Maia's Magickal Mates [The Double R 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (43 page)

It wasn’t until a year had passed and The Double R was buzzing with Helena and Jeremiah’s upcoming nuptials that Desiree finally had to accept that Maia wasn’t coming back.

She went to her sister’s room and sat on the freshly made bed. The rest of the room was immaculate as well, all the furniture dusted and polished to a high shine by Maria as if she wanted to keep the room presentable for Maia’s imminent return.

At the idea, Desiree finally gave in to the pent-up sobs that had been living on the edge of her vocal cords for months. Copious tears rolled down her cheeks, her wails so agonizing and sorrowful she sounded like an injured wild animal. She
felt
like a wild animal in fact, out of control and hysterical as she stood in the middle of the room and released a primal scream right before she began to tear the room apart.

She stripped the bed, flinging pillows as well as breakable knickknacks against the walls.

What good did keeping things in order and intact do when Maia would never be returning to enjoy it? What good was anything?

By the time Carson and Sam burst into the room several moments later, Desiree was sitting on the lopsided mattress she’d pulled half-off the box spring, panting and disheveled.

She realized she must look like a madwoman, especially when Carson and Sam, two of the bravest, strongest wolf shifters she knew, approached her so gingerly.

Desiree spied her mother and Maria standing just outside the bedroom, both nervously wringing their hands, and immediately felt guilty about scaring them.

“Please go,” she whispered. “I’m okay. I just need to be alone for a minute.”

Carson sat on the bed with her, gently rubbing her back while Sam sat on her opposite side rubbing her shoulder.

“You know we’re here for you if you need us,” Carson said.

“We miss her, too,” Sam put in.

“I know.” She felt even guiltier at the idea that she had found the sort of happiness and love with Carson and Sam that had eluded Maia for so many years. “Really, everyone, I’m okay.” She addressed her two mates and Maria and her mother in the hallway in her best reassuring accountant’s voice—cool, calm, and collected.

Warily, they all left her alone, but Desiree knew they hadn’t gone far. The thought both elated and depressed her.

Once alone, she glanced around to see the damage she had done.

The room was a mess, not really her style. With a sense of purpose, she began the job of straightening up, and it was when she went to put the bed to rights that she discovered the sketch pad tucked between the mattress and box spring.

Desiree didn’t understand why her sister had hidden it away like this. Sure, she knew how protective, sensitive, and temperamental artists could be about their work, and her sister was no exception. When she glanced through the sketches, however, and saw the last piece, she understood the reason for concealment.

According to the date scrawled across the bottom, Maia had done the sketch the day before she’d gone to Oklahoma with Thayne and Cade, three days before they’d all disappeared.

Desiree had never considered that the two men had done anything to harm her sister. She had always just taken it for granted that whatever had happened had happened to all of them. Looking at her sister’s last picture now as she sat by the pond confirmed her assumption that the Malloy brothers wouldn’t have had anything to do with hurting Maia, simply because they had loved her as she had obviously loved them.

Desiree found it difficult to eye the sketch with any sort of dispassion. Even if she hadn’t known Maia so well, there was something provocative about the picture aside from the subject matter, something that evoked all sorts of emotions, passion being just one of them.

Desiree thought it was her sister’s best work. She would have loved to see it rendered in color and oil, something Maia probably would have done later had she had the chance.

Desiree choked back a sob at the idea that she would never see her sister again, never have to talk her out of one of her many harebrained schemes.

She missed those schemes and her sister’s flirty, outrageous, and passionate personality. Maia’s individuality had always balanced out Desiree’s serious side, and she realized she hadn’t always appreciated Maia the way she should have.

Desiree felt the tears. They were hot and salty as they slid down her face, and she sniffed. She flipped the pad closed to avoid getting any tears on the page. Even with the fixative her sister used she didn’t want to risk ruining such a beautiful piece.

She stood, ready to head back to the reception, but when she took a step forward she almost tripped over some item protruding from the dirt. Putting the sketch pad aside for a moment, she crouched down to work the item completely out of the earth, wondering where it had come from and who had buried it here.

Once she got it out, she brushed the dirt off the felt cover and realized it was some sort of diary. It had a lock on the side that, thankfully, wasn’t engaged. When she opened the book a piece of paper from inside fluttered to the ground. Desiree bent to retrieve the old, yellowing newspaper clipping. As soon as she spied the headline and the accompanying picture, however, her legs gave out. She plopped down on her ass in the dirt, mouth agape.

Okay, there had to be a logical explanation for the date of the clipping, but she couldn’t come up with any except the obvious. Her sister had traveled back in time.

Desiree stared at the clipping. The picture was grainy, and despite the woman being clad in an uncharacteristic, old-fashioned dress and petticoats, there was no mistaking Maia and the two tall, attractive men clad in complementary Old Western attire flanking her.

She took a deep breath and settled on the rock to gather herself as she looked more closely at the picture and read the accompanying story.

Somewhere in the flourishing town of Elk Creek in Oklahoma Territory, several people stood outside a store that seemed to be celebrating its grand opening. The store was the first and the only of its kind in the town, according to the article. The sign on the storefront heralded the opening of Maia and Sabrina’s Healing Magick.

She did it!

Desiree remembered how Maia used to talk about opening her own Wiccan shop, a homeopathic dispensary and haven for physical and spiritual healing and rejuvenation. Something, however, always prevented her bringing it to fruition.

Desiree read further. It wasn’t an in-depth story, just a mention in a local paper, but she could tell the reporter was impressed with his subjects and what they had accomplished in the town during a time when women were still expected to stay in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant. No one could have been more impressed and proud than Desiree at that moment, however.

She finally got to the caption identifying the other five people in the picture with Maia.

First there was her husband, Thayne Malloy, the town doctor, and his brother, Cade Malloy, a local rancher and entrepreneur.

Desiree read further, finally getting a look at this Sabrina Walker, both envious of her relationship with Maia and glad that her sister had found a woman she trusted enough to befriend and with whom to start a business. Beside Sabrina were two handsome, rugged-looking men who were obviously smitten with her but otherwise unidentified.

Hmm, mysteries to solve.

Desiree turned to the first page of the diary, curiosity swelling in her when she read the first line in her sister’s handwriting.

Desiree, you’re never going to believe where I am and what I’ve been doing!

She wiped tears from her face, smiling at the imagined sound of her sister’s excited tone.

Desiree closed the book, planning to dig in once she got home and read it all later.

She would share her discovery with the rest of her family, of course. She had to, if for no other reason than to put everyone’s hearts and minds at ease. She had the added bonus of knowing that Maia had finally obtained a happily ever after with her soul mates.

For now, though, Desiree just wanted to hold her sister’s secrets close to her heart and savor their overdue reunion in private.

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Gracie C. McKeever writes exclusively for Siren as Gigi Moore.

Ménage Everlasting ManLove:
Three Men and a Bounty

Ménage Amour: The Double R 1:
Twin Cowboys for Tamara

Ménage Everlasting: The Double R 2:
Desiree’s Lone Wolves

Available at

BOOKSTRAND.COM

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com