Nate sighed, satisfaction plain in his stance. “You see, I can be the
good guy in this situation. I can say, sure, use my wife the way you
have for years. Don’t worry about me. I don’t mind. I can say all of
that, because I know that Zane will do the right thing.”
Apparently, in Nate’s mind, the right thing was to toss down his
coffees and run toward the man horning in on his wife. Stef turned
around just in time to get tackled. Jen rushed toward the fight.
“Zane, you get off of him right now!” Callie shouted at her
husband.
“You fucking overgrown ape, stop hitting me!” Stef tried to push
Zane off.
“You get off my son, sir!” Sebastian’s back stiffened, and he
looked at Callie. “Call the police, dear.”
“The sheriff is standing right over there laughing his ass off, Mr.
Talbot,” Jen said. She looked down at Stef, who was trying to give as
good as he got. She had to give him that. For a rich boy, he knew how
to fight dirty.
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“Zane Hollister, stop beating up my best friend.” Callie’s booted
foot stomped in the snow.
Zane got Stef in a choke hold. “Not on your life, babe. He kissed
you. We took sacred vows to never allow another man to get close
enough to kiss you. Right, Nate?”
Nate was all smiles now. “That’s right, buddy. You do what you
have to do.”
“Asshole,” Stef managed to wheeze out. He pulled his elbow out
and caught Zane squarely in the gut. “I won’t forget this when your
next contract is up. Don’t think I won’t talk to the mayor about
finding a new sheriff.”
“Good luck with that, Stef. No one wants the job except Nell.
She’s threatened to run against me. Other than that, you got nothing.”
Callie pulled at her dark-haired husband. “Zane, you get off him
right this instant. I’m invoking the note clause in our marriage
contract.”
Zane popped up in an instant, his face a storm of pent-up rage.
“Fine. I’ll go bring the car around, but his ass is walking, and if you ever touch my wife with your lips again in a non-brotherly fashion,
I’ll kick your ass even harder.”
Zane stomped away, leaving Callie shaking her head as she lent
Stef a hand. Jen brushed the snow off his back.
“Note clause?”
Nate frowned. “Yeah, every time we do something she doesn’t
like she points to the note we wrote when we left her. She saved it.
She framed it and put it on the wall by the door, and she’s threatened grave bodily harm if we take it down. She uses it like a sledgehammer
filled with guilt.”
“I merely remind the boys of the poor choices they once made.”
Callie turned to Stef. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” His gray eyes narrowed as he looked at Nate. “You
planned that.”
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“I have no control over Zane’s actions, man.” Nate turned and
followed his partner.
“So, Callie isn’t your girlfriend anymore?” Sebastian was looking
between them all as though desperately trying to figure out what was
going on.
“I was never really his girlfriend, Sebastian,” Callie said, her
voice a sad little sigh. “I’m sorry I misled you. Stef has always been more of a brother to me than anything else.”
“And now that…large, rather brutish fellow is your husband?”
“His name is Zane.” She sighed again, this one a dreamy sound.
“Stef introduced us. He introduced me to Nate, too. They are the best
husbands a girl could have. Don’t let their rough exteriors fool you.
They’re sweeties. I should probably go and make sure they don’t
leave Stef behind. It’s a long way to Bliss.”
Sebastian’s eyes stared at a place right below Stef’s face. “So you
hid this from me? Callie got married, and you never told me you
broke up?”
“I was never with Callie,” Stef admitted. His whole body was
Jen got close, and he shoved his arms under hers, wrapping
himself under the coat she was wearing and rubbing his body against
hers. “Hey!”
“It’s my damn coat. You can share.” His beautiful face was stark,
and his lips were turning just a little blue.
Damn him. She couldn’t resist that slightly quivering lip. She
pushed her body against his, sharing her warmth. But she wasn’t just
going to lie down and give it up for him. She’d done that. Jen
wrapped her arms around Stef, but turned to Sebastian. “He’s been
lying to you because he didn’t want you to find out the truth.”
Stef’s father’s face fell, and a chalky whiteness took over his skin.
“Stefan, you have to know that you’re my son no matter what. I’ll still love you.”
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“I never knew you loved me in the first place,” Stef managed to
chatter.
A slight flush permeated Sebastian’s skin. “Of course I do. You’re
my son. Just because you’re…well, nothing changes that.” There was
a long pause. “Is it, well, is it one of those boys?”
Stef shivered in her arms, and he planted his face in her shoulder.
“What is he talking about, and can you make him stop?”
But Jen had an idea, and it made her giggle. “Which boys are you
talking about, Mr. Talbot?”
He pulled his wool peacoat around his slender frame. “Those
Harper boys he was always around. I suppose I always knew deep
down. He talked about them all the time. I couldn’t get him away. I
thought it was about Callie, but now I can see the truth. I just don’t see why he wouldn’t admit it. I’ve never been one to hold a person’s
sexuality against them. Talbot Industries offers life partners insurance and benefits. Why would my own son lie? Unless…oh, no, it’s that
Max fellow, isn’t it? Oh, my son, you can do better than him.”
Stef’s head came up, and he stared down at Jen. His eyes closed
briefly as though in terrible pain, and then those gorgeous gray orbs were piercing into her. “Does he think what I think he thinks?”
A little bit of glee lit her heart. “I think he thinks you love Max.”
Stef turned to his father, his face turning red despite the cold.
“Damn it, Dad! I am not Max’s gay lover. Max is married.”
Sebastian sighed, his relief a palpable thing. “Okay. I can handle
Rye. He’s a nice young lad.”
“I’m not with Rye, either! He’s married, too. I am not gay.”
Jen tried to contain her giggle, but it was hard when his whole
body was quivering, and he seemed to be trying to crawl into her. He
looked like a little boy arguing with his dad. She’d never seen Stef
look so open. “I can vouch for the ‘not gay’ part, Mr. Talbot. I know
for a fact that Stef Talbot is one hundred percent capable of sleeping with a girl. He just needs to tie her up and spank her a little bit first.”
“Jennifer!”
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She shrugged. “Do you deny it?”
“TMI, Jennifer. TMI.” He frowned down at her before burying his
fac
e in her hair. His breath was warm against her ear. “You’re under
my authority now, love. I have the papers to prove it. I’ve been
indulgent to this point, but now you’re racking up the punishment
time.”
Now she didn’t need the coat. Her whole body flushed with the
memory of what it felt like to be punished by Master Stefan. Then he
shivered again, and the moment was lost.
“Where the hell is Zane with the car?”
Sebastian’s mouth was open as he watched his son. “Perhaps I
should have come much sooner. We’re going to have to talk about
this, Stefan. I didn’t raise you to spank people.”
Stef groaned in her ear and burrowed further as though he could
escape into her skin.
When Zane pulled the SUV around, Stef pushed her into the back,
making sure she was in between him and his father. The two men
stared at each other over her head the whole hundred miles from
Alamosa to Bliss.
* * * *
Two hours later, Stef was back in fighting form, and Jen sort of
wished they could go back to that delicious moment when he needed
her body heat and her support. The minute Zane turned into the Talbot
estate’s drive, he’d sat up and held himself away from her. He’d gone
from needy little boy to the distant Dom she’d tried so hard to get to know. He’d neatly and efficiently packed everyone into separate
rooms as he and Nate filled Zane in on what was going on with her.
She figured she should have been in on that meeting, but
apparently her voice wasn’t required. She heard them in the study
talking to someone over the conference phone. It sounded like Finn
Taylor explaining what legal maneuvers he was planning. Jen simply
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let Callie lead her to a big, brightly decorated room that contained all the stuff Stef had packed up from her apartment. There was a suitcase
of her clothes and some of her sketchbooks.
“He was really upset when you left,” Callie said as she opened the
drapes and let in some of the most beautiful light Jen had ever seen.
“Really? Because the way we left things, I thought he would be
thrilled.” Jen didn’t like to think about the morning she’d left.
Sometimes she couldn’t help it, and it played over and over in her
mind like a bad movie. Of course at night when she was asleep, she
dreamed about making love with Stef. She couldn’t help it. In her
dreams he took her over and over. He spanked her to warm her up and
then made love to her like a starving man.
Callie blinked behind her glasses. “I don’t know what happened
between the two of you. I just know he was really upset. I know Stef.
He was far too quiet, and he retreated into his studio for two weeks
after you left. He barely said a word to anyone.”
“He was just feeling a little guilty.”
“I don’t think so,” Callie said. “But I’m not going to be able to
convince you.”
There was a brief knock on the door that saved her from Callie’s
further explanations. Jen opened the door expecting to see Stef. She
was surprised at the large, lovely man inhabiting her doorway. His
hair was cut startlingly short, but Jen could see it was reddish. His
face was an intriguing mixture of craggy lines and lovely features.
“Hello, did Stef send me a toy?”
He frowned, his brows making a neat V in his forehead. “No. I’m
a doctor.” He looked past Jen to Callie. “Is this one of those patients, Callie?”
Callie laughed. “No, Caleb. She’s just extremely sarcastic. Jen,
this is Dr. Caleb Burke. He’s the new town doctor. Stef brought him
in for Rachel’s birth.”
Jen noticed he was carrying a large, battered leather bag. He
strode into the room like he owned the place. He set his bag down and
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shrugged out of the thick parka he was wearing. The doc worked out.
That much was plain.
“Don’t forget all the people who get shot around here. For such a
small town, you deal with a lot of trauma. I wasn’t here for the last
two shootouts, but I have an emergency plan for the next one.”
Jen had seen the effects of the last little emergency that happened
in Bliss. Mel and Nate had gone to the hospital. Before that, both Max and Rye had been injured. “Hopefully we’ve seen the last violence for
a while.”
The doc slapped his hands together. “Nope. Place like this is a
magnet. Bad things will always happen, and I’m going to be ready for
it.”
Callie nodded and gave the doc a smile. It was the same smile she
gave Mel when placating him. “Caleb is a great believer in
preparedness. He made the whole town act out a scenario where the
town was taken over by armed gunmen. Nell and Henry decided to
protest and…”
“Nell and Henry got shot. Protesting won’t stop an armed
gunman. Kevlar. That’s what you need, and a damn fine plan of
action.”
Caleb Burke had his hands on his lean hips, looking down at Jen
like a drill sergeant with a new recruit.
Jen turned to Callie. “Tell me Nell and Henry are still in one
piece.”
Callie waved off the concern. “He used paint guns. It was fine.
Henry was surprisingly mouthy for a dead guy. The big problem was
that Mel was late, and Caleb used green paint.”
Jen knew exactly where this was going. “Aliens have green
blood.”
“Yup. Mel freaked out. Guess you weren’t so prepared for that,
were you, doc?” Callie asked with a smile.
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Caleb had the good grace to look slightly apologetic. “It wasn’t
bad. I took out Mel with a tranq gun. He was fine. Now, let’s get on
with it. If you’ll take off your clothes, we’ll get started.”
Jen took a small step back, because the man didn’t look like he
was joking. “Excuse me?”
“Stef brought in the doc to give you a physical,” Callie explained.
“He’s worried someone broke you in prison. He’s got a shrink coming
in next week to help you with the trauma.”
“I was only in jail for a day. What does he think happened to me?”
Caleb coughed a little. “Well, any number of things can happen to
an incarcerated person. Dehydration, injuries due to violent acts, staph infections.” He leaned in, his voice going low. “Sexual injuries. You
don’t have to be afraid or embarrassed. I’ve seen it all.”
“OMG, I was in lockup for twenty-four hours in the Dallas
County Jail, not lost in some third world country. I’m fine. They gave me water. I didn’t even have time to acquire a girlfriend. Tell Stef to stuff it.” She turned to Callie. “I am hungry, though. They tried to
give me bologna.”
Callie shuddered as she grabbed their coats. “We should go to
Stella’s for lunch, then.”
“Hey, I have a job to do here.” Caleb got between her and the
door.
Callie patted his chest. “I wouldn’t, Caleb, sweetie. She’s like
Rachel.”
Caleb paled slightly and backed down. “Okay, then. Um, well, if
you need anything or, you know, start to remember stuff like torture,
call me. You know, post-traumatic stress can hit you when you least
expect it.”
“He’s insane,” Jen stated as they walked out the door.
Callie pointed toward the snowmobiles on the lawn. “You
expected different? He was the best we could get. He’s a damn fine
surgeon, and he’s feeling his way as a general practitioner. He used to work at a big hospital in Chicago, but something happened and, well,
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let’s just say Caleb knows where of he speaks when he talks about
post-traumatic stress disorder. You should see him get together with
Mel. Caleb is sure Mel is repressing trauma that happened while in
the military, and Mel is certain Caleb’s been probed.”
“Nice,” Jen said, hopping on the back of the snowmobile.
“They’ve gotten to be really good friends.” Callie gunned the
engine and headed toward Stella’s.
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Chapter Six
“What the hell do you mean he’s dead?” Stef heard himself
shouting, but he couldn’t help it.
Finn Taylor’s voice was perfectly smooth over the speaker. “The
police were called out to Ms. Waters’ complex when the movers Stef
sent got there to finish cleaning out her apartment. The police entered and found a Caucasian male aged thirty-five with his throat slit from
ear to ear in the living room. One of the detectives called to the scene remembered Renard from the day before. His receptionist made the
official identification. Jean Claude Renard is dead.”
Stef felt his stomach churn. This was trouble. It had started out as
bad trouble, but this was much worse than he expected.
Nate sat back in his chair, crossing one booted foot over his knee.
He looked every inch the lawman he was. “Do the police have any
idea what Renard was doing in Jennifer’s apartment? We locked up
after we left.”
There was a little sigh. “Gentlemen, this crime is so fresh I have
very little information about it. The only reason I know what I know
is my partner’s extremely good relationship with the chief of police.”
Stef snorted. That was a delicate way of putting it. Julian Lodge