Maia's Magickal Mates [The Double R 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (42 page)

She nodded and stepped back to let Isaiah replace her.

The boy immediately flung his skinny arms around Cade’s waist, snuggling close.

Cade laughed and hunkered down to return the boy’s hug. “So how are you doing, little man?”

“I’m okay now.”

“Glad to hear it.” Cade stood and ruffled the boy’s hair, wondering how anyone could think of hurting a child like Isaiah, so sweet and generous.

He watched as Abigail led her son away.

“I’m glad
you’re
okay,” Sabrina said.

“Me, too.”

“You’re a real hero.”

“I don’t feel like one.”

“You could have been a right ornery cuss and not shared what you knew about Isaiah. I mean, the sheriff arrested you and the townsfolk did try to kill you.”

“That wasn’t Isaiah’s fault. He didn’t have anything to do with what the sheriff and the townsfolk did to me.”

Sabrina didn’t say anything else right away, just smiled as she turned and headed toward the crowd. “I’ll see y’all back at the house. We’ve still got at least a day’s worth of work to do,” she flung over her shoulder.

Cade chuckled at her bossy parting remark as Joshua came to his side.

“Sabrina’s right, you know. You gave that boy back to his mother when you could have held a grudge and let the sheriff and me sink or swim and find him on our own.”

“Hold a grudge against an innocent boy?” Cade shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“That’s what makes you a much better man than some of these other townsfolk, who jumped the gun wanting to lynch an innocent man.”

Cade frowned as something Joshua said before suddenly clicked in his mind. “How was finding Isaiah the sheriff’s and
your
job?”

“Tommy was my nephew.”

Cade gaped, still not understanding Joshua’s sense of responsibility until he related what he used to do for a living, how he left the Pinkertons when his nephew first turned up missing.

He’d been disenchanted for a while with the direction the detective agency had been taking, but when he heard from his brother about Tommy, he’d come back to town, thinking to work the case undercover, on his own, and without any official support.

“My brother doesn’t even know I came back to town yet. I thought it was for the best. I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.”

Cade peered at him, realizing that Joshua knew Tommy wouldn’t be coming back to his family the way Isaiah had.

“I had a few possible suspects from the town lined up. Unfortunately, I’d been on the trail of the wrong one when Rance took Isaiah.”

“Can’t be two places at once,” Cade said.

“I reckon not.” Joshua turned to follow the path Abigail and her son had taken then turned back to Cade and gave him a long, meaningful look. “That boy owes you his life.”

“I wish I could have saved Tommy.”

Joshua gave him a grim smile. “I wish you could have, too.”

* * * *

Maia collapsed back against their bed later that night, exhausted and perspiring after a demanding and enjoyable session of lovemaking with her men, thrilled to be alive.

Cade and Thayne lay on either side of her. Each man balanced on one elbow as they stared at her as if hungry for more.

Cade reached out a hand to caress her breasts, running the back of his hand down her side before resting a palm on her stomach.

Thayne gently fondled her moist folds, dipping the tip of his middle finger into her cunt before bringing it up to his mouth for a taste.

Maia shuddered as she watched him lick his full lips. Her pussy spasmed with aftershocks as her men pampered and turned her body on again. “I’m glad things turned out the way they did,” she blurted.

“No more glad than me.” Cade grinned.

“I’m not just talking about Prentice switching places with you. He got just what he deserved, even if I don’t understand exactly how it happened.”

“We believed,” Thayne said.

“We did.” Maia nodded, struggling with how to express what she felt, a rarity for her. She was grateful for so much more than their ability to have saved Cade when it really counted. “I’m glad we didn’t go back.”

Cade frowned. “You mean back to our time?”

“I like it here.” Maia looked at Cade as she said the words. She already knew how Thayne felt about living in this era, about being back in the Old West. His commitment to this life and the people of Elk Creek had never been in question. Hers and Cade’s had.

Now that she had gotten to know many of the denizens of the town and its surrounding territory, she realized that she had a commitment, too. Her commitment wasn’t just to her business partner in Sabrina, though that was a large concern. Maia had never gotten over the feeling that Wyatt and Lily Baldwin had issues in their marriage that needed attention. She wanted to do what she could to help them through their issues and maybe save their marriage. The only way she could do that was to be here in this place and time where she now knew she belonged. She looked at Cade, silently transmitting her desires and prompting him to be one of her partners in crime.

“I like it here, too.” He smiled. “It’s home.”

“You two really mean that?” Thayne asked.

“Well, yeah, I do,” Cade said, staring at Maia as he answered. “And we still have some unfinished business to take care of with more than a few people around these parts.”

Maia felt the link Thayne established between them all as he read her and Cade’s minds before he finally responded with, “Wyatt and Lily?”

Maia nodded and grinned as she hugged both men around the necks. “Although, and I mean no offense to our hostess, we have some other pressing issues to get to before we get to our troubled couple. I’d like us to get a nice little place of our own as soon as the business starts to take off a bit more. What do you two think?”

“I think that can be arranged,” Thayne said, leaning in to kiss her mouth, his fingers thrusting inside her in earnest now.

“I’m all for it.” Cade nuzzled her throat, kissing his way down to one sensitive breast and taking a burgeoning nipple between his teeth.

Maia trembled beneath their attentions, thanking Goddess for seeing fit to bestow so many gifts upon her.

She’d never before believed she deserved happiness like this.

She believed it now.

* * * *

Prentice blinked open his eyes and immediately reached for his throat.

The noose wasn’t there, and he no longer dangled from the stable rafter.

Instead, he found himself supine on a thick, rich bed of grass surrounded by a field of aromatic, verdant flowers.

He sat up, momentarily confused before he put things together. Except that he didn’t think he would have wound up in Heaven after everything he’d done.

It’s no surprise you don’t recognize this place.

Prentice turned his head at the sound of the sonorous voice and saw the man and woman approaching him from across the stunning meadow.

He scrambled to his feet, unsteady for a moment before steeling himself for their arrival.

He had a moment to glance down at his attire, not surprised by the simple cream tunic draped over his body and reaching down to his knees. His feet were bare, and Prentice automatically flexed his toes, strangely enjoying the feel of moist grass against the soles of his feet.

If he wasn’t in Heaven, then where was he?

You are in the Summerland.

He had learned about the place from his mother and father’s Wiccan texts but hadn’t put any more credence into it than he had Heaven and hell.

More’s the pity for you
.

This voice was dulcet and soft, obviously the female.

Once they reached him, Prentice realized he recognized the man and woman, and his heart dropped at the knowledge of their identity.

You have no need to fear us
, the man said in his mind.

Defiant, he lifted his chin a notch. “I don’t fear you.” He’d gone up against worse than these two in junior high and high school alone. He had faced down bigger bullies.

You think us bullies?

Prentice stood in a celestial field with the parents of the men he’d tried his damnedest to kill, and they hadn’t yet struck him down. Honestly, he didn’t know what to think.

We are not here to harm or punish you
, said the woman.

“What are you here for then?”

We’re here to give you a chance to make things right.

“Right for who?”

Why, yourself, Prentice. You need to make things right for yourself.

Prentice listened to the woman’s voice, felt her gentle touch on his forehead, the whole while thinking that he didn’t deserve her or her husband’s benevolence. He didn’t
want
it.

The man chuckled.

Nevertheless, you have it.

Prentice felt himself fading. His legs buckled beneath him, and he landed on his butt in the grass. He sat panting for a moment, trying to get his bearings as his heart raced. He rapidly blinked his eyes, fighting the dizziness. He didn’t want to go wherever they thought they were sending him. He wouldn’t be forced to do their goody-two-shoes bidding. He wouldn’t.

His spirit, however, had other ideas. He felt the same pull he’d felt right before his body had pitched toward the rafter in the stable and his neck replaced Cade’s in that noose.

“I won’t go.”

Don’t fight it, child,
the woman said.
You are already being prepared to go back.

“Back where?”

Back home.

The Double R, McCoy, Colorado

A year and a half after the disappearance

The wedding had gone off without a hitch, and for this Desiree was thankful and happy, especially for the bride and groom. She didn’t want anything to mar her mother-in-law and friend Helena’s extraordinary day, especially not her.

Consequently, she had smiled her way through her duties as one of Helena’s bridesmaids at the church and made her obligatory appearance at the reception. She sat through the speeches of her brother-in-law Jesse, the best man, and her older sister, Tamara, proud of how she held things together as the very capable maid of honor. She’d waited an appropriate amount of time after the speeches had been made at the reception and Helena and her groom Jeremiah had their first dance before discreetly escaping.

Desiree knew she should be more sociable. The last thing she needed right then was solitude, and today was the perfect occasion to avoid it with so many family and friends everywhere one looked on the ranch. Today was supposed to be a happy occasion, a day of celebration, something that should have been shared with those she loved. She couldn’t help mourning the sister that wasn’t there, though. Now there was no more arguing or trying to fend off her sister’s constant attempts to introduce Desiree to her gifted side. There was no more bailing her younger sister out of trouble. There was no more criticizing her younger sister for her wild and crazy ways or telling her to straighten up her act. There was no more anything with Maia, because Maia was gone.

A gaping hole remained in Desiree’s heart now where Maia used to dwell, and she didn’t know how she would fill it. She didn’t know if she ever could.

Desiree wandered around the ranch now with no particular destination in mind until she thought about the sketch pad under her arm. She purposefully changed course, heading to her sister’s favorite spot at the pond.

Desiree found Maia’s much-loved outcropping of rocks and took a seat. She figured if she could tune into her sister’s spirit anywhere on the ranch, this would be the place to do it.

Except that when she sat with the pad in her lap expecting her sister’s beloved Goddess or some other such divinity to infuse her soul with Maia’s presence, nothing happened. She immediately felt silly for thinking she would feel her sister here, that some paranormal type of osmosis would bring Maia back to her.

Desiree opened the pad to look at her sister’s last piece.

She felt like the worst kind of thief and voyeur flipping through the pages, remembering how she’d come across the pad in the first place.

Someone from the Atoka County Sheriff’s Office had contacted the family at The Double R about some “strange incident” that had occurred at the Lively Ranch.

There had been no obvious signs of foul play, the officer explained, but there was also no evidence of Ms. Jensen or the Malloy brothers in the house or anywhere on the property. For all intents and purposes, the trio had disappeared, and as the hours turned into days and days turned into weeks with no contact from Maia, Thayne, or Cade, Desiree and her family at The Double R all knew that something was very wrong.

As the weeks turned into months with not a peep from the threesome, and not even the private investigator Jeremiah hired to look into the disappearances turned up anything, Desiree’s hope that her sister was alive and well slowly dwindled. She knew in her heart Maia would have found a way to reach out to her, somehow, someway, if she were still alive.