“Sit down, Natalie,” Ben commanded. He patted the seat beside him. “Jack, I think she could use some lunch. We didn’t even get to order.”
Natalie looked around, but then thought better of it. She was a little worried that they would simply pick her up and place her where they wanted her. They seemed to enjoy lifting her up and proving just how freaking strong they were. She wasn’t exactly overweight, but she wasn’t tiny either. But when Ben picked her up and hauled her to his chest, his arms surrounding her, she felt delicate and fragile and more than that, it felt all right to be both because he would take care of her.
It wasn’t a good idea to think like that. Those types of dreams would just get her in trouble. And she didn’t want to get involved with a damn Dom, much less two. She sat between them, attempting to hold herself apart, but their hips touched hers, her legs sliding against theirs, making her wonder what it would be like to be tangled with them.
A big hand reached around, sliding under her hair and cupping the back of her neck. Chase. Heat flashed through her. Another hand, this time Ben’s, found her right knee, settling possessively there.
“Daddy, why are those men touching my Nat like you touch my momma?” Josh asked, his little mouth a firm, stubborn line. Josh had trouble with boundaries. He didn’t have a single issue sharing his toys or his treats. He would give those up in a heartbeat. People were another matter entirely. Josh was deeply possessive and protective of anyone he loved. She’d once watched a three-year-old Josh slug a five-year-old who had thirty pounds and a half a foot on him because the other boy had said something nasty to his sister, Olivia.
Josh had a little crush on Nat. He liked to hold her hand, and once he’d asked if he could marry her when he grew up. Of course, given his family life, she hadn’t been surprised when he’d promised to find them a third, too. Given how her life had been going up until yesterday, she might still be single by the time Josh was old enough to get married and settle on a friend to share a woman with.
She tried to pull away because the last thing she wanted to do was to upset Josh. Two big hands tightened on her.
“Josh, son, I think we should go and have a talk. Why don’t you help me find Benita?” Sam put a hand on Josh’s shoulder and they walked into the kitchen.
Nat turned to her two crazy cavemen while Jack Barnes settled into the seat across from them. “You didn’t have to do that. He’s just a kid.”
Barnes chuckled a little. “I don’t know about that, Nat. Josh is a little precocious to say the least. And he’s sure he’s going to marry you. He’s even talking to little Jared in his preschool class about potentially sharing you one day. Yeah, that was a parent-teacher conference I never expected to have.”
“The kid needs to understand that you’re taken,” Chase said as though he was talking about an actual real adult rival and not a kid who had trouble with tying his shoes. “He needs to learn not to horn in on other men’s women.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Nat shot back. “He’s four.”
Chase shrugged. It seemed to be his go-to move to indicate he didn’t give a shit. Chase shrugged a lot. “He needs a woman closer to his own age. Like a fetus, perhaps.”
Ben smiled, a little uptick of those gorgeous lips. “We’ll give him the number to Dani’s womb.”
“How about you two tell me what kind of trouble Nat’s in? We just got back into town this morning from visiting my daughter. Why the hell was Juliet screaming at Nat?”
Before Nat could reply, Ben was talking. “Her husband was found dead in Nat’s massage room out at the spa.”
Jack leaned back, a thoughtful look in his eyes. He didn’t seem particularly surprised that Stan had met a bad end, but then Jack didn’t put his emotions out there for all to see. The only time she really saw the man get soft was with his wife and kids and Sam Fleetwood. “And now everyone thinks Nat was having an affair with him and potentially killed him. Were drugs involved?”
“Interesting that’s your first question,” Chase said, his hand stroking her neck. He needed to stop doing that. She kind of wanted to lean against him and purr. “What exactly do you know about Stan Kirkman and drugs?”
“I know the rumors, Chase,” Jack replied. “We stay pretty much to ourselves out here. We’re isolated and we like it that way, but I had to fire a ranch hand a few months back because I caught him doing drugs. Word was he’d gotten it out at Kirkman’s warehouse. I didn’t really investigate. Just called Stan to let him know he had some trouble.”
Yeah, Nat could hear that conversation. It would have been a deeply unsubtle threat to clean his shit up or have Jack on his ass. “Was it heroin?”
The thought of all those drugs sitting there just waiting to be pinned on her made her nervous. Someone had tried to frame her for murder. It was unreal.
A slight shake of his dark head indicated a no. “Meth. It’s easily made right here in the sticks. It’s the redneck drug of choice.”
“Do you think Stan was dealing?” Ben asked.
“I think if he wasn’t, he knew what was happening and probably took a kickback. I don’t buy that his furniture store is doing that well. Juliet is driving a new BMW and Stan had just ordered a Porsche, but I’ve heard that sales were down. They’re either leveraged to the hilt or Stan has some other form of income.”
“Possibly a little of both. I think Juliet wants people to believe she’s doing better than she is. The tag was still attached to her designer suit and the $12,000 Chanel watch she was wearing was a fake,” Chase said.
“How on earth could you tell?” The whole event had occurred so fast she didn’t even remember what color Juliet’s suit had been much less that she’d been wearing an expensive watch.
“I noticed the watch when she smacked you, sweetness,” Chase answered in a grave monotone. “Trust me, that sight is burned into my brain.”
“And you know a lot about designer watches?” Jack asked.
Ben took that one. “Chase has a photographic memory. We worked a smuggling case for a designer a few years back. He studied designer clothes, shoes, and jewelry. Trust me. He can spot a fake from a hundred yards away.”
“Christa was talking about an underground club. Have you heard anything?” Chase asked, obviously dismissing the whole photographic memory thing.
A fierce frown crossed Jack’s face. “Yes, I have. It’s one of the reasons we just got back from Deer Run. I wanted to talk to my brother about how to shut that shit down. He actually told me to call you two in. Lucas knows how our sheriff works. If we don’t have a ton of evidence, I don’t think the sheriff will even investigate. I was going to call Julian to see if he would loan you two out.”
Ben’s hand moved on her leg as he sat up. “Why are you so worried about this, Jack? Aren’t you being a little hypocritical? The Club, for all its elegance, is really nothing but a more opulent underground sex club.”
“The Club doesn’t have missing girls,” Jack stated flatly.
Oh, crap. She’d heard some rumors. There was a young college girl who had supposedly gone out to meet friends and never returned. “You’re talking about Michelle Nelson.”
Jack scrubbed a hand over his face, a weary gesture. “Her uncle is one of my hands. He says she’s gotten involved in some nasty stuff these last few months, but he doesn’t think she would run off. That’s the explanation the sheriff is pushing. Another girl named Hannah Wells is missing, too. Now it was well known that Hannah was into meth. I think that little club is running drugs and Stan was involved. I can’t get into the club. No one will even talk to me about it. I’ve managed to figure out that to get an invitation you need to see a man at a bar, but they shut down the minute I walk in the door. I don’t even know if I’ve found the right one. They’ve started popping up all over the unincorporated parts of the county in the last couple of years.”