Maia's Magickal Mates [The Double R 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (16 page)

Cade caught a few empty ones, but for some reason when he pointed them out to Maia, none of them met with her approval. He noticed that these empty tables were in close proximity to her family members and suspected Maia wanted to be as far away from them as possible when she sat down to eat with him.

Was she ashamed of him, or did she not want to expose him to all the gossip that would certainly follow her and get back to Thayne about how she had had lunch with his brother?

“Over there.” Maia finally pointed out a table secluded from the rest in the back of the dining room where a family of three prepared to leave.

Cade followed her, negotiating a path through the myriad tables and their occupants before they finally made it to the empty one and set down their trays.

Cade remembered his manners just in time to prevent Maia from pulling out her own chair and waited until she seated herself before he helped her slide it in. Once done, he took his own seat opposite her.

He felt her staring at him and looked up from his tray. “What?”

“I thought it was Thayne who was old-fashioned, but I see it’s a family trait.”

“Contrary to popular opinion, chivalry is not dead.”

“Guess not. At least not out here, anyway.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. You’re a city slicker from New York.”

Maia chuckled. “Look who’s talking, Mr. Hollywood.”

“It wasn’t Hollywood. It was LA. Slight distinction.”

“I suppose.”

A lull fell over the table, but it proved a relatively comfortable one, one that allowed them both to dig into their meals without acting self-conscious.

He chewed his steak and washed it down with iced water as he watched her, not speaking until he had swallowed. “I hope I didn’t run you off last night.”

“Run me off?”

“Coming home drunk,” he said. “Did I cramp your and Thayne’s style very much?” Before she could answer he got a flash of her, tousled and ruddy faced, standing beside Thayne at the bottom of the staircase, and he knew that he had ruined their night.

Good. No need for them to do anything without him, especially that.

“We were getting our groove on when you showed up, but no harm, no foul.”

Cade laughed at her allusion to her and Thayne’s aborted lovemaking, liking her candor. In fact, he liked a lot of things about Maia and knew that he only scratched the surface of what she was really made of. He was eager to learn more.

“You know he invited me to dinner tonight,” she said.

“He mentioned something about it to me.”

“Are, um…are you going to be there?”

“Do you want me there?”

“I mean, he said it was a romantic dinner, but he, um…he didn’t say it was for two.”

Interesting that she would pick up on that, though Cade knew in Thayne’s mind the assumption was two for dinner and not a third wheel. Thayne wasn’t on the same page of the playbook as he and Maia seemed to be.

He also highly doubted that Thayne had mentioned Cade’s dream about their parents to her, and unless Maia had been eavesdropping when he’d made his confession, there was no way she knew what Cade had planned for the three of them.

At least he knew now where he stood with Maia, though.

She wanted him as much as he wanted her. He could see it in her dilated pupils and come-hither smile. He could hear it in her flirty, seductive tone when she spoke to him.

Maia didn’t know that Cade would be there tonight whether she or Thayne wanted him at the dinner or not, however. It was his duty, and contrary to his brother’s opinion, Cade took his responsibilities seriously, especially one that meant protecting the only brother he had and safeguarding the woman that Fate had chosen for both of them.

Thayne really hated to do this, especially after the comment Maia had made about Caroline. Even though he knew now that she’d been teasing him, he still took her words to heart. He probably shouldn’t have, but there it was.

Speaking of whom, Thayne told Caroline he was taking a quick break and headed toward the emergency exit that led to the ambulance bay.

“They’ll be here any minute,” she said to his back.

“I know. I’m not going far.” He rarely took breaks while on duty, and when he did, it wasn’t to smoke or sleep like many of the doctors and nurses he knew but to crash and recharge his much-in-demand batteries for another round of healing. He only took as long as necessary to achieve an adequate boost.

Today had been a particularly and out-of-the-ordinary hectic day. He’d seen a lot more than his share of broken bones, sliced limbs, and shattered skulls to go along with the usual minor cuts, scrapes, bruises, and sniffles for the day.

What, was there a full moon tonight?

It would get even worse when the next barrage of patients arrived, all victims of a school-bus-meets-minivan vehicle accident on a nearby thruway.

In the meantime, Thayne needed to reach Maia to apprise her of the situation, much as he hated to do it, because it looked like he wouldn’t be getting out of here any time soon.

He tried the house first, not surprised when the housekeeper Maria answered, but he was unwilling to leave his message with her. He wanted and
needed
to speak to Maia directly. He told Maria as much and hung up from her to try Maia’s cell. When he got no answer and it went straight to voice mail, he assumed she was in a dead zone. Goddess knew there were plenty of them out in the boonies.

Thayne called his last resort and miraculously got him on his cell.

Was the universe trying to tell him something or what?

“
Diga me!
”

“Cade, it’s Thayne.”

“Hey, bro, what’s up? And you know you’re lucky you caught me. We were just getting ready to head out for horseback riding on one of the remote trails.”

“I don’t have a lot of time, and I have a huge favor to ask.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you know where Maia is?”

“Why?”

“I need to tell her something.”

“Are you calling to cancel?”

“I…” He already felt like a piece of crap, but the disapproval he heard in his brother’s voice made him feel a hundred times worse. Not to mention he could only imagine the same tone in Maia’s voice just a hundredfold more, with a sprinkle of disappointment on top.

“Thayne?”

“There’s an all-hands-on-deck emergency on its way in. It can’t be helped.”

“How late are you going to be?”

“The patients haven’t arrived yet, so it’s hard to tell, but I’m guessing very.”

“Why cancel? I can entertain her until you get home.”

“I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“After the way I treated you earlier?”

“Oh, you mean the whole wanting me to be scarce thing?”

Thayne couldn’t help the grin that split his face. “Yes, that.”

“I was going to ignore you anyway and crash.”

Thayne caught himself between gritting his teeth and laughing out loud. He finally gave in and chuckled against the mouthpiece. Cade was Cade. What could Thayne do with him? “All right. But I still have to cook when I get home.”

“If you even have the energy to, but since you brought it up—”

“I already owe you my life, coming to my rescue.”

“Oh please, as many times as you’ve bailed my ass out over the years, sometimes literally, I can do this for you.”

Thayne shared a laugh with his brother remembering Cade’s not-too-distant, wild past.

“Look, I know I’m no Bobby Flay or even you in the kitchen, but I can follow directions as well as the next guy, at least get things started.”

The piercing sound of fast-approaching sirens filled the brief lull. Thayne’s heart began its we’re-about-to-get-bombarded beat in concert. Adrenaline pumped through his veins with fight-or-flight eagerness and ennui. It had been this way since he’d become a doctor. He looked forward to the rescue and healing but not the inevitable crash after depleting his gifts in the spirit of supplementing and sometimes bucking modern medical procedures.

“Bro, use me,” Cade prompted, and when Thayne didn’t answer he asked, “Do you really have a choice?”

Thayne pressed his thumb and forefinger against his closed eyelids and sighed. It was the only indulgence he’d be allowed for the next few hours, because the first ambulance pulled into the bay. It was now or never. “I have to go. Take care of Maia until I get there!”

“You can count on—”

Thayne didn’t hear the rest of his brother’s vow as he had clicked “End Call” and slid his cell back into his pocket.

The doors burst open, and he met the EMTs as they wheeled a gurney, containing a small, badly bruised and bloodied figure in a neck brace, off the back of the ambulance.

It’s showtime.

* * * *

That couldn’t have worked out better had I planned things myself
.

Of course Cade didn’t wish whatever emergency Thayne now faced on anyone, because he knew the next few hours would prove hard for his brother and whoever he treated. If his talent worked anything like Cade’s, Thayne would be emotionally and physically used up when he got home, in no condition to cook in the kitchen, much less anywhere else in the house.

Cade smiled at his joke, trying not to take too much pleasure in another session of lovemaking between Maia and Thayne being aborted.

Now he didn’t even have to crash the dinner. He would be an invited, welcomed guest.

“Hey, Malloy! You need to get the lead out.”

Cade glanced up to see Maia on her mount, a beautiful, spotted Appaloosa that she handled with such easy grace and skill anyone who knew horses would have thought she had been riding most of her life instead of just the last two years since she’d been on The Double R.

He smiled at her, remembering his vision of her before he’d even met her and how he’d imagined her on a horse like Lady Godiva. He had to squelch that thought as quickly as it surfaced for fear of getting hard right out there in the open for all the little guests’ kiddies to see.

“What’s up with you?” Maia asked.

“Who said there’s anything up with me?”

“I do, because you look like the cat that swallowed the canary.” Maia took the opportunity to dismount her horse, reassuringly patting the animal on his rump before taking him by the reins and making her way over to where Cade stood.

She watched him put away his phone and pointed her chin at his front pocket. “Who was that on the phone?”

“Thayne tried to reach you,” he said and watched her shoulders slump as if she already knew why Thayne had called. Evidently, Thayne had already bailed on her at least once, and she hadn’t yet become inured against the disappointment.

“He cancelled our dinner.”

“No, not at all. He just wanted to let you know he would be pretty late. He asked me to keep you company until he got home.”

She looked at him doubtfully, and he didn’t blame her, really. Thayne asking Cade to take care of Maia until he got home was tantamount to asking the mouse to watch the cheese.

“He doesn’t want the entire evening to go to waste, so he figured I could entertain you in the meantime.”

“Really?” She bit her full bottom lip, and Cade had to stop himself from groaning out loud. It was all he could do, however, to switch his weight from one leg to the other and surreptitiously adjust himself. “You wouldn’t be pulling my leg, would you?”

Cade raised his hand as if taking an oath. “Scout’s honor.”

“You were a Boy Scout?”

“No, but that didn’t stop me from helping an old lady across a street a time or two.”

She rolled her eyes at him and scoffed. “Yeah, right.”

Cade laughed and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close but not too close. “You know you don’t have anything to worry about with me or Thayne around, right?”

She looked up at him, frowning.

Cade silently cursed himself for letting the cat peek out of the bag and hoped it wasn’t too late to stuff it back in and tie up the sack tight. “What I mean is we would never let anything happen to you.”

“Well, um, that’s nice to know. I guess. I didn’t know I was in any imminent danger on the ranch, except from maybe an unlikely stampede.”

Cade shrugged. “You never know what’s coming down the pike.”

“You’re teasing my brain, Riddler, and usually I don’t mind trying to solve a good mystery, but we’ve got work to do and kids to train.”

“You go and I’ll catch up with you.” He gently pushed her away, back toward her mount. His jeans were getting a mite snug in the crotch area, and her being so close wasn’t doing anything to alleviate his condition, just exacerbating it.

She looked at him warily as she did his bidding, mounted her horse, then steered the animal around to follow the trail the rest of the party had taken to the riding path through the woods.