Authors: Cameron Dane
It took half the drive back to the ranch for Jasper's hard-on to subside. Man, the times when he used to think about Caleb, when he worked through his stupid crush on the man, he'd never really thought about them having sex, about Caleb
taking
him. His fantasies included the boss kissing him, holding him, touching, sleeping together in bed, feeling safe. Maybe once or twice he had pictured a blowjob—giving it and getting it—but the daydreams never really progressed to rolling over and giving another guy his ass.
Even when he and Sarah talked on the phone last night, or when he'd gotten half-naked with her and Jace in their hallway, Jasper hadn't taken the visual to the step of anal sex with another man.
I did today.
Jasper didn't know what to think. Jace had made him so hard behind that building as he painted different scenarios of the three of them all tangled up and sweaty together. And then
when Jace reached around and pushed into his crack, teasing his hole… Fuck, Jasper got almost as excited as the first time he saw Sarah completely naked and got to touch her. Jasper had watched himself sink into Sarah's pussy, so he could picture Jace's cock splitting his cheeks and pushing into his ass. In that moment, when Jasper saw it in his mind, his channel had pounded with a heartbeat as strong as his prick did when he took Sarah.
He didn't know what to think about having such desire for two people. He didn't know what it meant. His grandma would have told him he had a twisted, dirty mind and to get back to church and beg for forgiveness before the devil came and took his soul. He still sometimes wondered if the powerful lust he felt for Sarah was ungodly, but since he loved her, and she felt the same, he figured it had to be all right. He didn't know Jace well enough to love him, but he admired him and found him fascinating. Even if Jasper could justify his attraction by calling it love, the way he was reared would still have him believe engaging in a carnal way with another man wasn't natural.
Except it felt so right to kiss Jace and touch him, and his body craved learning more. He knew those beliefs his grandma taught him were wrong. Coming to Quinten had taught him better. When Caleb hired him, he knew the boss's brother Cain was gay, and being around Cain and his partner, Luke, showed Jasper a man loving another man was just as real as a man loving a woman. Shit, Ren was already Jasper's role model and favorite person on the ranch, so when he found out Ren was gay too, there was no way he could backtrack off liking and respecting the guy just because of his sexuality. Jasper didn't worry about going to hell so much anymore for believing homosexuality was okay, but that didn't mean he wasn't nervous and uncertain about what might happen with Jace.
Not that it really mattered, because being with Jace was only half of Jasper's worry anyway. His bigger fear, the thing that sent panic racing through him, was something happening to Sarah. His brother was trouble; Jasper knew it like he knew the sky was blue. Only Jace went and confused him today, making him second-guess his choice to stay away from her. Maybe it
would
be better to be at her side so he could protect her if necessary. But then again, Jasper worried maybe he just wanted someone to change his mind so he could go running back to Sarah and have what he wanted.
Her.
And now Jace too.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Jerking back to reality, sitting in his truck in the Hawkins Ranch employee parking area,
Jasper found Ren looking at him through his driver's-side window. His face flaming, Jasper shut down the engine and climbed out. “Hey.” He slipped his hands into his pockets. “How's it goin'?”
“Just had my dinner plans canceled,” Ren answered. “I was talking to Cade”—he held up his cell phone—“and noticed you. You've been sitting there gripping the steering wheel for a good five minutes. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Just thinkin'.” Jasper bit his lip, stifling the urge to confess his secrets and fears to his friend. “It's quieter out here than the bunkhouse.”
Ren laughed. “Truer words were never spoken. Hey, you want to come have dinner with me at my place? I have ground beef at home defrosted, and like I said, Cade just told me he's not sure when he'll be home. If I'm going to grill burgers, it'd be nice to have more than Crash to eat with.” Ren mentioned his and Cade's dog.
Jasper's gaze drifted in the direction of the bunkhouse, and his head filled with a myriad of booming cowboy voices and a TV turned to full volume. Covering his grimace, he looked to Ren again. “You sure you don't mind?”
“Are you kidding? I'd love to have you. Do you want to come with me?” Ren jerked his thumb in the direction of a red Toyota Tundra. “Or drive yourself?”
“I'll follow you. I don't want you to have to drive me back later.”
Jogging to his vehicle, Ren called out, “Sounds good.” He eased his truck out of the trampled-grass lot, and Jasper pulled out behind him.
Full from a couple of hamburgers and chips, Jasper wandered around Ren's small living room while the other man tidied the kitchen on the other side of the open room. Pausing by the fireplace with its row of pictures across the top, Jasper picked up one and studied all the smiling faces. “You have a real nice family. Good people.” He glanced up at Ren and smiled. “You're lucky.”
Ren crossed the room, smiling right back. “I know I am.” He laughed as he looked at the framed photo from over Jasper's shoulder. “It's a hodgepodge and interesting to explain, but it's the best one in the world, and I know it.”
In the picture, Ren had his arm around Cade. Then there was the sheriff; Ren was his adopted son from his first marriage. Next to Duke stood Risa, who was the sheriff's wife and Ren's best friend, and rounding out the picture were Ty and Ruby, runaway siblings adopted by Risa and Duke shortly after they got married.
Jasper set the picture back on the mantel and took a moment to admire the rest. “That's a nice one of Cade.” He pointed to a close-up shot of Cade's profile, his chin strong, and his scars so vivid in texture, Jasper thought if he touched them, he would feel the ridges. “He looks like a face chiseled on a mountain.”
“Yeah.” Ren lifted his hand and ran his fingers over Cade's angular profile. “He almost completely manages to hide his growl now when I take a picture of him. This photo gets a lot of compliments from visitors, and I think it has helped him become less self-conscious about his scars.” Open affection softened Ren's features. “He's beautiful, and he can almost see that now himself.”
“You love him a lot.”
“Absolutely.”
In his mind, Jasper immediately flashed on an image of Jace plundering his mouth with a breath-stealing kiss and then plowing his ass while Jasper fucked Sarah.
Oh God
. His rectum clenched right where he stood, and Jasper blurted out, “Does it hurt to have sex with Cade?”
“I'm sorry.” Jasper burned inside and out and wished the floor would open and gobble him up. “I can't believe I said that to you. Shit, you're always so nice to me and other than Sarah I think of you as my closest friend and I don't think there's anyone I like workin' with more than you and you invite me to your cabin and feed me and we're havin' a nice talk about your family and Cade and then I have to go say somethin' stupid like that. I apologize.”
Where the hell did I set down my hat?
“I'm gonna go.”
“Not so fast.” Ren grabbed Jasper's arm, hauled him to the couch, then shoved him down to sit. He chuckled as he took a seat in one of two chairs situated across a coffee table. “Wow. You're kind of like Cade when you get nervous and embarrassed. He tends to talk in very rapid run-on sentences when he's trying to say or ask something important to him.” Leaning forward, Ren clasped his hands between his knees. “Is this why you broke up with Sarah? Are you—”
I'd read you wrong about her.”
“You didn't. But I was just wonderin'… I mean”—Jasper chewed on the inside of his lip
but forced himself to keep looking at Ren—“does it hurt?”
“The act itself can be painful if you're not properly prepared and if you're so scared or nervous you can't relax, or the same with your partner, if he or she is the one accepting. The first time or two can feel strange or uncomfortable until you learn to adjust to what your body likes. But no”—he leveled a calm stare on Jasper—“what I do with Cade doesn't hurt. What we have is amazing, exciting, and passionate, and I look forward to it and want it all the time, just like I imagine you feel with Sarah.”
Ren's easy way with talking helped Jasper relax. “'All the time.' Yeah, that sounds almost right.” His thoughts slipped back to his phone call with Sarah last night and how fast she stirred him up. “Is there somethin' a step up from wantin' 'all the time'?”
“Absolutely. I don't know what they call it, but I know it damn well.” Ren glanced to the mantel, and Jasper imagined his focus homed in on one of the pictures of Cade. “More than all the time is nice, isn't it?”
The front door opened right then, and Cade entered the cabin. “Hey, Jasper, I thought that was your truck outside.” The dog sleeping under the kitchen table perked its head up at the first
sound of Cade's voice and rushed to his side, barking a hello as Ren got up from his seat. Cade petted Crash and scratched his fingers through rust-colored fur, but his attention stayed fully on the man approaching him, and even Jasper could see love smiling in his eyes, even if his mouth didn't turn up at the edges.
“Hey, honey.” Cade curled his hand around Ren's nape and kissed his mouth, cheek, and hairline. “Sorry I missed dinner.”
Ren pecked a kiss to Cade's scarred cheek, took his utility belt off for him, and put it in the top drawer of a narrow table by the door. “I saved you a couple of burgers and some barbecue chips.”
“My favorite.”
They're like a nice little family
. Longing for a small house in town with a man and woman already in it tugged hard at Jasper's heart.
I want what Ren and Cade have.
Jasper spotted his hat hanging on a metal hook by the door and got up to get it. He smiled at Cade and offered his hand. “Good to see you.” Cade engulfed his hand in a strong shake. “I'll leave you to your burgers.” Jasper shifted to Ren and shook his hand too. “Thanks for the food and the talk.”
Ren nodded. “Anytime.”
Jasper stepped outside and walked to his truck, and Ren and Cade waited on their small porch while he climbed inside and started the engine. As he pulled down the mountain path, through his rearview mirror he saw them wave one more time and then go inside; the door shut behind them.
He could drive to town. He could get to the base of the mountain and head for town instead of the ranch. He could get Sarah back and maybe even explore this attraction and interest he felt for Jace too.
Excitement hummed in Jasper just thinking about it. Then his cell phone rang, and his brother's name lit up the LCD screen.
Son of a bitch.
Swearing some more, Jasper grabbed the phone off the dash, pressed the green button, and whispered furiously, “Stop callin' me. Stay out of my life.” He hung up before Samuel could say a word and threw the phone on the floor of the truck. Just seeing Samuel's name made his stomach clench with sick.
The phone rang again. This time Jasper ignored it.
When he got to the base of the mountain, he headed back to the ranch.
“And you didn't see anything out of the ordinary late Friday evening, say, between ten thirty and ten forty-five?” Jace spoke to one of the homeowners on Ginger's block. Cade was across the street, and between the two of them, they had canvassed the entire street. “Even just a vehicle that didn't look familiar to you?”
“No, I'm sorry. I didn't,” the woman, in her fifties Jace would guess, answered. “We're usually in bed watching the early news by ten.” She tsk-tsked and shook her head. “We're so sorry something so awful happened to one of our neighbors. You make sure to tell her family that, will you?”
“I will. Thank you, ma'am.” Jace handed her a contact card. “If anything comes to you, or if your husband had to get up for some reason and remembers seeing anything that caught his attention, please call me.”
“You too, ma'am.” Stepping back to the walkway, Jace flipped his notepad closed and slipped it into his pocket. “Bye.”
As Jace reached the sidewalk, Cade jogged to him from across the street.
Ginger lived at the far end of this block, and Cade and Jace had started their second round of questioning there, working their way farther and farther down the street from her actual home. With the woman Jace had just spoken to, he had reached the end of Ginger's street. The first time they questioned the neighbors they hadn't had a clear timeline for when or where Ginger met her eventual murderer. Now, with Beth's cell message, they believed they did.
“Anything?” Cade asked.
“Not a damn thing,” Jace answered, shaking his head. “Nobody saw anything that caught their eye, nobody's dog barked more than usual, nobody saw a car, truck, or person that looked out of place. Man, I just wish one person had video security.” As a pair, the men turned and started walking back in the direction of Ginger's home, where they had parked the SUV. “How about you?”
“Lady here at the end of the block thinks she remembers a blue truck turning onto the street around ten thirty or so. Nobody on the street has a blue truck that she's aware of, so she remembers wondering for a second if somebody had made a trade-in that day. She doesn't remember seeing it since. She thinks it was a Silverado.” Cade closed his notepad and put it in his pocket. “Other than that, pretty much the same as you, except the family right across from Ginger's place went out of town yesterday. According to a neighbor, mother of the husband died. They should be back in a few days. I made a note to check ag—Hey!” All of a sudden, Cade started running. “There's another car parked at Ginger's house.”
Jace dogged right on Cade's tail, drawing his weapon as they came upon a silver Camry and the front door of Ginger's home open. Before Cade or Jace could shout their presence, Ginger's father emerged from the home, his face understandably that of a devastated man. Ginger's mother followed, her head down, and Peter Robbins had his arm around her shoulder.
Holstering their weapons, Jace and Cade approached. Ginger's mother saw them, whispered, “Not right now. I can't,” and climbed into the backseat of the car. Peter nodded, rubbing her shoulder for a moment. Without a word spoken, Ginger's father climbed in next to her. His wife fell into his arms, her shoulders heaving.
Peter lifted his hand, motioning to the sidewalk a few feet away. Jace and Cade followed. Peter crossed his arms against his chest and took another look back at the couple in the car. He stared at them for a long moment in silence, then brought his attention back to Jace and Cade. “Cilla and Howard would rather I not tell you the powerful vision I just saw while in Ginger's home, but when I contacted them originally, I told them I never hold anything back from law enforcement investigating the crime, and I cannot do it for them either.” He leveled an even stare on Jace. “If Ginger's murder doesn't get solved, I don't get to write a book, and like your sheriff so astutely pointed out, that hurts my ability to earn a living.”
Jace gritted his teeth. “Quit selling yourself as some kind of reluctant superhero and spit it out, Robbins.”
Defensiveness burned in Peter's eyes. Jace guessed he was probably used to being mocked or ignored, but less accustomed to the local authorities so openly challenging the mercenary side of his profession.
“Fine, I will,” Peter said. He looked back toward the house, staring while he spoke. “I saw and felt Ginger with a woman while in her home. Powerful. Very raw, very sexual, full of emotion. The strength in the images and feelings consuming that house tells me Ginger was a lesbian and had a powerful connection to this one female. And I keep seeing white, like I did the night of her murder, which as I said before, is usually an indication for blonde hair to me.” Finally turning back, Peter furrowed his brow and pursed his lips. “I'm trying to leave myself open, even with all this interference around me, but I can't hear a name yet. I rarely see a complete face or body. I know the woman and her connection to Ginger is real, though.”
Oh fuck
. “And you told this to her parents?” Jace asked. No wonder they were so upset. Beth had said Ginger feared her parents' reaction to her love for another woman. “Goddamn it, man, don't you have any discretion?”
Shoving his hands into his pockets, Peter leaned forward and pushed his shoulders back, expanding his chest. “Look,” he whispered furiously, “I wish it hadn't happened that way, but when I feel something so powerfully, when I get a gut piece of information about a victim, it just comes out of me. I say it, and I write it down too. That way, I can go back and look afterward, when the draining effect has passed, and I can put scenes side by side and see if anything fits to create a scenario for murder. That's how I work. I can't control it just because I have family members of the deceased with me. Cilla and Howard agreed to be a part of my process when I contacted them. I can't censor what they might end up hearing.”
Son-of-a-bitch, cold-blooded, money-hungry bottom-feeder.
Cade put a hand on Jace's forearm. “Did you see anything else, since last speaking with the sheriff?” he asked.
Peter nodded. “I continue to see masculine shapes all around Ginger; bodies I felt certain were men, with very strong responses to them, yet the connection to the female is so overwhelming, it confuses me and makes me wonder if this woman is masculine in nature, and that I'm separating the two when I shouldn't.” With a shrug, he looked back to the house one more time, lingering. “I don't know yet. I'm usually starting to crystallize pictures of the victim by this point, getting a better sense of his or her life, but in this case, I feel murkier, less sure how to depict what I'm seeing and feeling.” Peter suddenly veered his attention to the couple huddled in the car and held there with intensity. “Listen, I have to get back to Cilla and Howard. This information about Ginger has them reeling. I need to be with them right now.”
Cade replied, “Please relay to the Carltons that Sheriff Boone will be out to visit with them soon.”
“I will,” Peter answered as he walked to the car. “And please tell the sheriff I will check in with him in the next few days.”
“I'll tell him that,” Cade said.
“Thank you.” Peter climbed in behind the wheel, backed out of the drive, and drove away.
Once the car turned left at the end of the street, Cade asked, “What do you think?”
Jace felt like he had to brush his teeth to get the dirty taste out of his mouth. “He certainly manages to ingratiate himself into the family quickly enough; that's for sure.”
Cade crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the back of the SUV, his eyes on the now-empty stretch of road. “He appears to have personal information and insight into a child they just lost. If they believe him—and it seems they do—then it's a link to their daughter, a way to hold on to her for a little bit longer. It makes sense. I remember working a case back in Texas where the family hired a psychic, and their reaction to her was similar.”
“I just wish Ginger's parents hadn't discovered her sexuality in such a shocking way. When I think about how Beth tried to protect her secret, it pisses me off that it was all for nothing. The longing and sadness in Ginger's voice during that phone message so clearly showed how torn she was about her feelings for Beth.” This case got under Jace's skin more and more with every new detail he learned about the victim. “I know we wouldn't have been able to do it, but it would have been nice to help Beth be successful in protecting Ginger's secrets.”
“But it's like you told Beth yourself: our first and only job is to figure out who killed Ginger. We owe that to the victim more than anything else. If we had any lingering doubts about Beth's claims of being Ginger's lover, though”—Cade arched a brow as he made his way to the driver's-side door—“Peter's little insight backs it up.”
“Yeah. And we know the sense of masculinity doesn't have anything to do with a butch woman either.” Jace walked backward and jerked his thumb at the house. “Let me check this door and make sure they locked it. You know”—he turned the handle, wasn't able to open it, and jogged back to the SUV—“I remember talking to the cowboys Ginger dated and wondering about all those amicable breakups. When I listened to that message on Beth's cell phone, it made total sense to me. Of course she didn't make a scene. It was no big deal to move on to the next one, because she didn't love any of them. She wanted Beth.”
Cade nodded. “I'll run a search on a blue Silverado for local sales and rentals, but I don't hold much hope that it'll turn up anyone interesting. Our better hope is that the boss will have some luck with one of Ginger's johns.” The sheriff had decided he would handle the interviews with the three men Beth had been able to recall, and do it away from the station. The men all had families, and in order to cushion the blow to the spouses and children, he was willing to be discreet. “If not, unless Robyn can give us a new lead with forensic evidence, I'm not sure where we're supposed to look next.”
“There's still the motel tapes Carson is working his way through,” Jace offered. “We can have him keep his eyes open for a blue Silverado too, in addition to Ginger herself. More important to me right now, we need to get back to the station and speak to the boss about Peter's
process
”—he threw his fingers up in air quotes—“so that he can go ahead and tell the Carltons about their daughter's life of prostitution. I'd rather they hear that from the sheriff than some shocking revelation from a psychic when he suddenly has another untimely vision about what all those masculine images mean.”
“Agreed.” Cade opened his door. “Let's go.”
Jace climbed in the passenger side of the marked vehicle, and Cade drove them back to the station.