Back in Bliss

  Georgia liked coffee. No one had made coffee for her this morning. Or breakfast. Julian Lodge had done his job well. The Dom in Logan was feeling really shitty right now because it was his job to make sure his sub was taken care of.

  Georgia wasn’t his sub. She obviously was going to belong to Seth. Seth. What the hell was he up to now? Seth had to have a plan. Seth always had a plan.

  “Oh, I assure you, we’ve got a new coffeemaker. I threw the old one out.” Gemma pushed through the doors and a laugh filled the room. “Thank god. It’s been a week since he arrested anyone. I thought Nate was going soft.”

  Two familiar faces looked out from the twin jail cells. There were only two cells, and most of the time they were completely empty. Not today.

  “Logan, dude. Damn, no one told me you were coming home.” Max Harper thrust a hand through his cell bars. He wasn’t in his usual jeans and Western shirt and cowboy boots. He was wearing a blue gown. A hospital-type gown. “Damn, boy, when did you get all extra extra large? It’s hard to believe you came out of Teeny. She’s like three feet tall and weighs ten pounds.”

  “I would explain to you how babies get made, you dickwad, but I’d rather just put my fist through your face again.” Caleb Burke was in the other cell. He was perfectly dressed, but there was a fine spray of blood across his scrubs and his nose looked like it had taken a beating.

  “I know how babies get made, Doc,” Max shot back. “I just don’t want to make one with you.”

  The doc growled a little. “It’s called an exam, asshole. And next time I will just let you get testicular cancer. See if I give a shit if your balls drop off.”

  “You can’t just grab a guy’s balls, Doc. Not unless you expect to get clocked.” Max turned to the doctor and Logan was the one who was groaning because those stupid exam gowns didn’t cover enough.

  “Max, you’re flapping in the wind, buddy. Cover that shit up.” At least at The Club he hadn’t routinely caught sight of male parts dangling or dude butts outside of the dungeon floor. It was kind of a way of life in Bliss.

  Max turned quickly, his hand reaching for the back of his exam gown, his normally taciturn expression going positively prudish. “I can’t help it. Doc makes everyone wear one.” He leaned toward Logan. “Are we sure he’s not a pervert?”

  Caleb slapped the bars of his cell. “God, you’re an idiot. I swear there is brain damage. Hell, I don’t have any actual evidence that you have a brain. You can find another fucking doctor.”

  Max clutched his gown, trying to hide his naked backside. “Come on, Doc. That can’t be the first time someone’s punched you in the face because you treated their balls like the handle on a slot machine.”

  Caleb glared back at him. “I was gentle, asswipe.”

  Max shook his head. “We have two different versions of gentle.”

  Gemma held a hand up, looking deeply amused. “Hey, hold up, you two. So, I get why hot buns is in here. By the way, don’t you hide those on my account. Just spices up my morning.”

  “Thanks,” Max said with a wide smile. “I really do work on my glutes.”

  “Max has a ‘frequently jailed’ card laminated in his back pocket, but what’s your story, Doc?” Gemma asked.

  Logan could take a wild guess on that one. Some things never changed. “Max punched him, and Doc ran for his tranq gun.”

  Caleb grunted. It was his version of agreement. Logan had learned Caleb mostly communicated through a series of grunts and rude hand gestures. He was the perfect doc for Bliss. “I didn’t have to run. I keep it in my exam room ever since my blood pressure monitor sent Mel into an alien abduction flashback. That old man is strong, let me tell you.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m fast,” Max explained. “The minute Doc went for the gun, I hightailed it right out of there and started back up the mountain. Unfortunately, Doc holds a mean grudge and he followed me, and apparently we scared the shit out of some tourists. But only some of them. The rest were busy taking pictures. I think there might be a video on YouTube. Do you think I can use that to sue Doc here, Gemma? I can give you a retainer when I get my pants back.”

  There was another grunt out of Caleb, but Logan thought this one was Doc’s “fuck you” grunt. “You are never getting those pants back. I told Naomi to toss them in with the medical waste.”

  Max’s eyes went wide. “Damn, man. Those are my favorite Levi’s. They don’t make them anymore.”

  Caleb just shot him the bird.

  Gemma shook her head. “I think I’m going to pass on suing Caleb. He’s the only doc around here, and one day I’m going to want to have babies. Besides, Jesse told me he was very gentle when it came to his balls.”

  “See, I’m damn good with balls,” Caleb shouted. “And I’m very gentle with the rectal exam, too. I’m a motherfucking artist.”

  Max turned to Logan. “Doc wants to play with my rectum. Can you get me moved to solitary?”

  “We don’t have a solitary, man. You’re just going to have to stay to one side.” Yep. Now he was remembering the job. He spent half his work day simply containing the chaos. “I’ll call Rachel and Holly.”

  “Don’t! Call Rye. Please call Rye,” Max pleaded.

  “Naomi’s already on her way. Holly and Alexei are in class.” Caleb sighed and lay down on the cot like it was just another part of his day.

  Alexei. Fuck. He hadn’t heard the name in a long time and that was a good thing. He’d avoided saying it, tried not to think it, but he could hardly expect to not hear about the motherfucker here. And apparently he’d gone to college. Logan wanted to go to college. He’d had the applications in his fucking desk the same day Alexei had sentenced him to hell.

  “Logan, good to have you back.” Nathan Wright stood in the doorway to his office, his even voice pulling Logan back to the here and now. “Max, Caleb, we’ll get you processed out real soon. Naomi’s five minutes away. And Rachel is right here.”

  “Max Harper, this is the last straw!” A five-foot-two-inch ball of pure fury blew through the double doors, her strawberry blonde hair flying behind her.

  “Logan, come on into my office. This is going to get ugly.” Nate gestured him back. “Gemma, I need a triple, please, and could you get the paperwork done to process them out?”

  Gemma gave the boss a jaunty little salute. “Will do.”

  “I ask you to do one thing!” Rachel was yelling. “One damn thing. Get a physical so we can get life insurance so we can protect our babies. Babies. We have another baby on the way, and you want that baby to be left with nothing if you die.”

  Max’s blue eyes went wide. “No, baby, no. I just want to protect our child from unneeded rectal exams.”

  Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “Are you kidding me? We’re here because you’re afraid of having a single finger shoved up your ass so we can make sure you don’t have cancer?”

  “Baby, it’s unnatural.”

  “Max Harper, you are never getting anal sex again. Not for the rest of your life. And the vaginal sex is in question, too.”

  Max got to his knees, his hands on the bars. “Baby, no, I can’t live on oral alone.”

  Rachel turned. “Leave him in there. I’ve got pregnancy hormones to deal with. I can’t deal with him, too.”

  “Rachel, baby, I love you!”

  Rachel stopped briefly to look up at Logan. “Logan, welcome home. It’s good to know you got your head out of your ass long enough to come back to where you belong. Your mommas have been very lonely. I expect to see you out at the house for dinner on Sunday.”

  “I’ll have to check my schedule, ma’am.”

  Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “Really?”

  He knew damn well why she was surprised. He would never have thought to reply to her with anything but a solid “yes” before because Rachel was a ballbuster. She could freeze a man at fifty paces, but he wasn’t the same kid who had left. “Really. I have a lot of obligations while I’m here. If I can, I would love to come out t
o the house, but I have to check with my roommates.”

  God only knew what Seth had planned for them. If he really had balls, he wouldn’t care. But the thought that he would get thrown into something with Georgia…damn, he couldn’t pass that up. He knew it was wrong. He knew it made him a fucking masochist, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d tried to stay away from her, knew he couldn’t be with her long term, but he wanted to worship her from up close for a little while, and he wasn’t going to let Rachel Harper’s iron willpower get in his way.

  Rachel smiled a little and gave him a wink. “Good for you, Logan. I’ll give you a call. What’s that boy’s name, Seth, I think? He’s welcome, too, and the pretty little blonde. Nothing gets past Callie, hon.”

  “Rach?” Max sounded so sad.

  Rachel growled. “I’ll be at Stella’s. I need some pancakes.”

  As Rachel walked out, a gorgeous, curvy woman with coffee-colored skin and a deep frown on her face walked in.

  “I don’t know why I work for you.”

  Caleb smiled. “Hey, Na. You rock. Ten percent pay increase.”

  A brilliant smile crossed her face. “I just remembered. Where’s Gemma? I have to get you out of here. You have a ten o’clock sonogram with Jennifer Talbot.”

  “She’s in the back,” Nate said, pointing toward the break room. “Logan? Park your stuff at the desk and get in here.” He turned away, disappearing into his office. “We have weird shit going on in the county. Well, weirder shit than normal.”

  Max and Caleb started yelling at each other again, and the woman who seemed to be named Naomi walked back to find Gemma, and Logan was left in the one place he’d been pretty certain he wouldn’t visit again.

  He drifted over to the desks. There were three. The big one in the middle of the room had always been used by Nate’s assistant. He glanced down and could tell that Gemma was different. Hope had kept her desk pin neat, with no personal touches at all, but Gemma had a bunch of pictures of people all over her desk in pretty frames. He recognized the men she’d been with outside of Stella’s, her arms around them. There was a picture of her with Hope and a pretty, really pregnant woman he thought might be James’s partner’s wife.

  He moved past her desk and was caught by the big framed picture on Cam’s desk. In the center of the frame was a tiny baby with a tuft of black hair. That baby was in Laura’s arms, and she was shining in the picture, her blonde hair a virtual halo around her head. Rafe and Cam were beaming down at the woman and child. Hell. Cam had a baby. Cam had been his friend, and he didn’t know what the baby’s name was.

  “She’s pretty, huh?” Gemma was behind him, a mug in her hand. “Sierra Rose. Cam brought her up here yesterday and left that here. He was so happy. I’ll admit, it makes me think even I might be able to have little scary pooping rug rats. Here’s some coffee. I’ve got to go and deal with a shit ton of paperwork. I hope Max never gets sex again.”

  He took the mug, and the amazing smell hit him. Damn, that wasn’t Hope’s coffee. That was brown gold. He took a long draw as he sat down at his old desk. Gemma had been right on two fronts. One—her coffee was worth more than money. It was beautiful and might actually change his life. Two—his desk was exactly how he’d left it, right down to the pencils he’d left by his phone.

  Damn. It was like he hadn’t left. It was like he’d never done all the shit he’d done. Never walked into Hell on Wheels and…fuck. He didn’t want to think about that. He set his coffee down and opened the right drawer. It was where he kept his notebooks, but that wasn’t what he saw when he opened it.

  Comic books. A big stack of comic books lay at the bottom of the drawer. Superman and X-Men and Fables and Spider-Man.

  He’d loved those books. He’d spent hours reading them.

  He’d been an idiot then. His whole childhood flashed before him. He’d spent all his time dreaming about being some freaking superhero, and all he’d gotten out of it was the final realization that he was nothing.

  He slammed the drawer shut.

  Maybe certain things hadn’t changed around Bliss, but other things had. He had. He’d changed irrevocably and there was not a damn thing anyone could do about it.

  He turned away and started toward the room he’d lost his innocence in. Nate’s office. His personal version of hell.

  Fuck, he hated everything.

  * * * *

  Seth loved everything about Bliss. This was paradise, his true home.

  Manhattan might have been good to him, but Bliss was paradise. Of course, even paradise had its issues.

  “Seth.” Henry Flanders held out his hand and Seth shook it, holding it probably two seconds longer than necessary because he’d missed Henry.

  “Henry.” Seth forced himself to let go. He’d only been back in Bliss once since the time he’d met John Bishop, aka Henry Flanders, but they had kept in touch. It had been awkward at first, but then they’d settled into talking once a month, their long conversations filling something deep inside him.

  “What’s wrong with you, son? Get up here and give me a hug.” Henry held his arms open.

  Seth practically jumped up and hugged the man he considered a father figure. “It’s good to see you, man.”

  “It’s been a long time. I was starting to think you wouldn’t come home again.”

  He stepped back, sliding into the booth as Henry took the place across from him. Henry’s hair was longer than it had been five years before. When Seth had first met Henry, he’d had a short, very neat cut, and his clothes had been straight out of Professor Retail. He’d been a little uptight, but the man who sat in front of him now was relaxed, his brown hair brushing his earlobes. His clothes were fairly loose and laid back. Seth would bet they were all organic cotton.

  A waitress stepped up, winking Seth’s way. She took their orders and walked back toward the kitchen.

  “Still eating vegan, huh?” Seth asked.

  “Always. Good for the body. Good for the soul.” Henry leaned forward. “How bad is it?”

  Seth frowned. This was the shitty part of his visit. “I think I stopped it, but I can’t shut down everything. If I do, it could actually make things worse.”

  “I understand. Should I expect a visitor?”

  Seth shook his head. “I don’t think so. According to all the records, Henry Flanders lives in Seattle. I keep a place out on Bainbridge Island in your name.”

  Henry smiled, a little grin. “You’re such a devious thing. We should all be damn happy you’re not a criminal.”

  “Hey, some people would disagree. Have you read the Times lately?” The Times seemed to have it out for him, claiming that his current domination of the software market was bad for businesses and consumers everywhere. They likened him to the old railroad tycoons who had a stranglehold on transportation in their time.

  “It’s always hard to be on top, Seth. So any ideas on who’s looking?”

  “I traced some of the inquiries back to DC.” In Seth’s mind, it was the absolute worst-case scenario.

  Henry took a long breath. “Langley. The Agency.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know how or why they would start looking, and I damn straight have no idea why they would be looking for Henry Flanders. There weren’t any loose ends that I can think of.”

  “Oh, I can think of one.” Henry sat back, a sad smile on his face. “I shipped out of Colombia on Henry Flanders’s passport. At the time it seemed like I was starting a new life, but now I can see where I was lazy. When I left Bliss, I switched to another passport so Henry Flanders left Colombia, but he never entered the country according to airport records. I could fake the stamp on my passport, but I couldn’t fake the airport records. The authorities don’t like messy passports. And sometimes they like to run checks. It’s entirely possible that the passport got flagged.”

  “After all these years?”

  He shrugged slightly. “Identity is a funny thing, Seth. And so is intelligence. Things can be very fluid in tha
t world. The way things were set up, I was killed by a cartel and they took my body. If the next operative got in good with the cartel, he might have investigated. The Delta agent who set up my exit could have had a change of heart, though I would be surprised at that. He seemed solid. I suspect they found something, some little thread, and now they’re seeing how far it will unravel. Stay calm. They’re fishing. They don’t have anything or they would be on my doorstep and not on the Internet.”

  How could he be so calm? Seth was almost always calm, but the idea of someone looking for Henry had his stomach in knots. He’d worked so hard to keep this all under wraps. Nell didn’t even know that her husband had a past life as a CIA operative who went by the name John Bishop. “I’ll keep an eye on the situation. And I have someone watching the Bainbridge house to see if anyone’s casing it.”

  “You know the Agency would have loved to have you. You’re a genius when it comes to laying out a plan. So Nell and I own property on Bainbridge Island, huh?”

  Seth couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t try taking her out there, man. I bought the place off a junk bonds king. The housekeeper says he was a true believer in gold fixtures and mounted animal heads. She hasn’t gotten around to earth friendlying the sucker up.”

  The very flirtatious waitress set a pot of tea in front of Henry and a water for Seth before winking at him as she left.

  It made him really uncomfortable. He was already taken. He just wasn’t wearing a ring yet.

  Henry poured the tea with a practiced hand. “You haven’t even seen the place?”

  Seth shook his head. “Nah. I didn’t buy it for a vacation.”

  “No, it was part of your plot. So tell me, that monstrosity of a house next to mine…what plot is that a part of?”

  Seth sat back, a little startled. “It’s not a plot. You know I’ve always meant to come home.”

  “You haven’t been back in almost four years, Seth.”