Lucy's Liberation [Elk Creek 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (3 page)

Prentice could swear he heard a sigh at that, and it didn’t come from him or either of the men in the office with him.

Was Brielle fed up with him already? What would she do once she got mad? Send him back to the Summerland?

No, they wouldn’t do that because the Summerland was utopia, a paradise compared to earth. They probably figured he’d enjoy himself too much in the Summerland. They probably decided he didn’t deserve to
be
in the Summerland like most good and obedient Wiccans deserved to be.

Prentice sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing them with his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know what I mean anymore,” he rasped.

“That’s perfectly understandable,” Thayne said.

“We’ll get you home to your momma and daddy where you belong.”

Prentice opened his eyes to stare at Thayne and Kelly. “Clint and Kate?”

“Well, yeah, that’s your momma and daddy,” Kelly said. “Don’t you remember them?”

“To tell you truth, I don’t remember much of anything.” Hell, he might as well go with the truth, at least some of it. No way in hell could he tell these men everything—that he wasn’t this Ethan guy who had been shot and killed, out in the middle of nowhere apparently.

There was so
much
he didn’t know about Ethan. He didn’t know how old he was—though from the reflection in the mirror, he’d put him in his early twenties, almost ten years younger than Prentice had been when he was killed. He didn’t know Ethan’s last name, or who Ethan’s friends and enemies were.

The last point was the most troubling. He didn’t know who had killed Ethan and why, and that could be a nasty wrinkle for Prentice if this individual found out Ethan was still alive and kicking. Certainly that person would want to come back and finish the job, wouldn’t he?

Unfortunately, here Prentice was, in a marked man’s body, without his powers and not knowing who to keep an eye out for. He was, for all intents and purposes, a sitting duck and that would never do, not for a man like him who thrived on keeping control of all situations at all times.

He’d never been very trusting of anyone. Decades in school and business surrounded by impenetrable cliques and fake smiles and secret agendas had taught him that no one was his friend unless they wanted something from him, like a favor or money. Once he’d gotten to a point where he’d convinced himself that he didn’t need friends, especially at the cost of his self-respect, he’d worked on honing his powers and went on the offensive.

Prentice reached out again with his psychic fingers, straining to feel something from either Thayne or Kelly, but still he didn’t pick up anything. Conversely, he didn’t sense Thayne trying to read him, but then since Prentice didn’t seem to have his powers, he couldn’t possibly have sensed another telepath reading him as well as not being able to read a telepath.

This really was
not
a good situation.

He felt so naked and vulnerable…helpless. He did not like feeling powerless and not in control of his own destiny. It was one of the main reasons he had worked so hard to sharpen and strengthen his abilities once he’d uncovered them until eventually using them had been second nature.

Prentice stole a glance at Thayne to see if his expression had changed. If Thayne had read him and realized who he was, Prentice expected the man’s anger and revulsion. Thayne’s expression, however, remained as benevolent and calm as ever. Either he had a consummate poker face, or he hadn’t read Prentice.

Either way, he seemed comfortable in his own skin and at peace with himself. Was it because he was in love and married or had he always been like that? How
did
one reach that kind of Zen? Prentice had never been able to except when he was using his powers.

It was going to be a little difficult to go on the offensive, now that he thought about it, when he didn’t know who his opponent was though. No matter. He just wouldn’t trust anyone.

He’d just treat everyone like an enemy. He’d survived high school, college, and the corporate world as a loner and not trusting anyone. He’d certainly survive this.

* * * *

The Summerland

“I don’t think I like his frame of mind,” Caith said. “He seems to be regressing.” He averted his glance from the scene with Prentice, Thayne, and Kelly playing across the clear blue sky and looked at his wife sitting beside him in a lush, vibrant field of grass and violet-hued flowers. She looked wistful with her knees bent and arms wrapped around them. The purple of the hibiscuses and iris flowers in particular brought out the blue of her eyes. He drank in her beauty and thought of the two boys—now grown men—that they had left behind on earth.

“I had hoped after his encounters with Lucy and Isaiah that there was hope for him,” Brielle said.

“He did seem to show a capacity for compassion with the woman and the boy.” Caith rubbed his chin, remembering the man who had played Lucy’s protector. Granted, Prentice had been a grudging protector, but he had saved young Isaiah from certain death. He did not want to remember that this was the same man who had killed Brielle’s sister and tried to kill his and Brielle’s sons and their woman.

Was it really possible that the latter man could be redeemed, that he could open himself up enough to love and be loved? “I’m beginning to wonder if Goddess didn’t make a mistake in sending him back to Earth.”

“Goddess does not make mistakes,” Brielle said.

Caith gave her a smile that he knew didn’t quite reach his eyes. Brielle had always had more faith in the human race and Goddess than he had. It was why he loved her so much, her devotion and spirituality. Her love and devotion were what had saved him so many decades ago.

Could her belief, however, save so tortured a soul as Prentice?

“How wise is it to leave him in the same town where Thayne and Cade live?”

“You do love playing the devil’s advocate.” Brielle grinned.

“I’m just trying to be realistic, and you don’t seem concerned about the situation at all. He did try to kill them and their woman, after all.”

“Goddess would not have sent him back if She thought that he would do more harm than good.” Brielle reached out to grasp his shoulder and squeezed. It was something he had watched Thayne do often since he and Brielle had been in the Summerland keeping tabs on their sons. Thayne used his gifts to heal, to comfort and soothe. He and his brother helped people.

Prentice hadn’t learned how to help anyone if something wasn’t in it for him. His gifts had been corrupted by betrayal, distrust, and hate.

“I think we need to give Prentice the benefit of the doubt. Goddess has. She evidently sees something in him worth saving.”

“I hope you’re right.” If any harm came to his and Brielle’s children, Caith didn’t care what plans Goddess had for Prentice’s salvation. There would be hell to pay.

Benjamin Residence – Gramercy Park West, New York City – 1882

“Please tell me you are not still considering going on this fool’s errand to that Elk Creek place. Really, son, it’s just an uncivilized Podunk dustbowl in the middle of nowhere.”

Ki jerked up his head to see his mother standing on the threshold of the library. He’d been in such a deep brown-study he hadn’t even heard the
click-clacking
of her heels against the polished wood floors in the hallway as she approached.

“You should know me by now, Mother. I thrive on civilizing the uncivilized. The Wild West suits my explorer’s soul perfectly. It’s a wonder I haven’t gone out there more often.” Truth be told, there wasn’t much out west to attract him, despite all that twaddle he’d just fed his mother about civilizing the uncivilized. He’d taken a trip to Colorado, but only to go mountaineering and reach the summit of Pikes Peak. Once he climbed the mountain, however, the state didn’t hold much more of an attraction for him. He needed a new mountain to climb, another crusade to champion, a cause célèbre to accomplish and slake the unremitting craving inside. His desire to be greater, go ever faster and ever higher never waned. As long as he lived, he didn’t think he’d ever tire of the pursuit or the thrills.

“Don’t insult my intelligence, feeding me such drivel.”

Ki chuckled and stood to meet his mother in the middle of the room. He wrapped his arms around her for a brief hug, then pulled away to grin down at her. “I can never pull the wool over your eyes.”

She playfully poked him in the ribs. “And don’t you forget it.”

Ki watched as her teasing mood suddenly turned serious again.

“Hezekiah, I am concerned about your motives and what you hope to accomplish while you are out there besides falling prey to another pretty face and sob story.”

“Mother—”

“Now hear me out…”

Ki sighed, already knew what was coming. He hated to sound like a little boy being castigated for a misdeed, but since his mother insisted on
treating
him like a boy, he felt perfectly entitled to show his annoyance in kind. He did stop short of rolling his eyes though.

“Are you sure you’re not letting your heart guide you in this matter?”

“Mother, give me a little credit.”

“I give you much more than a little credit, Ki. You’re my son and I know your strengths better than anyone, but in matters of the heart and
loin
you can be, shall we say, imprudent.”

She had learned about one indiscretion, one of
many
he might add, and his mother had yet to let Ki hear the end of it. If she only knew about all the other peccadilloes he had committed in boarding school and college, she would probably swoon against her favorite mauve silk-upholstered chaise longue with the back of a wrist to her forehead like some hapless southern belle or Victorian lady suddenly struck with the vapors. If she knew that not all of his indiscretions had been with women, well then she might blame herself for his sexual proclivities and he could not have that, so he would never allow her to know.

“You have to admit you have a penchant for picking up strays, darling.”

“I have nothing of the sort. Besides, Lucy isn’t exactly a stray.” Ki barely stopped himself from wincing at the slip, hoping his mother didn’t notice how easily the woman’s Christian name had sprung from his mouth.

He clutched her letter against his side as if he could gain strength from its tenuous white fibers, like it was a talisman that could conjure an image of the woman to give him strength.

“You don’t really know that much about her to make that assertion, now do you?”

When had his mother become so cool and calculating…so logical? Granted, she had always been an intelligent woman, but one cosseted from the Machiavellian intrigues of polite high society by his father. Not until his father’s death and her remarriage had she acquired this predilection for chess-like, general-on-the-battlefield manipulation and strategizing.

“Lest I hark back to that Ferrari woman, Exhibit A.”

Ki groaned. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Then I shall refresh your memory.” His mother took him by the elbow and led him across the plush Persian rug to sit back down as she took the seat adjacent him. “If I had not intervened on your behalf, that girl could have ruined your future.”

It was an intrusion for which he had yet to forgive his mother.

Ah, sweet Mirabella Ferrari, an exchange student from Argentina, whose parents had been foreign dignitaries residing in America. She’d had no idea what she was doing when she approached his mother with her pregnancy tale. The chit of a girl actually thought to pull one over on Margaret Peyton Benjamin-Sachs when better men and women and a wily child like himself had never been able to.

Her mistake had been going to his mother instead of directly to him. Ki might have given her story some credibility. He had bedded the girl, after all. Mother, on the other hand, called Mirabella’s bluff, producing information that the girl’s indiscretions with an impoverished Argentine compatriot and not her affair with Ki had resulted in her delicate condition. How his mother had acquired such information, Ki had no idea, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if she had had a few Pinkerton men at her beck and call to do her bidding.

Ki had later learned of the encounter between his mother and his paramour when Mirabella had sent him a farewell letter of explanation before her father had shipped her back home to avoid any more scandal.

He and his mother had argued about her interference to no avail. Both had staunchly thought the other acted unbecomingly and neither had brought up the Mirabella incident again…until now.

“When did you become so jaded, Mother?” Ki murmured and the distant look that clouded his mother’s eyes immediately made him regret asking.

Ever since the incident with Uncle Rance, she acted ferocious and protective like a mother bear whose cub had been threatened. He appreciated her concern, but sometimes Ki thought that she must have forgotten he was a grown man who could make decisions for and take care of himself. He knew that trying to remind her would be a waste of time, because in her eyes he would always be a child, one in need of her constant guidance and safeguarding.