Lucy's Liberation [Elk Creek 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (28 page)

“Ethan or Prentice?”

“Both, I suppose.”

He looked so defeated that Lucy felt bad for him. She knew what she had just told him was a lot for anyone to take in, much less someone like Ki who spent his life dealing in cold hard facts. At least she had had a few weeks to get used to the idea of life after death. “When we were kids, I had the biggest crush on Ethan, but it never went anywhere. And before he was killed, he had a thing going with Ginger McCall, the girl who was out at our house a few days ago.”

“I thought as much.” Ki nodded. “What about Prentice? Do you love him?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“I think you know and you’re just trying to spare my feelings.”

“Is it helping?”

Ki cupped her face with both hands, drew her close, and leaned forward to tenderly kiss her on the forehead. The effect was more powerful than had he given her one of his soul-searing kisses on the mouth. “No. Not really,” he said. “But I’ll survive.”

* * * *

A city boy who loved the energy and excitement of an urban landscape, Prentice was decidedly uncomfortable once he left the town limits and hit the outskirts of Elk Creek. He needed to get away, however, and didn’t know where else to go for the needed peace and solitude except away from the place that harbored all his recent stresses.

He told himself he was perfectly safe, but for good measure and since the incident with Tanner at the gazebo, he had taken to carrying a sidearm. He never wanted to be caught off-guard like that again, especially with Ethan’s killer out there still running free. He may have been an accomplished fencer but an épée, foil, or saber wouldn’t do him much good out here against an attacker who preferred guns to swords.

The sun was bright and warm and Prentice found a spot near a large shaded oak tree and a nearby stream an hour from town where he stopped to water his horse and sit for a while.

It didn’t escape him that one of the first thoughts on his mind as he sat down and stretched his legs out in front of him, was how nice a setting this would be for a picnic or romantic interlude with Lucy and Ki—epic winning.

He could just picture the both of them here with him, his head in Ki’s lap as Ki relaxed back against the tree trunk and Lucy resting her head in
his
lap while he rested on Ki’s.

God, when had he gotten so…mushy and trite?

Prentice had never been one for entertaining stupid fantasies or wishing for the impossible. What was different now? Was it because he had been in this Podunk little town for so long that the old-fashioned values and quixotic notions of the inhabitants had rubbed off on him or had his second chance given him a new perspective?

Whatever the reason, Prentice couldn’t get the picture out of his head so just went with it, expanding on the scenario, his cock getting harder as his imagination worked.

Prentice crossed his legs at the ankles and pushed his Stetson down over his eyes to block out the sun that the leaves didn’t. He didn’t quite doze and he made sure he kept his ears perked for any undue noise. The surrounding area was mostly low-lying, so there weren’t too many places for a stalker to hide behind and lie in wait. This and he had been extra careful during his ride out. He, however, knew that he could have missed something, especially since he wasn’t a native, at least not yet.

The idea that he should move out of Lucy and Ki’s house and leave the couple in peace was never far away, but until recently he had always tried to ignore it. With Ki evidently upset with him for not coming clean about his past and barely speaking to him the last few days, now might be a good time to be on his way.

The thought of not seeing Lucy or Ki every morning, not sharing breakfast and dinner with them as had become a charming custom he hadn’t realized he looked forward to so much until now, left him cold inside. He hadn’t felt so bereft since he’d been a latchkey kid, pretty much raising himself during his parents’ frequent business trips. Lucky for them, he had always been a self-sufficient soul and didn’t mind being alone for extended periods of time.

Prentice tried to remember now which had come first. Had he become such an independent loner because he didn’t have the adult supervision he needed at home, or had his parents stayed away from him and given him so much space because he was so independent and self-reliant?

No matter. Things were what they were and he had grown up to become a cool-headed and hard-hearted man who refused to let anyone in, who had been
afraid
to let anyone in.

He wasn’t afraid anymore. He knew this now and the realization stunned him as much as his proposition to become Thayne’s assistant had. Stunned or not, however, he knew now that making his offer had been the right thing to do.

Prentice had yet to hear back from Maia, though, and he wondered if she had had a change of heart at his suggestion. Did she question his seriousness in wanting to help and decided not to bother Thayne with what she saw as youthful folly? He hoped the latter wasn’t the case. Either way, he wouldn’t let it go. He couldn’t if he tried.

For probably the first time in his life, he wanted to make a positive difference and use whatever gifts Goddess provided him the same way that Thayne, Cade and Maia used theirs—to lend a hand in whatever way he could.

Had anyone told him months or a year ago that he would willingly seek to volunteer his skills in the service of man, Prentice was sure he would have called him or her insane. The old Prentice didn’t do anything for anyone if it didn’t advance his objectives. The old Prentice didn’t do anything that made him seem weak and showing compassion and kindness had fallen into the “weak” category for him.

He wasn’t the same person now that he had been back in the twenty-first century though. He wasn’t even the same person he had been a few months ago. Being around people like Lucy and Ki and their friends and family, he understood that kindness wasn’t weakness. He understood the meaning of sacrifice and what it meant to love someone so much he was willing to do anything to protect them—even if “anything” meant to give them up or die for them the way Aura had died protecting her nephews.

Prentice wished he could talk to her, tell her how much he regretted hurting her and that he understood now how he had dishonored his gifts by using them the way he had in the past.

Was Aura watching him now, maybe the way Brielle and Caith watched over him, but just wasn’t saying anything? Did she know what was in his heart the way Brielle had told him Goddess did?

Prentice sat up straight and pushed his hat back on his head when he tasted salt on his tongue. A second later he noticed the wet warmth on his cheeks.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried. He’d been so emotionally closed off in his former life he hadn’t allowed himself the catharsis. In the twenty-first century there had been so many distractions to keep one at odds with the ultimate goals of life—to do no harm and to help one’s neighbors. Unlike here in the Old West where he had plenty of opportunities and time to get in touch with his true nature and capacity for goodness and the things that really mattered in life. Once he indulged the tears, however, Prentice found it hard to stop and soon he was sobbing.

He covered his face with both hands, visions of Aura—her bravery and defiance in the face of his cruelty—flying by his mind’s eye in perfect clarity.

He remembered his parents and how they had provided for Thayne and Cade after they’d allowed their powers to get the best of them and had killed the boys’ parents. He wished now that he had not judged them so harshly for what he saw as their useless pursuit of redemption. He wished he had taken a page from their book much sooner and had forgiven them.

Prentice hoped it wasn’t too late to atone for his sins the way his parents had been doing before he had taken their lives in almost the same way they had taken Brielle’s and Caith’s lives. He decided the first thing he needed to do on his road to redemption was leave Lucy and Ki. It would be the best move for all concerned.

* * * *

Now that he had Ethan where he wanted him, all alone and almost completely unaware, he couldn’t pull the trigger and do what he needed to do.

Ethan was making things too easy and he didn’t like or trust easy. Not to mention, he had crossed the kid’s path several times in town, purposely making himself visible, even letting Ethan serve him drinks at Winchester’s, and the kid hadn’t shown any signs of recollection.

Either Ethan had acquired a superior poker face or he genuinely did not remember the man who had shot him in the back.

If Ethan had remembered the man responsible for killing him, certainly he would have gone to the sheriff and reported the crime by now, but since no one had come knocking on his door yet, he assumed Ethan had not gone to the law.

Had the feat of returning from the dead caused his memory lapse? How long would the kid’s amnesia last and did he want to take a chance of it being permanent?

The latter was a risk to be certain, but one he found himself willing to take. He was rightly taking pleasure spending his time in Elk Creek this go-round. Before, his stay had been all about business. Now, he was having an entertaining time.

His taste for the hunt, watching and stalking his prey and everyone Ethan cared about was growing. He was enjoying himself. If he killed the kid now, the game would be over and he wasn’t yet ready for it to be over. He wasn’t ready to put the kid out of his misery. In fact, he was going to let this play out a little longer, at least until he got bored with this town and its people and decided to move on to greener pastures.

Until then, he would stay…and play.

Ki hurled his épée across the room in frustration and flung himself back onto the chaise longue against the wall. He was totally exhausted and annoyed with himself because the practice session he just completed had done absolutely nothing to help clear his head as he had hoped it would. If anything, the exercise had depressed him more than he had been when he had started.

Leaving Healing Magick directly after his discussion with Lucy, he had wandered around town for a while with no plain destination or purpose in mind. He had been lost but had known he had brought the misery on himself by forcing Lucy to tell him about Ethan, aka Prentice.

Finally, he’d pulled himself together enough to come home, and finding the house empty—assuming his mother had gone out on one of her now-famous and much loved shopping sprees—he had immediately stripped out of his dress clothes and changed into his fencing attire.

What was he supposed to do about Ethan now? He wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to call the stripling—Ethan or Prentice—but he knew there was no doubt that Lucy had been telling him the truth as she knew it and that he believed her tale, as wild as it seemed. What he couldn’t fathom was Prentice’s state of mind or the level of hatred that had driven him to have done what he had done in his previous life to several people Lucy loved as friends.

Ki had been going over it and over it in his mind since Lucy had told him, and he didn’t know how he was supposed to feel about Ethan now. He knew he still wanted him, and if the young man had walked through the front door right then, Ki had no doubt what his physiological reaction would be—instant lust. The question was could he reconcile his knowledge of Prentice’s character with his own body’s responses? Did he even want to be associated with a man who, by default, had tried to do what Prentice had tried to do to Cade, Thayne, and Maia? Could he care for someone capable of that kind of violence? Come to that, how much of Prentice’s consciousness was in Ethan’s body and how much of Ethan still remained?

A month ago his biggest concern had been whether or not he wanted to continue working in the firm with his stepfather. A week ago his biggest concern had been how he was going to get his wife on board with a ménage à trois. Now he was pondering the concepts and minutiae of life after death and whether or not he could care for a cold-blooded killer.

How had his life come to this?

Ki buried his face in his hands and sighed. He was unaccustomed to questioning his instincts. They had, after all, yet to steer him wrong, and his instincts were telling him that Prentice was not the monster that his past indicated he might be. He refused to accept that he could have the feelings he had for Prentice if Prentice was totally evil. Someone somewhere must have believed that Prentice had good in him, that he had the capacity to be rehabilitated and this was why he had been brought back and given a second chance.

Ki clung to the latter idea. He had to hold out some hope that his entire worldview had not been irretrievably destroyed.

“Is everything all right?”

Ki jerked his face out of his hands to see Ethan standing on the threshold of the parlor, frowning at him. “No, everything is not all right.”

Ethan instantly crossed the room and crouched beside Ki. “What’s wrong? Did something happen to Lucy?”

“Lucy is fine. I visited her earlier at Healing Magick as a matter of fact and we had an interesting conversation…about you.”

Ethan drew back and stood. “About me?”

“I know who you are, Ethan. I know what you’ve done.”

“Lucy told you?”

“Don’t blame her. I didn’t give her a choice.”