Acres, Natalie - Sex Club [Cowboy Sex 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (35 page)

After Kimberly hung up the phone, she glanced at Patience and announced, “I’m calling Daddy Kane.”

“I think you should.”

“I hate to ruin their vacation.”

“Kimberly, you know how Ansley is. She never takes anything seriously. She spoke about this Jordie Anne person like she thought she could take her in a street brawl.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Kimberly said, defending her sister.

“But you know how she is. She’s never been one to run from a challenge.”

Kimberly took a deep breath. “She wouldn’t walk away from something like this anyway. In fact, she’d punch Jordie Anne in the nose and pick a fight if she thought she could protect Trixie and the kids. That’s the way she is. She’d rather risk her life than put those she loves in danger.” A second later, her eyes welled with tears.

“What else is bothering you?”

“I can’t shake the feeling that I’m about to lose my sister,” she said, sniffing. “Patience, Ansley has changed so much since we left. I can hear it in her voice. That said, one constant remains. She would die for her family, and she’d take her last breath without regrets.”

“You’re absolutely right. You need to call your dads,” Patience told her. “They need to know what’s going on back home.”

In a matter of seconds, Kimberly was explaining the story to her fathers. After her ordeal with Jason, she’d avoided her parents as much as possible. In many ways, Kimberly felt if they’d been more willing to accept who she chose to spend her life loving, she would still be with Jason. Then again, maybe they’d known all along how unhappy he would make her in the end.

Placing the past aside, she couldn’t let her stubbornness or rebellion, if that’s what it was, keep her from protecting her sister. Ansley needed her family. Kimberly planned to hop the first plane home, but her parents would be able to pull strings and leave the Bahamas tonight.

After she shared what she knew, Daddy Kane asked, “Kimberly, honey, how are
you
?”

“I’m fine. I promise. Just tell me what I should do. I’ll probably fly home, too. I want to be there for Ansley. Two Cartwell sisters are better than one, and at least I can keep her from doing something stupid.”

“Your sister is a smart girl,” Daddy Kane said. “I want you to stay put for now, Kimberly. Let me take care of this. I’ll call Brock. After I give him an ass-chewing for keeping this from me, I’ll see if he can’t go pick up your sister. If she’s with him, he’ll keep her safe until we can catch a flight home.”

“Dad?”

“Yes honey?”

“There’s something else I should probably tell you,” she said, watching Patience as she adamantly shook her head.

“This is Ansley’s story to tell,” Patience mouthed.

Maybe so, but Ansley wasn’t about to tell their parents about her personal life while they were out of town.

“What is it, Kimberly?”

“Ansley is staying at The Grove Park Inn. She’s involved with the Killians again and…”

“And?”

“You’ve met Tristan and Bailey, haven’t you?”

“Your bartenders? Yeah, I know ’em. What about them?”

“She’s uh…”

“Spit it out, Kimberly,” Kane said firmly.

“She’s recently started seeing Tristan and Bailey, too. With Graham and Elliott
and
Tristan and Bailey, I don’t think Ansley will go anywhere with Brock. She has all the protection she needs.”

“Evan!” Kane screamed. “Call the airline. Book the next flight home! We have another daughter bound and determined to screw up her life!”

Chapter Nineteen

“Are you sure you overheard her correctly?” Tristan asked, his brow furrowed.

Elliott was positive. He’d waited until he heard Ansley’s bathwater running before he shared what he knew with the others, but he was certain about the conversation Ansley had with Kimberly. “She’s concerned we’ll force her to make a choice between us.”

“She has enough to worry about,” Graham pointed out. “I don’t want her fretting over us or whether or not we’ll share her willingly.”

Tristan dragged his open palm down the length of his face. Bailey dropped his hands between parted legs. He stared at the floor.

“The two of you look undecided,” Elliott said, watching them. “Either you don’t want a future with her, haven’t considered one at all, or you’ve already come to the conclusion you can shut us out.”

“That ain’t gonna happen,” Graham assured them, his brother’s notorious directness surfacing.

“I didn’t think it would,” Tristan admitted.

“So what
are
you thinking?” Elliott asked.

Bailey and Tristan stared at one another for an agonizing minute. Finally, Bailey said, “We’re in this for the long haul.”

Tristan nodded in agreement.

Graham paced. “And what about us?”

“Obviously we’d like it a little better if we didn’t have to share her with two other men, but the way she feels about you is clear. She doesn’t want to live without you. She has a history with you, a cherished past,” Bailey explained. “We went into this with our eyes wide open.”

Graham’s nose twitched. “That’s a relief to hear.”

“Then why do you look troubled by what I just said?” Bailey asked.

“We’ve known for a while our future included Ansley,” Graham explained. “She’s all we ever think about, the only woman we’ve ever discussed for longer than half a day. She’s our woman. Now, if you believe she’s your lady, too, then it seems reasonable to me that we learn to accept the fact that we’re all gonna be part of some sort of lopsided family.”

Elliott grinned. “Whatever we are, I think we should put her mind at ease.”

“I do, too,” Graham agreed.

“You won’t hear an argument here,” Bailey said.

Tristan stood. He walked the length of the floor runner. “Are you sure you heard her correctly? I don’t want to spring something on her if she’s not ready to take the next step, ’cause what you’re suggesting is like taking a sudden leap.”

Graham laughed. “You boys are forgetting something. While the two of you may look as anxious as greyhounds shooting out of the gate, we appear to move at a snail’s pace.”

“Bet you wish you hadn’t taken so long to propose now, huh?” Tristan asked.

“I’ve thought about that,” Graham admitted. “I cursed myself a few dozen times when we followed you over here from Clink. Fact is, I believe in fate, boys. Ansley has chemistry with both of you. Anyone within a hundred feet can see how much she cares about you. All I can say is it’s a good thing we didn’t ask her to commit to us. I’m afraid she wouldn’t have honored a promise to love us if she was still destined to meet the two of you.”

Bailey shrugged. “I guess you have a point.”

“Ansley’s the kind of woman who goes after what she wants,” Graham said. “Everything happens for a reason, and timing is one of those things a person can’t rush. Now, with four of us around to keep her in line, I have a feeling she’ll never want for anything more. That is, if we let her know from the get-go how much we care about her and how well we plan to look after her.”

“That reminds me,” Elliott said, staring right at Tristan. “Why don’t the two of you tell us how two city slickers ended up here in the mountains of North Carolina?”

“Where do we start?” Bailey asked, probably stalling, buying his brother some time.

Swinging his gaze toward Bailey before returning his undivided attention to Tristan, Elliott said, “How about you start at the beginning?”

* * * *

Tristan wore a grave expression. Bailey felt that old familiar stabbing sensation in his chest. Whenever they’d discussed their father, uncles, and grandfather, they’d typically ended up in tears. Thanks to their family’s choices, the sins of their father and his father, their grandfather, they’d paid the devil’s dues again and again.

And they knew the score, had long since faced the truth. They’d keep paying their fines until their lives came to an abrupt and violent end. The mob didn’t forget. The loyal warriors in their debt never gave up, and regardless of who was in command, who led the families, the debt owed to the mob would never be forgiven or forgotten.

No one would rest until Tristan and Bailey were in their graves and someone who could be trusted had identified their bodies. That was how the heads of mafia families rolled.

“Our father was associated with several organized crime families,” Tristan began. “His father, our grandfather, was a shyster, just like our uncles. Our dad may have been as deeply embedded in crime and the organizations supporting various families, but he always blamed his actions on his family, claimed he didn’t have choices.

“Anyhow, they put together a deal. The families in New York collected from local businesses. They still do, to an extent. They call it a payment for protection, the cost of doing business. The mob families skim off the top, if you will. You’ve probably watched enough television to know how the mob operates.”

“Yeah,” Graham replied. “But I can’t say that I’ve ever met anyone associated with the mafia.”

“Me either,” Elliott mumbled.

“We’re not,” Bailey bit out, hoping they didn’t judge them by what Tristan revealed. “We’re a product of those who were.”

“Anyway,” Tristan continued, “the men in our family knew when the mob paid out their respective family members—which happened to fall the day after they collected from local businesses, too. They put together a plan to hit all the families at one time and somehow—and I don’t know nor do I care—they were able to rob three of the working mafia families all on the same day, divide the money, and head south to Miami. As it happened, two of the families had been involved in gun trade. They’d just pulled off a couple of enormous arms deals, meaning millions of dollars changed hands overnight. Our dad, uncles, and grandfather ended up with over a hundred million dollars. They were expecting less than two million.”

“Oh my God,” Graham said, probably calculating what this meant. Any man with half a brain would realize they were probably on the mob’s top most-wanted list.

“To summarize, the mob families pulled together and hired professional assassins. Their job was to retrieve the money and kill our entire family, including our father, grandfather, uncles, and all their children and grandchildren.”

Tristan sighed, went to the wet bar, and poured himself a drink. Taking a sip, he said, “Our father lived longer than anyone. He kept us moving from town to town, but he couldn’t get along with or without women. Our mother left him in Miami and returned to New York. She was shot down during the Thanksgiving parade, two days after she moved home. Our aunt was killed on the same day.

“Dad remarried and quickly divorced. His second wife returned to Florida, where she boasted about her prior marriage to our father. She died within a week of sharing her story at a local spa in Palm Beach.

“His third wife, a beautiful woman with a heart of pure gold, was with him when his car was blown into a thousand pieces at LAX in California. Bailey and I were in baggage claim waiting for our luggage. We saw the whole thing.”

“Oh my God,” Ansley said, walking in with a towel on her head and one wrapped around her sexy little body.

Bailey smiled when he saw her. He couldn’t help himself. Her timing was actually perfect. Reliving the final moments of his dad and stepmother’s life typically broke his heart, but there Ansley was—lighting up the room with her innocence and beauty.

Maybe that’s what appealed to Bailey most. She was unspoiled by the world. She didn’t know how cruel people could be or how greed could drive idiots into doing the most awful things to other human beings.