Sophie Oak - Sirens in Bliss

Caleb stepped up. “Hey, as your doctor and your wife’s doctor, I’m totally giving you permission to have sex when you wake up. Go for it, man. Jen’s perfectly healthy. Hell, she’s ready to pop. A little sex might get the process started.”

He hated Caleb. Why had he ever thought bringing a doctor into town was a good idea?

As his peripheral vision started to fade, he realized something.

Responsible adult or not, he was so going to kick Max’s ass. He might kick all their asses. Some things could never, ever change.

Leo, Shelley, and Wolf

Shelley McNamara looked down at her watch. All around her the bridal shower was moving forward, but all she could think about was the fact that in roughly twenty-four hours she wouldn’t be Shelley McNamara anymore. She would be Shelley Meyer, and she intended to die as Shelley Meyer. She’d been married once before to a complete douche lord, but this time was different. This time she was madly in love.

However, the course of true love didn’t always run smoothly. Sometimes it was blown wildly off course by a crazy person with a deep love of beets.

Cassidy Meyer was a sweet woman in her sixties. She’d welcomed Shelley with open arms and then she’d used one of those arms to try to shove a beet down her throat.

“Oh, no.” Beth was staring across the lawn. “I don’t know exactly what’s happening with my brother-in-law and his subs, but it’s not good.”

Shelley looked over in time to see Lexi O’Malley wiping tears away as she talked on the phone and Lucas and Aidan walked away. They were likely heading out to the men’s gathering, which looked to be much weirder than the gorgeous garden party Jennifer Talbot was throwing her.

Shelley watched Lucas and Aidan walk away with a heavy heart. She’d known Aidan for a long time, and Lucas and Lexi for several years. She’d watched as they had stood together even when the town they lived in disapproved of their lifestyle. They’d been so close.

The way she was close to Leo and Wolf.

“She’s working too much,” Beth said with a frown. “But she’s convinced if she slows down she’ll kill her career.”

“It’s hard to give up momentum.” Shelley should know. “If Lexi’s business is anything like mine, then the more work you get out there, the better your profits are. The design business is almost entirely word of mouth. The more clients I have, the more they multiply. You work for years and then realize that there’s just more work ahead of you. And it has to be worse for Lexi.”

“How?” Beth asked.

“Have you forgotten how precarious ranching is? I would be shocked if they’ve turned a profit yet. I know Lucas makes good money, but it’s nothing compared to Lexi. Think about it. Lucas gets paid a salary. He knows what he’ll make any given year. Lexi’s income is only limited by how many books she sells. It’s a siren song. The more books she sells, the more opportunity for her family. She can give Aidan’s ranch a real shot. She can subsidize it until it’s profitable. I grew up on a ranch. There were years when my momma had no idea if we would have a place to live the next spring.”

“I don’t think he’s letting her put money into the ranch.”

“Then he’s letting his pride get in the way. That ranch is Lexi’s home, too. She’s got to be scared because a ranch can go belly up any time.”

“It’s not so bad,” Beth said with a sigh.

Shelley shook her head. “Oh, don’t try to equate your experience. The Circle G was making a comeback when Trev bought in. Aidan’s ranch was broke because Bo got all the money.” Aidan and Bo’s father was a bastard. He’d given Aidan the land, but no money to keep it up and Bo all the money and no land to invest in. And they had been too stubborn to see the obvious solution. It had worked out for the best because Bo had found Beth and Trev and moved to the Circle G, while Aidan was happier on his own.

But how much stress had it caused Lexi? She had two kids.

Beth took a sip of her lemonade. “I guess I didn’t think of it that way. There are always two sides. I just can’t stand the thought of them being unhappy.”

Shelley hated it, too. “Does the whole Dom thing change when you have kids?”

Beth looked thoughtful. “A little, I guess. Why?”

“Because if I was working too much, Leo would put me over his lap before I could breathe.” And that was pretty much how she liked it.

She was too ambitious in some ways. She found it hard to turn down jobs even when she knew she couldn’t handle them. Leo had made it easy. She could do three jobs at once and if she took a fourth, she better be damn ready to give up a layer of skin. It had made it easy to find her balance.

“Well, I guess it is a little different. Kids complicate everything. It’s easy to follow your Dom’s orders when it’s just you, but when they place this baby in your hands, suddenly you’re not just thinking about you. You have a whole different set of priorities, and don’t let anyone tell you that you can prepare for that. No childcare class is going to train you on how to handle it. You can feel the baby kick and know that you love her, and it doesn’t prep you for the utter realization that this baby is wholly dependent on you. You’ve brought a life into the world and you’re responsible, and no amount of a submissive nature can make you give up that responsibility. I love Trev, but I’m the alpha when it comes to that baby girl. I’m her momma. So yes, it changes. I can’t just sit back and let Trev make the decisions and neither can Bo. We have to decide together, and sometimes Trev has to give in. I expect it will get worse as she gets older, as we have another one eventually.”

The idea scared the crap out of Shelley. “I don’t know that Leo wants kids. Maybe he’s right. Maybe we should just concentrate on our marriage.”

“You should at first, but I think he’ll change his mind. What does Wolf want?”

Of her two men, Wolf was the sweet one. “He would have me pregnant now.”

“And you three have talked about it? It doesn’t seem right going into a marriage where two of you might not ever want kids.”

“I didn’t say that.” Shelley got an antsy feeling in the pit of her stomach. “I think I do. I just look at how they change things and I wonder if we wouldn’t be happier without them.”

“Wolf Meyer picks up every kid he sees,” Beth pointed out. “I only asked because I knew the answer. Wolf won’t be complete without kids. And a lot of men don’t know they want kids until someone puts a baby in their arms and they look at that little face.”

“You think we’re not being fair to Wolf?” She hated the idea. Hated it in a really nauseating way.

And could she really go without babies? It seemed like she was surrounded by them all of a sudden. Olivia and Josh. Chloe. Here in Bliss it was multiplied by ten. There was her new niece, and the parade of kids that came through the G seemed to never end.

Could she live a lifetime without holding her own baby in her arms? Without seeing a little one who looked like Wolf or Leo? But Leo had seemed so indifferent to the idea. She also couldn’t stand the thought that Leo wouldn’t want the baby.

The wedding she’d been so crazy about just minutes before now seemed too close for comfort.

What if they were making a mistake? Aidan and Lexi and Lucas had seemed so happy, and now they were miserable. What if love just couldn’t work out in the long term? What if people were just too different to really make it work?

“You’re freaking out,” Beth said, taking her hand.

She was a little bit. “My first marriage was horrible.”

“But Leo and Wolf didn’t blackmail you into this. Neither one of them is using you as a front for their drug dealing and information brokering business.”

“But what if I just make horrible decisions?” It was a thought that had crossed her mind more than once before. Her first marriage had been beyond terrible. Bryce had been a criminal who threatened her whole family.

Beth squeezed her hand. “You don’t make bad decisions. You got caught in Bryce’s trap. Leo and Wolf are about as far from Bryce as you can possibly get, so put that thought out of your head. Now, the kids thing is something you need to work out.”

But there was so little time left. She was getting married in roughly twenty-four hours, and she wasn’t supposed to see Leo or Wolf until she walked down the aisle. It was a stupid ritual, but she’d insisted because at the time it seemed romantic. Now it simply seemed silly.

Maybe she shouldn’t worry about it. Maybe it would all just work out in the end.

That was exactly what she’d thought the day she’d allowed herself to be pulled into Bryce’s world. She’d stood there at the courthouse and convinced herself that everything would be fine. It hadn’t been fine.

Lexi was staring off into the distance, her eyes still watching where her husbands had walked away from her. It wasn’t fine for Lexi.

What made her think it would be fine this time around?

“Oh, Alien Queen!”

Shelley turned. Normally she wouldn’t think that a crazy voice screaming for an alien queen would be referring to her, but here in Colorado she knew damn well it was all about her. “Hello, Cassidy.”

Two women she’d met previously were with her almost mother-in-law. Rachel Harper and Callie Hollister-Wright were standing on either side of Cassidy Meyer, who wore a string of beets around her neck. Yep. She might need to rethink that whole “everything’s going to be fine” thing.

“I’m sorry,” Callie said apologetically. “We tried to talk her out of it.”

“But she’s stronger than she looks,” Rachel added.

Cassidy stared at her. “Please don’t take my boys away, Alien Queen. Take me instead.”

Shelley felt a headache start and realized that if she had any real shot at making her marriage happen, she needed to start by compromising. “Somebody get me some beets so I can prove my humanness.”

Cassidy’s eyes went wide. “You’ll take the beet?”

Apparently there was some form of ritual. “Sure. I’ll take the beet and then someone needs to hand me some whitening toothpaste because I’ll be damned if I get married with purple teeth.”

Cassidy smiled and showed that she didn’t mind the color purple. From what she’d heard, the older woman had been bingeing on beet smoothies in an attempt to ward off aliens who would come to the wedding. “Excellent. We’ll do it tonight at Trio.”

“You can’t just hand me a beet from your necklace and let me have a bite?” It would make things so much simpler.

Cassidy was all grins now, as though the weight of the world had been taken from her shoulders, and Shelley felt a little hint of guilt. She’d been stubborn. “No. We have to have a whole ceremony. Your Beeting Ceremony is going to be even more beautiful than the wedding. Do you know how long I’ve waited for a daughter?”

Probably longer than Shelley had waited for a mother-in-law who thought she might have tentacles hidden away somewhere. But a thought occurred to her. “Do the boys have to be at the ceremony?”

“Oh, yes. They play a very big part.”

And then she could talk to them face-to-face. And maybe the feeling of dread would pass if she could just see them.

“Oh, I have to get cooking. We need beet pie and beet stew and, oh, so many wonderful dishes. Rachel and Callie, call Nell and have her meet me at my place.” Cassidy gave Shelley a sheepish grin. “She was going to protest you, I’m afraid. I’ll call it off and we’ll just get to cooking.”

Cassidy practically skipped back down the drive.

Callie pressed a margarita into Shelley’s hand. “You’re probably going to need this. And just so you know, all your drinks are free tonight at Trio. My husband runs the place.”

Shelley took a long swallow. “Thanks. That’s awfully sweet of you.”

Callie turned a nice shade of green. “I’ve eaten the beet pie. You’re going to need it.”

Yep. It sounded like she would.

* * *

Wolf looked around the well-manicured lawn of the Mountain and Valley Naturist Community and wondered, just briefly, why the hell he’d ever left Bliss. Oh, he was happy he had because he would never have met Shelley, but there were times when he really missed this place.

“Why the hell is everyone naked, brother?”

Yeah, this was totally one of those times. Leo’s eyes were as wide as saucers as he stared at what Mel thought a reception should be. There was a cooler of beer, and it looked like he’d bought a bunch of cold cuts and put them on a tray.