Vicious Carousel (Suncoast Society #25)(56)

This close to the trial date, all she wanted to do was get past it and then she could focus on her men and her life.

No denying it, her men were her life. In all the best possible ways. They hadn’t once begged or pleaded or ordered her to make up her mind. They focused on current plans, focused on her.

She just…

She needed that last bit of closure.

As she laid back down to try to go to sleep, she knew that even if the trial was delayed, that was still when she would tell her guys she wanted to move back in with them.

This time, for good.

If she couldn’t tell they were the right men for her in three months, she never would.

And as far as she was concerned, they were the only ones she wanted.





The next Saturday morning, June arrived promptly at five a.m. to pick up Betsy. Last night, the night before, the men had stayed until ten, when she’d finally, gently sent them home. June had made a point of asking her to spend this day with her, and Betsy didn’t want to tell her friend no when she suspected there was a deeper plan.

“You realize I wouldn’t be doing this for anyone but you, right?” Betsy asked after she locked the front door and got in the passenger side of June’s car.

“Not even Tilly?”

“Well, okay, maybe Tilly. And Eliza. And you know what I mean. It’s Saturday.” She’d brought a travel mug of coffee with her and sipped at it. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

“This better be good.”

“It will be.”

June had told her to dress appropriately yoga-ish, whatever that meant. That they would be outdoors.

As they headed south, Betsy started to get an inkling of where they were heading. When June turned onto Manasota Beach Road, Betsy knew.

“We’re going to Blind Pass Beach, aren’t we?”

“Sunrise tai chi. Then we’re taking a nature walk down at Stump Pass Beach park.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s there.”

“Why this early? We’re on Florida’s Gulf coast. How about sunset tai chi? There’s a great idea.”

“No bitching. You’re stalling. It’s been three months now since you moved out, and you’re terrified to make a decision.”

“Ah, Tilly sicced you on me.”

“Duh. Look, the trial is in a little over a week. Then, you’re free.”

“If he’s convicted. Everyone said he’d cop a plea by now.”

“And he still might. What’s the latest from Ed?”

“He gets back from vacation late tomorrow. He’d planned it before all this shit hit.”

“Your guys deserve an answer.”

Yes, they did. They usually spent at least two nights a week together overnight, and saw each other at least four or five nights a week. Sometimes more.

It wasn’t much different than living together, except on the nights they didn’t stay she sometimes rolled over into a cold, empty, lonely stretch of bed that would have felt much better had there been a Kenny-or Nolan-shaped mass laying there.

Except for the nightmares. Because of them, except for last night, they’d spent most every night with her over the past couple of weeks.

She always slept better with them than without them.

“I’m going to talk to them next week.”

“What if the trial gets delayed?”

Betsy shrugged. “No, next week. If I can’t tell that those two guys are the loves of my life and nothing like Jack in three months, I’ll never get it through my thick skull.”

“Hallelujah! Tilly will be so happy.” She pulled into the county park’s parking lot. They locked their purses in the trunk of the car, grabbed their yoga mats, and in the grey, pre-dawn twilight headed across the road with a few others toward the beach.





Kenny had been having a dream that Betsy had finally moved back in and the three of them were celebrating when some godawful, annoying alarm rousted him from what had been turning into a perfectly good wet dream.

“Answer your f*ckin’ phone,” Nolan griped.

Oh, yeah, that was his phone ringer. He finally fumbled around and grabbed it. “Hello?”

“Kenny? Is that you?” He didn’t immediately recognize the man’s voice.

“Who the hell is this?”

“It’s Ed Payne. Where’s Betsy? Is she with you?”

Cobwebs blasted out of his brain, between Ed’s tone of voice and the mention of Betsy’s name. “What’s going on? Do you know what time it is?”

“What’s going on?” Nolan mumbled. Kenny shoved him to shut him up and switched on the lamp on his side of the bed.

“I know it’s f*cking goddamned dark thirty here in motherf*cking Mexico,” Ed said. “But I haven’t been near Wi-f*cking-Fi to get a motherf*cking signal to check my voice mails in a couple of days until now. We just arrived at our f*cking hotel here from our trip out to the f*cking ruins last week. We’re here until tomorrow morning. I’m sweaty, I need a f*cking shower, I’m exhausted, and now I’m royally f*cking pissed off after getting this news. Now where. The f*ck. Is Betsy?”

That the attorney had just used more f-bombs in the past several seconds than Kenny had ever heard him use in the all the years he’d known him scared him shitless. “She’s at Kel’s apartment.”