by Jamie Begley
Heart-wrenching mewls of pain tore his insides to shreds as she regained consciousness.
“Jessie, stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.” Holding her torn hands firmly, Dustin had never regretted his lack of medical knowledge more than he did now. He desperately wanted to ease her pain.
Not knowing what to do, he did the only thing he could. He talked.
“You were constantly getting me in trouble, talking me into shit that I knew was crazy as fuck. I just lucked out that Pa believed that story. I can hear you telling me ‘Let’s pretend we’re going to the store.’ When the truck rolled back, you were out of there as if lightning was on your ass.” Dustin stared down at Jessie as she quit fighting his hold, unable to hold back a choked laugh at the memory.
“The stupid one you talked me into was when you convinced me a wasp nest was a honeycomb. You brought a big mason jar and kept nagging at me until I climbed that branch. And what did you do? Took off running as if your pants were on fire, and I was the one getting stung. I looked like Frankenstein for a flipping month.”
Dustin shook his head at himself. “You were always able to convince me to do the stupidest things that no one in their right mind would do. The worst was when you were absolutely sure little green men were hiding in the woods and watching us. Getting me to sneak out the green paint that Pa had painted the chicken coop with and paint each other so the little green men would come out and talk to us.
“I don’t know what was worse—Ma using paint thinner to get it off me, going to school looking like a victim of an atomic blast, or the ass-whipping from Pa. And what trouble did you get in? Zip, zilch, nada. You told your parents I talked you into it.
“Hell, you even convinced me to sneak out one night to go camping. Jesus Christ, that was a fiasco. You left me out there all night. And where were you? Home in bed. You told me you fell asleep waiting for your pa to go to bed.
“You know that when Holly put Logan in your daycare, Greer had a fit? I told him that kids would never put one over on you, because you had done it all.”
When he couldn’t take Jessie’s guttural moans anymore, he lowered the Porter pride to let an admission slip out. “I used to tell Tate and Greer when we were younger that no one could hold a candle to you. Jess, they still can’t.”
9
The pain in her face was excruciating, forcing her to consciousness. She just wanted to slip back into the dark sleep she had escaped to, but his voice wouldn’t let her.
At first, she had been frightened to find herself held in strong arms, but then she relaxed at the tender way he was holding her, protecting her from the rocking movements he was making. When she stopped being afraid that the arms holding her were going to hurt her, she was able to concentrate on his words.
Dustin Porter was holding her?
Her jumbled thoughts couldn’t understand why he was there, and she didn’t care. Jessie was just glad she was no longer alone. She wouldn’t have to keep moving, afraid she would never be found. Dustin would take her home. She had as much confidence in him for her safety as she had with Holt and Asher.
She could hear the laughter in his voice as he talked. The youth-filled stories didn’t make her want to laugh, though. No, she felt aching loneliness, because she had lost the friendship that had meant so much to her.
There hadn’t been a time as they had grown when she hadn’t felt a pang in her heart that she wasn’t in his life. She had loved Dustin before she even knew what love was. The best parts of her days were the ones she had spent with him.
Whenever she saw him in town, it became a torture to keep her expression from revealing how much she cared about him. It didn’t matter who he was with, or what they were doing, she pretended his attention was focused on her.
When he was sitting at a booth in the diner with a woman, she was there. When he was sitting in the front row of the movies with Tate and Greer, she was there, too, sitting on the other side of him. When he was standing in the back of the gymnasium during Logan’s kindergarten graduation, she was there, holding his hand. When she saw him grocery shopping with Holly, she was there, pushing the buggy and telling him not to forget the Reese’s Cups. When he had buried Samantha and cried over her grave, she was there crying with him. He thought their friendship ended the day he had thrown the bracelet in the dirt at her feet. It hadn’t. It had just gone in hiding.
She had carried the bracelet home with her, tying it on her own wrist. Her family believed she wore it because Holt had given her the beads. That wasn’t the reason. It was because Dustin had worn it for that brief time. When she’d grown older and was allowed to go into town, she would leave it at home, not wanting Dustin to see it on her.
“Jess, I have to set you down. My legs are cramping.”
She felt herself being gently lifted and laid on the ground. Unable to see and feel his comforting touch, she tried to open her eyes again to make sure that he wasn’t a figment of her imagination.
“Stop! I’m still here. Let me shake this cramp off, then I’ll sit back down.”
His reassurance didn’t help. She had pretended too many times that they were together that she didn’t know if she was making it up in her imagination now.
She desperately licked lips that felt like dumbbells, feeling the relief of drops of water sliding down her throat, then a cool cloth placed on her eyelids.
Experimentally, she tried to find her voice. “Wh …? Where … am … I?” she finally managed to mumble out.
“Thank you, sweet Jesus.”
Jessie could hear the relief in his voice as she felt him crouch down next to her.
“You’re on Black Mountain. What happened to you? Can you tell me?”
“I … don’t remember.” Her head still felt as if a drummer was doing a solo in her head. “My head hurts,” she moaned out, trying to reach for the source of the pain, but Dustin wouldn’t let her.
“The rescuers are coming. It won’t be much longer. What’s the last thing you do remember?”
The more she tried to think, the worse it hurt, but an image did come to mind.
“You … talking to Bliss.”
“That’s the last thing you remember?”
She started to nod, but a burst of pain had vomit coming up her throat.
“I’m going to throw up.” She felt herself roll over as she couldn’t hold the vomit back any longer. She didn’t have anything in her stomach, so dry heaves had her crying in misery. Dustin supported her head until she stopped, then he rolled her onto her back.
With the cloth gone, she could make out foggy images of him.
“Jess, I’m going to move you to the other side of the fire. Ready?” He lifted her, and she rested her face against his chest, lying passively against him as he walked the few short steps.
“Do you want to sit up or lie down?”
“Sit.”
He gradually moved her until she was sitting on her bottom. Then he sat down behind her and pulled her back to lean against his chest.
“Did I fall when I was hiking?” she asked, trying to make sense of what happened to her.
“No, you didn’t have an accident. We’ll try to figure out what happened when we get to the hospital. Asher and Holt are there waiting for you.” He reassuringly rubbed her arms, the warmth he was creating making her sleepy again.
“I’ve been worried about them.”
“They’ve been worried about you. Your brothers and the whole town have been searching for you.”
“How did you find me?” she rasped out.
“Greer.”
“He finally tried to kill me?”
Jessie could feel Dustin’s chuckle against her back.
“No, he suggested I look here. When you’re better, we’ll explain everything to you.”
“Okay … but if Greer beat me, you need to get him outta town. My brothers will kill him.”
More chuckles had her trying to smile in response.
“Ouch … W
hat’s wrong with my mouth?”
“Peanut, you don’t want to know.”
She lost all desire to smile. “It’s been a long time since you called me that nickname.”
“What can I say? Porters are stupid. At least the men are.”
“I can’t argue with that.” Feeling so tired, she fought off sleep. Crazy as it sounded, she didn’t want the time alone with Dustin to end. When help arrived, he would disappear from her life again, and they would go back to ignoring each other on a daily basis.
“Jess?”
“Huh?”
“I was checking to see if you were still with me.”
“Where …?” Her head hurt so badly that she didn’t want to talk, but she wasn’t able to stay quiet. Holt always joked that she should join the army, that she would talk their enemies to death.
“Are you crying again? You need more water?”
“No, I was trying to laugh, but it hurts too bad.”
“What were you laughing at? Where does it hurt?” he asked solicitously.
“I was trying to ask where I would go in the shape I’m in. Was I in a car wreck?”
“No, you weren’t in a wreck. Shh ….”
She hadn’t realized she was whimpering until Dustin started soothing her again. She tried to stop when she could hear that he was getting distressed at her unintentional sounds.
“I must be bad off if you feel as sorry as you sound.”
“You remember when I was stung by the wasps and what I looked like after Ma scrubbed my face with paint thinner?”
“That bad?” she asked, wincing at the memory.
“Worse.”
“Damn, Holt and Asher are going to have a fit. You sure Greer—”
“I’m sure,” he said resolutely, shifting her to lie on the ground. “I see flashlights coming. Don’t make a sound until I see if Tate or Greer are with them. Don’t be scared …,” he soothed her when she must have made a keening mewl of terror. “Woman, you don’t have to be scared of a fucking thing anymore. As long as a Porter man is alive and breathing, no one is going to touch you again. You hear me?”
“Kinda hard not to,” she murmured under her breath.
After that, everything became disjointed as hands and faces blurred into a mass of nothingness that had her agitatedly shying away from the eyes staring down at her. She started to think she had been imagining Dustin being there with her, that she was back at the old cabin and the rats were biting her again.
The wrenching pain from her nose was so extreme that she tried to claw herself away. Like a wounded animal, she wanted to get to her feet so she could run.
“Jess ….” Dustin’s urgent voice broke through the haze of agony surrounding her.
Turning toward him, she reached out for him, wanting him to make the pain go away.
“Let me hold her while you check her out!”
Releasing a shuddering sigh, she went slack. He had promised her that no one would hurt her again. As long as he was close by, she could take others touching her.
“We’ve got to get her strapped into the litter, Dustin.”
The hard, male voice was one that sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
“I gave her a shot of haloperidol. It’ll calm her down enough until we can get her to the hospital and treat her. They’re going to lift her, so I’ll be going on the helicopter with Jessie.”
“Thanks, Dr. Price.”
Clutching Dustin’s shirt, afraid, she burrowed closer into him. “Don’t … leave.” As she forced the words through thick lips, the fear she had been combating was gliding into a listlessness that had her limply acquiesce, letting herself be taken from Dustin. Without him holding her, she let the drowsiness she had been fighting win. The hard blast of wind blowing down at her didn’t even tempt her to try to open eyes that she could only see through a slit anyway.
Raised voices and weightlessness had her mind swimming in a kaleidoscope of colors that had her uncaring about what was happening to her. The dreamlike state allowed her to drift away like a leaf on stormy lake, taking her farther and farther away until she could no longer see the shore and had no hope of returning.
At least she had been able to see Dustin one last time before she died, and her brothers would be able to bury her.
A feral yell of rage had her wanting to turn her head, but she couldn’t. She tried to make out where the sound was coming from, afraid a wild animal was about to kill her and scatter what was left of her.
“Shut the fuck up, Asher! You’re scaring the hell out of her! Holt, get your brother under control, or I’m going to Taser the shit outta him.”
She recognized the threatening male voice as Greer’s. She had died and gone to Hell.
“I’m gonna kill the motherfucker who did this to my sister!”
The struggling movements of boots scuffing pavement had her wanting to turn her head again, but what she was lying on was moving too fast.
“Dammit! Drake, hold Holt back. He can’t go into the emergency room with her! Asher, I’m going to Taser you if you don’t stop fighting me.”
“Taser me? You should be finding out who did that to my sister!”
Her scattered wits latched on to Asher’s shouts.
Someone had done this to her? Jessie prodded her mind, trying to remember what had happened before she had come to on the mountain and finding no answers.
“Jessie, this Dr. Price. You’re in the hospital, and we’re going to get some X-rays done. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Nurse ….”
Jessie lost track of the conversations, letting the void take her back to where she wasn’t being poked and prodded.
“Jessie …? Can you hear me? It’s Knox. Can I ask you a couple of questions?”
“Hmm …?”
“Who hurt you?”
“Don’t know ….” The pain was returning at his questions. She wanted to know, too.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“At daycare … Dustin came in to talk to Bliss.”
“You don’t remember going to the laundry room?”
“No.”
“I’ll leave you alone for now. If you do remember anything, even if it’s small, just tell one of the nurses to get me. I’ll be just outside the door.”
“Doctor, the state police are asking for the rape kit. If you’re finished getting samples, I’ll processes it and give it to them.”
The hesitant female voice asking the doctor for the order had the lethargic lassitude dissipating.
“Rape? I wasn’t raped. Don’t touch me.” She tried screaming to make them leave her alone. She had to go home! “I wasn’t raped … Dustin, tell them I wasn’t raped … Dustin, please.” She sobbed, tasting metal in her mouth. “Dustin …? Where are you?”
“Dustin’s on his way.” The doctor’s firm assurance didn’t stop her from trying to get off the bed. “If you quit fighting, I can let one of your brothers in—”
“No!” Jessie hissed. “They won’t know. I don’t want them to know. Dustin … I want … I wasn’t raped.”
“Okay, Jessie. We’re getting Dustin. Knox says he’s here.”
Jessie let hands press her back down to the bed. She would be able to talk Dustin into taking her home. She had always been able to talk him into anything. Well, almost anything … She hadn’t been able to talk him out of hating her because she was a Hayes.
At one time, she had even considered changing her name just so she could have him as a friend again. It had been a youthful fantasy that she would marry him one day. It was a fantasy that burst when she had seen Dustin with Sam, sitting in the back row of the movie theater when they were in high school.
She had been with Holt and Asher and had seen Dustin find a seat in the back row. It was unlike him to sit in the back. When the lights had dimmed, she had shrunk down in her seat, watching as Samantha snuck inside to sit with him. She had known then that
Dustin was in love with the girl. She sat in the theater, her heart breaking into a million pieces.
Treepoint was a small town, and she had never heard a peep of gossip about them being together until Sam died and it had come out that they’d had a child.
When the gossipmongers spread it around town that Dustin had killed Sam in a fit of jealous rage, even before it made the newspapers, she hadn’t doubted it was an accident. Dustin would never hit a woman, not even if his life depended on it. If he had been in a jealous rage, he would have killed the man, not Sam.
When Holly had enrolled Logan into her daycare, she dreaded him attending. Truthfully, she had thought the Porters would have talked Holly out of it, but they hadn’t.
The feelings of Logan being Samantha’s child disappeared the moment Logan had come in through door. She had fallen in love with the child; so much so that she had to hide her emotional attachment that was building and not show favoritism toward him among the other children.
Logan leaving for kindergarten had affected her just as much as any first-time mother experienced.
That Dustin no longer needed to come in the daycare was both hell and a blessing. She still saw him in town and for church events, but that was the extent of their contact.
Until Holly had invited them to her wedding, a Hayes hadn’t stepped foot on Porter property since the day her father had shot their dog. Sutton, Rachel, and Holly would invite church members for dinners and parties, but no further invitation had been extended to her. She was sure it was for the same reason that she hadn’t invited them—the women were trying to keep the peace between the two families.
Keeping the families separated was second nature for the townspeople, too. No one wanted their business or party trashed because of the inevitable fight.
The night of the auction at King’s restaurant, she wasn’t trying to get back at Asher and Holt for trying to meddle in her life. She had built the courage to try to end the feud … and get the man she loved. It had failed, practically causing a fight and having her leaving with neither of her brothers talking to her for two weeks. If they hadn’t been sick of take-out, it would have gone on longer.