Collaring Their Racy Runaway [Racy Nights 12] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  “Would you like to grab a cup of coffee sometime? Or see a movie? The Cineplex is open again.”

  “I’d love to.”

  He looked a bit surprised, which only added to her belief that she’d landed in Oz instead of Racy. Twenty years ago, Garrett Amato wouldn’t have given her the time of day let alone given her a look of surprise after she’d agreed to go out with him. “Great. Okay. Give me your cell number.”

  “I don’t have a cell right now. But there’s a landline in the apartment. I can give you that number.”

  He took out his cell phone and punched in the number she gave him. “Wow. It’s like you’re still living in the last century.”

  You don’t know the half of it.

  “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  He got back into his cruiser and waved to her as he passed. As she watched him drive down Riverfront then turn right onto Ash Lane, Teresa felt like she’d finally emerged from a very long, very deep sleep.

  Chapter Four

  Teresa walked a bit more after Garrett drove away, and then she went down Market Street so she could read the sign in front of Busler’s. She’d completely missed it earlier because she’d been focused on the other side of the street.

  The applications were online, but she hadn’t brought anything with her to write, so she whispered the website address until she got home, hoping no one had seen her doing it. That would add a bit of fun to the rumors. Teresa Rodriguez now sprints down Market Street, talking to herself!

  She went online, grateful that she had Maggie’s old computer to use in the apartment, and applied for a sales job. She didn’t care what department it ended up being in. She only wanted to work. Then she opened her closet and took out everything, trying to figure out what to wear to dinner at Gino’s.

  It was the most expensive restaurant in Racy. Gina Santori’s brother Vito owned it now, and it had been in their family for three generations. What did people wear to it these days? When she’d been younger, it had been strictly dresses or dress pants for the women, and suits and ties for the men.

  She had three nice dresses and they were all about fifteen years out of date, but she didn’t think a man would notice something like that. It had been ages since she’d spent any real money on her clothing. She also had one good pair of black shoes that would work with two of the dresses, so she put on each one, trying to choose between them.

  She’d lost so much weight in the past six months that neither one hung right on her, but she didn’t have anything else to wear, and she had no money to buy a new dress. If only Rosa wasn’t such a pain in the ass she could ask her to take the dresses in. The girl was a wizard with a needle and thread, just like their mother was. But if she went over there now and asked her to do it, there would be endless questions. Why did she need a dress? Where was she going? With whom?

  Teresa sat at the tiny table and rested her chin in her hands. She had to stop this. What was Julie always telling her? Change what you can change and let the rest go. If ever there was a situation where she could put that advice into action, it was now.

  Steeling herself for the inevitable, she took the two dresses that matched her only good pair of heels, and walked over to the main house. Rosa and her parents had just returned from Mass, and she knew her mother would give her shit about not going, but she ignored her and followed Rosa into her room. “Can you take these in for me? I’ve lost some weight and they’re too big now.”

  “Why do you need them?”

  “I have a job interview and I can’t decide between the two yet.” The lie slipped out of her mouth so easily that it frightened her. What other bad habits had she unintentionally picked up from Ray and his hoodlum friends all these years?

  Rosa’s face brightened. “Where?”

  “I’d rather not say yet.” She cut her gaze toward the hallway where her mother was still ranting about her not having gone to church since she’d come back home. “Because if I don’t get it, then I’ll have to listen to what a fuckup I am.”

  She knew Rosa hated it when she swore, but it gave her a small measure of satisfaction to do so anyway. Rosa had never done so much as fart in public. That was fine, but it was the the constant comparison to Saint Rosa, as all her siblings called her, that Teresa had never been able to deal with. That’s the main reason she’d left home at eighteen.

  Now she had no choice but to stay in the apartment. At least, until she landed a real job and could afford her own place. And a cell phone. It would be nice to have one again.

  Rosa agreed to take in the dresses. Teresa tried them on, stood still while Rosa put pins in them, and then put her other clothes back on and left. She found an e-mail from Maggie, telling her that Carson was as straight an arrow as they came. She said he’d been a good student in school, and had been away at college majoring in criminal justice when his parents were killed. He went to the police academy in Plainfield after he earned his undergraduate degree, and he’d been working on the Racy police force ever since.

  Teresa wrote Maggie and thanked her for the info, but didn’t tell her that she already knew all that. She’d been hoping Maggie would tell her something about Carson as a person, but then realized that Maggie dealt in facts and figures. This was the best she was going to get from her big sister. If she wanted gossip, she needed to talk to Ria or Peppi.

  It was too far to walk over to the condo that Ria now shared with Trent and Wyatt, and Teresa wasn’t in the mood to go out again and walk to Riverfront Drive. Peppi would probably be home on a Sunday morning, but then again she might be working. She was in school but she also worked part time at Tye Me Up, the fetish shop on Lawnview Drive.

  This was ridiculous. Teresa needed a car. “Change what you can,” she whispered. “Let the rest go.”

  She called Luke’s Bar and asked her brother if Peppi was home, but he said she’d just left for work. “Do you need something? I’m not open yet. Alexa and I are just setting up. One of us can run over there if you need us to.”

  “No, that’s okay. I just wanted to ask Peppi about someone.”

  “Who?”

  Should she tell him? She’d always been closer to Rafe than Luke, but she knew she could trust both her brothers. “Carson Decker. I knew his sister, Sally, but I don’t remember much about him.”

  Teresa counted several seconds of silence, during which she wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

  “Why did you think Peppi would know anything about him?”

  “I don’t know. It was either her or Ria. They know everyone and everything that goes on in this town.”

  Luke chuckled but she wasn’t sure what that was all about. “Okay. But why are you asking about Carson?”

  “I don’t remember much about him, and I have a date with him on Tuesday.”

  “What?”

  Okay. Now she was really confused. He sounded surprised and more than a bit angry. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t go out with him, or are you just playing over protective brother right now?”

  “How did you end up making a date with Carson?”

  She gave Luke the short version of what she’d done last night at the police station. She hadn’t yet told her siblings the entire story, but there was no reason now to hold back.

  She heard muffled voices for several seconds, and then Luke was back on the phone. “Alexa is on her way over to pick you up. We should talk about this in person.” His voice shook and she felt bad. That hadn’t been a story to tell over the phone, but he’d forced her hand.

  “I can walk. It’s not far.”

  “She’s already out the door and in my truck.”

  Teresa didn’t know Alexa Monahan very well yet. She wasn’t a Racy native. She’d moved here two years ago with Kari Tye, when Kari returned for her own Racy homecoming. Both women had worked in a chic fetish shop in Chelsea called What’s Your Pleasure. Teresa wasn’t entirely sure why they’d both left New York, but knew
it had something to do with a murder Kari had witnessed behind the shop.

  Now, they co-owned Tye Me Up, housed on the main floor of a converted Queen Anne on Lawnview Drive. Alexa lived in the upstairs of the home with Luke and her other Dom, Chase Taylor. Chase was the building commissioner. Kari was a sub as well, and her two Doms were Noah Wells and Adison Kincaid. Teresa had heard their names several times from Maggie because both worked at Notus, although neither one worked for her sister. Noah was an R&D specialist and Adison was head of security.

  While Teresa waited in front of the garage for Alexa, she mused that she’d need a spreadsheet to keep up with which sub was with which Doms in this town. But she’d never say that to Luke, Rafe, or Ria. They took enough crap from their parents and Rosa about their lifestyle choice. She didn’t entirely understand BDSM, but she certainly didn’t judge it. She hoped that one day she’d have the chance to learn more about it.

  Alexa looked like a kid driving Luke’s pickup truck because she was so petite and thin. Teresa slid into the front seat and smiled. “You changed the color of your streaks.” Instead of the pink streaks Alexa had in her blonde hair when Teresa first met her, she now sported turquoise ones.

  “You like them? Chase said they remind him of something you’d see in the sixties on a wall.”

  Teresa laughed. “Well, I don’t know about that, but I do love the color. It brings out your eyes.”

  “Luke said the same thing.”

  Alexa beamed whenever she talked about Luke or Chase. She was so happy. Teresa knew that Alexa had been mixed up in some pretty serious shit when she was younger, or rather her mother had been. She’d be someone Teresa could talk to, and who would understand without judging. But she was reluctant to say anything because she didn’t want Luke thinking she was going behind his back.

  The trip to Luke’s Bar only took a few moments, so there was no real time to talk now, regardless. Once inside, Teresa asked if she could help them set up while they talked.

  Luke tossed a dish towel toward her. “Sure can. Wipe the spots off those glasses, if you don’t mind. Ria never does that when she takes them out of the dishwasher, and I don’t want my customers thinking I’m serving them beer in dirty glasses.”

  Teresa began to do as he asked. “You need to change detergent or buy a new dishwasher then. I didn’t realize Ria still worked for you.”

  “Not for much longer. Trent and Wyatt asked her to quit so she can concentrate on going back to school, and on having a healthy pregnancy.”

  “What’s she going to school for?”

  “She wants to work in forensic science. When Gerry was stabbed, it really affected her.”

  Teresa stopped in the act of cleaning the spots off a shot glass and stared at Luke. “Wow. Good for her.” She had a tough time picturing Ria in a role like that. Trent and Wyatt must have brought out some hidden qualities. Gerry Homer was a homeless man who was stabbed to death in the alley behind the bar by a man named Ned Meyers, three months earlier. Shortly after that, Ria started seeing both Trent and Wyatt as the mystery behind Gerry’s death began to unfold in Racy.

  “They are good for her,” said Alexa. “I’ve never seen your sister so happy, or so careful about what comes out of her mouth.”

  Luke snorted. “I’ll give her that. She no longer gossips. It’s amazing.”

  “It really is,” said Alexa. “Ria was in the shop last week when one of Kari’s former friends from high school came in. After she left, Kari told me that Melissa was one of the last people she’d ever expected to see buying sexy underwear. Then we started talking about other people that Kari and Ria had known in school, and speculating whether they’d ever buy kinky stuff. Ria barely joined in.”

  “That must have been fun seeing someone she knew from school in your shop,” said Teresa.

  “Oh, it was. Kari loves it when she runs into people she used to know. She was gone for fifteen years before moving back here. Did you know that?”

  Teresa nodded. “Yes, and I understand how she feels about running into former school acquaintances.” She told them about seeing Garrett again that morning, and also told them she was going out with him sometime as well.

  Luke glanced at her sharply. “You are?”

  “Yes, I am. And there you go again. That’s the same reaction you had when I told you I had a date with Carson.”

  Luke frowned. “Oh, that’s right. You wanted the dirt on him, didn’t you?”

  She gave her brother a droll look. “Not dirt. Just more than his basic biography, which is all Maggie gave me.”

  Luke shrugged. “I don’t know what I can tell you.”

  She frowned at him. “You were pretty upset before. You said we should talk about this in person. Or were you referring to the story I told you?” Luke averted his gaze, and then he and Alexa exchanged a glance Teresa couldn’t interpret. “I know about Carson’s parents being murdered. He told me. Is that the big secret you couldn’t talk about on the phone?”

  “Your story did upset me, but only because I’m sorry you were hurt by that asshole.”

  “Thank you.”

  Alexa shot her brother another look that Teresa couldn’t interpret. “If you ever need to talk about it, just let me know. I have experience with physical abuse.”

  “Thank you. That means a lot to me. But that’s really the whole story. There’s nothing else to say. I want to put it all behind me, and Julie is helping me do that.”

  “Julie is wonderful.”

  “Did you see her, too? I mean professionally. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.”

  Alexa smiled. “No, I don’t mind. I did see her. She helped me more than I can even put into words.”

  They worked for a few moments in silence, but Teresa could sense that Luke hadn’t finished sharing what was on his mind. Finally, he spoke again, but still didn’t make eye contact. “Did Carson tell you anything else about his life besides his parents’ death?”

  “Not really.”

  Luke nodded, but didn’t speak again. Teresa put down the glass and dishtowel. This was unbelievable. Why the hell had he insisted she come over if he wasn’t going to tell her what was going on? “Then why am I here? Look, I know I sprang a lot on you on the phone, but I had no choice when you started asking how I’d ended up having a date with Carson. So what the hell is really going on? You act like I shouldn’t be going out with him. Either it’s something about him you object to, or it’s me. Is that is? You think I’m what…not good enough for him or something?”

  “Hold on. I didn’t say that you—”

  “You haven’t said anything. That’s the point. He’s a cop. So is Garrett. Do you object to him, too? They both know the whole story because Sean and Carson asked me if they could share it with the entire department, and I said yes. So both men know, and they still asked me out. Doesn’t that tell you if either one thought I was trash, he would have had the good sense not to date me?”

  Luke held up both hands. “Teresa, I did not call you trash. I only meant—”

  “What? What exactly did you mean? You said we should talk about this in person. Those were your exact words. Talk about what? Some big, deep, dark secret about Carson Decker or Garrett Amato that you can’t tell me? I don’t believe you. I think you don’t want me going out with them because you believe the rumors about me. I just told you the truth. That’s it. All of it. I take enough shit from Mama and Papa over this. I never thought I’d have to take the same crap from one of my brothers.”

  “I’m not trying to give you crap. Why would I do that? They don’t speak to me, Rafe, or Ria anymore. Why would I take their side?”

  “I know that. I have to listen to it every Sunday at dinner. Right after they tell me everything I’ve done wrong with my life.”

  Luke glanced at the clock over the bar. “Ah, speaking of Sunday dinner, aren’t you missing it right now?”

  Teresa swiped at the tears running down her face. “I don’t give a shit. I to
ok the two best dresses I own over there earlier to ask Saint Rosa to take them in because I had so little to eat while running from Ray for the past six months that I’ve lost almost forty pounds. They look like shit on me, and I don’t want to look like the local charity case at Gino’s Ristoranti when Carson takes me there.”

  Alexa gave Luke a long look, and then she walked over and gave Teresa a big hug. It surprised her so much that it took a few seconds before she returned it. “Kari and I will find you something to wear, okay?” Alexa pulled away to glance up and down Teresa’s body. “You and I are probably the same size. You can wear something of mine. And it’s not charity. It’s one friend letting another friend borrow clothes.”

  Teresa was stunned. “Okay. Thank you. Really.”

  “I’m happy to help.”

  Teresa glanced from one to the other, her pulse racing. “So what is this terrible thing about Carson you can’t tell me? Or is it about Garrett? Or both of them?”

  “It’s not a terrible thing,” said Alexa. “It’s just not something that’s our place to tell. It’s theirs. And Luke didn’t want to say that on the phone because you’d already noticed his reaction when you told him Carson had asked you out.”

  Teresa stared at her, trying to remember where she’d heard that phrasing before, and then it hit her. Julie had said the same thing during a recent session when they’d discussed Ria becoming a sub to Trent and Wyatt. She’d said it was Ria’s place to tell her parents about her lifestyle choice, and no one else’s.

  Last summer, Ria had told their parents about Rafe being a Dom to Marisol Santiago, and it had caused a rift between her and Marisol, who used to be her best friend. It also caused a rift between Ria and the entire BDSM community in Racy. In January, Trent and Wyatt had helped Ria repair the damage she’d done, and now all was well.

  Two months ago when Ria told their parents about her now being part of the lifestyle as well, they’d gone ballistic all over again. Ria told Teresa that they’d had the same reaction last summer when their sons told them they were Doms, so their reaction hadn’t been a surprise to her.