Madison's Quest (22 page)

Shane huffed out a sigh against her fingers. “Let’s get this
over with then.” But he grasped her hair and brought her mouth to his, the
touch and twine of his tongue trying to persuade her to change his mind.

It made her smile inside. It sent a shiver of warning
through her, one that was repeated moments later when it was Tyler’s mouth
doing the persuading as he held her against him, in arms that conveyed strength
and a willingness to protect her against harm.

She didn’t want to leave those arms, except to return to
Shane’s. But at the same time, it was too easy to see where that would lead.
The longer she was with them, the harder it would be to keep her promise to
Elijah.

Success in a band, the kind of success he would have had if
he’d lived, meant being on tour. Being on the road a lot, especially at the
beginning, grabbing at every opportunity for exposure and being grateful to do
even a fifteen-minute opener for a headline band.

It’d be different if she concentrated on being a songwriter—

She squelched the thought, though her fingers tightened in
Tyler’s hair.

He deepened the kiss. Or she did.

And when he released her, Shane swooped, evening out the
time so that neither of them had kissed her longer.

Releasing her, Shane asked, “Still want to stop in
Sacramento?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s hit it then.”

In the Jeep he took her hand. “You’ve heard a lot of stories
about Tyler and me growing up. Now it’s time to hear some about you. Right,
Tyler?”

He leaned forward, capturing a lock of her hair between his
fingers. “Two against one, and this time majority does rule.”

“This time it does,” she said, filling the time to
Sacramento with the best of her memories.

* * * * *

Tanya’s description of where she’d been when Desiree pointed
toward a trailer park led them to a sprawling tree-lined neighborhood of
singlewides and doublewides, of parked campers alongside those that lived on
truck bodies.

“This looks pretty nice,” Madison said, surprised by the
mature trees and the well-kept lawns.

Shane stopped next to a pack of kids clustered around a
soccer ball and eating ice cream.

“Know where a lady with the last name of Owens lives?” he
asked.

They looked at him blankly.

“What about someone who’s into pixies? You know, kind of
like elves?”

A couple of kids exchanged glances. One of them shrugged.
The other pointed in the direction they were heading. “There’s a house that way
that’s got a bunch of statues in the yard.”

“Is
that way
still on this street?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.”

He pulled forward. Madison’s heart thumped harder.

The trailer was a singled wide with white paint and a dent
in one corner. The yard was red landscape stones and potted plants to better
show off a community of pixies.

They snoozed on their backs and sides under flowers on long
stems. They gathered cross-legged in a circle around one red pot, as if
admiring the blooms. They danced around another pot and played along one side
of a narrow concrete walkway.

They were obviously loved.

Shane turned toward her, letting the engine run. “This could
be good enough.”

She took a deep breath. “No. I need to take it further.”

Tyler rubbed her hair between his thumb and forefinger. “We
can’t talk you out of it?”

“No.” Though her skin went hot and cold.

Shane twisted the key. The Jeep went silent.

They got out. At the walkway she clasped their hands,
squeezed. “Thanks for being here for me.”

“As if you could get rid of us,” Shane said.

She released their hands, leading the way to the door and
ringing the bell.

A woman answered, similar enough in appearance to Desiree to
be her mother.

My grandmother.

The thought brought a disorienting lightheadedness.

Madison leaned backward, the warmth and solidness of Shane
and Tyler’s presence becoming an anchor.

“What do you want?” the woman said, her voice balanced
between curious and unwelcoming.

Good question. What do I want now that I’m here?

“Is your last name Owens?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Who wants to know?”

Madison’s throat went dry. It was Shane who said, “We’re
with a firm of private investigators. We’re looking for Desiree Owens. You’re
her mother?”

Hard-edged, ugly laughter erupted. “I’m not surprised she’s gotten
herself into big trouble. I’m just surprised it hasn’t happened sooner.”

Madison relaxed, a wall of separation descending and
becoming permanent. This woman would never be more than an unpleasant
encounter, someone labeled Bio-grandmother, but mostly someone to be forgotten.

“So you’re her mother?” she asked, wanting it confirmed.

The woman spat. “I am. But you’re wasting your time here.
She cleaned out what money and jewelry I had and took off a long time ago.”

A man’s voice yelled from inside the trailer, “Who you
talking to out there?”

The woman’s expression softened. “Nobody you know.”

“Make it quick.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Madison asked, “Did you see or hear from her after she
left?”

“No. Good riddance then. Good riddance now.” She glanced
over her shoulder, dropped her voice to say, “She was a little slut. I couldn’t
trust her around any of my boyfriends.”

Madison’s hand curled into a fist on behalf of the mother
she couldn’t remember. Bile rose at the thought of her mother being molested,
being at the mercy of a long string of men brought into her life by the woman
standing in front of them—until finally living on the streets at thirteen
seemed like the better option.

One last question. One last rock to turn over.

“Could she have sought out her father?”

“That loser? I don’t know if she’s had anything to do with
him or not. She didn’t growing up. Bastard never sent a dime. The only time I
heard from him was when he wanted
me
to send
him
money, so he
could buy commissary goods in prison.”

“What’s his name?”

“Dannie Pettine.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“If he’s not in prison? Probably sitting at some bar.” She
glanced over her shoulder, then said, “The good ones are worth keeping happy.
Hope you find her. The little tramp deserves what she’s got coming. What’d she
do anyway?”

Disappeared
.

“Sorry, client confidentiality.”

Desiree’s mother shrugged. “Good riddance then. Good
riddance now.”

The door closed.

Madison resisted kicking the pixies that lined the walkway.

She imagined her mother at thirteen, shattering them as she
left a home that had never been safe.

They reached the Jeep, and though she wanted to be held,
wanted the comfort of Shane and Tyler’s bodies against hers, she wanted to get
away from this place more.

This time she took the backseat.

Tyler took the front, turning to look at her. “Please tell
me you’re not thinking of hunting him down.”

She shuddered. “After that encounter? Consider yourself
told.”

“Good.” 

“For the record, I’m still glad we came here.”

Shane fired up the Jeep and got on the highway.

Ten minutes later they exited and parked in front of an ice-cream
shop.

“Chocolate would definitely hit the spot right now,” Madison
said, taking their hands for the walk to the front door.

Inside the shop she ordered two scoops of chocolate while
Shane went for strawberry and Tyler for banana.

“Outside okay with you guys?” she asked.

They answered by following her to a bench set in a
landscaped area beneath two palm trees.

“This is nice,” she said, lifting her face toward the sun
and closing her eyes, letting it burn away the aftereffects of the encounter at
the trailer park.

The sudden weight in the hand holding the ice cream, and
equally sudden disappearance of that weight, had her smiling, her lashes
lifting.

A trace of chocolate on Shane’s lip gave him away.

“Thief,” she said, leaning in, recovering the ice cream with
her tongue. “This is mine.”

“Yeah, it is.”

The huskiness in his voice was matched by eyes that held
heated seriousness, that said they weren’t talking about ice cream.

What am I going to do about this? About him? About them?

She knew how she wanted to answer.

Stay.

But how? How could she do it? How could she break the
promises she’d made at Eli’s grave every time she’d knelt there after placing a
CD against his headstone? How could she commit to a relationship with Tyler and
Shane when her parents had supported the dream of her being in a successful
band for so long?

But how could she deny herself this, when she wanted it so
much? When it felt so right?

She licked her ice cream, leaned over and licked Tyler’s,
chocolate and banana merging, their tongues colliding and sending heat
shivering downward to pool between her thighs.

She did the same with Shane, the taste of strawberry and
chocolate becoming the fusing of lips, the rub of tongues, the build of need in
all three of them.

She was afraid that by the time they reached Shane’s place,
or Tyler’s, the two of them would retreat, taking away the opportunity for
shared intimacy.

“We passed a hotel,” she said, and saw the shiver go through
Shane, felt a similar one go through Tyler where her hand rested on his thigh.

“I want you both. I want to be with you at the same time.”

She wanted more, so much more, but for now this was what she
could have.

A second shiver of need went through them, or maybe it was
fear, that being with her would expose the desire they had for each other. But
Shane nodded. And she turned to look at Tyler.

She could sense him wrestling down his fear that things
would go bad and he’d lose the closeness he already had with Shane, that he’d
lose the family he had in the Maguires and Montgomerys.

She wanted to use words to reassure him. She used her body
instead. The press of her mouth to ear and cheek and lips. The slide of her
tongue. The touch of her hand above his heart, and with its beat against her
palm, knew that seeing him hurt because of her would be devastating.

He had the soul of an artist. Like she did. While Shane had
the soul of a gambler, an irresistible mix of fun and possibility, a heady call
to take a chance, to pick up the dice and enter the game.

Time slowed. Thickened. Heated with Tyler’s softly
delivered, “I’m in.”

Her heart expanded and contracted with fierce need, with a
fear that one of them would change their minds—only settled into a running beat
of anticipation when they stepped into the hotel room.

Shane closed the door and locked it with a distinctive
click.

She wondered if it was a subtle message that what happened
in this room would stay there. Or if it was a different message, that there was
no turning back now.

He tugged his T off then threw it on the dresser.

“Nice. Very nice,” she said, her body on fire, her heart
pounding with a want that wasn’t merely physical.

Shane’s lashes dropped. He gave her the pouty,
let’s get
naked
look he’d probably perfected in his teens. But for all his seeming
wildness, she had the sense that he was relying on her to ease them into making
love together.

She looked at Tyler, and felt the same from him. Watched as
he unbuttoned his shirt, leaving it hanging open as if to force her into
pushing it off his shoulders.

Tenderness welled inside her. She placed her hands on his
chest, felt the rush of his heartbeat.

She slid her hands upward, her palms brushing over his
nipples, eliciting a soft moan before they reached his collarbones and swept
across and down his arms, ridding him of the shirt.

It fell to the floor and he stepped behind her, pulling her
against him, his lips trailing kisses down her neck. His erection pressed into
her.

Moisture coated her boy shorts. She reached out, ran her
fingertips over Shane’s nipple ring, grasped it, heat sliding into her pussy,
swelling and parting her lower lips as his lips parted and his lashes dipped.

She imagined pleasure streaking to his cock, and wanted to
give him more of it. “Let’s see the rest of it,” she said, husky-voiced,
further enthralled by their needing her to take charge, to break through
whatever kept them apart.

Shane’s hands dropped to his belt. His eyes bored into hers
while Tyler tensed against her, the two of them telling her without words not
to expect the barriers to tumble completely. Not this time anyway.

What she felt for them deepened. What she wanted for them
had already become thoroughly entangled with her own longing.

Like a striptease artist, Shane unbuckled, freed his belt an
inch at a time.

He tossed it onto the dresser next to his shirt. Toed off
shoes and socks.

Even his feet were sexy. Strong and tanned, capable of
riding a board in rough ocean surf.

Her gaze traveled up his legs to his fly. She licked her
lips, twisted the nipple ring, satisfaction surging through her with the buck
of his hips and low moan.

He undid button and zipper. Shoved his jeans and underwear
downward, exposing a cock that rose hungrily against taut abs.

She licked her lips again and it pulled away from his
muscled stomach.

Tyler’s hand slid from her hip to the front of her jeans. He
thumbed open the button, snagged the zipper and tugged. But instead of pushing
them down her legs, his hand slipped inside, burrowing beneath the boy shorts.

She moaned as his fingers grazed her swollen clit and traced
the wetness of her slit. Shane stepped into her. His hands grasped the hem of
her tank, tugging it off and tossing it on top of his T.