by BJ Wane
Lillian heard Mitchell come in and added a few more strokes to her current painting before setting aside her paintbrush to greet him. With her hair pulled up and dressed in the long, flaring skirt she had bought to replace the one damaged in the fire and one of her paint-smeared tee shirts, she pondered changing first then squashed that idea. He’d seen her in similar disarray almost every day. Nervous anticipation rolled through her as she stood. She’d spent the morning in town, first opening an account at the bank and then having lunch with Nan and Avery, telling them of her plans to stick around for the foreseeable future. They’d been as thrilled as she’d been nervous, and she ended up leaving her jacket at the teashop.
Every time she thought of moving on, she couldn’t think of anywhere she would rather be, or people she would rather get to know better. After sleeping curled next to Mitchell every night this past week, her body still humming from his demanding possession every morning, her heart pounding from more than the sweeping ecstasy, the thought of being alone again turned her cold. He hadn’t said in so many words he wanted her to stay, and if she’d read him wrong and he didn’t want her to continue staying with him after the apartment repairs were finished, she wasn’t sure what she would do, where she would go from here. She was praying she wasn’t wrong.
Padding barefoot inside, she came around the corner to the living room, the giddy rush to see him turning to a gut-clenching wave of despair as she spotted him staring at Abbie’s picture on the fireplace mantle. The look on his face dashed her hopes that they could make something of their odd pairing, cutting her off at the knees. The profound love etched in every line of his face revealed how deeply he had cared for his wife, a submissive woman eager and willing to do his bidding day and night. And that wasn’t her. She’d grown to embrace and benefit from his sexual dominance, something she still struggled to accept, but she wouldn’t, couldn’t give him complete say so over her life. The month she’d lived under Brad’s thumb and demands had been the most difficult weeks of her life, and not just because of his threats against Liana and her sister’s hopeless condition.
I’ve been such an idiot. How could she hope to compete with what he’d shared with Abbie? She didn’t expect him to gaze at her with such an expression of devotion so soon in their relationship, but she was such a complete opposite of Abbie, of what he really wanted in a significant other, how could she hope he might come to care for her just as deeply? She must have made a sound because his head swiveled toward the door and he beckoned her forward.
“Why are you hovering over there? Come here.” He placed the picture back on the mantle and held his hand out to her.
She walked toward him, her heart thundering in her ears, stopping out of his reach and ignoring his hand as she looked at the picture. “You loved her very much.” Her voice wobbled but she didn’t care.
“Yes, I did. Something wrong, pet?”
Something snapped inside Lillian at hearing Mitchell call her that nickname, the one she’d switched from hating to liking and now, back to hating again. How dare he utter that endearment in that caressing tone seconds after mourning his one and only love? Lifting her arm, she knocked his hand aside as he reached out to her, stepping back with an icy glare.
“If you can’t respect my wishes regarding that degrading epithet then don’t talk to me.”
His lips tightened and he fisted his hands on his hips, giving her a glacial stare she refused to back down from. “If you have a problem, Lillian, tell me and we’ll talk about it.”
God, she despised the sneer in his voice when he said her name. “No problem, just asking for some of that respect you’re always demanding in return.”
She could tell he didn’t believe her and his words confirmed it. “Bullshit. What’s… fuck.” He grabbed his buzzing phone off the mantle, answering with a curt, “Doctor Hoffstetter.”
Lillian wasn’t disappointed when he replied to the caller, “I’m on my way,” and hung up. “Wouldn’t you know it? A trauma case is on its way into All Saints, a car accident. I have to go. We’ll finish this when I get back.” He started out, swung around, hauled her against him and ravaged her mouth in a kiss that left her shaken, needy and desperate to leave before she made a complete fool of herself.
Bryan watched the doctor walk out of his house and drive away just twenty minutes after arriving home, hoping against hope his chance to rifle through Lillian’s car for her camera was finally near. His patience in sitting here, biding his time for an opportunity to move fast without detection had been wearing thin. When he noticed she had started parking in the garage, he almost changed his mind and headed back to Utah empty handed. He had given himself a few more days, tonight being the last, before admitting defeat.
During the day, Lillian was either running around town or left the car in the drive, making it too risky to search it with neighbors so close by. At night, with the doctor in residence and her car locked in the garage, he hesitated to make a move under the new spotlights installed this week. But now, with dusk falling and Hoffstetter leaving with the garage door still open, his luck might be turning.
Casting a furtive scan of the street as he got out of his car, he followed the same route through the neighbor’s back yards to the rear of the doctor’s garage and sidled along the side and in through the open door, crouching until he reached the door handle on the passenger side of the Mazda. Putting his cigarette in his mouth, he breathed a sigh of relief when he found it unlocked. “Bingo,” he whispered, snatching the camera out of the glove compartment and backing out.
A startled gasp behind him drew a low curse as he spun around to see Brad’s ex staring at him wide-eyed, a suitcase in each hand.
“Bryan? What are you doing?” Her gaze went to the camera in his hand, her eyes going to narrow slits of suspicion. “What the hell are you doing with my camera?”
“Fuck!” Striding forward, he gripped her arm, his only thought to get out of there before the doctor returned. As he dragged her toward the back, he saw the moment she put two and two together and faced the fact there was no going back now. Her face paled as she dropped the bags and struggled in his hold.
Lillian shoved her fear aside as enlightenment dawned with the whiff of cigarette smoke. Swinging her free arm back, she slapped Bryan’s face with as much strength as she could muster, knocking the cigarette from his mouth. “You broke in upstairs and caused that fire.” She pulled against his bruising grip, digging in her feet as he kept going. “Damn it, why? Let me go!” she cried out.
Whirling on her, he drew a gun from behind his waist and pressed it against her temple with a snarl. “Shut up and move.”
Terror overruled her anger and she went with him, praying for an intervention before they got far. This had to do with his brother, there was no other explanation. But… shit. “It’s the pictures you’re after, isn’t it?” she panted as they reached a car parked around the corner. “You’re protecting that bastard again, aren’t you?”
Opening the driver’s door, he shoved her in ahead of him and she scooted as far away from him as the other door allowed. Going for the handle, she swore when it didn’t budge and he took off before she could unlock it, speeding down the residential street like a bat out of hell.
Grabbing hold for safety, she glared at him and repeated, “Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he snapped, running a nervous hand through his hair.
Before she could say anything else, he took the next corner with a squeal of tires, throwing her against the door as she saw Nan passing them, likely on her way to Mitchell’s house to return her jacket. Lillian had just enough time to mouth ‘help’ and prayed it would be enough.
Nan slammed on the brakes, turned around and memorized the license plate on the car before pulling over. Grabbing her phone, the image of Lillian’s frantic face as that man sped by giving her heart palpitations, she muttered, “Come on, come on, pick up… Grayson, oh, thank God.” She rushed to tell him what she’d just witness
ed, rattling off the license plate number.
“I’m on it. Get hold of Dan and Mitchell.”
The sheriff’s brusque, no-nonsense tone eased Nan’s trembling as she hung up and called Mitchell and then her husband.
What the hell? Mitchell was halfway to Billings when the hospital called to tell him the victim was D.O.A. and he was no longer needed. He’d barely had time to regret the unexpected death when his phone buzzed again, and Nan’s news turned his blood ice-cold. Whipping around, he sped back down the highway as he put in a call to Grayson on speaker. “Talk to me, damn it,” he demanded as soon as his friend answered.
“He has to be headed out of town and the highway is our best bet. I’ve put out an APB and abduction alert. We’ll get him. If you and I and my backup don’t block him on the highway, someone will spot them and pull him over.”
Grayson gave him a description of the car and Mitchell vowed to do something special for Nan when this was over. Right now, all he could think about was Lillian’s safety. Losing her was not an option.
Chapter 13
“This is all your fault, you know.” Bryan sent her an angry glare as he hit the highway at an accelerated speed.
“How so?” Lillian worked at taking deep breaths to keep her nerves from screaming. She was trusting Nan to get help, praying a law enforcement vehicle spotted them soon. “Your brother is the one who threatened my sister and knocked me around. You’re the one who broke into my apartment and car, I’m assuming to swipe the evidence I have of Saint Brad’s handiwork,” she sneered.
His perspiration-damp brow furrowed as he snarled, “What the fuck are you talking about, threatened your sister? She’s dead.”
Those blunt words caused her heart to constrict but she concentrated on the puzzlement in his tone instead. “You honestly don’t have a clue what Brad is capable of, guilty of, do you?” she scoffed. “After breaking up with him because of his control issues, do you honestly think I’d take him back without being coerced? I don’t sit in awe of your brother, never had, never will. Only you do, you blind jackass.”
Bryan tightened his hands on the steering wheel as his eyes darted back and forth along the highway. “Don’t give me that bullshit. He told me how you went nuts when he ended it between you two, how you attacked him and left him with a concussion he damn near died from.”
Wincing, she shook her head in disbelief at the lies Brad was capable of. “I didn’t know he was hurt that bad. He’s the doctor, for God’s sake, not me. And he didn’t end it, I did when Liana died and he could no longer threaten her with harm if I didn’t stay with him. Believe me or not, I don’t care. I don’t know what you’re planning, but you won’t…” She broke off as a highway patrol came speeding out of a turnoff and roaring up behind them with sirens wailing. Relief washed through her, bringing a strange calmness in the wake of the danger she was still in. “Pull over, Bryan. You can’t… Oh!”
Not only did Sheriff Grayson’s cruiser join in the chase along with the highway patrol but hordes of riders were barreling across the fields bracketing both sides of the highway, every cowboy armed with a rifle. But as Bryan cursed a blue streak, refusing to slow down, it was the sight of Mitchell’s SUV coming at them from the front, followed by several more siren blaring police cars that settled the final dregs of her anxiety. Reaching over, she squeezed Bryan’s rigid arm, imploring, “Please, stop. You have to know it’s over.”
He slowed to a crawl and then stopped, his expression bleak as he pointed his gun at her. “I still have you to get me out of this.”
Mitchell came to a careening, sideways halt in front of them as the Dunbar brothers and their cowhands reined in their mounts and aimed their rifles with grim, determined expressions on the left, Kurt Wilcox and his loyal hands riding to the rescue on the right. As drool-worthy, panty-melting a scene as the cowboy posse made, it was the expression on her doctor cowboy’s face as he got out and came toward them with his hand stretched toward her that did it for her. I was an idiot for not trusting him with my heart as much as I did my body. There was no hiding or denying the fierce protective set to his face or the glint of profound caring in his eyes.
She reached for the door handle, swinging her gaze back to Bryan. “No you don’t.” Waving her hand around them, she smiled. “You may have been blind about your brother, but you can see what’s right in front of you now. Think about it, Bryan. Do you want to be a cop in prison for murder or settle for a plea bargain for kidnapping, which I promise to support?” With a deep breath and shaking hand, she got out of his car and walked toward her future.
Six months later
The sprawling green lawn surrounding Caden Dunbar’s home was teeming with the townsfolk of Willow Springs and his ranching neighbors. Two eight-foot-long tables held a buffet of homemade casseroles, salads and desserts, ten other tables offered seating for the picnickers who were enjoying the Dunbar’s hospitality at their annual barbeque. Young children were squealing on top of ponies in a makeshift riding ring, teenage boys were hitting baseballs out in a field and several grills were sending plumes of smoke-filled tantalizing aromas into the air. Mitchell leaned against the towering Ponderosa pine at the corner of the lawn, eating an ice cream cone, enjoying the shade against the afternoon September sun and watching Lillian fuss over babies.
A rueful smile curled his lips as Avery strolled over to the blanket carrying their three-month old daughter. As usual, Grayson was keeping an eagle eye on mother and daughter with the occasional glare toward Caden or Connor as a reminder to keep their boys away from his girl. If he kept it up, the sheriff would have more gray hair than Mitchell before the kid hit kindergarten. The five-and-a-half-month-old Dunbar baby boys were rolling around together on the blanket, their mothers, Nan, Leslie, Kelsey and Lillian laughing at their antics.
He had declined the invitation to the picnic last year, having just relocated and was still getting his bearings, but now wished he had attended. Spread out before him lay the picture of a close-knit community, faces of friends who would go that extra mile for you and a woman who had filled the empty void in his life Abbie’s passing left behind.
His palms still turned sweaty, his heart racing whenever he thought back to that evening when he’d seen Lillian’s pale face staring at him in wondrous disbelief through the windshield of her kidnapper’s car. He didn’t know how word of her kidnapping had reached their friends and the ranches so fast, but his gratitude remained endless. The way she’d gone to bat for Bryan McCabe, giving her blessing for a reduced sentence, stayed a bone of contention between them. No matter how hard he and Grayson argued against forgiving the man, that stubborn grit of hers took hold and they failed to shake it loose. She’d said she’d seen the moment he had believed her over his brother and regretted his actions, and she wanted nothing more than to put the incident behind her. The ten years he was spending in prison were enough of a punishment on a disgraced cop.
She’d had some explaining to do after they had returned to his house that night and he’d seen her bags packed. That evening had been the first of many open, candid conversations between them and the start of cementing their feelings for each other. Over the summer, he taught her to embrace her sexual submissive side and she, in turn, tried to stay patient whenever he lapsed and got ‘bossy’ when sex wasn’t involved.
Reaching into his pocket, he fingered the ring he brought with him, a peacefulness settling over him as he watched her walk toward him with a small smile that stirred his cock. Yeah, he loved her, enough to tie her to him and hopefully welcome a child of his own into this world within the next year. He held out his hand, noticed several people looking their way, Caden giving him a thumbs up and Connor winking.
It never failed. Lillian’s pulse skipped a beat as she took Mitchell’s hand and saw that same look on his face as she’d seen when he’d driven up to her rescue six months ago, along with everyone else. They were still in the process of working out the kinks in their relationship, and
that would likely continue for some time, being such opposites. But they’d been having a good time rounding out those jagged edges. She stayed up worrying when he would get a late-night trauma call and he didn’t complain when he traveled with her to the Taos Summer Art Festival and she had left him on his own to attend her booth. They’d gone rapid river rafting and he’d talked her into having sex on the balcony of the hotel room. There were some perks to shacking up with a man into kinky pleasures.
Over the summer he’d taught her to ride and she’d given him art lessons. He’d shown her how inventive he could get on horseback and how creative he could get with finger paints. They spent a weekend at Devin and Greg’s Wild Horse Dude Ranch for their wedding to Kelsey and Lillian loved the trail ride up to the top of the flat hills. Sydney and Tamara were a hoot after imbibing too much wine at Leslie’s bridal shower, celebrating their first drink after childbirth. Kurt and Leslie’s church wedding in Billings had brought tears to Lillian’s eyes.
“What’s that shit eating grin for?” Mitchell asked, yanking her against him.
Lillian plucked the cone from his hand, leaning against him as she licked the smooth, cold ice cream. “Mmmm, just remembering Taos, and the balcony, and riding back to the falls on Kurt’s ranch, and last week, when you brought out the finger paints...”
He lifted a brow. “Want to sneak away into one of the barns and fool around? I’m sure our hosts won’t mind.”
She huffed a laugh, that familiar thrill sweeping through her at the prospect. “They won’t, but their parents and a few other of our town’s not-so-open-minded elders might.”
“And we don’t want to offend anyone.”