Salvation

by Terri Anne Browning

  “Sheriff Davis?”

  I nodded, my teeth sinking into my bottom lip as I waited for her reaction.

  Her smile shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. “You like him that much?” I nodded. “You know, I always worried you would be too picky. That you wouldn’t let a guy close enough to give him your heart. I’m not an easy person to love, and I know I’ve kind of infused that into you over the years. But I prayed you would find someone who would be good enough for you. Someone who would fight for you.”

  “You’re not a hard person to love,” I tried to reassure her, but she only rolled her eyes.

  “Please, Lexa. To you, I’m Wonder Woman, but to the rest of the world, I’m a hard-ass. And I like it that way. You’re the only person who matters when it comes to seeing me as a superhero. I always liked being your mentor, the one person you looked up to the most.”

  “Wonder Woman is a kick-ass role model,” I told her.

  Laughing softly, she kissed my cheek. “We’re getting off topic here, kid. What I’m saying is that Ben seems to be the kind of guy I always wanted for you. Dad told me about their little meeting. The sheriff had a set of balls on him to risk meeting your dad like he did. He’s putting himself at risk for this plan of his, but I think he knows what he’s doing. I hope, at least.”

  “What plan?” I demanded, sitting up straighter. “How will he be putting himself at risk?”

  She grimaced. “I should let him tell you. That’s where you’re heading to now, isn’t it?” The grimace turned into a smirk, and I gave a nonchalant shrug. “Let him explain since this is his idea.”

  “But you’re okay with me dating Ben?” I watched her closely for any sign that she didn’t like the idea of me being with a lawman, but I couldn’t see any.

  “If he’s who you really want, I would never stand in your way, Lexa. I only ever want your happiness, and if he makes you happy, then go for it, baby girl.” She pulled my head down to her chest, kissing the top of my head as she hugged me against her. “And if your dad gives you a hard time about it, just let me know. I’ll set his ass straight.”

  Laughing, I lifted my head. “I really do love you more than anyone else, Mom. Always.”

  “Back at you, sweetheart. Forever.”

  Chapter 12

  Lexa

  I sat with Mom for over an hour, catching her up on everything that happened on my trip to New York, while she told me any juicy gossip I might have missed while I was gone. I was so wrapped up in spending time with her, I didn’t realize what time it was.

  By the time I got to Ben’s apartment, it was twenty after eight. Jumping out of my car, I walked up the two flights of stairs to his second-story apartment in the old brick house someone had converted into four apartments. It was a nice place, one I’d always admired whenever I passed it.

  Ben gave me a key, but I didn’t know if I should use it or just knock. I knew he was home because I’d parked beside his work SUV. Groaning at my own indecision, I lifted my hand to knock, only to notice the door wasn’t shut completely.

  Frowning, I pushed it open a little and started to walk in. But before I could call out to announce I was there, I stumbled back when I caught sight of Ben.

  There was a straight view from the living room back into the kitchen. He was leaning against the counter, but he didn’t see me.

  How could he when he had Paige wrapped around him, kissing him. Her long blond hair curled down her back, his fingers tangling in the locks as they bit into her sides. I could feel the tension in the air from where I was standing on trembling legs.

  All the oxygen left my lungs in a rush, and I suddenly felt violently ill.

  He’d kissed me like that the first night I met him. Savagely, like he couldn’t get enough of my taste. And now he was tearing my heart from my chest.

  Turning away from the sight of his hands—his fucking mouth—on someone else, I stumbled down the steps and ran back to my car.

  It wasn’t until I was behind the wheel, blindly trying to start the damn vehicle that I realized I was crying.

  Sonofabitch.

  How could I have been so blind not to see he was playing games with me? He knew I would give in and come to his place when he asked me to. And he knew I would find him with Paige.

  No doubt, he was laughing his head off about how stupid and gullible I was. The fucking sad part was, he was right.

  Time after time, I’d given in and succumbed to everything he’d wanted. There was no reason to think I wouldn’t have this time too.

  I was just a toy, a damn plaything for him to pass the time with. And even though he was with someone else now, he still wanted to continue the game. See how far he could push me, make me fall for him.

  Fisting my hands around the leather of the steering wheel, I breathed in deeply, and with my next exhale, I turned my heart to ice.

  To hell with Ben Davis.

  I started to put the car in gear to get the hell out of there, but something stopped me.

  Was I really just going to walk away after he’d set this up to hurt me? Who the fuck did he think he was?

  The truth was, I didn’t know who he was now.

  But I sure as hell knew who I was. I was Raven Hannigan Reid’s daughter, and I wasn’t going to run away without letting that sonofabitch know he couldn’t play games with me and walk away unscathed.

  Hitting the button for my trunk, I calmly stepped out and walked around to the back of the car. There lay two possible weapons. A tire iron and a baseball bat. The bat, Mom had put there when she and Dad had handed over the keys to the car when I graduated from high school. For protection, she’d said.

  Grinning, I picked it up and walked over to Ben’s work SUV. The streetlights were on and showcased the vehicle perfectly as I swung the bat and broke both taillights. I didn’t try to kid myself that I was strong enough to take out the back window, but I sure as fuck tried. The first sound of cracking glass was music to my sobbing heart.

  Once I was satisfied with the cracks in the back glass, I moved around to the front, breaking out the headlights before smashing both side mirrors.

  I was so caught up in what I was doing, I didn’t even notice the cop car pull up behind me. Or the deputy who jumped out of his car with his gun drawn.

  “Put the bat down, and step away from the vehicle,” a deep voice boomed behind me.

  Pissed at being interrupted, I turned toward the guy. I vaguely recognized the man. I thought his name was Murphy, but I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like I kept up with the names of all the cops in this town.

  “Put the bat down!” he repeated, his voice shaking.

  I nearly laughed. This was probably the most exciting thing he’d experienced in this damn little town. There wasn’t a lot of crime, and other than when Enzo Fontana tried to take out my father’s MC a few times, there hadn’t been much to talk about.

  Thinking of Fontana had the laughter dying before it could be released, and I lifted the bat over my head and brought it down onto the hood of the SUV with all my strength, putting a nice dent across the middle. Drawing back, I did the same thing to the driver’s door.

  No sooner had the bat made contact than was I tackled by Murphy.

  He wrestled me to the ground, throwing the bat away from us so I wasn’t able to use it on him if I decided to. I struggled, but he outweighed me. My face was pushed into the asphalt, and I cursed him viciously as he squeezed my arm while putting the cuffs on me.

  By the time he stood and lifted me to my feet, we were both out of breath.

  “You’re under arrest for destruction of county property,” he wheezed out as he put me in the back of his car.

  “Worth it,” I muttered to myself as he slammed the door.

  --

  I’d never been arrested before, but if I was expecting a dark and dank jail cell, I was disappointed. The jail, which was attached to the police station and right next door to th
e municipal office, was surprisingly clean and smelled of the cinnamon apple plug-in by the door.

  Sitting on the bench, I leaned my head back against the wall, absently rubbing at the bruises that were already forming on my wrists and my arm where Murphy had squeezed me harder than necessary. I’d only been there thirty minutes or so, but I’d already gotten to make my one phone call.

  Not knowing how Dad would take my arrest, I’d called Aunt Gracie instead. She was the club’s defense attorney, as well as Uncle Hawk’s wife. I asked her not to tell my parents I was in jail, but I was pretty sure my uncle was listening in, and I doubted he would keep this from either of them.

  The thick door separating the cells from the rest of the station was suddenly yanked open so hard, it banged off the wall. I cringed, expecting Dad, but when I looked up, it was to see a raging bull storming toward me.

  I clenched my hands into fists, but I kept my face neutral as Ben used a set of keys to unlock my cell. Leaving the door open, he crouched down in front of me and carefully grasped my wrists, examining them. When he saw the bruises on them, the fire in his eyes spiked higher.

  “Are you okay?” he asked in a voice that sounded choked.

  “I’m fine,” I gritted out, jerking away from his touch.

  He closed his eyes as if he were in pain, but I couldn’t handle being so close to him without wanting to punch him in the face. Standing, I walked to the other side of the cell and turned to face him.

  “Lexa, let me explain,” he pleaded as he straightened. “Paige—”

  “No,” I told him in a voice devoid of all emotion, while inside, everything was a blaze of pure chaos. “I don’t want to hear about Paige. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, actually. Whatever your excuses are, save them. This game is over, and I’m not playing anymore.”

  “Baby, this isn’t a game. Paige and I—”

  “No!” I screamed, turning away from him. “Just leave me alone, Ben.”

  “You have every right to be upset, but just listen to me,” he commanded, holding his hands up in a way he must have thought would calm me.

  It didn’t. The calm I’d felt earlier while destroying his work vehicle was gone now that I was face-to-face with him. The pain had returned, along with the anger.

  “Hey, Deputy!” I yelled, knowing that asshole Murphy could hear me with the door wide open now. “Where the fuck is my lawyer?”

  “Lexa.” Ben was only a foot away now and slowly closing in on me, as if he were afraid I would bolt if he didn’t approach cautiously.

  With the cell door wide open, I could have made a run for it, but there was the chance they would charge me with attempting to escape.

  “Baby, I swear to you, Paige and I aren’t together. If you saw her kissing me…” His voice faded when I turned my hate-filled gaze on him.

  “If?” I seethed, stepping into his space. “If I saw you two kissing? Wasn’t that your plan, Sheriff? For me to show up like some love-sick fool and find you mouth-fucking your ex? That was the whole point in giving me a key, right? So I could walk right in and you could play your sick game a little more? It doesn’t happen often, but you really played me. Congratulations. You’ve done what no one else in this shit town ever could before. Are you satisfied? Does it make you feel good to know you got so close and were able to make the frigid ice princess melt in the palm of your hand?”

  “You’re so damn stubborn,” he growled, cupping my elbows in his hands. His large fingers brushed over the bruise on the upper part of my forearm, and I couldn’t hide the wince of pain it caused me.

  Ben saw it and lifted my arm to inspect it closer. When he saw the fingerprint-shaped bruises already darkening my skin, his nostrils flared. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll just wait right here.” I pulled from his grasp, walking away from him again.

  The sound of heels on the tiled floor had us both turning to watch as Aunt Gracie walked through the door. Dressed in jeans, a plain gray T-shirt, and heeled sandals, she looked like she was closer to my age. She had genes that only made her more beautiful with age. Her hellion of a son hadn’t even added a single gray hair or line to her ageless face.

  Seeing my cell was open, she lifted her brows and turned the full force of her professional glare on him. Ben straightened his spine, and I felt my lips twitch with the beginnings of a grin. Aunt Gracie was one of the sweetest women I’d ever met, but when she was doing her job, she was a tigress on the hunt.

  “Can I go home now?” I asked her hopefully as I walked over to the bars.

  “Hawk is posting your bail,” she assured me. “You can go as soon as that’s taken care of.”

  “She wouldn’t even have to post bail if Murphy had come in and told me what was going on,” Ben said as he came to stand behind me. “She never would have been arrested.”

  “Yet, she was,” my aunt said with a skeptical raise of her brows. “And just what were you doing, Sheriff, while my niece was being arrested? The incident happened right outside your apartment. Are you telling me you didn’t hear anything that would make you suspect someone was being so roughly apprehended?”

  I didn’t want to see the look on his face while she questioned him. I put more distance between us, hating that I could feel his heat radiating against my back. But even when I put the width of the cell in between us, I could still feel him like he was physically touching me.

  “I was dealing with a personal issue at the time and was distracted. When I was walking Paige out, I saw Lexa’s car and the engine was on. Then I saw the damage done to the cruiser and realized something had happened.”

  I rolled my eyes at Aunt Gracie when she glanced my way, but I shrugged when she seemed to be waiting for an explanation from me. “What the sheriff means is that he was so busy with his tongue down his ex’s throat, he wouldn’t have heard a bomb going off, let alone someone happening to take a bat to his precious cruiser.”

  “It wasn’t like that, goddamn it!” he snapped at me, frustration flooding off him in waves, and I took a sick pleasure in knowing I was tying him in knots.

  “I think I should speak to my client alone, Sheriff,” Aunt Gracie informed him, stepping back and holding her hand out toward the door that led to the front of the police station, indicating for him to leave.

  “If I could drop the charges, I would,” he told me, his tone imploring me to believe him. “But Campbell already found out, and because it was county property, I have no say over what happens next.”

  “Don’t sweat it. I knew what kind of trouble I was going to get into when I did what I did.”

  “What she allegedly did,” Aunt Gracie was quick to correct. “Other than Officer Murphy’s word, there is no solid evidence that she was responsible for what happened to the cruiser. And given the state Lexa is currently in, with scratches on her face and bruises on her arms and wrists, I don’t think he is a credible witness, given his mistreatment of my client.”

  Ben’s jaw turned to stone. “He’ll pay for this, believe that.”

  “I suggest you keep your hands clean, Sheriff Davis,” she instructed. “I’m sure the deputy regrets his actions.”

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing, knowing she figured my dad and uncles would take care of Murphy themselves. I might have felt bad for the poor man if my body weren’t aching so badly from how roughly he’d handled me earlier.

  “He’s going to be begging for his mommy when I get done with him,” Ben muttered as he walked out, the door slamming behind him.

  With the sheriff now gone, Aunt Gracie walked into the cell with me. “Are you okay? You look like hell, honey.”

  “I put up a little bit of a fight when Murphy arrested me. I don’t think there is a single part of me that doesn’t ache right now.” Rubbing at my sore wrists, I sat down on the bench, too tired to continue to stand around. Who knew how long it would take for my uncle to post my bail.

  �
�Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  “I thought if you knew the truth, you couldn’t defend me?” I asked with a tiny smile.

  “Let’s take a time-out from me being your lawyer and just let me be your aunt for a moment. I can turn off the professional side of my head and forget anything you happen to say to incriminate yourself while in family mode.” Sitting beside me, she crossed her legs as she half turned to face me. “Were you and Davis dating?”

  “Nope. He was just playing a game with me.” I felt my face heat with embarrassment at having to admit that out loud. A lump filled my throat, and I had to swallow hard a few times before it would go away. “I saw him earlier today, and he convinced me to come over tonight to talk. After asking Mom if she was okay with it, I decided to go. But…” Tears burned my eyes, and I lowered my lashes so she couldn’t witness just how gullible I’d been. “But when I showed up, the door was already ajar, and he was… He…”

  Soft hands pulled my head down to her chest, and I couldn’t hold back the sob a second longer. “Okay, okay. Shh, it’s all right. I get the picture.”

  “H-he played me,” I said with a whimper. “I was so s-st-stupid.”

  “Guys are douchebags, honey. Not your uncle, of course, but at least ninety-eight percent of the male population is.” She rubbed one hand down my back, trying to comfort me. “Don’t worry about the bastard sheriff. You can do so much better.”

  “I just want to go home,” I whispered against her shirt.

  “I don’t know if you want to do that just yet,” she murmured, looking down at me with a guilty tinge to her cheeks. “Hawk called your dad. He’s not all that happy right now.”

  A snort left me, and even though the tears were still spilling, I found myself laughing. “I bet. But I don’t care if Dad is mad or not. I just want a shower and to go to bed.”

  She started to say something, but her phone chimed with a text message just as the door leading to the station opened again. Ben walked back in, his face grim as he approached my cell.

  Aunt Gracie stood. “Hawk is waiting for us out front. Come on, we’ll drop you off on our way.”