Woman on Top [McQueen Was My Valley 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (9 page)

BOOK: Woman on Top [McQueen Was My Valley 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)
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Adrian sighed. “That was the idea,” he said distantly, staring out the window into the blackness.

It would be good to have a partner again. Out here there was no one he could call on for backup. His old partner Donovan in the Southern Region had been his constant companion, and he’d been missing that. It would be good to have someone to ride with again.

Chapter Seven

 

“So what is this Quantum Healing?” Brooke asked the neatly coiffed, middle-aged woman.

“Have you heard of chi? As in tai chi?”

“Of course.”

“Quantum Touch works with chi. When animals are sick or upset and they receive extra life-force energy, it allows them to heal themselves.”

Brooke’s stepbrother Doug Ostrovsky butted in. He was a gangly, ill-put-together guy who seemed to always be tripping over his shoelaces, as though he’d never grown into his thirty-year-old body. He had worked at the lodge for over ten years, and Xandra had recently given him the cattle ranch, probably feeling guilty that she’d been bequeathed the entire lodge when she’d never set foot there until recently, or met the deceased owner Wanda Burns, whom Doug had worked for so long. “What about wild animals? Horses? Cattle? I own the cattle ranch connected to this here Triple Play Lodge. I get sick beeves all the time.”

“Certainly,” lied the pet psychic. “I heal horses quite often. It’s a gift I give to the animals.”

“Bullshit.” The lodge’s lawyer, Sol Greenspan, was suddenly standing behind them at the booth. When Brooke had first met Sol she had thought him hilarious, with his comb-over and loud polyester ties, but he had a real affection for the lodge and its workers. He jabbed a forefinger at a flier on the psychic’s faire table. “What’s this, then? Dowsing? Animals aren’t made of metal. You cut a coat hanger in two and wander around
dowsing
for the lost animal?”

“Actually,” the psychic said sunnily, “that’s exactly what we do. We can gain access to the animal’s consciousness that way, and reunite them with you.”

Sol rolled his eyes. “All right, Emo McFarlane. So you’re reading the animal’s mind from hundreds of miles away. Don’t the minds of the other two hundred thousand animals in between get in your way, like static?”

“Not if you tune in correctly,” the psychic said serenely.

“Right,” barked Sol. “Go into the light, Emo.”

He grabbed Brooke by the arm and hustled her down the row of tables. Signs proclaimed the chance to have clairvoyant readings—pets weren’t allowed in the Triple Play ballroom, so customers must bring a photo of their pet. There were boutiques and raffles, wheels to spin to determine a pet’s area of sickness, women who swung pendulums over maps, and oodles and oodles of pet clothing and treats. It seemed as though every skier and cowboy within a two-hundred-mile radius had come to gawk at the Harmony House for Cats booth and the animal massaging tools. It was a fun event, and there was probably merit to some of it, Brooke thought, if only the cat chiropractic tool. And the critter tarot cards looked cute.

She protested, “I’m just wondering if some of this might not help Adrian and his poaching problem.”

They came to a stop in front of a gal who made astrological charts for pets. Sol folded his arms and was all set to lecture. “First of all, toots.” Sol called Xandra “toots,” too, so Brooke didn’t take offense. It was the older man’s way of showing affection. “Adrian isn’t the one with the poaching problem. Old Opie’s a marine—”


Former
marine.”

“And hopefully is returning soon to his marine ways back east. He only came out here to help Nathan with a case, and I don’t even know why he’s stayed so long already.”

He was treating her like a child. “Sol, why are you lecturing me? I’m not
marrying
the guy.”

“Yeah, well, Cass told me you were out until nearly sunrise with Opie and that beefcake game warden.”

“Officer Gabriel Verona. And you know he’s filling in for Julian.”

Sol ignored her. “Now if you think you’re going to follow in Xandra’s footsteps and live in some happy-ever-after cabin in the woods with not one but two guys, I’m here to tell you, Brooke. That was just a fluke. People in Bird in Hand and even Blanding may appear to accept Xandra and her, ah, her”—his voice dropped to a whisper and he looked around, as though the faire goers were hanging on his every word—“
ménage à trois
, but they’re just tolerating it because Xandra owns this lodge and everyone likes Nathan. And Julian. Everyone likes him, too. He’s fairly widely known for his altruistic and ecological deeds, and it actually verges on hero worship how people love him out here.”

Brooke shrugged. “Well. That’s good for them, then, right? What do you mean, exactly—
ménage à trois
?”

Sol leaned in closer. “You speak French, don’t you?”

“I
know
what it
means
, Sol. What are you implying, though? I know Julian sleeps at their cabin, but I just assumed—”

“Oh, you know what happens when you assume!” Sol trilled triumphantly.

Brooke rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Sol. More power to Xandra if she can boff two utter hunks like that at the same time and everyone’s happy.” Deep down, though, she wasn’t so casual about it. She was highly intrigued.

She knew she was in love with Adrian. It had been one of those “love at first sight” situations that—well, that she’d never experienced before. But she’d heard of it and had always thought it was possible.
I’m in love with him
. It felt like a fist wrenching her heart that he didn’t seem to want her. He seemed to want Gabriel. True, her gaydar hadn’t pinged with Adrian, but it
had
been wrong maybe five percent of the time. Or maybe the gay lifestyle was something Adrian was only now delving into.

It had been agonizing—in addition to being stimulating as hell—to have Gabriel’s mouth licking her twat while she shared an unwavering gaze with Adrian. He had kneeled behind Gabriel, obviously very aroused to be jacking the hulking game warden into oblivion, but his gaze never wavered from Brooke’s face, and she had to think there was something to this. It must have been turning him on in some way to be watching her while pleasuring Gabriel.
He can’t be gay.
There was something else blocking his freedom to touch her. Adrian didn’t loathe her. He more than liked her, was Brooke’s impression. She had to find out what was standing in his way of cutting loose.

“Not really, Brooke. It’s not all tra-la-la down the lane,
especially
if you’re going to skip down the same lane as your sister. People are already saying this lodge is called the Triple Play because of all the wild ménages, even though Wanda named it that back in the nineties for her love of baseball.”

Doug Ostrovsky elbowed his way between them then, clutching a squeaky platypus.

“You don’t have a dog,” Sol pointed out.

Doug energetically squeaked the platypus. “I know, but I will someday soon! I need a ranch dog to herd the cattle. Hey, Brooke. Are you going to see Adrian later today? Tell him there’s a rodeo in Oakley in July.”

Brooke frowned. “Why would Adrian care about a rodeo?”

Sol frowned, too. “Why is Adrian still going to be hanging around here in July?”

Doug ignored Sol. “Oh, Adrian? He sure can ride. We goofed around one day while the hands were breaking some wild horses, and Adrian stayed in the saddle almost as long as the best vaquero. How the hell did he learn to ride? Isn’t he from some hoity-toity enclave of Connecticut? He’s one hell of a buckaroo.”

Xandra had told Brooke that since giving Doug the ranch, he’d been calling everyone “buckaroo.” “Yes, he came to Hartford, Connecticut, from Ireland when he was ten. Maybe he rode horses in Ireland?”

Sol butted in. “Or did some of that snobby polo they do back east—you know, when they bounce up and down when they ride like they’re doing knee squats.”

Doug dismissed this theory. “Nah. This wasn’t no bouncing up and down in the saddle. He even knew how to lasso the calves with all those fancy knots.”

Brooke spoke before the idea even formulated in her head. “Doug, you need more help on the ranch, don’t you? I mean, Cody is great and all that, of course. But couldn’t you use more English-speaking help?”

“It’s a safety issue,” Sol said, apparently agreeing for once. “I mean, if a giant boulder is about to fall on someone’s head, it doesn’t help to yell ‘look out for that boulder!’ if they can’t understand you.”

Doug appeared to be mulling the idea over. “Yeah, yeah,” he said thoughtfully, squeaking his dog toy. “I should find out where his expertise lies.”

Brooke took this opportunity to extricate herself from the lawyer’s clutches, although he yelled after her. “I want you to think hard about what I’ve said, Brooke!”

She meandered down a new row of tables, wishing she had a dog to buy something for. She thought about the tattoo on Adrian’s forearm, the Buddhist characters, or whatever it was. He was a multilayered man, and she wanted desperately to explore his hidden mysteries. She thought about Gabriel, too. He was right. He
had
been the one to give her a mind-blowing orgasm. That counted for a
lot
in a society where men’s first and foremost concern was usually their own prick and nothing more.

And she thought about what Sol had said.
Ménage à trois
. The term conjured up sordid adulterous flings with faceless partners. But if her sister was truly involved in such a ménage, it was a far cry from sordid. Since leaving Javier and his meth-dealing friends in Charleston, Xandra had really turned her life around. She was due to have her first baby in July, although now Brooke wondered who the father might be. Was her sister really banging both of those buff guys?

If so…How exactly had she arranged it?

“Looking for a lost pet?”

“Excuse me?” Brooke looked up at the blonde, tanned woman addressing her. She looked as though she’d spent the past twenty years in the sun and had that leathery, tennis-playing skin. “Oh, lost pets. Not exactly. Sort of the opposite, really.”
What the hell. What’ve I got to lose?
“A friend of mine is a conservation officer—a game warden—”

The woman brightened. “Oh, Julian Longtree? He’s such a doll.”

“No, a friend of Julian’s. A coworker. Well, he’s got a frustrating case that’s just got us at the end of our ropes. There’s a poacher running around killing deer and cougar out of season just for their racks and hides.”

As expected, this news angered the animal communicator. She got to her feet and stood face-to-face with Brooke. “The animals are in anguish,” she intoned. “They are calling out to me.”

“Right,” said Brooke skeptically as her stepbrother came down the aisle toward them. “Can you give me any information on this asshat—on this poacher? I do know his pseudonym, the name on his fake ID.”

“That won’t help,” said the psychic, Anna Uebbing, according to a brochure on her table. “Let me consult the pendulum. Maybe I can figure out his real name.”

Ms. Uebbing sat and took the string connected to the one-inch metal ball between her fingers. Propping her elbow on the table, she swung the pendulum back and forth over a colorful mandala that had no directionals on it, no words.

“What question did you ask her?” Doug asked.

“Ssh,” Brooke whispered. “I know it’s a load of hooey, but there’s a poacher who’s been aggravating Gabriel. You might know him. He goes by the name of Thor Biswell.”

Doug did not whisper.

That
epic asshat?
Hoo-ey
! Hell,
yeah
! He’s a poacher if ever I knew one! Cody’s been long suspecting him of thinning out some of our beeves for his own barbecuing pleasure. And I know for a fact he’s cut some of our barbed wire fences to gain access to our land. I’ve seen spring traps set and I’m afraid our livestock might get injured.”

“Well, that’s who we were staking out and ticketing last night. He finally came to check his illegal trap after allowing a cougar to linger in there starving for more than two days.”

Doug shook his head bitterly. “Man. That guy’s a real case. He sits around his rundown house with his meth head friends, having white power meetings, and then at night they go out spotlighting deer.”

“Spotlighting?”

“Yeah. That’s when they shine a spotlight at a deer to stun it. They go ‘pop’ when they see the reflection of the eyeballs. Totally illegal. They usually just take the rack and leave the carcass. Commercial poachers selling the racks and skins.”

Anna looked up at them quizzically. “Does this poacher live near a river? I’m getting the message that you need to wade across a river to find him.”

Doug shrugged. “No river that I know of. His scummy house is on a hillside.”

“Does he play music? I’m getting that there’s a guitar case in a shed, and you need to look inside the shed.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that hatecore music blasting from his house,” said Doug. “Can’t do a damned thing about anything I’ve suspected him of. He doesn’t even play loud music past ten o’clock at night, or I could get him on that. Got some cray-cray tattoos.”

BOOK: Woman on Top [McQueen Was My Valley 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)
8.96Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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