Siren in Waiting

Chapter One

Trevor McNamara looked around the office. It was a pristinely kept work space. It was neat and pin perfect, like the man who sat behind the opulent desk—a man Trev was sure had to be joking. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

The general manager of the San Antonio Bandits leaned forward. There was a slightly sympathetic look on Curt Goff’s face as he steepled his hands together. “You’re fired, Trevor.”

“You can’t fire me.” Trev said the words, but his brain was still trying to process those two words that threatened to end his football career.

The words didn’t end your career, idiot. You did that when you started in on the coke. The booze wasn’t enough, was it? You just had to go for more.

“I think you’ll find I can. In your contract, there’s a clause that states plainly if you flunk three drug tests in a row, I can fire you.”

Trev’s head pounded. How had he flunked the last drug test? He’d paid the tech off to switch the results. Panic threatened to swamp him. He couldn’t get fired. He had bills to pay. Lots of fucking bills. “I’ll call my union rep.”

Curt Goff nodded as though this move of Trev’s had been anticipated and potentially already blocked. Once upon a time, Goff had been the San Antonio Bandits’ quarterback, but he’d retired a few years back and now ran the front office. He was known as a shark. “I assumed as much. I think you’ll find the contract is ironclad. It’s possible that the union will sue, but I intend to hold the line. I won’t settle. I’ve talked to Frank, and we’ve decided that we’ll spend what it takes in order to enforce your contract.”

His stomach turned over a couple of times, and Trev wondered if the contents of his last meal weren’t about to come back up. Frank Boyle was the owner of the team. He owed Trev ten million dollars on the last year of his contract. A protracted legal fight could cost Frank much more. Why would he do that? How could this be happening?

“It’s happening because you can’t control yourself, Trevor.” Curt’s eyes pinned him.

Damn, he was far gone. He hadn’t even realized he’d said the words out loud.

“I’m going to call my agent.” Trev pulled out his phone. He glanced down. Fifteen messages. He hadn’t heard them. “You’re going to have to deal with my agent. He won’t put up with this shit. You can’t treat me this way.”

Curt’s face hardened. Trev had heard rumors about the man. He was into some strange shit. Supposedly he tied up his wife and spanked her on a regular basis. Of course, there were other rumors about his perpetual houseguests. Two of the veterans on the team lived at Curt and Tess Goff’s multimillion dollar compound and had for years. Pervert.

“I think you’re going to find out that your agent quit after this morning’s headlines.” Curt’s words fell in the silence with all the subtlety of a buzz saw.

Bile crept into Trev’s throat. Headlines? He didn’t remember much about the night before. He’d gone out with some friends. Friends. He didn’t have friends. He had people who hung around because Trev paid for shit. Trev had woken up in bed next to some bleach blonde with fake tits this morning. He didn’t remember her name. She could definitely be a stripper. Shit. What had he done?

He hadn’t gotten arrested. He would remember that. Fuck, when had he started to think a night when he didn’t get caught was a win? “Bullshit. Marty wouldn’t dump me.”

“No. Not bullshit. Marty has moved on to greener pastures. I informed him this morning that we would be using the clause in your contract to release you. The papers are running a story today on your night at the strip club. They have pictures of you doing lines of cocaine off strippers’ bodies. It’s not the image this club wants or needs. You tested positive for cocaine and marijuana. We didn’t run a test for alcohol, or you might have broken the equipment. Can you honestly tell me you’re not drunk right now?”

He’d only had a couple. Or three. It was the only way to deal with the hangover. It didn’t matter. He hadn’t driven himself anyway. He had a driver. Yeah, he wasn’t going to be able to pay the driver anymore. “I’ll go to rehab. I can be out in three weeks and ready for the season.”

He hated the whine in his voice. He hated rehab. It didn’t work. He’d be fine for a week or two, and then the need for a drink would call to him again. The pressure would build, and he would just have to have that first drink. It never ended with one. It ended in bottles, and when the alcohol stopped working, he moved on to the harder stuff. Just last night, he’d thought about sticking a needle in his arm just to see how high he could get.

God, he was going to kill himself.

“You’ve been three times, and it hasn’t worked. I don’t think conventional rehab works on someone like you.” Curt’s voice had softened slightly.

He didn’t have any money. He’d spent it all on the house, the cars, and the parties. The drugs. He’d spent so much on drugs. He owed more than he had. How had it all gone to shit?

“Trev, I have an offer to make you. You know my wife is a therapist, right?”

Curt’s wife was a pretty blonde named Tess. She’d run a few team-building exercises in the three years Trev had played for the Bandits. She was some sort of best-selling author. He remembered how Curt’s eyes had lit up when she walked in and started talking. Of course, Mike Cabrerra’s and Kevin Best’s eyes had lit up, too. How did that work?

Trev had never looked at a woman the way those three men looked at Tess. What would it feel like to love a woman so much he was willing to share her?

“Yeah. You think she can fix me?” He laughed as he asked the question.

Trev doubted it. A strange sense of fatalism fell over him. It was done. His career was over, and now he could find a bottle and never stop. It was where he’d been headed since that first beer. He’d been on a path, and now he could follow it without the pesky frustrations of having a career. He could focus on what was important. Liquor had always been more important than football or family or any girl. His so-called friends would just put beer after beer in his hands. In college he’d discovered whiskey. When he’d gotten to the pros, he’d found even harder stuff.

For some strange reason, he remembered an old friend from high school named Bo O’Malley. Bo had been a freshman when Trev was a senior. Bo had been a scrawny kid at the time. Bo had tried so hard to make the football team that Trev had taken the kid under his wing. For a brief period of time, he’d felt like someone needed him for something other than his throwing arm. Trev remembered Bo was funny, and when he’d hung out with Bo, he hadn’t felt the need to drink.

He’d dumped Bo when he went off to college. Trev hadn’t needed a puppy-like high school kid hanging around no matter how much he behaved like a brother.

Trev hoped Bo was doing better than he was.

Curt’s voice drew Trev back to reality. “She doesn’t do this type of work, but she’s come up with a plan. You might think it’s a bit radical. Here’s the deal. I hired a psychologist. He’s worked with men with impulse-control issues. He works in a very odd place, though. It’s a BDSM club.”

Trev threw back his head and laughed. “That is a brilliant plan. Put the addict in a club.”

Curt’s expression could have been cut from granite. “I assure you, you won’t be allowed to drink in this club. The owner has agreed to take you under his wing and teach you a thing or two about control. His methods are far from standard, but I believe they will work for you.”

“I’m not going to go to some club and let some asshole I don’t know talk me to death.” There was no way. He was going to fight this. Marty hadn’t really dropped him. There was still time. His QB rating had tanked toward the end of last year, but he was still young. Everyone needed a quarterback.

“If you go and remain sober for three years, you will receive the rest of your contract.”

Trev felt his eyes widen. Ten million dollars. Just for staying sober. Hell, Trev probably couldn’t do it for all the money in the world.

Something inside him was broken. He was deeply flawed. He wasn’t sure how or why it had happened. His father had loved him. He’d died far too young, but Paul McNamara had loved his family. His mother and sister had loved him. He was the problem.

“Why the hell would you do that for me?” Trev asked, the words heavy in his mouth. He was tired. A weariness invaded his bones making him feel so much older than his twenty-six years. He was twenty-six, and his career was over. He was over.

“I believe in second chances, Trev.” Curt leaned forward, his hands on his desk. “Or, in your case, third or fourth chances. You had enormous talent. You couldn’t handle all the crap that went with it. It doesn’t have to mean your life is over. It simply means this isn’t the life for you.”

He was an idiot. That was what Curt Goff was saying. And Trev knew it. He was a dumb-ass. The only things he’d ever been good at were football and working a herd. His father’s herd was gone now because Trev had gone off to play football and left his mom and sister with no one to work the ranch. It had been sold off to some organic ranch co-op. There was nothing to go back to. He wanted to call his sister, but he couldn’t tell her how badly he’d fucked up.

The papers would do that job for him. Trev let his head fall to his hand.

“If you say yes, you can be in Dallas tonight, beginning your treatment. You would have to stay for at least a year.”

Trev’s head came up. “A year?”

“I believe I mentioned this isn’t standard treatment.” Curt pressed a button on his desk. “You need to make a decision. This offer is only available for the next five minutes. If you don’t accept it, you’re on your own.”

Anger threatened to shove aside the panic. “You have no right to do this to me.”

“If I give you time to think about it, you’ll come up with a million ways out. I’m closing off all the exits. You can fix yourself, or you’ll have nothing. You’ll walk out of here and lose your house, your cars, all those fancy clothes. You’ll find solace in a bottle. You’ll drink all you can, and when that stops working, you’ll do whatever it takes to find that oblivion you seek. You’ll sell whatever you have left, including yourself. You’ll drink it, snort it, and when that doesn’t work, you’ll inject it. You’ll do it until one day you don’t wake up.”

Trev could see it. The rest of his life was laid out in a neat pattern. He would do everything Curt said. He would use until he died. He would try to find that place where nothing mattered and no one cared.

He was going to kill himself. He was going to waste everything he’d been given, and he would never even know what it meant to really give a damn.

What the hell did he want?

“I’ll do it.” The words came out of his mouth, but they felt foreign.

“See, that’s what I wanted to hear.” A new voice spoke from the corner of the room. Trev turned and saw what he hadn’t seen before. A man stood in the corner. He was roughly six foot four with dark hair that hit his shoulders. Despite his long, slightly curly hair, the man had a military bent that couldn’t be denied.

“Who the fuck is that?”

Curt smiled and held out his hand. “Meet Leo Meyer. He’s the man who’s going to fix you.”

Leo Meyer nodded toward the door. “So, you ready to go? It’s a long way to Dallas.”

What did he really have to pack? Some clothes? He would have to sell the house and everything in it. None of it mattered.

“I can go now.”

Trev stood and walked toward a man he didn’t know but hoped would show him the way home.

He didn’t have anywhere else to go.

Bo O’Malley felt the smile come over his face as Mouse walked into the tiny church. She wore a gray skirt and white blouse. Both were a little too big for her. Her brown hair was pulled back in an old-lady bun, but she was still the sweetest sight he’d seen all day. It meant he wasn’t alone.

No one else had shown up. Bastards.

“Mouse.” He felt himself relax for the first time all morning. He never had to pretend with her. Of all the people he’d known in his life, Mouse Hobbes was the one who had accepted him with a whole heart. Her father stood beside her, leaning heavily on his cane.

She smiled shyly, but then everything she did had a shy quality to it. “Hi. We’re not late, are we?”

Only Mouse would ask that question when it was blatantly obvious the church was almost empty. Besides Lexi’s family and a few friends—including a scary, dark-haired dude in a suit who reminded Bo of a mobster—there was no one in the church. Certainly no one from here in Deer Run. Even the pastor had been imported from Dallas. Bo had heard the only way they had gotten the church was Jack Barnes’s generous contribution.

He reached out and took her hand. Mouse’s hand wasn’t as soft as the hands of some of the women he’d dated. Mouse worked hard. Strange then that he’d always liked holding hers. Mouse was the sister he’d never had.

Except that sometimes he thought about doing things to Mouse that he wouldn’t do to a sister.

“No. You’re right on time. Lexi is almost ready.” Bo turned and greeted George Hobbes. He looked frail but dapper in his suit. The suit had probably been in his closet since the seventies. George Hobbes was what people in Deer Run called an individual. It was not necessarily a compliment. “Thanks so much for coming out, George.”

George Hobbes held out his slender hand and shook Bo’s. “Anything for you, son. You always watch out for my girl.”

Bo lightly gripped the hand in his. George was under a few mistaken impressions. He believed that Bo was dating Mouse. Bo wasn’t going to correct him. Bo and Mouse had been friends since their junior year of high school when she had gotten him through chemistry. And algebra. And English. He had a high school diploma because Mouse hadn’t let him fail. He’d had a deep affection for her ever since.

And besides, George Hobbes was dying. The cancer was slowly eating away at his health, and it was only a matter of time. If believing Bo would take care of his daughter made that easier on him, then Bo wasn’t about to take that away.

“Did you manage to get your father here on your handlebars?” Bo grinned as he asked the question. Mouse wasn’t big on driving. She had a license, but she greatly preferred her bicycle.

Mouse’s face scrunched up at his teasing. “I can drive, Bo. I just do it slowly.”

“Hello, Bethany, Mr. Hobbes.” Aidan walked up looking very tidy in his monkey suit. Bo hated his, but Aidan seemed to like wearing a suit all right. He and Lucas were dressed almost identically. “It’s so nice of you to come.”

“We wouldn’t miss it. I’ve come to really like your Lexi,” Mouse replied.

In the months since Lexi and Lucas had come to live at the O’Malley ranch, Mouse had gotten fairly close to Lexi. Bo was grateful for their budding friendship. Mouse had offered to help Lexi by reading some of the stories she wrote. The two had bonded over their love of romance novels. Without Mouse, Lexi would probably feel alone.

Deer Run was a small town, and they didn’t take well to outsiders—especially outsiders who lived openly in a polyamorous relationship.

“She likes you, too.” Aidan smiled warmly at her. “We were going to do this in Vegas, but my mother-in-law wouldn’t hear of it. And don’t try telling Abigail Barnes what she can’t do. I tried to explain that it would be difficult to get married in Deer Run. Abby just sicced Jack on everyone, and presto, here we are getting married.”

“And just how does this work, Aidan?” George asked.

Coming from anyone else, the question might have sounded judgmental. From Professor Hobbes’s mouth, it was a mere curiosity. Aidan didn’t even blink.

“Lexi is going to be formally married to my partner, Lucas. Lucas has already changed his name legally to O’Malley. Lexi won’t be married to me in the eyes of the law, but our hearts are a different matter.”

George smiled warmly. “That sounds very nice, Aidan. I’m happy for all three of you. Beth, dear, I believe I should find a seat.”

Mouse took her father’s hand and led him down the aisle to find a place to sit.

Aidan frowned at Bo. “When are you going to let that girl go?”

“Mouse?” Bo asked. “She’s my friend. Why should I let her go?”

He actually couldn’t imagine his life without Mouse. Mouse was always there. Mouse was the one person he could count on.

“Because that girl is in love with you. And her name is Bethany. Why you insist on calling her by that ridiculous, demeaning nickname, I have no idea. She’s a nice girl. She’s smart and kind. She deserves some respect.”

“Hell, Aidan. I like the hell out of Mouse. I don’t mean any disrespect. It’s just what everyone in our class has called her since first grade.”

She’d been as quiet as a mouse, and the name had stuck. Bo didn’t mean it as an insult. It was just who she was. He’d known her most of his life, couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t. She’d always been there, in the back of the room, a quiet presence he could count on.

“Do you understand what she is, Bo?” Aidan asked, his face taking on that serious look he got when he was just about to launch into a fatherly lecture.

Bo sighed. They’d been over this before. “She’s not a submissive. I don’t believe in that bullshit, Aidan. I’m fine with whatever you, Lucas, and Lexi want to do in the bedroom, but don’t treat it like it’s a religion or something. Mouse doesn’t want a man who chains her up and spanks her ass.”

“Have you asked her?” Lucas asked, walking up. Lucas was a mystery to Bo. He liked the man, but Lucas had a perpetual amusement with the world that Bo just didn’t understand.

“Hell, no, I haven’t asked her,” Bo shot back at his almost brother-in-law, partner-in-law. Hell, Bo didn’t know what to call Lucas. It was all a mess, but it seemed to work for them. Not for Bo. He wasn’t getting involved in any of that kinky stuff. “And I’m not going to. As far as I can tell Mouse isn’t into anything physical, and I’m fine with it staying that way.”

Lucas wouldn’t be swayed. “I wasn’t merely talking about her sexuality, though I bet it’s in there. She would likely be just as submissive in bed as she is in her life.”

They had been over this argument numerous times, and Bo was starting to get annoyed. “I told you, Mouse isn’t submissive. She’s just real nice.”

“And you’re taking advantage of that,” Aidan insisted. “If her father weren’t sick, I would seriously consider sending her back to Dallas with Julian. She needs a Dom. You can’t be that for her. You need to encourage her to go to Dallas when she can.”

Bo felt the sudden need to punch his brother in the face. “I will not allow her to go.”

Lucas stepped between them. Despite the fact that Bo had healed the breach with his brother months before, they were still brothers. They still fought on a regular basis.

“How about we shelve this fight until after we get married?” Lucas straightened Aidan’s tie. “I believe our bride is ready.”

A smile crossed Aidan’s face as his hand found the back of Lucas’s neck. Bo had never seen anyone smile the way Aidan did when Lucas and Lexi entered a room. He might not understand what those three had found, but damn, he envied it sometimes. Bo didn’t even look away when his brother leaned in and kissed Lucas.

He was getting used to it. The town of Deer Run, however, was not. A wedding was a big event in a small town, but everyone was ignoring this one. All they’d been able to talk about this morning at Patty Cake’s was the news headlines about Trevor McNamara. The former golden boy of Deer Run had gotten his ass in trouble again. This time with a bunch of strippers and cocaine. Bo tried not to think about how much he’d liked the man at one time. At one time, he’d been Bo’s mentor.

“Let’s go get our girl,” Aidan said to his partner. He turned to Bo, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’m really glad you’re here. I know this makes it hard for you in town.”

It did. His buddies gave him shit about it all the time. When Bo settled down, he was going to find a woman who really fit into this town. He loved his brother, but he didn’t want to be an outcast. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else. Now you go and get married.”

Bo was supposed to sit up front with the family, but the truth was Lexi’s family scared him. He felt way more comfortable with Mouse and her dad.

When her hand found his, he let his fingers curl around hers. His whole body relaxed, and he could breathe again. That was what Mouse always offered him.

And she wasn’t going anywhere. She was going to stay right here in Deer Run. And just maybe, when he was ready to settle down, if he hadn’t found anyone else, maybe he would talk to Mouse about getting married. That thought brought a little smile to his lips.

“What’s so funny?” Mouse asked.

“Nothing,” Bo replied, taking her hand more firmly in his own. “I just had a silly thought.”

Except when Lexi walked down the aisle, he couldn’t help but wonder how Mouse would look in a white dress.

Nope. She wasn’t going anywhere.

There wasn’t anywhere else to go.