That was why he’d lied about his marital status on the corporate job application. He’d stated only that he was married and his wife’s name was Laura. He hadn’t mentioned Cam at all. That was why his gut still turned when he looked at the offer.
“Can I get you anything before I head out? I’m working a double until we get the new guy in,” Cam said, picking up the lunch Laura had left for him. Cam might complain about his job with the Bliss County Sheriff’s Department from time to time, but he loved it. He fit in better than he had when they were partners in the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.
And Rafael Kincaid watched the baby. Not that he didn’t love the baby. He just hadn’t spent all that time in college so he could watch the baby. “No, I’m fine.”
Cam stared at him for a moment. “The deputy position is yours if you want it. Hell, Nate would be happy to have you. We’ve had trouble with applicants since Logan resigned permanently. Mel filled out an application, though he changed the title of the job from deputy to Chief Alien Hunter. He said he’ll do the job for free, but he won’t wear the uniform because polyester blends are alien in origin. He’s our only candidate right now.”
“I thought we had a couple of applicants from other towns.” He knew way too much about what went on at the sheriff’s department.
Cam’s eyes rolled in obvious frustration. “We had two guys from Monte Vista who were interested. They were just about to turn in their applications when Nell made her weekly protest.”
Rafe groaned. “Well, if they can’t handle Nell’s chanting, they aren’t suitable.”
Nell’s protests were a way of life in Bliss. Hell, a deputy in Bliss had to put up with any number of odd encounters.
“So what do you say?” Cam asked, his eyes hopeful.
Rafe shook his head. That was Cam’s place. They had been partners on the job once, but he needed his own identity here and so did Cam. “We would have to work opposite schedules so one of us could be with Sierra. We would never be together as a family. And we agreed that only one of us could be in the line of fire at a time.”
They had a wife and a kid. They had a future to protect, and while Cam’s job was mostly ticketing tourists and making sure everyone stayed fully clothed on Main Street, there were also those moments when the bullets started flying. Bliss could sometimes be a dangerous place.
“Rafe, man, you’re not going to be happy being a stay-at-home dad.”
He was starting to get a little irritated. There wasn’t anything Cam was saying that he didn’t already know. “Well, once a suitable job comes along, I’ll take it. I heard Cole Roberts is hiring maid staff at the ski lodge. I’ll go and apply immediately if my lack of a job irks you that much.”
Cam’s eyes closed briefly, a sure sign that he was mustering his patience. “I didn’t say it irked me. I’m just worried about you. You haven’t been the same since you came back from Miami. You want to tell me what happened?”
“I had a pleasant visit with my mother,” he lied.
Cam’s eyes narrowed. “Then why didn’t she come to the wedding?”
He looked down, not willing to meet Cam’s eyes. “She doesn’t like planes.”
“Sure,” Cam shot back. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think she utterly rejected the idea of the three of us being together and raising a child and she threatened to shut you out of her life.”
Well, that summed things up neatly. Cam had been a damn good FBI agent.
“It wasn’t a threat. My mother always means what she says. She has shut me out of her life and my brother will do as she tells him to. Hell, he’ll be happy to do it because it means he doesn’t have to split his inheritance with me.” Rafe looked down at the baby in his arms. She wouldn’t know a loving grandmother. She wouldn’t get to sit at his mother’s table at the big house in Miami and smell pastelitos cooking.
He’d never felt as vulnerable as he did looking down at the baby he’d adopted. He wondered if she would thank him for it, if she would be proud that he was her father or if she would hate him for bringing her into a family that didn’t fit the norm.
Cam moved in behind him. “Your mom is wrong, Rafe. We’re not doing anything bad. We’re just trying to build the best world we can. Maybe we do it outside the norm, but this is our life. We can’t live it by other people’s standards, not when what we do hurts absolutely no one.”
He knew Cam was right, but seeing his mother reject him so completely had killed something inside him.
He hadn’t bothered to contact his brother. They weren’t close anyway and Javier had always been closer to their mother than Rafe. His father was on a yearlong cruise with some twenty-year-old. They barely exchanged Christmas cards.
Sierra should be glad she had two fathers, because they were going to be a very small family.
Cam put a hand on his shoulder. “Things will change when I finish the software recognition program. I’ve already talked to Seth Stark about giving him the first crack at it. Another six months and we could be rolling in money and all this will mean nothing. People forgive a lot of oddities when insane amounts of money are involved.”
Rafe nodded and Cam gave him another reassuring pat. And then Cam was gone and it was just him and Sierra because Laura was working, too.
Cam meant well, but he didn’t understand. The money wouldn’t ease this hole inside him. He knew it was wrong. He had more than most people. He had a woman he loved wildly and a best friend and a kid he adored. And he wanted to matter.
Oh, he knew they loved him, and he was more than willing to give up his former ambitions. He didn’t want to go back to the rat race, but he needed to contribute.
He couldn’t even give Sierra a grandmother.
He rocked her for a while, his mind wandering, trying to figure out a way out of this desolation he felt. The last thing his family needed was a bitter man.
There was a knock on his door. He closed his eyes briefly. It was probably Gemma. Ever since she and Jesse and Cade had moved into Holly’s old cabin, Gemma showed up from time to time with her slightly dour personality and one of Cade’s loaves of bread. He rather thought Cade and Jesse were trying to soften her up by forcing her to get to know the neighbors.
He got up and crossed to the door. The slight weight of Sierra sleeping in his arms was the only thing that kept him smiling.
He opened the door, ready to invite Gemma in for what always proved to be an awkward five or six minutes, but he was rapidly getting used to his life being awkward.
And it was more than awkward because Gemma wasn’t the one standing on his porch. Zane Hollister’s massive body took up most of the space, but he wasn’t alone. Stella Talbot was wearing her red boots with the purple fringe. Marie Warner was dressed in a pair of khaki overalls, a stern look on her face. Long-Haired Roger had a trucker hat over his bald head, and Polly, owner of Polly’s Cut and Curl, was shaking her head. There was a tension among the group that was impossible to miss.
Zane loomed in the doorway, his face a grim mask. “Rafe, we need your help to stop the greatest disaster Bliss has ever seen.”
Well, at least the day wouldn’t be boring.
Chapter Four:
Leo, Shelley, and Wolf
“Ma, I love you, but you’re fucking insane if you think for a second that we’re going to serve beet juice at our wedding,” he said over his cell.
Leo had been over this about ten thousand times, but two minutes ago his beautiful bride had called and used her dulcet voice to scream at him that if there were beets at her wedding, his cock was going to wither and die.
He believed her. His baby could be very stubborn. Unfortunately, so was his mother. He’d figured out how to deal with Shelley long ago. He could tie her up and spank her. It usually worked quite well. His mother was still a mystery.
“Leonardo, honey, don’t you want to know if she’s using you for your alien sperm?”
Nope. I’m perfectly fine with my sperm being used in any ca
pacity. But the wedding was seriously fucking with his ability to get laid. He would be damn happy when the wedding was done and he could get to the marriage. “Ma, I love Shelley. Wolf loves Shell. We’re getting married to her. We’re happy. She’s one hundred percent human, with all the working human female parts. Be happy for us, please.”
He walked down Main Street, stalking his prey. Up ahead, the man he’d been hunting was walking into the Trading Post. Excellent. He could view the subject interacting with others again. He’d discovered the man two days ago and found that studying him took his mind off all of his troubles.
He could write a whole damn book about this guy. This guy made Chase Dawson look normal.
“Leonardo, I love you and Wolfgang. Shelley seems real nice, but it’s time you come to your senses. She won’t take the beet. She won’t even try.”
The fact that his mother could use the phrase “take the beet” damn near killed him. “Ma, none of us wants to take the beet. It’s not because we’re aliens. It’s because they’re gross and they stain everything. I spent a god-awful amount of money on Shelley’s dress. Someone named Monique Lhuillier really believes in her own talent, and one of our future daughters should really be able to wear it again because it might just be her only legacy after what that dress cost me. She can’t wear it if it’s got beet juice all over it.”
Not that he would ever have a child. A man had to have sex in order to procreate, and at this point he wasn’t even living with his wife.
They might not have a legal agreement, but she’d really been his wife since the day she’d agreed to marry him. But she’d insisted on this freaking old-school, no-sex-for-a-week-before-marriage shit.
And Wolf had just lain right down like a big old pussy. He hadn’t even argued with her about it.
Now they were back in their childhood cabin, in their old rooms. It was supposed to be a reminder of how far he’d come. He just kind of wanted to be where he was. He’d worked damn hard for his really nice condo in Dallas. Well, he’d manipulated Julian enough to get a wretchedly large salary that afforded him the best of everything.
And yet he had to admit there was a piercing sweetness to being back here. Everywhere he looked there was a reminder of just how much his crazy-as-fuck mother had loved him, how much this place had molded him into the man he was. Even hanging with Wolf had been fun. They’d been fishing and gone to the Movie Motel for a showing of Die Hard and just sat and drank and talked. Mostly about how hard up they were, but they were really communicating.
He thought about the e-mail he’d received. It had come out of nowhere and he wasn’t sure how to handle it. He hadn’t told Wolf a thing about it. He sure as hell hadn’t told his ma. Was he going to say a word or pretend like it didn’t exist? He wasn’t sure. The man who had sent him the e-mail had pretended he didn’t exist for the last thirty-something years. Payback, in this case, was as easy as hitting the delete key.
“Ma? Are you there or have you vacated the premises?” He had to ask the question because on more than one occasion, his mother had simply dropped the phone and walked off when he told her something she didn’t want to hear. Of course, she tended to claim that those were the times she’d been abducted by aliens.
“It’s already started.” His mother’s voice was a hushed whisper. “You’ve turned your back on your upbringing. You used to love beets.”
His stomach actually turned. His mother was very good at rewriting history. He’d eaten beets half the time because they were the only things they could afford. He wasn’t going there with her though. He loved his mother enough that he could rewrite history, too. “Nope, I hated them all my life. The only reason I ate them was the fact that I didn’t get ice cream if I didn’t clean my plate. Ma, is there something else at work here? Some deeper anxiety?”
“Don’t you psychoanalyze me, Leonardo Michelangelo Meyer. I can still put you over my knee, you know. And there is no deeper anxiety than alien abduction. You tell that alien queen that I will not attend the wedding without her beeting.” There was a quick click and Leo sighed.
His mother used beet as a verb. Yep, his condo in Dallas seemed very peaceful.
A loud ruckus caught his attention. The doors to the Trading Post flung open and two young men came running out.
“That is one crazy son of a bitch. He damn near took out my eye with that fishing pole.”
“What the fuck is up with this place? I came here for Sasquatch, not Satan.”
Both young men practically ran down the road.
Max Harper was at it again.
Yes. This was a subject he could study for days. Leo was actually excited again. Ever since Logan had left, he hadn’t had a single deeply fucked-up dude to fix. Leo kind of lived to fix people, but he’d started to believe that Max was that rarest of fucked-up dudes. The naturally fucked up. The “no real reason for it, just kind of crazy” idiot.
It was rather like finding the Sasquatch the young man had talked about.
Yeah, he was totally interested in Max Harper.
He stopped outside the Trading Post, not willing to get too close to the subject. He had to maintain his distance while in the observation period.
And his cell phone trilled again. He glanced down at the number. Wolf.
“Hey.”
“You have to do something about Ma.”
Leo sighed. “Shelley isn’t going to take the beet, man.”
“Ma’s crying. And she’s threatening to call Mel. You know what’s going to happen if she calls Mel.”
Mel. The craziest man in Bliss, and that was saying something, because Caleb Burke was the town doc. “They go into his bunker and don’t come out until after the wedding, and then the whole reason we’re having the stupid thing is gone.”
Frustration welled.
“Or we could just convince our sweet sub to drink a little freaking beet juice,” Wolf replied.
Yes, that would be the reasonable reaction. “She said no.”
“She said no before we made a party out of it and you presented her with some really hot shoes in exchange for her drinking a cup and a half of beet juice. I have a friend and she’s willing to set up the whole thing. She’s going to the reception this afternoon and I’m ordering something called Prada wedges. Laura says the mint-green color is all the buzz this season. God, I feel dumb even saying that sentence, but I saw them online and they’re actually pretty hot. God knows they’re expensive as fuck, so they should work.”
Was his brother high? “Didn’t you used to date Laura?”
There was a brief pause. “Once or twice. She’s married now.”
“Dude, you’re asking advice from an ex? About our wife? What the hell do you think is going to happen when she finds out? And she will find out. She won’t drink the beet juice. She’d throw it in your face.”
“She’s not an ex. I didn’t sleep with her.”
That was hard to believe. “You slept with everyone.”
“Not Laura,” Wolf insisted. “So she doesn’t count. I can still be friends with her.”
He was right. It wasn’t like he’d been in love with Laura. He’d only ever loved Shelley. “Fine, so you want to use a single pair of wretchedly expensive shoes to get our wife to agree to a completely bogus ceremony that will potentially placate our mother and lead our family to a certain level of harmony?”
Wolf hesitated for a second. “Uhm, yeah.”
There were definitely times when having a partner made his relationship with Shelley so much easier. “You are so fucking smart, brother. Buy the goddamn shoes. And throw in some jewelry on top of it. We want her really happy to drink that nasty beet juice. We can do it at Trio tonight.”
“Why can’t we do it at home?”
“Because Ma has made a ritual out of it. She’s calling it a beeting.”
Wolf groaned. “We’ll be lucky if Shell shows up tomorrow.”
Leo felt a smile cross his face. If there was one thing he was sure o
f, it was that Shelley McNamara would be walking down the aisle tomorrow afternoon. She would be holding on to her brother’s arm and smiling that amazing smile, and she would belong to them because she already did. “This is a story we’ll tell our kids, brother.”
He never thought he would have them, but lately, he’d been dreaming about black-haired boys and girls. He’d found out he actually had a future.
There was a little pause on the line. “Yeah. We’ll tell them about how screwy their parents’ wedding was. I’ll order the presents. Logan says his partner, Seth, can have someone fly them out from Bergdorf.”
Seth was a billionaire, so Leo didn’t doubt it. “You do what you need to do and get your ass out to Mountain and Valley. Tell me you didn’t forget about our meeting with Mel?”
Wolf groaned. “How could I forget? The invitation was carved into a beet so I will never forget it. I won’t leave you alone with Mel. I’ll make it to whatever the hell this is. Do you know what the hell this is?”
Leo turned, looking down Main Street. He hadn’t been to Bliss in years, but it looked like nothing had changed. “He’s calling it a Meeting of Men. Jen Talbot is hosting a reception for the women out at the Talbot estate. This is Mel’s version. I’m sure it will be painfully embarrassing. That’s all I know.”
“Then I’ll see you at three. You don’t think this is just a way to surprise us with some crazy-ass fun bachelor party?”
Given by Mel, the alien hunter? “Not a chance in living hell, brother. Be ready for some surreal humiliation, but nothing more.”
His brother sighed over the line. “See you there.”
The line went dead and Leo turned, ready to get back to the task at hand. He was nearly startled out of his fucking head. It had been a while since he’d been snuck up on, but he’d been distracted.