Lucy's Liberation [Elk Creek 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (20 page)

Shaking off his reverie, Ki turned on his heel and headed through the parlor out into the vestibule. “I’m not finished with you yet!” he yelled over his shoulder right before he opened the front door and turned to see… “Mother!”

“Trouble in paradise so soon?”

“You’re not acting like any happily married newlywed I know of.” Maia propped her chin with her hands and leaned her elbows on a display counter as she watched Lucy dusting off one of the product shelves nearby.

True, she didn’t have any personal experience with “happily married” except looking from the outside in. For example, she needn’t have gone any further than Maia’s or Lily Baldwin’s marriages to know the epitome of happily married. Maia always glowed when either Thayne or Cade dropped by for a visit and she always looked forward to getting home to them at the end of the day. Lily Baldwin, who wasn’t a newlywed by far, shone brightly with the radiance of a satisfied woman and impending motherhood.

Using Maia and Lily as her ideals, Lucy was fairly certain a newly married woman didn’t act like a frustrated, nervous crone with the weight of the world on her shoulders the way she had been acting all day, all week actually.

Despite all this and already knowing what Maia’s response would be, she asked anyway. “What does a happily married newlywed act like?”

Maia stood straight to wave her hand in the air. “Oh, I know you know darn well what a happily married newlywed acts like, even if Rance was your first husband.”

“Please don’t remind me.” Lucy concentrated on her dusting as if her life depended on it, but Maia wouldn’t let the subject drop.

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories, unless…”

“Unless what?” Lucy asked.

“Is Ki treating you right?”

“Of course.” He was treating her as right as she allowed him to treat her.

“What about…Ethan?”

“What about Ethan?”

“Is everything all right between Ki and Ethan? Are they getting along okay?”

Lucy shrugged, unsure what Maia was getting at and growing more annoyed with the conversation by the minute. She loved Maia as a friend and a mentor, but she couldn’t handle all the good-intentioned prying. Where was all the concern when she had been married to Rance? She couldn’t rightly fault Maia, of course, since Maia hadn’t come to Elk Creek until long after the fact. Knowing the kind of person Maia was, Lucy had a feeling she would have made it her business to “tell Rance about himself” as she had once so eloquently put it.

No, it wasn’t Maia’s fault that Lucy had gotten the short end of the stick in the marriage department. It was no one’s fault but her father’s and he was long in the grave from too much drink. She didn’t even have the satisfaction of rubbing her current marriage in his face as proof that she was worth a better situation than being wed to Rance Peyton.

She suddenly glanced at the clock on the wall over the door, anxious for closing time to arrive in the next hour. She had never been more ready to get away from her well-meaning friends and employers and go to Winchester’s than she was right then.

Lucy had been playing the role of a good saleslady all day, bestowing the customers an amiable smile and projecting a sunny personality that she did not really feel. She didn’t want to fake it anymore, but would have to put on another brave face for her shift at Winchester’s.

More and more she thought about quitting her job at the saloon. She had one friend in Rebel, but other than her there wasn’t much else to hold Lucy there. She no longer needed the extra income now, and the job certainly didn’t have the same benefits or hold the same appeal as working at Healing Magick.

She thought about it and thought about it and knew that she reported to Winchester’s day after day to delay going home every night. She didn’t want to deal with the stress that awaited her at that house, the pressure of having to make up viable excuses for not wanting to let her husband bed her. Lucy knew to consummate her relationship with Ki would doom her in more ways than one. She could not risk her heart to Ki’s capricious whims.

Lucy almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of the situation. If Maia or Sabrina knew what was going on, or more accurately, what wasn’t going on between her and Ki, they’d just tell her she was plumb loco. Not bedding her own husband, a gorgeous son-of-a-gun like Hezekiah Benjamin to boot? Well, it was just plain preposterous.

She almost yelped when she felt Maia’s hand on her arm. Lucy had been so deep in thought she hadn’t even noticed Maia come out from behind the counter.

“If there’s anything going on, anything at all, you can talk to me about it. I’m here for you, Lucy. Remember that.”

“Anything like what?” She frowned.

Maia shrugged and Lucy got a bad feeling in her stomach. Maia was not one to act unsure and closemouthed. What was she trying so hard not to say?

“Talk to me about anything that’s troubling you. I don’t want you to isolate yourself or feel like you don’t have any friends. I don’t want you to retreat into a shell like you were in when Rance was still here to browbeat you.”

Lucy wanted to argue, but couldn’t, because Maia was absolutely right. She had felt so alone and lonely with Rance. She had had no one to turn to, no one to trust, no one to stand up for her against Rance, so why bother to confide?

Things were different now, weren’t they? Ki was certainly no Rance and she had Prentice at the house to assuage any conflict that might arise between her and Ki.

Some women might think she was the luckiest girl in the world, surrounded by so much male pulchritude. Lucy considered herself tortured to be surrounded by so much male flesh in which she, for her emotional well-being, refused to take enjoyment.

Some nights she’d just lie awake beside Ki after he’d given up trying to persuade her to have relations with him. She’d fantasize about allowing Ki and Prentice to take liberties with her body, enjoying every lusty thrust and lick, crying out beneath their oral manipulations, collapsing between them totally satiated and still ravenous for them.

Could she confide in Maia about that fantasy, Maia who had two men worshipping at her feet every day?

“So, you never told me how you liked Ki’s wedding gift to you.”

Lucy’s face instantly heated.

“He did give it to you, didn’t he?”

“Oh, yes.” Boy had he. Lucy couldn’t have been more shocked by that picture than had she saw it hanging up behind the bar at Winchester’s.

The painting was undeniably beautiful and evocative. It was so beautiful in fact she could barely believe that she was the inspiration, indeed the model, for it. Seeing that picture, Lucy could almost forgive Maia anything, Maia who had rendered her with such passion and sensitivity as to make her seem an unattainable dream.

At home she couldn’t avoid the painting because Ki insisted on hanging it in a place of honor right on the wall above the headboard of their bed. It taunted her with a reminder of how cold and lifeless her marriage bed had been, how undesirable she felt.

Irrationally, Lucy felt if Ki rightly wanted her, he would have fought harder for her, would have made more of a fuss to change her mind whenever she’d said no to him. Wasn’t she worth the effort? Then she thought how she would have felt if he
had
put up a ruckus or had been more forceful with her. He would have been no better than Rance in her eyes.

Under those circumstances, Ki was just damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. Lucy knew it wasn’t fair to him, but that was the way it was.

Secretly, she commended Ki for his forbearance. She didn’t know how much longer his patience would last, but so far Ki had treated her with the utmost respect without making her feel guilty for not living up to her conjugal duties. Another man might not have been so forgiving and kind, another man like Rance or the men he had regularly handed her off to.

“So, did you
like
your gift?”

Lucy looked at the eager smile on Maia’s face and couldn’t help smiling herself. She knew the woman meant well and she more than admired Maia’s talent. “I loved it.”

“I know you were probably a little surprised when you saw it.”

“You could say that.”

Maia laughed. “I just painted what I saw. I painted what Ki sees when he looks at you.”

Lucy did not need the image Maia’s words suggested, because if Ki saw her the way she appeared in that picture—a sensual creature bared to the world—then she was in trouble. It was only a matter of time before he laid claim to what belonged to him.

“Don’t think so hard, Lucy.”

She shook herself from her woolgathering to look at Maia. “I don’t think hard enough.” If she had thought hard about what she had been about to do, she probably wouldn’t be in her current predicament. She would not have accepted Ki’s proposal—twice.

“Not true. You think too hard
and
you’re too hard on yourself.”

“I don’t know how else to be.”

“Let Ki teach you. He…he cares about you.”

Lucy wanted to believe that, but she knew the minute she let her guard down, the minute she trusted him and began to believe that good things were meant to happen to her, someone would pull the rug right from under her. No good could possibly come of an arrangement forged from dishonesty and greed.

She had wanted Peyton’s to belong to her, had felt she’d deserved her husband’s saloon, and she’d done what she’d thought she’d needed to get it. She wasn’t sure yet if her efforts had been worth it and she still wasn’t sure what Ki’s motivations had been to propose.

When had she become such a cynic?

“I know you think you made a mistake accepting Ki’s proposal. Maybe it started out that way, but listening to your heart, being true to yourself can never be a mistake. Trust him, Lucy. Trust yourself.”

The bell over the door chimed before Lucy could formulate a proper response.

When Prentice stepped through the door, she actually smiled and sighed in relief before her heart began thudding with anticipation.

She shouldn’t be so excited and happy to see a man who wasn’t her husband!

“Ethan, good to see you!”

Maia actually sounded like she meant that and Lucy felt like such a traitor for not telling her friend the truth.

This is why bad things happened to her. She wasn’t a nice person. She was a liar and untrustworthy.

Prentice swore no good could possibly come from telling anyone the truth about him, especially Maia, Thayne, or Cade. Lucy saw the logic in Prentice’s notion, but she still felt bad keeping her and Prentice’s secret. No good ever came from keeping secrets.

“Good to see you, too, Maia.”

If she was a liar, then Prentice was a master at keeping secrets, Lucy thought.

How could he be so calm and pleasant being in the same room with Maia? Lucy was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

She watched the two of them converse, still and silent for fear of saying the wrong thing or making a false move.

“So how are you finding the living arrangements at Lucy’s and Ki’s place? Are they good hosts?” Maia teased.

Prentice smiled. “They’re better than good hosts.”

“Good to hear it.”

“Speaking of hosts, Maia, do you think Thayne would…”

“Yes?” Maia prompted.

“I was wondering if you think Thayne might consider taking on an apprentice at his office, someone to help out with his patients.”

Lucy’s breath hitched in her chest as she watched Maia arch a brow.

She wondered what was on Prentice’s mind. He hadn’t mentioned anything back at the house about wanting to work with Thayne, at least not to her.

One look at his face, the oddly shy sincerity in his brandy eyes told her, however, that Prentice had no ulterior motive. He truly wanted to help.

“Thinking of changing professions?” Maia smiled and Lucy could sense the warmth of her approval.

“Something like that.”

“I’ll mention it to him and see what he thinks.”

“I’d appreciate that.” Prentice cleared his throat and clapped his hands. “So where’s your other partner in crime?”

Maia laughed. “Sabrina’s running around rallying the troops and making some last-minute preparations for Lily Baldwin’s baby shower. You are coming, aren’t you? It’s in a couple of weeks.”

“I didn’t know I was invited.” Prentice turned to Lucy and she shrugged.

“You didn’t tell him and Ki?”

“I’ve had a lot on my mind.” The most pressing of which was how to keep ducking and dodging Ki’s advances while she was living under the same roof as him and trying not to succumb to his and Prentice’s sensual charms.

“Well, I am officially inviting you and Ki now. Make sure to mention it to him. We’ll give you all the details as soon as we iron everything out.”

“I’ll make sure and put it on my calendar.”

“I know you guys are eager to get out of here and over to Winchester’s so I’ll finish closing up.”

“You’re sure it’s okay for me to leave?” Lucy asked.