Reese: A Safe Haven Novella

by Terri Anne Browning

  Safe Haven

  Reese

  By Terri Anne Browning

  Copy Write

  Safe Haven

  Reese

  Book 1

  All Rights Reserved© 2012 Anna Henson

  Written By Terri Anne Browning

  Cover Picture By Dmitrijs Dmitrijevs | Dreamstime.com

  This is a work of fiction. Any characters, names, places or incidents are used solely as a fictitious nature based on the authors imagination. Any resemblance to or mention of persons, place, organizations, or other incidents are completely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any other means without permission from the Publisher.

  Special thanks to Tiffany Krepps and Jessika Bailey for their wonderful input. Thank you ladies for all of your help!

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The night air was cold. I shivered and wrapped my parka around me tighter, hoping to find some relief from the chill of the winter night as well as the numbing cold that had invaded my body more than a week ago. My eyes felt dry and gritty. I had cried so much that I was sure my tear ducts were permanently damaged.

  Good, because I never wanted to cry again. I would never cry again!

  I pushed those thoughts down and quickly pulled up the walls that I had begun to place around my heart six months ago. Ever since my mother had married The Pervert and I had started sleeping with my bedroom door locked. I had sensed something about the guy the minute that my mother had introduced me to him, the night before the wedding. The way the creep had looked at me when everyone else wasn’t watching. The way his hand had brushed my thigh under the table at dinner…

  Nausea twisted my stomach and I had to swallow the bile that rose in the back of my throat.

  When they had returned from their honeymoon I had still been home from boarding school for summer vacation. My mother, forever in her own little world that revolved around her, herself and no one else, had brushed me off as only wanting attention when I had voiced my discomfort about my new stepfather. My grandfather, my late father’s father, had been too busy to even take my calls when I had tried to reach him. His secretary had taken a message, like always, and said that she would have him call me when he got a spare minute.

  That minute had never come about and as the days had turned into weeks I had grown more scared of my stepfather, more terrified that I would be woken in the middle of the night with him in my bed, touching me as he had come to do every chance he got during my waking hours. I had looked forward to returning to boarding school and the safety of the dorm that was thousands of miles away. But then my mother had said I was staying home for my junior year, going to a local prep school instead. Something that my stepfather had insisted on.

  I had been desperate. I wanted away from it all.

  By mere chance I had found something that had repelled my stepfather around Halloween. He was terrified of the Goth kids. I had found salvation in the dark side: painting my face white, with lots of black make-up and clothes. Skeleton jewelry. Biker boots. I had begun to sleep a little easier at night.

  Until a week ago.

  I had stupidly left my door unlocked. Crazy because I had three locks on the door, but for some reason it had completely slipped my mind as I had fallen into a deep sleep after a difficult evening of studying for a Chemistry final before the beginning of the winter holidays. Around three in the morning I had felt a draft as my covers had been lifted. The Pervert had climbed into bed with me without so much as his boxers on and started touching me.

  My worst nightmares come to life!

  I had screamed, and screamed, and screamed until my throat was raw from the torture of it. The housekeeper had come running from the other end of the house while my mother had remained comatose from a night of drinking and her latest vice, cocaine. The housekeeper, the woman who had been around since I was a tot, had been fired the next day. My one savior in the madness that was my life, and she had been sent packing for daring to interfere when she had discovered The Pervert in my room unclothed.

  I had decided then and there that I was going to leave. I had no other choice. If I stayed then there would be no one to help me the next time The Pervert tried something, and there would most definitely be a next time. No one else was going to step in and help me. Not my mother. Not my grandfather who was far too busy with making money to care. Not even the teacher that I had dared to confide in but who had been convinced that I was only making up stories. So I had to help myself.

  I made a plan. Each day for three days I used my personal bank card to my own private account that my grandfather put a monthly allowance into, and took as much as I could out of the ATMs near school. I had a little hidden away at home as well and by the third day I had a good bit of cash. The fourth day, which was also the last day of school before the break, I let our driver take me to school as usual and then waited until he was gone before I had turned in the opposite direction.

  I had no friends, no one wanted to hang out with the ‘Goth Freak’ that I had turned myself into as a survival mechanism, but which I had grown to like. I hadn’t overly stood out as a student even though I had been top of my class back at my old school. So no one was going to miss me until the end of the school day when the driver returned to pick me up.

  I grabbed a cab and went straight to the bus station. I picked a destination at random and hopped on board to Mobile Alabama using one of the fake IDs that I had bought from one of the older kids at school, a kid that excelled in art and computer graphics. He made a fortune off of making them for the entire student body, despite the fact that his father was rumored to have a net worth in the hundred millions.

  The ID said that I was Regina Williams and that I was eighteen. With my above average height and the new lines on my face from the stress I have been under recently I looked older than my sixteen years. From Mobile I had caught another bus to Dallas Texas under the name of Rachel Cook, who was the ripe old age of twenty, which was cutting it close on the believable age scale, but not by much. I had one more fake ID and I used it to grab a cheap seat on a plane that was heading to Indiana.

  I have been in Indiana for more than two days now and I was sorely missing the milder temperatures of Texas. December was not a good month to find myself homeless with only a few changes of clothes. Luckily I had packed my parka and a hoody, neither could not fight the cold winter nights.

  Last night I had slept in a rundown motel that looked as if it was more for hourly rentals than for nightly. The noises on either side of my room had suggested that my first observation was correct. I spent the night on top of the blankets, with the heat cranked all the way up and the little TV blaring in an attempt to drown out the noises coming from either of the rooms beside of mine.

  As soon as the sun had come up I grabbed my backpack and started walking. I wanted to save my money as much as possible and even the Whore House Motel had been more than I really had to spare right now. So tonight I was sleeping in a church. There was no heat and even the sign out front had said that Sunday services were cancelled until their system could be repaired. I hadn’t realized that it would be this cold when I had decided to bunk down here, but now that I was here I didn’t want to leave. It had to be col
der outside than in, and I wasn’t likely to find a better form of shelter tonight anyway.

  Tomorrow I would find my way to a warmer state. Florida, California, maybe even Texas again. Whatever was the cheapest, I could care less as long as it had a warmer climate. I could maybe spare a hundred dollars if I found a job using one of my fake IDs soon. Another bus ride with heat sounded so wonderful right then that I leaned my head back against the pew and drifted off into a light, though nightmare filled sleep.

  Chapter 1

  Five years later…

  I pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels from the top shelf and lined up four shots. The four men, all in their mid-twenties and dressed like punk rockers, gave me a respectful nod as they downed the amber liquid and then dropped the small glasses back onto the bar top. I poured four more before I moved on to the next customer. It was Friday night and the place was full. That was good news for me because I paid my rent on my weekend tips. It was bad news for whoever had to clean up the mess…

  Oh yeah, that was me!

  “What can I get you?” I asked the biker. His name was Bubba and he was a regular. He tipped decently, but he could be a handful when he had one to many. But I wasn’t scared of the three hundred plus and his bad temper. I had a few tricks in dealing with rowdy customers and no one liked it when I had to use them. Bubba knew what would happen if I had to resort to my bag of tricks and he still carried a few bruises from the weekend before when I had shown him exactly who was boss inside the bar.

  Inside of Safe Haven I was cop, judge, and executioner. Regulars knew that but sometimes the liquor made them forget. I simply showed them the errors of their ways and they didn’t forget again—at least for a while.

  “Beer.” His voice was rough from years of smoking but he had respect in his tone and in his blood shot amber eyes. There were no hard feelings for the beating I had given him. “And two shots of tequila, Goth Girl.”

  A small smile twitched at the edges of my lips, the closest I ever came to smiling. “Top shelf?” I asked just to make sure.

  “Course top shelf.”

  I popped the top on his beer and lined up two shot glasses before pouring out some nasty tequila that had just as much bite as it did bark to it. I waited long enough for him to down the first, saw that even he had a hard time taking the bite of the Tarantula and moved on to the next paying customer. Bubba had a running account and I had already added his drinks to the tally.

  Half an hour later I was mixing margaritas for two college girls out on the town looking for something from the dark side. They looked like trust fund babies, with their wide eye gazes at all the bikers, Emo and Goths. They wore expensive clothes, their hair was almost beauty pageant worthy and their heels gave them at least three extra inches in height. I rolled my eyes as they gave my makeup a disdainful look and accidently on purpose spilt a little on one of their tight tube tops. “Hey!” She protested.

  I gave her a hard look. “Swallow your drinks and then get going. You don’t want to mess with the things that lurk in the corners here, pretty girls.”

  They didn’t heed my warning, of course. And I hadn’t expected them to. Not really. Which was why when two monstrous bikers that where new to the bar tried to take the college girls for a little ride, I was a little slower in reacting wanting to teach them a lesson or three. I watched as the girl I had spilt margarita on tried to pull out of the burly biker’s hold and the other girl looked sick as she was being pulled toward the exit.

  I shot the bouncers in back a look that said I had it handled and jumped over the bar. I cut the four off at the front door. As I met the gazes of the girls I knew that they were regretting not taking my earlier warning seriously. But they looked just as skeptical of my ability to handle the situation as the two bikers.

  “Move out of the way, Goth.” Biker One commanded, making ‘Goth’ sound insulting. He had a horrible scar going from the bridge of his nose to the edge of his jaw. His teeth were yellow from years of too much tobacco and not enough toothpaste. He stood a good six inches taller than me even in my own three inch heeled biker boots. Probably out-weighed me a good two hundred pounds too.

  “You may go. But the girls stay.” I told him, my tone cool as always.

  “Says who?” Biker Two questioned sounding more amused than concerned. “I don’t see anyone here who could stop us.” His smile was considerably whiter than Biker One, but there was a chip in his front tooth. Like his friend he out-weighed me, but his height was not that of the first biker.

  “I say.” I told him. “And I will stop you.”

  Biker One shoved the pretty college girl away. Some of the bikers didn’t care if they hurt a woman or not, while others would tear a man a new one for even looking mean at a female. But I wasn’t intimidated by him or his friend who stepped closer to me. His whisky scented breath made me want to gag but I controlled the reflex. “How you going to stop us, Goth?” He sneered. “Going to cast a spell? Maybe do a little voodoo on us?”

  “Try to leave with the girls and you will find out.” I blew in his face, knowing that it would piss him off. Knowing that I would just be asking for them to hurt me. Or at least attempt it.

  The bar had grown quiet. Even the music had been turned down as people watched me, a five feet eight inches, one hundred five pound Goth girl confronting two drunken bikers. The regulars were taking bets. The newcomers were anxious. The men, those that had a decent bone in their bodies were tensed to come to my rescue. The ones that didn’t have any such decency were giddy with the threat of a fight.

  Movement out of the corner of my eye alerted me to someone approaching but I shot the man a glare to hold his ground without taking much of him in. If he was coming to assist the little woman, I had this, my look told him. If he was coming to assist the bikers my look told him he really didn’t want to have anything to do with what was about to go down.

  Biker One got in my face right beside of his buddy and I turned my glare back to him. They crowded my space and I gritted my teeth. I could not stand to have anyone so close to me. And now there were two invading my personal space. My hands dropped to my sides.

  “Maybe we should ditch the blonds and take you instead.” Biker One said. “You look like a chick who could use a good-“

  He didn’t get to complete his sentence. I had my baton in hand and with a flick of my wrist the steel extended. I swung and connected with Biker One’s left knee. He screamed and went down. Biker Two roared with his rage, but before his beefy fist could connect with my face my baton connected with his forearm. I felt the bone snap more than heard it and it made my skin crawl. But I pushed the feeling down as I turned back to Biker One who had made it to his feet. He limped toward me once, his fists swinging. Baton still in hand I kicked him in the chest with my spiked heel biker boots, sending him back to the floor.

  The whole incident lasted less than two minutes. I retracted the extendable steel baton and sheathed it in its case strapped to my thigh. Biker Two was screaming about his arm and Biker One was still winded from the kick I had given his sternum. As I passed him I kicked his side for good measure before crouching down beside of the fallen biker. “Now. Are you going to leave with the girls?”

  He muttered a curse and I punched him in the face. His nose instantly began bleeding. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t quite hear you. What was that again?”

  “No!” He screamed at me, his hand holding his gushing nose. Spittle and blood sprayed as he spoke again. “No you bitch. NO!”

  “And do you still want to leave with me?” My tone was bored, just as I was with the entire situation.

  “NO!” He shouted.

  “That Goth bitch broke my arm.” Biker Two was mumbling to himself. “She broke it.” I doubt that he had ever been more surprised in his life.

  “Pick your ass up and get out. I’m sure your friend needs a doctor.” I straightened and turned a glare on the quiet room. “Any more takers?” I challenged the room at large. “No? Then go back
to your good time. Entertainment’s over.” The music was turned back up, and people returned to their own business. Money was exchanged between some of the regulars who had won their bet.

  After making sure the two shaken girls got into a cab safely outside I returned to my place behind the bar and set another beer in front of Bubba before he could ask. He was grinning at me, probably happy that it had been someone other than himself on the other end of my beating. I gave him a wink but otherwise ignored him as I returned to my other customers seated at the bar.

  As I put two Boiler Makers in front of a guy and his dominatrix date I noticed a man seated at the end of the bar. Bubba had just vacated his seat, leaving me a nice tip and I snatched it up to put in my tip jar before turning my attention to the new comer.

  He was the guy who had attempted to approach me while I had been dealing with Biker One and Biker Two. I gave him a good once over taking in his short dark blond hair, those unusual steel gray eyes and the scar over his right eyebrow. He had nice lips, and an even white smile I noticed when he grinned at me. That smile made something deep inside twitch, as if a dead muscle was trying to jump start back to life.

  I ignored the feeling as I took in the rest of him. He wore a sleeveless tee shirt and jeans that I was probably the only one aware of being designer. But his arms were sleeved with tattoos that I had to admire. Skulls, tribal symbols, and even a Celtic Knot were among the many tats that were so at odds with each other, but fit so perfectly together. I put him in his late twenties, maybe even early thirties. His size and physique told me he was either a body builder or some kind of fighter. Muscles on top of muscles, veins popping ever so slightly, making his tats stand out more.

  Then I saw the logo on his shirt and recognition hit me. MMA.

  “Kieran Stone.” I said his name and he inclined his handsome head in acknowledgement. “What can I get for you?” Famous Mixed Martial Artist he might be, but I was nowhere near impressed with his stardom. I might have been a big fan, but I had met plenty of celebrities in my old life.