Three Men and a Woman: Evangeline (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (12 page)

That thing about it being a year since he’d had a woman was closer to the truth than he wanted to admit. He hadn’t found what he was looking for in a woman, and he’d gotten tired of settling for less.

He hadn’t realized how much Evvie meant to him, how much she was there in his head. That she was the standard.

In the last eight years he’d given occasional thought to her, in the same way he’d thought of Shep and the friendship they’d had. In that interval he’d got through med school and his residency. He’d dated women and had nearly, one time, proposed.

He hadn’t had a clue, during all those years, that what he was seeking was the feeling he’d had with Evvie. Like he was the world, and she was his orbit. The place he belonged, the path he traveled.

Last Sunday, he’d gotten a clue.

He was totally pissed that she was gone when he woke up. He’d asked her to stay. He’d wanted,
really
wanted, her to stay, dammit.

He’d tried to convince himself that it was okay, that it was for the best. They’d had a hot fuck, and that was enough.

It was a battle he knew he’d lost by Friday. He traded a shift—gave up his next holiday, in fact—to have Saturday off.

That morning he’d gone to find her. He was a bit of a cautious guy by nature—he didn’t like scenes, so he usually scouted out the lay of the land before he stumbled into one mess or another. He tested one step before he took the next, an ordered approach that served him well in the ED.

So he’d gotten in his SUV and taken that lovely early morning drive down to Keuka, watching the sun burn the mist off the lake and then off the grapevines in their tidy rows along the hillsides. From atop a small rise, he’d spotted the farmhouse with its little yard carved out of a field of vines.

He’d parked there and pulled out his binoculars. He was a casual birder—a habit originally developed in the tree house—and always had a pair tucked in a cubby of his cars.

He sat and watched the house, reassuring himself that he wasn’t a stalker. He didn’t know much about her. She could be married. Or a lesbian. No, not that, as he had reason to know. But—there could be something he should know before he just showed up on her doorstep.

There was.

She was seven, with a spring birthday, if the obvious assumption was correct. She’d burst through the screen door wearing a little top and those calf-length, tight fitting, well, yoga pants. He realized that’s what they were when he noticed the rolled mat she carried slung over her shoulder and saw, in the next minute, her mother dressed the very same way, up to and including the rolled mat.

They were going to yoga class. Evangeline Charles and her daughter.

His daughter.

He couldn’t see her in great detail. But he could see light-brown hair, almost blond, in tight curls. Curls that would turn to ringlets when they were wet, and that tossed about her face when she moved. Curls much more at home on a little girl than a grown man. The very same curls that had been the bane of his existence as a kid, when he was endlessly teased about them.

Abruptly he realized that mother and daughter were about three minutes away from driving right past him. In best fight or flight mode, he started his car and fled.

He’d driven home and did what he should have done from the beginning.

He Googled Evangeline Charles.

In a right-with-the-world kind of way, she was a book editor. She and Briggs had always had that connection, that love for words and stories. He’d been the main one to teach her to read, though they’d all had a hand in it. She was so bright, so eager to learn once she’d found herself in the safety of that little circle of friends.

She worked for a big publisher, though not Briggs’s, that put out both print and e-books. Authors liked her, apparently vying for her attention to their work. She’d just gotten some award for it.

That was all. Nothing personal except for transfer of ownership of the farmhouse to her upon Miss Victory’s death. Most specifically, no weddings.

No seven-year-old birth announcements, either.

He’d convinced himself that he was a father. It was the rational conclusion, and after a couple of hours, it had settled into his head, into his heart, a surprisingly comfortable fit.

Until Gio had barged through his door unannounced, blubbering about a little girl and dimples and how he was a father.

And now this. Really, they all should be shot. They hadn’t been sixteen-year-old kids the night of Shep’s funeral. They’d been men. Hurt, grieving men, yes, but they’d behaved with unforgivable recklessness.

His grim statement had given Briggs pause. But nothing ever kept Briggs silent for long. Written or verbal, words were his thing.

“I’m a father.”

Chase scoffed unsympathetically. “What? Does she have bright green eyes, too?”

“Yes.” Briggs inspected him in question. “How do you know? And what do you mean, ‘too’?”

“She also as curly, light-brown hair.” Chase tugged at a strand along his temple and then pointed at Gio. “And dimples.”

Briggs followed his gesture then looked back. “But I—”

“Yeah. On the night of Shep’s funeral, you took that walk when you just had to be alone. Then you went and banged Evvie. Did you even bother with a condom?”

Briggs had paled. “No.”

“Neither did he.” Chase tossed his head at Gio and then fessed up. “Neither did I.”

“Shit.” Briggs thought about it some more. “Holy shit.”

Yeah
. No shit, Chase thought. If only that were the worst of it. He knew bone-deep it wasn’t. “Would you please,
please
, tell us you didn’t spend some part of last week fucking her brains out?”

Briggs flushed, and Chase understood his bones knew what they were talking about.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean? You know the fuck what. Gio saw her at a wedding last Saturday. The next morning I ran into her at the hospital.”

Briggs sank into one of the deck chairs near Gio like his legs had been felled out from under him. Chase thought it was a good idea and sat, too.

Briggs rubbed his forehead with his longneck. “Are you saying—” He swallowed hard and looked from one to the other. “
Both
of you?”

Gio and Chase exchanged looks, and that was enough of an answer.

“Shit.”

Yeah, yeah.
Holy shit
. He knew.

“Do you think she’s, what, stalking us?”

Gio shook his head. “No. That’s not Evvie. We know her.”

“Do we?” Chase had to say it. The girl had grown up in the worst sort of poverty. He had money, and Briggs was a damn ba-zillionaire. They’d be nuts not to consider it.

But Gio, grounded as ever, answered him. “Yeah. Yeah, we do.”

Chase looked at Briggs, who nodded, and was shamed into admitting the truth. “Yeah, you’re right. Tell us what happened, Briggs.”

“It was a week ago yesterday, down in the Hudson Valley. I was speaking at an awards ceremony. She was there. She got an award.”

“I saw that—when I finally came to my senses today and Googled her.”

“She’s successful in her own right.” Briggs saw Gio’s question and explained that she was an editor. “She wouldn’t have to come after us for money. At least, not now.”

It was clear their thoughts were all on a young twenty-one-year-old pregnant woman, all alone. Poor as dirt.

Well, they’d get to that.

“So—Friday?” he prompted.

“I saw her. It was like—” Briggs looked up. “Well, I guess you know what it was like. I invited her to dinner. I don’t think she’d have come, but I cornered her boss and maneuvered it.” He drew a long breath. “I took her to my room.”

“And she was gone when you woke up?”

He looked at Gio, obviously hearing and relating to the disgruntlement. “What the fuck?”

“She was at my cousin’s wedding on Saturday. Remember Vito the asshole? Well, he was marrying a girl from Evvie’s class—Kaitlyn. I didn’t even remember until I saw Ev with her. Anyway, Ev didn’t know that Vito was related—I’m dead sure that was true. He was such a dick, I doubt I ever mentioned him to her when we were kids. It’s not like we hung out. And I got the distinct impression she might have skipped the wedding if she’d known I was gonna be there.

“So I danced with her, took her for a walk, and then we went to my room.”

Chase finished it. “She ducked out on him Sunday morning and was at the hospital seeing a hospice patient as I got off my night shift.

“The hospice patient was real—I checked today.” HIPAA be damned. He didn’t read the old lady’s medical record. He just confirmed her connection to Ev. Maybe he wasn’t quite as trusting as the other two. He couldn’t help replaying in his mind how she’d admired his home. He was ashamed of that now, in the face of Gio’s blind trust.

“I was headed to bed. I invited her to breakfast, but she saw I had to sleep. I think she was done resisting by then. She volunteered to come here and cook. And the rest…is just the same as for you two.”

“Why the fuck did she leave?” That was Gio.

Briggs stood and paced, like he always did when he had to work something out in his head. “A better question is why the fuck did she
sleep with all three of us in a matter of three days? Isn’t that kind of—”

Gio stood. “No, it’s not, and if you suggest it is again, you’ll be talking to my fist. She slept with us all last weekend for the same reason she let us all come to her after the funeral. She loves us. All of us. We thought it was cute, a little stroke to our egos. But she always loved us, and we always knew it.”

Briggs stood down and met Chase’s gaze. “Yeah, he’s right.”

Chase nodded. He was. About all of it. Chase had never taken Evvie seriously, the way he should have. The way they all should have, and the way he wanted to now.

He thought again of when he’d had her in his bed. He had to know. Forcing himself, he looked at his friends. “So. The time I spent with her—”

Gio was the first to figure out what Chase couldn’t say. And he didn’t like it, either.

“It was freakin’ hot. Spectacular. Mind-fucking-blowing.” His gaze as he glared at his two friends was a total challenge.

Briggs shot a look back but then relented with a grimace. “Yeah, me, too.”

Chase cursed. So much for that. Every one of them had hoped it had been different for him. “Did anybody fucking use a condom?”

They were all quiet for a long moment, and he cursed some more. He hung his head in much deserved shame.

Still, there was an important issue to address. Something bigger than how hot the sex was or how irresponsible they were as men. “What about the girl? Did you talk with her, Briggs?”

“Maisy?”

Maisy. Chase felt that pinch his heart.
Maisy
. His daughter. Maybe. And if not, the next thing to it.

“No, you idiot. Evvie. What did she say?”

Briggs shook his head, that half-stunned look back. “No. Nothing. They didn’t see me. I saw the girl. Ev called to her, and suddenly I just knew.” He swallowed again. “I froze. Then they were gone. I came here instead of following them home. Why did I do that?”

Chase shook his head. He and Gio had done the same thing. Gio had been stopped at Gorham’s one traffic light when the mother-daughter duo walked out of a coffee shop and crossed the street right in front of him.

“It’s a lot to take in. She’s seven, for fuck’s sake, and none of us knew about her until today.”

“Let’s go talk to her. She has to know who the girl belongs to.”

Chase rolled his eyes. Gio was a man of action, but no biologist.

“How the fuck would she know? She had sex with three incredibly reckless men on the same night. Unless she’s come asking you guys for a DNA sample, she doesn’t know.”

“Well, we need to find out. We still need to talk to her. Let’s go now.”

Briggs shook his head. He’d had the same thought as Chase. “You mean, three of us show up at her door, with a little seven-year-old girl there, and tell her we demand to know which of us is the father?”

That quieted Gio.

“Monday,” Chase said. “Early June, school’s still in session. Evvie works at home. She should be alone.” He looked at Gio. “I don’t have to work again until Tuesday. What about you?”

“Same. I have to be to JFK early Tuesday morning. Briggs?”

Briggs shrugged. Most times, he could work anywhere. “Yeah. I’m okay with Monday.”

“All right. Make yourselves comfortable.” Chase’s home was along Mansion Row. It certainly didn’t qualify as a mansion, but he had some space. There were a couple extra rooms on the second floor that Gio and Briggs tended to claim as theirs when they were in town. “I’ll get out some steaks we can grill for dinner. We might need a beer run.”

“Got it,” Briggs said.

They all downed a few on occasion, but Briggs was the beer snob. If Chase and Gio acted like they’d drink any six-pack of swill from the gas station, then Briggs could be counted on to supply them with some good brew.