by Becca Van
But she had also learned to back up all her laptop files onto her e-reader after saving them into a PDF format, in case her computer ever went on the fritz, as well as several memory sticks. So instead of pulling up one of the erotic romances she hadn’t yet read, she pulled up the work files and went back over them for what felt like the thousandth time.
She studied each photo of the deceased women, scrutinizing them from top to toe over and over again. No matter how many times she looked at them, her heart clutched with regret, sadness, and anger. Anger at the pain and violence they had experienced, and pain and sadness that they had died so young. But what bothered her the most was that now the psychopath was targeting more than prostitutes, as well as her. No woman on the streets of San Angelo was safe, and until she, Ward, Scott, and Colby caught this bastard, every woman between the ages of sixteen to fifty was in danger.
Just as she was about to flick to the next body, Lori noticed a smudge or mark near the woman’s left hip. She’d wished she’d thought to bring her laptop from her apartment, but she didn’t think it would be a good idea to suggest or tell the three men she was going to go and get it. She could already hear the argument in her head, but she really wanted to see what that small mark was. She tried to enlarge the view but it was already at full screen and the only way she was going to see what it was, was on her computer.
She moved to the next picture and saw the same smudge and then the next and the next. She was so intent on what she was doing and trying to see what it was that she didn’t hear Ward enter the room. How long he stood behind her watching her she had no idea, but she squeaked and jumped when her e-reader was snatched out of her hands.
“Goddamn it, Lori, I should put you over my knee and spank that sweet ass!” Ward yelled.
Lori jumped about what felt like a foot from the sofa and her heart started racing after her fright, but she used her hands and pushed up to her feet before she turned to face him with her hands on her hips and glared right back at him. “Give it back.”
“No fucking way. You are supposed to be resting. How the hell are you supposed to circumvent your exhaustion if you keep working?”
“What’s going on?” Colby asked as he entered the room. Scott was right behind him.
Without saying a word, Ward shoved her e-reader toward his brothers.
“Jeezus,” Colby snapped. “No wonder you were so insistent at bringing your own. I’m confiscating this until you have the all clear from the department doctor.”
“You have no right!” Lori yelled.
“We have every right!” Ward yelled back as he walked toward her. “This obsessive work behavior stops now.” He gripped her chin and leaned down until their noses were touching. “Do you understand me?”
Of course I do. You practically roared the question at me, but I can’t give up. I can’t let any more women die on my watch.
Tears burned her eyes and then, to her horror, they spilled over her bottom eyelids onto her face and down her cheeks.
“I can’t,” she whispered in a hoarse voice and then she shoved away from him and began pacing. “Don’t you see? More innocent women are going to die and it will be my fault. I can’t let that happen. Not again.”
Lori burst into tears and tried to spin away but he didn’t let her.
He turned her around and then pulled her into his arms. “Oh God, baby. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He didn’t say anything more, but just held her and let her cry, and then she was surrounded in warmth when Scott and Colby came up to her, pressing her between the three of them. In that moment the walls around her heart shattered into a million pieces and no matter how hard she tried to put them back together, they stayed in broken pieces at her feet.
The memories of her past slammed into her and even though she tried to lock them back away behind that locked door she couldn’t. The tears and sobs came faster and harder and her legs gave way as the grief and pain of a lifetime surged up and swallowed her whole.
She cried so much she started feeling sick, and then all of a sudden the tears slowed. She took great gulping breaths and her neck spasmed every time she hiccupped. She couldn’t slow her breathing until finally she let exhaustion take her down into its dark embrace.
* * * *
Scott had an ache in his heart that he wanted to rub away, but he knew that wouldn’t relieve his pain. His pain stemmed from Lori’s, and he, and from the worried looks on his brothers faces, they, too, wanted to know what had made her melt down the way she just had.
Ward was currently seated on the sofa with a sleeping Lori in his arms, but she was still hiccupping and gasping in her sleep, her small body jerking every time she inhaled and exhaled. He hoped to never see such pain in her heart, eyes, or her little body again, but he knew that they would. Until they got to the crux of all that agony she was going to keep them out of reach, and that was something he couldn’t live with. She was the love of his life and he had no intention of letting her go.
“Do you think we should call the doctor?” Cody asked as he sat down next to Ward and Lori, and then he took one of her small hands in his and flattened her fingers and palm out against his as if measuring their size difference. Seeing how pale her skin was up against his brother’s tanned skin and how thin and small and delicate her hand was against Colby’s made him realize just how small and feminine she was. His cock twitched and then roared to life and he cursed under his breath at the inappropriateness of his body’s response when she was hurting.
“No,” Ward answered in a husky, emotion-filled voice.
When he met Ward’s gaze, he saw the pain in his eyes and knew that both his brothers were hurting right along with Lori, just like him.
“I think what we need to do is sit down and get her to talk to us. We’ll let her sleep for now, until she wakes up on her own, but when she’s awake, she will tell us what is going on.”
Scott nodded at Ward as did Colby.
Ward rose to his feet and carried Lori toward his bedroom. He was back minutes later and they all got back to work going through the case files.
Hopefully, when they knew what the hell was wrong, they would be able to move this relationship forward another step or two.
Chapter Nine
Lori couldn’t get the images out of her head. She’d found the unsolved file by accident as she’d searched the archives looking for another open case file that was connected to the one she was working on. When she’d seen her surname, Shea, on the cardboard box her stomach had filled with dread and she’d felt sick to her stomach, but with a macabre curiosity she’d reached out and pulled that box from the shelf. After looking about that large brightly lit file room to make sure she was alone, she’d placed the box on the floor and opened the lid.
The manila file was thick and even though she didn’t want to open it, didn’t really want to know what had happened, her morbid curiosity wouldn’t let her walk away. She sank down onto the floor on her knees and opened that folder. Their faces stared back at her and she’d had to swallow around the lump of emotion in her throat, and the sob that was threatening to tear up out of her chest and mouth.
They’d looked so happy, smiling at the small baby girl in their arms, and she could see the love shining out of both of their eyes as they watched their sleeping daughter. With a quick flick of her wrist she turned the page and wished to God she’d never seen or opened that box. The gruesome pictures of the once-loving couple had bile rising up into her throat and threatening to erupt from her mouth, but she looked up at the ceiling and inhaled deeply, pushing the gorge back down, and her emotions with it.
With another flick of her wrist she by passed the photos and read the report. They had let someone into their home under the premise of needing help, or someone they knew, and for the act of kindness or familiarity they had been murdered.
Her father had been stabbed in the stomach and, as he lay on the floor bleeding out, the maniac had cut the clothes from her mother�
��s body, careless to the fact he’d cut her skin in the process, and then viciously raped her. When he’d been done, he’d taken his knife to her body, inflicting over a hundred cuts and stab wounds before slashing her throat, before he had run that knife over her father’s neck, and then he’d walked away from the scene as if he had done nothing wrong.
As if he had no idea that the small two-month-old baby girl in the other room even existed, or that he hadn’t just destroyed her life.
Lori woke up screaming and crying. She fought off the hands trying to hold her down and after escaping their clutches, she rolled from the bed onto the floor with a hard thud. Her stomach heaved and she couldn’t breathe. Her eyes searched and found what she was looking for and then she was running. She slammed down to her knees, careless of the pain shooting into them, bent over the toilet, and heaved her guts up. Again and again her stomach spasmed until there was nothing left to bring up and she finally managed to stop from vomiting. She wiped her mouth and sank onto the cool tile floor on her side, relishing the coldness against her hot, sweaty skin.
And then she was being lifted from the floor. Her body shivered and shuddered as her gaze connected with Ward’s, but she didn’t have the energy or the will to apologize for fighting him and his brothers off.
She didn’t protest when he stripped her down, or after he handed her off to Scott so he could hold her and then remove his own clothes. After turning the water in the shower on, he took her back into his arms and stepped in beneath the warm, soothing water. Lori clung to him as her body quaked with tremors and when they finally subsided, she sighed with weariness and closed her eyes. The warmth of the hot water seeped into her cold bones and when she stopped shuddering, he slowly lowered her feet to the floor of the shower, but kept his hands on her waist until she was steady.
Lori nodded her head to let him know she was okay, and then he started washing her. That was when she finally began to notice the naked Adonis standing so close, and her body began to hum with desire. Someone handed her a toothbrush and she gratefully took it and brushed her teeth before handing it back. She looked up into his eyes, and even though there was heat there, there was also something else she couldn’t fathom.
After he’d finished washing her, he turned the shower off and handed her out to his brothers. Scott held her waist while Colby dried her off and then she was being carried back into the bedroom. Instead of dressing her into her own clothes, Colby wrapped a large robe around her body and then tied the belt at her waist. When he was done, he picked her up and carried her out toward the living room.
He sank down onto the sofa, bringing her with him, and she snuggled up against him, relishing the security, warmth, and caring of having his arms around her. She didn’t need to look up to know that Ward and Scott were in the room, too. Ward sat down next to her and Colby and Scott pulled the chunky coffee table forward and then sat on it. He was so close his knees were touching hers.
“We’re not leaving this room until you talk to us, Lori,” Ward said in a firm yet soft voice.
Lori knew she wasn’t going to get away without explaining, and now that she’d fallen into pieces in front of them, she had this urge inside to tell them everything.
“My parents were murdered when I was two months old.” Her voice was flat and emotionless now. It was the only way she could get through telling them what had happened.
She explained everything she’d found in that file without once looking at them, and when she was nearly finished she finally looked up and met each of their gazes. “Whoever killed them had to know them. The report said that a neighbor had seen a car outside their house with the hood raised, but since they were in a hurry for an appointment they didn’t stop to offer help and didn’t think anything of it until the police arrived later and they got home.”
“Why do you think they knew their murderer, Lori?” Colby asked in a gentle voice.
“My dad was a firefighter and had seen some bad things. From the stuff my mom wrote in her diary, he was always drumming into her the need to be safe and to never open the door to anyone she didn’t know. I can just imagine how much more protective he would have been once they brought me home.”
“That’s one scenario, but if your father was home and someone came to the door asking for help, he probably wouldn’t have hesitated to offer a helping hand.”
“No!” Lori snapped. “I don’t believe that. I think my father knew who killed them.”
“The case was never solved?” Ward asked.
Lori shook her head.
“And you’ve been obsessed with finding killers ever since,” Scott stated more than asked.
Lori shook her head, but after taking a deep breath and thinking for a moment, she knew he was right, so she gave a slight nod.
“This obsessiveness is unhealthy, Lori,” Colby said quietly. “You’re heading on a path of self-destruction. You’ve already been sick to your stomach and you’re totally exhausted.”
“I can’t give up. I have to find who killed them. That fucking asshole ruined three lives, killed my parents. I can’t let him get away with it. I can’t.”
Ward sighed with what sounded like frustration and when she met his gaze he was frowning at her, but he didn’t say anything for a few moments. “We’ll make a deal with you.”
Lori opened her mouth to ask what, but she didn’t get the chance. Ward placed his finger over her lips and she closed them.
“Let me finish before you ask your questions. Okay?”
She nodded. He glanced at each of his brothers and from the looks they gave each other, some sort of communication passed between the three of them.
“We are very attracted to you, Lori,” he began.
She had no idea what that had to do with anything but since she’d promised to let him finish, she kept her mouth shut.
“We think you are the woman we have been waiting for and we want a relationship with you.” Colby took her hand in his and threaded their fingers together, and a moment later Scott leaned forward and did the same with her other hand.
Again she opened her mouth and again he pressed a finger to her lips.
“We’ll help you find your parents’ killer,” Scott said. “We will do most of the work though. You’re still on doctor’s orders to rest. That doesn’t mean we don’t want your input.”
“You may look over the files in the morning.” Ward held a finger up in the air. “But…after lunch you will rest. You will eat regularly. You’re to go to bed no later than ten thirty every night and won’t get out of that bed before 6:00 a.m.”
“You will be sleeping between us and we will make love with you. We know you are as attracted to us as we are to you and we want a chance to explore this attraction,” Scott said.
“Fuck that.” Colby squeezed her hand. “We want a permanent relationship with you.”
All Lori’s dreams of finding her own man to love came rushing through her mind. She been so cynical and obsessed with finding her parents’ killer she’d ignored everything else. She’d never even really had a social life or been kissed, let alone touched, before these three men came into her life.
The yearning to reach out and grab hold of what they were offering was too good to pass up. She wanted to have a relationship with them more than she’d wanted anything else in her life.
If things didn’t work out, she would learn to deal with the pain just like she had for everything else that had happened in her life. She had survived by herself for years, and she would survive again if they decided she wasn’t right for them.
Lori decided to dive in head first and hope she didn’t end up with permanent damage after taking the plunge, but the need to be with them far outweighed the what-ifs or the fear of getting hurt.
“So what do you say, baby?” Ward asked.
“Yes,” Lori replied quietly.
Ward leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips, and when he pulled back Colby did the same, and then so did Scott.
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“Thank you, darlin’.” Colby squeezed her hand and then released it as he rose to his feet before heading toward the kitchen.
“Thank you, honey.” Scott pulled her to her feet, hugged her for a few moments before he too headed toward the kitchen.
Ward stood up and cupped her face between his hands. “Thank you for trusting us, baby. We promise that you’re safe with us.” He kissed her forehead and turned her toward the hall, giving her a gentle push. “Why don’t you go and get dressed and when you come back out you can tell us what you found?”
Lori actually felt a smile forming over her lips. Each of the Stanford men were so astute, she should have known they would pick up on her vibes when she’d been looking at those poor dead women.
Determination hummed through her body. For the first time in six years she had a feeling that they were closer than ever to finding the fucker who had murdered her parents. But that wasn’t all that gave her hope. They were so caring and protective of her, she had warmth and hope in her heart for the first time in her life and knew she was already half in love with Ward, Scott, and Colby.
After dressing in jeans and a T-shirt, she hurried back into the kitchen dining room and sat down at the table. They had papers, photos, and files spread out everywhere, but when she looked toward the counter she saw a large plate of sandwiches.
They all stood up when she walked further into the room and Ward came over, grabbed her hand, and led her to the counter. He pulled out the second stool closest to the wall and then lifted her up as if she wasn’t a fully grown woman and plunked her ass down on it. He took the stool closest to the wall and then Colby sat on her other side. Scott dragged a stool around to the other side of the bench and sat right opposite her. He pushed the plate toward her and gave her a hard stare as his tilted lip pulled into a tight line and implacable resolve filled his gaze. “Eat.”
Lori smiled and took a sandwich and then moaned as she bit into it. It seemed now that she had purged all her fears, all the pain she had kept locked down tight inside her, she felt lighter and more carefree than she ever had and her appetite returned with a vengeance. The chicken salad sandwich was delicious and after she’d finished one half, she picked up another and bit into that, too.