Maia's Magickal Mates [The Double R 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (39 page)

Cade almost laughed at how similar things in the Old West were to the twenty-first century as far as how medicine and doctors were perceived.

“You looked like you’d seen a ghost when you first came into the room. What’s the matter, Cade?”

“I…I had a vision.”

Thayne glanced over his shoulder to the Coles’ bedroom before grabbing Cade’s arm and leading him toward the back door. He opened it and pulled Cade out into the backyard and the fading light of the evening. When he was sure they were out of Olivia’s earshot, Thayne asked, “Was it about Tommy?”

“Since I don’t have a picture to go by, I can’t be sure, but whoever the boy is I saw, he has a connection to this place, Tommy, and his parents. The vision came to me when I touched a book in Tommy’s room.”

“You didn’t get a look at the boy?”

“I couldn’t see him clearly, just a vague shape and outline. I know he’s in danger, though, and he’s afraid.” Cade barely shuddered at the child’s residual terror and closed his eyes, trying to reconnect to his vision. He only caught flashes of two men and the boy. He couldn’t, however, see any faces, just vague silhouettes and bits and pieces of dialogue.

Please don’t hurt me…No, please. Don’t leave me…You’re leaving me here to die, just like he would have…

“Cade. Cade! Snap out of it!”

He came around to Thayne grasping his shoulders and shaking him. He stared at Thayne and wondered how long he had been out of it. “Did I say anything?” he croaked.

“No. You just moaned as if you were in pain.”

Not me. The boy!
“Oh, God, we have to get to him.”

“And how do you propose we do that? Do you have any idea where this faceless, nameless boy might be, any idea at all?”

Cade shook his head, feeling frustrated and useless.

Thayne squeezed his biceps. “There’s nothing we can do about things tonight.”

“We can’t just leave him alone.”

“We don’t have a choice.” Thayne sighed. “Look, going off half-cocked in the night isn’t going to help anyone, especially not this kid. Besides, you’re no good to anyone in your current condition. None of us are.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look it to me.”

“I’ll be better once we find this boy,” Cade said and noted his brother’s doubtful look. “You think it’s already too late, don’t you?”

Thayne waited a beat, swallowing hard before responding with a question of his own. “Have you ever found anyone alive before?”

“No, but this is different. I can feel it.”

“Okay, Cade. It’s different.”

Cade shook off his brother’s grip and took a couple of steps back. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not. I’m just trying to be realistic.”

“Meaning?”

“Are we supposed to go looking for this kid on our own?”

“I thought we could go to the sheriff and—”

“Tell him what, Cade? That you had a vision? That you may or may not know where some missing boys are? Tell him that he has a serial killer on his hands who probably won’t stop taking and killing boys until someone stops him?”

Cade paced. “We can’t just do nothing!”

“Everything all right back here?”

Cade almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of Clay Cole’s low voice sounding from behind them.

He turned at the same time as Thayne to see the man nearing the back door with an axe resting on his shoulder.

“Everything’s fine. We were just getting ready to pack it in for the night,” Thayne said.

“My Olivia doing okay?”

“She will be. I left her some things to help her feel better and some instructions on how to manage her gout a little better.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.”

“We’ll be leaving now.”

Clay touched the brim of his hat as he passed them and headed for the back door. He paused with his hand on the knob. “Y’all ride safe now.”

“We will,” Thayne said and watched as Clay headed into the house before grabbing Cade’s arm and leading him to the buggy.

“How much of our conversation do you think he heard?” Cade asked.

“We’ll know soon enough.”

* * * *

Sabrina’s delicious, filling dinner last night did little to settle Cade’s nerves. He barely ate anything. He didn’t get a good night’s sleep either worrying about what tomorrow would bring.

Thayne’s theory that things would look better in the morning just didn’t hold water.

Cade didn’t blame Thayne for
his
foreboding. He knew his brother had only done what he thought best for Cade last night, even if it wasn’t best for the missing boy.

When Cade turned on his side to light the kerosene lamp he wasn’t surprised to feel Maia’s hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t leave,” she whispered.

“I wasn’t.”

“Liar.”

He turned to face her, examining her anxious features in the dim light and wishing he could comfort her better than Thayne had comforted him last night. He reached out to caress the furrows from her brow, but Maia caught his hand and brought it down to kiss his palm.

Cade almost immediately got hard at the gentle touch of her breath and lips against his skin. He felt guilty that he could even think of allowing his body any sort of pleasure or release when a child was out there somewhere, alone, cold, scared, and wanting his mother.

Maia must have felt his reluctance, for she put a firm hand on his face and said, “Please don’t say no.”

He pressed his hand against hers. “I could never say no to you.” He just couldn’t tell her he loved her, especially not now. He didn’t deserve her or her love.

“Well aren’t you the lucky one? He says no to me all the time,” Thayne mumbled from behind Maia, and she and Cade both laughed.

“That’s because you’re not nearly as pretty as our Little Maia.”

“I’ve been told differently.”

“Whoever said it, they lied.”

Maia slid one arm around his waist and the other around his neck.

Cade welcomed the touch of her fingers in his hair, the way her hands played with the hair at the nape of his neck, steady and soothing.

She pressed close, tilting her head up for a kiss, and Cade obliged.

He closed his eyes, burying her lips beneath his before driving in his tongue, desperately sweeping inside the cavern of her mouth, seeking the reassuring stroke of hers. He groaned deep in his throat as their tongues met and tangled, roughly grabbing her leg and hooking it over his hip while he ground his hard shaft against her slit.

She was already wet, sopping, her juices mingling with his pre-cum as he teased her soft folds with the head of his cock. He moved his hips, sliding inside her pussy with almost no effort, glad that they were all already naked, slept no other way, even Thayne.

“Mmm, yes. Right where you belong,” Maia murmured.

“To you, baby, only to you.”

“You guys starting without me again?”

“You know you’re always welcome to join us.” Maia’s inner muscles trembled around Cade, gloving him so tight he barely got the words out past a gasp.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Cade felt Thayne enter Maia from behind, bracing himself for the mental incursion that always accompanied their physical encounters. The moment the tendrils of his brother’s thoughts washed over him he relaxed, however. He wondered why he almost always dreaded this part when it was so…calming.

Cade ground his hips flush against Maia as she pitched her body into his and matched his and Thayne’s pace.

Her thoughts were as chaotic as his own, and he admired how Thayne maintained a connection between them all without losing himself or going crazy.

It’s easy. I love you both.

Cade trembled at his brother’s simple thought, knowing that Maia had caught it, too, no way she couldn’t have with them all linked.

He buried his face against her shoulder, inhaling deep and mapping a path from her neck to her earlobe with his teeth and tongue. He licked the shell of her ear, matching the flicks and pinches he gave her swollen clit with his thumb.

When she panted and bucked against him, her thoughts spiraling, he knew how close she was to losing it. Cade thrust into her pussy one final time, grinding his hips hard against her as he put his mouth on her ear. “I love you, baby. I love you so much.”

“Oh, Cade!” She came as if his words had flipped a switch inside her cunt.

Cade and Thayne instantly joined her, a violent burst of energy flaring between them all and blasting out to encompass them in a shimmering light.

Cade fiercely trembled in Maia’s arms, the shock wave of their combined climax echoing through him as it never had before—love the defining force behind his orgasm.

What a surprise, Cade thought.

“It’s going to be all right, Cade.” Maia cupped his face with both hands, kissing his mouth again and again. “Whatever happens later, we’ll get through it together, all three of us. Together.”

Was she speaking with her heart or her gifts? Either way, Cade didn’t have the heart to tell her that one of them might not make it through, and that one was probably him.

* * * *

A few hours later the three of them were down in the kitchen finishing breakfast with Sabrina, Luke, and Joshua when a knock sounded on the front door.

They all looked at each other before Sabrina finally got up to answer the door.

The silence that followed her departure was deafening, and when she returned a moment later trailing the sheriff, Cade’s heart somersaulted in his chest.

Jed took off his hat and nodded at everyone at the table before staring at Cade.

“Clay paid me a visit this morning with some disturbing information about you, Cade.”

It didn’t escape Cade’s notice that Joshua seemed to flinch at the mention of Clay more than the “disturbing information.”

Before he could respond, Thayne stood up and faced the sheriff. “What kind of information?”

“Well now, Thayne, he seems to think that your brother has something to do with the boys who’ve turned up missing around Elk Creek.”

“What? That’s crazy!”

“Crazy or not, I’ve gotta ask.” Jed ignored Thayne, peering at Cade.

Cade stood up. “He’s just doing his job, Thayne.”

“You know us, Jed.”

“I’ve known the Coles a lot longer. Not that this is a contest or anything, mind you.”

“Jed, I can assure you Cade didn’t have anything to do with those boys’ disappearances. I can vouch for him.”

“Who’s vouching for you?”

“I am.” Maia stood and stepped forward, standing just between Cade and Thayne, looking around the kitchen at everyone else gathered. “We all do, right?”

“She’s right, Jed,” Sabrina said.

“Well now, why don’t you let me take Cade down to my office, and he can help me sort things out there.”

If this worked anything like the frontier justice Cade had always heard about, he didn’t have a chance of coming out of this alive. What choice did he have, though? He had to trust that the sheriff would hear him out and get to the truth.

When Jed reached to cuff Cade’s wrists, Joshua stepped between them.

Jed frowned at him for a long silent moment as if trying to process where he knew him from. “Now, son, I know you want to help but—”

“I’ve been a boarder in this house with these good people for a little while now, and I’m telling you you’re making a mistake. Hell, Cade wasn’t even here when Tommy and Aaron disappeared.”

“We don’t rightly know where he was, do we now? Excepting for the word of his brother, whose whereabouts we can’t really account for either before Wyatt and Lily brought them all into town.”

Cade knew that it wasn’t just Clay who had spoken to the sheriff, but someone else had also planted a bug in the lawman’s ear.

Prentice!

Everyone started talking at once in Cade’s defense, making his chest tight with all the affection and support he felt in the room. He couldn’t let any of it stop him from doing what he knew was best.

Cade put his finger and thumb in his mouth and released a high-pitched whistle that caught everyone’s attention. “I’ll go with the sheriff and we’ll straighten all this out down at his office.”

Thayne stared at him for a long silent moment before turning to Jed.

Cade could see his brother’s jaw muscles working before Thayne said, “No handcuffs.”

Jed nodded. “Fair enough.” He still caught Cade around the biceps and led him toward the front door just as Abigail Miller, Isaiah’s mother, burst through it, crying, disheveled, and hysterical.

“Why, Abigail, what’s troubling you?” Jed asked.

“Isaiah didn’t make it home last night!”

“We can’t let anything happen to him, Thayne. I promised we were all going to make it through this okay,” Maia said, breathless as she ran beside him to keep up with his determined, long-legged strides.