Maia's Magickal Mates [The Double R 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (6 page)

“So
will
I meet her?”

Thayne shrugged, and Cade couldn’t help thinking that his deliberate, settled brother looked flustered.

“You’re blushing!”

“I am not.”

“Thayne has a girlfriend!” Cade chanted.

“You see, this is why I don’t tell you anything.”

Cade smothered a laugh, trying to be serious. “Okay, I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. It’s just so cute seeing you like this.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, eager?”

“I guess.”

“Well, I don’t care who she is, she has to be better than that last one who left you up a creek without a paddle right before you came out here. What was the gold digger’s name? Hillary? Mallory? Muffy?”

“Tiffany. And she wasn’t a gold digger. She just had different priorities.”

“Right, and I’m a Trappist monk.” Despite his brother’s defense of the indefensible, Cade thought it was cute how Thayne found a way to put a positive spin on Tiffany’s desertion.

Thayne had been so excited about the new job and coming out to Colorado and the place he’d just purchased for him and his woman, ready to settle down and probably start a family. A week before the move, however, Tiffany had dropped the bombshell that she didn’t want to leave LA, “where things are happening,” to move to a Podunk town in the dust bowl. Besides, she had fallen in love with Brad, some high-priced plastic surgeon with whom she was moving to Hollywood.

Yeah, she had really strung his brother along, just one more reason that Cade liked his one-night stands. No lies, no expectations, no mind games, no emotions, just hit it and quit it.

Not his brother. Thayne wanted commitment, monogamy, love. He wanted the package.

Not the best candidate to participate in a ménage a trois, that’s for sure.

Could one be in a ménage a trois and still be monogamous? Cade wondered.

In the potential setup their parents had mapped out, technically one could be monogamous in a ménage a trois scenario that involved a single woman and two men, especially if one of the men was Thayne. “Just sex” didn’t exist for Thayne, so if he got involved, he would be in it for the long haul and loyal to the one woman.

Would he accept his brother as part of the package, though?

What about the mystery woman? How receptive would she be to being with two men? In that case he supposed he should be worried about polyamory and not monogamy. For him who barely believed in love between one man and one woman, love between two men and one woman wasn’t feasible.

Cade sighed, trying not to drive himself crazy with the Sisyphean speculations.

Regardless of what happened with the mystery woman and this sanctioned threesome, Cade had to hand it to Thayne. He hadn’t let Tiffany’s rejection get him down for long. He’d pulled up stakes and come out here despite her defection, because his existence wasn’t all about Tiffany or any woman. It was about Thayne and what was good for his peace of mind.

You’re my hero.

The words rested in Cade’s throat, fairly choking him with the need to be uttered.

“So, we’re all good? You’ll meet Jesse at ten thirty?”

“I’ll synchronize my watch.”

Thayne pointedly looked at Cade’s naked wrists.

“Fine, I’ll synchronize my BlackBerry.”

Thayne chuckled and shook his head as he opened the front door to leave. “Be a good boy while I’m gone.”

“You know me.”

A month after Desiree’s birthday party and Maia still hadn’t seen any signs of the other man who had appeared with Thayne in her vision, and she hadn’t figured anything out about her future. Or was it her past?

The memory of Thayne in Old West garb, complete with a gunbelt and gun, left her confused and a little shaken. For a Wiccan like her and like she knew him to be, that did not bode well at all, but she supposed when in Rome…

It remained to be seen when either of them and the mystery man, who looked so much like Thayne that she had a good feeling he was Thayne’s brother, would be traveling back in time to the Old West.

Maia shook her head at her ludicrous thoughts. Of course they weren’t going to be traveling back in time. Time travel outside of science-fiction books and movies wasn’t possible.

How could she, a clairvoyant who had experienced her share of the unbelievable and who had recently acquired two shape-shifter brothers-in-law, be so skeptical?

If she used the recent happenings in her life, especially since moving out to The Double R, then any weird scenario, including time travel was possible.

Still, maybe Thayne hadn’t actually been in the Old West in her vision but just dressed in Old West clothes. There was a difference. He could have been in a costume like her four brothers-in-law routinely wore while performing sets at the popular Old-West-town section of the ranch. That scenario was more feasible than any of her time-travel theories, of course.

She supposed she was so excited and idealistic after her sister Desiree recently achieved her happily ever after with Carson and Sam, two wolf-shifters from that den of magick and the occult, Louisiana.

Now that both of her older sisters had set up house with their mates, Maia felt adrift among a sea of couples and threesomes. She felt like an outsider or, worse, a poor soul to be pitied like one of those perennially crazy and single old ladies who doted on lots of cats.

She didn’t miss the housekeeper, Maria’s, sympathetic looks or her mother’s overly solicitous manner.

Everyone seemed to handle her with kid gloves, afraid to upset the fragile emotional balance of the last single sister.

Even Carson and Sam’s mother, Helena, had become nice and cozy with Jesse and Jax’s father, Jeremiah, in the last several weeks, more so than they ever had been, at least.

Maia couldn’t describe the feelings of envy that washed over her whenever she watched all these trios and couple together and happy. She felt surrounded by them with no escape from the kissy-face going on.

At the main cookhouse, where Jeremiah often visited Helena during the day, the couple could often be seen canoodling at a dining room table in the corner, all but ignoring their food.

Desiree visited the Old Western town more often than ever since she had hooked up with Carson and Sam, sometimes participating in the shows after bringing her men and the other performing cowboys a basket of her famous homemade authentic Louisiana pecan pie and lemonade to enjoy after the show. Of course, she’d stay after the audience left to spend some quality time—wink, wink—with her men. Finally, Maia couldn’t count the times she had just avoided getting sick to her stomach watching the still-infatuated trio of Tamara, Jesse, and Jax making out on one of the many comfy stuffed sofas beneath the romantic, muted lighting of Loaded Joe’s when they all hung out in Eagle County on the weekends to unwind.

Maia grew tired of being a third wheel, or in the case of accompanying either of her sisters and their husbands and lovers, a fourth wheel.

She needed something of her own. She needed some
one
of her own.

Which brought her to the shock she’d felt when Thayne called her earlier that morning asking to take her out on a date later in the evening.

She’d wondered what burr had gotten under his ass, because spontaneity wasn’t his strong suit. She knew this from just their two dates and her brief stints spent in his company, which probably was what she liked about him so much. He wasn’t anything like her. In fact, aside from them both being Wiccans, they were complete opposites.

She wanted to think that opposites more than just attracted but that they could make a go of things. However, the more she learned of Thayne, admittedly not as much as she wanted, the more wary she became of furthering their relationship.

Thayne wasn’t about games. She knew this.

Maia had witnessed his intensity and seriousness at the hospital when he was in doctor mode. She had no reason to believe that those traits weren’t repeated in his personal life.

She wanted someone of her own, yes, but was she ready for a man like Thayne?

She hated being so wishy-washy but couldn’t help questioning her wisdom when it came to men. She wanted to trust her instincts telling her that Thayne was the real deal and his seriousness was a positive that should be celebrated and not a negative for which to penalize him.

“Hey, Maia, if you’re not up to anything in particular, want to accompany me on a tour?”

Maia came out of her daze and glanced up from her sketch pad as Jesse paused near the rock by the pond where she sat. “A tour of what?”

“The ranch. I want to show our latest employee the lay of the land.”

It wasn’t until he said this that Maia noticed the man bringing up the rear behind Jesse.

At Jesse’s mention of a new employee, the man stepped forward, proffering a big, capable, and strong-looking hand.

Maia bypassed the hand to stare up at the man to whom it was attached, and her jaw unhinged at the same time his did.

Did she look like she’d seen a ghost? If her look of shock in any way resembled the not-so-stranger’s expression then she must.

“Have you two already met?”

“No,” they chorused before Maia stood up from her rock, cleared her throat, and glanced at Jesse. She immediately noticed his frown and attempted to clear up his confusion.

“Our newest employee just seems a little…familiar to me.”

“Probably because his big brother the doctor treated your raccoon bite.”

“Oh.” So he
was
Thayne’s brother. Finally seeing him in the very real, gorgeous flesh flabbergasted Maia.

This was the man from her vision, and her vision hadn’t done him a bit of justice. He not only looked just like Thayne, he was just as devastating up close and personal. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought the brothers were twins except that the not-so-stranger stood perhaps an inch or two shorter than Thayne’s six foot two. She supposed they could still be fraternal twins instead of identical, but Thayne’s brother also looked several years younger than Thayne’s thirty-five years, though not quite as young as her twenty-seven years.

“Are you going to let my arm fall off?”

Maia closed her mouth before any flies could get in and looked the not-so-stranger in his eyes. Their color was captivating, gem bright like two sapphires framed by long, lush lashes.

She also noticed the teasing twinkle as he grinned and arched a brow.

She averted her eyes from his, taking in the rest of his chiseled face instead.

He didn’t have the dimples that Thayne had, but his smile remained irresistible nonetheless, the most beautiful, straight white teeth she had seen this side of Hollywood. His lips, too, were the fullest, most kissable lips she had ever seen on a white guy.

Maia decided his and his brother’s ancestors must come from some region of the world once conquered by the Moors or Hannibal. Italy? Sicily? Where did the Malloys come from, however? Maybe their dad had been Irish and their mother Italian.

It surprised her how very little she knew about Thayne when she usually made it her business to grill guys with whom she went out. Her exhibitions of interest in casual acquaintances, however, were a fatal charm and one of the main reasons men thought more than a fond affection existed between her and them.

Desiree once told her she was a stalker victim just waiting to happen.

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, ‘are you going to let my arm fall off?’”

Had he just used a line from one of her favorite movies? Would a man like this watch a blaxploitation chick flick from the ’70s? Did he even know about
Mahogany
?
He didn’t look old enough to have been around when this movie came out, but it had come out almost a decade before
she
was born, so what was her point?

Goddess, she was babbling in her head!

“Well?”

“Oh…no! Of course not!” Maia shook her head. “Sorry for my rudeness.” She put her hand in his, felt the energy right away, and immediately knew he was as gifted as her and Thayne if not more so, or at least differently so.

Her breath hitched in her chest as she shook his hand, and she didn’t miss his own slight intake of breath.

Had he felt the energy, too, or did he react to something else, maybe attraction? Goddess knew,
she
certainly felt attraction, and it frightened her. Attracted to two brothers? There was a definite precedent in her family, with both her older sisters hooked up with a pair of brothers.

Maia, however, wasn’t her sisters.

“Cade Malloy, at your service.”

“Maia Jensen.”

“Maia is my sister-in-law and The Double R’s resident artist among other things.” Jesse pointed his chin at the sketch pad in her free hand. “What are you working on today? Or should I say who?”

What had she been working on before they dropped by? She couldn’t even remember, and when she lifted the sketch pad for Jesse and Cade’s inspection, the charcoal depiction of Thayne’s face, shaded by the brim of a classic Stetson, made her heart stutter.