by Jane Anthony
“You made me look like a fool. Now, you owe me, and I’m takin’ what’s mine.”
“What do you want?” I squeak out, timid as a church mouse.
“I want it all!”
His mouth crushes mine just before he throws me to the floor. Straw scratches my back; the smells of fertilizer and feed surround me. Hoofbeats clop near my head as the horses snort and whinny in their stalls with nervous energy.
Austin turns for a split second. I use that as an opportunity to scramble away, but I’m paralyzed with fear when I see him turn back with a rope. “I’m sorry, Austin. Please don’t hurt me.”
“You don’t know what pain is, you fuckin’ bitch! Pain is seven years lost! It’s workin’ your whole life toward something only to have it ripped out from under you! It’s watchin’ the woman you love get fucked by another man in the home you’ve kept for her! You took everything from me, and now, I’m takin’ it back!”
The rope cuts into my skin as he wraps it tight around my wrists before moving to my feet. “Don’t fuss, now,” he cajoles as he twists it around my ankles. The combination of tears and terror blur my vision. He pulls on the rope, and my wrists and ankles join. Leave it to Austin to know how to fasten a perfect Boy Scout knot even when he’s hog tying a person.
“You cryin’? Shit, you know I can’t stand it when a woman cries.” The last thing I see is his arm reaching out to snatch one of the horse blankets off the hook before daylight disappears.
The blanket muffles my screams as he starts tugging at my shorts. “Remember that night you snuck into my room to seduce me? You were so sweet. You just laid there and let me break you.”
AJ’s face pops into my mind. Staying was a bad idea. A string in the long line of awful decisions I’ve made throughout my life. I don’t know what Austin plans to do with me, whether he intends to kill me or what, but my biggest regret to date isn’t choosing to stay. It’s that AJ will never know how much I love him.
Sobs echo in the stiff fabric as the salt water leaking from my eyes collects in my ears. I feel the denim shimmy past my hips, but I can’t move to stop it. Austin continues his insane ranting in a tone more akin to reminiscing over tea than attacking a person in cold blood. “I told you then that I was gonna marry you, and I still intend to. Soon as we’re done makin’ up for lost time.”
I feel his hardness poke the back of my thigh, and I know he’s taken his pants down. The blood rushing my ears soon becomes a shrill ringing. I’m sucking in a breath, but I can’t get enough air in my lungs. Even under the blanket, I can see my vision begin to pixelate, starting around the edges and moving slowly inward. It’s fuzzy, like static on an old television set. It’s then that I realize I’m about to pass out.
Voices tunnel in from a far off distance, echoing in my mind like a dream sequence. The scuffling of boots, the clopping of hooves, then crashing, yelling, cracking, grunting. Intense heat flares up all around me. Then … nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
AJ
Two thousand miles doesn’t sound long when you say it. Two thousand miles. However, while sitting behind the wheel of my truck, hauling the tiniest trailer with all my belongings inside, it feels endless. It never occurred to me how little I cared about anything until I had to decide whether to pack it. In the end, all I took was my drum set, some clothes, my tools, and a photo album Jillian put together for me. The tears on her face as she watched me pull away broke my heart, but she’s right. It’s time to move on. Jill and Jameson will always be my best friends, but Casey is my life. Her embrace is my home. Her bed is my church. I just hope it’s not too late.
Thirty hours on the highway alone leaves a guy with a lot of time to think. First, I apologized to Marisa for being a douchebag. It was awesome of her to run to my sister’s house the way she did. She’s a good friend, and I’ve never treated her the way she deserved. Together, we worked up a speech of all the things I need to get off my chest. I want to tell Casey I’m sorry for not trusting her. That I don’t care about her past with Austin because I want to be her future. And, most of all, I want to kiss her until her lips are red and raw and until her body aches for only me.
Adrenaline courses through my veins at a rapid-fire pace as I pass the sign for Grainger Ranch, but the sound of bloodcurdling screams flying from the open door of the stables turns my fiery blood to ice. Casey.
Wind whips past my face as I take off across the pasture, running at top speed. What I see when I get there is a nightmare come to life. Casey’s bound like a pig on a spit. Austin is on his knees behind her, toying with her, talking to her, touching her in places that send a molten river of rage flooding into my veins. “Get off her!”
“What the ...?”
I lunge at Austin. He falls into a garbage can full of feed, knocking it to the ground and sending tiny pellets rolling all over the floor. The crook of my elbow closes around his throat in an instant, dragging him across the stable. He’s big and heavy, but the adrenaline still drives through my body, adding to my already brute force.
His elbow lands in my gut, knocking the wind from my lungs as I fly backward. “You don’t fuckin’ learn, do ya?” Austin runs toward me, but the butt of my palm catches him in the nose. Blood splatters from his face like a broken water balloon. Temporarily blinded, he doesn’t see me running toward him again.
I ram my shoulder into his gut, and his feet leave the ground. We fly through the air, crashing into another garbage can, this one full of oats. Punches send daggers of pain shooting up my side, but it doesn’t slow my attack. The kiss was nothing. Seeing him manhandle her, hearing her pleas for help—that was my breaking point.
A punch to the kidney forces me to my side. Then he’s on me. His hands wrap around my throat, squeezing my windpipe. Unable to get enough air, my vision grows fuzzy. I’m fucked. He’s going to strangle me to death right here in the stable, and Casey’s going to have to live with the ghost of another dead body emblazoned into her memory forever. That thought alone gives me one last surge of strength.
My sloppy, flailing arms find his face. I jam a thumb into an eye socket. A brutal bellow rings through the stable as Austin falls to the side.
I scramble onto all fours, sucking wind and grasping my throat while Austin groans behind me. His moans soon become maniacal, super villain laughter as he pushes to his feet. Sunlight slices in through all the windows in the stable, creating a blinding shine glinting off the Zippo in his hand.
My Zippo.
A brilliant shard streaks across his blood-smeared cheek as Austin faces me with a smile. His boot lifts me off the floor with the force of his kick. “Y’all can burn in hell, you sum’bitches!”
The Zippo sparks. With an evil sneer, Austin drops it to the ground. The tiny flame catches the dry straw covering every inch of the floor. It ignites fast, spreading through the stable like a brush fire. The horses scream in their stalls, bucking and clamoring to find their way out.
Smoke fills my lungs. My eyes tear and burn. Austin comes toward me, walking through the inferno like the Devil himself. The second he’s close enough, I take one last chance. I lunge again and catch him in the knees. He falls hard, smacking his head on the corner of the shelf with a nauseating crack. The blaze burns all around him, melting the saddles, devouring the dry wood, and licking up the walls of the stable, but he doesn’t move. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, and I don’t care. I only care about Casey.
I cover my nose and mouth with my shirt and drag her outside. Knowing she’s a safe distance from the fire, I run around the stable and unlock all the doors. My lungs are on fire, and my whole body aches. The horses dart out one by one, running to the safety of the pasture as I run back to where my girl lies still bound in the grass.
“Casey!” I tug at the rope, loosening the knot, and her arms and legs fall dead at her sides. “Wake up, Case. Come on,” I urge.
With clumsy fingers, I search her neck for a pulse as I call 911. She’s alive, but I’
m afraid to touch her. Her breathing is too shallow. I don’t know if she hit her head, suffocated, if he choked her ... Giving her a quick onceover, she appears okay, but I can’t tell for sure.
I fix her clothes and gently slide her onto my lap. “God,” I start, looking up at the sky, “I know we’ve been on shit terms, but if you’re there, please, please make her all right.”
Ash blows across my face in the wind, lifting my messy hair off my forehead. I lost my hat in the fight, but it doesn’t matter. She is the only thing that can’t be replaced.
Heat rolls up my cheeks. It stings my swollen eyes and blurs my vision. I can’t breathe past the lump in my throat. Even my nostrils burn. At first, I think it’s from the raging inferno that’s encompassing the stable, but when I wipe my face, I find it wet.
Fuck.
My cheeks, my chin, even the neckline of my shirt, all of it covered in the salty water leaking from my eyes. Now that it’s started, I can’t get it to stop.
“Don’t do this. Don’t take her from me. I can’t handle losing her, too,” I sob.
I jam my eyes shut in an effort to hold back Niagara Falls from pouring down my face, but all I see behind my closed eyelids are my mom, my dad, Jillian, Casey—everyone I love, vanishing before my very eyes. I can’t live through it again.
Tears break through my lashes and fall down my face as I finally grieve for the first time in fourteen years.
Quiet sirens fill the distant air, getting louder the closer they get. Cops, firefighters, paramedics—they all run toward us doing their jobs, but I’m glued to the ground, crying like a bitch. The stable is gone, and so is Austin.
Everything’s going to be fine. I chant it repeatedly as they strap Casey to a gurney and load her into the ambulance.
It’s going to be fine.
It has to be.
Because if she doesn’t recover, neither will I.
Epilogue
AJ
Moans rocket out of my wife’s mouth. My face is buried so deep between her thighs that I’m going to have to come up for air soon. I know she’s close, and I don’t want to break the rhythm that has her sucking wind and tearing the hair from my scalp. It’s early, and she’s so tired, but it’s been so long, and I want her to come. Not having been able to touch her for weeks has made me a little overeager.
A cry tears from the monitor near our bed, and my head pops up on instinct. Casey lets out a drawn-out sigh and flops both arms over her face. “Dammit!”
“Don’t worry, cowgirl. I got it.” I rise to my feet, stretching my body—and my overworked jaw—before heading out of our bedroom.
“How’s my girl this morning?”
Gabriella’s scrunched up face matches her pink pajamas as she cries and kicks her cotton covered feet. Gabby was a surprise, one neither of us expected. After three boys, a little girl finally graced our home, making our family complete. She’s just as pretty as her mama is, and she stole my heart just as fast. Cradled against my bare shoulder, she begins to root. Babies this young are like animals. It’s all about food to them.
Shoving the pacifier into her tiny mouth seems to appease her for the moment. After the first three kids, I’m a pro at this. I can change a diaper in the dark and have her back in her pjs before she even realizes the tiny hunk of silicone isn’t going to start spouting milk anytime soon.
“Here you go, baby. Breakfast is served,” I murmur, placing my newborn daughter into Casey’s arms.
Ten years ago, I never, in my wildest dreams, could have imagined my life would turn out the way it did. A gorgeous wife, four amazing kids, and acres of farmland as far as the eye could see. It’s light years away from where I came from, but it’s perfect. I wouldn’t change a single thing.
Except for Austin.
Getting past it was hard for both of us. It took months of therapy and good old-fashioned time to move on. Casey and I never talk about it anymore, but it’s there. Lodged in my brain, unable to forget no matter how hard I try.
Casey has let it go. Exonerated him for his sins and absolved him of his crimes. She says the only people her anger was hurting was us. Austin isn’t around anymore to feel her pain. He’s gone, and we need to thank God for the second chance he’d bestowed upon us.
I’m not that forgiving.
For a long time, I blamed myself. Thoughts about what would have happened had I not returned when I did still haunt me. Visions of my girl bound and tied, almost raped and burned by a violent lunatic replaced my dreams of wreckage. Paramedics said the blanket saved her. Without it, she would have inhaled enough smoke to suffocate for sure. It worked as a filter, keeping her airway clear. For that, I’ll always be thankful.
“Luke! Jackson! Up and at ‘em, kids. Animals ain’t gonna feed themselves!”
Bleary eyed, my two oldest boys ooze out of their beds. Ranch work never ends, and I need to have Mr. Pritchett’s truck fixed by noon, which means I need a little help from my homemade crew.
I make sure the boys are on their way to getting dressed then go wake up the little one. “Come on, buckaroo, daylight’s wasting!”
“But, Daddy, I’m tired!” His little voice is raspier than usual, as he jams his tiny fist in his eye and shifts under the covers.
“I know, buddy. But we got work to do before Aunt Jill and Uncle Jameson get here this afternoon.”
He shoots up in his bed. “They’re comin’ today?”
“Yep. It’s April second.”
My own smile reflects back at me on the smooth face of my four-year-old. Between the three boys, Beau is the most like me. Same dark hair, same eyes, same olive skin. Ironic, since he’s the one who carries my name.
Anthony Morello III but we call him Beau after Casey’s grandfather. He emulates me, from his ball cap to his work boots. He’s my shadow. Wherever I am, Beau is sure to be right behind me.
“Are you and Mama playin’ a jig tonight?” His little hands touch the sky as I help him pull off his pajama shirt.
Once a month, Casey and I headline a show at The Wander. Covers mostly—heavy metal/country combos recreated by a strong Southern chick and a hard rockin’ guy whose combined love of music couldn’t be suppressed. It’s not the neon dreams Casey once fantasized about, but up on that silly plywood stage in a local bar in nowhere Texas, she shines like a star.
“I think you mean gig, buddy.” The look he gives me is so innocent that I can’t help but smile. He has trouble with words. I try to correct him but hearing him substitute F for the TR sound in truck always makes me snicker. I may be almost forty, but I’m still a big kid myself. “And yes, we are.”
“Does that mean Miss Sally’s comin’ over to watch us?”
Dark waves spring up out of the neck hole on his tee as I pull it over his head. “Sure does. I don’t want to hear that y’all have given her trouble like last time, ya hear?” Beau pulls up his socks with an overstated nod. “All right, then. Let’s go get some grub.”
After a quick breakfast, the boys and I get to work. We have two ranch hands helping with our day-to-day tasks. Good men who’ve been with us for years. They work the land then go home to their families at night, but we trust them enough to leave the ranch in their care on the rare occasions we head back East. Today’s a special day, though, and Brock and Jorge have the day off.
In addition to horses, we also have chickens, a dairy cow, and a small vegetable garden. Casey gives riding lessons, but she’s on maternity leave at the moment. We each do our jobs, and the morning goes without a hitch.
Casey’s shrill whistle echoes from the back door. That’s her way of calling us all in. The boys grapple over one another on their way up to the house, and I meander in behind them, already exhausted from my half-day’s work. When it’s just us on the porch, I press my lips to hers. Moments alone are so infrequent these days, but I never miss an opportunity to kiss my girl whenever I want.
“You still owe me one later, city boy. Don’t forget.” She giggles.
The hair on my arms stands on end. Ten years together, and that little laugh of hers still makes me tingle all over. “Don’t you worry, cowgirl. I’m gonna plow you like fertile land,” I joke, patting her on the ass before I head into the kitchen door to greet the family waiting there for me.
It’s been a year since we've all been together, and I’m happy they’re here. We try to talk as often as we can, but life gets in the way. They’re busy, we’re busy; it is what it is. The visits are never as long as I hope. Morello and Tate is left in good hands, but business awaits and they can’t stay. However, we all agreed this day is the one day of the year that we will all be together, no matter what.
“Hey there, bumpkin.”
My sister’s embrace is so tight it strangles me, but I don’t pull away until she does. I feel the wetness in my eyes, and it doesn’t embarrass me. Dad was right. Family is everything.
“I hear your dad’s got you helping out at the shop. Don’t let the old man boss you around,” I say to Zakk, whose lazy smile reminds me so much of his father I want to smack it. He still resembles me a little, but this kid is a Tate in every way. Sarcastic as fuck and super chill.
An original Morello and Tate tee hangs on his slender frame as he casually leans against the counter. At ten, he’s almost as big as his mother is already. He’s even gotten in trouble at school for kissing girls, too. I always said Jill was going to have her hands full, and I was right.
“Can I hold the baby?” My niece, Nikki, bursts into the room. She’s six, the same age as Jackson, but she’s not shy like he is. She’s just like her mother: little but with a personality that can suffocate a room with its size.