Chasing Emily [Duoterra 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More) (3 page)

“Emily!”

As first she wasn’t sure who was calling her name, but it certainly wasn’t the man behind her. She turned to glance at Robin and could see he was rather dumbstruck by her about-face. No, it wasn’t him who had called. She was a little guilty about turning hot and cold so quickly, but she felt it was the only way to get through to him. She had tried being nice and simply saying no. She had tried to hint by ignoring him. Neither method had worked. A pang went through her. She hated being so nasty, as she did like him—a lot—but enough was enough.

Then she saw a hand waving off to her left, and she had to squint. Her eyesight had never been brilliant, so it wasn’t until the female voice got closer that she saw it was Brianna and smiled. She had always liked this girl who had come to town two years earlier in answer to Curt Hollis’s advert to marry him and his brothers. Emily shook her head inwardly—reckless, wild, cocky, lovely Curt.

Thankfully that marriage had worked, although Brianna had been very wary when Curt had introduced her to Emily. Brianna admitted some months later that she had known that Emily had had sex with her husbands before they had been married. Well, not Adam, and only once with Eric, but Curt had been a regular of Emily’s.

In fact he had once asked Emily to marry him in desperation, and she had seriously considered it, for a moment, before threatening to hit him with a frying pan. They had been in the kitchen at the time.

The sweet, lovely girl rushed over and hugged her warmly then stepped back. She seemed rather uncertain.

“What’s up?” Emily was never one to pussyfoot around. She always got straight to the point.

“Um. Not here,” Brianna answered quietly.

Taking hold of the diminutive girl’s arm, Emily quickly led her indoors.

“Cal,” she shouted to one of her assistants. “You’re in charge. I’ll be in my rooms.” Emily was the owner of the bar, and the rooms upstairs constituted her home, as well as some she hired out to visitors.

Sitting Brianna in a chair in the room she used as a lounge, Emily started to pour some moss liquor, which was the planet’s main alcoholic drink. Brianna shook her head, so Emily poured her some plumple juice instead. It was properly called plum-apple juice, but someone had once got drunk on it and slurred their words, so it became “plumple” instead. Emily wondered how in heaven’s name they had managed to get drunk as it was only one percent alcoholic.

As she did this, she speculated what the problem was with Brianna. She didn’t come to town very often as the farm she lived on was a good day’s travel away and she now had twin daughters to care for.

Turning back with a grin on her face, she asked, “So how are those two beautiful girls of yours? Of course, I have no idea how those rugged men of yours managed to father such cherubs. I sort of expected you’d birth a kid in leather trousers, brandishing a rope.”

Brianna burst out laughing. “Don’t tempt them. The boys are already trying to teach my daughters to ride.”

“How old are they now?” Emily wasn’t expecting the scowl on Brianna’s face to her question. “Whatever is the problem?”

“They are seven months old.”

The mother of said children stated this as if it was clear what was bothering her. “Yeah. And?”

Brianna huffed and slouched back in her chair. “I had my children seven months ago.
Half a Duoterra year!
And the fathers of my children won’t come near me.”

Emily frowned. “I’m still not clear what you are getting at. They won’t come near you because you are too busy with the children?”

“
No.
Because they seemed to think I was dying when I had the twins, and they don’t want me to become pregnant again—
ever!
”

Her tone was so despondent Emily couldn’t resist chuckling. “Ah! I see your problem. Men are such scaredy creatures. They run away like the wolf-cats, just because we yell while giving birth.” She remembered it well and grimaced. Her son, Derek, had been born twenty-three years ago, but her late husband hadn’t been worried about her health. No, he just found her yelling to be irritating and spent the whole time in the bar.

“
Exactly!
”

“Have you tried talking to them?”

“Yup. Adam just gave me that moody look that means ‘You can’t make me do what I don’t want to do.’ Curt outright said, ‘No way in hell.’ Eric nearly succumbed, until his brothers dragged him off me and threw him in the horse trough. We were only having a nice cuddle in the barn.”

The image was too much, and Emily burst out laughing, much to Brianna’s obvious annoyance. Wiping tears from her face, Emily was contrite and patted Brianna’s knee. “Okay, so have you tried flirting or, even better, crawling into bed with them?”

Brianna hung her head, her blonde hair falling forward. “Yes, and they started locking their doors on me after that.” She let out a huge sigh. “I need help. I’ve come to you because—well, you’re the most experienced woman I know in these matters. I thought you’d come up with some tricks that I can use.”

Emily winced. Yup, she was an expert in the bedroom and hated being known for that.

“I’m sorry,” apologized Brianna, who must have seen how it had hurt Emily. “I didn’t mean to suggest…to imply…Oh God, I’m putting my foot in it. I’ll go.”

She had risen to her feet before Emily knew it. “Hey, Bree, sit yourself down this instant. I’m not offended at all.” She was but made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t show it in front of this girl. Brianna tentatively sat down again. Emily had always liked her. Beside which, she didn’t have many female friends so she had been delighted when she had hit it off with Brianna.

Sitting forward in her chair, Emily cradled her glass of liquor. Glass was very expensive, and since there was so much wood on the planet, all the drinks in her bar were served in wooden cups, but she had bought some glasses just for herself.

“Let’s state the facts. You’ve tried talking to them to let them know you are ready for more sex even at the expense of possibly falling pregnant again quickly, but they won’t listen.”

She’d had the opposite problem. Vince hadn’t been bothered about her having more children and the dangers that brought. In fact she’d had two miscarriages and two stillbirths within the next ten years before she had stopped conceiving—thankfully.

Putting those horrible memories aside, Emily continued her summary, “You’ve tried flirting.” She looked up. Brianna nodded in agreement. “And you’ve even tried initiating sex.” Brianna winced. It was clear this wasn’t her style. Well, that wasn’t unusual, Emily thought. Not with the three lovely men she had married who all adored her to death and were quite happy to make love to her with no prompting, at least before the birth of the children.

Taking a sip of her drink, Emily pondered for a moment. “Hmm. I can see two possible solutions.” Brianna looked excited. “You can start sprinkling some dried red spider plant on your food. That stops fertility.” She knew full well this worked, since that was exactly what she had taken since her last stillbirth. “The problem, of course, is avoiding the red spiders.”

“Oh blast! The boys won’t let me go anywhere near any plants, not after the incident with the wildershrub, when I got some of the toxic sap on me.”

“You could send them out to get some leaves themselves,” Emily suggested hopefully. The look Brianna gave her back told her it wasn’t going to happen.

“What’s your next solution?”

Emily made a face. “Hmm. You could try leaving them. I’m sure they’d track you down and insist you return home. And you could demand sex as a condition of returning.”

“Wouldn’t work.” Brianna shook her head emphatically.

“Oh?” queried Emily.

“There’s three of them. All they have to do is pick me up and tie me to the wagon. They’d cart me back home whether I wanted to go or not.”

“Hmm. I see where you are coming from.”

“Isn’t there anything else I can try?” asked Brianna plaintively.

“Well, you could do some reverse psychology.” When Brianna looked blankly at her, Emily explained further, “You know, start flirting with other men.”

“Whaaaat! Me?”

Okay, judging by the other woman’s response, that suggestion was not likely to be on the cards.

Emily rolled her eyes as she chuckled. “Yes, you.”

“You’re not suggesting that I…I have
sex
with other men are you?” Brianna’s voice dropped so low on the word “sex” Emily nearly missed it.

Ha! I’m the only woman in town who has sex with men not my husbands. At least I don’t have sex with other women’s husbands.
This conversation was getting a little close to the bone.

“No way in hell!”

Both women jumped. Emily swore as she slopped her drink on the floor, and Brianna fell off her chair.

It was Curt. He hurried over to help Brianna up and held her face tightly in his hands. “Who are you having sex with?” He shook her. “Tell me!”

Emily could see poor Brianna was stunned, so she quickly dropped her glass on the table, stood up, and thumped him on his back. “For heaven’s sake, Curt. Would Brianna, of all people, have sex with someone else?”

He turned to look at Emily, his angry expression dissipating as her words penetrated. “Well, who then…Oh.”

She scowled. Clearly he thought they were talking about her.

“Please let your wife go and then apologize to her.”

Curt abruptly released Brianna and ran a nervous hand through his dark hair, his face showing his remorse.

But Emily hadn’t reckoned on Brianna having a tantrum and watched in amusement as the younger woman gave Curt a shove on his chest, so much so that he staggered back a few steps. “I don’t believe you thought I was having an affair with someone else. How could you? Curt Hollis, I hate you!”

“Well, what did I overhear then?”

Emily could hear the frustration in his voice and decided it was time for her to intervene. “I was suggesting ways that Bree could use to get all of you to start making love to her again.”

She’d forgotten what a hot-tempered person Curt was. Brianna had been a good influence on him. Until now. He glared at Emily. “What, by having sex with someone other than
us
?”

Brianna had enough and stormed out, growling as she went.

Shaking her head, Emily explained in exasperation, “No, you idiot. All I was proposing was that she
flirt
with someone to get your attention.” When Curt looked at her with incomprehension, she continued, “She needs you to start making love to her again, or you will lose her.”

“But she’s just had the girls.”

“That was seven months ago. For God’s sake. Go to her.”

Pushing him out of her room, she closed the door after him and leaned back against it.

“Men! Thank goodness there’s no one who has a hold on me.” She then felt tears welling up. By not allowing anyone to get close she was also rejecting real intimacy and affection of the sort that Brianna had with her husbands.

Steeling herself, she left her rooms to go back to the bar where she could put on a role of Emily the bar owner, who provided laughs, flirted with everyone, and had sex with the young guys—and then went to her lonely bed comfortless.

“Blue man, blue man, blue man three.

Three times they were up,

Three times she went down,

On blue man, blue man, blue man three.

But two moons rose,

And the day was done,

For blue man, blue man, blue man three.”

Finn was singing a
very
bawdy song about three aliens and an Earth-woman. It was a dreadful song, he thought. It didn’t even rhyme, but it had a catchy line that people loved singing. He understood that it had been written by those original colonists, who had been excited by the idea of finding aliens on the planet but hadn’t expected to since the survey party had not reported any.

The evening was about two-thirds over when he’d started singing some of the coarser songs in his repertoire. The older ladies in the room were swiftly removed by their husbands, much to his amusement. It happened every time.

He already knew from the conversation he’d overheard outside the stable earlier in the day that there were no unmarried young women left in the town, but most of the younger married women had persuaded their husbands into staying, judging by the cajoling and seductive moves going on around the room.

Grinning broadly, he finished the song with a flourish on the drum he was beating. The inhabitants of the planet hadn’t been able to make a decent string instrument, let alone a more complicated mechanism like a piano that he had only heard about from school lessons, so the musical culture had revolved around drums or simple woodwind instruments. But he couldn’t sing and play his flute at the same time, so he generally used a drum to accompany himself.

“Okay, folks. I need a rest.”

As he grabbed a mug of mulled ale—for once
not
made from the ubiquitous moss bark, but from a shrub which grew rampantly in this part of the continent—he glanced around the room. His gaze was quickly drawn to Emily, who was walking over to a blonde girl he thought was called Brianna, who stood with two of her husbands, all brothers. Now that was an interesting marriage. Even though polygamous contracts were now allowed, there weren’t that many that he knew of.