by Iva Britt
Will smiled at her. “The truth is always discovered.” He kissed her tenderly. “I love you, Lucy.”
For a few seconds, Lucy’s life made sense. It was unlike anything she had ever known or expected yet she finally felt whole that is until she heard the gravelly laugh of a man that she’d heard only the day before. “I thought I saw someone sneaking around the barns,” the voice said. “Should have known it was you. You dirty filthy girl.”
Richard Polk stepped out of the shadows and into Will’s living quarters. Defensively, Will stepped in front of Lucy. “You leave her alone. You have issues with me. This has nothing to do with her.”
“That may be so,” Polk admitted, “but I’ve found your weakness and I plan on using it against you.”
Then he pulled a gun from his holster and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 8
Lucy screamed as the bullet hit her arm. She tumbled to the ground, waiting for the second shot that would end her. Richard Polk cursed as he fumbled with his gun.
“Well shit, I guess I shouldn’t have drank so much with my dinner.”
Lucy locked eyes with Will who nodded at her so quickly that Polk probably didn’t notice. She used the distraction to crawl out of sight into the darkness of the barn. Pain seared through her arm but she tried to focus on helping Will anyway she could.
“Polk, if this is about inheriting the ranch, you can have it,” Will exclaimed. “I don’t want it.”
“You’re a goddamned liar,” he spat. “You always boast that you’re the best cowboy on this ranch. You’re a braggart just like your father.” Richard Polk retorted in a fury. “I made sure to leave him alone in Indian territory so he wouldn’t be a threat to me either.”
Will’s eyes grew wide. “You did what?”
Richard Polk smiled at him wickedly. “You best believe I’ll do anything to get what I want. I’ll screw your step-sister. I’ll kill you real slow. But I always get what I want.
Lucy had to suppress another scream when Will tumbled on top of the man and began to berate him with punches. Lucy thought back to what her students had said earlier in the day, of how they would risk anything and everything to protect their friends. She knew what she had to do.
Even though she’d only know about Richard Polk for a matter of days she knew that he was an unstable man. She knew he probably had a knife in his boot and that he would kill Will, given the opportunity. Lucy’s arm throbbed and she could feel the blood rolling down her sleeve but she apologized to God for what she was about to do. She’d found the shovel the moment she’d hidden in the shadows. She grasped it in her hands. Her muscles screaming as she gripped it. She knew the adrenaline would kick, the pain would leave her temporarily.
Richard Polk rolled on top of Will and spit in his face before he attempted to get the upper hand. Lucy took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadows. She raised the shovel over her head. Polk was so distracted that he didn’t even notice her approach.
Please, please let it be enough, Lucy pleaded. Then she swung the shovel down, metal shovel making contact with the cowboy’s head. There was a sickening crack and Richard Polk went limp before he slumped over and off of Will’s body. He made no noise, but blood oozed from the back of his head. Lucy dropped the shovel as she realized that Will was pretty much unharmed.
Will scrambled to the man’s side and felt for his pulse. Too much time passed and Will looked up at her with a pale face. “He’s...he’s dead. You killed him.”
As much as Lucy wanted to cry at killing a man and further sealing her fate, she couldn’t. “It was you or him,” she explained. “I’ve already become a harlot. Might as well become a true outlaw by committing a murder.” The words sounded crazy as they left her lips.
“Your arm,” Will said as he looked at her bloodied sleeve.
“We can fix it later,” Lucy promised. “We need to leave. I’m sure people heard me scream.”
“What about you?”
Lucy stumbled to the haystack bed and pulled the sheets away. She tied them into a bunch as looked for other important things to take. “I made my arrangements already.” She stopped quickly. “I had a feeling that there would be no turning back from this.”
Will stopped collecting food and weapons. “You did all that for me?”
Lucy nodded. “I love you.”
Will bent down and kissed her forehead. “I love you too. I’m so sorry things had to be this way,” he said. “You were a great teacher. It’s too bad.”
Lucy nodded. “It is. But I’m confident that things will be even better in our future.”
It was at that point that Will and Lucy could hear the murmurs of mens voices. If they hadn’t heard the gunshot, then they had definitely heard her scream. Soon they would be discovered the embarrassment of losing her virginity while being the town’s teacher would be nothing compared to being tried and executed for murder.
“We have to go,” Will warned.
They tied their belongings in the bed sheets before they escaped through the back door. Will led the way as they ran from barn to barn, trying to throw off anyone that thought to pursue them. Lucy’s arm hurt but she knew that in order for them to survive, she would have to keep going. They ran until the campfire was nothing but a speck on the horizon. They ran until there was nothing but prairie around them. They ran until their lungs burned and their muscles wobbled with fatigue with only the moon to guide them.
Chapter 9
Will and Lucy had come full circle. This whole thing started out by Lucy dislodging part of weapon from Will and now he did the same thing to her. Lucy had never experienced pain like she had when Will had cut around the bullet to get it out of her arm, but she knew that if Richard Polk had shot her anywhere else she wouldn’t be alive at all, and she was grateful for the pain.
They had cleaned the wound as best they could and Will vowed that as soon as they found civilization, they would have a doctor look it over. For now, he had tied a tourniquet near the closest pressure point and covered it the best they could. They might have been far enough from the ranch to not have to run, but they couldn’t rest yet. Not when they could have an angry mob of riders chasing after them.
They found a town a few days later and Lucy was happy for the rest. The shock of everything had worn her down and the pain in her arm had made her exhausted and weak. As soon as the doctor stitched her up properly, she was ordered to rest before they moved on again. Lucy knew that they were safe the more miles they put between them and Richard Polk’s body, but there’s was no way around it. She needed to sleep.
The room they rented above the town’s general store was small but it served its purpose. Now that Lucy was a criminal, she should have been looking over her shoulder whenever every something made a noise, but now that she wasn’t expected to be prim and proper, she found herself more relaxed than she had even been before. That and the medicine the local doctor has prescribed was taking the edge off.
“What now?” she finally asked when she’d been able to rest and her wound had started to heal. “Where will we go? What will we do?”
Will was sitting on the edge of the bed. “We travel until we feel safe. Then I find work.”
“Then what?”
He smiled at her and Lucy found her heart singing at the way his eyes sparkled. “If you are worried about me leaving you behind, I won’t.” He assured. “My biggest dream is to have a ranch of my own someday. One that I earn myself, that isn’t handed to me.”
“I’ll help you however I can.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
Lucy motioned for him to join her under the covers and he gingerly slid next to her, careful to not hurt her as he wrapped his arms around her.
“Can we do this the right way this time, please?” she urged before she turned her body and began to kiss him. In all their running and franticness they hadn’t had the chance to acknowledge that they’d made a huge sacrifice for one another and Lucy wanted to show hi
m that her feelings for him with strong and true.
She pulled herself out of her clothes and was happy that by the time she’d thrown her slip to the floor that he was already bare-chested and naked below the covers. She let her hands feel every inch of him, relishing the way his muscles felt as traced circles on her own bare skin. Will nibbled her neck and made her breathless and Lucy knew that regardless of who they were in the past that he needed to be a part of her future. No, he would be.
Will rolled her onto her and stared at her longingly as he spread her legs wide. “I never let you go all the way,” he said almost regretfully. “I was very selfish that night.” Then he lowered his mouth over of her womanhood and kissed and licked until Lucy was squirming with pleasure. When she tried to wiggle away so she could pleasure him, he pressed her down to the bed so that he could continue. It was not in any way forceful, but perfectly clear that he wasn’t down. In the end Lucy was happy that he’d been so adamant, Her first orgasm rocked through her in a way that she wished she had known ages before.
Happy with himself, Will smiled at her before he let himself into her, inch by inch as if savoring the moment. Lucy wrapped her arms around his neck pleased to feel the sensation, hopeful that she would feel the ecstasy that she had felt when her body was full of whiskey. This time she would enjoy every moment, she would feel no guilt.
As more time passed, the tempo of Will’s thrusts increased and Lucy could feel herself becoming lost. The bed squeaked. Will made more noise as time passed. She didn’t know it was possible to reach a climax more than once, yet here she was reaching the point of no return once more. Will cursed and it was like something in her snapped. His pleasure spurred her own and soon she was burying her face into her shoulder to stifle her screams.
Lucy stared at the ceiling as her pulse returned to normal. Will flopped onto the mattress beside her, breathing still labored as he kissed her shoulder. “Feeling guilty this time?” he asked.
“Not at all,” she answered. “For the first time in a long time, a boring life doesn’t seem like the best life.”
As Lucy felt her eyes growing heavy, she knew that no matter what life threw at her, no matter how far she had to roam her life would be better than if she had stayed behind. Maybe falling in love with her step-brother wasn’t conventional and most people would frown upon it, Lucy had no regrets. She knew her life would be better because of it.
Chapter 10
Five Years Later
Lucy woke up as the sun warmed her face. As the grogginess of sleep faded away, a grin splayed across her face. She rose from the bed as quick as her feet would allow and dressed, finding her best frock in the chest by the door and brushed her hair. Will was coming back today. It had been nearly a month and she was beginning to think that she was going to go made if she had to wait another day.
She tiptoed out of the room and into the kitchen where she put a kettle on to the stove and grabbed a basket from a hook by the door as she decided she would do her chores as best she could in her best dress. She wanted to be ready the moment she saw Will approaching so she didn’t care if she had to wear it all day.
They’d come a long way since she’d had to leave the past beyond. Will had been true to his word and the moment they’d found a town of their liking where they could find a fresh start, he became a ranch hand, working harder than anyone else to get as much money as he could. Nearly two years ago they’d heard of an elderly couple who was looking to sell their farm so they live closer to their grandchildren. It was a perfect situation. There was already a house, barns and so much land that they’d have no problem having cattle. The former owners were even gracious enough to let Will and Lucy keep the livestock they had. Now it was a thriving ranch of their own that several ranch hands that worked under Will. He was living his dream and Lucy was happy for him.
Lucy had always thought her dream was to teach, but after everything she’d been through with Will, her dream had merely been to survive and to love without resolve. As soon as they were settled in their new town, even before they bought the ranch, they were married. It was a quiet nearly secretive ceremony with a few of Will’s new buddies as witnesses, but Lucy wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
“We may not have met under conventional circumstances,” Lucy explained to the pastor. “Maybe our love story isn’t the one people want to read about in books, but I am glad it happened. I believe it happened for a reason.”
Lucy thought about fate and divine intervention often as she did her chores around the farm. In a strange way, She had Richard Polk to thank for all of this. If he hadn’t tried to kill Will the first time, she would still be living in the boarding house, having the same monotonous routine before she finally went to bed each night.
She fed the chickens, horses and other animals before she collected eggs and began to head back inside the house. It was then that Lucy noticed a speck on the horizon and her heart felt like it was in her throat. Will and the new cattle he just purchased hundreds of miles away were almost home.
Lucy’s cheeks hurt as she dashed inside, her smile was so large it probably looked ridiculous. The tea kettle was whistling as she shut the door and she placed it on an unused spot as she called. “Margaret, are you awake?”
When she heard no reply, she went into the room and tried to rouse the young child that was sleeping in a trundle bed next to the bed that Will and her shared. Too small to climb the stairs up to the loft where she would eventually sleep, Lucy had been happy for her company while Will had been away.
Margaret was almost four and she was a toddling copy of her father. She was passionate and lively and Lucy couldn’t wait to watch her grow. Her sandy brown locks fell across her face as Lucy brushed them away from her face. “My love, your father is home.”
Her eyes flicked open at the words. “Daddy!? Where, where?”
Lucy laughed as she attempted to dress the child. “I saw him at the very. He might be close enough that you can wave and he can see you.” Before she had a chance to say another word or finish fastening the buttons of her dress the girl was dashing from the room, the door to the outside banging loudly against the wall as she threw it open.
Lucy smiled as she walked over to the cradle where their son, John, was wiggling around looking at the ceiling. He was only eight months old and Lucy wasn’t sure who he was more like yet. He had her eyes but the rest was still a mystery that she couldn’t wait to discover. “Well, I suppose you would like to see you father too, wouldn’t you?” She wrapped him in a blanket before she made her way outside.
Will was locking the new cattle in their paddock by the time she made it outside and Margaret stood as close as it was safe while she watched her father do his work. The ranch hands helped collect the horses and bring them back in the barn and the moment the gate was shut and locked, Margaret ran across the space that separated her from Will.
“Daddy!” she screamed delighted.
“How is my girl?” Will asked. “Did you take good care of your mother?” He picked her up and the child nuzzled into him as he made his way over to Lucy. He placed a kiss on John’s head before he kissed his wife on the lips. “It’s good to see you.”
“Likewise,” Lucy answered before she ushered him inside. “Let me tell you everything that has happened since you’ve been away.
So much had changed in five years. She was a wife, a mother and a ranch owner. If Lucy had known what was coming for her five years ago, she would have never believed that she would be anything other than a teacher who lived in a boarding house. When she was a child, it had seemed strange that Will never felt like her brother, but now she understood. It was so she’d have this moment. It was so her life would be complete.
THE END
Bonus 7 of 30
Heaven Sent, Hell Bred
Description
Ambriel, the May Angel, the Queen of Cups, had a simple job to do. But when two demons are sent to challenge her, her divinely assigned task bec
omes far more complicated.
As the cocky, confident and blatantly sexual demon Crowley begins to take a special interest in Ambriel, temptation lurks around every corner. Sensual promises whispered from demonic lips threatens to pull her away from everything she has ever known. More than just an angel, she discovers she is also a woman, with newly discovered needs burning inside her.
Outnumbered by Crowley and his Earth demon accomplice, will Ambriel even want to resist temptation?
Chapter 1
As the human moaned and writhed, Ambriel reflected on how little angels were truly prepared to enter the mortal realm before they did so.
It was a topic that the Seraphim had grappled with at length, she knew. Entering into a world filled with temptations known to exert a hold on the soul should require some degree of training to restrain one against them, but even broaching such topics in order to learn about them would not be possible in Paradise. Knowledge of sin could not be allowed in a realm specifically designed to exclude it, after all.
Thus, the angels tasked with Descending for whatever reason did so with the uncomfortable, unspoken agreement that they would see things down there that they were not permitted to bring back, that work on the material plane was to be left at the gates of Paradise upon re-entry. Whether such a thing was possible was, itself, a debate. Ambriel had seen more than one of the messenger angels awkwardly dancing around the topic of what they had seen and done Below when in conversation Above, and the Fates and Norns were almost entirely tight-lipped for the same reason. But the uneasy state of affairs it engendered had held for, well, the entirety of time, even if it was an imperfect solution.
