by Tammy Walsh
Her lips wobbled and she lowered her face so she didn’t have to show me her tears.
“Hey,” I said, lifting her chin. “I’m sorry something like that happened to you but I’m sure it’s not your fault.”
“It is. It is all my fault. She never would have spoken to him if I hadn’t said anything.”
“You don’t know that.”
The strangest feeling came over me at that point, a sense of somehow knowing nothing bad had happened to her friend.
The same way I knew I was meant to be with Isabella.
The same way I knew she wanted me to touch her.
I couldn’t explain where that sense came from or if it was even real, so I didn’t even try to explain it to her.
“I’m sure she’s somewhere safe,” I said. “And you don’t need to worry about me hurting you. I don’t know much, but I know that is the very last thing I would ever do.”
She smiled distantly, not entirely convinced.
She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me close.
I did the same, enveloping her completely.
There was no way I could hurt her.
I would rather die first.
And that sensation was more real than anything I knew to be true.
I would bring a swift end to anyone who so much as laid a finger on her.
Isabella backed away and wiped her nose.
“I’ll get us some lemonade.”
She scooped up an empty bucket.
“And some feed for these pesky chickens!”
She grinned at me with that same cheeky smile before turning and heading back to the farmhouse.
She’d been in my arms, just for a moment, but it was enough to know things were never going to be the same between us again.
I was so enrapt in my thoughts about her—as well as watching that sexy ass sashay across the farm—that I didn’t hear the footsteps approach me from behind until it was too late.
Isabella
Would wonders never cease?
I’d admired him the entire time we got the cows milked, and enjoyed teasing him with my little innuendoes, but I never ever thought he would make a pass at me!
I was pleasantly surprised when he had.
Forget pleasantly—ecstatically surprised!
I was on cloud nine and walked with a literal hop in my step, humming a happy adlibbed tune as I swung my empty bucket and headed for the chicken feed stores around back.
For the first time since returning home, a ray of light pierced the dark clouds overhead and illuminated a path I might traverse.
To distant lands of happiness and light.
Where Clint would be waiting for me.
It was a relief when he said he felt the same electricity I had.
But I knew men, and their ability to say whatever was necessary if it meant bedding me for the night.
Anyone could pretend to care but few could fake it so well it fooled all my instincts.
He meant it, I thought. He really did feel the same way as me.
Something lurched in front of me, jerking me from my daydream.
Only it hadn’t lurched at all.
I had been the lurcher, swaying the way I was.
I didn’t notice the vehicle parked in the front-drive until I almost walked right into it.
Sunlight winked off the paintwork and flickered brightly off the red and blue-tinted siren welded to its roof.
The bullbars grimaced like a bully’s front braces.
And my insides turned to water.
It was Liam’s squad car.
It was here.
But Liam was not.
Suddenly the clang noise that occurred right at the least opportune moment didn’t seem quite so fatalistic.
It’d happened on purpose.
Because someone had been watching us.
Liam.
Immersed in sinister thoughts that spoke to his naturally twisted nature.
To his eyes, I belonged to him.
And Clint stood between us.
I turned and sprinted across the front-drive, back in the direction I’d come from.
I could barely breathe, my body’s systems shutting down and diverting all power to my legs.
I caught movement out the corner of my eye.
My eyes bulged at the sight of the figure tinted with shadow approaching Clint from behind.
The scream caught before it exploded.
“Clint!”
I was too late.
Liam swung the heavy lump of timber over the back of Clint’s head with an almighty crack!
The timber snapped in half and Clint stumbled forward.
He barely managed to catch his feet and turn before Liam swung the shortened timber back again, timing the strike perfectly as it struck Clint across the chin.
He fell back on his ass.
“I told you!” Liam yelled at the top of his lungs. “She’s mine! Understand? She belongs to me!”
Clint pressed a hand to the back of his head and checked it for blood.
I couldn’t tell by his expression if there was any.
My knees wobbled like they were made of jelly.
Liam jabbed a finger in Clint’s face.
“If you know what’s good for ya, you’ll leave tonight! Do you hear me? Tonight!”
He brought his arms back to swing again.
“Liam!” I screamed. “No! Don’t!”
Clint had already suffered a terrible injury from the plane crash.
Another strike like the two he’d already received couldn’t do him much good.
It hurt me to see him suffer like that.
My strides grew longer as I drew my arms back.
I would hurl myself at Liam and knock him off his feet.
I wouldn’t stop or slow down.
Then I would bend down to help Clint up.
He was a good man.
He didn’t deserve this.
He needed to focus on recuperating.
The timber reached its apex as Liam prepared to bring it down again.
Clint just sat there staring at him.
Each of the blows he sustained could be the last, each threatening to knock what few memories Clint had developed over the past few days out of his head.
Would he forget me? I wondered. Would he forget the intimate moment we spent together?
There was a sister terror taking root in my heart...
The fear of losing what could have been between us.
I’d been lounging at home waiting for something to come along and shake me from my depressed stupor.
I hadn’t known what form it would take, only that I would know it when I saw it.
And finally, it had arrived.
I knew what it was the very first moment I laid eyes on it.
Clint.
He was what I needed to break free from my self-imposed prison.
He was what I needed to step back into the wide world again.
But that wasn’t going to happen if his amnesia took a turn for the worse.
He was in a fragile state and needed saving.
I needed to save him.
“Liam!” I screamed. “Please! Don’t!”
I hated the sound of my voice, so high-pitched and shrill.
Uttering that six-letter word brought a pained ache to my chest:
Please!
I never begged anyone for anything.
Least of all Liam, who had shown me nothing but contempt from a young age.
I never let anyone get the better of me, never let anyone think they were better than me…
And yet, right then, I swear, I would have given him whatever he wanted.
I would, I was ashamed to admit, do anything he asked of me.
Anything.
Just so long as he didn’t hurt Clint anymore, so long as he lay down the thick length of timber and stepped away from him.
“Well?” Liam said, eyes wide and red and glaring at Clint
on the floor. “Will you leave her?”
Clint didn’t even hesitate in his response.
“Never.”
My foot slipped in a recess and I tripped on a knee-high protrusion that knocked me off balance.
My momentum carried me forward.
I didn’t lose my feet but it cost me valuable seconds—seconds I couldn’t afford.
Liam ground his teeth so hard I could hear them.
“So be it,” he growled.
The muscles in his arms tensed as he brought that broken length of timber down with all his strength.
He even leaned forward, putting all his weight into the blow.
It would knock Clint out for the count.
He might even have to return to the hospital and get round-the-clock care.
Liam would be suspended.
He might even lose his job.
But he didn’t care.
He’d long since entered deep madness where the past nor the future existed.
Only this moment.
Consumed by rage, he was going to commit an act that would forever scar the future not only of us but the entire town.
The length of wood whoomped through the air, directly for Clint’s head.
I regained my feet and bolted forward.
I was still too distant.
“Nooooo!”
Crack!
The length of timber bit deep into something solid.
My eyes stung and immediately burned with tears.
Please, God. No…
It could only be Clint’s skull that bore the brunt of the attack.
I slowed my approach, ready to drop to my knees and embrace Clint’s broken face…
But Clint hadn’t fallen to the blow.
It hadn’t even struck him.
The heavy thump came from his muscular hand catching the strike in his thick palm.
He leveraged it as he got to his feet.
Liam, shocked his blow hadn’t reached its intended target, gripped the timber in both hands and yanked to pull it free.
But Clint refused to release it.
More than a little shaken, Liam took a step back.
The muscles in Clint’s arms bulged thicker and harder than I could believe, threatening to stretch the sleeves of his borrowed t-shirt.
The look on Clint’s face was a mask of pure anger, his brows drawn down, every line forming a latticework spurred on by pure adrenaline.
I’d never seen that expression on his face before.
He’d always been so sweet and gentle.
With me, at least.
Now I saw a new side of him, both dark and dangerous.
The face of a warrior.
I didn’t know why that word popped in my head, but it described him perfectly.
And it excited me.
I wanted his bulging muscles working hard on me.
I wanted his intense eyes, shimmering and golden like a wolf coiled before it sprung its attack, drilling into me as his cock did the same to my pussy.
I wanted to feel his heavy weight press on me, spearing me relentlessly.
And I knew he would be relentless.
That expression promised many things, and I wanted them all.
But directed at Liam, it spelled only terrible trouble.
He must have sensed it too as he rounded his shoulders, realizing his threats had failed.
He’d poked a nest only to find its inhabitants far more resolved than he bargained for.
He yanked once more and this time succeeded in tearing the timber free.
Clint’s hands sprang back.
He appraised his palms and the splinters that protruded from them.
Liam caught sight of me out the corner of his eye and gathered what little courage he had remaining.
He pulled the length of timber back for one last swing.
He wasn’t willing to give up on me so easily, I realized. That was what spurred him on now.
He hadn’t realized he’d lost any chance with me a long time ago and I would never be his again.
“No!” I screamed.
His weapon of choice swung, this time cutting across, horizontal to the ground.
Clint’s movements were so fast they were a blur.
He raised his forearm and met the timber in mid-air.
Its sharp edge bit into his flesh but he didn’t seem to notice.
He lurched forward and his enormous hand found Liam’s throat.
With seemingly no effort, he raised him off his feet, drove him backward, and slammed him into the barn door.
It rattled and set the cows outside to mooing frantically.
Liam let his weapon clatter to the floor.
His eyes bulged and he grabbed at Clint’s thick forearm but his strength was nowhere near enough to stop him.
He continued to squeeze.
A horrid choking gasp emanated from Liam’s throat and his eyes bulged dangerously from their sockets.
He scrabbled at Clint’s face but barely reached it.
Then some spark of survival issued from deep in the back of his mind, pushing him to reach for the holster at his waist.
He unclipped the firearm and raised it…
I crossed the space before I consciously gave the order and slapped it aside.
The movement tightened his grip and the pistol fired a single round into the barn’s back wall, emitting a small puff of sawdust where it struck.
The cows’ bells rattled as they maneuvered to release themselves from their outer pen, baying loudly.
Clint followed my lead and used his free hand to twist the pistol from Liam’s grasp.
“Clint,” I said, barely above a whisper. “Let him go.”
“Why?” Clint growled. “He wanted to kill me.”
“And he deserves punishment,” I agreed. “But not this. He’s a cop. We’ll get into a lot of trouble if he croaks.”
Liam’s legs shuddered, on the very fringes of losing consciousness.
Clint didn’t like it, but he released him.
He collapsed in a puddle on the floor, wheezing and struggling to breathe.
But he would survive.
Not that he deserves it.
“Let me see your hands,” I said to Clint.
He extended them to me.
He had so many splinters he was like a living pin cushion.
“Come to the farmhouse,” I said. “I need tweezers to get them all out.”
Liam struggled up onto his hands and knees.
“What...” he croaked.
He massaged his neck before speaking again.
“What about me?”
“What about you?” I sneered.
He looked between me and Clint.
“You choose him over me?”
I appraised him coldly.
“There was never any chance of us being together, Liam. There was, a long time ago. But never since then. And now that you tried this…”
I shook my head.
“Nothing can happen between us. Not now, not ever. I never want to see you again. Do you understand? You can never come to the farm. If you do, I’ll tell everyone what you did today.”
Liam struggled up onto his feet.
He wavered slightly but didn’t fall.
“No one would believe you over me. You’re nothing but a whore.”
Clint stiffened and his nostrils flared, and that terrifying glare returned to his eyes.
He stepped forward to finish the job.
“Don’t!” I snapped. “Don’t fall for his trap.”
I turned my attention back to the worm.
“Maybe they wouldn’t believe me but they would believe my parents. And who do you think the town is going to believe more? My parents, who have been the heart of the community for the past fifty years, or you, the troubled sheriff?”
That gave him pause for thought.
He motioned to his pistol in my hand.
“My gun.”
<
br /> I felt its reassuring weight.
“I’ll get Pop to return it to the station.”
“If you think I’m leaving here without it, you’ve got another thing coming—”
I withdrew the magazine and ejected the single round.
Only then did I hand it to him.
He snagged my hand.
The fool even looked deep in my eyes.
“Don’t do this. We’re meant to be together.”
I yanked my hand away.
“I wouldn’t be with you for all the money in the world.”
“But you would choose a man without a memory? He doesn’t even have a name!”
I raised my chin.
“His name is Clint. And he’s ten times the man you will ever be. Memories or no.”
I turned on my heel.
As Clint and I headed back toward the farmhouse, I cast a look over my shoulder every two steps to ensure Liam wasn’t planning on attacking us from behind.
He didn’t, and shrank into the distance.
But the terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach didn’t shrink along with him.
It swelled at the disturbing thought we hadn’t seen the last of him.
Not by a long shot.
Ras
Isabella led me up the front steps, through the front door, and into the front room.
“Isabella?” Esme called from the kitchen. “Is that you and Clint?”
“Yeah.”
“Dinner will be ready in an hour.”
The fact she showed no concern meant she couldn’t have known what’d taken place outside.
Isabella deposited me in her father’s big armchair.
Her eyes moved to one side as she thought our current situation over.
“Hey, Mom…?”
“Yeah?”
I took Isabella by the arm and gently shook my head.
“Don’t get her involved.”
“She’s treated me no end of times over the years. She might not be a trained nurse but she’s a hell of a sight better caregiver than I am.”
“They’re only splinters. I won’t die.”
“You might by the time I’m done with you.”
I rubbed the inside of her forearm with my thumb and spoke softly.
“Don’t.”
Esme fussing over me like a mother hen could only make matters worse.
She paused a moment, her eyes flicking between mine, and her resolve broke.
