Maia's Magickal Mates [The Double R 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (14 page)

How could she have limits, however, and still want them both? How could she have limits and fervently wish to see her latest sketch brought to life with her in the starring role?

Maia started at the knock that sounded on her door, and a second later she heard Maria’s voice call through the door to let her know that breakfast was ready.

She smiled as she got up to spray some fixative on her just-finished piece to keep it from smudging. She planned to frame it like the ones she’d done of Thayne and Cade just yesterday.

“Thanks, Maria. I’ll be right down.”

Maia took the sketch pad out on the balcony to apply the spray. She waited the necessary amount of time to let it dry then flipped the pages over and finally stopped at her previous sketches of Thayne and Cade. As if to fortify herself before facing the day, she stared at each picture in turn for a long moment, committing the men’s images to memory before she flipped closed the large sketch pad and got up to slide it between the mattress and box spring of her bed. She wasn’t quite ready for anyone to see any of her latest work, especially the last piece. She didn’t know if she ever would be, so for the time being she needed to put her sketch pad somewhere for safekeeping.

Maia slid out of her pj’s and left them on her bed before heading to her bathroom. She took a quick shower and threw on her requisite outfit of jeans, boots, and Western shirt before brushing her wavy hair to a fine sheen.

Suitably groomed, Maia left her room and headed downstairs.

As expected, everyone already sat around the center island getting ready to dig in to Maria’s standard delicious fare.

Breakfast wasn’t usually a formal affair, and the family almost never used the dining room to partake.

At least Maia only had to put up with one set of lovebirds and matchmakers this morning as just Tamara, Jesse, and Jax sat at the island. Her mother, the social butterfly, preferred taking most of her meals at the cookhouse and main dining hall with the ranch guests.

Maia said good morning to everyone and took a seat opposite the trio just as Maria put a plate of fluffy scrambled eggs and French toast in front of her. “Thanks, but…” She let her sentence die and gave Maria a sweet smile before looking at the food that was supposed to make up for her “deficient” diet. Maria insisted that she needed something to replace the protein she wasn’t getting by not eating any beef, chicken, or fish.

Maia didn’t have the heart to remind Maria for the umpteenth time she didn’t wear or ingest
anything
that exploited animals in any way, which included everything on her plate, even including the bread, and the honey on the table.

Maria, like most carnivores and some vegetarians, didn’t get the exploitation-versus-harm argument that vegans faced every day. She thought as long as the food wasn’t the byproduct of an animal’s death then it wasn’t on Maia’s can’t-have list. Maria, like Jeremiah and Maia’s mom, was from the old school, and it had taken Maia months alone to get her to add more beans to the lunch and dinner menus, to cook without butter, and to try olive oil. Before Maia’s arrival, Maria could have definitely given Paula Deen, the butter queen, a run for her money. She didn’t have too much of an issue with olive oil and adding more beans to the house menu, knowing that the latter helped provide Maia with her daily requirement of proteins.

However, she still had a problem with breakfast have and can’t-have items, especially anything involving eggs, and she’d yet to prepare a meal with tofu. Maria thought tofu was unnatural.

Maia wondered what Maria or Jeremiah and his boys would say about her footwear and how she’d had to go online to find a place that specialized in vegan cowboy boots. None of them would understand the constant dilemmas she faced as a vegan living on a working dude ranch, so Maia just decided to keep most of her “sacrifices” to herself.

Besides, if she had her way, she would soon be getting a more than sufficient and natural supply of protein, thank you very much.

She had to stop herself from laughing out loud at the fresh thought. That sketch had just brought out the raunchy in her, not that it had that far to go to come out.

“So, where’s everyone else? Oh no, let me guess…”

“Jeremiah’s at the cookhouse catching breakfast with Helena,” Tamara said.

Since Jesse and Jax’s father and Carson and Sam’s mother had become an item, Jeremiah had tried to get Helena to quit her job as The Double R’s head cook. Helena, however, liked earning her own way and didn’t want to give up the position, not even for love. Not to mention she truly enjoyed what she did. Jeremiah was perfectly happy going to the cookhouse to take most of his meals, too.

“What about Desi?” Maia asked.

“She got an early start house hunting with Carson and Sam. Their realtor caught a lead on a ranch not far from this property.”

Returning from Louisiana with a sizable inheritance in hand after taking care of some urgent family business, Carson and Sam were all set to get a home of their own to share with Desiree, where they all three hoped to raise horses and kids, not necessarily in that order.

Maia smiled at the thought of her conservative and highly organized sister running after screaming toddlers and cleaning stinky diapers, sticky fingers, and chubby cheeks.

She couldn’t wait to become an auntie, and with the way Tamara and Desiree went at their men and vice versa, Maia was sure that she didn’t have too much longer to wait for this event to take place.

“So,” Tamara began, leaning her elbows on the island top and resting her chin in her palms. “How did your date go last night?”

The phone rang, and Maia thanked Goddess for the reprieve.

Maria plucked the receiver from the base of the wall phone and identified herself before finding out who was on the line. Once she did, she covered the mouthpiece and stage-whispered in a singsong voice, “Maia, it is your handsome ER doctor!” To further emphasize her enthusiasm, Maria wiggled the receiver back and forth in the air.

Mortified, Maia slid off her barstool. She refused, however, to slink off into another room to take the call. Her sister and brothers-in-law would grill her as soon as she returned, anyway. She might as well keep things out in the open, at least as much as possible.

Maia walked across the room to take the call and couldn’t help smiling at Maria’s ruddy, round face.

At five feet, she was the only one in the house shorter than Maia, and when Maia reached to take the receiver from her, she had to stop herself from laughing at Maria’s beaming expression. The woman looked ready to burst at any moment. Maia found her attitude both atypical and surprising. Not too many people from Maria’s generation would understand or approve of the changes that had gone on in the main house for the last two years. However, Maria, Jeremiah, and Jasmine all seemed to have adopted a live-and-let-live, don’t-worry-be-happy attitude toward their children’s couplings.

Since Thayne and Cade’s parents were both dead, Maia at least didn’t have to worry about facing condemnation from a parental direction.

“Hey, Thayne.”

“Hey, Little Maia.”

“Okay, if you’re going to start that, I’m hanging up,” she said and listened to Thayne’s robust, deep laughter on the other end of the line. The butter-melting, sexy sound wrapped her in a warm cocoon of such intimate privacy, she forgot there were several other people in the room trying to act like they weren’t listening to or watching her.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

“Well, try.”

“So, what are you doing tonight?”

“Depends. What are you doing?”

“I was planning on making a nice, romantic dinner for a special lady I know.”

“You’ve invited Caroline Henson over?”

“What? No!”

Maia burst out laughing at Thayne’s outraged tone. She didn’t know why she’d asked him what she did, but she was glad she had. She liked keeping people on their toes, especially the men in her life.

“Okay, so now that you’ve got that out of your system…”

“Couldn’t resist,” she said.

“Seriously, you know you have nothing to worry about, right?”

She knew, at least not where other women were concerned. However, there was still the matter of their little ménage a trois dilemma.

“Maia?”

“I know,” she murmured.

“Good. So can you make it?”

She so badly wanted to ask him what about Cade but didn’t want to shock him any further. Thayne wasn’t ready to fulfill that particular fantasy yet. She didn’t think he ever would be and unaccountably grieved that failure. “Give me a time, and I’m in there.”

Thayne did, and they spent a brief moment on small talk before finally hanging up.

By the time Maia made it back to her seat, pin-drop silence had fallen over the kitchen, and everyone pretended to be engrossed in their meals.

She had to give them all credit, they waited a while, allowing her to get back in her seat and take a sip of orange juice, before they started in on her.

“So, um, I found an interesting item in the backseat of my car last night,” Tamara opened, delivering the first salvo with a grin as wide as a carved pumpkin’s.

Maia frowned, confused for a second until she remembered sliding off Thayne’s tie in the car last night and tossing it over her shoulder.

Oh no.

She barely finished the thought before Tamara produced the navy silk item in question and swung it back and forth on her crooked finger.

Maia remembered how she and Thayne had gone at each other—more like how she’d jumped him—inside the house and how they never made it up the stairs. In the state they’d been in, they could have not made it to the house at all and just finished what they’d started in the car.

Tamara could have easily been swinging Maia’s panties from her finger instead of, or in addition to, Thayne’s tie. Not to mention everyone at the table
and
Cade would have caught her and Thayne in flagrante delicto in the car last night.

Perish the thought!

With as much dignity as she could muster, Maia reached across the island to snatch Thayne’s tie out of her sister’s unresisting hand while Tamara’s partners in crime chuckled and coughed behind their raised fists. “Thank you. I’d wondered where that had gotten to.”

“I’ll bet,” Jax said.

“So, how was Joe’s last night?” Maia asked, quickly changing the subject.

“Usual. We had a good time,” Jesse said.

“Seemed like your boyfriend’s brother was trying to drown some sorrows, though,” Jax put in. “I wonder what that was all about. Have any ideas?”

Maia shrugged. “Not a clue.” What would Cade be drowning his sorrows over? He didn’t seem like the type to take any woman’s rejection to heart, so it couldn’t have been her declining his invitation. Could it?

The thought that Cade carried a torch for her after just one meeting engendered her hope.

Could she possibly get Thayne on board with the program so that if and when they brought up the ménage a trois possibility he might be suitably receptive?

Maia never looked forward to a dinner date more than she did tonight’s.

Cade liked solving puzzles, and he liked to know what made people tick. He especially liked to know what made a woman in whom he was interested tick.

He couldn’t get a bead on Maia Jensen, though. Of course, it was early in the game. They had only met yesterday, and he hadn’t had the opportunity to turn the full power of his charms on her. He hadn’t had a chance to solve the puzzle that was Maia.

Coming home drunk last night, he had to admit, had not been the best way to charm her or crack her code. In fact, he feared that he had totally ruined everything and turned her off, which didn’t bode well for his getting-Maia-Thayne-and-Cade-intimate campaign.

More like Mom and Dad’s campaign.

Not that he disagreed with them. On the contrary, he couldn’t wait to put his parents’ plans for him, Thayne, and Maia into action.

He just needed to make the room stop spinning first.

Cade struggled up to a sitting position, head pounding. God, who told him to drink so much last night? What had he been trying to prove and to whom?

He’d probably alienated Maia with last night’s antics and most definitely gotten a heavy-duty hangover in the bargain. All he needed now was for Thayne to bust in the room any second with his zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay vibe to start Cade’s morning off correctly.

He had to beat his brother to the punch.

Thayne knocked on the door.

Damn, it’s too late
.

Cade muttered something unintelligible, even to him, and held his head between his hands as he sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ll be down in a minute.” Shit, saying that hurt.

“Hurry up. I’ve got breakfast ready for you.”

The thought of food sent a wave of nausea washing over him. At least his brother didn’t burst in and open up all the blinds to assault his corneas like he had yesterday morning. Thank God for small favors.

Cade got up and lurched to the bathroom, making it to the toilet just in time to upchuck the contents of his stomach, which amounted to all the alcohol he’d consumed last night and…corn, peas, and carrots! Where the hell did those come from? Had Thayne force-fed him mixed vegetables last night before getting him to bed? He didn’t think his brother that sadistic even if Thayne wasn’t a meat eater.