Scores of medics descended on Crit.
Ruby screamed, jarring me from my shocked trance, and we began running down the stairs. A crowd had already formed near the gate, and we jumped up and down, pushing our way through to the front. Crit was already on a stretcher, bloody and unconscious as the medics pushed through the crowd, rushing him to the waiting ambulance outside.
I searched the crowd for Beau, but I couldn’t see him. Finally, I spotted Seth, running after the stretcher and medics. Ruby and I followed him, and I called his name.
He turned to me briefly before jumping into the ambulance with Crit.
“He’s going to be okay, sis! Find Jesse and meet us at the hospital!” The ambulance doors closed, and in a flash of lights and wailing sirens, they were gone, leaving Ruby and I standing alone in the parking lot, with tears streaming down our faces.
“I have to find Jesse,” I murmured, turning to Ruby. She looked more devastated than me, her eyes swollen and red. She dug in her bag for her car keys, and hugged me.
“Find Jesse. I’m going to the hospital. I’ll see you there,” she said, leaving me standing alone, fear ripping my heart in two, as I spun around and headed back to the arena.
I was almost to the entrance when my cell phone rang.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Georgia, it’s Randy.”
“Randy?” Why in the world is the fire chief calling me, I wondered, the deep pit of fear in my stomach growing bigger with each second.
“There’s been another fire. At your place. We got another anonymous call. We’re on our way now, I thought you and your brothers would want to know.”
“I’m on my way,” I said, hanging up the phone. I spotted Finn staring at me by the doorway and headed straight towards him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
BEAU
I had a perfect ride. When the buzzer sounded, I let go effortlessly, the momentum of the bucking bull throwing me behind it. I landed in the dirt with an easy thud, jumped up and retrieved my hat, waving to the crowd as they applauded thunderously.
I knew I had won, and I felt like shit.
I certainly never wanted to win like that. Not with Crit getting hurt. That shit was brutal and I was seriously worried about him. Getting trampled by a bull was violent and painful, and by the grace of God, he would be okay.
I needed him to be okay. The last thing Georgia could handle would be losing another family member. She had been through so fuckin’ much already, I couldn’t bear to see her in even more pain. She didn’t deserve it. Hell, she didn’t deserve any of this.
She deserved to be happy, to be loved, to be treated like a queen, and I had every intention of doing that for the rest of our lives.
If we could just get past all this damned drama that kept popping up left and right.
My eyes searched for her in the crowd, but I couldn’t find her. I had to endure the winner’s ceremony before I could go anywhere, and I figured she had probably gone to the hospital anyway. I’d find her there after.
I stood in front of the crowd as they awarded me the championship belt buckle and a check for ten grand. If this had gone down any other way, I would have been ecstatic. As it stood, I couldn’t even muster a smile for the photographers.
When I finally made my way back to the locker room, I called Georgia’s phone. She didn’t answer, but I left her a message to call me right away. I would head over to the hospital as soon as I could.
Finn walked in just as I was gathering my things.
“Finn, have you seen Georgia?” I asked. “She go to the hospital?”
“I got some bad news, Beau. We gotta go. Now.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Georgia
There’s no other sound in the world more terrifying than the sound of screaming horses. I flew out of my truck, my own screams drowned out by the sounds of the roaring flames that had engulfed the entire right side of our horse barn.
Somehow, I had managed to beat the firetrucks here. Thankfully, the drive from Houston was a short one, and outside of the screams of our horses, everything else was still and quiet. Frantically, I looked around for help, for anyone else who might be able to help me.
Another horse whinnied in fear, the sound shooting right through me. I ran to the barn, the heat blasting my face the closer I got.
I paused, looking around quickly once more, before I realized that I was all alone in this. The fire had consumed the right side of the barn, and luckily all of our stalls were on the left. If I could open the runs from the outside, I could let the horses run out to safety without having to go inside the burning barn.
Just as I began to head to the side of the barn, I saw a figure burst out of the flames, with another person in their arms. When they got closer, I recognized Lee’s large frame.
“Lee!” I screamed.
He turned my way, and began running towards me. It was then that I saw who he was carrying, and my heart stopped.
“Oh, my god, is he okay?” I screamed, running up to them.
“No, he’s not, the little arsonist bastard,” he said, laying an unconscious Jesse at my feet, and beginning CPR on him.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked, my mind clouded with confusion. The sound of the screaming horses broke through my daze and I snapped.
I turned and ran as fast as I could towards the left side of the barn. Jumping over the fenced runs, I unlocked the stall doors from the outside, one by one. Each of the frightened horses shot out of the fiery barn like bullets, running into the open pasture and as far away from the flames as they could get.
All but one.
When I got to the end, which was Cherokee’s stall, he didn’t come out. I peered in, seeing nothing but falling pieces of the barn, and the biggest flames I had ever seen in my life.
“Cherokee!” I screamed, as loudly as I could, over and over. He didn’t answer and I couldn’t see him anywhere.
“Cherokee!” I called again, as I entered the barn through his open stall door. He must have gotten the door open somehow and was trapped somewhere inside the barn.
I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t stop to think about anything, about my family, about Beau, about Ruby, or even about my future. All I could think about was saving my beloved friend. If the tables were turned, I knew he would have done everything in his power to get me out.
I owed it to him.
The flames grew higher and higher, and I put my hand over my nose and mouth as I slowly entered the barn. I spotted a folded horse blanket and grabbed it, throwing it over my head and body like a cape.
I jumped as a falling flaming board fell onto the ground next to me, missing me by inches.
“Cherokee!” I yelled again, and this time I was answered with a weak whimper. I turned in the direction of the sound, and screamed. He was trapped behind a wall of flames that was quickly growing and surrounding the corner he was in. And in between the two of us was nothing but even more flames.
I looked around quickly, the fire spreading rapidly, devouring everything in its path. I ran back to Cherokee’s stall, grabbing the water hose that I used to fill the horse’s water troughs, and hoping to hell it wasn’t melted from the heat and still worked. I turned on the faucet, and in seconds, water was pouring from the end of it.
I turned back around and began spraying the floor in front of Cherokee, trying to fight the flames back enough to give him space to run out without burning his legs. It worked, and he ran past me, his eyes wild with fear as he broke out into the safety of the pasture.
I sighed in relief, throwing down the water hose and turning around to follow him. I took two steps and the roof of the barn began to cave in, falling in huge chunks of fiery debris all around me, until I was trapped inside a circle of flames.
Tears began streaming down my face and fear gripped my heart.
Of course it would end this way, I thought. My life had been over the minute my parents died. The never ending drama af
terwards had only proven it. Why should the danger stop with me now?
Smoke filled my lungs, and I began coughing uncontrollably as the flames whipped closer and closer to my feet. I looked for a way out, my eyes desperately searching beyond the flames for some kind of escape.
“Georgia!” I heard a voice in the dark call out to me and I screamed back.
“Here! Help!”
“Georgia!” The voice called again, closer this time, and I realized it was Beau.
My heart soared when I saw him break through the flames around me, a fire extinguisher in his hands as he sprayed back the flames closest to me until he was right there, picking me up in his arms, and carrying me out of the crumbling barn as fast as he could run.
He laid me down on the ground, and I lay gasping and crying in his arms as the lights and sirens of the fire fighters finally arrived.
“You’re okay, baby, everyone’s okay. It’s over now,” he said, his voice like a beacon of hope in the darkness.
EPILOGUE
Six Months Later
“You know you still have time to back out,” Ruby said, as she handed me my bouquet of red roses and daisies.
“I’d never dream of it,” I replied.
I had never been more sure of anything in my life.
We stood in front of the mirror together, and I smiled gratefully at Ruby, our eyes meeting in the reflection.
“I’m so thankful for you,” I said.
“You should be,” she said, teasingly. “I’m a great friend.”
“Yes, you are,” I assured her.
“We’ve been through a lot together,” she replied, “but that’s what friends are for. I always knew everything would turn out okay.”
“How do we look?” I asked.
“I think we look fucking marvelous, but that’s just my opinion,” she said. She was right, though. We did. I never expected I’d be standing here in my dream wedding dress six months after the second worst night of my life, but here I was.
And there was Ruby, all dressed up in the perfect turquoise bridesmaid dress. She wanted to wear her signature red, but I refused, on principal that it was my wedding and not hers.
“It’s almost time,” she said. “Shall we?”
I took a deep breath, my heart filled with peace and certainty.
“Let’s do this.”
***
The music sounded and I watched as Ruby hooked her arm in Seth’s and walked down the aisle slowly.
Crit put his arm around me, pulling me in close for a hug.
“Beau is a lucky man,” he said.
“Thank you, Crit. I’m lucky, too. He’s a good man,” I said, smiling up at my big brother. I was so happy he was here to walk me down the aisle. After the competition, he had spent a week in the hospital, but he had recovered completely, and now he had a reputation as being one of the toughest cowboys around, as well as a few new scars to impress the ladies with.
“I know he is. I’ll forever be in debt to him for carrying you out of that fire. And to Lee, too.”
Lee had come out of the whole thing as the true hero. Turned out, if he hadn’t been staying out at LaCroix’s place, he wouldn’t have seen the flames through the trees. If he hadn’t seen them, he wouldn’t have gone in before anyone else got there, and seen Jesse lying unconscious in the barn.
He had saved Jesse’s life.
We’d all forever be indebted to him.
Especially Jesse, who after waking up in the hospital the next day, had tearfully confessed to setting all the fires. He didn’t really know why. But the deaths of our parents had sent him on a self-destructive spiral that had quickly spun out of control. He felt ignored and neglected, disconnected and lost, and trapped in the past. We had all been forced to give up any dreams of the future to help run the farm after the accident. It was a hard thing to accept. I understood completely.
I had felt the same way, but somehow the four of us just never found a way back to each other after the accident.
But all of that had changed now. Our family had bonded together again, and even if it had to be over more tragedy, I was thankful for it. Seth and Crit had forgiven Lee and Beau completely, both of my brothers graciously apologizing and thanking them both for their bravery. Jesse had thanked Lee profusely for saving his life. Lee had even apologized to me, even though he had no recollection of that awful night, and after everything else that had happened, I had decided the right thing to do was to forgive him completely.
I could even say that we were all becoming great friends now.
And as I drank in every one of their faces as I walked down the aisle, with Beau’s handsome face waiting for me at the alter, with Jesse, Finn and Lee standing next to him as his best men, I said a silent prayer of gratitude for my family and friends.
Sometimes, when all else fails, and there’s nothing left to do - you have to hope against hope that everything works out.
And sometimes, with the help of a little bit of magic, it does.
THE END
ABANDON ALL HOPE
The Hope Brother Series - Book Two
By Honey Palomino
“Hope never abandons you, you abandon it.” ~George Weinberg
PROLOGUE
“How many women did you invite, Eva?” Lee Haggard asked after pulling Eva out to the balcony of her bedroom and away from the group of women waiting by her bed.
“I know it’s more than I told you,” she replied, stroking Lee’s arm reassuringly. “But really - what’s the difference between three and seven?”
“Four, Eva! Four! That’s eight more eyes than I agreed to. Hell, I’m not just a piece of meat for you to display to your friends,” Lee growled.
Eva smiled, reaching down and cupping Lee’s famously enormous package.
“Of course you aren’t, sweetheart, you’re better than a dead piece of meat. You’re alive!” she squeezed him firmly and rubbed her ample bosom against his arm seductively.
“This is just weird, Eva. I went along with it the first time,” he said, pulling her hand away. “But you’re making feel like…like a fucking whore or something.”
Eva’s eyes squinted and then instantly lit up.
“That’s it! Stay right here!” she insisted, pressing her palm against his chest, and then turning and running back to the waiting crowd of eager women.
Lee shook his head, and looked out over the balcony and up at the bright moon that hung over the tall pine trees that surrounded Eva Montgomery’s property. Why Eva insisted on holding this little party at her house, the very same house she shared with her husband, who just happened to also be the sheriff of Sugar Hill county, was beyond him.
If he had to guess, he’d have to say she liked the risk of being caught. Hell, if he was being honest, he’d have to admit he was guilty of getting his thrills from it, too.
There was something about pushing the envelope to the edge of danger that made him feel alive.
As if to remind of him of exactly how alive he was, his cock twitched expectantly. Eva usually just invited a friend or two for a little roll in the hay and he was gone as soon as it was over.
But she had something else in mind this time. He agreed to her shenanigans during a drunken late night hook up, and now that he was faced with the additional women in the room, he was regretting it.
He wasn’t just some circus act with a big dick, and to hell with Eva if that’s what she expected him to do.
He had just decided to leave when Eva came running back out with a sly grin spread across on her pretty face, her black mane flowing down her shoulders, thrusting a straw cowboy hat full of money at him.
“What’s this?”
“Admission fees,” she said, pulling out a twenty dollar bill from the top, and tucking it into her bra. “The rest is your cut.”
Lee took one look at the money, then gazed through the French door and into the eyes of seven women expecting something from him. Something that he could easily give
them, if he just adjusted his standards a little.
“All this money just to see it?” Lee asked.
“Yep.”
Lee’s head began spinning - all the odd jobs he had done over the years to survive, all the back-breaking work he had done under the blazing Texas sun, all the mind-numbing bullshit he had put up with from asshole bosses with power trips…he had hated every second of every job he ever had.
His only other choice had been to work on the family farm, and he had done that, too, but it wasn’t any better. Hell, parts of it had been worse. Working with the Haggard family was not all that it was cracked up to be.
And now, here were these women, throwing money into a goddamned cowboy hat, just to see what he was so used to whipping out just for fun?
“No way,” he replied, loud enough for the other women to hear, shaking his head as he began walking back in to leave. They parted to allow his large towering frame pass by, their eyes filled with disappointment at his words.
“Why not?” Eva called to his back. He paused, reaching for the door handle.
“It just wouldn’t be right,” he said, tipping his hat. “Sorry, ladies.”
“Wait! What if we do it privately? One on one?”
The women began nodding in excited agreement.
Lee turned back to them, and shook his head again, “I don’t know…”
“C’mon, Lee,” Eva asked, sidling up to him.
“I’d pay double,” a soft voice spoke up, her drawl thick and smooth. Dixie Clark was a debutante married to the mayor of Sugar Hill. Dixie did nothing to hide the fact that the Mayor was a little too busy with his job to properly attend to his wife. Hell, she told anyone that would listen how horny she was. She pulled a huge wad of cash from her bra, peeled off three hundred dollar bills and threw them in the hat that Eva was still holding.
“I’d pay triple…for a lot more than a showing,” Lucy Martin, murmured from behind Dixie with a wink thrown Lee’s way. Lucy was the widow of the County Commissioner, who was also the heir of one of the biggest oil dynasties in Texas. She added six more hundreds to the pile and smiled expectantly at Lee.
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