Clifftop Fantasies [BDSM Menage Fantasies] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (10 page)

“About you and Brad. Was he mean about it? I am so sorry, again, sweetie. I could have positively kicked myself last night. I lay awake all night feeling just awful.”

“It’s okay,” Allie said, taking another bite and wondering what all the fuss was about being skinny, anyway. It wasn’t worth giving up good food for.

“Well, if he can’t see what an amazing person you are, he doesn’t deserve you,” Jane said stoutly, patting her shoulder. “And you still have us. We’ll stick by you even if that asshole goes back to Kansas City or wherever it is he came from.”

Allie had been going to ask her who
we
was, but she was distracted by wondering how Jane knew that Brad was from Kansas City. She was opening her mouth to ask one of the questions, although she hadn’t decided which, when Karl came in the back door.

“Morning,” he said civilly, smiling at Allie but giving Jane a stern look. “So,” he asked her, “are you leaving today?”

“Leaving?” Jane sounded shocked. “I wouldn’t dream of it! Allie here is having a crisis. I am going to stay and help her through it.”

Allie smiled at her a little uncertainly. She wasn’t absolutely sure she could handle any more of Jane’s “help,” but it seemed like she was trying to be kind.

Karl rolled his eyes. “Allie is fine. She’s a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need any of our shoulders to lean on. Personally I’m surprised she hasn’t tossed all of us out on our ears yet.”

He poured himself a cup of coffee and grabbed a muffin, leaning against the counter to eat it. “Don’t you have a job to get back to?” he asked pointedly.

Jane gave him a sweet smile. “They can do without me for a while. This is more important.”

“Why?”

Allie was a little surprised at his rudeness and decided to cut in. She turned to Jane. “It’s very nice of you to want to help, but if you need to get back to your job…”

Jane laughed and patted her hand. “Believe me, sweetie, they can get along for a few more days. And I don’t really want to leave you alone here with these two. I’m not sure they’re completely trustworthy.”

“These two?” Allie repeated, bewildered.

“Charlie and Karl.” Jane leaned in to whisper in Allie’s direction but fluttered her eyelashes at Karl as she said it.

“What do you mean, leave me here with them? Brad’s here, too,” Allie said, looking between the other two, trying to decipher what was going on.

Jane gave her a quick, pitying glance then pulled her in for a hug. “Of course he is, dear. I didn’t mean that. I’m sure he’ll come home tonight. I just meant that
during the day
, you’d be all alone with these two heathens. God knows what they might try.”

Karl snorted, brushed off his hands, and took a long swig of coffee. He gave Allie a meaningful look as he dumped the rest down the sink and turned for the back door. “Just be careful who you trust,” he said in parting as he pushed through it and disappeared.

Chapter 9

Allie listened to Karl clump across the back porch and down the steps, wondering what his warning had meant. At the moment she didn’t really feel like she could trust any of the people who were staying in her house. But Jane seemed to be the least likely to have an ulterior motive. Karl was in possession of her father’s pictures, Charlie wanted the rights to hers, but Jane just seemed to want to help. She had the least to lose there. Plus, she was a woman, and that in itself was a point in her favor.

Allie turned to Jane, who was taking a delicate sip of coffee, and said, “I need your advice.”

Jane brightened as if that was the best news she could have possibly heard. “Of course! I’m happy to help you in any way I can. Is it about Brad?”

“No,” Allie said quickly. Something about the way Jane had been talking about Brad made Allie nervous, although she didn’t have time to analyze what it was. “It’s Charlie. I need to figure out a way to get him to leave me alone.”

“Ah.” Jane nodded, looking thoughtful. “What would make him go away? Could you get a restraining order on him?”

Allie frowned. “Probably not without going into the whole story, and I don’t want to do that. And it’s not like he’s been threatening me or anything.”

“Okay. I guess that’s out. Maybe we could give him food poisoning?”

“I wouldn’t do that!” Allie protested. “Besides, if he was mad enough he could give me some really bad publicity.”

“Ah, yes,” Jane said, narrowing her eyes. “He could, couldn’t he? So that’s out. What else could we do?”

“About what?” Charlie came sauntering into the kitchen then. He put down his camera bag and helped himself to a cup of coffee. It was like suddenly having a large, annoying family, Allie thought. She’d gone in two days from wanting to fill her house with guests to missing the peace and quiet of her uneventful life. Maybe having a family was overrated.

“Nothing,” she began guiltily, when Jane cut her off.

“We were just discussing how to make you go away and leave poor little Allie here alone.” She smiled brilliantly at Charlie while Allie gaped at her in horror.

Charlie laughed. “I’ll just bet you were,” he said. “Don’t worry, Allie. I have to go take care of a few things. But I’ll be back. You and I need to come to an understanding. But now that Brad knows your deep, dark secret, you two can work out what that means for your relationship and your business here. I understand it’s going to take a little time to let him get used to the idea. Don’t give up on him, though. It came as a shock, but if he has any sense he’ll see it for what it was, a smart decision to use the assets God gave you to support yourself. You don’t mind if I take my breakfast up to my room and eat while I get ready to leave, do you?”

Allie mutely shook her head, trying to digest everything he’d said. He was leaving—that was good. He’d be back—that was bad, but at least it gave her a little breathing room.

Jane got up, following him toward the stairs. “I need to talk to you before you go. I’ll be back in a bit,” she added to Allie over her shoulder.

Allie watched her go then turned and went out the back door. There were a couple of things she needed to find out, and Karl was the only one who could tell her.

* * * *

Karl sat at the heavy wooden table in the barn tinkering with an old camera when Allie burst through the door. She looked hassled and upset, and his first instinct was to get up and wrap his arms around her, assuring her that he would take care of her even if Brad left. But he knew it wasn’t the time for that. This might be a difficult situation for her, but what she really needed was to recognize that she was strong enough to take care of herself. Instead, forcing himself to be casual, he looked up and asked, “Cup of coffee?”

“Yes, please,” she said, collapsing into a chair. He poured her some and fixed it exactly the way she liked it, wishing he had some whipped cream, which he knew she loved. I guess I need to stock some out here, he thought. He refilled his own cup as well and sat down, pretending to concentrate on the camera. He hoped she couldn’t tell how aware he was of her across the table, turning the mug around and around in her hands, looking worried and embarrassed. And adorable.

“I need to talk to you,” she began tentatively.

“I gathered that,” he said, picking up a piece and wiping it down before fitting it into the body of the camera.

“Okay. I need to know about these pictures.”

“Which pictures?”

She sighed. “The ones…of me. That Charlie took.” Her face flushed, and she bent her head as if she were confessing to something that was going to shock him.

“Mm-hmm. What about them?”

She gulped and seemed to be forcing the words out. “Do you have them?”

He kept his gaze resolutely fixed on his project, but his heart sped up a little. “Yep.”

“So…you’ve seen them, then?”

He shot her an amused glance. “Since I have the full set and I have no silly qualms about nudity…yes, I happen to have looked at them.”

Her face got even redder. She was so cute when she was agitated, he thought. “I…Are they here?”

“Yes. Do you want to see them?”

“No!” There was a pause. “Did you tell Brad that you had them?”

“Yes.” It was completely unapologetic. He continued working as if they were discussing the weather. “He asked, and I told him.”

She let out a breath. “What else did you tell him?”

“That the human body is a work of art, and art is worthwhile for its own sake. That he is an asshole if he expects you to be ashamed of and suppress the excellent work that you did. That if you sell your pictures and use your father’s to their full potential it would give you the financial freedom to run this place the way that you want to. That it would be selfish of him to expect you to give up your dreams because of his prudish insecurities.” He remembered Brad’s reaction and hoped she didn’t ask him to repeat it. There was no point in her knowing exactly how close she was to being single. Maybe she really would be better off that way, but he didn’t want anyone to think that he had pushed either of them into splitting up. This was something they had to work out for themselves.

Allie was quiet for a minute, obviously thinking about that. “But what do you get out of this?” she asked suddenly, and her voice was stronger. That was a good sign, he thought. She was starting to focus on the situation at hand rather than her regrets about the past.

“I was a student and a friend of your father’s,” he told her, choosing his words carefully. “I appreciate the work he did, and I helped him as much as I could. He was a stubborn bastard who wouldn’t listen to good advice, but now I have the opportunity to continue helping him through you. He—and you and Charlie—did some beautiful work, and it deserves to be shown. Just because it’s not pictures of flowers and bunnies doesn’t mean it has no cultural value. We have a great opportunity here, and I’m not leaving until I either see it through or you kick me out. Or we all go bankrupt—which is a possibility if we don’t start making payments soon on the loan.”

“An opportunity? What are you talking about?”

He forced himself to turn back to the camera so she wouldn’t be able to read his emotions. He didn’t speak until he was sure his voice would sound neutral again. “We’ll talk about that some other time. First you need to decide where you stand and what you want to do.”

“What I want to do about the pictures?” She sounded confused. “I don’t really want to do anything about them except make them go away. But if there’s some great opportunity here I need to know about it. I don’t want to lose this place, Karl.”

He put down his cleaning rag and took a swig of coffee. Allie did the same but kept her eyes fixed on his.

“Let’s start with your pictures,” he said finally. “Are you absolutely sure that you don’t want to let Charlie sell them? Since Brad knows about them now, it’s not so important to keep them hidden, is it?”

“That’s not the point.” Allie shook her head. “I really don’t want them to be republished.”

“Why?”

She seemed to be taken aback by the question. “Well, because…I don’t want people looking at them. They’re embarrassing.”

“Why are they embarrassing? They’re beautiful.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want people to know…”

“To know what? That you were young and took a job that they wouldn’t have had the guts to do?”

She was silent.

He nodded as if that was exactly what he’d expected. “Let’s think about this logically. If you publish the pictures, you might have money to keep the house for a while, but there’s a chance Brad will leave you. I personally think he’ll come to his senses, but we’ve got to acknowledge the chance that he’s a bigger idiot than he seems to be. If you don’t publish the pictures and Brad stays, you could very well lose the house and end up single anyway. So it comes down to whether you’d rather risk losing the house or Brad, or both. Does that sound right to you?”

“I guess so.” Allie stared into her coffee mug. Karl knew he was being blunt and maybe a little harsh. But it was important to put the situation into perspective. There was no point in her sitting around feeling sorry for herself and letting life happen to her. He knew she had the strength to handle this problem. He just needed to help her find it.

“So that’s your decision to make,” he went on. “You’d better make it pretty quickly or circumstances will do it for you. And I think you’ll feel better if you’ve taken action for yourself. You don’t really seem like the type who sits back and waits for shit to happen.” He picked up his rag again and began vigorously polishing a piece of the camera body, even though he’d polished the same piece an hour ago.

Allie sat still for a few more seconds. Then she stood up, took her coffee mug over to the sink, and washed it. Karl focused on his work, although he was thoroughly aware of every move she made. She gave him a quick glance as she opened the door, and he stifled the urge to call her back. It was important for her to find her own strength, he told himself resolutely, making no attempt to stop her as she left.

Chapter 10