Burnin' Love [Men for Hire: Firemen 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (9 page)

She slung her legs over the side of the bed and stretched. The sun shone through the sheer shades to warm her body and brighten the already luminescent yellow paint of the walls. Catching her reflection in the full-length mirror on the other wall, she couldn’t help but put on an even bigger smile.

“You, girl, have hit the mother lode.”

A tingle rushed through her as she recalled the way their hands had caressed her body, making every nerve ending come alive. They’d known exactly where to put their fingers and their tongues. She wouldn’t have guessed that some of those places were erogenous, but under their attention it seemed as though there wasn’t an inch of her skin that wasn’t.

The sound of a bird chirping outside her window brought her to her feet. The world was up and moving and she had things she had to do. Although she wanted nothing more than to check on the men, she knew she should see if Melissa was doing all right first. Just as soon as she had a quick shower and pulled herself together.

Ten minutes later, with her hair still wet, she knocked on the guest bedroom door. “Melissa, are you up?”

She pulled her
Go Destiny Chargers!
T-shirt down then ran her palms over the curve of her butt cheeks. Lifting her hand to the door once more, she knocked again. And waited. Again.

A nervousness started in the middle of her stomach. Did the girl sleep that soundly?

“What’s going on?”

Troy’s palm skimming along her arm sent the good kind of shivers down her spine. Without thinking, she leaned into him. She hadn’t heard him approach, but she was very happy that he was there. “I’m trying to get Melissa to answer her door.”

A frown came and went on his face. “You said she was really tired last night. Maybe you need to knock harder.”

She’d thought the same thing, but it still didn’t seem right. “If I knock any harder, the neighbors will hear.”

“You’re right. I heard you knocking and I was in the kitchen.”

She glanced behind him at the empty hallway. “Where are Wade and Paul?” Were they sound sleepers, too?

“They left to check in at the station and run a couple of errands, including picking up some decent coffee. The stuff you have tastes like dirt.”

“Hey, that’s expensive stuff. Hand ground and everything.”

She didn’t tell him that it wasn’t the first time someone had complained about her coffee. She liked it, but it no one else did. Of course, she more than made up for it with the hot toddies she made. Just thinking about the shots they’d drank last night and what had happened afterward made her wet. She might suggest adding a dollop of whiskey to their morning coffee—pretending to make it taste better, of course—but she really didn’t need alcohol to make her want them again. All they had to do was crook their finger at her and she’d rush into their arms.

She knocked again, even harder than before, hard enough to wake the dead. She cringed and thrust the thought away. No need to think morbid things like that.

“Melissa? It’s Daisy. You’re getting me worried. Will you please open the door? Or at least tell me you’re all right?”

Troy grew tense beside her. “Naw, we need to see her, not just hear her.”

Alarm pushed the anxiety away. “Why?”

He almost hedged on telling her, but then gave in. “If someone’s in there with her, they could make her tell us that she’s okay. Like I said, we need to see her to make sure it’s true.”

Troy moved her aside and pounded on the door. “Melissa, open the door. Right now.”

They stayed silent and waited. Again, there was no response. She turned to Troy, ready to let him take charge. Thankfully, he did.

“Stand back, Daisy. I’m going to have to ram the door.”

She could see her security deposit flying out the window to pay for a new door. “No! Hang on.” She reached out and took the doorknob. “We haven’t even tried this yet.”

The unlocked door opened a crack without a problem. “Ta-da!”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you hadn’t tried to open it yet?”

She shrugged and pushed the door wide. “You didn’t ask me.”

It might have been funny, except for the fact that the bedroom was empty. Daisy crossed to the other side where the adjoining bathroom was. That door was already open and so was the window that led out to the roof of the house.

“Please tell me a pregnant woman didn’t crawl out the window.”

Daisy pivoted to face a disgruntled Troy. “Okay, I won’t. But if you don’t want to hear the truth, then what do you want me to tell you?”

The window was just large enough for Melissa to ease through. She didn’t get any closer to it to see if Melissa was on the roof. She didn’t think her heart could stand the sight of seeing her shimmying along the roofline. Or worse, seeing her clinging to the edge.

The last time anyone had been so foolish to escape through a window was when Sienna North had escaped her ex-boss’s goons by heading out the bedroom window at Daisy’s B&B. And then Sienna and one of her soon-to-be lovers Joe Young had jumped from the roof.

“You don’t think she jumped, do you?” She hated to think what might have happened to Melissa or her baby from a fall.

Troy, however, was nowhere to be found. She hurried out of the room and down the stairs as fast as she could. As she’d assumed, she found him outside and staring up at the guest bedroom window. A rope ladder, the type people kept in their closets to help escape a fire, hung from the window sill.

“She climbed down that thing?” Daisy wasn’t sure she would’ve had the nerve to do the same. “Why the hell didn’t she just walk out the front door? Or the back door? Or, hell, any damn door?”

“She probably saw one of us standing guard. The real question is why did she want to leave in the first place?”

“I don’t know. She seemed fine last night.”

“Did you check her room for a note?”

Daisy didn’t answer. Instead, she rushed back inside the house and up the stairs again with Troy on her heels. There, laying on top of her neatly made bed was a piece of stationery that Daisy had seen in all the nightstands of the house. She snatched it up and read it out loud.

Dear Daisy,

John called last night. I know you won’t like it, but I promised I’d meet and talk with him today. I’ll call you later.

Thanks,

Melissa

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Why would she meet with him when she said she wanted to get away from him and his sister?”

Daisy didn’t like it one bit, but she could see how it had happened. “It’s not uncommon for women like Melissa to give their boyfriends another chance. John probably sounded very sweet and reasonable on the phone. And since he’s the father of her child, she felt like she had to give him another chance.”

“Another chance to do what? Take her and run? Put a bullet in her head? Make her get an abortion?”

She tunneled her fingers through her hair. “Wow, you’re just filled with happy thoughts, aren’t you? He hasn’t physically hurt her yet so why go down that road now?”

“The word you have to pay attention to is
yet
. He hasn’t hurt her
yet
. He talked her into seeing him. She left him and now he’s desperate. Desperate men do stupid things. Who knows what he might do?” Troy was gone in the next moment, already barreling back downstairs, his cell phone to his ear.

“Wade, she’s gone.” He stopped at the foot of the steps and looked back at her as she followed him. “No, not Daisy. Melissa’s gone to meet John.”

She wouldn’t deny that she felt special that Wade had thought of her first.

“No. I don’t know where.”

The conversation with Melissa in the car came rushing back. “I think I know where. Tell them to meet us at a restaurant called Mamma’s Bakery and Grill.”

“Daisy says to meet us at a place called Mamma’s Bakery and Grill. I don’t know how she knows. Just do it.”

Daisy snatched up her keys, then darted past Troy and out the front door to her car. She was behind the wheel by the time Troy made it to the passenger side.

“Damn. Nice car.”

“Are you planning on standing there admiring my car or are we going?” She arched an eyebrow at him, hoping he wouldn’t take her words too harshly.

He hopped over the side of the convertible and fit perfectly into the seat. “Get moving, baby.”

She backed out of the driveway and put her foot hard on the gas. In a matter of moments, she was out of the neighborhood and on the highway leading around the city.

“Punch the restaurant into my GPS, okay?”

Troy did as she asked, using the Locations finder to put the directions into the in-dash GPS. The route flashed onto the screen.

“How’d you know she was going there?”

“She mentioned it once as being their place.”

“Good thinking.”

“Thanks. But how did she get there?”

“She most likely called a taxi.”

She hated to sound accusatory, but she had to know. “Thing is, how did she get past you guys? Didn’t you hear her climbing down the ladder?”

He kept his gaze straight ahead so that she couldn’t tell if she’d made him angry or not. It was still a question that needed to be answered.

“We’ll have to ask her to know for sure, but I’m guessing that maybe our attention was focused elsewhere. We should’ve checked on her earlier.”

Crap. She couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all her fault. The men had been involved with her last night and then this morning, she’d slept late instead of getting up and making sure Melissa was all right.

Wade and Paul pulled into the restaurant parking lot at the same moment they did. They got out of the Range Rover and dashed over to them.

Paul’s hard expression didn’t leave any doubt in her mind. He was pissed. The only question was if he was angry at himself, at her, or at Melissa. Maybe even at all of them.

“How are we going to handle this?” asked Wade. He appeared ready for action.

“We take it easy.” She checked with each of them. “I don’t want you three barging into the place and hauling her out like she’s some wayward teen on the run. She’s a grown woman and can make her own decisions.”

“But the decisions she’s making are bad ones.” Troy held up his hands in a defensive mode. “I’m just saying, is all.”

“Maybe.”

Paul glared at her. “There’s no maybe about it. The girl’s not thinking straight.”

“Maybe it’s because she’s knocked up,” added Wade.

She shot him a hard look. “Seriously? She’s not even showing yet so it’s not like she has pregnancy brain.”

“That’s really a thing?” Wade shrugged at Troy. “Who knew?”

“The only thing we can do is to try and talk some sense into her. And to make sure John isn’t going to hurt her. If she wants to go with him, however, we can’t stop her. It doesn’t matter how much we’d like to. We’re here to give her other options.”

“Can we stop jawing about this and take care of business?”

Daisy started to admonish him, to say that if he’d been standing guard instead of gawking at them having sex, Melissa would still be at the house, safe and sound. But she could hardly guilt him out without taking part of the blame. “He’s right. But let me do the talking, got it?”

She turned and walked away from them as Troy and Wade gave their agreement. Paul remained silent.

The restaurant was one of those that was dark inside, not to try and present a romantic ambience, but because of the poor lighting. The place had obviously been a nice, well-maintained place in its earlier years, but now the carpet was worn and the walls were dingy with tired, dark wallpaper. A large case filled with cakes and other baked items spanned one wall, while the smell of old cooking oil permeated the air.

“Damn. It’s like they can’t decide what kind of restaurant it’s supposed to be.”

Wade had summed it up perfectly.

It took a minute for Daisy’s eyes to adjust to the dim interior. Once she’d gotten accustomed to it, she scanned the small restaurant and quickly found Melissa seated in a booth with a young man that looked like he was in his early twenties. His brown hair was cut into a spikey style that was very popular, but that, in Daisy’s opinion, only a few people could really pull off. His clothes were inexpensive, a muddy brown T-shirt on top of faded, ripped jeans and sneakers that wouldn’t have surprised her if they’d fallen apart as soon as he started walking. She knew better than to judge a man by his clothes, but it was hard not to think that John didn’t have a penny to his name, much less enough to help provide for a baby.

“Remember. Let me do the talking.” She plastered on a pleasant expression and made her way toward Melissa. The girl’s eyes grew wide, drawing John’s attention. He twisted around, saw them coming and got to his feet. Daisy doubted that he’d done so out of manners. His body was stiff, ready for a confrontation.

“Who are these people, Mel?”

Melissa bit her lower lip. “This is the nice lady who helped me. And these are her…friends.”

Oh, hell.
The way Melissa had called the men “her friends” made it very clear that she’d heard them last night. Yet as embarrassed as Daisy felt right then, now was not the time to dwell on that problem.

Wait. She called me
lady
. Like I’m so much older than she is. That sucks.

She stuck out her hand, determined to keep things civil. “Hi, I’m Daisy Winters.” As soon as she’d said her last name, she wished she hadn’t. Why give this guy any more information than was necessary?

He dropped his gaze to her hand, but didn’t take it. “Thanks for helping my girl, but she doesn’t need you any longer.” His suspicious gaze shifted to the men behind her. “Not any of you.”

“We’ll let Melissa decide that.” Paul’s tone was anything but civil.

Daisy had to bring John’s focus back to her. “Look, John, we all want the same thing here. For Melissa and her baby to be safe. You agree, right?”

There was really only one way for him to answer that question without looking like a heel. “Yeah. But like I said, I’ll take care of her from here. You and these guys can butt the hell out.”