Max Harper stared at him, a bag in his hand. “You following me?”
He could lie and make up some grand fiction, but he was too fucking old to make shit up. The truth was so much easier. “I’m a psychologist. I’ve been following you around and you’re completely fucking nuts. I’m thinking of writing a book about you.”
Max’s eyes narrowed. “Am I the hero of this book?”
“Sure, why not?” His general psychosis would likely aid everyone in the psychological world.
A broad smile caught on Max’s face. “Well, hell, then let me buy you a drink. Let’s go to Trio. I was headed there anyway!”
The big cowboy turned and started walking down the street. Leo followed because if there was one thing he wasn’t going to turn down at this point, it was a stiff drink.
* * * *
Wolf Meyer looked across the table at Laura Kincaid-Briggs. “You’re sure these are the shoes?”
The lovely blonde smiled and gave him a knowing wink as she passed back his tablet “Yep. She’ll love them. It will totally make beet juice worthwhile. So I don’t count because I wouldn’t sleep with you?”
Shit. He’d hoped she hadn’t figured that out. “We went on two dates. It wasn’t a grand love affair. You were waiting on those two FBI guys.”
A little flush lit her cheeks. “Their names are Rafe and Cam, and I wish you had come to the wedding.”
He did, too. “I’m sorry. I really wanted to. Dani was traveling. Guarding her and the kiddo is my job. There are a lot of people who would love to hurt Julian, and I can’t let that happen.”
He was Dani’s bodyguard and he went to school. It was kind of a terrific life.
She slid a hand across the table. “I know. You look really happy, Wolf. I can’t tell you how glad I am. Though I seem to remember you claiming you would never be a ménage boy.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t into long-term sharing back then. Shelley changed my mind.”
“Yeah, well, since then I’ve heard a whole lot about short-term sharing.”
He’d cut a wide swath through Southern Colorado after his time with the SEALs was done. He’d shared women with his friends Logan and Jamie before they’d all settled down and gotten married. Logan was sharing with his best friend and Jamie with his brother, Noah. They had all lucked out. “I found something better than short term. And I’m glad you’ve worked it out with your FBI guys.”
A hint of sadness hit her eyes. “Yes.”
She’d just adopted a baby. She should be glowing with happiness. He liked Laura. He didn’t like the fact that she wasn’t glowing. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.” She sighed a little. “Rafe just doesn’t seem happy.”
Rafe was the one from the city. Oh, both Rafe and Cam had lived in DC, but Cam was obviously a Southern, small-town boy and Rafe had big city written all over him. “He miss DC?”
“I think he misses the Bureau.”
“Small-town life isn’t for everyone.” He’d worried a little about Kincaid when he’d waltzed into town. “My wife, sorry, fiancée, she couldn’t live here full time. We can visit, but her ambitions are bigger than a small town can handle. She grew up in one and she needs more now. She needs theaters and art and a thousand restaurants to choose from.”
“What about you? You liked it here.”
He’d loved it in Bliss. But he loved Shelley more. “I’m good. Dallas is cool. We’re talking about buying some land here so we can come up for summers. I want our kids to know this place, to be close to my ma.”
He thought about the future all the time now. Why was Leo looking into the past? Oh, his brother didn’t think he knew about that e-mail he’d received, but Wolf had seen it, read it, and thought about it endlessly.
And found his peace. Somehow, since he’d fallen for that crazy little sub, his peace was easier to find. He just hoped his brother had the same serenity he’d found.
Laura took a long sip of her coffee. “What do I do if he’s not happy? How do I handle it if I’m not enough? We just adopted a kid. I thought we would be perfect right now.”
He reached out and put a hand on hers. Laura had been a good friend to him. “Kids can be hard. Babies change things. You’re in transition. You’re going from being a trio to being a family.”
God, he wanted that. He was two semesters into his business degree and he would put it all on pause for a rug rat of his own. Or two or three. He wanted a big damn family, brothers and sisters who could rely on each other, who had a shared history. He didn’t think he would have made it through without Leo. Of course, his kids would be lucky because they would have Chloe and Olivia and Josh. Eventually Ben and Chase and Nat would have kids, too. There would be a gang of kids growing up, forming their own little family of brothers and sisters and cousins.
He and Leo had been alone, but their children would have a wealth of love to call on. And so would Laura’s daughter.
“What if we don’t make it?” Laura had gone a little pale.
“You grow, Laura. Every single human being does it. You all have to make the choice to grow together or to grow apart.” He knew what he was going to do. He knew what his role was. He was the in between. Leo had his intellectual pursuits. Shelley had her ambition.
And Wolf was the glue. He wanted his family more than anything else. He was the bridge. If Leo and Shelley were on their own, there was a high probability that they would grow apart and find themselves with a vast distance between them after a few years.
Wolf was going to make sure that didn’t happen. Not ever. He would get his degree. He was dedicated to that, but his chief job in life was to keep them all together. Love took work and he was a hard worker.
Happily ever after was so much easier with a damn fine work ethic.
“There’s nothing for him to do here in Bliss. I don’t think Rafe is going to be happy being a stay-at-home dad.” Laura sniffled a little. “You know, I found this calm center of myself about six months after I got here. I thought I would hate it. I just didn’t have anywhere else to go. I’d run out of money, out of time, out of everything. Those first couple of months felt like I was in Purgatory. And then I opened my door and I really looked around. The world is softer here. I fell in love with the glow the world has. Why can’t Rafe find it? Cam did. Cam loved this place the minute he walked into it.”
His heart ached for her. “Maybe he just needs time.”
Laura’s head fell forward. “And maybe sometimes love isn’t enough. What am I going to do?”
God, he felt for her. “Well, you need to talk to him, first off. You need to ask him what’s going on. Have you really talked to him?”
Laura’s hands were in front of her, clasped together. “I’m scared to.”
“You can’t be. That’s not the way this works. You have to be brave, Laura. You have a daughter. There’s no prevaricating now. Ask him.”
She nodded. “You’re right. I need to talk to him.”
And Wolf needed to talk to Leo. About a lot of things. “What’s the whole parenting thing like?”
“I love it.” Now Laura was beaming. “She’s the best thing I ever did. God, Wolf, I want to cry every time I look at her. Not in a bad way. Like, in a momentous way. I hold her and I know why I was put here. I was born to be her mom. And when I see the way Rafe looks at her, I know he feels the same way. Cam just laid down at her little tiny feet. He’s so damn easy to love. What am I going to do if I can’t have them both? I promised Sierra that her dads would always be here. I know she doesn’t understand a word right now, but I do. I promised her two dads who would love her forever.”
“Then you have to make it happen. He’s not abusive, right?” He would have to step in if he found out Laura was hurting.
“Of course not. Rafe is the sweetest. He’s just sad and I can’t stand it. And I can’t stand the thought of choosing between this town and my family. What am I saying? This town is my family. I’m choosing be
tween Rafe and my family. Why can’t he see it?”
Why couldn’t Leo see that their family was complete until such time as they chose to add to it? Wolf wanted kids so bad it hurt, but he wasn’t going to force Leo or Shelley to move any faster than they wanted to. “I don’t know, sweetheart, but you need to work it out. That’s your only option.”
And he had to talk to Leo. There was no other choice.
* * * *
“So you regularly go to jail.” It wasn’t a question. Leo was pretty sure it was just a simple truth of Max Harper’s life.
“He spend so much times in the jail that we have his orders for food on file. We provide the dinners. I think he get taken in because it be the only time he gets Buffalo wings.” The big Russian bartender put two beers in front of them and a big basket of the aforementioned wings.
Max’s eyes narrowed, and he looked around the bar. “There might be some truth to that, and let’s keep this little fried bit of joy between the three of us.” Max looked back at Leo. “My baby is serious about my cholesterol. I made the horrible mistake of actually following through with the physical, and apparently there’s some difference between good and bad cholesterol and I have the bad shit. So Rach has decided I should be a bunny rabbit. Men need food. Men need meat.”
Leo wasn’t sure Buffalo wings qualified as meat, but Harper seemed to think so. He dug into the fried treats with gusto, stopping only to enjoy his beer. “How do you usually get incarcerated?”
He shrugged. “The normal way. I punch someone and Nate gets pissy about it. I rarely stay overnight. Rye comes and gets me out most of the time. Let me tell you, I like the hell out of Gemma. I don’t care that she’s a lawyer. She’s easily bribable. Callie and Hope used to call Rach no matter what I did.”
“Do you think your violent tendencies come from your childhood?” He would far rather conduct this interview in his office. It would be quiet and serene there. The jukebox was screaming out something about crashing a party, but Harper seemed to enjoy the chaos.
Harper’s expression turned thoughtful. “I think my violent tendencies come from people being assholes.”
“All right, I’ll rephrase. What was your childhood like?”
“Awesome. Rye and I had the run of the mountain. My momma made the best cookies. Me and Rye and Stef, we were mountain men when we were kids. We used to take a tent and sleep up on the mountain. There’s nothing better.”
“What about your father?”
Harper sighed. “He shouldn’t have stayed as long as he did.”
Leo frowned. “That’s an odd statement.”
Harper stopped for a moment as though he was deciding what to say. “He wasn’t cut out to be a father, you know. I think he tried his hardest, but it would have been better for all of us if he’d deserted our momma.”
Leo was deeply confused. “You’re happy he left you?”
“No. I was pissed as shit at the time. But I’m an adult now and things look differently from this side. I loved my momma. She was a good woman. She stood by her man even when she shouldn’t have. Don’t feel sorry for me. It’s not like I didn’t have male role models. I had Hiram and Mel and Bill. Sure, Hi thinks bears are out to get him. Mel hunts aliens and Bill is always naked, but they helped a boy out. I just think Momma could have found someone who would have loved her better.”
“So you knew your mother and father weren’t in love?”
Harper sucked the juice off a wing. “I don’t know that anyone could really love my daddy. It’s not that he was a complete ass, he just was closed off. I think he cared about my momma, but he didn’t know how to really love someone.”
“Your mother died when you were young?” He’d heard a couple of stories.
“I was barely eighteen. When Momma died the man who called himself my dad left. He left me and Rye with my sister, Brooke. She was just seven at the time. We had to work real hard because we couldn’t let the state come in and take her. But then I met my Rach. Lots of things changed after I met my Rach. Love, really loving a woman and being loved back, that’s the most important thing in the world. My momma was a good woman. She deserved to be some man’s whole world.”
Why the hell was this man insane? He made total sense. He had all the working parts to be a functional man. So why did Max Harper insist on being an asshole?
Maybe he just chose to be.
“Leonardo?”
Leo turned his head, following the sound that came from his left. A man stood there. Leo would peg him somewhere in his sixties. He was well dressed, though the clothes were of middling quality. He stared at the man trying to figure out who the hell he was.
“Yes?”
“Leonardo, I’m your father. I thought we could talk.”
Harper pointed a wing his way. “Now we’re getting to the drama. Nice.”
Leo shook his head, hoping he was hallucinating. Maybe the strong odor of Harper’s superhot chicken wings was causing him to see things. Because this shit just couldn’t be happening right before his wedding. He had enough to deal with. He didn’t need a long-lost father.
“What do you want?” He stared at the man who had supplied half his DNA. The man didn’t look anything like the father he remembered, but then a young mind could play tricks. Memory was a fragile thing. The man who stood in front of him was so much older than he remembered, his face showing decades of hard living.
A deep frown crossed Robert Meyer’s face. “I told you in my e-mail. I just want to talk to my son.”
“I find your timing deeply interesting,” Leo replied.
Max watched the byplay like he was invested in a tennis match. His eyes went from Leo to Robert and back again as he munched down on his precious hot wings. “Do you find it interesting because he doesn’t show back up in your life until you’re just about to get married so it’s at the worst possible time?”
Did he really need Max’s input? “Yes. That was what I meant.”
Max smiled and nodded as though giving them permission to continue. “I found that interesting, too. He’s probably here to blackmail you.”
“I am not.” Robert shook his head, but there was something in his father’s eyes that made Leo think he was lying.
The fucker.
“I just want to talk, Leonardo. I think your mother has been lying to you about me for a long time. Isn’t it time to put the past behind us and be a family again?”
Max pointed a wing at Robert. “You found out how much money he’s worth, didn’t you?” His brow furrowed as he looked to Leo. “You are worth a lot, right? I mean you work for that crazy rich Julian fellow so you’re bound to be loaded.”
“You work for Lodge? I’ve heard of him.” Robert’s face turned thoughtful. “He’s an interesting man. Your job must be fascinating, Leo. You’ve done so well for yourself.”
“Cut the crap.” He didn’t feel like playing around. “What do you want? Look, I have no idea what you’ve been doing or where you’ve been. If you have some misconception that Wolf and I have spent our lives wondering about you, you’re wrong. We grew up just fine without you. If you have a deep need to reconnect, try me again after the wedding.”
His father’s cheeks flushed a slight red, a sure sign of irritation. This obviously wasn’t going the way he’d planned.
“I think the shrink is trying to tell you to get lost or he’s going to hire me to shove a baseball bat straight up your rear.” Max nodded. “I’ll give a real good rate on that. He was married to Cassidy, right? Real fine lady. Crazy as fuck, but nice.”
“Are you threatening me, you asshole?” His father’s pleasant mask dropped. Ah, now Leo remembered him.
“Go away, Robert. I don’t want to talk to you. I’ve moved on with my life. I suggest you move on with yours. Otherwise, I might have to take Mr. Harper up on his offer.”
Max let out a long sigh. “Please do. Rach won’t let me kill anyone anymore. It’s been months.”
Robert moved back, his m
outh a stubborn grimace. “Don’t think this is over, Leo.”
Max leaned over. “So he just e-mailed you? I don’t believe in e-mail. It’s just one more way for people to try to get you to do shit for them. You should be like me. Just get rid of it and don’t reload it again.”
Leo felt like growling. His father might have walked away long ago, but it looked like Leo couldn’t delete the fucker.
Chapter Five:
Aidan, Lexi, and Lucas
Lucas waited patiently as Aidan rode in. He was sitting on top of a gorgeous brown and white mustang, his spine straight, sweat on his brow.
Working man. Cowboy. Sweat and leather. It should disgust him, but his cock just sprang right up.
He needed Aidan because he couldn’t have Lexi. That wasn’t exactly right. He needed Aidan, but he needed to fuck Aidan right now because he couldn’t have Lexi.
Aidan’s head came up and a smile lit his face. At least he could still make his Master smile.
Aidan brought the horse he was riding to a stop and gracefully dismounted, his body so long and lean that it made Lucas’s mouth water.
Of course after coming so close to getting Lexi into bed, his body was primed for sex. He’d been in cock hell ever since that moment when he thought she would take his hand and let him lead her away for a few stolen hours. He’d envisioned laying her out and topping her, ordering her to suck his cock before he tied her up and fucked her six ways from Sunday.
It had been so long since he’d gotten to top her. It had been months—since before Chelsea had been born, and even then she’d been pregnant. He’d had to be tender and gentle, and sometimes he just needed some rough.
“Is something wrong?” Aidan had a tight rein on the lead.
He must look ferocious. Damn. He had to keep a lid on it or he would scare the fuck out of his Master. He couldn’t let Aidan know just how angry he was.
Shove it down. Don’t be a pain. Be helpful. It’s the only way you might have a shot at saving this. “I just thought I would come out here and see how your day was going.”