Clifftop Fantasies [BDSM Menage Fantasies] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (4 page)

Jane seemed to hesitate, but her voice didn’t change. “Oh, not much,” she said lightly. “Just business. I thought I’d spend a few days here to see if I could help with any part of Allen’s estate. And you? What are your plans?”

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough to help with his estate?” Karl sounded hostile.

Jane waved her spoon at Karl warningly. She still smiled playfully, but there was a sharp edge to her voice. “Don’t sidestep the question,” she said. “How long are you planning to stay?”

“Until Allie says she doesn’t need my help anymore,” Karl said. He gave Allie a glance, as if inviting her to make a comment, but Allie focused resolutely on her food and tried to decide what Karl and Jane were really saying to each other. There was an undercurrent of a very turbulent shared history, she thought, but she couldn’t tell what their relation to each other had really been.

Jane laughed humorlessly. “Take that as a warning, sweetie,” she said, putting a hand over Allie’s and squeezing. There was no shiver this time, Allie noted. “
Some
people need to be forcefully removed or they’ll take over like they own the place. You need to be careful about who you associate with.”

Karl gave a laugh into his plate, but Allie could see that the tips of his ears had turned slightly red. She waited to see if he would rise to the bait, but he only smiled at them both as he dug in to his sandwich. Obviously Jane was accusing him of something, she thought, but it seemed to be about more than just overstaying his welcome. Was she insinuating something about Karl’s relationship to Allie’s father?

Jane watched Karl until she seemed satisfied that she had won that point. Then she turned back to Allie. “Tell me all about your childhood,” she said, and Allie was relieved that they didn’t seem to be going back to the previous conversation about how her father had sent Jane away to spare her the heartache of watching him die. Allie didn’t have strong emotional ties to him, but that just seemed like too intimate and depressing a topic to dwell on.

“It’s been a pretty boring life,” she told Jane, trying to come up with the highlights. “I lived with my mom after my father left. We had some contact but not much. He would send presents for my birthday and Christmas, of course, and he helped me get a couple of jobs when I was in college—” She stopped abruptly then noticed the look that Jane shot at Karl. It seemed as if Jane was trying to gauge how much Karl knew about Allie’s past. Allie frowned, looking between them, suddenly nervous. It occurred to her that maybe she shouldn’t trust Karl as much as she had.

“That was so sweet of him,” Jane said, focusing her attention back on Allie. “He helped your mom out, too, didn’t he? He couldn’t possibly have been a complete deadbeat dad.”

Karl snorted softly, but Allie agreed, “Oh, no, I don’t think he was a deadbeat dad. I’m pretty sure he sent money occasionally, but I’m positive Mom never asked him for any.”

“Is she dead?” Jane seemed to realize that her question had come out too sharply and arranged her face into an expression of sympathy as she reached over to stroke Allie’s arm.

“Oh, no,” Allie said quickly. “I guess I misspoke. She’s fine, although she moved to Florida last year with her boyfriend. I haven’t seen her since then…” Her voice trailed off.

“I’m so glad.” Jane smiled sweetly at her before transferring her gaze to Karl. The sweetness lessened considerably, although she held on to the smile. “I’d absolutely love to look at the photograph collection. Where are you keeping it?”

Karl smiled back at her. “You can see any of the vanilla ones you want to. They’re hanging around the house. The others are not accessible. Allie prefers it that way.”

Jane glanced at Allie but didn’t seem surprised. “Have you seen them?”

Allie shook her head. “I’m—I’m not really interested in pornography,” she said in response to Jane’s raised eyebrows.

“But, dear, they’re not
pornography
,” Jane protested. “They’re erotic, of course, but they’re also
art.
Don’t you think you could appreciate them for their artistic quality? You really should take more of an interest in your father’s work if you’re going to keep his memory alive.”

Allie considered that, wondering if she should ask Jane later in private to tell her about her father’s kinkier work. She didn’t have a strong desire to know about it, but she supposed as his heir she did have a responsibility to at least know what it was about. And Jane wouldn’t have that suggestive smile on her face that Karl always had when he mentioned them.

Jane leaned forward, her face full of earnest concern. When she spoke it was in a stage whisper, as if Karl wasn’t sitting two feet from them. “And you don’t want people to be able to take advantage of you.”

Karl let out a bark of laughter, standing up from the table and brushing the crumbs off his green shirt. “Very subtle, Jane. But as a matter of fact, I agree completely.” He looked sternly at Allie. “You do need to be careful about being taken advantage of. The day you’re willing to grow up and accept your responsibility as the caretaker of your father’s art, I will be more than happy to sit down and hand it all over to you. Until that day, you’ve asked me to keep it safe. That’s what I’m doing. I don’t intend to let
anyone
put a hand on it until you’re ready.”

He put his dishes in the sink and walked out of the room, the two women staring after him. Jane jumped up and followed him out to the back porch, and Allie could hear them talking in low voices as she cleared the table and began on the dishes. She was tempted to try to listen in, but she could see from the window that they had walked out into the yard and were standing together. There was no way she could overhear anything without going out on the back porch. And, besides, she told herself sternly as she began putting away the leftovers, that was just too paranoid. There was no reason to suspect either of them of anything shady or underhand. Although they clearly suspected each other, she realized, watching Karl stalk away toward the barn while Jane turned back to the house, her face a mask of frustration and anger. Unless it was a smoke screen to keep her from noticing that they were working together.

Before Jane got to the back door, however, the guest buzzer went off again. This time there was no excited hope that maybe it would be an actual guest. Feeling a sudden premonition of further disaster, Allie froze, staring in the direction of the front door. Then she slowly put down the plate she’d been washing and dried her hands. She walked tentatively into the entry, wondering what else the universe could possibly have in store for her today.

A short, balding man in a rumpled pinstripe suit stood by the desk, his smarmy face alight with a triumphant smile. Allie closed her eyes briefly, hoping that when she opened them he would have disappeared or turned into something less disturbing, like a pack of zombies chanting “Brains!” as they stumbled through her house looking for snacks.

“Allie Cat!” He held out his arms as if expecting her to throw herself into them with joy.

Chapter 4

It was the last person in the world Allie wanted to see. She wanted to run the other way but instead forced herself to take a step forward and say, “What are you doing here, Charlie?”

Charlie’s smile didn’t fade at her lack of enthusiasm. He gestured toward the array of suitcases and equipment bags at his feet. “I’m staying here,” he told her cheerfully, winking as if they were sharing some kind of joke.

It didn’t seem much like a joke to Allie. “No, you’re not,” she said flatly. “And who told you about this place?”

“A mutual acquaintance,” he said smoothly, opening the guest book that still sat on the reception desk and pulling a pen out of his pocket.

She reached over and slammed the book closed before he could start writing in it and make his presence real. It still seemed possible that he might be just a ghastly hallucination. Maybe this whole day was nothing but a nightmare that she would wake up from in a minute. She resisted the urge to pinch herself as they stared at each other.

Then his eyes went past her, and she turned to see Jane coming toward them, a sly expression on her face. She smiled at them both, saying, “My, my, if it isn’t Charlie Wayne. How are you, Charlie? It’s been a long time.” She held out her hand, and Allie had the unsettling feeling that if Charlie hadn’t obviously known it was her place, it would have seemed as if Jane was the owner. She glanced down at her T-shirt and shorts, determined to start dressing more like a B and B owner than a downstairs maid.

Charlie shook hands with Jane, glancing briefly at Allie. “Nice to see you again, Jane,” he said casually. “I didn’t know you and Allie were acquainted.”

Jane gave him a tinkling laugh, for some reason making Allie feel like she was in a play of some kind. Maybe Jane would turn up dead in the next act, Allie thought with a guilty sense of hope. Or, even better, maybe Charlie could be the corpse and Jane would turn out to be the murderer.

“I just met her this morning,” Jane confided, as if it were a secret of some kind. “But as you know, I was a very, very close friend of her father’s.” She winked at Allie, making her want to shudder. Everyone seemed determined to force her into conversations about her father’s sex life, which was the last thing she wanted to be thinking about. Or the second to last, anyway.

But maybe it was better than what Charlie wanted to talk to her about. She put the guest book in the desk drawer and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Wayne. We don’t have any openings at the moment. I can recommend several places in town that would be much better for you. Have a nice day.”

Jane laughed again. “My dear, there are plenty of rooms available. And you really can’t afford to turn down business, can you? Come with me, Charlie, and I’ll show you what she and Karl have been doing with the place.” They walked off together toward the staircase, Allie staring after them in horror. If she’d had a gun handy she would have been severely tempted to take them both out, but as it was she had no idea how she could stop them from just settling in and taking over her life. They were obviously going to ignore her hints and requests to leave. And Jane was right. She really couldn’t afford to turn down paying guests. Maybe a quiet talk with Charlie later would convince him to go away. She desperately needed to beg him not to talk about her past to Brad.

But she didn’t get a chance to have that quiet talk with him. To Allie’s supreme horror, Charlie had brought several cameras with him, and he and Jane spent the afternoon taking pictures of the house, the view, even the bedrooms. Karl went around with them and seemed to be interested in their conversation. Allie felt a little betrayed by that, but it wasn’t like she was his employer, she told herself. If he wanted to hang around with Jane and Charlie, it wasn’t any of her business. When Allie challenged their right to photograph her property, Charlie laughed, patting her arm.

“Don’t worry, doll,” he said, making her blood boil with the casual endearment. “You need some good pictures for your marketing materials, don’t you? We’re helping you out here, and we won’t even charge you for them. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

She started to tell him that if she got anywhere near his mouth she was more likely to shove a poisoned muffin into it than look inside, but they ignored her and moved on, talking f-stops and ambient lighting.

When Brad finally got home from work, Allie was sitting at the kitchen table, her head in her hands, wondering what she had done to deserve the pack of rabid wolves that was descending on her. He came in and kissed her on the forehead then became aware of voices outside. He went to the window and looked out, then asked, “Honey, who are those people out on the lawn with Karl?”

“Those are our two new guests,” Alley told him, guiltily wondering how she could explain the situation and how much she could get away with leaving out. He was so comfortingly ordinary that she couldn’t stand the thought of him getting tangled up with pornography and sordid love affairs. “The woman claims to have been my father’s lover, and the other man is some kind of photographer. They’ve been taking pictures all afternoon.”

“Claims to have been? Do you doubt her?” Brad looked confused.

“Well, no, not really. Karl knows her. I think his exact words were ‘among other things.’ I really don’t want to know what the ‘other things’ were.”

Brad looked out the back window, obviously not bothered by the same kinds of visuals she was getting. “But they’re paying guests?”

She shrugged. “They both say they are, but Karl seems to think that we’ll never see any money from Jane.”

He snorted. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be mean, Brad,” Allie bristled, in spite of the nasty thoughts she’d been having about Karl all afternoon. “He’s been a big help—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. We couldn’t have done it without him,” Brad went to the fridge to get a soda. “So are we feeding these people?”

Allie groaned, putting her head back down on her crossed arms. “Probably. Jane insisted on fixing lunch today. Ch—Mr. Wayne wasn’t here yet, so I’m not sure what he’s expecting.”

“Just tell them that breakfast is the only meal that’s provided,” Brad said, as if it was the obvious solution, and as if they were likely to pay any attention at all.

“It’s not that easy,” she sighed, getting up to start dinner. Then a thought struck her, and she headed for the back door instead. “But I’ll go out and see what their plans are while you relax a little.”