Woman on Top [McQueen Was My Valley 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (10 page)

“Oh, Airy Fairy!”

Sol was calling out to them, mocking them for standing in front of an animal psychic’s table. Brooke swiftly paid Anna and ducked from Sol’s line of fire. She wove between the crowds of milling guests, making it out of the ballroom, where she depressed the button on her radio.

“Brooke to Xandra, do you copy?”

Brooke stood off to the side of the ballroom’s doors to avoid the steady stream of psychic customers. It was an odd juxtaposition, the ranchers in cowboy hats mingling with the feather-plumed, jingling psychic crowd. Many looked like genies who’d just been let out of a bottle, but again as many looked approximately normal, in T-shirts and jeans. Brooke didn’t know what to make of Anna’s divination about the guitar case and wading through some water, but Gabriel might have some ideas.

“This is Xandra.”

“What’s your location?”

“I’m at my cabin.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Brooke sailed out the front doors of the Triple Play and past the snowy berms where the valet parked cars, hoping Cass wouldn’t see her. Since running into her two men—
Egads, I’m already calling them “my two men”—
yesterday, she had not returned to her duties at the front desk. She wasn’t cut out for a sterile, fluorescent work environment, she knew, but she had no suggestions to replace it. What did she want to do with her life?

She had always sort of thought she’d just follow a man around, doing whatever he did. Just being the trophy wife, like Xandra had been to Javier, propping up her husband’s career. But just now, in the ballroom listening to Doug waxing enthusiastic about Adrian’s horse-riding skills, something had occurred to Brooke. She had always liked horses. She had taken horseback riding lessons as a teen and had adored it, until her father said they couldn’t afford them anymore. Their mother had died when Brooke was ten, and their father Dennis struggled to care for his daughters. He could have really used the Triple Play when he’d inherited it last year, but instead had given it directly to Xandra as the eldest child. Xandra had needed it, too, as incentive to get away from that sleazy Javier.

Xandra had found something to do with her life, and she was thriving. Maybe Brooke could help Doug out at the ranch…“Xandra. I needed to talk to you about something.”

Her pregnant sister let her in the cabin door. The newlyweds were in the process of designing a chalet to be named the Bait and Switch about a quarter mile from the lodge, but for now they lived in one of the luxury cabins, the same design as Adrian’s. Xandra led her to the table by the two-story-tall plate glass window, where she was evidently doing paperwork.

“Don’t tell me,” said Xandra cheerfully. “You don’t like front desk work, either.”

“Well, that’s part of it,” Brooke admitted. “I was just thinking of maybe doing something involving the cattle ranch part of the operation, because I love horses.”

Xandra wrinkled her nose. “You like horses? Ew. That’s partially why I gave the cattle operation to Doug. I can’t
stand
riding a horse. Well, that’s a possibility. We can figure something out. Have you talked to Doug about it yet?”

“No, because I just thought it up. But listen, that’s not what I wanted. I…” She didn’t know how to phrase this. “I was talking to Sol over at the psychic faire.”

“Oh, how’s the faire going? Has anyone found our long-lost Leo the Cat?” Leo the Cat had gone missing in 1998.

“I thought you believed in a lot of that woo-woo stuff? Never mind, that has nothing to do with what Sol told me. Did you know I spent the night—well, ‘spent’ isn’t the right word. I went with that new conservation officer, Gabriel Verona, on a stakeout. Yes, a stakeout! It was exciting as hell, Xandra!”

“I believe you,” Xandra said dreamily, propping her chin in her palm. “Those men don’t just drive around giving people tickets for not putting out their campfires. They get involved in surveillance, drug dealing, even murder.”

“I know! It’s a whole new world for me! They’re like regular cops, only manlier, because they’re out in the wilderness facing down grizzly bears
and
criminals. Anyway, we took along Nathan’s friend, Adrian. I’m…Xandra, I really have to be honest. I know I’m supposed to stay away from Adrian, but I just don’t think that’s possible. I think…I think I’m in love with him.”

Xandra gasped and sat upright. “In love? How can that be? You fall in love within twenty-four hours?” She exhaled. “Well, all right. I guess it’s possible. I did. But you know, Brooke, I warned you about him. He’s a hard nut to crack. He’s severely damaged not only by what happened to him in Damascus, but what happened when he got back.”

“What? As though the Damascus incident wasn’t bad enough. What happened when he returned?”

“Well…” Xandra hesitated. “I don’t know how much he wants to be public knowledge. Let’s just say, he had a fiancée. And he doesn’t anymore.”

Brooke was gripped with a need to know more. “Why not? Who broke up with who?”

“Adrian broke up with
her
.” A look of obvious disgust overcame Xandra’s features. “So he’s damaged romantically as well, Brooke. You should run. Run far, far away!”

“What did she do to him?” Brooke would not rest until she had answers.
So that explains his reluctance to get close to me. He got burned by an evil woman. I can get him over that.
“You’ve got to spill, Xandra. Don’t worry. I wouldn’t in a million years let him know that I know.”

“Nathan told me in confidence.”

“And I’ll keep it in confidence.”

Xandra clearly struggled with the need to share her gossip with her sister and her loyalty to her new husband. Ultimately, love of her sister and of gossip got the better of her, and she conceded, “The bimbo was
cheating on him
. While he was being tortured in a Syrian prison! And guess who she was having the fling with? Her own
ex-husband
!”

“Holy shit!” cried Brooke. “Well, that explains a lot. Was it a one-shot deal, or did she really want to be with the ex-husband?”

“I think she really wanted to be with him. They rekindled their romance, so to speak, not just the month Adrian spent imprisoned, but a year beforehand. Unbeknownst to him! It had been going on for an entire year right under his nose—or behind his back, because Adrian, like Nathan, used to spend a lot of time overseas on missions. That’s why poor Adrian is so burned out, why he hasn’t accepted another mission. I’m sure it’s why he likes to lose himself skiing and going to the spa.”

“Trying to forget,” Brooke said.

“Right. That’s why I tell you, Brooke. You need to give him time to heal. Now what was Sol saying?”

“Right. Sol. Xandra, Sol indicated that your relationship with Nathan and Julian was more of a…more of a
ménage à trois
than a roommate situation. And he
warned
me against it, Xandra! When he heard I’d spent the night in a truck with both Adrian and Gabriel, he assumed I was heading down the same ménage road, and he told me it would look bad for the lodge.”

Xandra exhaled loudly. “Ah, that Sol. He needs to get his head out of the caveman days.”

“Earth to Sol. The Revolutionary War is over.”

“Well, yes, it’s true that I have sex with both Nathan and Julian.”

“Wow.” Brooke couldn’t wrap her head around it. She didn’t know what to ask first. “So who is the father of your baby?”

“We don’t know. It’ll be evident enough when it arrives, won’t it?” Xandra grinned, because Julian was half-Navajo. “Is that your only damned question? Why does Sol think you’re heading down the ménage path just because you did a stakeout with two men? Adrian’s not nearly ready to be part of a couple, much less a ménage. It takes a delicate balance, Brooke, to avoid jealousy and resentment in a threesome.”

“I suppose Sol somehow read my mind, or accurately read the situation.”

Xandra frowned. “Accurately?”

“Yes. I
know
I’m in love with Adrian, but I suspect I’m getting there with Gabriel, too. I’m incredibly confused that I’m attracted to two men at the same time. And Xandra? We
did
have sex last night in the truck. Not—
that
, but we played around, all three of us on the same seat. I don’t know how Sol figured all this out, but he started lecturing me about not following in your same happily ever after footsteps. Why not? I mean,
you
seem awfully content. Who wouldn’t be? Nathan is a steamy hunk, and Julian is worshipped like a god around these parts.”

“Well…
yes
. Who wouldn’t be ecstatically happy? You’re right about that, Brooke. We somehow managed to avoid all the jealousies and competition that probably comes with a lot of threesomes. I do try to hand it out proportionally and not favor one over the other, although I’m legally married to Nathan. Is that something you think you want?”

“Yes. It’s been occurring to me all day long. Adrian is the only hurdle. He seems to have a giant wall between himself and intimacy with me. He has no problem being intimate with
Gabriel
, that’s for damned sure. Do your two men touch each other?”

“All the time,” Xandra answered instantly. “It actually takes a lot of the pressure off me. I don’t mind if I walk in on a blow job in progress, for example. If I’m not in the mood, I can just watch. And I have a feeling that later in my pregnancy it might come in
real
handy. You know, for times when you’re exhausted, but can appreciate the view.”

“Oh,
yes
!” Brooke agreed heatedly. “It’s very exciting to watch them fondle each other, and I can kick back and enjoy the scenery. I’m just worried that Adrian will only ever allow himself to touch Gabriel. Gabriel will always be the filling in the sandwich.”

Xandra sighed. “That’s why I said what I said, Brooke. Watch out for Adrian. He’s broken, stressed, damaged. The Triple Play Lodge might’ve been named for ménages and not for baseball, but if you’ve got a burned man who is unwilling to play along, it’s not going to be equitable and fair, and someone is going to feel left out in the cold.”

“You know she’s in love with you,” said Gabriel.

Adrian scoffed and sipped his dirty martini. They were standing on his cabin’s deck watching the storm clouds approach, low, black, and roiling. There would be no skiing today, and probably none tomorrow. “Well, that’s just too bad for her. I’m not getting involved in any of that mess in the near future. If ever.”

“Can I ask,” said Gabriel, sipping his own martini, “was it just the Damascus thing that turned you against women? I know you’re not gay. But I fail to see where being tortured would turn you against women, unless one of the torturers was a woman.”

Adrian found it within himself to chuckle. “Highly unlikely given Syrians’ track record with women. No, it was a garden-variety backstabbing fiancée back home in New Canaan that turned me off permanently to women.”

“Ah. She cheat on you?”

“Yes. With her ex-husband. It had been going on for over a year, while I raced through the back alleys of Khartoum and Cairo putting eyes and ears on targets.”

“You some kind of mercenary? I know I’m not supposed to know.”

“Some kind. I actually specialize in antiquity identification and recovery of items that have been stolen from US jurisdiction. So yeah, I’ll climb into windows, pick locks, disable alarm systems.”

Gabriel looked at him with a new appreciation. “You’re a jewel thief.”

Adrian tilted his head thoughtfully. “I’ve been called worse.”

“So when are you going on your next mission? You’ve been here since October, right?”

“I’m in no hurry. I’ve made enough to coast for awhile, and this is a nice place to coast.”

“Yeah, but Brooke seems determined to win you. She’s not gonna stop. She’s going to ply you with her lingerie model’s body and seduce you until you crack.”

“Well, good luck. She can flaunt her incredibly gorgeous and tight model’s body all she wants. I won’t cave.”

“You’ll only mess around with me.”

“Right.”

“Because women screwed you over.”

“Right. And because you’re unbelievably hot. It’s a good temporary solution, wouldn’t you say?”

Gabriel shrugged. “It works for me. But you
do
know that Brooke McQueen isn’t this ex who burned you, right?”

Adrian went back into the cabin to pour another martini. Gabriel had spent the day driving to Julian’s trailer in Moab to pick up some clothes and other items he might need for the next few days, or however long it took to nab “Thor.” Gabriel had made the warrant request Friday morning, and as it was now Saturday, they didn’t expect to get one until Monday. Before Gabriel left, Adrian had snagged the lingerie catalog from the side pocket of his truck. It had been a long time since he’d snagged anything, and it gave him a rush.

The thrill of getting away with it must have enhanced his sex drive, for he stood in front of his bathroom mirror shirtless, his hand around his cock, stroking himself. Who was he kidding? He was jacking off to the photos of Brooke McQueen. The slope of her lower back before it flared into her hips, her creamy white ass barely covered by the tiny panties. The seductive, come-hither look in her bedroom eyes, eyes that requested every man to approach her, if they dared.