Hope Springs (Compass Girls)

by Mari Carr

  “What are you? Some kind of slut?” The reek of inferior hops permeated his stale breath. It was easy for her to detect the stench when Damon got right up in her face like that. “I hadn’t pegged you for that kind of bitch, but we can roll with it if you are.”

  Hope prayed things would end a heck of a lot better than the slasher flick she previewed in her mind. She’d never liked scary things. Not like Jade. Or Sterling. Covering her eyes now probably wouldn’t do much good when the threat was flesh and blood instead of green-screen and CGI.

  Why hadn’t she noticed the prick eavesdropping on the discussion she’d attempted to have with John after a few rare yet potent drinks had loosened her tongue and her desires?

  Was there someone else lurking nearby who could help her escape?

  She glanced around the midnight balcony of the dive near campus. She’d accompanied John against her better judgment when he’d pressured her to fit in with his new friends. Really, it’d been more of a demand. Never again. Her cousins had been right, damn them. He didn’t deserve her trust or devotion.

  Too bad her faithfulness would be wasted after tonight.

  “Maybe she didn’t mean it like it sounded. Right, baby?” When John implored her to recant her statement, his powder-blue eyes bugging out, she lost all respect for the guy she thought she’d known well enough to trust with her secret wishes. Heck, they’d dated for close to six months now. Maybe seeing Sienna so blissful had made her believe this frog could turn out to be a prince too.

  Instead he probably would have given her warts if she’d surrendered to his mounting pressure to sleep with him. Thank God she hadn’t. Sure, it seemed like forever. Something in her just hadn’t been ready to compromise what she really needed. And now she knew he would never have been the person to give it to her. She supposed part of her had been aware of that all along and put the brakes on anytime they headed down that avenue.

  Hope refused to lie about his lack of her fundamental requirements now that she’d finally embraced the bravery necessary to voice the truth. “Did it sound like I was telling you I found your roommate attractive and that I’d considered having a threesome with the two of you?”

  Coward that he was, John flinched. His shoulders slumped. Then he sighed and scrunched his eyes closed as if she’d sealed her fate. When he reopened them, pretending to have a spine to stiffen, she knew what was coming.

  Fitting in with his new med-school buddies had become a top priority. Straight A’s slipped when he concerned himself with matching Damon drink for drink instead of correct answer for correct answer on their exams. Worse than that, Hope worried about who her boyfriend would kill someday because he’d missed an important lesson while hung-over or still hammered from the night before.

  With glances that darted in every direction, Hope searched the loft for anyone who might come to her rescue. Nobody. And people on the floor below would never hear her scream above the pounding music.

  A miraculous trapdoor she could hop into would be nice. She’d slide out of this hellhole as if it were featured in one of the vintage cartoons she’d loved watching with her cousins as kids. Hell, even now they occasionally splurged on an episode. They often spent evenings cycling through the cache of their streaming projector in the little house their dads had had built for them on Compass Ranch. Close to home, yet kind of on their own, they bunked together. Even Sienna and Daniel stayed over from time to time when it got too cold in the drafty RV they adored or when they grew too lazy to trek across the field after cuddling on the couch.

  Somehow Hope didn’t figure the aggression aimed at her tonight would disappear after a couple throbs of a blazing red thumb the size of Wyoming or a few circuits of a cuckoo bird swirling overhead. Yet pulsing lights, empty cocktail glasses and ungodly loud music left no coherent would-be knights within screaming range.

  Except there—in the back corner—wearing a holographic cowboy hat, she thought she recognized one of the ranch hands. Boone. After all, how many of those glitzy things could there be in Compton Pass? Sure, the town had grown a bunch since the days her parents, and grandma Vivi, told tall tales about. But it still had nothing on a metropolis like New York or San Francisco. At least from what Uncle Sam and Uncle Sawyer would have her and her cousins believe. They should know based on the time they’d spent on opposite coasts.

  Hope had one time put a few of the guys in their places when she’d overheard them bullying Boone. She’d let them know Compass Ranch wouldn’t tolerate such ignorance. Even in these supposedly more enlightened times, it wasn’t always fun to be gay in a rural town where people’s mouths ran faster than their sense. She’d made those dumbasses eat their words. Over that very same hat.

  Or one just like it.

  Too damn bad the glam topper didn’t seem to belong to an ally. She could have used Boone to return the favor right about now. Glitz bobbed down the spiral staircase in a hurry. Hope didn’t blame the innocent bystander for extricating himself from the disaster about to happen.

  She remembered how frightened she’d been, standing up to those jerks in the barn. But being home, on Compass Ranch, had guaranteed her safety. These pricks didn’t realize the entire oncology ward of the hospital they roamed daily had been named in memory of her Grandpa JD.

  “Are you even fucking listening to your man?” One of the sloshed residents leaned in so close his spittle dotted her cheek.

  “Nah. I think she was too busy checking out that dude.” Another one shook his head as he closed the ring tighter around her along with his cronies. No chance of escape. “She’s ready to spread her legs for any guy who’ll take her. Sorry, bitch, that homo’s not interested in what you’ve got.”

  “But if you’re that desperate, maybe we could give you what Johnny here obviously hasn’t. We won’t leave a pretty thing like you panting.” The nastiest of the bunch sidled up to his pals. “After you’ve had us, you won’t want anyone else.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’re right about that.” Hope’s skin crawled. She drew her hands into fists at her sides, banking on bluster to propel her for a bit. The odds couldn’t have been less in her favor. Still, the self-defense tactics that her dads and uncles had insisted on teaching her and her cousins—their daughters, the Compass Girls—would make these tyrants pay, just a little.

  “What’s the matter?” Gross Guy wiped his sweaty hand across her face, in what he must have thought was a sexy pawing. “Getting cold feet already?”

  A shudder seized her at the thought of this cretin over her. Abusing her body and soul. Taking what she’d saved for someone special. How could she ever have believed John might be that man someday? In truth, he was just a scared, lonely boy.

  “Too late to bite your tongue now.” The other guy lowered his hand. In the gloom she couldn’t say for sure, but she guessed he fondled himself as he prepared for whatever they had in mind. “You already confessed you wanted to be used by a bunch of guys.”

  “That isn’t what I said at all.” Defying them would never enlighten them. How could she explain to these animals the love she’d witnessed all her life? Sure, her mom’s and dads’ relationship couldn’t be called conventional. That didn’t make the affection they shared less real. Everlasting.

  “Go ahead,” Damon goaded her boyfriend, who’d wasted no time getting trashed on arrival. “Give her what she wants.”

  John nodded. “I’ve been waiting for this for fucking ever.”

  “She’s been holding out for all of us.” Damon corrupted the last shred of decency John possessed.

  “Maybe you’re right. You’ll like this, won’t you, Hope?” He smirked. “You said so yourself.”

  “No,” she whispered. “Don’t.”

  “She practically begged you to take charge.” Damon instigated trouble. “Where are your balls? Be a man. Give her what she asked for.”

  Too bad a real man would have hauled off and broken that asshole’s nose then stormed out of there with his girlfriend in tow
. Hell, Hope wished she could have done it herself. Except she didn’t have the chance.

  John ripped the lovely retro peasant blouse Jade had given her for her birthday straight down the center. The gaping wound in the floral print displayed her breasts, which played peek-a-boo over the top of the lace-trimmed balconette bra she’d borrowed from Sterling.

  How wrong they’d both been about how tonight might end up. She no longer appreciated the false advertising of the push-up cups.

  Hope didn’t gasp. Or cry. Instead, she got pissed. How dare they ruin so much for her?

  Of her?

  She gulped, feeding her agony to the flames of her rage. Her mind skipped to things she could control. The aftermath. Her cousins would be there for her. They’d help her recover her sanity once these savages circling her did their worst. She had to tough this out, draw on the steel Compton genes she knew she possessed. Later, she would make them pay.

  Justice. She would fight for it.

  Some of her bravery wavered when all her righteousness failed to distract her from the reality descending on her in ghastly slow motion. Their charge seemed to take forever. And yet it passed in the blink of an eye, before she could change the course of her future.

  When Damon reached into the wreckage of her shirt to fondle her, something inside her snapped. A feral growl erupted from her throat. She yanked up her knee, taking advantage of John’s mesmerized distraction to smash her joint into her ex-boyfriend’s balls. Hard. Next she jammed the knuckle of her curled middle finger into the eye of the dirt bag who was too sloppy inebriated to react fast enough and dodge her violent outburst.

  By the time she swung for the third, they’d caught on to her struggling.

  It didn’t take much for the remaining couple of guys to restrain her. They pinned her arms roughly behind her, putting her on display for their pals without a care for her nearly dislodged shoulders. Damon’s ruddy cheeks had nothing on the heat in his unswollen eye when he rounded on her.

  “You fucking cunt,” he bellowed. “You’re going to pay for that.”

  “Damon, this is getting out of hand.” Doubled over, John tried too little too late to diffuse the disastrous outcome of a few drinks with my new friends.

  “You’re right. Someone should have taught this whore a lesson a long time ago.”

  Hope braced herself, but it didn’t matter. The force of Damon’s backhand whipped her head around. A supernova exploded inside her brain, brighter than the neon laser designs flickering across the dance floor below. The wail she’d planned to unleash came out as more of a sick moan.

  Force ripped her from her captors.

  The floor rushed up to welcome her, except it wasn’t a comforting embrace she fell into but a hard, sticky surface instead. She clawed at the asshole who advanced on her prone form. When he grabbed for her leg, she kicked out, satisfied by the thump of her heel connecting with…something squishy. The wrench of her ankle felt like a medal of honor.

  Except her resistance only enraged the posse. Like the wasps that had stormed from the nest she’d accidentally stepped on in third grade. A swarm of attackers clouded around her. Someone yanked her waist-length hair while another flipped her none-too-gently onto her back.

  Wind gusted from her lungs at the jarring contact accompanied by the heft of two guys settling on her shoulders—one on either side of her head. Ringing in her ears kept her from hearing their insults clearly. In fact, she would have sworn one of them yelled, “What the fuck?”

  Right before the whole night went insane.

  Even crazier than it had already been.

  The flashy hat returned.

  Righteous rainbows gleamed from every facet of the garish accessory like sunlight off a white knight’s sword. The beacon stabbed her abused eye. Her courage began to crack. Splinter. Help had arrived. She tried to use the cowboy’s diversion to clamber to her feet. Noise and chaos didn’t seem to influence the ogres mashing her to the dirty club floor, though.

  At least until bodies started flying. John jetted through the air and slammed into the wall behind her with a sick crunch before landing in a crumpled pile.

  “You fuckers will pay for this.” A vaguely familiar man warned them, but the attackers had been too riled to retreat without a fight. Adrenaline and pack mentality drove them to see this nonsense through. “You have no idea who you’ve messed with.”

  Another guy took a hard hit from a launched fist, then crashed into the dirty bathroom door, falling through it onto the even scummier tile inside. A startled shout from a man at the urinal followed by a stream of piss on the intruder might have been funny under other circumstances.

  “You think you assholes are so tough?” Damon circled Boone’s comrades, a pair of broad-shouldered silhouettes.

  Oh, thank God. The cowboy must have joined some ranch hands for a night on the town. He hadn’t abandoned her. He’d called in reinforcements of the badass variety. And he’d come back. If nothing else, workers on Compass Ranch were loyal. Fiercely. They had more in common with family than employees.

  Hope would have sobbed with relief if her face didn’t hurt so damn bad.

  “Hell, no. We’re practically kittens compared to the Compass Brothers.” That rumble had her attempting to concentrate. Shadows surrounded craggy features. Nothing could obscure the obsidian flare of the man’s distinctive eyes. She stared up into the dangerous glint of Wyatt Ellison’s charcoal glare. “But her father, Silas Compton, is the meanest son of a bitch I know when he’s pissed.”

  “And, oh shit, is he gonna be pissed,” portended the second man. No mistaking the pair now. Not with voices like those. Steel wire and molten glass. Sienna said Clayton Fisher could melt chocolate when he talked. And Jade swore Wyatt had a perfect, sculpted chest that would make you want to lick the sweet liquid candy off him. Her cousin claimed the scenery was a large benefit to her job on the ranch. Probably true. All of it.

  Clay and Wyatt went together like grilled cheese and tomato soup.

  Comforting. Delicious. Ooey-gooey goodness she wouldn’t hesitate to pop into her mouth.

  Hope’s heart raced when she recognized her pair of saviors. Great. The two men she’d least like to witness her humiliation were the duo that had stumbled upon her, broken and disgraced.

  “If you run now, we’ll let you keep your head start.” Clay attempted to defuse the situation one last, pointless, time.

  “We’re not afraid of three cocksuckers like you.” Damon closed the deal. He lunged.

  Wyatt took him down as if he were as weak as a newborn foal. “Have it your way.”

  The efficiency of his leg sweeping beneath his opponent in a burst of speed impressed Hope, distracting her from her fear and pain momentarily.

  Out cold, her attacker didn’t budge even when Clay gave him an extra kick to the ribs to be sure he wasn’t playing possum. Hope’s cowboy commando reached next for one of the men crushing her while Clay confronted the other.

  Boone spared her the trauma of witnessing the two good guys soil their hands for her. He hunched over her, protecting her and assessing the damage all at once. “So sorry, Hope. Jesus. I can’t believe they did this to you. Right out in the open. It went to shit so fast. Oh, damn. Damn. I ran as quick as I could. I didn’t stand a chance on my own. I’m no brawler like these two. I’m so sorry, darlin’.”

  She would have reassured him, except just then Wyatt and Clay checked in. Their ragged breathing billowed their chests as if they were stallions who’d been put through their paces.

  Wyatt shook his hand, flinging droplets of blood from his mangled knuckles.

  Hurt, because of her.

  “Gotta get out of here.” She wanted nothing more than the security of her cozy cabin in the heart of her family’s empire.

  Only there would she feel safe again.

  When she tried to stand, her trembling body refused to obey. A yelp bubbled from her when her torqued ankle lit up. She slipped from Boone’s grip and tum
bled to her hands and knees on the nasty floor. The entire gallon jug of bulk antibac she kept at her workstation in the hospital wouldn’t be enough to sanitize her after this. She might have to borrow the second stash she kept at Compton Pass Pharmacy, where she worked as a tech on the weekends until someday…when she planned to make an offer on the place. Mr. Murphy had to retire soon. Something made her wonder if he delayed for her to finish school.

  The trio of men above her unintentionally added to the agony zipping through her. She hated letting them see her when she was literally down. Gritting her teeth, she banished the physical agony bombarding her.

  “Good news, guys, I know what painkillers to request.” She tried to laugh off her injuries.

  “Shush.” Clay collected her into his arms and cradled her against his chest. His unbreakable hold still managed to be gentle. “Don’t go thrashing around, either. Let us see where you’re hurt. Hurry, before it gets crowded up here.”

  Already people had begun to mill around the staircase as they came to use the facilities and found them occupied with unconscious losers. The accidental golden shower administrator hustled past, attempting to flag a staff member. A bouncer or three would join them any second. Probably not a bad thing. A couple of the losers on the floor began to moan.

  How had a night on the town gotten so out of hand? She licked her lip and tasted blood.

  “Sweetheart, I know you’re not going to like this, but we’ve got to call your Uncle Sawyer.” Boone was the voice of reason.

  She tried to object. Sadly, Wyatt and Clay agreed, outvoting her by a landslide.

  “Your dads will kill us if we don’t.” Boone smiled at her, distracting her from the throb in her cheekbone. He tossed a look at the man holding her. The sadness in his eyes had her whimpering again. What had he been doing up here alone anyway? “You wouldn’t want Clay to risk his pretty face, now would you? I’m kind of fond of it. Plus, I love my job. Don’t get us fired, please.”