficulty.

“He said my dad was part of it.” Jay and Luke shared a significant glance. She didn’t seem to realize that she’d said the same thing several times already, which was worrying. Could she be concussed? “He wouldn’t have been, though, would he?”

“’Course not,” they both said a little too glibly.

“He wouldn’t,” she insisted stubbornly. “He absolutely wouldn’t.”

Word of events had already spread, and when they got back to The Fox it was crowded with lookie-loos. Jay assured them that Skye was fine and ignored the barrage of questions directed at him. His authoritative air was such that only Peter persevered.

“I need to see her,” he said doggedly. “You can’t prevent me.”

“You wanna test that theory?” Jay fixed him with an icy stare. “She’s had a shock, and you’re the last person who can help her.”

“But I—”

“Get a life, Brown, and stop bugging her.” Jay sent him a damning glance. “You’ve already done enough damage.”

Jay returned to the loft. Skye was sitting in a chair while Luke ran her a bath. Jay gently stripped her of her soiled clothing and threw it all in the trash.

“You’re gonna have a few nasty bruises, darling,” he said, sweeping her into his arms and carrying her into the bathroom, where the fragrance of primrose oil bath essence filled the air, along with clouds of steam.

She smiled at him. “Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

He lowered her into the water, and she sighed with pleasure. “Not joining me, boys?”

“Skye!” they said together.

“Just asking.”

Between them they washed the grime from her body and examined her cuts, none of which appeared to be deep.

“How did your left side get so bashed up?” Luke asked.

“I fell off the bottom of that path,” she said, grimacing.

“Ah, that would do it.”

They washed her hair for her, doing what they could to eradicate all physical signs of her ordeal. The mental scars would take longer to heal.

“Right, bedtime for you, madam.”

Jay wrapped her in a large fluffy towel and carried her in that direction. Luke had made the bed up with fresh crisp linen sheets and Skye slid between them with a contented sigh.

“Thank you, guys,” she said dreamily.

“For what?”

“Oh, having the brains to figure out I was in trouble. Riding to the rescue. Getting me out of that stinking cave. Putting paid to Patrick’s designs on my home.” She lifted her shoulders. “Little things like that.”

“You’re entirely welcome,” Luke said, gently caressing the curve of her face. “Happy to be of service.”

“Anything else you need?” Jay asked, sitting on her opposite side and holding her hand.

“Yes, I don’t want to be alone tonight.” She shuddered. “The memories. I think I’ll have nightmares. I can’t—”

“We’ll stay,” Jay said, recognizing the start of a genuine reaction in the depths of her troubled eyes. “We’ll always keep you safe, babe. But just so you know, we’re only gonna sleep, that’s all.”

Skye pouted, a defiant light in her eye suggesting she knew something they didn’t. “Of course,” she said sweetly, “what else?”

* * * *

Skye’s intention of persuading them to make love to her came to nothing, mainly because Jay forced her to take whatever it was the paramedics had given her and it knocked her straight out. She woke feeling stiff and bruised but very much alive. It was still before dawn, and she feasted her eyes on the two hunks sleeping soundly on either side of her, wondering how much longer it would be before they left.

Obviously they wouldn’t invest in The Fox
but they’d done more than she could ever repay by resolving her problems and pointing her in the right direction. She’d go and see the bank next week—hopefully not Mason—and give them full details of her plans for the place. Then she’d work her fingers to the bone to put it firmly back on the map, or die trying. She shuddered. That was taking it too far. Dying definitely wasn’t on her to-do list. She’d had a close scrape with the grim reaper and fully intended to live life to the full from now on, not closet herself away from the world and watch proceedings from the outside.

Jay stirred. Perhaps he sensed her gaze fixed on his gorgeous chest.
Whatever.
He stretched, smiled, and leaned up to give her a gentle kiss.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Like I’ve been thrown off a precipice.” She winced. “But fine, apart from that.”

Luke opened his eyes, too, and grinned at Jay. “That’s quite a shiner you’ve got there.”

“Yeah well, you know what they say. You should see the other guy.”

“No chance that you two would like to—”

“No!” they said together.

“Well, in that case,”—she nudged Jay’s hip—“move aside. I have work to do.”

“No, you don’t. My people are still in there. They have things under control.”

“Maybe so, but I still need to—”

“I want you both to come to London with me today,” Jay said, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of himself.

“Why?” Skye asked. “What’s in London?”

“The answer to all sorts of things.”

He wouldn’t say much more, but Skye was too intrigued to even think about declining. She could see that Luke’s interest was piqued, too, and obviously wanted to know what it was all about as much as she did.

Two hours later Skye sat in the back of Jay’s luxury Mercedes as it sped its way along the motorway.

“Who is this mystery person you want us to meet?” Luke asked as Jay turned off the motorway and headed deep into the Surrey countryside.

“Oh, she’s special,” Jay said, his gaze focused on the road ahead. “The focal point of my life and my main reason for staying in England.”

“She?” Skye gasped.

“Yeah, you’ll love her, babe.” He paused. “At least I hope you will.”

Skye couldn’t find her voice. How could he do this to her? She loved Jay and Luke to distraction, and he was flaunting his girlfriend—his reason for being in England—beneath her nose. She’d thought him more sensitive than that. Perhaps he was planning a cosy foursome.
No chance!
It might be selfish, but she’d gotten used to having Jay and Luke to herself. If that situation couldn’t continue, and she knew it couldn’t for much longer, she’d rather say good-bye to them with her head held high and get on with her life. She absolutely would
not
cry, she told herself, aware of tears of regret and self-pity welling in the corners of her eyes.

“Here we are.”

Jay stopped the car at a gatehouse to some sort of institution. A uniformed guard emerged from his hut and saluted.

“Hello, Mr. Blanchard. Back again?”

“Yep. How are you today, George?”

“Fine, thanks. I see you’ve brought some friends with you this time.” He nodded at Luke and Skye, noted something on his clipboard, and lifted the barrier. “Have a good visit.”

Jay thanked him and drove on.

“What is this place, Jay?” Luke asked.

“It’s a care home.” Jay parked in a visitor’s spot, climbed out of the car, and opened Skye’s door for her. He took her hand, led her to the front steps, and paused to square his shoulders, as though he was afraid of what lay ahead of him. One deep breath and he started climbing the steps. “Right, here we go again.”

Luke and Skye exchanged a confused glance as they followed him into an imposing entrance hall. A pretty uniformed nurse greeted Jay by name.

“She’ll be happy to see you again so soon,” she said, smiling flirtatiously. “She’s in the dayroom, and she’s having one of her good days.”

“Right.”

Jay led the way, holding Skye’s hand in a death grip and not saying a word. The spacious room they entered had light spilling into it through full-length windows that overlooked peaceful grounds. It was half full of people of all ages, all of whom appeared to have one thing in common. They were handicapped in some way.