A Prince Among Men
Page 18
From that point on it was hard to tell whose fists were whose. All Mason knew was that Clay finally grabbed him. “Mason. Enough.”
With another glance at Clinton's bloodied face, Mason let Clay steer him back to the truck and shove him into the passenger’s side door.
Enough time had been wasted on that lowlife Clinton. April needed them now.
As Clay started the truck, Mason realized Clay was right to stop him. They’d do April no good if they were in jail. But shit. What Clinton had said he’d done to her nearly ate a hole in Mason’s gut.
“Clay. What if what he said was true. What if he…”
Mason couldn’t bring himself to say the word rape.
Feeling the truck accelerate, Mason watched Clay’s throat work as he swallowed hard, his friend’s eyes never leaving the road as he avoided answering the question. “We’ll be there in a minute.”
Mason felt his own heart pounding at the thought. “And…then what?”
Clay looked at him now, for too long considering the speed at which the truck was hurtling down the dark road. “We take her to the hospital to get looked at, and then we go back and kill him.”
Mason nodded. He could live with that.
Clay didn’t slow down until they had arrived back at April’s farm, then, he steered the truck down the drive as slowly and quietly as he could, but still, the sound of the tires crunching on the gravel sounded deafeningly loud in the darkness, cutting the silence typical of the middle of the night.
The two swung their doors shut slowly, pushing them until they barely latched to avoid any more noise that might wake April’s parents.
The front porch light had been turned off. Mason hoped April had done that on her way in and that her parents were still sleeping soundly, unaware of the two cowboys about to crawl through their bruised and battered daughter’s bedroom window.
This wouldn’t be the first time they’d done this. Not for the purpose that Clinton had accused them of, but kids will be kids, and they had been sneaking in, or helping April sneak out, for years now. Sometimes they’d all go night fishing. More recently, they’d grab a six-pack of beer and the three of them would sit by the lake and talk.
Tonight would be the first time Mason absolutely dreaded talking to April. He really didn’t want to hear the answer to the question they were about to ask her. Judging by the look of her when she’d come hobbling down the road, and from Clinton’s bragging, Mason feared he already knew the answer.
She had left the window open, just as Clay asked her to, and all Mason had to do was hop up on the sill and swing a leg inside.
April had changed out of the torn dress and was wrapped in an extra large t-shirt and her top sheet, in spite of the heat. She sat upright in the bed, hugging her knees and rocking, until she saw Mason coming through the window. “Oh, thank god. I was so worried. What did you two do?”
She was worried about them?
Clay was over the windowsill and next to him in an instant and they both went to sit on either side of her on the bed. Clay answered her question. “We had to take care of some garbage. How are you feeling, darlin’?”
“Better.” Her voice sounded breathy in the darkness.
Mason ran one hand gently down her arm, careful not to hurt the bruises he knew were there but couldn’t see in the room lit only by a tiny nightlight in one corner. He had to ask her this, though he didn’t want to. “I need you to tell us what happened, April.”
She shook her head, silent.
Clay laid one hand on her sheet-covered knee. “You need to, darlin’. It’s important.”
“He just…tried stuff. That’s all. Nothing happened.”
Mason swallowed and kept rubbing her arm, more for his comfort than for hers at this point.
“April, baby.” Mason cleared his throat and began again. “It’s us. You can tell us anything. You know that. And we know that whatever happened tonight, he forced on you. But you have to tell us if you two had sex because we have to take care of you if you did.”
“No!” April jerked back from him and her denial came out a bit too loudly.
As happy as the answer made him, Mason, and Clay too, shushed her before her parents woke up.
She lowered her voice and repeated, “No.”
“The truth?” Clay asked, mirroring what Mason wanted to ask.
“Yes, the truth! I kneed him the way you guys taught me years ago. When he was bent over in pain in that car he loves so much, I got out and ran home.”
Clay laughed out loud. Mason allowed himself a small smile, thankful that two thirteen-year-old boys had had the sense to teach a young April self-defense.
He heard Clay release a loud breath as he gathered April in a big hug. “I am very happy to hear that. I would have really hated to have to go back and kill him.”
“Would you really have done that?” April asked, sounding so incredibly small.
Mason answered her question before Clay, his voice flat and matter of fact. “Yes.”
She turned in Clay’s arms to face Mason. “Why?”
That answer was easy. “Because we care about you. A lot.”
April reached out and touched his face softly. “I care about you both, too.”
Clay laughed on the other side of her. “As it is, Clinton’s not going to be looking so pretty for the graduation ceremony next week.”
“Did you hurt him really bad?”
“Um…” Clay hesitated. Mason didn’t.
“Yes, we did. You okay with that?”
April thought for a second. “I may be a horrible person to say this but, yes, I am okay with that.”
She flopped backwards to lie against her pillow. With one booted foot each still on the floor, Clay and Mason followed, each one lying on his side next to her.
They’d lain like this many times before when they would stay up half the night talking and then fall asleep in her bed, only to sneak out at dawn and pretend to be just arriving to see to the horses’ morning feeding.
“He kept saying he knew that I…that we…” April couldn’t finish the sentence.
Clay nodded and put one finger across her lips. “Shhh, it’s okay. We know. He said the same shit to us.”
“People are idiots. You can’t listen to what he said, to what anybody says.” Mason reached out and played with one of her curls that lay near his face on the pillow.
“Yeah, I know.” April let out a huge sigh and then laughed sadly. “You both stink like horse. Did you at least win?”
“I did and I’ve got the prize money and the buckle in my saddlebag to prove it.” Mason could hear the pride in Clay’s voice.
“Mason? What about you?”
Clay answered that question for him. “He ended up eating a face full of dirt.”
Mason scowled. “Thanks, Clay.”
April squeezed his arm comfortingly and then they were all silent for a bit. Mason thought maybe she’d fallen asleep, until her soft voice filled the darkness once again. “I’ve thought about it, you know.”
Clay kicked off his boots so that they landed on the floor with a thud, then swung both his feet up onto the bed. “Thought about what, darlin’?”
Figuring they were here for the night since sunrise was only a few hours away, Mason had just let his own boots drop to the floor so he could get comfortable when April answered.
“I’ve thought about us being together…like that. The three of us.”
She stared straight up at the ceiling as she let that bomb drop on them both.
For once, even Clay was speechless. All Mason heard come out of his friend was a soft shocked wheeze of air at April’s comment. She’d said it so casually, as if she hadn’t just blurted out the most outrageous, tantalizing thing Mason had ever heard in all of his eighteen years.
He realized just how close their three faces were. So close, that when she turned her head slightly on the pillow, her breath tickled his nose. Her hand came up to pull Mason’
s head even closer. She kissed him softly on the lips.
Then, as Mason’s heart pounded with the possibilities, April turned her head and he saw her plant the same soft kiss on Clay. Only Clay wasn’t as polite, or perhaps not as shocked, as Mason had been. It took barely a second before Clay tangled his hand in her hair, tilted his head and kissed her deeper, just inches from Mason’s face. He watched his two best friends kiss, amazed, aroused, confused…About the Author:
It all started in first grade when Cat Johnson won the essay contest at Hawthorne Elementary School and got to ride in the Chief of Police’s car in the Memorial Day Parade…and the rest, as they say, is history. As an adult, Cat generally tries to stay out of police cars and is thrilled to be writing for a living. She has been published under a different name in the Young Adult genre, but Linden Bay is the first to release her romances.
On a personal note, Cat has one horse, too many cats, one dog, parakeets, fish, and a husband, and is not sure which of those gives her the most grief. Needless to say, she is very busy most days on her little 18th century farm in New York State. She plays the harp professionally and stresses that this does not mean she plays well. A past bartender, marketing manager, and Junior League president, Cat’s life is quite the dichotomy, and on any given day she is just as likely to be in formal eveningwear as in mucking clothes covered in manure. Cat hates the telephone but loves email, and is looking forward to hearing from you.
cat.johnson@lindenbayromance.com
Also by Cat Johnson:
Trilogy No. 102: Opposites Attract
Trilogy No. 103: Red Hot & Blue
Trilogy No. 105: Smalltown, U.S.A.
Trilogy No. 106: Nice & Naughty
Trilogy No. 107: True Blue
Trilogy No. 108: Just Desserts
Heroes Unwrapped
A Few Good Men
Model Soldier
Crossing the Line
This is a publication of
Linden Bay Romance
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