Rowan Revived

by Colbert, Taylor Danae

  “I can’t believe you managed to get so many people here,” he finally says, smiling down at me. I smile back up at him. He pauses for a moment, then goes on. “Look, I know I, uh, I know I’m a man of few words.”

  I swallow and nod.

  “But I just, uh, I just want to thank you. Seriously. Even if this doesn’t work out...the inn, I mean, thank you for believing in it enough to at least give it a try. For the first time in a long time, it feels likes someone has a little bit of faith in me.”

  My eyes flick up to his, but they are staring down at the ground between us, like he’s nervous to make contact. My heart is twisting inside my chest as I think of all that Josie told me; his guilt over his parents, about letting the inn fail, about not knowing what to do next. I want to take it all away for him. I want him to know that I really do believe in him. I step a tiny bit closer to him, and I let my hand slide up his shoulder and gently onto his neck. I let my fingers glide through his hair. Our eyes meet, and I can’t hear the music anymore. I can’t hear the people around us, the glasses clinking, the snarls from Amber’s table. All I can hear is my own heartbeat, the bass from the band, the blood rushing through my ears. And all I can feel is his grip around my waist tightening. I can feel his breath on my lips as our faces get closer, and closer.

  And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a tall figure post up against the wall of the barn, positioning itself perfectly in my line of vision.

  I’d know that tall, slim, dangly figure anywhere.

  Our past has finally found us here in Baycrest, in the form of a Bentley brother.

  23

  Jesse

  We were about to fucking kiss.

  Mere centimeters from it.

  So close, I could practically taste her.

  And then she took off, bursting out of my grasp right when I thought I actually had her. She rushes toward the back wall where I see a tall, scrawny man posted up, with this crazed, demonic look burning in his eyes. I take off after her, but she reaches him before I can reach her.

  She gets to him, and this demented smile crosses his lips. As she’s closing in on him, I see her searching the room frantically, and the pieces start fitting together. She’s looking for Millie, who happens to be in the house doing one of her routine checks on Caleb right now.

  Holy shit. Is this Tiger?

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Micah?” she asks. Wait, who’s Micah?

  The dude’s still smiling like some sort of rabid animal, and I can feel my fists clenching. I’m about to intervene when she steps closer to him.

  “Outside,” she says, pointing to the door. She marches out, and he’s close behind her—too close. My instinct is to follow her, but before I do, I have to find my sister. I have to tell her to keep Millie in the house until this Micah character is gone.

  Of course, Josie’s in the dead-center of the room, surrounded by at least a dozen locals, laughing and totally enjoying the attention. But I have no time for it. I storm through the crowd.

  “Jo,” I say. Nothing.

  “Jo,” I say, a little louder this time. Still no answer, just a roar of laughter in response to whatever story she’s telling them.

  “Josie!” I finally scream. All heads turn to me, and I don’t give a damn. She perks up, stepping out from the crowd, and I know she can see the worry in my eyes. “I need you to go to the house and make sure that Millie stays inside. I think someone close to the kid’s dad is here.”

  Josie’s eyes widen into big saucers, and her chest begins heaving up and down. She blinks once, twice, then slams her glass down on a nearby table and takes off for the inn.

  I follow her out the barn doors. I don’t see Lena anywhere, and I start to panic. She’s not down by the water, not by the house.

  Finally, I can hear her voice from the other side of the barn, somehow shouting and whispering at the same time. I back up to the wall, listening for a moment.

  “How the fuck did you find me?” I hear her ask, and I do a little jog around the side of the barn.

  “Cell phone signals are strong, even if they’re only on once in a blue moon,” he says. “Plus, you know dad’s got the hookups. He had a PI on it as soon as you guys left town.” Dammit. Fucking technology. And stupid fucking rich kids.

  “It’s time for you to leave,” she says. “Now.” I hear gravel crunch, and I slink around the corner of the barn. I lay eyes on Micah, just as he’s gripping her arms and slamming her up against the wall.

  A fire burns in my belly, and I’m pretty confident it would take an entire army to stop me from reacting. I take off in a dead sprint down the length of the barn.

  “Hey!” I call. But just as I’m about to grab him and beat the living shit out of him, I see her wriggle from his grasp. She grabs his scrawny shoulders and jerks her knee up, jamming it right into his groin. He collapses to his knees, gasping for air, and for a moment, I freeze in my tracks, in awe. But then a switch goes off and my protective instincts kick in, and I find myself stepping between the two of them, pushing her back behind me.

  I kneel down so that I’m at eye-level with him, the wind still knocked out of him.

  “I don’t know who the fuck you are,” I whisper to him. Icy light blue eyes flick up to me, a flame burning in them. “But you have sixty seconds to disappear.”

  His eyes twitch a bit, and I can see the fear in them despite how desperately he’s trying to hide it. He slowly climbs to his feet, and I reach a hand behind me to tuck Lena into my grasp. Micah takes in a few slow breaths, his eyes drilling into me, then looking around me to find her.

  “I know they’re here,” Micah says, his voice breathy, “and now, Tiger does, too. You can let Millie know that he wants to see his son. And he will, soon enough.”

  “He’ll never see them again,” Lena says, her voice stern and unwavering behind me. I can feel her breath, steady and even on the back of my arm. Micah straightens himself out, his eyes piercing through me to her. Then he storms off, getting into a black sedan parked—probably some sort of hired car from their father—on the lawn, and speeding off.

  It’s too dark to make out the tags, but I memorize the make and model of the car. I won’t forget it.

  I turn around to face Lena , slowly, expecting to see that fierce look still in her eyes. But it’s gone.

  Instead, she’s crouched against the wall of the barn, her arms wrapped around her knees, her head in her lap. I can see her chest heaving, and she’s sucking in air like she’s suffocating.

  “Hey, hey,” I say, kneeling down toward her. I sit in the grass next to her, leaning up against the barn, then wrap my arm around her heaving shoulders. I pull her toward me lightly, wrapping my other arm around her as she leans into my chest, and brush her hair back off her shoulders. “Breathe. He’s gone. Just breathe.”

  Her breath eventually slows, in through her nose and out through her mouth. She’s laying on me now, her head in the crook of my neck. If I wasn’t so emotionally charged right now, I swear I could get high off the way she smells. But my chest is pounding wildly and I’m all riled up. I wanted to crush that guy’s face, slam him into the ground. I wanted her to know that he’d never bother her again. I want her to know that I’ll take care of her.

  But if we are all leaving, I can’t be that guy. I can’t make those promises, and it makes me feel like a fraud. Even more so than when I put up the facade of an innkeeper.

  “Hey,” I say, after a few moments pass. She looks up at me. “You okay? Who was that?”

  She pulls her head off my shoulder, and I can’t help but feel disappointed as I realize this moment is passing. She stands up slowly and straightens her dress out.

  “Micah Bentley. Tiger’s younger brother, and his little bitch. He’s basically a henchman,” she says. “Tiger used to have him watch their apartment sometimes, so that if he beat Millie really bad, she couldn’t leave to tell anyone. Micah would keep watch to make sure she didn’t get out while the pr
oof was still left on her face.”

  My stomach flips inside my body. It’s unfathomable to me that there are still men in this world who can do such heinous things to women. But it’s almost even more unfathomable that others are willing to act as an accomplice.

  I want to kill them both, and I don’t even know them.

  “Jesus Christ,” I mutter, pulling myself to my feet. “Well, at least he’s gone.” She scoffs.

  “For now,” she says. “But he will be back. And with Tiger.” After a beat, her eyes lift to mine. “They will toy with us. They won’t come back right away, because we would be expecting that. They will wait a little bit so that we have no idea when to expect them. I think we need to leave.”

  I feel that pounding in my chest again.

  Not yet. It’s not time yet. It’s too soon.

  I step toward her, reaching a hand out to grab hers.

  “Let’s talk to Josie,” I say. “Let’s see what can be done legally first.” Her eyes drop to the ground, and I know what she’s thinking. “I know restraining orders haven’t worked in the past, but there might be more we can do so that you don’t have to keep running.”

  She looks to me again.

  “‘We?’” she asks. I take her other hand.

  “We,” I say. As far as I’m concerned, this is “we.”

  She nods, and I feel a little bit of relief.

  “Okay, good. We’ll talk to her first thing tomorrow. Do you want to go into the house, and I’ll finish up out here?” I ask her. She shakes her head.

  “No. I don’t want to let him ruin the night,” she says. “Let’s get back in there.”

  I nod, and slowly let her hands slip from mine. And as she leads us back to the barn, a rush of panic washes over me. I wonder if this might be one of the last moments we share alone.

  Millie refuses to come back out to the party. She says she just wants to stay with Caleb and try to sleep. But Berta stays to keep the house, promising she won’t leave until we were all done for the night, until Josie and Lena were back in the house.

  And out in the barn, you’d never know the party planner’s worst fears had just come to life on the other side of the wall. Everyone is dancing, laughing, drinking, having a great time. The band is on their last song, and people are slowly starting to trickle out. After the last of them leave—including Amber, who is not happy that I have been MIA all night—it’s just me, Josie, and Lena. The bartenders have closed up shop, the band left us their card, and there’s nothing left but a few bags of trash and some glasses on the tables.

  “Man, what a night,” Josie says, scraping some of the empties into a trash can that she’s carrying around to the tables. “I mean, aside from the psycho dipping in for a hot sec, that actually went really well.”

  Lena laughs nervously.

  “Yeah, I’m really sorry about that,” she says, bending over to pick up a few cups.

  “Don’t be sorry, hon,” Josie says. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Actually,” I cut in, “we wanted to talk to you about that, Jo.”

  “Sure, absolutely. Anything you need,” Josie says, turning to Lena. Lena sighs and looks at her with those sweet, sweet eyes.

  “Thank you, Josie. I’ll take you up on that. But do you mind if we save it for tomorrow? I’m just a little spent.”

  “Sure, hon. Absolutely,” Josie says, putting a hand on Lena’s shoulder. “I heard you were sort of a badass tonight, with the nut-kick and all.”

  Lena looks up at me, and I shrug innocently.

  “I couldn’t help but brag,” I say. “You kicked ass. Or, well, nuts.”

  We all laugh, and it feels good to see her smile.

  “Alright, guys. I’m beat. I’m gonna head in, but I’ll come back out tomorrow morning to finish with the clean-up,” Josie says.

  “Night, Josie, and thanks for your help,” Lena says. Josie pulls her in for a long hug.

  “You’re thanking me?” she asks. “You kidding? Girl, we should be thanking you. The inn was alive again tonight. All because of you. Night, guys.”

  “Night,” we say in unison.

  I move some of the stray chairs back to their tables and sweep some of the bigger debris up off the dance floor. Lena’s wrapping up the cords on the stage, and putting all the glasses into a bin.

  After I move the last of the furniture into its rightful place, I turn to find her. She’s in the small washroom behind the bar, and I can hear the soft sound of her humming as she washes the glasses. I peek my head in through the door and lean up against the jamb, watching her as she cleans, humming away again effortlessly. I can’t help but smile.

  “Another original song?” I ask, and she jumps.

  “Oh, didn’t hear you,” she says with a shy smile. “You been there long?”

  “Just long enough to hear the last few verses,” I say. She smiles again, turning back to keep washing. “You doing okay?”

  I lean up against the counter next to her. She nods, slowly.

  “To be honest, I haven’t felt that scared in a long time,” she says. The bluntness of her answer hits me harder than that damn shutter did a few weeks ago. She’s so strong, so tough, so determined to get things done. Hearing her admit that she wasn’t ready for something, that it frightened her, frightens me.

  “I’m sure that was scary for you. But I want you to know that I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you.” She turns the water off and looks over to me.

  “Thank you, Jesse. I know,” she says. “But it wasn’t that I was afraid of him hurting me. It’s that the second I saw him, I knew we were done for. I knew Tiger had us. Had them. That’s what scares me.”

  I push off the counter so that I’m standing directly behind her, my front to her back. She turns slowly to face me, and I reach a finger down to lift her chin.

  “Hey,” I whisper. “This isn’t how this ends. We’re going to talk to Josie. We’re going to figure out how to keep you guys safe. They’re done making you run.”

  Her eyes are floating back and forth between mine, searching for any hint of fabrication, but I know she won’t find any. Because I mean every fucking word.

  Tonight was the last time one of the Bentley brothers threatens Lena, or Millie, or Caleb on my watch. Whether I’m here with them on the shore, or thousands of miles away somewhere in the tropics. This whole game Tiger is playing ends before any of us go anywhere.

  “It’s funny,” she says, “because tonight I faced one of my biggest fears. But right now, all I can think about is you. And I don’t want to stop.”

  My eyebrows jump at her words, my dick following suit. My heart is beating in my stomach, and I know this is it. I’m not backing away this time. I’m not letting her slip by me again. I’m not letting her go without telling her, showing her, what she’s done to me.

  24

  Lena

  Maybe it was the thought of us all leaving sooner rather than later. Maybe it was seeing Micah and feeling like our safe haven wasn’t so safe anymore. Maybe it was an adrenaline rush. But I want Jesse, and I want him now. I want him to understand how badly. I want him to know how insane I’ve been going over these last few weeks.

  I start to tell him, just after he swears he’s going to help us figure out the Tiger situation. “It’s funny, because tonight I faced one of my biggest fears. But right now, all I can think about is you. And I don’t want to stop.”

  And I mean it. I’m done playing games. Done dancing around this inn without letting him know how fucking crazy he makes me, in the best way.

  He takes a step closer to me so that our hips are flush against each other, and I can feel a bulge behind his jeans. He kneels down slowly, tucking a stray strand of my hair behind my ear.

  “Then don’t,” he whispers, and every hair on my body stands on end. His fingers slink through my hair, wrapping tight around my head, and he pulls me up to him so that our lips crash together. He tastes better than I’m ready for, and m
y body reacts by pulling him even closer. I reach my hands up and tug his sandy hair, letting my fingers swim through it like fish in the water. Holy shit. I want to kick myself for not doing this weeks ago.

  I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling myself up onto my tip-toes, and he reaches his arms around my waist and lifts me up. I wrap my legs around his waist, nothing between him and me but the thin lace of my thong under Josie’s blue dress, and all the heat in my body rushes to the most delicate spot between my legs. He steps over and sets me on the counter, and the cool sensation of the counter’s surface on my bare ass makes my body buck in his direction. He slides his fingers out of my hair, and lets them tug on one of the straps of my dress. He pulls one down, laying long, slow kisses down my neck, across my collar bone, and onto my shoulder. Then, he does the same on the other side, and all I can do is clench my legs around him tighter. I let my hands slide down his broad shoulders until I reach the bottom button of his shirt, then quickly work my way up to the top. I push the button-up off his big shoulders, and he’s in a tight undershirt. I tug the undershirt out from the waist of his jeans, and admire his big chest while I let my fingers get to work on his belt.

  He moans under his breath as I do, the anticipation of what’s coming killing us both. As I undo his belt and jeans, he slides his hands up my thighs, letting his fingers dance along the teeny straps of my g-string. But instead of pulling them down, he traces my panty line with one finger, then two. He pulls me in for another kiss, our tongues lashing together, searching one another wildly. Then he lets one finger glide down into my panties, another going with it. He feels how wet I am and his eyes widen in surprise, looking hungrier than ever.

  “Damn,” he whispers, and it’s so sexy that I can’t stop myself from biting his lip.

  “I told you,” I whisper into his ear, “all I can think about is you.”

  He pushes his groin into my hand, letting the bulge press up against me.

  “Right back at you,” he says. I smile, tugging on his bottom lip with my teeth again before sliding my hand down into his boxers. I take his whole length in my hand—and Jesus Christ, why didn’t I do this weeks ago?