by Alexa Davis
“Where are my parents?” I asked, my voice high and thin. “Where’s Caleb?” I backed away until I felt Daniel’s warm chest behind me.
“Your parents are inside with mine. See Rachel?” he said softly, turning my head so I could see the figures inside the lit windows of the library. I started to shake and he held me up, putting his arms around my waist to hold my weight.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Martinez,” the officer began. “I’m afraid I have to ask you about your relationship with Mr. Jason Steed?”
“He’s my ex-boyfriend. We broke up a couple of years ago. I hadn’t seen him for months, until he showed up tonight with another woman. They had a fight, but I don’t know where she went. He was drunk and belligerent, I told the bartenders to cut him off so he couldn’t hurt anyone,” I explained. The cop nodded.
“I’m sure you did your best,” he replied. “Mr. Steed is on his way to the hospital now, if you need to see him. We will get his information to his next of kin.”
“That would be his mother, Tiffany Caruso,” I offered. “I’m sorry, I no longer have her number, but she and her husband, Lonnie, live in Austin.” The officer thanked me and walked away.
“Ray, I know the party is definitely over, but Freddie and I are still gonna crash here tonight, if that’s okay,” Tracy asked. I nodded yes and vaguely heard Daniel say she could have my bed. I looked up at him with a frown.
“I don’t think I’m up to anything…fun anymore,” I muttered. I felt every scar on my body as though they carried electrical impulses. The last thing I wanted was for him to be party to the nightmares I was about to have.
“You’re staying with me, even if I have to carry you again,” he ordered. I looked down at my bruised, bare feet. “Oh. I guess that would be a pretty good idea, huh.” He picked me up and carried me back to the cottage without speaking.
“I can’t do questions right now, okay?” I asked him when he gently set me on his bed. He nodded without speaking and gingerly undid the back of my dress. He slid the straps down my arms, barely brushing my skin with his hands. I waited for him to push me, to try to take things down that path again, but he simply tugged the dress off my body and tucked me in under the covers.
I heard him lock the door, and he returned and turned out the light. I felt the bed give as he climbed in next to me, and leaned back against his warm, smooth skin when he wrapped his arms around me.
“Tomorrow we can deal with today,” he said in my hair as I lay there, eyes closed. “Tonight, I got you. Just relax and know you aren’t alone.” In his arms I felt safe and loved. I breathed and let myself relax, all the while praying that tonight, my sleep would be as dreamless and safe as his embrace.
Chapter Twelve
Daniel
The sun shone through the window by the time I roused enough to realize it was morning. I turned over to see Rachel sleeping peacefully beside me, finally ridding herself of whatever was causing her nightmares the night before. She looked almost childlike, with her hands tucked up under her cheek as she lay on her side, curled up in a ball.
After she woke up screaming in the middle of the night, I’d finally made her tell me what had happened the night that she’d received the wounds that still painted her body and mind in indelible scars. At first, she’d refused, but after coaxing and arguing and refusing to let her leave until she told me, she relented.
My blood ran cold when she explained that Jason was often physical when he was angry and drunk, but she’d never seen herself as abused because it only happened when he was drunk. I held my tongue and let her continue, but if his abuse of her was the beginning of the story, I wasn’t sure I wanted her to continue.
His world wasn’t like hers. He came from money, and the glittering plastic people that moved in that world had always treated her like she was less, for while her family was by no means poor, she worked and earned her own way and the society kids like Jason had everything handed to them. Their cars, clothes, even horses and tournaments, were all just taken for granted. I understood Rachel’s discomfort with them; those entitled bastards made my skin crawl.
The last night they’d been together, he’d had too much to drink, (as usual, I suspected) and Rachel had tried to talk him out of driving. Apparently, the damage to her body from the car accident hid the bruises he’d given her just before, so she hadn’t bothered to mention it. She was more upset that he was still driving. His money guaranteed him minimal punishment for his crimes, and now, not only was he finally reaping his reward, but he’d hurt another driver.
I was disgusted and relieved she was no longer with him and horrified that he’d put her through the pain of it all over again the night before. When she explained to me that the scars she received had made her ugly to him, and that he’d broken up with her as she first awakened, it made me love her strength and grit even more. I swore to myself that he’d never get to hurt her again – not physically, not mentally.
Instead of waking her from the rest she was finally getting, I dressed and walked over to the main house, where her parents and brother had spent the night. When I walked out to the terrace, her two best friends, Tracy and Fredericka, were sitting at the long table trading insults and jokes with our guys and chowing down like they, too, were cowhands with hangovers about to work a long day. I tried to sneak past the crew and our families into the kitchen to make Rachel breakfast, but my mother met me at the door with a tray in her hands and a look of concern on her face.
“How is our girl?” she asked in a low voice. I shrugged my shoulders and relieved her of her burden, juggling the tray for a moment until I had it balanced so the coffee didn’t slosh in the mugs.
“About as well as you’d expect, I guess. She had nightmares about her car crash and spent the rest of the night torn between wondering if there was something wrong with her for being concerned about how bad Jason was hurt, and wondering why God just didn’t kill him to protect everyone around him.” I filled her in briefly on what I’d learned about their abusive relationship. “I don’t think her parents know everything, so let’s just keep that to ourselves, for now, okay?” I suggested.
“Poor baby. You make sure she knows that the people who love her are all here waiting for her, all right, Daniel?” I agreed that I wouldn’t let her hide away for too long, then carefully took the breakfast tray back to my quarters, where I found Rachel still asleep, curled up in the sunshine that leaked in the window from between the curtains. I set the tray on the bedside table for her to find and jumped in the shower.
I let the hot water beat on my shoulders and neck and tried to let go of the animosity and anger I felt for the people who hurt others without care or consequence, especially people like Sara and Jason. I scoffed to myself, thinking that they deserved each other. But, despite the gossip and the grasping manipulation and conniving Sara had done, I didn’t believe she deserved to be hit, bruised, or mentally abused the way that Rachel had. As much as I never wanted to speak to the gold-digging harpy ever again, I knew I had to warn her, and I had to do it face to face because she’d never believe anything through the grapevine. She knew all too well how useful it was for spreading lies.
For the time being, her boyfriend was in the hospital, so I put away that unhappy errand for a later date and finished getting clean, hoping that I’d left some hot water for my sleeping bedmate. When I came out to the bedroom, Rachel was sitting up in bed, a mug of coffee in her hand and a guilty look on her face. She set the mug aside and invited me to sit next to her on the edge of the bed, by patting the covers.
“I’m sorry last night was so rough,” she said. She kept her eyes down and picked at an imaginary thread on the quilt. “It took almost a year and a half to stop having panic attacks in the car, and for the first year, the only way I could battle them was to do all the driving.” She sighed and fell silent.
“I don’t blame you one bit for freaking out last night. You had every reason to.” I took her hands in mine and held them in my
lap, coaxing her to look up at me. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Did you know that?” I asked her. She pulled the sheet up farther and tucked it under her armpits to secure it.
“I am broken and scarred and I’ve developed a severe anxiety disorder. I don’t think ‘beautiful’ is the first thing anyone would think of me now, if they ever did.” She tried to pull her hands away, but I held her tight.
“I need you to listen to me right now,” I countered. I counted to ten and tried again. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. You need to accept that I’m not going anywhere, and I want you.” I slid her hand over my arousal to make my point, and when her eyes widened and her breath quickened, it only grew. “Now. You’re naked. I’m naked. I want you, and I think you want me, too.” She swallowed hard and nodded, her eyes never leaving mine.
“I…I wanted to look pretty for you last night. I thought I might even be able to seduce you like another woman would,” she confessed. Her voice was small and her eyes sad as she finally dropped her gaze from mine.
“You looked amazing, and I wanted nothing more than to slowly and thoroughly make you the most loved and sated woman in the state of Texas.” I released her hands, and she hugged the sheet to her.
“Isn’t it too late for us to try this?” she asked, tears making her eyes shiny and bright. I shook my head and kissed her softly, tasting cream and sugar on her lips. She sighed, and I delved deeper into her mouth, tasting her tongue and laying her back as I slid my hand between the sheet and the soft warm skin of her breasts. I held my body above hers and shoved the sheet down and away from her, working my fingers down to her stomach.
I paused and broke the kiss. I looked into her eyes as I stroked the scars that ran down the left side of her abdomen. They stopped just shy of her belly button and so did I, tracing back the way I’d come as softly as I could. She shuddered and her eyes closed involuntarily as my touch swept over the strangely smooth scars.
“I don’t want it to, but it feels so good when you touch me like that,” she whispered. “Not sex, just good. And when I’m thinking about sex, good definitely changes to sex, too.” She bit her lip and looked me in the eye. “Does that mean there’s something wrong with me?” I smiled and increased the pressure of my fingers on her stomach.
“There’s nothing wrong with you enjoying my hands on your body,” I boasted. She scoffed and shook her head as I finally changed my focus to the heat between her legs. I slid my fingers between her thighs, and she sighed and opened to me.
“Please,” she begged. “I need you inside me.” She shifted her body and slid her little hand around me, squeezing me tight and making me gasp. “I want you under me, let me be the driver. Just this once, please?” I laughed and lifted her up, sliding my body under her in one smooth motion.
“Oh, love,” I panted as she impaled herself on me and shuddered with the sensation. “You can drive as often as you need to. Just know that I’ll be taking my turns as often as I can.” I choked out the last as she started to move, rocking on me as I held her in place. I reached up and cupped her small, perfect breasts in my hands, and she leaned back, arching her back and picking up her pace. As she rocked her hips, grinding and squeezing me tight inside her, I focused on the sunlight, the blank walls in the bedroom, the sounds of activity outside, anything to keep from losing control before she climaxed.
“I…have waited so long for this…” she whimpered as she leaned forward lay the length of me, never ceasing the perfect rhythm of her hips as she ground against me, sliding with ease as our sweat lubricated our bodies the way that her arousal lubricated our love-making. I held her close, and she kissed me tenderly. “Daniel,” she whispered as she looked into my eyes.
I stared at her skin everywhere I touched. My hands slid from the delicate pink scar tissue to the cream-in-coffee natural tan of her breasts and thighs. She kissed me again, and I couldn’t hold on any longer. Just as I pressed her hips hard against me and lifted with the force of my final thrust, her eyes closed and her head fell back. My roar almost drowned out her strangled cry as she tightened around me and embraced my release.
“Oh, God,” I panted, over and over. “Oh, God, God, God.” I relaxed my grip and held her as she sank against me with a sigh. I felt her heart pound against my chest as I held her on me. I gripped her hips when she tried to roll to the side. “Not yet,” I whispered. “I like you right here.” She made a small purring sound of pleasure and rested on me until my own pulse was normal again, and her skin had started to cool under my hands.
“Everyone thinks we’ve been doing this all along,” Rachel whispered conspiratorially. “I think we should have been.” I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tight to my chest, before rolling to the side and finally releasing her. I felt cold and alone immediately as she slipped away from me and excused herself to the bathroom.
“It was good, finally getting you naked properly,” I called out to her from the bed. I grabbed a coffee mug and sipped a little of the cool liquid inside, wincing as the lukewarm liquid coated the inside of my mouth. In the bathroom, I could hear Rachel turn on the water and considered joining her for a second round, but when I tried the bathroom door, it was locked. Disappointed, I slid into my jeans and grabbed a tee shirt from the pile of clean laundry that had been left on the chair by the bed.
I jogged over to the house and carefully avoided the sounds of industry I heard in the kitchen as I realized I’d forgotten the breakfast tray. Instead, I went straight to the office, where I found my father pacing the floor as he waited for me. Before I could greet him, he handed me a piece of paper. It was a printout of an email that he’d received not an hour before. I read the email in dismay and handed him back the paper.
“Do you think this is for real?” I asked as I watched him pace the room. “I mean, I’m sure that the Steed family has every intention of suing us, but do you think it will actually see the inside of a courtroom? Jason is a 29-year-old man, not an underage party-goer.” My father shrugged his shoulders. He sat behind the desk, so I took one of the wingback chairs in front of him.
“I don’t know what they’re thinking,” he finally admitted. “I don’t even think it’s about the money, they’re just trying to make someone else culpable for his actions so he doesn’t have to face the consequences.” He sighed and scrubbed at his face with his hands. “We may take a hit for this, I don’t know. I think it depends on exactly how many friends in high places the Steeds have.” He tapped the desk with one finger, the tan on his hand giving way to the faint beginnings of age spots I hadn’t noticed before now.
“Rachel needs to be kept away from this, Dad,” I blurted. “You heard some of what happened between them, but there’s a whole lot more that led up to that night. If at all possible, I’d like to prevent her from going through it all again.” My father looked up at me, his face drawn with concern.
“His previous accident may come up if this goes to court, but I can’t see a reason that all the information from that incident wouldn’t be enough to satisfy a judge. We’ll protect your girl, Daniel. Don’t you worry.”
But, I was worried. I wanted to keep Rachel away from all things Jason Steed, preferably for the rest of forever.
Chapter Thirteen
Rachel
Freddie and Tracy decided to stay on the ranch for a couple of extra days, so I sent them to Pete to be hooked up with a couple of the gentler mares, and he took them out to ride the property. I didn’t think I’d seen Pete that pleased with himself the entire time I’d been under his tutelage, and I had to smile at the obvious soft center Tracy had brought out from his crusty, old cowboy persona.
I met my parents in the garden, where Skipper was enjoying the attention being lavished on him by Caleb and Jackson. My mother was listening to some gardening tip or other from Hannah, and my father was reading one of the paperback novels he carried with him everywhere he went. As I approached, he set the book in his lap and smiled.<
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“Hey there, kiddo. How’re you doing this morning?” he asked, patting the bench next to him. I took him up on the offer and sat down.
The dew had already burned off the flowers and the air smelled of sun-soaked honeysuckle from the trellises that lined the path on either side of the carved oak bench. The sun shone down from overhead, leaving only a small, oblong shadow directly under me, signaling the impending arrival of a pack of hungry men, looking for their lunch.
As if on cue, Patty and her kitchen helper began setting plates of veggies and fresh loaves of bread out on the long communal table. Plates were stacked at one end, with cutlery and napkins. I nudged my dad with my shoulder.
“You know, I haven’t actually taken the time to eat a proper meal yet. Do you want to head up to the table with me before the men descend like locusts and eat it all?” I whispered. My father looked around like he was scanning the area for enemy spies and nodded in my direction with a wink.
Laughing, I looped my arm through his and we made for the table, with Caleb and Jackson hot on our heels. I built him a sandwich despite his protests that he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. As long as I’d been on the ranch, there was always someone taking care of me. I knew I put in hard work and it wasn’t because they saw me as lesser. Still, it felt nice to simply take care of someone else for a minute.
I slapped Caleb’s hand away from the fresh baked bread he was reaching for and swiped two thick, fragrant slices for myself. My stomach seemed of two minds today, one part famished, the other too worried to eat. I reminded myself that Jason Steed was no longer my problem to worry about and put together a lunch plate for myself, only occasionally looking around to see if Daniel was going to join us. Disappointed when he didn’t show up with the ranch hands, I reminded myself that he had the whole ranch to run and he’d already spent the entire morning with me.
