Lucy's Liberation [Elk Creek 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (27 page)

“Perhaps wanting to talk me out of my fool’s errand?”

“I have to admit, the thought initially crossed my mind.”

“And now?” Ki peered at his mother over his cup of coffee as he took another sip.

“I don’t think what you’re doing is a fool’s errand anymore. I think now you’re on a mission of the heart.”

Ki laughed. “There’s a difference?”

“Don’t make light. I’m serious. I should think you would be, too.”

“Oh, I’m very serious where Lucy’s concerned.”

“Serious enough to
stay
married to her in spite of the ridiculous deal you made?”

Ki paused with his cup to his mouth. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.

When Ki didn’t answer, his mother reached a hand across the table to take his. “Do you love her, Hezekiah?”

“Mother…”

“Don’t get your dander up. It’s a simple question.”

“Not quite.” In his experience there was nothing simple about love. Of course, he had only seen the damage it did from afar and that was enough for him. People did crazy, hurtful things to each other in the name of love. His mother and father were just one, prime example. Intellectually, Ki knew being in love wasn’t all bad, just as marriage was an institution of give and take. He just felt that sometimes his father had done a lot more taking than giving where his mother was concerned. She did seem a lot more content and at peace in her marriage to Noah, which meant that there was hope for the convention itself, he supposed.

His mother sat back in her seat, staring at him as she sipped her own coffee and Ki used the opportunity to change the subject. “So, now that you’ve established I’ve married the appropriate woman, when do you think you’ll be getting back to New York?”

“Trying to get rid of me so soon? What an ungrateful son you are.”

“I am only looking out for your well-being, Mother. I know how insufferable it is for you living out here in the uncivilized Wild West without any domestic help to see to your needs.”

“Don’t you dare be impertinent. I’ll have you know I’ve survived a lot worse conditions than exist here in the Wild West.”

“I can only imagine,” Ki said, remembering his mother’s tales of her poor beginnings in the south before she met his father, cautionary tales about the importance of being grateful for what one had.

“I think I noticed a barber in town when I first arrived.”

Ki jerked to attention as his mother ruffled his hair with her fingers. He tilted his head back to smile at her standing behind him. “Are you trying to tell me I need a haircut?”

She looked at him for a long moment. “I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I think this rough-and-rugged look you’ve adopted suits you.”

Ki raised his eyebrows. In New York, he’d always worn his hair longer than most “respectable” businessmen in his station had worn theirs. In the last few weeks since he had been there in Oklahoma Territory, however, his hair had grown at least an inch. He liked his hair on the long side and liked it even more since he had let it grow out. There was no doubting Lucy liked it. He remembered her running her hands through it, fisting handfuls of it when he had had his head between her legs, licking and sucking her pussy, and he got hard.

“Actually, I think Elk Creek suits you.”

Ki had been thinking the same thing lately. He hadn’t had the usual itch to flee for parts far and wide and engage in his usual death-defying activities, as his mother liked to call his pursuits. He had been waiting for the urge, but so far, it hadn’t been forthcoming. Ki didn’t know if this was a good or bad thing and he wasn’t sure how long his complacency would last.

He noticed his mother’s silence as she poured herself another cup of coffee then circled the table to retake her seat adjacent him. She looked both miserable and resigned.

“What is it, Mother?”

“I’m just thinking how much Noah will miss you at the firm.”

“Are you sure it’s not you who’ll be missing me at home?”

“Why would I miss a cheeky, impulsive, and stubborn offspring like you?”

Ki chuckled. “Exactly. Why would you, since I’m not going anywhere. This situation with Lucy is just a…” He couldn’t finish the statement, suddenly realized he didn’t know how to.

“Temporary situation” had been on the tip of his tongue, but he knew that to relegate his relationship to Lucy to that simple adjective and noun would be an insult to both Lucy and him.

He reminded himself that life in general was transient and nothing was permanent, which was why he tried to live his life to the fullest every day doing what made him happy. For now, being married to Lucy and living with her and Ethan made him happy. It was and wasn’t as simple as that.

His mother looked at him expectantly and smiled without saying anything. She didn’t have to say anything because her look said it all.

Ki didn’t know if it was his mother’s well-known, perceptive, and wise air or his suddenly feeling trapped that had the familiar teenage rebellion flooding through his veins. He just knew the quicker he settled things with Lucy and Ethan, the better he would feel.

Short of being on an actual honeymoon, the last few days had been so idyllic and enjoyable with Ki, Lucy should have known a storm was a-brewing.

When Ki came through the door of Healing Magick later that morning, however, the bell overhead tinkling to announce his arrival, Lucy’s heart soared. Then she saw the somber look on his face and it just as quickly plummeted.

Had something happened between Ki and Prentice back at the house? Had Margaret changed her mind about Lucy being a good match for her son?

The former would have been a surprise, since aside from stilted exchanges at meal times, Ki and Prentice barely spoke. There had been a couple of incidents when Lucy had caught them fencing so vigorously in the rearranged parlor she would have worried about their safety were it not for the blunted tips and rounded blades of the implements they had been using. Even during these occasions, they had barely spoken, their heavy breathing the only sound punctuating their efforts to do bodily harm to each other.

She wondered why they bothered with it if they didn’t seem to be having any fun, but then men were weird that way in her experience, so competitive in games of skill and chance that sometimes it seemed their very lives depended on the outcome.

As to the latter possibility and Margaret having had a change of heart, Lucy couldn’t see where that was possible. She and Ki’s mother had been getting along so well the last few days Ki often wondered aloud what they were plotting against him. Margaret had even come to the shop and met Maia and Sabrina and gotten involved with the planning for Lily’s shower. She had insisted on volunteering her services in the form of cooking and decorating.

Lucy hid her reaction to the sight of Ki’s grim expression as well as she could, wiping her hands on her apron as she left her post at one of the display counters to meet him halfway in the center of the store.

Ki wound his way around the customers on the floor and greeted her with what felt like a distracted and perfunctory hug and a kiss on the lips—no tongue, no squeeze. Of course, they were at her place of business and she had always discouraged him from getting too randy here, not that that had ever stopped him before.

She wondered if he was a mite miffed about her leaving so early this morning before he had gotten up, and maybe this was why he looked so hard-faced. Lucy decided she would be lucky if her early departure was the only thing bothering him. She could easily smooth his ruffled feathers for that, but she had a feeling there was much more.

“Can we speak in private, the storeroom perhaps?”

Lucy swallowed and nodded, unable to respond further.

She managed to let Maia and Sabrina know she was taking a little break without giving away too much of her distress. They just smiled and waved her away, always pleased when Ki visited and more than happy to see her off with him somewhere “private.”

“You are a newlywed after all,” Maia was so fond of saying.

“I don’t know why you insist on coming to work anyway. Not that we don’t love your work ethic and the help, but we can do without you for a few weeks while you get acquainted with your husband,” Sabrina typically added with a big smile on her face.

To which Lucy responded she couldn’t rightly relax until Rance’s estate was out of probate and things settled down a little more at home.

What she habitually failed to mention was that things would never really settle down because she was always on edge worrying about her future with her husband—her impossible future with her provisional husband.

“What’s going on?” Lucy blurted as they made it to the storeroom and Ki closed the door behind them. She hadn’t been able to help herself. Her curiosity and fear were piqued by her husband’s uncharacteristic cool manner. She’d never seen him so unapproachable before.

“That’s what I need you to tell me, Lucy. What’s going on?”

She frowned and crossed her arms over her breasts as if this could protect her from Ki’s antagonistic manner. “Where is this accusatory tone coming from?”

“It’s not accusatory. I’d just like to know what you and Ethan are hiding from me.”

Oh God, back to that.

As Ki hadn’t brought up the issue again since his visit to the storeroom when Prentice had first introduced himself, Lucy had decided it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. She knew now that had probably been a big mistake. Ki’s curiosity had obviously been festering beneath the surface, waiting for an outlet.

“Were you and Ethan once lovers?” Now Ki crossed his arms over his chest, but he didn’t seem like he was protecting himself as much as he was shutting her out. It didn’t look like he would listen to anything Lucy had to say with an open heart and mind in his current state.

How could she tell him the truth without telling him the truth? She and Ethan
had
been lovers, but not while Ethan had been Ethan but when Ethan had been Prentice.

God, that sounded crazy and confusing and she imagined it would be even more so to Ki.

“I want an answer, Lucy, or are you stalling to think up a good lie.”

“I’m not a defendant on the stand and you have no right to indict me this way.”

“I can get quite tenacious when I’m searching for the truth, Lucy, so you haven’t experienced me indicting you yet.”

“It doesn’t matter whether we were lovers or not. Whatever happened between us happened before I met you.”

“So you admit something happened.”

“Ki, you need to get off this path you’re following. I guarantee you’re not going to like where it leads.” Lucy tried to push by him, but Ki put out his arm to block her way.

“I already don’t like where it leads. However, I’m in this for the long haul. I need to know where I stand—where we all stand.”

Lucy’s heart did that little somersault of hope in her chest it did whenever she was around Ki or Prentice. Did Ki mean he wanted to stay married to her after their agreement expired?

“You need to sit down for this,” she murmured.

Ki frowned and followed her to the stepladder she used whenever she did inventory, but he didn’t take a seat, just stood with his arms folded across his chest in that strange intimidating way she was so unaccustomed to.

She couldn’t help thinking that if they got through the next several minutes they probably could get through anything.

Lucy started from the beginning, how she had first met Prentice when he used to visit Peyton’s and eventually how Rance had one day offered her to Prentice like he did with all his business associates, “for the gentleman’s pleasure.”

Ki unfolded his arms at this point, cringing before his face softened with compassion.

Lucy quickly moved on, didn’t want him apologizing out of duty or pity. She told Ki everything, how Prentice had led a mob that had tried to lynch Cade, Thayne, and Maia and how a bizarre miracle had spared her three friends but left Prentice to die in Cade’s place.

She watched the heap of emotions dance across his face—from confusion, to horror to outrage and disgust.

“Why? Why did he do that?”

Lucy shrugged as she truly didn’t know. No one around these parts knew for sure what Prentice’s motives had been. Everyone had just assumed that he had been acquainted with Cade, Thayne, and Maia from before they had all arrived in Elk Creek and that he had some blood feud against them that only the four of them were aware of.

“He killed Rance, too, and saved one of his young kidnap victims,” Lucy blurted. She had felt disloyal in not mentioning the good Prentice had done.

“Ethan is Prentice reincarnated?” Ki asked as if he already knew the answer but needed to hear the truth out loud—either from himself or her.

Lucy nodded and watched Ki’s shoulders slump. “But then you knew that, didn’t you?”

“I assumed that was why you were telling me all these things about Prentice.”

“I don’t know how or why he’s come back. I just know it’s really him in Ethan’s body.”

“Do you love him?”