Accepting Eva [Slick Rock 8] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (2 page)

The Slick Rock Motel was on the west side of town but still close enough that if she decided to walk into the town center, she could with ease, most of the time. She’d also seen there were rooms to rent at the Slick Rock Hotel, but the thought of renting a room over a noisy bar didn’t appeal. Apparently the motel was fairly new, so at least it should be clean and hopefully quiet.

Her right calf was tight after spending two days behind the wheel of her car, and experience warned that if she didn’t stretch her muscles, her night would be spent in debilitating pain from cramping. She was just thankful she didn’t suffer cramps as regularly as she had when she was a child.

Pain hit hard and fast. Evana cried out as her right leg collapsed beneath her. Her hands connected with the pavement, and the skin of her palms scraped on the abrasive surface, skinning them and her knees when the material of her pants shredded as she landed on all fours. Evana panicked slightly when she looked around. There was no one about since she had taken a route away from the town center. She had been so lost in thought she hadn’t taken any notice of where she was walking. The only building in sight looked like a warehouse or a small factory.

“Damn, damn, damn,” she muttered and eased onto her ass. She pulled up the leg of her three-quarter-length pants and quickly undid both the cuff below her knee and her boot. She pulled off the boot, taking her sock with it. Digging her fingers into the knots only helped slightly. She wasn’t strong enough to massage the cramp away.

Pain shot from her calf and shin into her foot. The arch of her foot twitched and then contracted, making her toes curl under. Tears formed in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She hated giving into them, but the pain was so intense she couldn’t ward them off. There was no way she could even stand when she was swamped with such agony. She sobbed and dug her fingers in harder, but nothing she did alleviated the pain.

The pounding of boots hitting pavement was only a vague distraction as she gasped and writhed. Strong arms scooped her up from the ground, and she looked up to see Quin Badon’s grim face. “Put your arm around my neck, honey. I won’t hurt you.”

Evana did and then cried out as another excruciating cramp hit. Her body bowed, trying to get away from the discomfort, but she knew it was a useless endeavor. Coolness washed over her when Quin carried her into his shop, and then she was being lowered into a chair. He had brought her to the office off the side of his workshop.

“What’s going on?” a male voice asked from the doorway.

She looked up through blurry vision and saw two handsome men looking at her with concern. She arched in the chair when more pain swamped her.

“Gray, get the hand wash from the bathroom,” Quin ordered. He picked up her right leg, placed her foot on his thigh, and began to massage her calf.

Evana whimpered as his strong fingers dug into her contracting muscles. Even though it caused her more pain, she knew that eventually the knot would release and give her blessed relief.

“Can I do anything to help?” the other man asked.

“Yeah, go and see if we have something we can heat up,” Quin replied. “Wait.” He reached over to his side, pulled open a drawer in the desk, and grabbed a wheat bag. “Get this as hot as you can without it burning her and bring it back.”

Evana closed her eyes and tried to relax her tension-wrought body. It was nearly impossible with the cramping. Gray came back and handed Quin the bottle of hand wash. He stopped massaging, squirted some of the liquid into the palm of his hand, and then rubbed his hands together. Once he had coated his skin, he began to massage her tight muscles once more. The liquid helped his skin slide over hers as he dug into the massive knots, and he used his thigh to put pressure on her toes, bending them back toward her shin and stretching her sole.

How long Quin worked on her she had no idea, but when the pain finally eased and then her muscles released, she was really tired. She slumped back into the large office chair and covered her mouth, hiding a yawn.

“Are you okay, Evana?” Quin asked.

“Yes.” She opened her eyes and gave him a wan smile. “Thank you so much. I don’t know what I would have…”

“I’m just glad I could help.” He looked over toward the office door, and the other man handed over a hot wheat bag. “I’m going to tape this to your leg. The heat should help keep the cramps away, then we’ll see about cleaning up your grazes.”

“Oh.” Evana looked at her palms. Blood was seeping out of her torn skin. She hoped she hadn’t spread it everywhere when she had been in pain.

“Pierson, Grayson, meet Evana Woodridge. These are my brothers,” Quin said as he taped the hot pack to her leg.

“Hi,” Evana replied politely but kept her eyes lowered. She felt like a complete idiot now that her pain was gone.

“Let me see your hands, Evana. I’ll clean them up for you.” Evana looked up and went still. The brother Quin had introduced as Pierson had gold-green eyes. The color was so unusual, she couldn’t look away. She felt as if she were drowning.

When she managed to take in the rest of him, she found that he was as well built as his brother. His muscles rippled and bulged as he moved. His six-foot-two frame had to carry over two hundred pounds of solid muscle. She raised her eyes to his light-brown hair and saw his lips quirk. When she realized she was staring, heat suffused her cheeks. She shielded her eyes with her lashes and turned her hands over for him to clean. Pierson swabbed her skin with antiseptic pads. The sting of the alcohol was nothing compared to what she had just endured, so she didn’t even flinch.

Quin reached over and took another two packets from the first-aid kit Pierson had placed on the desk. He ripped one open and then cleaned her grazed knees.

“There you go. How’s the leg?”

“Much better. Thank you,” she replied, reaching for the tape.

A large hand covered hers. “No, leave it on, honey. The heat will help. Would you like a cup of coffee?” Quin asked.

She didn’t feel up to walking back yet. “Yes, please.”

Quin held her right ankle and maneuvered until he could reach another chair. He pulled it closer and then eased her foot down onto the seat.

“How do you take your coffee, Evana?” Grayson asked from the doorway. She drew in a ragged breath. All three Badon brothers were tall and ruggedly handsome. Gray had rich brown hair and brown eyes. His jaw was strong and square. Glancing between them, Evana noticed they all had indentations in their chins. Gray was taller than Pierson but shorter than Quin and no less muscular.

She found herself a little intimidated at having the attention of three such handsome, brawny men. Evana wasn’t used to any attention from males unless it was in a derogatory or pitying way.

“White, no sugar, thanks.”

“Do you get cramps like that often?” Pierson asked as he leaned against the edge of the desk.

“Yes, but they aren’t as bad now as when I was a kid. Shit! I left my boot on the pavement.” She went to get up but again was stopped when a large, warm hand landed on her shoulder.

“It’s on the other desk, honey. Do you want it on?” Quin took a step toward the other desk.

“No. Not right now.”

Gray entered the office with a tray loaded with coffee mugs. After placing it on the desk near her, he handed her a blue mug.

“Thank you,” she sighed and wrapped her grazed palms around it, ignoring the slight sting caused by the heat of the cup.

Gray leaned against the desk next to Pierson, and Quin snagged the back of another chair and brought it closer to her and sat straddling it. Evana took a sip of her coffee for something to do. The three pairs of male eyes scrutinizing her made her feel a little uncomfortable.

“Sorry you had to carry me in here,” she said.

“Don’t worry about that,” Pierson said.

“You don’t weigh a thing,” Quin added.

That might be true for men as big and powerfully built as they were. When they didn’t say anything more, she found herself talking to fill the silence. “Once, when I was a kid, two of my friends had to carry me home from school because the cramps were so bad I couldn’t walk. They made a seat for me out of their hands and carried me all the way home.”

You’re talking too much.
But seeing that she had the total attention of her audience, Evana relaxed a little. “My mom had to spend an hour massaging the knots out of my leg that day. You guys got off easy.”

Pierson smiled. “You were lucky to have such good friends.”

Evana felt the warmth of that memory fade away. She wasn’t sure she could count Tim as a friend anymore. “Yeah,” she said weakly.

Tim had changed since he was a kid. Before she left Sheridan, Tim had been pushing her for a relationship. She had liked Tim when they were kids, but he seemed to have changed over the last few years and not in a good way. Before she had left home, she feared seeing him at all. Ever since her mom and Jack had left home to travel to Australia to see some of Jack’s distant relatives, Tim had become a little too aggressive in his pursuit of her and she had become decidedly uncomfortable. As far as she was concerned, their friendship was no more, and in fact she had begun to fear Tim. So she had packed, locked up the house, and here she was.

She looked at the three Badon brothers, who still watched her intently. She wasn’t going to burden these near strangers with her fears about Tim, not when those fears were probably unfounded anyway. She still had no proof it was him sneaking into her room at night while she was sleeping. A shiver raced up her spine, but Quin nudged her arm gently, pulling her mind from such distasteful thoughts.

Quin seemed to be scrutinizing her closely. “Can I ask you a question, Evana?”

Though she felt like she’d talked too much already, she said, “Sure.”

“What happened to your leg?”

Quin was aware that Pierson and Gray were giving him dirty looks, but he didn’t see any problem with his question. Ignoring his brothers, he studied the petite, good-looking woman sipping her coffee. He wanted to know everything about her. When he had met her earlier that afternoon, he hadn’t wanted to be too forward and scare her off, but now that she was in his office, he wanted to ask her everything. He was attracted to her and knew by the way his brothers were looking at her that they were drawn to her, too.

She wasn’t very tall, standing at around five foot four, but she had a nicely rounded body. Her hips were voluptuous and she had a great chest. Her long hair shimmered even under the fluorescent office light, and he could see gold strands amongst the red. Her skin was a creamy white with a healthy tint of pink on her cheeks. There was a light dusting of freckles across her small, straight nose, which made her look younger than he imagined she was. Her eyes were a light shade of green, but he could see a few gold flecks in her irises.

As beautiful as her eyes were, it was her mouth that kept drawing Quin’s gaze. Her lips were full and had a natural red tint, and all Quin wanted was to see her smile.

Right now she looked hesitant. It dawned on Quin that his question had been a little blunt and that was why Pierson and Grayson were still scowling at him. He tried to rephrase the question a little more tactfully.

“Were you in a car accident, Evana?” Quin questioned.

“No,” she replied and hesitated as she leaned forward and rubbed her calf. “It’s not a very interesting story, though. I don’t want to bore you.”

Quin looked at his brothers and back to her.
Why does she think she’s boring?

Before he could say something that would probably be tactless, Pierson said gently, “Quin didn’t ask because we want an exciting story, Evana. We want to make sure you’re okay.”

Evana’s first response was to blush furiously. Quin wondered about that, too. “Well, to cut a long story short, I was born with congenital hip dysplasia.” She gestured down her leg. “My lower leg is bowed more than normal. It’s also about a centimeter shorter than the left, though that’s better than the two and a half centimeters’ difference when I was a kid. The brace and bars help correct that, and the boot gives it some support. Sometimes I wonder if it’s helped, though. I’ve still had a lot of surgery.”

“How many operations have you had?” Gray asked.

“Um.” She paused and looked like she was searching her memory. “About ten. I spent nearly five months in plaster from just below my ribs to my ankles with my legs out wide like a frog’s. My mom said the cast was called a hip spica. And the second lot of plaster was from the top of my thighs to my ankles with a stick between my thighs just above my knees to keep them apart. Apparently that was so my hip socket had a chance to grow a little more, but it wasn’t enough. The surgeon eventually had to do more surgery to make me one.

“That was major surgery and I ended up in bed in traction for six weeks and in a wheelchair for a while. I couldn’t go to school for a whole semester.”

“Shit, that must have been rough for a kid,” Quin said.

“No, the operations I could handle fine. Thanks to my orthopedic surgeon, I may be able to keep my own hip joint for the next twenty years or more, though nothing’s ever certain. I wouldn’t even be able to walk if it wasn’t for my surgeon.”

“Why not?” Quin asked.