Gage, Ronna - Three Hearts One Love (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (4 page)

“You always do that,” Roxette accused.

“Do what?” Karma defended.

“Make jokes and puns when you are worried or nervous. Just tell me what your problem is so we can resolve it and go on with the next issue.”

“I’m nervous, for one.”

“About what?” Roxette took a sip of her iced tea.

Karma got a sense of annoyance from Roxette’s new tone of voice and uppity posture. “Well, in truth I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

Roxette barely got the swallow of tea down. “Ewww! Do I really want to hear this?” she asked.

“Oh, shut up! Last night Dylan spent the night with me.”

Roxette’s eyes narrowed. She put her hands up. Karma got the hint that her sister-in-law had a question. “Dylan? What happened to Jaxon?”

Karma rolled her eyes and sighed in utter impatience. “Nothing. He spent the night before last with me.”

Roxette’s blank look at Karma irritated her more. “What now?”

Karmas asked.

“I’m confused.”

Karma leveled her with a glare. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

Roxette turned her head. “Oh, sorry. Go ahead.”

“If you haven’t figured it out yet. I’m seeing both of them.”

Roxette sat quietly in the kitchen for half a second. She gazed at Karma with a tender voice she replied.
 
“I’m going to say this in the most loving way possible,” she warned. Karma nodded. “Slut!”
 
She charged the word like a weapon of destruction.

Karma giggled. “Don’t hate me because I’m—”

“Busy!” Roxette filled in for her.

Karma glared at her for a second time.
Didn’t intend that one
. “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice,” Roxette teased at Karma’s heated stare. Both women burst out laughing.

Karma massaged her temples with her fingers. “Stop. Be serious!” she moaned.

“I’ll try.” Roxette giggled. “But this isn’t a very serious mood right now, regardless of the subject of conversation.”

Karma stopped laughing and gained her composure. “As I said before, I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Why? Were you up all night having
sex
?” she asked, stressing the word with a distorted, ugly facial expression.

“No, we had an early night, if you must know. I was afraid.”

“Of what?” Roxette leaned closer. “Afraid that the one-eyed monster would get you again?” she almost whispered.

Karma chuckled. “I never fear him.”

“So what kept you up all night?”

“I was afraid I would talk in my sleep and call out Jaxon’s name while Dylan lay sleeping next to me.”

Roxette nodded. “Yep, that would be tragic.”

Karma brushed her hair out of her face with her hand. “I can’t keep this up. I’m confused about what to do and need to make it right.”

“Other than having two lovers that sleep over occasionally, what is the problem that has you so perplexed?”

“I think I love them both.”

“Oh for God’s sakes, Karma! How in the hell do you fall in love with two men?”

“I don’t know. It just happened really.”

Roxette leaned her chin into her palm. “You can’t keep them both.”

“But, both are so good to me…and for me.”

“So which one do you get rid of in order to keep the other?”

“The one I’m using, I guess.” Karma’s voice sounded with frustration and distress.

“Who is that?”

 
“The one I don’t love so much,” Karma’s meek voice confessed.

“Dammit, Karma. You live up to your namesake, don’t you? You always take a chance to be different when you find the chance.”

Karma dropped her head on the table and knocked it several times against the surface.

Roxette placed her hand between Karma’s head and the table. “Now stop it before you wind up breaking my table. Chance will whip your ass.” Karma raised her head and groaned. “Okay, let’s start all over. Tell me about Dylan.”

“Well, other than that he’s a crazy-sexy cowboy, he owns his own ranch outside of town and is two years older than I am.”
And he makes me wet with each lopsided grin.

“Any kids?”

“Nope.” Karma thought for a second. “Well, none that I saw anyway.”

Roxette shook her head. “I’m about to leave you to deal with this mess on your own.”

Karma grabbed her best friend’s hand at the threat. “No, you can’t do that, Roxette. I need your help.”

“Why? I didn’t get you into this jumbled relationship.”

 
“Please! Help me,” Karma begged.
 

Roxette paused, took two deep breaths, and relaxed. “Is Dylan divorced?”

“No. He’s never been married. Came close once, but it didn’t work out. And with him being on the rodeo circuit, he felt the timing was wrong.”

“What do you feel about him?”

“I love him.” Karma let her mind drift off to relive the wonderful moments of ecstasy she spent with Dylan. The warmth of his broad chest crushed against hers when he held her tight. The strong biceps that carried her to the bedroom at night, how he gently laid her on the bed and the soft placement of his lips on hers, the heat of his kiss when he paved his way to her dripping pussy, and his nurturing spirit while he attended her sex.

“Karma? Karma?” Roxette called her name. “Hello!” she snapped her fingers in front of Karma’s face.

“Oh, sorry. What were you saying?”

“I asked you about this Jaxon character.”

“He is fantastic. I find that like Dylan, I can’t wait to see him. He and Dylan are so different.”

“How?”

“Well, Dylan does make good money owning his own ranch and on the rodeo circuit”—she chewed her bottom lip as she contemplated each—“but Jaxon is a responsible country boy with Southern gentleman values.”

“Oh, someone like your brother,” Roxette added.

Karma didn’t see the connection between
Jaxon
and her brother. She looked at Roxette to argue the difference, but then she saw the look in her sister-in-law’s eyes, the day-dreamy look of a woman in love. She sometimes found herself in that trance-like state when she thought of Jaxon and Dylan. “Maybe, but…I guess that is the way you’d see Chance.”

“What else about Jaxon?”

“He likes to try new things for the adventure of it. Let’s see. He looks for the positive in everything, which is rare for a litigator. He’s a new lawyer in a firm and….I could just go on and on.”

“Very ambitious. And there is an old saying about Southern lawyers always being successful.” Roxette turned the glass of tea in her hand and watched Karma closely.

“I suppose. I think both are successful in his own way.”

“So if both men were standing on your porch, which one would you let in first?”

“I don’t know,” Karma mumbled. “Why do I have to choose one at all? Why can’t they walk in together?”

“They aren’t puppies or kittens someone dropped off at the clinic, Karma.”

“I know that!”

 
“You can’t adopt them and keep them all to yourself.”

 
“I’m not stupid!” This talk wasn’t taking the exact turn Karma hoped when she arrived. She needed guidance, resolution.

“I didn’t say you were, but you are talking like you want to have them both.”

“What’s so wrong with that?”

Roxette slapped the table. “You can’t have two loves in your life Why, hell, it isn’t natural.” She got up from the table, stalked to the kitchen and refilled her tea glass.

“Who says?” Karma asked and followed her into the kitchen.

“Everybody says!” Roxette informed her. “It has been that way since Adam and Eve, Romeo and Juliet…”

“Romeo and Juliet are fabled characters. They don’t count,” Karma objected.

“Your parents wouldn’t like it at all,” Roxette interjected.

Karma whined, “I’m twenty-six years old. I haven’t needed my parent’s approval for a few years now.”

“Maybe you should!”

Both women turned to find Chance standing in the doorway that separated the garage from the kitchen.

“Hi, honey,” Roxette greeted her husband. “How was your morning?”

Chance walked the short distance to meet his wife. He looked down into her loving face. “It was all right. The client referral paid off. I now have two more golf courses to add to the list.”

“Sounds like selling water and parts have become profitable for you guys. That’s great!” Karma said, excited for their up-and-coming irrigation company.

Chance crossed the small room to the sink. “Thank you, little sister.” He turned on the faucet, pumped two shots of soap into his palm, and washed his hands. “Now, what is this business Mom and Dad wouldn’t like your involvement in?”

“Oh, it’s nothing really.” She looked at Roxette. She would never put her in a position to lie on her behalf, especially to Chance. “Girl talk, mostly. Getting some ideas.”

Chance maintained his stare on her, but she didn’t buckle under the pressure. “Uh-huh. You know, if you need me I’m here. As your older brother, I will state this once. You’d better not be doing anything illegal. I will come and kick your ass if you are.”

Karma’s mouth gaped open at the accusation. “How can you say that to me? Not only am I a respected veterinarian, but a business professional in this community. I would never consider doing anything to destroy what I worked so hard to acquire.” She stepped forward, fuming with unspent irritation. “Plus, I’ve never given you or anyone else any reason to suspect.”

“Stop!” He pointed a finger at her face. “You’re getting on my last nerve with your little soapbox speech. Take it however you like, but this is my only warning.”

“Fine!” Karma crossed her arms over her chest, a defiant stand against Chance’s threatening warning. “Can I talk to my best friend now?” Chance smiled. Karma hated that smile—like a fox in the henhouse.

“Yes, you can talk to
my
wife.” Chance gave Karma a kiss on the forehead. She wiped it off. She hated when he kissed her as if she were some child going off to school. “Have a good day.” He walked over to kiss Roxette. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Aren’t you going to grab a sandwich or something?”

“No. I’ll eat when I get back into town.”

 
Roxette gave him a small kiss, but it lasted longer than Karma felt comfortable witnessing. She cleared her throat to remind them she still existed in their world. The two women watched Chance load up his truck with parts and irrigation pipe. Roxette turned to Karma. “That is what having one man, one love, will do for you.”

Karma didn’t give a particular response, but inside she thought about the joy of having two men, two loves, and two lingering good-bye kisses.

Roxette leaned against the door frame. “You burn both ends of a candle, you get burned.”

“Yeah I know, but what’s a girl to do?”

Roxette wrapped her arm around Karma’s shoulders. “Decide!”

Karma moaned in another fit of despair.
 
“I was afraid you’d say that.”

Chapter Four

Dylan looked over the herd of cattle on his small ranch from the horse stalls. “Just think, Joe, ole boy,”—the horse’s ears angled back—“two years ago we had one bull and four cows. Now look at us, we have almost twelve in our herd, counting the one that will be delivered tonight.” Joe’s head bobbed as if he understood his master’s conversation. Dylan looked down to the corner stall. He watched his new mother-to-be pacing the small area. Her vulva ligaments lost their tension early this morning, a first sign that the calf would be born within twelve to twenty-four hours. Dylan paced the aisle of the barn, willing the time to pass by quickly. Frustrated with time’s crawl, he stopped by Joe’s pen again. “I bet Bertha is starving. She hasn’t eaten since last night.” Her absence from the morning feeding had riled his suspicions. He’d taken off looking for her and found the laboring heifer in the back acreage. Relieved to find her, he had gently coaxed her into the trailer. In minutes, the cow had been loaded for the short ride back to the barn where he set her up in the maternity pen. He watched her closely waiting for signs of complications.
   
 

A tune played low in his pocket. He smiled at the familiar song he assigned as his father’s ringtone. “Good afternoon, Daddy,” he greeted when he answered.

“Good one for you, too, I hope,” his father added.

“Yes, sir. Bertha is about to calf any time now.”

“That’s great, son. I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time with her about to deliver.”

“No, sir. It’s not a bad time. Not yet at least. This is her first calf, and I like to stay close by.”

“Why’s that? Is she not of age?”

“Oh yes, and healthy, too. She’s in the labor and birthing pen now. I want to be here when the new one arrives. Oh, not to change the subject, but what can I do for you?”