“No, you’re not a possession. You’re the woman I love, and I don’t know what I’d do if you were hurt.”
“I’m fine. Stop worrying.”
He sighed, pulling the car out onto the highway toward Wiggieville. “Let’s go to that steak house.”
She grabbed her purse and looked inside, digging for something.
“What are you looking for?”
“Every time I’ve gone into Wiggieville since we started filming the show, I’ve had at least one request for an autograph. Making sure I’m prepared.”
He shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re still thinking about the fans first.”
“They still pay my bills.”
“Technically, the show’s sponsors pay our bills.”
“We wouldn’t have the sponsors without the fans!”
“All right.” He wasn’t going to argue with her. He really liked her attitude about doing the best thing for the fans. It showed she didn’t take her blessings in life for granted.
“Am I dressed well enough?” She looked down at her jeans and T-shirt. “There’s mud on my pants.”
“So you won’t be the ultra-glamorous star everyone expects you to be. Does that bother you?”
“Not really. I’m human just like anyone else. If they can’t see it, then they need to. I won’t be idolized.”
He grinned. “Not even by me?”
“Nope. Not even by you.” She threaded her fingers through his hand. “I like being your wife.”
“I’m glad, because you’re stuck with me.”
“Like glue.”
They were seated in a quiet corner of the restaurant, and she chose what she wanted before excusing herself to use the restroom. She could see in his eyes he wanted to follow her, but she shook her head. “No way are you going to stand outside the bathroom and wait for me like I’m a child.”
He studied her for a moment as if trying to decide if she would be safe, but he finally nodded. “Hurry.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll be fine.”
As she was washing her hands before going back to the table, her phone rang in her purse. She grabbed it, her mind immediately on alert. When she looked, she saw it was Rikki. “Rikki. Are you all right?”
“Sure she is,” Curtis responded. “She’s with me. Why wouldn’t she be all right?”
Hearing his voice sent cold chills down her spine. “Curtis, where are you?”
He chuckled. “Worried about your sister? Isn’t it a little late for that?”
“What have you done to her?” Valerie closed her eyes, leaning against the counter in the bathroom. “Is she okay?”
“Sure, she’s fine. For now.”
There was a short silence and then she heard Rikki’s voice. “Valerie, I’m all right. He won’t let me go, though.” Her voice sounded as if she was crying.
“Where are you?”
Curtis responded. “Why would you ask her that? I had her blindfolded when we came in. She has no idea. I’ll tell you though. I’m at the motel at the corner of Main St. and First in Wiggieville. Room one-twenty-two. Come alone, and I’ll let her go.”
“And what will happen to me?”
“You’ll be reminded who you belong to.”
Valerie closed her eyes. “I’ll be there in a minute.” She hurried from the bathroom and out to the car, where she knew Jesse had left the handgun and ammunition. She didn’t think twice as she took the gun from the glovebox and carefully loaded it, pushing the safety on as Jesse had shown her.
Sticking the pistol in the small of her back, she hurried down the street, determined to be the strong this one time. Her sister needed her, and she couldn’t trust Curtis not to hurt her sister if she brought anyone with her.
She walked the block down to the motel Curtis had mentioned, and taking a deep breath, knocked on the door of room one-hundred-twenty-two.
Curtis opened the door, a wide grin on his face. “I knew you’d come back to me.”
“Let Rikki go.”
“How’d you get here so fast?”
“I was having dinner here in town.” Valerie kept her face averted, trying to make him think she was being timid. She didn’t want him to realize she was stronger now, but as she stood there in front of him, hiding her anger, she realized she was. She wasn’t afraid. She was angry!
“With him?” Curtis grabbed her arm and pulled her into the room, slamming her against the wall.
She ignored the pain where she hit and hurried to her sister whose hands were tied in front of her. “You said you’d let her go.”
Curtis shrugged. “I don’t care about her. Only you.”
She carefully untied her sister’s hands. “Go to the steakhouse. It’s only a block away. Jesse is there. Tell him who you are, and he’ll take care of you.” Valerie carefully kept her voice down as she gave her sister instructions, explaining how to get there. “Tell him I’m all right.”
Rikki nodded, rubbing her wrists. “Thank you for saving me.”
Valerie could tell her sister didn’t want to leave her there, but she’d been a captive for two days. “Go.”
Rikki got off the bed and walked to the door. “Don’t hurt my sister!”
Curtis pushed her out the door and locked it, turning back to Valerie. “Now I want to know why you married him. You belong to me!”
CHAPTER 10
Valerie’s eyes met Curtis’s for the first time since she’d entered the room. “Because I love him.”
His face turned red with rage. “You’ve loved me for eight years. Don’t lie to me! What did he do to force you to marry him?”
“He didn’t have to force me. I’ve loved him since the moment I set eyes on him.” Well, since she set lips on him, but she didn’t need to tell Curtis that. “I never loved you. I let you control me. That’s something entirely different.” She knew she was making him angrier, but she couldn’t help herself. She needed to tell him the truth.
“Why are you trying to force me to punish you? You know you can’t lie to me that way. Did you do it for the show? For the publicity?”
She shook her head adamantly, her hand going to the small of her back and pulling out the gun, but leaving it out of his sight. She had to be ready. She knew he was going to come toward her at any moment. He wouldn’t be able to resist hitting her for the things she was saying.
She smiled sweetly. “Publicity was the last thing on my mind. Remember how you used to tell me how frigid I was? That I was too cold to ever respond to a man? It wasn’t true. I was only cold with you. Jesse sets me on fire. I married the right man. The better man.”
Curtis shook his head, obviously having a hard time believing she was talking to him like that. “No! It’s not true!”
Valerie suddenly felt powerful, more powerful than she’d ever felt with him. “Yes. I love my husband, and I’m so glad I married him.”
* * *
Jesse looked at the clock on his phone for the fifteenth time since Valerie left. Where was she? He stood up and walked to the hostess. “Would you check the restroom? My wife went in there a long time ago, and I’m worried about her.”
The blonde shook her head. “I saw her leave the restaurant at least twenty minutes ago.”
“What? Do you know where she was going?”
“She didn’t say anything to me. She went to your car, and then she started running down the street.”
Jesse closed his eyes, fear gripping him. She’d gone to rescue Rikki. There was no doubt in his mind. She must have gotten a call while she was in the bathroom, telling her where her sister was. He hoped she’d gone to the car for the handgun.
He strode toward the exit, almost bumping into a girl no bigger than Valerie. “Sorry, miss.”
“Jesse!” She grabbed his arm. “Valerie went to the motel down the street, so Curtis would let me go. She said to come to you and tell you she was okay, but I’m scared. He was so mad at her for marrying you!”
He’d never seen the girl befor
e, but there was no doubt in his mind this was his new sister-in-law. “Rikki, I need you to call the police. Do you have a phone?”
She shook her head. “No. He took it from me.” Tears were streaming down her face, and her clothes were dirty and wrinkled, but she was a beauty just like her sister.
Jesse looked at the hostess. “Can she use your phone to call the police?”
The hostess nodded, her eyes wide. This kind of situation didn’t happen often in the sleepy little town of Wiggieville, Texas. “Tell me where Valerie is. Do you know the room number?”
“One-twenty-two. She’s in there with him.” Rikki was practically hysterical.
Jesse put his hand on her arm for a moment to calm her before turning and running out the door. It was just minutes before he was at the hotel, pounding on the door to the room. “Valerie! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!” she called back. A moment later the door opened, and she handed him the gun in her hands before flinging herself at him. There were no tears, but she was shaking hysterically.
“Where is he?” Jesse couldn’t see Curtis anywhere.
He heard a groan from the other side of the bed, and pushing Valerie behind him, he hurried over to look down at the injured man on the floor. “You shot him.” He turned to Valerie with a combination of shock and pride in his eyes.
“Of course, I shot him. He was about to kill me with his bare hands.”
Jesse looked at her for a moment before looking back down at the man on the floor. It looked like she’d shot him in the shoulder. “Why was he going to kill you?” He’d been sure Curtis would hit her, but killing her had seemed out of the realm of possibilities.
“Because I told him I married you because I loved you. He wanted me to tell him you forced me.”
“Why did you tell him that?” Jesse wasn’t quite able to understand what was happening. He heard the sirens outside and breathed a sigh of relief. Soon he’d have her alone.
“Because it’s the truth.”
“What?” He looked back at her quickly, not feeling like he could keep his eyes off Curtis for long. “You love me?” This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have in front of other people, but he had to know exactly what she was telling him.
She nodded. “Since the first moment we kissed, I craved to be with you. I spent all my time thinking about you. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner.”
“You have the worst sense of timing of any woman I’ve ever met. Do you know that?”
She laughed. “Why? I promised myself I wouldn’t tell you until the danger from Curtis was over. It’s over. Now I’m telling you.”
Jesse felt his heart pounding in his chest. His arms ached to hold her, but he didn’t trust Curtis not to have a weapon on him, so he continued to stand there with his handgun pointed at the other man. “Rikki called the police for us.”
On cue two police officers rushed into the room. The same officer who had helped them with the restraining order was one of them. He looked at Jesse. “Drop your weapon!”
Jesse immediately did as he was told, backing away from the gun. “Just making sure things didn’t get out of hand before you got here.
“That him?” Officer Hamilton asked Valerie.
She nodded. “I shot him when he came after me. He kidnapped my sister in Iowa and brought her here.”
“Where’s your sister?”
“I don’t know.” She looked at Jesse. “She went to get my husband, and she’s the one who called you. Is she still at the steak place?”
“I have no idea.” Jesse frowned. “I guess someone should go see if she’s there.”
Rikki stumbled into the room. “I’m here!”
Officer Hamilton turned to Rikki, while his partner helped Curtis onto the bed. “We’re going to need an ambulance,” the partner said, pulling his radio off his belt. He quickly explained the situation.
Officer Hamilton asked, “Can you tell me what happened?”
Rikki explained about how he’d approached her outside the grocery store where she worked. “He told me that he needed to talk to someone who loved Valerie as much as he did. I thought he was really hurting because of their break up.” She looked over at Valerie, her eyes pleading for understanding.
Valerie leaned against Jesse, her back to his chest. “You have a soft heart.”
Rikki brushed away a tear. “And it almost got you killed.” She sniffled. “So I got in his van with him so we could go get a cup of coffee and talk. He drove us out of town, and I realized what he was doing, so I told him to pull over. I figured I could walk back to town. Instead, he tied my hands together and forced me in the back of the van he was driving.”
Jesse listened, his arms around his wife. He so badly wanted to be alone with her to talk, but he knew they needed to get this over with first.
“So he drove you here from Iowa?” Officer Hamilton prompted.
She nodded. “He took me on Thursday night.”
“Do you know if your disappearance was reported?”
Jesse nodded. “I know it was. I talked to her mother on Friday, and she was filing a police report then.”
“All right, go on.” Officer Hamilton was making note of everything Rikki said.
“He brought me here. I had no idea where we were until he got on the phone with my sister. He called her from my phone, because he said she’d blocked his calls.”
Officer Hamilton met Valerie’s eyes. “I talked to her a couple of weeks ago about the situation. She had already blocked his calls then.”
“Well, he called her and told her how to find me. Then he let me talk to her for a minute, so she’d know I was all right.”
“Why didn’t you call the police at that point, Mrs. Savoy?”
Valerie met the officer’s eyes. “I was afraid he’d hurt Rikki if I didn’t follow his instructions exactly.”
“Where were you when you received the call?”
“Jesse and I spent time in the field near the set today. He taught me how to shoot, because we were worried I’d need to defend myself. When we were finished, we came into town to eat at the little steakhouse down the road.” She took a deep breath, finding strength in her husband’s touch. “I went to the restroom, and while I was in there, I got the phone call. So I went to the car, got the handgun we’d been practicing with, and I loaded it. Curtis never expected me to fight back, so he didn’t look for it.”
“I see. Did you just come in and shoot him? Or did he threaten you?”
Valerie put her hand over Jesse’s where it was resting on her waist. “I whispered to Rikki to go to Jesse while I untied her hands. After Rikki was out of the room, he asked why I’d married my husband. I was honest with him, and told him I loved Jesse. That made him angry, and he got agitated. He told me he was going to kill me, and he walked toward me with his hands outstretched, so I shot him. I was aiming for his shoulder. I didn’t want to kill him, but I needed him not to hurt me.”
Officer Hamilton jotted down a few more notes. “It sounds like you did the right thing. Well, except for the fact that you should have informed the police instead of coming in to save your sister yourself. You do realize how dangerous that was, don’t you?”
She nodded. “I also knew I couldn’t be responsible for anything happening to my sister.”
“I see.” He wrote something else.
The paramedics came in then, taking Curtis out on a stretcher and stalling the discussion. Officer Hamilton’s partner went with them.
Once they were gone, Officer Hamilton turned to Valerie. “I don’t think I’m going to have a problem corroborating your story. If I have more questions, I’ll contact you on the set.”
Valerie nodded. “Thank you.” She turned to her sister. “You’re coming back with us tonight. We’ll call Mom together.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t want me to stay in this hotel room.”
“Never.” Valerie turned in Jesse’s arms. “Amber is on set. I’m sure s
he’ll be happy to have Rikki stay with her. I’m sure she’s not going to want to be alone for a while.”
“I hope so,” Jesse whispered, his words only loud enough for her to hear. “I need my wife all to myself tonight.” He knew it was selfish with her sister having gone through so much, but he needed her to tell him she loved him again. And he needed to be able to hear it repeatedly as he held her and made love with her.
The three of them walked down the street back to Jesse’s car. “We never did eat,” he said with a frown.
“I’m not up to sitting and eating a steak at this point. I want to get back.” Valerie’s eyes met Jesse’s and he understood her completely.
“Fast food it is,” Rikki said from her position in the back seat. “I’m starving. He hasn’t been feeding me much.”
“Oh, I never thought of that. We can go to the restaurant if you want.”
“I don’t want. I want to get somewhere I can sleep.” Rikki yawned. “I haven’t exactly slept much either.”
They drove through a chain fast food place and ordered their food. Rikki was asleep before they even got there. Valerie ordered for her sister, and they drove back to the set. When they arrived, she woke Rikki. “We need to eat.”
Rikki got out of the car, not quite steady on her feet. She followed Valerie into her trailer. “This is our home away from home.”
Rikki barely glanced around, sitting down at the small table and eating the burger in front of her. While she ate, Valerie called their mother. “Mom, he brought her here. She’s safe. Curtis is in the hospital.”
“What did Jesse do to him?”
Valerie bit her lip for a moment. “Nothing. I shot him.” She couldn’t believe how proud she was that she’d put a bullet through another human. She’d done what she needed to do to protect herself and her sister though, and that’s what mattered.
She could almost hear her mother’s surprise across the phone line. “You shot him? Really?”
“Really. He’s in the hospital, but he’ll be going to jail.”
“Can I talk to Rikki?”
Valerie looked at her sister. “Mom needs to hear your voice, I think.”
Rikki took the phone, still munching on a french fry. “Hey, Mom. Yeah, I’m good. Jesse is just as sexy in person as he is on television, but he only has eyes for Valerie. Yeah, I guess it’s good he loves his wife so much, but it would be nice if he just looked at me like I was beautiful for one minute.”
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