Markham pinned Shelaine between them, their large cocks buried inside her, thrusting and withdrawing like independent living beasts all their own. Passion had turned her limp legs to jelly. She wanted nothing more than to lay there between them and hear them say, “Where did you want to go for breakfast…”
The slam of a door from a nearby room startled Gwen awake from her hot dream about Jonathan and Markham, her latest wolf shape-shifting heroes. She heard two men discussing nearby restaurant options as they walked away out of earshot.
Disoriented, she stared at the unfamiliar ceiling.
Where the fuck am I?
She groaned as she closed her eyes again. Rapid City. She fumbled for her BlackBerry and squinted at it. It read five fifteen a.m., but outside her window, she saw grey light creeping around the outsides of the generic hotel curtains. Was that five o’clock local time, or five o’clock home time?
She sat up and looked at the clock on the bedside table.
Local time.
She’d been so exhausted the night before that she’d just dumped her suitcase on the bed and not opened it. She unzipped it, pleasantly surprised to see Liam had also included the notebook, photo CDs, and a few of the brochures Amy had shipped.
She didn’t want to call yet, in case he wasn’t awake. She figured out the room’s tiny coffeemaker. While it brewed her a morning cup of wake-up, she crawled into the shower and stood under the hot water until she felt marginally human again.
Dressed and slightly caffeinated, she tried Amy’s phone first, even though she didn’t expect her sister to answer. It went straight to voice mail.
“Look, I don’t care why you’re not coming home, but please call me and talk to me, okay? Bye.” Gwen didn’t want to tell her she was here looking for her in Rapid City, in case Amy decided to hide.
Next call—Liam. He answered on the second ring. “Did you find the notebook in your bag?” he asked her.
“Thank you. I didn’t even think of packing that. Any problems with Mom?”
“Nope. She already called once. I told her to please not bother us today because we’re working on your website and I need to concentrate.”
“You think she will?”
“Hopefully at least until dinnertime. If she calls you, don’t take it. Call me first in case I’ve talked to her.”
“Roger.” She flipped through the notebook and looked at Amy’s notes. “Hold on.”
“What?”
She read. “Her notes about Mt. Rushmore. ‘We didn’t have any trouble hiking the trail down to the Sculptor’s Studio.’”
“‘We’? She wrote ‘we’?”
“Yeah.” She flipped through the pages. “Most of the time she refers to I or me, as if she’s alone. Here’s another ‘we’ talking about Wind Cave. It’s like she’s slipped and missed it. Most if it refers to her alone.”
“Any luck with the front desk?”
“No. Last night the clerk was a bitch and wouldn’t tell me anything. I’m going to try again this morning. Then I’m going to the police and see what I can find out. I doubt they’ll do anything yet.”
“I’m going to work on her credit cards more. There was a charge for a gas station three days ago in Rapid City, but no hotel charges. Or maybe she’s using her bank card. I don’t have the access code to get into that.”
“Just use the forgot password feature and log in to her mail again to retrieve it.”
“I don’t have her user ID code for the site or I would, believe me. I’d have to go home to Mom and Dad’s and toss her desk to find her files.”
“Ooh, that sounded very Magnum, P.I. -ish.”
Liam faked a snooty British accent. “Zeus, Apollo, sic balls.”
Gwen giggled. Living with Liam would be fun. If it hadn’t been for her parents, she would have gladly offered to move in to take care of him, except she’d been in the middle of divorcing Dickweed.
Not to mention she refused to live with her parents. “When I find her, do you want to hold her down while I
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