by AC Arthur
“Gabriella, baby, what happened?” he asked as he pushed past the woman and linked his arm around her waist.
He was going to pick her up and carry her when the man beside her spoke.
“I got this,” the man said. “You can get your hands off my sister.”
Tyler froze. “Your sister?”
“The couch,” Dessie intervened. “Get her on the couch then the two of you can exchange names, check I.D.s and do whatever else you feel like doing.”
Tyler didn’t leave her side and neither did the other guy. So they ushered Gabriella to the couch where she quickly lay back against the pillows Dessie had just put there. Dessie shooed both of them away and lifted Gabriella’s feet up onto the chair.
“If one of you don’t get a move on and call that doctor, I swear I’m gonna start swinging,” Dessie yelled.
“I’ll do it,” Jagger said and headed out of the room.
“I’m Monica Lakefield,” the woman whom Tyler had barely noticed said, as she stepped in front of him.
She held out a hand and Tyler hesitated only a second before taking it. “I’m Tyler West. This is my ranch. Gabriella is my…she’s ah, she’s staying here with me.”
“Is that so?” the man asked as he came to stand beside Monica.
“That is so,” Tyler replied. “And who are you?”
“I’m Alex Bennett. Gabriella’s brother,” he said sternly.
Tyler didn’t waver. There would be no handshake exchanged this time.
“So Gabriella is staying with you,” Alex continued. “And who are you to her? Why haven’t I ever heard about you? And if she’s staying here with you, why was she driving erratically on the road causing an accident?”
“I’ll answer your questions out of respect for Gabriella. But don’t forget you’re in my house. So if there’s any interrogating to be done, it will be done by me,” Tyler stated evenly.
Alex opened his mouth to say something else, when Monica touched his arm.
Tyler continued. “Gabriella is redesigning and decorating the ranch and two other properties. She saw something upsetting this morning and drove off before I could stop her.”
“You didn’t say who you were to her,” Alex interjected.
Monica tilted her head as she continued to stare at Tyler. “He’s her boss. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Tyler responded tightly.
“Tell me why you’re here, Alex,” Gabriella said quietly.
Tyler left them standing there as he went to kneel beside the couch where she lay.
“Are you alright?” he asked and took her hand in his.
She gave him a weak smile. “I have a headache and I’m sorry for running off. But I want to hear what my brother has to say before I explain why I did.”
“Always trying to call the shots,” Alex said from behind Tyler.
“Are you going to answer her question?” Tyler asked without turning to look at the man that he knew was standing protectively behind him.
“We were worried about you,” Alex replied after another moment of silence. “I told Mom and Dad I’d come down here to make sure you were alright.”
With her free hand Gabriella touched the bump on her forehead before hissing in pain. Tyler clenched his teeth. He hated that she’d been hurt.
“Dr. Morrison’s on his way,” Jagger said from somewhere in the room.
The words calmed Tyler momentarily.
“I talked to Mama and Daddy a couple of days ago,” Gabriella told Alex. “They knew where I was and what I was doing.”
Monica came to stand at the end of the couch. She wore navy blue form-fitting pants, a white blouse and a short blue jacket to match. Her black hair was held together by a band and left to hang over her shoulder. She had brown eyes, darker than Gabriella’s, and a cool stare.
“That was before the incident,” Monica announced.
“What incident?” Gabriella asked.
“Maybe we should give them some privacy,” Dessie suggested.
“No,” Gabriella said. “It’s okay. You’re like my family too, Dessie.”
Jagger cleared his throat.
“You too, Jagger,” Gabriella said staring somewhere over Tyler’s shoulder.
Tyler didn’t turn to look. He didn’t want to take his eyes off her, not again.
“At two-thirty yesterday afternoon Detective Cole Desdune was called to the scene of a vehicle fire,” Alex said.
Tyler’s heart sank as he thought of the last call he’d received about a vehicle fire.
Gabriella looked confused. “Cole’s a homicide detective.”
“He was called in because he’s related to the owner of the car that was set on fire,” Alex continued.
Gabriella gasped.
Monica reached down and touched her leg. “Nobody was in the car, Gabriella. It was in the parking garage where you parked it before you went out of town.”
“My car? You came all the way to Texas because my car was on fire and nobody was in it.”
“No,” Alex told her. “We came all the way to Texas because when Cole questioned the residents in the building about seeing any strange or suspicious people hanging around the building, they all gave the same description of a man. One woman even knew the man’s name.”
Gabriella shook her head. “No,” she whispered.
“Austin Sterner,” Alex stated.
Tyler stood. He dropped Gabriella’s hand and faced Alex. “Are you saying that her ex who has been stalking her for months set her car on fire yesterday?”
Alex raised a brow. “For months?” he asked and looked around Tyler to Gabriella. “This guy has been bothering you for months and you don’t tell anybody anything about it!”
“Wait a minute,” Gabriella said. “If Austin set my car on fire, he’s still in Connecticut. He’s not here in Hobbs Creek.”
Tyler turned back to her. “No, he’s not here, Gabriella. He’s nowhere near you. He’s never going to hurt you again.”
“He hurt you!” Alex roared. “Gabriella Joy Bennett you are going to have to tell me this whole story and right now or I’m packing you up and putting you on the first plane back home.”
“She’s an adult,” Tyler interjected.
“I wish one of you in this room would act like an adult, instead of school yard boys getting their briefs all in a bunch,” Dessie stated.
She walked over, pushing Tyler and Alex out of the way.
“Dr. Morrison just pulled up. So we’re all going to get out of this room and let the doctor have a look at her.”
When nobody dared to speak, Dessie continued.
“Monica Lakefield, that’s what you said your name is right? Okay, well Monica you and Alex Bennett can follow me upstairs. We have a guest room you can use to freshen up and get yourselves together while we wait for Dr. Morrison to finish up with Gabriella.”
“Tyler, you and Jagger need to finish dealing with all the commotion out there. Sheriff Alvarez will want to speak to you both but Clyde says for you to meet him in the office so he can talk to you first.”
There was silence after her commands were given and no movement.
“Go!” Dessie yelled and snapped her fingers.
Jagger moved first and Tyler looked at Gabriella. “I’ll just be in the next room. I’m coming right back when I’m finished. Don’t you move.”
She shook her head. “I won’t.”
Good, he thought. That was good. And before Tyler left the room he bent down and touched his lips to hers.
“Don’t you move,” he whispered again.
“I won’t,” she replied and kissed him back.
* * *
“Alex spoke to the detective in Connecticut just before dinner. He said they’re looking for Austin and don’t believe he’s left town. He hasn’t been at work for the last two weeks. They say he’s on vacation.” Tyler talked while moving around the bedroom.
He was checking all the windows to make sure they w
ere locked. He even went into the bathroom to check the small window in there before coming back to see that Gabriella was still sitting up in bed, where she’d taken her dinner about an hour ago. Tyler stayed with her while the rest of the family had eaten downstairs in the dining room.
“Great,” Gabriella sighed. “He’s on the loose in Connecticut and a killer’s on the loose here. What kind of times are we living in that these things can happen? I mean, what is going through people’s minds these days?”
“I don’t know,” Tyler replied. “But all I’m concerned about right now is keeping you safe. So everything is locked up tight. Jagger and Alex checked everything downstairs.”
“Did Dessie leave?”
“Yes, thank God,” Tyler said with a sigh. “I thought she would collapse from running around here barking orders the way she did all day.
“It’s her way of helping,” Gabriella told him.
She’d wanted to thank Dessie for being there for her yet again. Gabriella had meant it when she’d said they were like her family now. Dessie and Clyde, they had been seeing to her needs since the day she stepped off the plane and arrived here in Hobbs Creek. From getting her the rental car to setting up this job. And when she was prepared to leave they’d even offered to drive her to the airport and return the rental car for her. She cared about them deeply.
Jagger, on the other hand, Gabriella could only shake her head when she thought of him. Tyler’s too smart for his own good brother had grown on her in this past week, especially after she’d seen how truly hurt he was over Brooke’s betrayal. He’d fallen in love with the wrong person. Gabriella could certainly relate to that.
Now her brother and Monica were here. This entire house was filled with her family. And Tyler. She clenched the sheets between her fingers and felt the weight in her chest growing heavier. Because she knew she was still lying to them all.
“Did Sheriff Alvarez leave?”
It wasn’t what she meant to say, but Gabriella swore she was going to get to it. She just didn’t want to freak out the way she had earlier. Causing her own minor concussion was embarrassing enough without a repeat performance.
“Yes,” Tyler said when he finally sat on the other side of the bed. He bent over and was taking off his shoes. “Clyde told him we would all give our statements tomorrow. Sheriff wasn’t terribly happy about that, but unless he comes back with an arrest warrant, that’s how it has to be for now.”
“He probably wants to ask us about the incident at the restaurant.”
“Why do you say that?”
She shrugged. “It just makes sense. We have a very public confrontation with Hannah and the next morning she turns up dead, on your property.”
“We’re not murderers.”
“No.” She agreed. “We’re not. We’re lovers?”
He shook his head and moved over on the bed until he was sitting right beside her. “We’re more than that, Gabriella. At least I want us to be.”
He’d taken her hand and Gabriella looked down as he twined his fingers with hers. “I think I’d like that, too. But first, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Ok, I’m listening,” he said and then waited.
She couldn’t look at him when she said this. In fact, she wanted to get off the bed and be as far away from him as possible. In case he needed to walk away. But when she attempted to reclaim her hand, Tyler held it tighter.
She still did not look at him, but she did begin.
“I told you that Austin had two kids and that he shared custody with his ex-wife.”
“Yes, you told me that.”
“Well, we um, we couldn’t spend Thanksgiving together last year because he had his kids. So to make it up to me we spent the next weekend at a ski resort in Pennsylvania. The next weekend he had his kids again and then he had a big property going to settlement and I had two homes I needed to get staged. So we didn’t see each other a lot in December, not until Christmas Day. Because he had the kids for Thanksgiving, his wife got them for Christmas. I hadn’t been feeling well and I’d actually left my parents’ house early. They were a little disappointed because they were looking forward to meeting him. Up until that point I hadn’t told my family anything about Austin, but on Christmas Eve when Austin sent me a text accepting my invitation to have dinner with my family, I was excited and I told my mother I was bringing someone with me.””
Gabriella sighed and stared straight ahead at the door.
“Anyway, I didn’t feel good so I went home. Austin came over to my place and he took care of me. We thought I might have a stomach virus. Two weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.”
He squeezed her hand and tears filled her eyes.
“I was excited,” she said. “Just like my sister was excited when she told me she was pregnant two months ago. I was going to have a baby. Austin was a great father. He loved his kids and he was dedicated to providing for them and giving them a good future. I couldn’t wait to tell him.”
She went quiet as she remembered that night.
“What did he say when you told him?” Tyler asked.
She cleared her throat. “He said he didn’t want any more children. He said he’d told me that before and I should have made sure that it didn’t happen. He wanted me to get an abortion. I told him I wouldn’t. I said I could take care of my child on my own. That I didn’t need anything from him, ever. And then I walked out of his apartment. He called me the next day and I made myself clear if he hadn’t understood me the night before. It was over between us. He was an ass and my child deserved better.”
“I agree,” Tyler said.
That made her smile momentarily but she still could not look at him.
“I didn’t hear from him anymore until the morning of Valentine’s Day when two dozen red roses arrived at my office. He sent me a text asking me to be his Valentine. I thought he’d come around and realized how much of a jerk he’d been about the baby so I agreed to have dinner with him. I was having a hard time with morning sickness all hours of the day and fatigue, so I suggested we order in at my condo. When I arrived home from work there were more roses, all over the place. The building manager had brought them in because there were too many at the front desk.”
One tear escaped and Gabriella used her free hand to wipe it away.
“Austin arrived at seven-thirty. He was always punctual. We sat down to talk while we waited for the food. I don’t know how he misunderstood, or what gave him the idea that something had changed, but he thought I’d had the abortion. It was the only reason he’d reached out to me. When I told him I didn’t and that I was keeping the baby, he freaked out. Yelling that I was trying to trap him, to take even more money from him than his ex-wife was. He thought I was smarter than that. He thought I had more integrity than that. He was going to tell everybody at the office that I was lying and that it wasn’t his baby. I immediately felt sick. I ran to the bathroom and vomited for what felt like hours. He stayed in the living room still arguing and telling me I was getting what I deserved for not listening to him. That’s when the cramps came. They were quick and potent and I immediately fell to the floor. I called out to him and after about the third time he finally came into the bathroom. I told him something was wrong. I said it over and over again.”
Her chest hurt, but she kept going. She couldn’t stop now.
“He called me pathetic and weak and said he could do so much better than me. So he left. I was sitting on the bathroom floor in the worst pain of my life and he left me there. The minute I heard the front door slam I tried to get up. I just needed to get to my phone to call my mother to come and pick me up. I knew I needed to get to the hospital. But I never made it out of the bathroom. I fell to another cramp and when I tried to get up again I noticed the blood. It came fast and seemed like it was everywhere. I cried because with every cramp that came afterwards I knew my baby was dying.”
“The food delivery arrived and when I heard them ringing the doo
rbell I yelled for them to come in. They did and the delivery guy found me on the floor in a pool of blood. He called an ambulance and—”
Tyler hugged her to him. He lay her head on his shoulder and held her while she cried. Gabriella had no idea how long that lasted, but he didn’t let her go.
Sometime in the middle of the night he managed to get up and take off his clothes, but when she rolled over in the darkness he was there.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?” he asked groggily as they settled into their new sleeping position.
“For not saying anything and just letting me talk. I needed to get it all out.”
“And you did. It’s over now,” he said.
“It is,” she sighed into him. “It’s over now.”
“I’m not leaving you, Gabriella,” he told her a few seconds later. “I won’t leave you.”
She didn’t know if she was dreaming or not, but Gabriella loved hearing those words. She believed them and she trusted him because Tyler was everything Austin wasn’t. He was strong and loyal, honest and caring. He wasn’t going to leave her when she needed him most. She believed that, just as she believed Austin would not stop until he made her pay for leaving him.
Chapter 15
Tyler kissed her awake the next morning.
It was the first thing he wanted to do when he opened his eyes. He’d thought about what she’d said all night. Knowing that only distance and the fact that he needed to protect her kept him from finding Austin Sterner and beating the shit out of him. Gabriella had called him an ass. The man was so much less than that. Tyler had told Gabriella last night that they were not murderers, but the truth was, if Austin were near him right now Tyler could easily kill him and not blink an eye.
Instead, he held her close to him, loving the sound of her sigh as she opened her mouth to his kiss. His hands moved up and down her body, her arms, her thighs, her breasts, noting that her skin was softer to the touch and more appealing than he’d ever experienced. She moved her hands over his body too. Down his torso and over his chest. He loved the feel of her fingers moving over his chest. When those fingers went lower to brush over his erection, Tyler groaned. She pushed his boxer briefs down and he lifted the hem of her nightshirt.