Guardian Girl (The Chronicles of Staffordshire) Read online

  “Rory… Please… If it would help, why don’t you tell us a little about her. What was Alicia like?”

  The guest lifted his tear-soaked face and smiled. “Oh… You should have seen her, Lena! When we were in college, no other man could get close to her. She was so beautiful and so full of life! Alicia had freckles that just made you want to smile every time you looked at her and sandy blond hair that lightened in the summer sun. When she smiled I melted. When she held me…” Rory paused and took a sip of wine. “I didn't think I could ever again feel something like that…”

  Rory stopped. He glanced up from his wine to seek Lenore’s eyes. Lena caught the look. Rory was falling hard for Lenore, eternally enslaved by the freaky super-attorney’s heart. It was in his body language, his ease with Lenore, the deferential, besotted way he gazed into her eyes.

  Lena kept Rory talking. “So how did you two meet? How did you fall in love?”

  A smile swept across Rory’s face, wiping away every hint of heartbreak. “Rugby! I played for the school Rugby team and she was a cheerleader for the football team. One day we were out on the practice field and I chased a loose ball. I didn't pay attention to where I was going and I ran over her! But Allie didn’t cry or get upset. She just laughed! She looked up at me, gave me her hand, brushed off her uniform, and smiled at me. Her laugh… Oh God... The joy her laugh brought me!

  “That was it. From that moment on we were inseparable. By graduation… I seriously considered asking for her hand.” Rory looked up at his hostesses, darting his eyes back and forth, drawing them into his remembrances. “We both wanted to get married.”

  Knowing more than he could say, regretting more than the girls could imagine, Rory edited the story down to a palatable, thoughtfully digestible synopsis. “Then it was all over. In a flash. Gone.”

  Lenore glanced over at Lena and nodded, urging her to ask the next logical question. Lena sensed a twist in the play unfolding between the three fated friends. The next role was Lenore’s. Sizemore the broker. Lena the therapist. Lenore the savior.

  With a nod back, Lena urged Lenore to take the next step. The lawyer who could bring witnesses to tears with her nagging, humiliating lines of questioning stumbled through her curiosity.

  “Rory… I… I hope this does not hurt to talk about… If you would rather not…”

  “No, Lenore, this is good. This is very, very good. I haven’t talked about Allie with anyone else. It feels good to… To share her memory.”

  “Well… How did it end between you two? It sounds as if you two were made for each other, as if your love was real.”

  Rory evaded the appetizer of the “how” and instead focused on the entre of the “what.” “You know, Lenore, I never once stopped loving Alicia. Her spirit was always so giving and so alive! She stood to inherit astonishing wealth and I think in her heart of hearts she planned to simply give every penny of it away. I think Alicia would have lived on the streets if she thought her wealth could change even one person’s life for the better.

  “I always admired her for that. But I didn’t have that kind of character. I was so weak. I knew I wasn’t good enough for her. I knew that if I married her I was still too selfish and too wrapped up in my ambition to treat her with the love and care she deserved.”

  The light around Lena faded, her presence disappearing into the background of the room as Rory drowned in his new love’s eyes.

  “I’m so embarrassed, Lenore… I was such a selfish, childish boy with Allie. I knew that if I married Allie I would destroy her spirit. I knew that I would take all that joy and all that selflessness and I would crush her.”

  Masking his broiling conflict with a sip of port, Rory flashed to Alicia’s uncontrolled hysteria, the way she raced through the mansion in terror, scrambling to clothe herself after a twisted, virginity-swapping, innocence-stealing visit to the estate. In her haste, she had left her yellow sweater in the hallway just outside the playroom.

  “She… She left me.”

  Rory broke down, placing his glass on the table. He buried his face into his hands. “I’m so sorry, Allie… I’m so sorry, baby…”

  Lena mouthed to Lenore. “Now, Freaky.”

  Lenore stood, walked to Rory’s side, and knelt beside his chair. She pulled his head to her chest and ran her fingers through his hair, stroking and comforting.

  Lena pursued the most important question of all, the one that would cement or crush Lenore’s hopes for “The One.”

  “Rory… I don’t want to make this worse for you… But I have one more important question…”

  Lenore draped her arm around Rory’s neck and rested her head against his shoulder, preparing to have her heart shattered.

  “It’s okay, Lena. Please... Ask anything.”

  “I need to know… Lenore needs to know… Do you still love Alicia?”

  A smile instantly brightened Rory’s face. “God, Lena! I never stopped loving her! After we broke up I tried to convince myself that all I could ever do was 'like’ her. I think that was my way of letting myself off the hook for how badly I hurt her. But her smile… Her spirit… That smile has never left me. As I sit here and talk with you I realize that I never stopped loving her, not once, not even now.”

  Rory caressed Lenore’s face and delivered words she longed to hear. “I can’t imagine how a person can just turn off genuine love, no matter the circumstance. I know sometimes good people part for good reasons, but… For me… Once loved, always loved.”

  Glowing at Rory’s words, Lenore’s apprehension crumbled. Her fear of abandoning Lena lifted.

  “I think it’s possible to have a heart big enough to love more than one person. There are many people I love deeply and… I think I would even give my life for if necessary. But… I think it’s impossible to love more than one person at a time… ‘More than life itself’… If that makes any sense.

  “When I think about Alicia, I can’t throw away how I feel about her. Every time I think about her, I miss her so much. But I also know…” Rory glanced at the top of Lenore’s head. “…I think I was fated to love another woman… 'Till death do us part’.”

  Rory looked back to Lena, pleading for reassurance that his strange, contorted understanding of love was not abnormal or sick. “Does any of that make sense? Does any of that make me sound… Messed up?”

  Weeping against Rory’s shoulder, all Lenore could muster was a nod. Rory misunderstood.

  “Lenore! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you! I’m so sorry!”

  Lenore took her free hand and pressed her fingertips to Rory’s lips. “Rory, if you did not confess that you still loved Alicia I would think you were some kind of a heartless monster. It says so much about you that you are able to confess your love for Alicia and fondly share her memory with us.” Lenore invoked her caress of Rory’s face at the party, stroking his cheek with her fingertips. “I am not crying because you hurt me, my love. You did not hurt me. You freed me!”

  Across the room, Lena hid her sadness behind the class clown’s smile, relieved and distraught, knowing that with his confession of love for another woman, Rory freed Lenore to leave her beautiful Wild Child a step behind.

  Hetero Lena wanted a man and got Lenore instead.

  Lesbo Lenore got Lena and the man Lena always wanted.

  No way to throw the fucking GPA this time.

  “Rory, dear, what I think Lenore is trying to say in her freaky supermodel way is… she’s in love with you.”

  Rory stared at Lenore, waking to his inevitable union with the sexy señorita, perplexed at the breakneck pace of love’s blossom. “But… How? How can Lenore love me that much? She doesn’t even know me!”

  Lenore clung more tightly to Rory, pressing her face into his shoulder and crying. Rory clutched her head and stroked her hair.

  Lena inhaled deeply, preparing to clue in the billionaire to the weird, wacky world of Lenore Consuela Maria De La Fuente. “Oh brother, Rory. You have no idea the c
an of worms you opened by coming here. Lenore, are you ready for ‘The One' to hear ‘The catch’?”

  Lenore nodded, crying freely, fearing Rory’s reaction to the news of her long-time relationship with…

  “If there is one thing I know about my roomie, Rory, it’s that once she thinks she’s had a premonition she latches onto it without thinking twice. Once, not long after we first met, she told me a totally insane story about two college roommates and how their lives would stay all wrapped up together until Prince Charming came and whisked one of them away.”

  Dumbfounded, Rory glanced at Lenore, her face shielded in his arms, and then back to Lena. He mouthed the question, incredulous.

  “Me?”

  Lena nodded and confirmed. “Yes, dearie. You. But there’s something you need to know before Lenore lets her heart run away with her sexy Spanish head. I need to tell you something that might scare you off. And I'm really sorry to lay this on you! You didn’t come here tonight to hear about our problems. You came here tonight to have us take a little off your shoulders…”

  Rory lifted his hand. “Lena! Wait! You have helped me! You both helped me talk about something I haven’t been able to talk about for years! I withheld that peace from myself for too long. So, please… Don’t make apologies! I haven’t felt this open and free to talk about what’s on my heart in many, many years! I don’t know why it happened this way or what you two have done to me to make me feel so at ease, but… It’s...” He scanned the women, the copy-master at a loss for a way to explain a surreal, all-consuming sense of peace in the presence of sexy strangers. “…It’s really magical in this place! So, please Lena… Just tell me what’s on your heart.”

  Squirming in her seat, Lena considered the risk of sharing the unwashed essence of the women’s relationship. But the pair had a pact. If a man was going to steal one of their hearts, he had to agree to “The Catch” or he didn’t get to steal.

  The girls came as a matched set. Winner take all or winner take nothing.

  “Rory… Oh brother! I don’t even believe this myself sometimes.”

  “What? What’s wrong, Lena?”

  For the first time since the coffee incident, the powerhouse attorney in Rory’s arms was a worthless mess of confused, conflicted emotions. Lena knew she was on her own.

  Rory reached around and urged Lenore to join him in the chair, leading her to climb up, curl up, and let him surround her with his arms. She hid her face in Rory’s chest, afraid that Lena’s confession would drive away “The One,” the man she saw in her dream so many years earlier.

  “Lenore… Oh wow! I don’t know if I can do this!”

  Lenore lifted her head and shot Lena a brutal, eye-squinting stare, immediately returning her face to Rory’s chest.

  “Okaaaaay. I suppose I can do this. Oh my God. Rory… Uh… Wow... Oh boy… How do I put this…?”

  Rory held up a finger. “Perhaps I can help. How about something like this… ‘Rory, Lenore and I are lovers.’ Am I close?”

  Lenore’s head shot up, coming to a stop inches from Rory’s eyes. She turned and looked at Lena, who shrugged and grinned. Lenore swiveled back to Rory, relieved and a touch irritated.

  “RORY ST. CLOUD! HOW DID YOU KNOW?”

  Rory laughed hard and offered a classically “Wild Child” reply. “Are you kidding me? Where do I begin? Okay… Let’s see…

  “Well… First, I walked into a two-story loft shared by two super-hot, internationally famous women and I saw just one bedroom. Okay, that’s a clue. But how about this? I looked into said bedroom and I saw a single bed. Oh yes… and then there’s the whole ‘walking around the apartment like it's our own private nudist colony’ bit. OH… And to top it off, you two should have heard what it sounded like out here after you pursued Lena into the bedroom. It sounded like two horny superheroes throwing each other around in there. The moaning and groaning and crashing and pounding… Dear God!

  “By the way… Just how much furniture did you two break?”

  The girls shrugged, mortified at their antics.

  “Oh… And one more ‘by the way’…” Rory air-quoted.

  “Which one of you tackled the other one to the floor?”

  Lenore sheepishly raised her hand.

  “I suspect you’ll hear from the landlord in the morning.”

  Lena found the whole thing rather humorous. “Oh dear, Lenore. Our secret is out!”

  Lenore, not so much. “Oh Rory, I am so humiliated! You must think we are sick, sexual deviants! I did not bring you here to expose you to this! I just wanted you to meet my friend Lena so we could help you feel better!”

  “’Friend’? Is that what you call her? Lenore, I have a feeling that’s a whopper of an understatement. How long have you two been lovers?”

  In all their years together – four years at Paulson, three at Harvard, a year and a half in practice - nobody ever successfully put the two women in the same, sexually-charged bed. Oh, there were rumors, but never any proof.

  Sheepishly, Lena held up 7 fingers.

  “SEVEN YEARS? You two? Two of the most recognizable women on the planet? Seven years? Wow! And you managed to keep it out of the press? Amazing! How did you do it?”

  Lenore’s sobbing eased and she let her face rest on Rory’s chest. She smiled at Lena with adoring eyes. Lena shared the details.

  “Well, it wasn’t all that hard, actually. I mean, we never really ‘made love’ at Paulson. It was mostly just making out. We slept together all the time in pajamas, but we never really broke any furniture in the dorm. But at law school… Well… Lenore couldn’t control herself any longer. She went all sexy on me one night, seduced me, and then… Well… Have you ever seen me throw a tantrum on the court?”

  Rory nodded.

  “Imagine how that translates to the bedroom. Once we started heating things up at Harvard the furniture started snapping like twigs. We had to buy the entire building as an investment property just so we could keep the next floor down clear of anyone who might report us to the building super.”

  Rory looked down at Lenore and she looked up with chagrin. She shrugged and pointed at Lena. “Well, look at her Rory! You saw what she looks like when she’s naked! How could I be expected to resist… Well… THAT?”

  The three shared a laugh, the tension finally cut, their secret out and into the hands of the billionaire his own closet full of secrets.

  “But… Wait a minute. Lena… Lenore… Now I'm really confused! You two are… Are lovers… But… You sound like you’re… Are you two happy that I’m falling in love with Lenore?”

  “Relieved is more like it, Rory. Oy! The bruises I have all over my body because of that freaky supermodel…”

  Lenore stood and took Rory’s hands. “Excuse me, dear. I think I can take it from here…”

  Twenty Three

  Lenore led Rory to the couch and directed him to settle snuggly between the two sexpots. With a wink and a nod between them, Lena and Lenore wrapped their arms and legs around their featured guest. Lena unbuttoned Rory’s shirt and Lenore breathed into his ear.

  “Rory, dear, do you remember what you said about loving more than one person at a time?”

  “Yes… but…”

  Lena licked his other ear.

  “Ohhhh… God…!” Rory moaned.

  “You see, Rory, you get to fall in love with me and Lena will come along as a sort of… I don’t know… what would you call it, dear?”

  Running her fingers across Rory’s chest, Lena offered a politic answer. “Hmmm… Why don’t you just… Consider me… The ‘Fringe Benefit plan’!”

  Rory howled, then moaned. Lenore grabbed his cock in the middle of his laughter.

  Rory assessed Lena, peering through the fog of foreplay. “Are you really okay with this, Lena? Are you going to be okay if I take Lenore away from you? If someone stole my lover like this I would be devastated. Actually… I'd probably have them killed!”

  “The answer to th
at, Rory, depends on how you answer one little question.” Light-hearted Lena vanished, replaced by Lenore’s sworn protector. She locked on Rory’s eyes and turned deadly serious. “Rory St. Cloud… Are you really, truly prepared to love my Freaky Baby as much as I love her?”

  Rory looked briefly into Lenore’s hopeful eyes and then looked back at Lena. “I don’t understand how a man could fall so hopelessly in love with a woman he never met before, but… Yes, Lena. I feel my heart coming alive inside Lenore.”

  “Then the answer, Rory, is ‘yes.’ You have my permission to take Lenore. There is, however, one, teeeeeny, weeny little stipulation.”

  “What kind of stipulation?”

  “Well, Lenore… Since he’s your, ‘The One,' perhaps you ought to fill him in on,” Lena air-quoted, “’The Catch’.”

  Lenore struggled. “Uhm… Rory… Well… We have often talked about this... Lena and I. You see… Lena and I… We are so in love with each other. And we will be in love forever. And we never really believed either of us would ever fall in love with a man the way we love each other. We always talked about it, but... We never really imagined it would happen. So…”

  Lenore finger-walked her way across Rory’s chest and stuck her index finger into his mouth. He sucked.

  “…We... We came to an agreement. And it is such a tiny little thing, really. And I am certain you will not mind. And we promise to make it pleasurable for you. You see… Lena and I agreed that… Well... If a man won either of our hearts… He would only be allowed to take one of us away if he also agreed to love and care for our sister until she found a man of her own.”

  Dumbstruck, Rory scanned back and forth between the Siamese sexpots. “OH MY GOD! Are you telling me… If I take you, Lenore, I have to… Dear God... I have to keep Lena happy, too?”