“Thank you,” she said stiffly, even though she knew that he was making fun of her. “I do try.”
“So how about we carry on with the cool professional approach for tonight, ‘cause it’s your paycheck and I get that, and we save the flirtin’ for another time? That time when we go for coffee and you ain’t doin’ any of the pourin’.”
“I’m sorry. The policy is no flirting or dating guests.”
“For real?”
“Really for real.” She looked over his shoulder and was nothing but thrilled to see Doreen standing there staring at her and tapping her wrist. Time to shut this down. “My boss is calling me over now, so I’ve got to go.”
“Sure,” he said and she heard his disappointment, but who cared really? Last time she checked, she was under no goddamn obligation to say yes to every single invitation she received.
Even if the person inviting her was hands-down and no doubt the most gorgeous man that she’d ever laid eyes on.
Not even then.
Chapter 3
Three hours later, Trish walked to her car. It was way the hell out by the last cabin because the wedding guests had parking priority closest to the reception hall, and that was fair enough. After all, they were the ones walking in teetering high heels and a bit tipsy, so Trish and her sober, sensible footwear was perfectly capable of hoofing it into the wilds of Open Skies.
She sighed a bit and searched through her cheap purse for her keys. It had been, on the whole, a pretty eventful night and she was glad that it was over. Well, over for her: the reception party was raging on but Trish had been there six hours before things began, helping in the kitchen and setting up the tables, so her shift was over. On the whole, she preferred the ‘front’ shift of getting things ready and not the ‘back shift’ of cleaning up and washing dishes, just for the mess factor – but the staff traded off so next wedding, she’d be starting an hour before the guests trooped into the hall for food and drink and working long after they left.
Trish paused and looked around the open fields again, gazed up at the Rockies, admired the shining, perfect stars set in a sprawling blanket of pure darkness. It was early autumn and the slight chill in the air was refreshing as opposed to biting; earlier as she’d walked over to the restaurant, she’d stared up the mountains at the blazing colors of the leaves. The riot of reds, oranges, yellows and golds had taken her breath away and made her think, once more, that maybe she wasn’t as much of a city girl as she thought she was.
She felt at peace here in this moment and as a woman who hadn’t known much peace in her life – and known basically none lately – it felt good to enjoy just being alive and surrounded by beauty.
“Well, hey there bitch.”
The voice behind her was sickeningly familiar and Trish’s stomach lurched, twisted and then plunged straight to the ground by her feet. Before she even turned, she knew exactly who was standing there… and she was already afraid.
The drunk guy stepped out from behind the cabin and approached slowly. Trish had been pleasantly surprised when he’d returned from their little confrontation, apologized and then behaved himself at the reception. She’d released a relieved breath and assumed that maybe he’d had a few too many, gotten mouthy and cocky and shifted straight into ‘let’s disrespect the ex-porn chick’ mode. She didn’t think that he was a nice guy, even sober, but maybe the alcohol had given him the liquid courage to be more rude or threatening than he’d normally be.
She’d been wrong, she saw now. He hadn’t meant a word of his apology and he hadn’t backed down – he’d been biding his time.
“Get away from me,” she said, wishing that her voice was stronger, rummaging in her purse for her pepper spray while trying not to alert him to her movements. “Stop right there.”
“I like you better as a redhead,” he sneered, still walking towards her. “Fucking Thalia Flame is now a blonde, huh? I can’t wait to get word of that out.”
Her heart stopped dead in her chest as he pulled out his cell phone, held it up to take a picture. Right away she panicked: she threw both arms up in front of her face and turned her head away. Her purse fell to the ground and she heard her car keys clink as they were thrown out and landed somewhere to her right. The panic grew as it occurred to her that she was alone with this guy who was set and determined on exposing and humiliating her – and her only way to escape involved showing her face, as she’d have to get to her knees and scrabble around in the goddamn dirt with both hands to find her purse still containing her pepper spray.
He was on her now, tugging at her hands and forearms.
“Slut,” he growled, yanking hard. “Stop hiding. I don’t recall you being this shy when you were showing off and flaunting every single thing that you’ve got. I guess you only do that when the camera’s rolling though, huh? Well, I’m good with that.”
To her absolute horror, he pressed ‘record’ on his phone. She struggled hard as he stuck it in her face, but it was useless and she knew it: this prick had at least a foot and a good eighty pounds on her, easy. Trish felt tears burning her eyes as her whole new life started to slip away from her in this second.
How fucking stupid were you to think that this would just never happen? That moving states and changing your hair was enough?
“C’mon now, whore,” he said, waving the phone around to capture her face. “You’re on camera so let’s hear some of your tried-and-true porn dialogue. Say ‘fuck, yeah!’ or ‘deeper!’. Or –” He pushed against her now, hard enough and at a weird enough angle to catch her by surprise and throw her off balance. “– We could take this to my car, huh? Give me a real show and I’ll record the whole thing. What do you think?”
“Fuck you,” she said between gritted teeth. “I’d rather fuck a leper.”
“There we go!” he crowed. “But the line should be ‘fuck me’. You used to be so good at this, I jerked off to your videos every night for a while there. I guess you’re out of practice now, though, so lemme help you with that.”
He started to drag her to a car, still recording everything, and Trish dug her heels into the dirt to delay the inevitable. She also finally found her air, sucked some deep into her lungs, and screamed as loud as she could.
She thought that he’d hit her but she seemed to have caught him by surprise. He slammed his hand down over her mouth, kept dragging and recording.
“This is gonna be a show,” he grunted. He pressed the automatic unlock mechanism on his key chain, his car lights flickered and the horn gave a short blast. “You were a fucking star once, Thalia… and I mean that in every sense of the term. So c’mon, you dumb whore, just do what you do best and stop pretending that you don’t make your living having sex with every guy who asks. I bet you set up your fuck dates at your catering job and what’s the big deal if you do? It’s not like me and the world haven’t seen it all and from every possible angle – so drop the modesty bullshit and put on your game face, baby, because it’s show time.”
He wrenched the back door open and Trish started to scream behind his hand and fight wildly, totally uncaring that it was muffled and nobody would hear, that he was bigger and stronger and she was going to tire quickly. She just felt like she had to scream her lungs out and struggle until she collapsed, if for no reason other than her absolute lack of consent was being recorded and she wanted no doubt that she hadn’t wanted what was going to happen next.
Even if she was the only person alive who would know that her protests and fighting were real.
I didn’t choose it last time. I didn’t choose it this time. I know that I didn’t choose any of it.
**
“Kee, you don’t have to walk me to my car,” Kelly said. “It’s literally six minutes away.”
“Don’t care,” Keegan growled. “No sister of mine is walkin’ alone in the dark for even six seconds, so shut up and just tell me which direction we’re goin’.”
She grinned and shook her head in a way that Keegan kn
ew very well.
“Stop doin’ the ‘big sister head shake’,” he said. “It ain’t cute.”
“Of course it is!” Kelly said merrily. “And we’re walking to just in front of that cabin over there, the far one.”
Keegan nodded, carefully avoiding stepping on a rock with his prosthetic foot.
“So.” Kelly tightened her cashmere shawl around her bare shoulders as the wind picked up a bit. “No luck with the waitress?”
He shook his dark head and shrugged. “She didn’t want to know.”
“I’m sorry, Kee,” Kelly said softly.
“Yeah, well, whatever.” His supreme disinterest would have fooled anyone except his twin, she knew; he’d been practicing indifference and unhurt for a long time. “No biggie, Kel. Women are like buses: always another one on the horizon.”
Kelly nodded, but she didn’t actually agree with that statement. Or rather she did, in the sense that sure, another woman was bound to appear soon enough. Women were literally everywhere, after all – standing in line at the Starbucks, coming into Kee’s bakery, at the gym – but that didn’t mean that any one of them would be interested in her brother.
Oh sure, they were very into his looks and no wonder: the man was a serious hunk of handsome man, with that dark hair and those silver eyes, with those broad shoulders and muscles clearly visible through his clothes. Kelly was fully aware what her brother looked like… and she was also aware that a good, generous, sweet man lurked under the tough exterior and rough language.
So if she saw that man clear as day, what the hell was wrong with all these women that they didn’t?
“Do you want a ride home with me?” she asked him. “I can drop you at your place and still get home earlier than I originally planned.”
“Nah,” he said. “I want to go talk to Adam a bit, get to know his fiancée. She’s a photographer and I wanted to ask her if she does commercial pictures.”
“You’re thinking for the bakery?”
“Yeah.” Keegan frowned suddenly, lifted his head. Kelly practically saw his ears prick up. “You hear that, Kel?”
“Hear what?”
“I dunno. Somethin’.”
“Something like what?”
“A scream.”
“What? Seriously?” She looked around, feeling unsettled. “I sure didn’t hear that.”
“I did.”
“You think maybe it was animals? There must be something wild wandering around, with the mountains and everything.”
Just then a car horn went off, a short blast to indicate doors being unlocked. They both saw the reflection of lights flashing about a hundred feet away, just past the cabin.
“You think it was that person that you heard?’ Kelly asked him. “Maybe they – I don’t know – stumbled? Or maybe that’s their ring tone?”
“A scream ring tone outside of a B-rated horror movie?” he rasped. “And a stumble equals a low and mumbled ‘oh fuck’, not a full-on scream, Kel. I’m gonna go take a look.”
“You –” she began, but Keegan was already striding off to what surely had to be a car behind the cabin. “OK. I guess we’re going to go take a look.”
“You ain’t,” he hurled back over his shoulder. “Stay here.”
“Like hell,” she retorted smartly, trotting along behind him. “I go where you go, so zip it, Kee.”
“Jesus,” he muttered as he doubled his pace. “Your ex-husband was a saint.”
“Yep,” she puffed, trying to keep up with him. Damn, she had to get back to the gym and work on her cardio. “He sure was. For putting up with his ex-wife’s pig-headed brother.”
They exited the rows of parked cars, cleared the cabin and stood still for a second, looking at the car with the headlights, both beyond stunned at just what the actual hell they were seeing. As had been the case for their entire lives, Kelly recovered the power of speech first:
“Is he –”
That was all she got out before Keegan was off like a shot, just running break-neck speed to the little blonde waitress being forcibly dragged into a car. Even from the distance that she was standing in shock, Kelly saw the terror in those eyes, heard the muffled little cries of no, witnessed what was nothing less than an assault-and-kidnapping-in-progress.
Keegan was always surprised how, in moments like these when there was urgency, he completely forgot about his left leg being a prosthesis: somehow the thing melded and molded itself to his body and became a seamless part of him. It was him and as he launched himself at the fucker hurting that innocent woman, Keegan could feel his anger rising, rising. The asshole never saw it coming.
Without a word, Keegan was on him. Yeah, the guy was big, but Keegan was bigger and had the advantage of surprise. He also had the hugeness of blind rage on his side, and he had few compunctions about letting it loose.
He threw the guy on the ground, making sure that he landed head-first, glanced at the blonde waitress as she fell back onto the car, gasping and shaking.
“You OK?” he grated out, keeping an eye on the idiot. “You hurt?”
Shocked and stunned, she shook her head slowly.
“Kelly!” Keegan barked and both women jumped. “Get her out of the way.”
At the mention of her name, his sister seemed to unfreeze.
“Yeah,” she said faintly as she walked over. “Come with me, OK? Let me take a look at you.”
“What –” the woman started to say, but when the man on the ground rolled and got back to his feet, she gave a little shriek. Right away Kelly was beside her, gently pulling her out of harm’s way.
Or more like, out of Keegan’s way. Because it was damn obvious that he was gearing up for a fight.
“Kee?” Kelly said as her brother squared off with the other man, circling each other, both glaring the whole time. “You gonna kick his ass?”
“You know it,” he growled, not once breaking eye contact with the guy who was about to be eating dirt.
“Then hang on a sec,” Kelly said, gathering up the woman’s fallen purse items, ignoring the probably-illegal pepper spray that she spotted in the bag, then pulling her away to the cabin. “Let me get my back to this situation.”
“Uh-huh,” he said in a voice that was nothing but darkness. “Agreed.”
Kelly helped the blonde up the stairs of the cabin and deposited her in the chair on the cute little front porch. They were facing away from Keegan and the asshole now so they saw nothing but cars, the reception hall in the distance and mountains. They heard plenty though.
“Is he –” the woman said faintly, her hands twisting together as she heard grunts, blows, curses. “Is he beating him up?”
“I have no idea,” Kelly said blandly. “I can’t see a thing that’s happening.”
“But –” The woman’s eyes widened suddenly. “His phone!”
“Whose phone?”
“That guy. He was recording me on his phone.”
“Wait.” Kelly was disgusted beyond belief at this new wrinkle. “He was going to film whatever happened in that car?”
“Yes.”
“Asshole prick. I may give him a few kicks myself.”
The woman huffed out what sounded a bit like a laugh, mostly like a sigh. “Yeah.”
“When Keegan’s finished making him sorry for what he did, I’ll make sure he grabs the phone. OK?”
The woman nodded, turned her head to the sounds of violence that were getting louder, faster, more intense. “Do you think he’s winning? Keegan?”
“For sure,” Kelly assured her, noticing for the first time that the other woman’s kickass and gritty voice seemed at shocking odds with her tiny body and sweet features. “He’s never lost a fight in his life, not once.”
“Do you think we should check on him, though?”
“No.” Kelly gently put her hand on the other woman’s arm, encouraged her to stay seated. “We can’t see what happened here tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because if the guy decides to call the cops on Keegan, we have to be able to say that we saw nothing at all. No witnesses means that it’s one guy’s word against another’s – and Kee is a decorated ex-special-ops guy with his own local business. His word will have lots of weight. You understand?”
“Oh,” the woman said faintly. “For real?”
“For real, all of it.” Kelly pulled a business card out of her clutch, handed it to the woman who stared at it blankly, clearly not taking anything in. “Look, I’m a lawyer and believe me, I don’t want to know a damn thing going on over there. I’d kill for Kee and I’d protect him with my life – but I don’t want to have to lie to the police for him.”
“Mmmm-hmmm.” The woman blinked. “I – OK.”
“I’m really sorry this happened to you,” Kelly said quietly. “I’m sorry for how scared you must have been.”
The woman stared over at her, looking for all the world like someone who’d never heard an apology, never heard anyone express concern or sympathy. She looked – in a word – stunned that Kelly was showing her any empathy.
“Oh,” she said at last. “Oh. Well – thank you.”
“I’m Kelly. And I’ll be happy to introduce you to Keegan when he’s… erm.” Kelly paused, searching for the right words. “When he’s done what he’s currently engaged in and has rejoined us.”
The woman stared at her some more, and that was when Kelly properly noticed her eyes. Holy Lord, what a color: an amazing purple, blazing and pure and mysterious, like a winter sunset over The Rockies. She’d always thought that her brother’s eyes were the most astonishing thing that she’d ever see in a human face, but Kelly had to admit that the blonde woman gave him a serious run for his money.
“Oh,” the woman said yet again. “I’m – I’m Trish.”
“Trish. Hi.”
“Hi.”
“So, Trish.” Kelly smiled. “How do you feel about coffee?”
**
Keegan clenched up his fist tighter, landed yet another punishing blow on the asshole’s stupid face. Not that there was much ‘face’ left, as such: it was a bloody, pulpy mess and Keegan was a bit surprised at just how easily the guy had gone down. One solid punch to the temple followed by a well-placed punch to the gut and he was on his knees, then his back.
Keegan (Wounded Hero Book 1) Page 3
