Dial M for Ménage (11 page)

“He was going to tell you on Saturday,” Hunter said.

“Ookay...what? What was he going to tell me? And how long have you known about it?”

The coffeemaker sputtered and dripped into the carafe, steamy and fragrant and the only sound save their breathing, hers erratic and shallow, Hunter’s measured and deep. Too careful, betraying the emotion he was trying to bury.

Yeah. She wasn’t going to stand for that. “
Hunter
.”

He dropped his hands to his sides and rolled his shoulders. “Jen wanted the two of you to take her baby.”

He must have been exhausted, but he wore the sleepless night like a weapon. It gave him an edge that only made her more aware of how dull her own corners had become as the night wore on.

Her chest tightened but she suffocated whatever emotion was trying to surge up. She had enough on her plate already. “How long ago did that happen?”

“I don’t know. Before Valentine’s Day.”

A couple of pieces clicked together. Her eyes narrowed. “That’s what you and Liam argued over in the hotel bar.”

“This is a conversation you need to have with Liam,” Hunter said.

“I don’t think so. Maybe—
maybe
—before he told you, it was a conversation meant for me and him. Now it’s an entirely different kind of conversation, and it’s between all three of us. You knew he was hiding something from me. You were
both
hiding something.” Anger burned through her, white-hot, and a deep hurt dogged its heels.

“Kitten—”

“Don’t,” she said, holding out the flat of her hand to ward off whatever he was going to say. “Do not try to sugar it up. You both hid something from me. Correct?”

“God damn it, Kat—”

“Yes or no.”

“Fuck. Yes. Now will you listen to me?”

Shaking her head, she backed away from him. “I don’t think so. One of you deciding what I should and shouldn’t know is more than enough. But both of you...this is too much. How am I supposed to trust either of you? And how are we supposed to make this relationship work without trust?”

The coffeemaker’s shrill beep punctuated her rapid breathing. Hunter shoved away from the counter and stalked after her. The power evident in his bunched muscles and predator’s prowl heated her body despite her roiling emotions. When she backed into the refrigerator and stumbled, Hunter pounced.

He plunged one hand into her hair and hooked his other arm around her waist, hauling her up against his chest. Her toes barely touched the floor. She tried to struggle but even though her arms were free, she couldn’t get the leverage to break his hold.

“Stop.” The command came at her ear, low and forceful. Kat shuddered. Hunter only held her tighter. He buried his nose in the hair at her temple and exhaled, a long, slow breath that heated her skin.

“I need to be able to trust you,” she whispered.

“Liam told me first because he wanted to know whether a kid would break the three of us. If it would, he didn’t want to put it to you and make you choose.” He sat her back on her feet but didn’t release her.

Kat hid her face against his solid chest, wondering what to do with that information. Hunter’s explanation too closely echoed her fears and concerns about someday having kids. Or not having them, if not doing so was the only way she could keep their triad together.

Well, now the issue was out there and she needed to know. Not looking at his face, she lifted her head and forced the words past her raw throat. “What did he find out?”

Hunter groaned. His hand gentled in her hair. Pressing her cheek to his heart, he said, “I’m in this with you. Both of you, whatever ‘this’ turns out to be.”

All at once, she sagged against him. The entire past twenty-four hours had wrung her out. The anger was receding and giving way to hurt, but she didn’t have the energy to deal with the heartache at that moment. So when Hunter tensed and drew a breath, she knew she wasn’t equipped to handle whatever he wanted to say.

“Please don’t. I—we—need to find Liam. I don’t know how Jen does this to him. Her power mystifies me.”

Hunter hesitated before saying, “Guilt.”

Well, that wasn’t what she expected. She pulled away and frowned at him. “What does he have to be guilty about?”

“This isn’t Jen’s first unwanted pregnancy. No,” he said, responding to the fear that must have manifested on her face. “Not his. He was never involved with her that way. She got knocked up three times in high school. She asked Liam what to do, then blamed him for the fallout. Each damn time.”

“I don’t understand. I think I’m too tired.”

“Any chance you’ll go up to bed?” He asked. When she shook her head, he cracked a half smile. “Yeah, didn’t think so. Sit down. I’ll get your coffee.”

Kat allowed him to lead her to the table, where she oozed onto a chair with the bonelessness of physical and emotional exhaustion. Just as Hunter pressed a steaming mug of coffee into her hands, the front door opened. She and Hunter both stiffened.

Liam was home.

Her body went cold. She wasn’t ready. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

“Kat—”

“No,” she whispered. “I mean it. I can’t talk to him about this. Not right now.”

Sick to her stomach, she balled her hands into fists and pressed them against her mouth. She couldn’t talk to Liam, because she was afraid of what she would say. Hunter studied her with narrowed eyes, his displeasure obvious.

Liam hadn’t made any noise except to close the front door. Kat knew; she was listening, nerves on edge, for his approaching footsteps. They didn’t come.

Hunter glanced at the corridor before looking back to her. He lowered his voice, which vibrated with force. “Liam is who he is. He’s not going to change. We both know damn well the man he is. Either you love him or you don’t.”

Tears pricked her eyes. A sob clogged her throat, and all she could manage was, “I know.”

“I’ll talk to him now, but you won’t be able to bury this forever.” Hunter gave her another hard look before he left the kitchen to go meet Liam.

* * *

Hunter paused in the shadowy hall, acutely aware of the woman hurting behind him and the man hurting in front of him. Liam stood in the entrance of the living room, his arms loose at his sides, shoulders slanted under the weight of the night’s events.

The circumstances were all different, but his mind still flashed back to Christmas Eve, when he was the one who stood alone, ready to walk away from everything Liam and Kat wanted to give. Ready to give up.

But they hadn’t given up on him. He’d be damned if he would give up on this relationship now.

Behind him, he heard Kat’s breath hitch, followed by the ragged, muffled sound of her crying. He closed his eyes briefly before drawing himself up and approaching. Liam turned his face toward Hunter. A reading lamp glowed in the living room, shedding enough light to reveal the tight line of Liam’s mouth and the weary creases at the corners of his eyes. Hunter started to deliver a “you okay, man?” line, something like that, the kind of thing he would say to any of his Marine buddies, but stopped himself.

Fuck the meaningless expressions of concern. Liam wasn’t just another guy.

Besides, Hunter knew damn well Liam wasn’t okay. If he didn’t know it in his bones, Liam’s haunted eyes confessed everything.

When Liam swayed, Hunter reached out a steadying hand. He surprised himself by placing his palm over Liam’s heart but didn’t take away the touch. It seemed right. “This isn’t your fault.”

Liam rolled his shoulder and stiffened. He raised his hands as if to knock Hunter’s away. At the last minute, he wrapped his fingers around Hunter’s wrist instead. “Yeah, it is. It’s my fault every fucking time.”

“Jen is responsible for her own choices.” Hunter pried one of Liam’s hands off his wrist and merged their fingers together. Palm to palm with a man was so damn different from the same with a woman. Physically, yeah, but the difference was more than strength and shape and size. Holding Liam’s hands warmed something down deep. Hunter tightened his grip. Not letting go.

“Come with me.” Hunter used their joined hands to pull Liam into the living room and push him down onto a chair. Dropping to a crouch, Hunter braced his forearms on Liam’s thighs and looked him in the eye. “Jen’s a grown woman. She knows what she’s doing. She always did know. This time, she knows she’s manipulating the hell out of you. You know what I think? I think she already had her mind made up. She wasn’t going to go through with another pregnancy even if you had told her you would take the baby.”

Liam narrowed his eyes. His jaw worked as an array of emotions paraded across his features. Denial. Justification for Jen’s behavior. Guilt. Grief. They were all right there, broadcasting in the flex of his lips and the shine of his eyes.

Fear.

No, more than that. Terror. The man was shit for a poker face.

Liam’s swallowed and dropped his forehead to rest on their joined hands. “Kat knows, doesn’t she? You told her?”

“I didn’t, but yeah, she knows.” Speaking low, careful not to lose the length of emotional rope he’d managed to secure, Hunter tried to haul Liam back from his ledge. “You did the right thing with this one. Your instincts were good.”

Liam’s breath rattled between them, ragged and heavy. Hunter closed his eyes. He’d seen men with gunshot wounds in less pain than this. Difference was, Hunter had never wanted to shoulder that pain himself.

A floorboard creaked in the hall. Liam and Hunter both raised their heads. Kat stood in the doorway, swiping away tears with the backs of her fingers. Her hair was a dark mess around her shoulders and the eyeliner he’d watched her put on that morning—yesterday morning—smeared her cheeks. She looked like shit, but he figured they all did at this point.

Liam’s thigh muscles bunched and he started to stand. Hunter caught Liam’s eyes and gave a shake of his head. Whatever needed saying, they would say it together.

“Come here, kitten.” He released one of Liam’s hands and beckoned Kat to join them. With a hitched breath and a nod, she closed the distance. When she neared, Hunter hooked his arm around her hips and drew her down to sit on his knee. They formed an intimate little triangle, the three of them so close they shared body heat, but he figured that was the way it should be.

For a moment, the only sounds were breathing. Hunter’s thumb hovered over the pulse in Liam’s wrist. Kat’s heart thudded against Hunter’s arm. When a few minutes had passed without Kat or Liam saying anything, Hunter took point.

“We’ve closed off the communication lines,” he said. “We’re all talking but we’re picking and choosing who we’re talking to and what we’re talking about.”

“Yeah.” Liam blew out a breath. Wearing his misery on his sleeve, Liam picked up Kat’s hand and held it to his chest. “K-K, I want to give you everything in this world. I don’t want any of it to hurt you.”

“You scared me to death. You cut me off, didn’t answer my texts, didn’t... Jesus, Liam. You’ve never done that to me before. I don’t know what I would have done if Jen’s kids hadn’t been here to tell me what was going on.
Kids
. God. You ran to her and left kids to tell me my husband wasn’t dead or in a hospital somewhere.” Kat’s voice had started as barely above a whisper but by the end, she was close to shouting.

Liam flinched but didn’t look away from her. When she finished, he said, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about you.”

Two separate statements. Hunter tensed and didn’t need a visual check to figure out Kat had noticed that too. She went rigid in his embrace. Hunter’s adrenaline levels spiked and he tightened his hold around her waist, bracing himself to prevent her from jumping up and running away.

She surprised Hunter by deflating on a sigh, the fight draining out of her right in front of his eyes. Surprised them both, judging by the confusion in Liam’s eyes.

“No.” She bit her bottom lip, shook her head. Some of the life returned and she repeated the word emphatically. “No. This isn’t you. I knew something was wrong and I chose to look the other way. I was too afraid to push. I was afraid to know what you were going through, what you were feeling. I was afraid you had changed your mind about the three of us. I was a coward and that has cost us all.”

Hunter frowned at her. “You thought that?”

Heat flushed her cheeks but she met his gaze. “I’m not proud of it.”

This time, Liam’s swallow was audible. “She wasn’t far off the mark.”

Hunter swung his attention back to Liam. He waited, not trusting himself to speak.

Liam rolled his shoulders and his gaze bounced back and forth as he worked to visually include both Hunter and Kat. “I had some doubts. Past tense. I don’t have them anymore.”

“Liam...” Kat’s soft voice eased some of Hunter’s tension. Sighing, she squeezed Liam’s hand and shifted to cup Hunter’s jaw. “I don’t need to know. Do you?”

“You don’t?” Surprise colored Liam’s voice.

Hunter echoed Liam’s surprise by cocking his eyebrows. Kat wasn’t a woman to let something like this go. Or, hell, maybe she was, considering she shook her head.

“I don’t. You’re here now, which tells me whatever was bothering you doesn’t anymore. The three of us have spent so much time dealing with our pasts, we’ve neglected our futures. We’re going to have doubts from time to time. I’d prefer we talk to each other—and that we pay attention and be brave enough to push a little when we feel like something’s off. But we can’t own each other’s thoughts. Even though we’re three, we’re each also one. We need some degree of mental and emotional privacy or we’ll go nuts.”

Liam nodded, acknowledging Kat’s explanation, before looking to Hunter. “What about you?”

Yeah. What about him? Hunter released Kat and scrubbed his hand over his face. Jesus, he was tired. And he was tired of looking backward all the damn time. They needed to deal with their futures. Decision made, he shook his head.

“No. Fuck it, I don’t want to know. Let’s move on.”

Before anybody could say anything else, a thump sounded overhead, followed by a young child’s wail. Liam winced. “Shit, I forgot they were here.”

The cry quieted down almost as soon as it started. Kat glanced up at the ceiling, then looked at Liam. “What are we going to do with them? When I talked to Jen, she didn’t sound like she was in any condition to care for them.”