by Lexi Blake
Did he? It hadn’t seemed so bad. He hadn’t been terribly surprised by his welcome, but Bryce was moving into hyperbole. “It’s going to settle down. Something else will come up, and the town will move on to the next scandal.”
“I can see you don’t care. You don’t care about anything, obviously.” Bryce opened the door to the SUV. “Whatever happens, know it’s all your fault.”
He felt his eyes narrow. That sounded like a threat.
Bryce drove away, his tires squealing when they hit the pavement.
“Your brother-in-law is an asshole. You know he cheats like crazy, right? He’s got women going in and out of that office of his at all hours of the night.” Bo walked up carrying a box.
He’d heard the rumor. Why was his sister putting up with this? And why was Bryce so blatant? “How do you know about the women?”
Bo shrugged. “Everyone knows. I even heard Clarissa and her gang go to see him every now and then. I don’t know why. It’s not like he’s attractive or anything. I asked her about it once, but she told me to mind my own business.”
Oh, but this was his business. “I think it’s about time we checked on my dear brother-in-law. I’ve only met him a couple of times, you know. I wasn’t even at Shelley’s wedding. After I got fired, Bryce treated me like a leper.”
“Don’t listen to him. He’s not worth your time. Now, where do you want this? I know Beth doesn’t have one, and it seems to be your vice now.”
Thoughts of his brother-in-law fled in place of a deep and abiding affection for the man in front of him. “You got me a coffeemaker. Wait. You had to have ordered that yesterday. Didn’t you hate me yesterday?”
“Sure, but I loved Beth. I figured I could at least try to make friends with you. I didn’t want to lose her. Even if she couldn’t love me back. It was important to stay in her life, you know. So I thought I would give this as a sort of peace offering. Now I’m glad I did it because you seem cranky without caffeine.”
Bo bounced past him. Trev turned and saw Beth walk out. She’d put on PJ pants and a big T-shirt. Her eyes were wide as she looked around her. He couldn’t hear what they said, but Beth launched herself into Bo’s arms.
Trev glanced down the road where Bryce’s SUV had left dust in its wake.
What the hell was that man hiding? Trev intended to find out.
* * * *
Beth looked at the boxes strewn across the living room, a sense of excitement building. It was all here. All her fixtures, the flooring she’d picked out, the paint she’d selected, the new lights. Everything. She glanced up at Bo, who was fiddling with the new coffeemaker.
“Are you sure?”
He turned slightly. He looked scrumptious in nothing but low-slung jeans and his boots. “I’m sure. I wasn’t doing anything with the money. Besides, I’m just paying you back. Remember how you used to loan me lunch money?”
“Bo, that was like two dollars and twenty-five cents. This is fifty thousand dollars’ worth of supplies.”
He shrugged as he pushed the button that started the coffeemaker. “I never paid you back. Consider it interest.”
“Bo,” she started. The last thing she wanted was for him to think he had to buy his way into a relationship with her. “I love you. You don’t have to do this.”
He turned. “Are we in this together or not? I want to be a partner. I get that this body is enough to make any woman salivate, but I’m more than a hunk of a gorgeous man.”
She couldn’t help her smile. He always made her laugh. And now she didn’t have to stop herself from doing what she’d always wanted to do when she was with him. She walked straight into his arms. “We’re in this together. And I’ll take the interest. You’ll see. This house is going to be beautiful when I’m done.”
“At least you got rid of that chandelier thing. It gave me the creeps. And can we get rid of the room with all the heads?”
The office was a monstrous altar to the Bellows family’s love of hunting small woodland creatures and stuffing them. “Yes, that’s going to go. I’m knocking down one of the walls to make a breakfast nook. It’s going to be light and airy.”
She was so excited she could hardly stand to wait. The first thing she intended to do was to move that antler chandelier to the curb. She went up on her toes and kissed his mouth before walking over to where Trev had stashed the fixture. She shook her head. It had probably been too heavy for the ceiling. She would more than likely need the boys to carry it out. She reached out and tested it. It was remarkably light.
She lifted it. It was heavy, but not as heavy as she’d expected. She managed to heft it up. What had caused that chandelier to fall if not sheer gravity?
“What’s going on? You shouldn’t be lifting that.” Bo walked into the dining room, putting down the mug of coffee he was carrying.
“It’s not bad.” She set it down and looked for the fixture that had held it to the ceiling. It was still attached to the base. She’d thought it would be old and ragged, but the fixture was shiny and well kept. The screws were in near-perfect condition.
Why had it fallen?
She walked into the living room and stared up at the hole in the ceiling. She couldn’t see through to the second floor, and there was surprisingly little damage to the ceiling around it. She would have expected more raggedness to the spot, but it was almost as though the thing had simply fallen on its own.
Or had it had help?
She needed to get a closer look. She needed to get up there and feel the wood under her hand.
“Is everything okay?” Bo asked.
She gave him a sunny smile before crossing to the kitchen again. “Absolutely. Though I’m going to need to find a ladder.”
She opened the junk drawer and found the key to the garage. She was pretty sure she would find what she needed there.
She walked back into the living room and noticed Trev coming in from the porch. The front door opened. Beth felt a deep sense of satisfaction that it made no sound. She’d done a very good job with that door. Trev strode in. His hair was still mussed from the night before. There was a pained expression on his face.
“He needs coffee,” Bo said, putting the mug in her hand and giving her backside a little pat. “You should go and feed the beast. I think that should be your job.”
She grinned up at Bo, the mug warm in her hand. “Will do.”
She walked to Trev, whose whole face changed as he caught the scent of the coffee.
“Thank god.” He sniffed it before downing a long swallow. “Good morning.”
She kissed him, brushing her lips against his. “Good morning to you, too. Enjoy your coffee. I’ll be right back.”
She slipped past him and out of the front door. The morning was beautiful, dewy and warm. She didn’t bother with shoes, letting her feet sink into the thick grass. She turned and looked back at the house. A deep sense of satisfaction settled in her chest.
“Well, don’t you look like the cat who swallowed the canary.”
Beth closed her eyes before turning to face Clarissa. It was Grand Central Station at the Bellows place today. No. It was the Hobbes place. It was hers. And she was done allowing women like Clarissa to intimidate her.
Clarissa was dressed in shorts and a tank top. It was obvious she’d been jogging. Clarissa’s place was roughly a mile down the road. She probably jogged this way every day. Beth decided to go with friendly first.
“Good morning, neighbor.”
Clarissa’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you were going to sell this place.”
“Who told you that?” She hadn’t mentioned anything about this place to anyone outside of Trev and Bo and the gang out at O’Malley Ranch. Beth seriously doubted that Lexi had been gossiping with Clarissa.
Clarissa simply smiled. “Everyone knows you got turned down for that loan.”
“Really? Everyone?” Since when did her banking practices become everyone’s business? “There are other ways to get money. I took
a loan from a friend.”
Clarissa’s eyes narrowed. “I bet I know how you got it. So Trev has some cash hidden away?”
“No. Bo loaned me the money.”
Red flushed along Clarissa’s skin. If she’d thought for one moment that Clarissa had real feelings for Bo, she would have kept her mouth closed, but Bo didn’t mean anything to Clarissa but another man in her back pocket.
“Bo and I are together now, and not just as friends. He’s my boyfriend. I would thank you for respecting that,” she said.
She heard footsteps on the porch and turned to see both of her men step out. Trev leaned against the front post while Bo simply stared at Clarissa.
Beth fought not to blush. “And Trev’s mine, too. You should stay away from him as well.”
Clarissa’s fists clenched. “I’m going to talk to every single client you have. No one is going to want you doing their taxes anymore. You can’t expect that you’ll have a job once everyone knows what a whore you’ve become. How are you going to pay Bo back then? Oh, I guess he’s getting what he wants out of you. It’s going to take a lot of blow jobs to get rid of that debt.”
Trev straightened up. Bo opened his mouth, but Trev put a hand out. She got the message. They were behind her, but this was her fight. And she had a decision to make. She could play it safe and hide, or she could embrace the woman she was becoming.
“Somehow I think Bo will be kind when it comes to paying him back. And I have it on the highest authority that my blow jobs are worth a lot of money.” She managed to get through it without laughing, but it was right there. There was a strange joy in telling off this woman who had dealt out such misery. “I think I can safely quit doing people’s taxes and helping with their accounting and concentrate on fixing my house.”
“Don’t forget the blow jobs,” Bo called out.
“And blow jobs. I need time to give a whole lot of blow jobs.”
Trev shook his head but was silent as he took another long swallow of coffee.
Clarissa leaned in, her voice tight with anger. “After I get through with you, your name won’t be worth a thing in this town, Mouse.”
“My name has never been worth anything. And it’s not Mouse. My name is Beth, so when you start telling everyone what a slut I am when I’ve had two men in my whole life, you get it right. You tell everyone that Beth Hobbes is a whore and proud of it. You’re the pathetic one, Clarissa. You’re the one who tosses away men like they were used napkins. I love them. I won’t give them up. You can’t scare me away. You can’t shame me into it. Consider me an immovable object and get on with your own life. I don’t care what anyone thinks. That’s what you never understood about me. I never cared. I never tried to fit in. I was patient and waited until the right men came along. Now go back to your workout. You’re going to need it.”
Beth turned before Clarissa could say a single nasty word. She nodded at her men. “I’m going out to the garage to look for a ladder. I’ll be right back.”
She walked away, her heart pounding. She was really going to do it. There was no way to keep her clients. Some of them might not care, but she doubted the pastor of the Baptist church would allow her to do their monthly bookkeeping after he heard about her crazy threesome. And the principal of the school wouldn’t want it known that his accountant paid back loans with blow jobs. She felt her face flush. She’d actually said that.
It didn’t matter. Bo would take care of her. She approached the garage. She should shy away from the idea of being supported financially, but what was the use in being a couple—or a threesome—if they didn’t depend on each other? She was confident that she could bring this house back to life. She could make it beautiful again, and it would pay out. She would be able to pay Bo back and have some money left over for her next project.
And the citizens of Deer Run could go hang if they didn’t like it.
She stopped and stared at the door to the garage. It was a detached garage. She’d only been in it once before. It had been stuffed to the point that she’d known she couldn’t get a car in there. All three of their cars were parked in the circular drive. At the time, she’d simply relocked the garage and promised to put cleaning it out on her never-ending list of things to do.
But it looked like someone had decided to move that project up a bit.
The lock that had been on the door lay on the ground next to the garage. Someone had cut it and tossed it aside. She reached down and grasped the handle, afraid of what she would see. The door squealed in protest as she opened it.
The garage was in shambles. The neat piles of boxes and magazines and old newspapers had been overturned and stomped on. It was utter chaos, as though the people who had trashed the place hadn’t been sure of what they were doing so they had touched every single item in the place.
What the hell was going on?
“Wow, Maudine was kind of a slob.” Bo stood behind her.
But she hadn’t been. Maudine’s house might have been stuffed to the gills, but there had been a pattern to it. Everything had been neatly stacked.
Trev stood beside him, coffee mug in hand. “Someone’s looking for something, and they don’t care how they find it. I think we were wrong that first night, darlin’. I think someone was in this house.”
Goose bumps raced along her arm. “What on earth would I have that someone would want?”
“Maybe it’s not about what you have,” Bo said. “Maybe it’s about Maudine.”
“Maudine was a shut-in. She rarely went out, and when she did, she was nasty to everyone. She didn’t have a single friend.”
“She had a relative,” Bo supplied. “Barry Bellows was her nephew, but I don’t think they were terribly close.”
“But Barry was close to Bryce. Barry was Bryce’s partner. Fuck. Who was your loan officer?” Trev reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing it reassuringly.
“Kevin Jones.”
Bo frowned. “I saw Kevin having dinner with Bryce not two days ago. Bryce sends all his clients to Kevin for loans.”
“I’m seeing a pattern here,” Trev said. “But I don’t know what to make of it. Does Bryce have any connection to that kid who took a shot at Beth?”
Beth shook her head. “That kid’s name is Austin Hall. I talked to the sheriff about him when they brought him in. He’s been in and out of trouble, mostly drugs. I heard someone say that his father deals meth and possibly some other stuff. The sheriff thinks Austin is afraid of his father.”
“Everyone knows where to go for drugs in this town. Nelson Hall cooks meth, but he changes the place so often the cops out here gave up on finding him. But none of that explains why he would send his son in here to shoot at Beth.” Bo reached down and picked up a box. It looked like it held old towels. Maudine hadn’t been big on throwing anything out. “And what was he looking for?”
“And what’s his connection to my brother-in-law?” Trev’s face had taken on a stony look.
“Bryce wanted this place. It was only luck that the shelter put it up for auction while he was out of town.” She’d always known she’d lucked out. Bryce would have outbid her in a heartbeat.
“I think it’s time I had a talk with my sister. And put a couple of feelers out on my brother-in-law.” Trev shook his head as he looked at the mess. “I think we can kill a couple of birds with one stone.”
“Which birds are you planning on killing?” Bo asked, setting the box down. “Because it’s Sunday, and the Cowboys are playing. Beth’s TV here is crap. I thought we could go out to the ranch. Lexi makes Sunday dinner. It’s the only time she cooks. I would hate to miss it.”
A sadistic grin lit Trev’s face. “I think the ranch suits my purposes. I believe we owe our sub some punishment. Oh, and look, someone was nice enough to leave us some rope.”
Trev pulled a carefully wound length of rope from his back pocket. The rope was fairly thin, and there looked to be a lot of it.
“No one left that.” She was starting to w
onder how uncomfortable this punishment would be.
Trev grinned, but it was a predatory thing. “No. I brought that myself. This rope is special. It’s made from jute. Have you ever heard the term ‘hishi karada?’”
Just the way he said the word made her breathless. Bo moved out of the garage and closed it. The mystery would wait for a while.
“No. What does it mean?” Beth asked.
“It means I get to dress you today, darlin’.”
Chapter Sixteen
“You look really pretty, Beth.” Bo couldn’t help but look into the backseat of his cab as they turned down the road that led to the ranch.
Beth frowned at him, her eyes narrowing. “I look naked.”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant.”
Trev snorted as he drove. Though it was Bo’s car, Trev had insisted on driving. Control freak. He was getting used to it. And it meant he could look at Beth, who lay across the back bench.
“You don’t like the dress I made for you?” Trev asked.
The dress Trev had “made” for Beth consisted of nothing beyond the jute rope he’d pulled from his kit. Trev had ordered Beth back inside the house where she’d taken off her clothes and submitted to him. He’d watched as Trev wound the rope around her body. Beth’s hands were tied in front of her body, the rope twisting in a pattern that formed an odd dress. He’d gotten hard as a rock watching the rope wind around her breasts, forcing them to thrust out. The rope wound all the way down her body, holding her legs together. And the rope descended into the valley of her sex, splitting her pussy and the cheeks of her ass.
Beth hadn’t been able to walk by the time Trev was done. She’d been thoroughly trussed up like a pretty sex toy waiting for her Masters’ use. She’d knelt on the ground, obviously waiting for the sex to begin, but Trev was way kinkier than that. The minute he was done with his elaborate ties, he’d announced it was time to head out to the ranch. And he’d picked Beth up and loaded her in the truck, naked breasts and all.
“What if we get pulled over?” Beth asked.