Hal placed his hands on her shoulders from behind.
“No, you’re not her.” He then stared at Jake.
“I need to get back to work. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
“Is something going on? Did you talk to Alonso? Did he have an update?” she asked him. He looked at Hal.
“Not really. But just hearing all the details of their process and the fact that the Feds had Dipero and Duvall in their sights and didn’t arrest them, does make me a bit concerned.”
“What? Oh God, did he say where they were seen?” she asked as she shivered and looked around them. Hal pulled her against his chest.
“No. But probably not around here. Alonso will call me in the next few days. Don’t worry. It seemed to me that Alonso would give the heads-up immediately. I’ll see you a little later baby, okay?” He leaned down and kissed her. She allowed Hal to wrap his arms around her from behind as Jake got into his truck. As he left, he saw them head toward the beach, and he wondered if Hal would tell her about Lisa? Maybe that would be a good thing, and she could understand their fears just as she shared her fears with them.
* * * *
Michaela looked out toward the beach and the ocean. The sun was so bright it made both the sand and the water glisten. There were so many people enjoying the day. She had been living in Treasure Town for a couple of months or so now, and hadn’t even come down here to enjoy the beaches. Maybe this weekend, on Sunday she would.
She closed her eyes and breathed in the smells around her. The salt water, the smoke drifting from a small barbeque by the picnic area, roasted peanuts, buttery popcorn, and even some hot dogs being sold by vendors along the boardwalk. The food carts on wheels reminded her of Chicago and New York. But these carts were shiny stainless steel, and each had gorgeous, vibrant umbrellas in various colors.
“Don’t tell me this is your first time down here by the beach?” Hal asked, standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders. He was massaging her muscles, his wide, masculine body wedged against her smaller frame. She felt feminine and secure with Hal so close.
She placed her hand over the top of her eyes to block out the sun as she looked at him.
He squinted his blue eyes, which nearly matched the ocean water, at her, trying to hold her gaze against the rays of the sun. She turned in his arms and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“It’s not so condemnable. After all, I’m sharing the experience with you first.” She winked.
She felt his palm move slowly up her waist. It grazed the side of her sensitive breast before he placed it against her cheek.
“You’re sharing a lot of firsts with my brothers and me.”
She gasped and began to lower her eyes and head as her cheeks burned, but he held her cheek in place and leaned forward to kiss her.
When they parted lips, he squeezed her to him. “I love being with you.”
“I love being with you, too. I thought you had to work today.”
“Oh, I do. My shift begins in a few hours.”
She wanted to ask him about Lisa. She wondered if they showed up like this because they were insecure. She didn’t think it was possible considering how sexy, mature, and perfect he and his brothers were.
“You came out of nowhere and just when my brothers and I needed you, Michaela.” He stroked the frame of her face as if he were admiring every bit of her. It made her feel self-conscious, yet aroused.
“I could say the same for you, Billy and Jake. God, when I think about how Jake and I met.” She chuckled.
Hal got serious and gripped her hip snugger, drawing her closer against his body.
“That was a serious situation, and you could have been hurt or worse. Realizing what we do now, about your past, about getting shot, it’s surprising how you handled that guy in the sheriff’s department.”
She swallowed hard. “It had a lot to do with my frame of mind, my determination to never be a victim again, and well, Alonso’s help training me.”
“I’ll admit he did a good job and taught you some incredible moves. That kind of makes me feel jealous,” he confessed.
“Jealous?”
“He had to have touched you, held you in his arms to show you step by step what to do.”
She nibbled her bottom lip. “I’ll admit we spent a lot of time together, but we realized very quickly that we were meant to only be friends. I told you before. I never had a boyfriend, never dated, or even fooled around. My life revolved around work, getting to a point where I was more than financially stable, and then giving one last attempt to hold on to family. I could have lost it all. But I didn’t. Now I’m not going to say that hearing about this Lisa woman, or even thinking about all your past lovers, doesn’t burn me inside. But it is the past. You’re here with me now, and I think it shows that I’m willing to take a chance with you, Billy, and Jake.”
He smiled. “We may have had a lot of experience with women. Hell, I’m sure we have like eight to ten years on you, Michaela, but I can definitely see the difference here. With you, everything is different.”
She tilted her head at him in question. “Different how?”
“In every way.” He looked out over the beach and ocean. “I feel different when I wake up in the morning and all day long. I think of you constantly. I worry about you. I fear that we won’t be able to keep you happy, or that we might disappoint you. I worry about a lot of things because when we’re together it feels so right.”
She felt his sincerity, as well as the underline of fear he seemed to have.
She ran her palms up and down his chest over the shirt he wore.
“Hal, I may not have the experience you do, but I’ve learned the hard way that people shouldn’t be taken for granted. That every day is a gift, every moment someone touches your heart, shows compassion, or gives freely of themselves, that it’s a blessing and a gift. I don’t know what tomorrow may bring. I don’t know what next month, next year may bring my way, but right now, standing here with you, remembering how you, me, Billy, and Jake made love and spent so much time with one another, means everything. I don’t know what that woman did to the three of you to make you fearful that I could do the same thing.”
He started to talk and she cut him off.
“No, Hal. I’m not upset with you for comparing. I hope in doing so, you three will see that I’m not her. I’m me. I may come with baggage, I may even have that damn bull’s-eye on my forehead still, but I’m honest and I’m real. I just ask the same of the three of you. Honesty. Plain and simple.”
He reached up and stroked her lips with his thumb. He held her gaze and Michaela could see the struggle in Hal’s eyes.
“Billy, Jake, and I thought that Lisa was the one for us. She played the whole ménage thing well. It had been great for months.”
He told her and she felt her chest tighten. So maybe she didn’t need to hear about her. Maybe it was a bad idea to pretend to be so tough and understanding? She hadn’t expected the hurt, the pain in her belly just thinking about drop-dead gorgeous Hal, and sexy, sweet Billy, and macho, authoritative Jake sharing another woman. Not her.
She swallowed hard as he trailed his thumb very gently down her throat and across her collarbone. That pain of insecurity in her belly just turned to fire in her heart.
“What went wrong?” she asked, sounding breathless to her own ears.
He looked as if he were biting the inside of his cheek. He looked away, over her shoulder in the distance as he spoke. As if recalling it still hurt.
“She wanted more people in our bed.”
She felt her body jerk in response. “Excuse me?”
He looked back down at her, still holding her firmly, still caressing her throat, her collarbone so intimately and softly even though his eyes were filled with fury and pain.
“She wanted more people in our bed. She wanted a fucking orgy, not a real committed ménage. Lisa was high class, wealthy, a snob in many aspects. The more we got to see her true colors, the more we drifted apart.”
“What made you finally break things off?”
He stopped caressing her neck and stared at her as if he were uncertain he should tell her.
She reached up and laid her palm against his cheek.
“If you can’t tell me, I’ll understand. I mean if it hurts too much.”
He took a deep breath and released it. “At first, it was because she cheated on us with two other guys.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Stupid bitch.”
Hal blinked his eyes, shocked at her response, and she saw the small smile appear and disappear quickly.
He pulled her closer and kissed her forehead. She hugged him tight.
His lips moved over her neck to her ear.
“No one knows what else she did, Michaela. No one.”
She felt on edge. What more could this woman have done to them to make them feel such pain and to cut themselves off from any other relationship until now?
“Hal?” she whispered against his chest and shoulder. He held her closely. One hand was over her hip and ass and one flush against her lower back.
“She was pregnant with our baby. She didn’t tell us and then she aborted it.”
Michaela’s eyes filled up with tears. These men were noble men, good men, who would have cared for that baby even if they didn’t care for its mother. It was obvious that Lisa had issues. But to see how her decision had affected Hal, and more than likely Jake and Billy the same way, she felt terrible. She stood on tiptoes and hugged his neck as he ran his hands along her curves.