“You should at first, but I think he’ll change his mind. What does Wolf want?”
Of her two men, Wolf was the sweet one. “He would have me pregnant now.”
“And you three have talked about it? It doesn’t seem right going into a marriage where two of you might not ever want kids.”
“I didn’t say that.” Shelley got an antsy feeling in the pit of her stomach. “I think I do. I just look at how they change things and I wonder if we wouldn’t be happier without them.”
“Wolf Meyer picks up every kid he sees,” Beth pointed out. “I only asked because I knew the answer. Wolf won’t be complete without kids. And a lot of men don’t know they want kids until someone puts a baby in their arms and they look at that little face.”
“You think we’re not being fair to Wolf?” She hated the idea. Hated it in a really nauseating way.
And could she really go without babies? It seemed like she was surrounded by them all of a sudden. Olivia and Josh. Chloe. Here in Bliss it was multiplied by ten. There was her new niece, and the parade of kids that came through the G seemed to never end.
Could she live a lifetime without holding her own baby in her arms? Without seeing a little one who looked like Wolf or Leo? But Leo had seemed so indifferent to the idea. She also couldn’t stand the thought that Leo wouldn’t want the baby.
The wedding she’d been so crazy about just minutes before now seemed too close for comfort.
What if they were making a mistake? Aidan and Lexi and Lucas had seemed so happy, and now they were miserable. What if love just couldn’t work out in the long term? What if people were just too different to really make it work?
“You’re freaking out,” Beth said, taking her hand.
She was a little bit. “My first marriage was horrible.”
“But Leo and Wolf didn’t blackmail you into this. Neither one of them is using you as a front for their drug dealing and information brokering business.”
“But what if I just make horrible decisions?” It was a thought that had crossed her mind more than once before. Her first marriage had been beyond terrible. Bryce had been a criminal who threatened her whole family.
Beth squeezed her hand. “You don’t make bad decisions. You got caught in Bryce’s trap. Leo and Wolf are about as far from Bryce as you can possibly get, so put that thought out of your head. Now, the kids thing is something you need to work out.”
But there was so little time left. She was getting married in roughly twenty-four hours, and she wasn’t supposed to see Leo or Wolf until she walked down the aisle. It was a stupid ritual, but she’d insisted because at the time it seemed romantic. Now it simply seemed silly.
Maybe she shouldn’t worry about it. Maybe it would all just work out in the end.
That was exactly what she’d thought the day she’d allowed herself to be pulled into Bryce’s world. She’d stood there at the courthouse and convinced herself that everything would be fine. It hadn’t been fine.
Lexi was staring off into the distance, her eyes still watching where her husbands had walked away from her. It wasn’t fine for Lexi.
What made her think it would be fine this time around?
“Oh, Alien Queen!”
Shelley turned. Normally she wouldn’t think that a crazy voice screaming for an alien queen would be referring to her, but here in Colorado she knew damn well it was all about her. “Hello, Cassidy.”
Two women she’d met previously were with her almost mother-in-law. Rachel Harper and Callie Hollister-Wright were standing on either side of Cassidy Meyer, who wore a string of beets around her neck. Yep. She might need to rethink that whole “everything’s going to be fine” thing.
“I’m sorry,” Callie said apologetically. “We tried to talk her out of it.”
“But she’s stronger than she looks,” Rachel added.
Cassidy stared at her. “Please don’t take my boys away, Alien Queen. Take me instead.”
Shelley felt a headache start and realized that if she had any real shot at making her marriage happen, she needed to start by compromising. “Somebody get me some beets so I can prove my humanness.”
Cassidy’s eyes went wide. “You’ll take the beet?”
Apparently there was some form of ritual. “Sure. I’ll take the beet and then someone needs to hand me some whitening toothpaste because I’ll be damned if I get married with purple teeth.”
Cassidy smiled and showed that she didn’t mind the color purple. From what she’d heard, the older woman had been bingeing on beet smoothies in an attempt to ward off aliens who would come to the wedding. “Excellent. We’ll do it tonight at Trio.”
“You can’t just hand me a beet from your necklace and let me have a bite?” It would make things so much simpler.
Cassidy was all grins now, as though the weight of the world had been taken from her shoulders, and Shelley felt a little hint of guilt. She’d been stubborn. “No. We have to have a whole ceremony. Your Beeting Ceremony is going to be even more beautiful than the wedding. Do you know how long I’ve waited for a daughter?”
Probably longer than Shelley had waited for a mother-in-law who thought she might have tentacles hidden away somewhere. But a thought occurred to her. “Do the boys have to be at the ceremony?”
“Oh, yes. They play a very big part.”
And then she could talk to them face-to-face. And maybe the feeling of dread would pass if she could just see them.
“Oh, I have to get cooking. We need beet pie and beet stew and, oh, so many wonderful dishes. Rachel and Callie, call Nell and have her meet me at my place.” Cassidy gave Shelley a sheepish grin. “She was going to protest you, I’m afraid. I’ll call it off and we’ll just get to cooking.”
Cassidy practically skipped back down the drive.
Callie pressed a margarita into Shelley’s hand. “You’re probably going to need this. And just so you know, all your drinks are free tonight at Trio. My husband runs the place.”
Shelley took a long swallow. “Thanks. That’s awfully sweet of you.”
Callie turned a nice shade of green. “I’ve eaten the beet pie. You’re going to need it.”
Yep. It sounded like she would.
* * * *
Wolf looked around the well-manicured lawn of the Mountain and Valley Naturist Community and wondered, just briefly, why the hell he’d ever left Bliss. Oh, he was happy he had because he would never have met Shelley, but there were times when he really missed this place.
“Why the hell is everyone naked, brother?”
Yeah, this was totally one of those times. Leo’s eyes were as wide as saucers as he stared at what Mel thought a reception should be. There was a cooler of beer, and it looked like he’d bought a bunch of cold cuts and put them on a tray.
Shelley was at the Talbot mansion, likely sipping champagne and eating a spectacularly catered meal, and they got cold cuts Mel had picked up at the Stop ‘n’ Shop and a sea of naked dudes.
“He forgot the bread,” Chase Dawson said, walking up to them. He was in the altogether and it didn’t look like he minded. “But there’s something called tonic and Ben is already shit-faced. He only had one drink. I promised Nat I would be the designated driver, thank god. I think it might have affected Ben’s brain. If one of us is going to be brain damaged, it should really be the himbo.”
Chase was eating what looked to be a rolled up slice of ham. Ben walked up beside him, a loopy grin on his face.
“Hey, we’re all naked. And there are pork rinds. I thought they would be disgusting, but after a couple of drinks, they’re really good. Salty. It’s nice.”
Yep, Ben had some of the tonic. Mel made it himself. It was really a kind of rotgut whiskey. He was surprised more people hadn’t gone blind from it, but Mel’s tonic was a sort of rite of passage in Bliss.
Wolf was just going to settle for a beer. He kind of thought his bride would be pissed if he had to have his stomach pumped before he walked down the aisl
e.
“This place is completely bat-shit crazy.” Leo was looking around like there was some magical exit he could go through. “I spent the afternoon talking to Max Harper, and I swear he would be my next project except for one small problem. He’s completely happy. He’s a lunatic who’s managed to find a way to get married and have a kid. It was disturbing. And then he got a phone call and he said something about a kidnapping. I’m worried he’s actually going to hurt someone. Should I call the police?”
“Harper? The one with the twin?” Chase asked.
Ben huffed a little. “They’re weird. They finish each other’s sentences and stuff. It’s annoying. Hey, are you going into the weird teepee thingee? I crawled into it, but it was really hot.”
Leo shook his head. “No. We’re not going in there.” He turned to Wolf, a desperate look on his face. “Tell me he didn’t.”
“Yep, I think he set up a sweat lodge for us. What did you expect, man? Did you expect Mel to hire a couple of strippers? He wouldn’t. Apparently stripping as a profession is high on the alien preference list. Nope. We’re stuck with naked Mel and an ancient Native American tradition.”
“Huh. That’s funny.” Ben started laughing. Wolf had no idea what he was laughing at. Ben kept up his giggles as he started to stumble off toward the volleyball court saying something about finding a beach.
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t kill himself,” Chase said with a smile. “I’ll also probably take a couple of videos. I like trashed Ben. He’s fun.”
He followed his brother.
“Why didn’t we go to Vegas?”
“Because Shelley wanted a big wedding and this is the only time Ma is ever going to get to watch her sons get married. Because we make sacrifices for family and that is a very good lesson to learn right before our wedding day.”
Leo’s shoulders slumped. “Where do I change?”
“Into what, brother?”
“Fine. Where do I leave my clothes?”
“Oh, they’re free and easy up on the mountain. Anywhere you like. I think there are some lockers in the gym. Dude, you do not want to use those facilities without a towel, I’m telling you.”
Leo turned, a worried look on his face. “We need to talk.”
Thank god. Wolf had been worried Leo wouldn’t talk about it. “About the fact that dear old dad’s been calling?”
Leo’s eyes closed briefly. “Has he called you, too?”
Wolf shook his head. “No. You left your computer on. I used it to book our movie tickets a couple of weeks back. So what does the fucker want?”
Their father had left long before Wolf was capable of really remembering him. Wolf had been a toddler when their father had walked out. As far as he could tell, the man hadn’t actually divorced their ma, just disappeared one day.
“What do you think he wants?” Leo asked, his voice deeply sarcastic.
“A renewed and loving bond with his sons?” Yeah, he could be sarcastic, too.
“Money.”
That was pretty much what Wolf had expected. “How does he expect to get it?”
“Blackmail, naturally.”
That didn’t make sense. “What’s he got on us?”
“Nothing on us. He’s threatening to call Ma.”
Fuck. A whole lot of their mother’s history was wrapped up in her firm belief that their father never actually existed and that both he and Leo were the result of her alien abductions and the aliens’ love of the deep probe. “How do you think she would handle seeing him?”
“Look, Ma is great, but I worry a little in this case.”
“Because all the shit with that man is what broke her in the first place?” He didn’t want to call the man “dad.”
“I just think Ma has some carefully constructed walls that allow her to be happy, and I would hate to see them fracture.”
“So where is the bastard?” He could take care of this small problem. There were numerous places to hide bodies in Southern Colorado. And he hadn’t killed anyone lately. It had been a long dry spell.
“So you can murder him and hide the body?” Leo asked, proving his brother knew him pretty damn well.
“It’s a solution to the problem.” A nasty thought struck. “You didn’t already give him money, did you?”
“Of course not. I’m not going to either. I threatened the fuck out of him if he didn’t leave. Harper actually helped with that. The man is apparently really inventive when it comes to threats. And he’s not skittish about threatening another dude’s junk.”
Wolf could believe that of Max. “But he’s not going away. He needs something, and he figured out we can give it to him. Why the fuck now?”
“I suspect he looked us up, or he’s been keeping tabs on us.”
“How much did he ask for?”
“We didn’t get that far.” Leo ran a hand through his hair. “Has she ever talked to you about what happened?”
Wolf snorted a little. “Oh, so many times. I’ve heard far more than I want to about probing. Apparently I came out so big because she got a double shot of Reticulan Gray DNA. Why do I have to be from the creepy looking grays?”
Leo’s eyes rolled. “I was talking about what really happened.”
“Oh, yeah. All I got out of her was probings.”
“All right.” Leo turned away. “I thought he would look like us. We don’t look a lot like Ma. I guess I always thought if I ever met the bastard, that he would look something like me. But he was short and looks like he was probably a blond before he went gray.”
Wolf was happy he didn’t look anything like the fucker. He was also happy he didn’t look anything like the Reticulan Grays. “You know there’s one person she might have talked to.”
Leo’s shoulders slumped. “Damn it. We’re going to have to go into the sweat lodge, aren’t we? Is there any way Mel’s fully clothed?”
“No way in hell.” They couldn’t possibly be that lucky.
Leo shuddered and began making his way toward the main building. His brother wasn’t as comfortable with walking around in the altogether as he was. Wolf glanced around. Julian was fully dressed, but Finn was playing naked horseshoes with a very comfy-with-himself Sam Fleetwood.
Wolf felt his eyes widen as he watched Max and Rye carrying a passed-out Stef Talbot across the lawn. “Hey, did he have too much tonic? Should we call Caleb? Because I’m worried that it could actually make a person blind.”
Caleb walked out from behind the trees, a rifle resting against his shoulder. “He’s fine. Pissed off, but fine. But hey, he’s going to wake up as Jen’s sex slave, so it will all work out in the end. It’s a damn fine day, Meyer. Damn fine.”
“He’s going to kill us,” Rye was complaining.
“Probably,” Max agreed. He smiled at Wolf. “Hey, Wolf. Your brother is cool. He’s writing a book about me.”
“Dumbass,” Rye shot back. “His brother is a psychologist. He’s writing a book about how fucked up you are.”
“Yeah, and I’m the hero.”
Rye groaned. “Move it. He’s heavy. Hey, where are we going to stuff him? Paige’s car seat is in my back. I don’t think I like the idea of a naked dude riding on Paige’s car seat.”
“No way, brother,” Max said. “No naked dudes get to touch our baby girl. We can dump him in the flatbed. Do you think anyone’s got some rope so we can tie him down? Oh, and we should totally take some pictures.”
Rye brightened. “I think someone in this group can help us out with some rope.”
Max and Rye carried Stef away.
Stef was totally going to kill them.
“This place is fucked up, man. I think that dude got sniped.” Chase was suddenly standing beside him, watching as Stef Talbot’s limp body got carried away.
Chase was deeply worried about snipers. He was sure they were everywhere. Wolf needed to let him know the possibility was small. “I think it was tranq darts. Caleb likes to shoot people but he doesn’t actually kill
them.”
“A sniping is a sniping, brother.” Chase had his quirks. He also had his extreme talents.
And one of them was finding out any information a man could possibly need. “Hey, could you do a quick job for me?”
Chase perked up. “Sure. Ben passed out in the volleyball pit. I made sure he could breathe and shit, but I am so not reapplying his sunscreen. His ass is going to be bright red for that wedding tomorrow. I’ll be surprised if he can sit in the pew. Nat is going to be pissed.”
Wolf was going to have to drag Ben’s naked ass into the shade. Why had someone thought this was a good idea? “I need you to find out everything you can on Robert Meyer.”
Chase’s eyebrow quirked up. “Your dad? I already have a file.”
There was only one reason Chase would already have a file on Robert Meyer. “Julian. Of course.”
“Of course. Julian doesn’t do the whole ‘wait until people trust me enough’ thing. He just finds shit out and holds the info until such time as he needs it. Are you sure you want to find that asshole?”
“No. I don’t.” Wolf sighed. “The trouble is he seems to have found us.”
Chapter Eleven:
Aidan, Lexi, and Lucas
All around her Shelley’s bridal shower continued, everyone looking politely away as though they hadn’t seen the tense scene that had played out in front of them. They pretended they hadn’t watched as Lexi’s marriage took a nose dive. Lexi wished she could take the last few minutes back.
Lexi was utterly miserable as she stared at the place where Lucas and Aidan had tried to get her attention. She’d been in the middle of listening to a deal to turn her books into audiobooks and it had been hard to hear her agent. The cell reception wasn’t the greatest out here.
Of course it was probably perfect compared to the reception that would be waiting for her when she got back to the ranch. She glanced around and everyone was going on with their lives. There were women all over the beautifully decorated lawn sipping champagne and margaritas and talking with friends.
When was the last time Lexi had simply sat down and talked about anything but business? When she got together with Jessica, they talked about upcoming conventions. She had made friends in Dallas with some writers and she loved to talk to them, but they inevitably spent their long phone conversations helping each other with plots and problems with their characters.