Page 23 of The Reluctant Siren (Texas Sirens: Legacy #2)

Four nights later, Niall sat in the backyard and listened to the sound of the river rushing by.

The days had been oddly peaceful. He cooked, Harlow and Jensen cleaned. They watched some movies and played a couple of old board games that Harlow and Jensen took way too personally. Competitive assholes.

They fucked. A lot.

They’d gotten into a nice pattern. Wake up with her clinging to one of them and kissing her until she was awake and begged them to take her. At night they played. They tied her up and spanked her ass and plugged her. They ate her pussy and got her on her knees so she could suck them off.

He wasn’t sure they were any closer to having her accept the relationship outside of this ramshackle house.

He took a long breath, inhaling the night air and turning his head up to the full moon that illuminated the velvet sky.

“Hey.”

Harlow stepped into the space. There was a small fire pit Niall hadn’t lit and four old lawn chairs. She wore PJ bottoms and a tank top that showed off her toned arms. Her purple hair was up in a messy bun, and she looked adorably rumpled.

Of course she’d also looked adorable naked when he’d left her in bed. He didn’t suppose it was a good idea to be bossy and tell her to take off her clothes out here.

“I thought you were sleeping. Everything okay?”

He gestured for her to join him.

“Can’t sleep, and it isn’t because I’m sore.”

She huffed as she shifted to the chair across from him.

They’d moved her up to a much bigger plug earlier this evening after they’d used a violet wand on her and made her cry out. After she’d come three times.

He had to bite back a laugh because she sat down gingerly. Poor princess.

“Do you want me to massage you?”

She snorted.

“I think I’ll pass on the asshole massage. I’ve had that a couple of times already today.”

She sat back.

“It’s nice out here. I guess when Jensen talked to me about this place I got an idea in my head that it was awful. It’s beautiful here. The house needs some work, but you can’t argue with the view.”

She tilted her head up, looking at the blanket of stars spread across the sky.

It was spectacular, but nothing compared to her. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and he was worried he was going to lose her. There was a distance during the day. When they were in bed or playing, she gave them everything. But she held back slightly in everything else. Nothing that would make it necessary to talk about, just distance that worried him.

The moonlight played over the river making it look like it was dancing. In the distance he could see the high grass sway.

“No, you can’t. It is beautiful out here. During the summers there’s a pond about half a mile from the house where we used to swim when it got too hot to do anything else. I have no idea how, but the pond always stayed cool even when it was a hundred degrees out. I think when Jensen talks about this place, he’s talking about the emotional toll of living here. It’s beautiful land, but the town was hard on Jensen. Hard on his whole family.”

“He never liked to talk about his mother,”

she said quietly.

“He kind of avoided the subject. He didn’t talk much about his childhood, but he wouldn’t talk about her at all.”

It didn’t surprise Niall that Jensen had never gone into details with Harlow.

“Well, I knew her. She was… She longed for something more than this place but had no idea how to get out. That’s not exactly right. She decided she did know.”

Harlow nodded.

“Let me guess. She thought a man would take her away.”

She was a perceptive woman. One of her many talents.

“Yes. She was the only daughter of ranchers, but they died in a car accident a year before Jensen was born. I don’t think they prepared her for much more than getting married and helping her husband with the ranch. They never expected her to run it herself. She was supposed to get married to someone they approved of and he would be trained.”

Harlow’s nose wrinkled.

“That sounds terrible but then it’s not like my dad wanted me to take over the family business either.”

“I don’t think it’s exactly the same. They weren’t worried about Jensen’s momma getting killed in the line of duty,”

he explained.

“They simply didn’t think a woman could run the ranch.”

“She wasn’t married when her parents died? How old was she? How did she handle things?”

He was glad she was at least curious.

“She was barely nineteen, and she didn’t. She spent all her time either helping her mom with chores or going to the church in town. She had no idea what to do. Jensen’s dad was their foreman, and he almost immediately married her and got her pregnant, but what he actually wanted was the ranch.”

“Did something happen to him? Because I know she sold off most of the land to a big ranch collective,”

she replied.

“I have some connections in that world. Jack’s parents own a big ranch outside of Austin, as do some of my parents’ closest friends. Selling any land would be the option of last resort for them. The ranchers I know would never sell unless they were going to lose it all.”

She did know how to point out a problem.

“Jensen’s dad might have been a foreman, but ranching wasn’t exactly his dream. From what I’ve heard he mostly wanted to be rich. Didn’t care how it happened. What he wanted was the money that came with the ranch. He convinced her to sell off some of the land so they could upgrade the house. Which was always going to happen soon. He kept putting it off. She was pregnant and she’d been taught that a good wife didn’t question her husband, so she did what he asked. A little land became a lot of land until they were left with this space and then Jensen’s dad took off with the cash.”

“And left her with two kids, right?”

Niall shook his head. He wondered how much Jensen told her. It didn’t seem like a lot.

“No. Tommy was technically his half brother. When Jensen’s dad left, she tried waitressing, but she ended up letting her latest boyfriend move in, and that worked for a while. She got pregnant again and had Tommy and then Tommy’s dad left her for another woman. From there on it was a series of men she let move in and out of their lives. Always looking for the one who would sweep her off her feet and take her family away from here.”

She sighed, a sympathetic sound.

“That had to be hard. I think the worst thing a child can go through is chaos.”

She wrapped her arms around her legs, hugging them to her chest.

“I don’t like to think about what my parents went through. It was similar, but it was their dad, and he had a mega shit ton of money. My dads have three brothers and one sister, and they mostly have different moms. I think my grandfather married three times, but the affairs were too many to count. They kind of had to raise themselves. And by kind of, I mean they did. My Uncle Win—Gigi’s dad—he was pretty much the father to his younger siblings. Was it like that for Jensen and Tommy?”

Niall nodded.

“Very much so. Jensen was five years older than Tommy. He was Tommy’s protector. By the time he was eight or nine he was left alone with Tommy while their mom worked or went on a date. It was both better and worse when their mom got a boyfriend and settled down for a while. It depended on the guy. Some were nice. Some were abusive bastards.”

“My dad once told me it was like trying to walk through an earthquake. The ground was always shifting under their feet. Sometimes it was good. They liked one of their stepmoms, but he divorced her quite quickly,”

Harlow explained.

“Sometimes they would have a nanny who helped, but Granddad almost always fucked that up by sleeping with her. So my dad and his brothers and sister had to grow up on their own.”

It felt so good to be talking, really talking. They’d spent a lot of time joking around and discussing the case and D/s philosophy, but this felt real.

“That had to be hard. I’m glad they found someone to settle down with. I know sometimes when you grow up like that, relationships can be difficult.”

“My mom is great. Her parents are wonderful people.”

Harlow’s voice softened, love coming through in the tone.

“I never met my paternal grandparents. Crazy thing. They are both still alive. They just don’t care, but my mom’s parents are the best. And you know they prove that you can do everything right and it can all go wrong. My mom…she got kidnapped and raped and pretty much all the bad things in the world.”

His heart threatened to hitch.

“Your mom?”

She nodded.

“I’m not like betraying her or anything. She would tell you the whole story herself because she did nothing wrong. She talks about it so other people…other victims don’t feel alone. My mom is, well, she’s totally my hero. I think I do the things I do because I want to be there for women like her.”

“Have you told your father that? Put it that way?”

Niall asked. He knew she loved her dad, loved all of her parents, but he had to wonder if she had truly talked to the one parent she clashed with.

She sniffled.

“No. I guess I haven’t. I get way too upset that he doesn’t think I’m competent. I’m coming to realize that I’m a lot like my dad. I think we spark off each other and don’t talk enough. But he can be obnoxious. Is it wrong that I kind of miss him right now?”

He shook his head.

“Absolutely not. You love him. You’re in a dangerous situation with two men you’re not sure of. He’s your father and he’s been good to you. Of course you miss him.”

“You don’t talk about your parents,”

Harlow said.

“I try not to think about them, but I’m more than willing to talk about how I grew up. I think Jensen and I became best friends because we were similar. A lot like your dads, but with way less siblings to count on.”

“How did you two meet?”

Harlow asked, leaning forward.

“You know he kind of talked about you back in LA. Not much, but sometimes he mentioned how he wished he could call his best friend. He called you his best friend and told me the two of you grew apart.”

A harsh chuckle came from his throat. Jensen was good at rewriting history.

“We didn’t grow apart. I can’t tell you how hard I tried to keep us together. I got into the Army because I wouldn’t let him go alone. I got out because I thought he needed me. I was willing to go along with him. He refused. He lost his damn mind when Tommy died. That’s what happened. You know you’re not the only one he pushed away because he couldn’t handle the idea of his loved one getting hurt. He carries a lot of guilt around.”

“He’s not the reason his brother died,”

she said softly.

“I think he’s finally starting to realize that. The fact that he’s sleeping right now kind of proves it. I don’t think he’s slept a lot in the last couple of years,”

Niall admitted. He reached out and brushed a hand over her arm.

“Why can’t you sleep?”

She shook her head.

“Nope. This is my time. When the two of you are together you’re coming up with ways to torture me. Now I have the talker all to myself. I want to know how you met.”

He thought her curiosity was a good sign. He wasn’t going to argue with her. They did spend their time trying to figure out how to get her between them, and he was definitely the talker between the two of them. Though he had some hopes Jensen was coming around.

“We met at school. I lived in town so I had seen him, but his momma didn’t bring him to Bonnet much. She wanted to pretend like she didn’t have kids a lot of the time. She thought it would be better if the men she dated didn’t know about the two kids who came along until they were already in too deep. Needless to say that didn’t go well for her.”

“That must have been chaotic.”

And chaos scared her. She was right about the word, but sometimes a person didn’t mean to create it.

“Mrs. Wiley wasn’t a terrible person. She was just always hoping someone would come and save her. She never stopped praying for the dude on the white horse to ride in and pick her up and take her away. But you should know she also opened her home to me when I was in high school.”

She seemed to consider his words.

“I thought your parents were married. They live here, right?”

“I think so. I wouldn’t know. I cut ties a long time ago when my mother chucked me out of my house at the age of fifteen because I dared to step in front of her when my dad was beating her. I threw a punch, and she chose him. She always chose him. He was my dad and he smirked when he kicked me out. He lied to her. Cheated on her. Beat her half to death sometimes, and when he told her to kick me out, she did it. Told me I was temporary and he was her forever. But I thought I would always be her son.”

“You were. Even if she loved him, she should have chosen you.”

This was a pain he’d held for a long time. It wasn’t sharp anymore, but sometimes he still ached with it.

“Which is why you should give your dad some mercy. I know he’s acting like an ass, but he loves you. I know what it feels like when the two people in the world who should love you no matter what can’t find it to even care what happens to you. When I tried to contact her before I left for the military she wrote me back and told me she didn’t have a son and never to contact her again.”

“Sir, I think I need a hug,”

Harlow said with a sniffle.

There was his warrior princess. She was strong and tough and cared so damn much. She was a woman who would always stand up for the people she loved, who would risk everything for them. He sighed in pure pleasure as she settled herself on his lap and wrapped her arms around him. He rubbed his forehead against hers, enjoying the sweet affection she offered him.

“I’m okay, Harlow. Like I said, I had a place to go, but now that I’m talking about it, I think I know why we both fell so hard for you. You’re strong and capable and you would never take shit like that. You will always want to stand on your own two feet, and you’ll protect the people you love.”

“You would never deal out shit like that, Niall,”

she whispered.

“I’m pissed at Jensen, but neither would he. And I’m not sure he thinks I’m competent.”

“He does. I assure you. He knows how smart you are, but Tommy was smart, too.”

“Tommy was a student. He did not have the training I have.”

How to explain this to her? “No, but he was incredibly smart, and Jensen loved him and lost him. So when he got the news that Hamilton wanted to bring you into the inner circle, he freaked out. He knew what could happen.”

She sighed and rested her head in the nook of his neck.

“I wish he would have talked to me.”

“I do, too, princess. I wish I would have talked to you. If I could do it again, I would have walked up and knocked on your door and laid it all out for you.”

She chuckled.

“I don’t know that would have worked. I probably would have told you to pound sand and kicked you out. I definitely wouldn’t have allowed you in my club. In this case, Jensen was probably right about how to approach me. When you first showed up, I wasn’t in a place to even talk about Jensen. I was licking my wounds.”

He brushed back her hair and breathed in her scent. It felt so good to be sitting here with her.

“And I was simply trying to get through the days because I think in the back of my head I’ve been waiting for the call. Waiting for someone to tell me he was dead and then I would be alone in the world. Then I was lost in the club and all these new friends I was making. I felt like I belonged somewhere for the first time in a long time.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“I want to stay mad.”

He felt so much for her. What he’d done wasn’t fair, but he wanted to make up for all of it. He loved her and that meant giving her space and time to decide what she wanted.

“It’s okay. You can stay that way for a while. You can sit and stew on all of the crap we put you through, and we’ll talk when you’re ready.”

“What if Jack can’t close this case in the next couple of weeks? What are you going to do? Who’s even opening the gym?”

“I have employees,”

he replied with a chuckle, letting his hand stroke the curve of her hip.

“Before we had that long talk with Taggart, I texted my assistant manager. He’s going to run the place for another few days. He and a couple of the trainers will keep it open.”

“And after? If this goes on for weeks or months?”

He shrugged. Strangely, he wasn’t worried. If he lost it all, he would start over. He didn’t feel the same way about her.

“We’ll deal with it as it comes. You’re more important.”

“You know you weren’t included in that assassination order,”

she pointed out.

“You should be able to go back to your normal life. Hamilton doesn’t know how you’re involved. I can call Big Tag and have him assign you a bodyguard. You don’t have to give everything up.”

“Or you could convince Gabe to not hate my ass and find a couple of my fellow club members who’ll fill in for a while. Like we all do when someone’s sick or needs help.”

He’d worked in a bakery for a couple of days when a sub had her wisdom teeth out and couldn’t keep up with her work. Some of The Hideout members had worked shifts for her and gotten her back on her feet. It was what they did. The Hideout was their community. If there was one thing he was afraid of losing beyond Harlow, it was his place in that beautiful found family.

“I’ll talk to him,”

she promised.

“I won’t let him kick you out. He’s being an overprotective big brother. Or he’s showing off for Gigi. I can’t tell what’s happening with those two. But I’m serious. You should think about this. I don’t know what’s going to happen with Jensen. I think Jack will work a deal out with him, but I don’t know how long it’s going to take. I also don’t know how bad it got after he pushed me out.”

“I know he wouldn’t physically hurt anyone.”

“Do you? Because I watched him get pretty rough with some of the guys in the organization. He had to in order to move his way up. They don’t let you hang out and refuse jobs. He’s had to run drugs and knock heads together and likely some other things I don’t want to know about.”

She was giving him exactly the opening he needed.

“And he didn’t want that for you.”

“I know,”

she agreed.

“I know why he did what he did. Personally, I think I could have manipulated the situation in a way that got me out of any rough stuff, but he didn’t give me a chance. He didn’t even talk it out with me.”

“I was scared you wouldn’t listen so I didn’t even try, and that was my bad call,”

a deep voice said.

“If you did the same thing to me, I would be so angry, Harlow. I was playing a role in my head with you. I was martyring myself to save you from something you might have been able to handle. Or at least you could have understood why I wanted you out. Sorry. I woke up and y’all weren’t there.”

She frowned.

“So you thought we were out here cheating or something?”

Oh, she was prickly.

“No, princess. He thought we might be dead.”

She growled and stood up, starting for her chair. “Did not.”

“Well, it did go through my head that maybe Hamilton got you. I think I’m paranoid. I could have sworn I heard someone moving around on the porch, but no one was there. It must have been one of you.”

Jensen yawned and sank down on the third chair.

“Also, I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t use the word cheating when it comes to the three of us. That’s not how it works, right? I thought we were free to fuck you whenever you agree to let us. I’m cool with that.”

Miracles did happen.

“Yes, that’s the general rule. As long as it’s the three of us any pairing is fine.”

“Really?”

Harlow’s lips quirked up.

“I will never say never, but I think we’re both pretty hardwired in our sexuality,”

Niall explained.

“I think of the two of us, I’m probably the one most likely to enjoy bottoming from time to time. If we want to experiment that way.”

Jensen grinned, looking younger in the moonlight.

“Dude, I would have told you I would never, but that sounds fun. I do have things I would like to take out on your ass. I still haven’t forgiven you for the great food fight of Bonnet High.”

“It was an accident.”

Niall winced. He had let Jensen take all the credit for it though.

“I’m only saying it’s cool for us to talk about things we want to experiment with in the lifestyle.”

“When we can go back to a club,”

Harlow said with a sigh.

“Although you know if we get tired of being out here, we can stay at Sanctum. It’s got safe rooms. Apparently Big Tag’s people get into a lot of trouble. We could stay at The Club, but then we run the risk of seeing my dads in leathers, and let me tell you, it’s disturbing.”

“According to Ruby, Jack thinks this thing will be over fairly soon,”

Niall pointed out. He didn’t want to move. He liked it out here. It was quiet, and if they went back to Dallas he was fairly sure she would be at a friend’s house.

“Yeah, well soon can mean different things with the feds, and we have to worry that they might decide there’s a bigger fish to fry and they make a deal with Hamilton,”

Harlow pointed out.

Jensen shook his head.

“I’ve studied this organization for years. Hamilton is the head. He’s trying to make some deals with other organizations like the one he made with the cartel a couple of months ago, but he hasn’t made a ton of inroads. I think he’ll have to give up too much control if he goes that route, and that’s why he’s decided to expand into Houston rather than make a deal with another group.”

“But you admit you weren’t in the inner circle.”

Harlow leaned forward.

“There could be a lot you don’t know.”

“I was close enough to get most of the accounting. The real accounting, that is. I managed to hack into Hamilton’s right-hand man’s system.”

Jensen sat back like he was talking about the weather.

Okay, even he knew that was bad. Like not morally bad. Jensen was trying to close the organization down. But from Hamilton’s point of view, it was a damn fine reason to kill Jensen Wiley.

“Does he know?”

“Does Jack have it?”

Harlow asked.

A long huff came from Jensen’s chest.

“No, I did not give up my potential get-out-of-jail-card for free. I keep that information on a thumb drive and no one knows where it is. It’s secure, and once I talk to that lawyer you’ve mentioned and we cut a deal, I’ll hand it over. As to Hamilton knowing about it, I doubt it. I think the hit he put out on us was for helping Miranda leave.”

“We can’t know that,”

Harlow said with a whistle.

“What were you waiting for? If you turned that over, you could have been out. How long have you had those?”

Oh, they were in a dangerous place. He kind of wished Jensen had stayed sleeping. They were in a good space earlier tonight, and now Niall felt the ground shifting.

“I think he was trying to find a way to prove Hamilton killed his brother.”

Jensen was strangely quiet, almost preternaturally still.

“No, he wasn’t trying to prove that. He was trying to get close because justice was never enough for Jensen. Revenge was what he wanted. He wanted…wants to be the one to pull the trigger.”

Harlow was on her feet again, this time pacing as she spoke.

“Is the real reason you didn’t mention this because you want to see what the lawyer says or because you think there’s still a chance you can get back in?”

“Harlow, be quiet for a minute,”

Jensen said softly.

“No. I’m not going to be quiet.”

Her arms crossed under her breasts.

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? You want to go back. All of this has been one long play to soften me up so I talk to my cousin and see if you can get back to the Hamilton investigation because you were close, weren’t you?”

Jensen stood, a deep frown on his face.

“Niall, I think you should get Harlow inside.”

“You were going to do it.”

Harlow didn’t seem to care that Jensen had gone super serious. She was pissed and not giving an inch.

“You were going to walk right up to the man and pull the trigger and damn the consequences. You were going to kill him, and it didn’t matter that you had people who cared about you, people who would be devastated that you died. People who couldn’t stand the thought of living the rest of their lives without you.”

Niall gasped because that was the moment he saw Jensen’s hands go up and the red dot painted on his chest.

“Baby girl, I’m so happy you said that,”

a deep voice said, and Chase Dawson peeled from the shadows and placed a pistol to the base of Jensen’s head.

“Because that’s exactly how I feel about you, and I’m not going to let this two-bit asshole criminal cost you everything. Jack, I have him. You can come in. Jensen Wiley, I think you’re about to find out you’re under arrest.”

Niall stood and realized his best friend was about to get arrested by their future father-in-law.