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Travis chuckled as he sat back in his chair. “You get right to the point, don’t you?”
“Last time your visit was so damned short I didn’t have a chance to ask so I figured I’d better get it out first thing.” He nodded at Phil when the bartender held up a beer glass and pointed at it. He was off duty for the rest of the night, and after the day he’d had, he was due a beer and some relaxation time with his oldest and closest friend.
Travis sipped from his beer bottle and then angled in his seat so he could speak face-to-face with him. “I’m here for at least a month, until after Thanksgiving. I’m considering taking early retirement. The leaders in Washington are incapable of enacting any meaningful legislation because they’re afraid of losing their political funding. I’m tired of playing the game and I’ve been in long enough I could get out with a good pension and find something closer to home to occupy my time.”
“That’s music to my ears, man.”
“I put out some feelers a couple of months ago and one of them offered an interview. It’s a corporate position as a private consultant, doing what I’m already doing, offering solutions for wildlife management and agricultural development. The bonus is that it involves educational programs. I’d love to get into a classroom setting teaching the next generation. I have a meeting in a couple of weeks. Until then, I’m here to relax. It’s impossible to get anything done where I’m at now and this position would give me a chance to make a difference.” Hank could clearly see the light in his eyes as he talked about it.
“So you’re in a holding pattern?”
“Until the meeting, yeah. I’ve heard that there are a number of qualified applicants and I’m not sure I want to live in California again. I miss Texas. I miss the Hill Country.”
Hank weighed his words before he spoke, torn between wanting the best for his closest friend and wanting to influence him to stay in Divine. “You remember a conversation we had years ago, before you transferred to Wyoming?”
Travis took another sip from his beer and his eyes took on a faraway look. “Sharing a woman? You’re appointed to your current position by the voters. Do you still think about it?”
Hank put down the beer glass and pointed at his temple, where more and more silver was crowding out his formerly jet-black hair. “I turned forty-four this year. There will come a point where I’ll be too old to compete with the younger guys coming up in the sheriff’s department. I don’t begrudge them their chance to make a difference in this community. I just don’t want to arrive at the end of my tenure as sheriff and realize that my years of service have cost me more than just a few silver hairs. Walking into a dark, quiet house at the end of shift has been getting to me. I wondered if you still felt the same way we did back then.”
The other dream—one he’d all but given up on—also because of his elected position, hovered in the back of his mind but didn’t fully surface. He didn’t know if Travis still enjoyed the same Dominant tendencies he did, but he’d content himself with having one dream come true. Hoping for both felt greedy.
What if we found our one and she was receptive to being dominated?
“If you’re asking after all this time, that must mean the thought of sharing a woman, loving the same woman, has been on your mind.”
“Frequently, yeah. Some things have changed since the last time you visited. Remember Jack Warner, Ethan Grant, and Adam Davis?”
A deep chuckle rumbled from Travis’s chest and he sat back in his seat. “They’re kind of where this dream started. How are they?”
A disquieting knot of emotion churned in Hank’s gut as he recalled the first time Jack, Ethan, and Adam had shared their secret dream of sharing a woman—not just for sexual pleasure but for a lifetime. He knew the emotion stirring in him wasn’t jealousy, but it still burned. Want. He wanted what they had with Grace. He longed for the peace he saw in Jack’s eyes when the subject of Grace came up.
“They found her.”
“They did?” Travis’s tone made it clear he was shocked. Hank thumbed through the pictures on his personal cell phone until he found the right one. He turned the phone so Travis could see it. “This was taken on Fourth of July. That’s Grace.”
