by Sophie Oak
“Maybe.” His head rested against her shoulder. He didn’t seem willing to let go now that he’d finally touched her. “But I’m unwilling to really try. Holly, I’m sorry. I wish I could be the man you need. I wish I could beg you not to go out with that Russian bastard, to pick me, but that would be unfair.”
And she wasn’t sure she could do it. Now that Alexei was back, she was nervous about seeing him, but she was pretty sure she would regret it the rest of her life if she didn’t try with him. And yet the thought that this was the end with Caleb tore her heart up. How had she fallen for two men?
Stupid question. She’d fallen for two men because she’d thought she might be able to have it all. Like Rachel and Callie and Laura. But no. She would have to choose, and either way she went, she would ache with it for the rest of her life. And, in the end, there was no real choice at all because Caleb wouldn’t try.
He turned her around, and she could see the agony in his eyes. She’d put that look there. She couldn’t stand the fact that he’d blown his precious control for her. He needed his control. She could see that now. “Caleb, I’ll be fine. Please. Don’t worry about me.”
“I think about you every minute of the day and twice as much when the sun goes down.” His words were tortured, and his mouth lowered to hers. His lips were briefly hesitant, and then he took over. His hands came up to clutch her shoulders and haul her close. His mouth closed over hers, his tongue teasing at the edges of her lips. Holly opened for him, and Caleb invaded.
He was everywhere. His tongue played against hers. One hand found her hair, and the bite of his fingers wrapping around her ponytail electrified her skin. He pulled on it, forcing her head into the position he wanted, giving his tongue full access. His other hand skimmed from her shoulder to her waist, the edge of his thumb just touching the outer curve of her breast. She wanted it on her nipple, plucking and teasing before his mouth moved down to suckle.
She gave herself over to the kiss, loving the rough feel of his cheek against hers. Caleb seemed to have a perpetual five o’clock shadow. It was bristly and masculine and made her feel soft and delicate. She sank her hands into his hair. It was so much shorter than Alexei’s but just as soft.
Alexei.
She had a date with Alexei, and she was kissing Caleb.
The phone rang just as panic hit. Caleb pulled her closer, bringing her into the cradle of his thighs, rubbing his cock against her. He pressed their hips together, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wanted her. She could feel him pulling her in, bringing them closer with just the touch of his skin against hers.
She was falling back in, forgetting everything but the feel of him when the phone rang again. The real world was intruding, reminding her of what he’d said before. He didn’t really want this. She forced her hands up to push him away.
“Caleb. Caleb, your phone is ringing.”
His hands tightened. “Let it ring.”
“What if it’s an emergency? What if Callie’s gone into labor?” He was the only doctor for miles. He couldn’t ignore a call, even though her pussy was begging her to rethink her position.
Caleb cursed and dropped his hands. Frustration settled over him. “Damn it. I am not a fucking obstetrician.” He took a long, deep breath and then turned away. He grabbed the phone. “What?”
He had the worst bedside manner, and he definitely needed a receptionist. Holly straightened her T-shirt and wondered how long it would be before she forgot how it felt to be held by him. Should she tell Alexei what had happened? What the hell was she doing?
“It’s for you,” Caleb said gruffly, shoving the phone toward her. “Apparently Rachel Harper saw you walking in here and told Stella where you are. You should have come in the back way.”
She took the phone. “Sorry. One of these days I’ll be able to afford a damn cell phone. Not that it would work here. Hello?”
After three minutes and one convoluted story involving a botched gnocchi experiment and a raccoon on the loose in the kitchen, Stella finally got around to explaining that Holly needed to pick up some supplies in Alamosa.
“Sure thing,” Holly said, eager to get off the phone. She hung up and then cursed. “I don’t have a car.”
“What’s wrong? Did it break down again?” Caleb stood as far away from her as he could. Only the wall behind his back seemed to keep him in the room with her.
“I loaned it to Alexei.” Alexei, who was out trying to find a job so he could take her someplace nice.
Caleb’s hand went into the pocket of his pants. She couldn’t miss the fact that Caleb hadn’t calmed down. His cock was pressed against the material of his jeans, an obvious and very large monster. He pulled his keys out and tossed them to her. “Take mine.”
She caught the keys to his truck. “Are you sure? I’m actually not the best driver in the world.”
His hands came up, fingers splayed. “Holly, take the truck. What just happened was a mistake, but I don’t want us to fight. The last thing in the world I want is for the two of us to not talk.”
“You rarely talk, Caleb.”
The right side of his mouth crinkled up in a lopsided, totally gorgeous grin. “Fine, I don’t want to not listen to you.” His face fell, and Holly would have done just about anything to put that grin back. “And I won’t stand between you and Alexei. I hope, for your sake, that he really has changed. And don’t let the hooker thing scare you. If you think about it, it really is kinder. He wasn’t ready for a relationship. His life was violent and unpredictable. It was better to pay for what he needed than to drag someone into it. Especially someone he didn’t love.”
“So we’re friends?” She would take that. It would hurt, but she would be his friend.
He nodded. “Friends. And I’ll get the tests back. I think Wolf was going into Alamosa. I’ll hop a ride with him. He’ll love driving another man’s biological samples around.”
“It’s just a little blood. Somehow I think an ex-Navy SEAL can handle a little blood.”
“And urine. And, well, let’s just say I was very thorough. We’ll know just about everything about that man’s bodily functions ASAP. Oh, and I took a hair sample to test for marijuana use.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “Somehow I doubt Alexei has been toking up.”
“I can only imagine what he’d call it.” That lopsided smile was back, and Holly couldn’t help it. She walked into his arms and hugged him.
“Thank you, Caleb.”
It took a moment for his arms to close around her, but they finally did. “If you ever need me to find a medical way to torture him, please let me know.”
She nodded. “I promise. And I’ll bring your truck back.”
She walked out of the office with tears blurring her eyes. Her head was down as she walked out the door, and she almost ran into a man.
“Sorry,” she muttered as she sidestepped the man.
“No problem,” the man mumbled, and looked away, walking down the sidewalk with a quick cadence.
Great. Now she was offending tourists. With a long sigh, she trudged across the parking lot to Caleb’s black truck. It was a huge monster, and she had to haul herself into the cab and adjust the seat as far as it would go forward.
The long drive toward Alamosa loomed. She turned east onto 160 and started the drive. Caleb’s radio was tuned to a sports channel. She flicked it off because she had enough voices in her head.
She was a mass of confusion. Excitement at the prospect of being with Alexei. Disappointment that Caleb wouldn’t be with them. That was what she’d wanted deep down. She forced herself to really acknowledge the fact. She’d dreamed of finding what the others had found, of being the center of a happy little threesome. She’d fantasized about being between Caleb and Alexei, their big bodies surrounding and protecting her, their hearts loving her and accepting her love back.
She’d bottled it up for so long. She’d shut her heart away because no one seemed to want it. Talking to
Caleb had reopened some wounds she’d hoped had long since healed, but then maybe she would never heal from the way her first husband had treated her.
First? Scott would probably be her only husband. She was forty years old, the oldest of all her friends, and the only one unattached. Perhaps that part of her life had passed her by, and all she could hope for was a brief, hot affair with a younger man. There weren’t many prospects in Bliss. It was too small a town, and she worked enough that she didn’t leave Bliss often. And she wouldn’t trade the town or her friends for anything in the world.
She just wished there was something more for her.
She sniffled and tried to get herself together. Feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to fix a damn thing. She had a date. Just because things hadn’t worked out with Caleb didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy Alexei. She just needed to guard her heart.
And she needed to slow down. She glanced down at the speedometer as she started down one of the steeper hills. Her speed was picking up way too fast. She was used to her old car with its engine that never seemed quite ready to pick up speed. Even when going downhill, it still sputtered and shook like it just didn’t want to put forth the effort. Not so with Caleb’s shiny new four-wheel-drive truck. It was perfectly happy to allow gravity to increase its forward momentum. It hit eighty with no trouble at all, and the needle kept rising.
Holly put a foot down on the brake. She’d lived in the mountains long enough to know not to shove her foot to the floor or the brakes could overheat. She also knew not to ride them, keeping her foot on the brake over a long period of time though instinct always told her to do so. A strategic application of pressure would drop her speed and then she would allow it to build back up.
Nothing. They didn’t respond at all. Now she was up to ninety and a curve was coming up. She took a deep breath as she passed Mel’s cabin at a breakneck speed.
She tried again. Maybe the truck worked a bit differently than her car, and it required more pressure.
Her foot went all the way to the floor, the pedal flopping back with all the strength of an overcooked noodle.
Panic started to set in. The Harper Ranch came and went. The speedometer kept climbing. How fast could the truck go?
She tried again, though she realized there was nothing she could do. The brakes were gone.
Forcing herself to stay calm, she thought about the road. Two more turns and she would be off the mountain and into the valley, where the road was flat and she could see for miles. She could figure out something to do then.
Or she could put the car in a lower gear now. It risked ruining the engine, but it might slow the truck down so she could take the curves.
But it was Caleb’s truck. And Caleb would rather have her safe than have his truck. He might not be willing to risk a relationship with her, but she wasn’t so foolish that she believed he cared about his truck more than her life.
She would just have to find a way to make it up to him.
Wincing at what she was about to do, she forced the gear shift into the slot labeled 1. The whole truck shook, and it took everything she had to control it. The S curve was coming up. She couldn’t possibly manage it at almost a hundred miles an hour. No way. She would go right off the road, and there was no guardrail. She would either hit the side of the mountain or she would roll off it.
Finally the truck started to slow, but only to seventy. Gravity was still at work. She had no idea what the incline was this low on the mountain, but it was still steep. And she couldn’t see around the curve.
Her heart drummed inside her chest. Her brain played through a million scenarios. She could die right here on the mountain, and she would regret so fucking much. She would regret not trying. She would regret all the years she let slip by because it was easier than fighting and losing. As the curve barreled toward her, all she knew was that nothing, nothing was more important than the fight. The outcome didn’t matter. She could lose everything, and it would have been worth it to fight for what she needed.
Why did she only figure that out when death was staring her down?
And why the fuck was she giving up again?
The emergency brake. It was a long shot. She would probably still lose control, but it was all she had.
She pushed the brake in. Just like its sister, it went straight to the floor.
And then she saw the sign for the TER. Truck escape ramp. She tightened her hands on the steering wheel. She just had to hold on. The TER had only been in place for a few months, and it was meant to slow down eighteen wheelers that were out of control, but maybe it would work for her, too. The long offshoot of gravel would surely slow her down some. It had to.
At least it gave her a place to go before she hit that curve.
She hit the TER going almost eighty. Between the thick gravel and the level ground of the ramp, she immediately felt the truck begin to ease down.
By the time she’d reached half the distance of the TER, she’d slowed the truck to the point that she was sure she would survive. She rolled gently along until she hit the rail with a thud.
She put her head in her hands and finally cried, happy to be alive and to have another shot at just about everything.
* * * *
Alexei took the only seat available in the small office off the garage. The whole place smelled of motor oil, but that didn’t bother Alexei. He liked the cozy little work space. But the chair needed some work. It hadn’t been made for a large man. He wiggled a little, testing the sturdiness. It didn’t feel like it would fall apart.
Roger, who was indeed bald, had pictures of himself and his wife, Liz Two, that showed off his formerly long, flowing hair. He took the seat behind the desk. “So you’re that fellow who nearly blew up Bliss?”
His reputation was not exactly sterling. And thanks to the news reports, everyone knew his story. “Oh, no, no blowing up. I did not set a single charge while in Bliss. I merely shot many peoples.”
Long-Haired Roger’s eyes went wide, and he leaned forward. “Many?”
And he wasn’t helping his reputation along at all. “Well, not too many. Four or five, perhaps. And all of them were very bad peoples. They took over sheriff’s department and were going to kill women. I could not allow them to kill women.”
In all his time in the mob, he’d never hurt a woman. He’d never struck one in anger or in anything but an erotic fashion. He’d met several women who enjoyed spanking, and he liked it, too, but he’d never treated a single woman with any less respect than he would demand for himself. It had hurt him in his rise in the organization, but there had been things even he could not do for revenge. In the end, his inability to harm a woman had cost him his revenge and helped him regain his soul.
“I had heard that you saved a bunch of women. And Logan Green, too, though I doubt he thanks you for it.”
The deputy was one of the men he owed in this town. Logan Green had taken a beating that almost killed him, and Alexei had been forced to allow it in order to save them all. He’d been outnumbered and outgunned and he’d hated it, but he would sacrifice the young man again if it meant saving Holly and Jennifer. He was going to have to find a way to deal with Logan if he was going to live in this town.
“I am very deeply sorry for what happen to deputy. I could not help him without giving myself away, and then we would all be dead.” It was a lame excuse. Sometimes at night he came up with a hundred scenarios in which he spared Logan Green from his fate, but at the time he’d gone with the safest course of action.
“That would have been much worse. I don’t know what poor Teeny would do without her boy. She and Marie dote on him. He’ll be fine. He’s got two mommas to look after him. You know, everyone in these parts talked about how you let yourself get all shot up to save Holly. Holly’s a sweet girl, and she’s just about the best waitress in the county. The sheriff speaks very highly of you, too,” Long-Haired Roger said. “I really like Nate Wright even though he’s a cranky son of a bitch. He
says you saved Callie and Jen, so you’re all right with me.”
Alexei tried to relax. Maybe this would go better than he’d expected. He was surprised to find himself so nervous. He hadn’t been thinking about finding a legitimate job all those years before when he’d thrown away the majority of his youth to pursue revenge. Now he had to pay for all the years he should have been in college or starting a career. He had to find a way to make a living in the legitimate world.
“Gene tell me you are looking for good worker.” Perhaps once he got settled in, he would find some training school and learn a trade that went beyond racketeering.
Long-Haired Roger’s bald head nodded. “Yep. I need a new mechanic because my last guy ran off to join the pro-wrestling circuit. I don’t think that’s going to work out for him, but he wouldn’t listen to me. You don’t happen to watch wrestling, do you?”
He asked the question with a serious look on his face, as though the answer to the question would affect Alexei’s ability to be hired. Alexei decided to go with honesty. “No.”
He preferred hockey. One day he would sit in his own home with a big-screen television and watch hockey games with his friends. And Holly. Hopefully she liked hockey because he didn’t think he would allow her out of his lap once he had her there.
Long-Haired Roger sat back, seemingly satisfied with his answer. “Good. Because I don’t need to lose another mechanic to that. Now, do you have experience with cars?”
His brother had taught him much about cars. Mikhail had been forced to learn how to fix his car because they couldn’t afford a mechanic. His brother had been armed with only a how-to book and their father’s tool kit. After Mikhail had been killed, Alexei had found working on cars to be soothing.
“I am self-taught, but I know what I am doing,” Alexei explained. “I will take whatever test you like.”
“Do you know about brakes?”
He spoke without really thinking, the words rolling from his mouth. He’d spent so many years hiding his true feelings that now he often said far too much. “Oh, yes. I have worked with many brake systems. I know how to cut the brake lines of many different types of vehicles. And I was forced to learn how to blow up many mobsters’ vehicles. I always studied the different models to know where to place bomb.”