For Always (A Donovan Friends Novel)
Page 16
Hannah rested her hand on Tyler’s shoulder now. Her long claw-shaped nails were painted light pink, and two gold charm bracelets dangled at her wrist.
Tyler’s features remained impassive, but he did reach up to take Hannah’s wrist and slowly move her hand from his shoulder, while saying, “Then maybe you should tell Mrs. Franklin how the day after we were crowned prom king and queen, I found you in the back of our barn giving my brother a blow job.”
Gabriella gasped but she was certain that the loud sound that several other patrons of the restaurant heard hadn’t come from her. Hannah’s already blushed cheeks darkened. He perfect pouting red lips formed a circle of shock and she finally snatched her arm from Tyler’s grip.
“How dare you speak to me that way, Tyler West! You’re in my daddy’s restaurant. You will show me some respect!” Hannah hissed.
Tyler nodded. “As soon as you start showing Gabriella some respect, Hannah.”
“What? Who is she? Absolutely nobody to me,” Hannah continued.
“She’s somebody to me,” Tyler said, his gaze locking with Gabriella’s across the table. “I expect you to respect that fact from now on.”
For a moment Gabriella thought Hannah was going to do the right thing. She’d watched her look around the restaurant to see that people were staring at her and Gabriella was sure that this was not the type of attention Hannah Palmer craved. But the next moments proved her wrong.
“You want some respect for dating this half breed?” Hannah asked Tyler.
When Tyler’s head snapped up to look at her, Hannah just shook her head. She took a step back from the table and continued as if she had absolutely nothing to lose.
“She’s only half royalty, from some backwards town in Brazil, if you even count that. And she took almost seven years to complete college. She’s an idiot! But then, you can’t really expect much from their kind. That’s how they roll in their hood,” she spat.
The last was said with a fake-ass hip-hop twang to Hannah’s voice and Gabriella saw the moment when Tyler decided what he was going to do next. So Gabriella stood first. She dropped the napkin she’d put in her lap onto the table and stood so that she was now only a foot away from Hannah.
“Oh, my! Look out y’all, she’s about to pop off!” Hannah said. “Isn’t that how you and your homies talk? Look here, missy, why don’t you take yourself on back where you came from. We don’t do the interracial thing down here.”
“You obviously don’t do too much growing up around here either,” Gabriella told her. “I am here in Hobbs Creek to do a job. Once that job is over I’ll be gone. But not a minute before, and certainly not because some simple-minded immature bottle-blonde who couldn’t decide which brother she wanted, doesn’t like that I’m here.”
“You can’t talk to me like that,” Hannah said and took a step to close the small distance between her and Gabriella.
Gabriella wished like hell she would not have done that.
“I can do whatever I damn well please,” Gabriella told her.
She hadn’t realized it before but Tyler had also stood up. He was pulling Hannah back from Gabriella now.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” He yelled into Hannah’s face.
“Me? You’re the one running around town flaunting your little piece of black ass! Your mama and daddy taught you better than that, Tyler.” She yanked her arm from him again.
“I don’t even want you touching me now that you’ve been touching her!”
“I don’t even want to be in this restaurant knowing that you’re here,” Tyler said. “Be sure to tell your father you’re the reason he lost his account with us.”
When Tyler turned away from her, Gabriella saw Hannah move to the table and grab the bottle of wine, holding it up like she was going to pour it on him. Moving quickly, Gabriella eased around Tyler and snatched the bottle of wine from Hannah.
“You may not want Tyler to touch you, so I will,” Gabriella said and with her free hand pushed Hannah so hard she fell back in the booth seat.
Then Gabriella put the bottle of wine to her mouth, tossed her head back and took a gulp, before slamming the bottle down onto the table. She leaned in until she was face-to-face with Hannah.
“If you ever spout your racist bullshit in my presence again, I’ll bash your head in with the next bottle of wine. You got that, Becky?” Gabriella said before standing up straight and walking away.
She didn’t look at anyone else in the restaurant. In fact, she didn’t even see where Tyler was at that point. She went to the truck and stood there until she heard the click of the door unlocking. Then she climbed inside the truck and snapped her seat belt in place. She did not speak another word until they arrived at the ranch.
“I think I’m going to sleep in my room tonight,” she said to Tyler when she stepped out of the truck.
“Gabriella,” he started.
She shook her head. “Let’s not do this tonight. I’ve had enough.”
Gabriella didn’t know if it was because her voice had cracked when she spoke, or the fact that a tear had escaped and rolled slowly down her cheek. But Tyler only nodded in response. He led them into the house and locked the door behind them. When they walked up the stairs he stopped at her door and waited while she went inside and closed it behind her, before going to his own room.
Gabriella fell face-first onto that bed and cried. Not because Hannah Palmer had embarrassed her, or even really offended her. But because despite what year this was and how far they’d seemingly come, some things just did not change. And if it wasn’t just the fact that racism in this country didn’t change, Gabriella sobbed because her luck with men didn’t seem to shift any either.
Chapter 13
She was drunk.
It had only taken half the bottle of scotch she’d snatched from the bar at P&P. He watched as she swayed to music that only played in her head.
“I love to sing love songs,” she was saying. “Don’t you? Falling in love is like a wild roller coaster ride. You go up and down and up again and then he spins you all around.”
She was spinning in circles, her feet tangling together until she tumbled forward. He caught her.
“Yesssss,” she sighed, her scotch-breath filtering up to his nostrils. “That’s how you’re supposed to do it. You’re my hero not him. Not Tyler Stupid-As-Fuck West!”
She yelled his name and he cringed inside. How many times had he called Tyler West by that same name? How many times had he wished that bastard and his brother dead? Too many to count.
“Yeah, I can be your hero,” he told her. “I can be whatever you want me to be.”
“You will? You promise?”
She’d clumsily tried to wrap her arms around him. He let her and they fell back onto the stacks of hay. He hated the prickly feel of it sticking into the bare skin of his neck and his arms, but he didn’t complain. He wrapped his arms tight around her, enjoying the feel of her heavy breasts against his chest.
“I promise, baby. I’ll be everything you need.” It was the least he could do since she was going to give him something better in return.
“Oh, yes, I need so much. Tyler and that black bitch were so mean to me tonight. Making me look like a fool in front of half the town.”
He almost chuckled.
She’d been going on and on about black people and white people and half breeds for most of the ride out here. She was clearly from the white privilege side of the tracks. And she thought he was too. They always did. Nobody knew his mother had been a black woman with skin as dark as the tires on his truck. His father was a white man. Looking down at his fingers as they toyed with strands of her golden blonde hair, he figured he’d gotten most of the white genes in that exchange. Goody for him.
“I don’t love Tyler anymore. He’s a jerk!”
“He is,” he conceded. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing getting tangled up with her.”
“No! He doesn’t!”
; “But we’ll show him, baby. We’re gonna show him!” he said and then he kissed her.
He hadn’t planned that part. When he’d followed Tyler and Gabriella into the restaurant he hadn’t been sure what he was going to do. He only knew that it was time to do something. Then he’d seen Hannah approach them and he knew something was about to happen. Hannah Palmer was just that type of woman. The scene had been glorifying up until the end. Seeing Tyler flustered and angry was a highlight. He knew then that Hannah was the next step.
She was a sloppy kisser. Perhaps because of her inebriated state, he wasn’t sure, but he generally didn’t like the feeling that his lips might be eaten off his face. Still, she was eager to please as she reached down and gripped his dick. He wasn’t hard yet. It didn’t usually take long to get him worked up but she wasn’t his first choice as a sex partner tonight. But, he’d decided he would have sex with her, just because he could.
He pulled his mouth away from hers to catch his breath and told her to, “Take your clothes off.”
“Okay,” she replied giddily and pushed back off of him.
He lay there watching her. She had a nice enough body. Her tits were big even if her ass was a little on the flat side. Her waist was slim and she was shaved clean. He loved that. When she stood naked trying to pose seductively for him, he felt the first twinges of an erection. He closed his eyes for a moment and recalled watching Tyler and Gabriella earlier today. They’d been in that exercise room for hours before they’d gotten started. And even as angry as watching them had made him feel, he’d been rock hard the entire time. And when they’d come, he had too, all over his pants as he sat in that tree with his binoculars. He’d cursed afterwards, hating that he’d been reduced to dressing up like some poor construction worker and sneaking onto the Westwind property with the crew. But since they’d gotten fancy and added all the new security measures, he’d had to figure out a new way to get close enough to do what he had to do.
Now he was here again, having stolen a security pass from the construction supervisor. It was well after midnight so Tyler and Gabriella were probably sleeping in that big bed together the way they had been doing for the past few weeks. He’d seen the bed. Had even touched it once when he was walking through the house with the crew talking about whatever crap they were going to work on next. But being here tonight was different. It was time. Finally.
“Aren’t you gonna take your clothes off baby?” Hannah asked.
She didn’t wait for his response but pounced on him, shimmying her body down his until she was eye level with his crotch. She unbuttoned his pants and pushed her hand inside.
“Oh?” she said and looked up at him.
He frowned. Grabbing a handful of her hair he yanked her neck back until she squealed.
“Fix it!” he yelled.
Her eyes had widened in fear at first and then she’d licked her lips and sighed, “Sure thing, baby.”
He loosened his grip on her hair and she leaned forward, releasing his flaccid dick before lowering her mouth over it. He closed his eyes and thought back to the scene earlier today. It angered him to see Tyler West pumping into Gabriella. Anger that had boiled within him for what seemed like forever. But with the memory of every thrust of Tyler’s hips, he thrust his own, pumping faster and faster into Hannah’s mouth.
She was good. He would give her that. She took him in deep and made him feel like he could come at any moment. But that’s not what he wanted. Not like this.
After a while longer, he pulled out of her mouth and tossed her face down onto the hay. He grabbed her hips and lifted her ass up into the air and then spread her legs before thrusting deep inside of her. She was noisy. Yelling and moaning as she jerked her body around. He smacked her ass until it was angry red with his palm prints. The sight enraged him and he pumped into her harder and harder. She kept screaming and he kept pumping until he released fast, hard, and deep inside her. When he was finished she collapsed on the hay.
“Oh damn, that was good. I wish I’d known, we could have done this when I saw you weeks ago,” she said.
She kept talking but by then he was tucking his dick back into his pants. He bent over and lifted his pant leg up to pull the knife from the sheath he had strapped there. When he looked down to her again she was about to roll over and he quickly stopped her. Placing his hand at the back of her neck.
“Just lay still,” he whispered into her ear. “You were good, Hannah. You were very good.”
For what he needed her to do for him.
* * *
Tyler knocked on her door and waited for her to answer. It would probably take her a minute because it was so early in the morning. The sun hadn’t even come up yet. But he’d waited as long as he possibly could.
“Tyler?” she said with one eye closed as she peeked through the partially opened door.
“Good morning,” he replied. “Can I come in?”
She hesitated and for those few seconds his heart actually stopped. When had this happened? When had knowing that they were okay, that she wasn’t angry or disappointed in him, and that he could simply reach out and touch her, become such a big deal in his life?
“Sure,” she said finally and opened the door.
She wore another pair of very short night shorts and a tank top that barely kept her breasts contained. But Tyler looked past that to see how tired she seemed when she climbed back onto the bed. She sat up and pulled the sheets over her legs.
“If this is about last night,” she began.
Tyler took a chance and sat on the bed beside her. He took her hands in his.
“It is about last night. I want you to know how sorry I am that it happened. If I had known how truly ignorant Hannah was, I would have stopped it sooner,” he told her.
“So she hid being a racist even from you?” she asked.
“Before I came back to Hobbs Creek, I hadn’t seen or heard from Hannah in almost twenty years. After seeing her with Jagger that day I didn’t say another word to her. And for the month and a half that I stayed here after that, I steered clear of her. Before that, she made remarks about people of different races, not just African Americans, but I never thought anything of it.”
“Because you’re white,” she said.
He looked at her pointedly. “No. Because I didn’t share her opinions.”
“But you were involved with her. She was your girlfriend.”
“I was sixteen and she was putting out on a very regular basis,” he replied. “She does not represent me, my thoughts, or most of the people around Hobbs Creek. I mean, look at Dessie and Clyde. They’re an interracial couple and they’ve been married forever. I don’t know of anyone ever giving them a hard time about it.”
She sighed. “I’m sure they have. But you know what? That’s not even the biggest part of it. I knew Hannah was a bitch the first night I met her. So I’m really not surprised by her behavior.”
“Then why didn’t you stay with me last night?”
She slipped her hands out of his. “Because I don’t know what we’re doing, Tyler. What is this? We’re from two different worlds. Different states. And when this assignment is over, so are we.”
“Is that so?” he asked. “I didn’t know we’d decided on that.”
“We haven’t decided on anything because we don’t talk about it.”
When he didn’t reply right away, she sighed.
“This might be the part where it stops being fun. I didn’t want it to stop. I’m just trying to be realistic.”
She ran her fingers through her hair and tilted her head back. “I’m making such a mess of this. I always make a mess.”
“And I always run,” he said, quietly admitting something he’d always known about himself. “What if we both try something different this time?”
“You’ve been different,” she whispered. “From anything I ever imagined, Tyler West. But honestly, I don’t know.”
His watch beeped and Tyler frowned.
“Go,” she said with another sigh. “I understand.”
“I want to finish this,” he told her. “I don’t want to just walk away this time.”
He didn’t know what else he wanted to do where she was concerned. The words weren’t forming, plans weren’t instantly appearing in his mind. All he knew for certain was that he didn’t want it to end.
“I want to do the right thing, for once in my life,” she said and Tyler knew she was talking about more than just being with him.
“How about we get away for a few days? We could drive over to Oklahoma and let you get a taste of their barbeque since you weren’t impressed with my efforts,” he said.
She smiled and that simple action reached deep inside of Tyler, touching every part of him with warmth.
“Barbeque sauce cannot be healthy. If it is, it doesn’t taste good,” she said.
His watch beeped again.
“Go,” she said. “I can get a couple more hours sleep before the crew gets here and I need to get to work.”
“Think about the road trip. We could both use a couple of days away from the ranch and all that’s been going on here.”
She nodded. “I’ll think about it.”
“And I’ll see you around,” he said. Tyler leaned in and kissed her lightly on the lips. “You’ve become a part of this ranch for me, Gabriella Bennett. I look for you everywhere I turn.”
He rested his forehead against hers and they both sighed.
A few minutes later, Tyler was closing the door to Gabriella’s room. He’d just took the first step when he heard the beeping of the security system signaling that a door or window in the house had been opened. He jogged down the steps and walked into the foyer just in time to see Stephen and two other ranch hands come through the front door.