“All right, then.” He didn’t give her any more warning. He treated her to as insolent a look as he could muster—and then he advanced.
Kat took a step back and then thrust out, but he could see her thinking, see the way her eyes widened. Using a voice that was hard-edged and sounded really nasty to his own ears, he talked smack, reciting the small script he and his brothers had written the night before as she’d lain sleeping.
“Not so tough now, are you, woman? Huh? You let those punks get the best of you, and now you’re letting me do the same damn thing. Come on, Kat, show me what you’ve got.”
He jabbed out, catching her in the shoulder, spinning her back, left, right, left, as he advanced on her, all the while hurling insults and slurs. It fucking near killed him to do this, but he kept up the barrage, advancing, coming at her with as much menace as he could muster. He wondered how long it would take, even as he prayed she’d anchor herself and begin to fight back. Hell, he didn’t even care if she bloodied his nose. He’d welcome it. But in the end, it didn’t take long. No, it didn’t take long at all.
Kat screamed, stepped back, lost her balance, and fell to the floor. She huddled into herself, throwing her hands over her head as the dam broke and her sobs flooded out of her.
Wes was on the floor beside her and had her in his arms in a heartbeat. He nodded to his brothers, who rushed over and hunkered down until they had her completely cocooned between them.
“Oh God, oh God.”
Kat’s shivers tore him apart. He held her tight and let her cry, just let her cry as the terror washed through her.
He met the gazes of his brothers and knew they were, all three of them, bleeding on the inside.
* * * *
One moment Kat was in the gym in Lusty, getting ready to show Wesley Jessop that she was a woman of strength, a woman capable of handing him his ass.
And in the next breath, she hadn’t been in Lusty at all. She’d been back in LA on that deserted sidewalk outside that bar. And she wasn’t handing anyone their ass. She was being held down and beaten on by three strong, young gangbangers.
Unable to stop the tears, she huddled into Wesley Jessop. She knew that Paul and Lucas were there, too, trying to comfort her. Yet all she could do was shiver as the fear clawed at her mind.
“Here.”
A bottle of water appeared in front of her. Kat blinked at the intrusion of another voice, one that wasn’t familiar to her. She looked up into kind brown eyes—eyes that almost reflected her own pain—and a face that was familiar, somehow.
“This is our cousin Cody Harper,” Lucas said.
“Hi.” She didn’t know what to think about the fact that the guys would have her meet someone as famous as Cody Harper when she was at her absolute worst. She figured the man must have been there, working out, and heard her wailing. It was kind of him to bring her the water. She took it, nodded her thanks, and took a drink. And hoped like hell he’d just leave.
Instead, Cody Harper sat down on the floor, right there beside Paul. “You’re welcome.”
Lucas handed her, of all things, a linen handkerchief. She took it and did her best to mop up her tears. She was feeling very shaky. All she wanted to do right then and there was to go back to the house and soak in the Jacuzzi...or maybe just burrow under the blankets of that big bed and find escape in sleep for an hour or ten.
“I bet that, right about now, you’re wishing for a hole to open up and take you away to someplace safe.” Cody met her gaze and waited.
“What are you, a mind reader?” Kat nearly winced at the tone of her voice.
Cody chuckled. “Nope. I’m a photographer.” Then his smile sobered. “And a couple of years ago, I was taken hostage by a faction of belligerents in Syria. I was held for a few days, and thought for certain I was going to die, because I’d been shot during the kidnapping and my captors had no interest in getting me medical attention.”
“That...I remember reading something about that in the news.” She licked her lips. “But you escaped.”
“Nope, I was rescued, thanks to Greg—Greg Benedict, my husband. And I swore to him, as soon as we got back here to the States, that I was fine. But I wasn’t fine. And neither, Katrina Lawson, are you.”
“I wasn’t kidnapped.” Kat was well aware that not only were her words ones of denial, her body had shifted, as if she could...what?
Run away. Run away and hide.
But Wes held her securely, so she wasn’t going anywhere.
Cody nodded. “I know. But if you’ve been having flashbacks and nightmares and can’t really sleep more than a couple of hours at a time—then you’re not fine.” Cody took a drink from his own bottle of water. “People think that the only ones who suffer from PTSD are soldiers or people who’ve been through a long ordeal of terror. But that’s not true.”
Cody’s blond hair looked a bit windswept—or maybe he had just ruffled it. His eyes met hers in a gaze that was as genuine as any she’d ever met.
Of course, she understood immediately what he was saying. Her first instinct, knee-jerk and nearly said out loud, was that she was fine. She was okay. She was normal.
But she didn’t say any of those things.
She licked her lips and looked at the faces of the men who surrounded her. Three were her lovers and one a man she didn’t know, but something in his expression told her they were kindred spirits.
Time to woman up.
“I just had the worst flashback yet.” She looked at Wes. “When you started yelling at me...it put me right back there. Right back to when they grabbed me and I knew I couldn’t get away. I was so scared. And then they started hurting me...and I was down on the ground and...I thought they were going to kill me.”
“But they didn’t. That’s the most important thing, babe.” Lucas reached forward and ran his hand down her hair. “They didn’t.”
“No.” She inhaled and looked at Lucas and then Paul. “They didn’t.” Then she inhaled and finished that thought aloud. “Not this time.”
She waited to see if they would call her a coward—if they would think less of her for it. And nearly cried with relief when all she saw in her lovers’ eyes was compassion and understanding.
“It’s all right to be afraid, Kitty-Kat.” Paul picked up her hand and brought it to his lips. “It’s not the end of the world or even the end of your career. It’s normal.”
“Being afraid is normal?”
Cody leaned forward. “You’re thinking being afraid is the same thing as being a coward, Katrina. And it’s not.”
“Being a coward is being afraid and not facing what you’re afraid of. Being afraid, all by itself? That’s just common sense.” Wesley’s words soothed her.
“I used to go everywhere and anywhere to get a shot,” Cody said. “War zone? Epidemic? Volcano about to erupt? Didn’t matter to me. No problem at all. The only thing that mattered to me was getting that damn shot—doing my job—and being the best damn photographer in the world. And I was. I was!”
“Sounds a little like me,” Kat said. “The only thing that mattered to me was getting the fugitive. And, yes, being the best at what I did.”
“Exactly. And then I went to Syria on assignment. Hell, I’d been to Syria a half dozen times before. But that last time?” Cody shook his head. “That last time I discovered something. I’m not immortal. I’m not bulletproof.”
“And that’s what you’re dealing with right now, babe. You discovered you’re not bulletproof.”
“I’ve always acted as if I was. I suppose the remarkable thing isn’t that three thugs finally cornered me and beat the crap out of me. The remarkable thing is it didn’t happen sooner.”
“This time was different for you in another way. The problem this time was that you weren’t in control.” Paul still had hold of her hand, and he brushed his thumb over it. “Those other times? You were prepared. You went into a situation, ready to do what had to be done. You visualized, made sure you were
armed, you had a plan, and then you executed it. You are the best at what you do. This wasn’t an assignment gone wrong, honey. You were ambushed, not by one asshole, but three. And unless you’re a movie commando-type, there was no way for you to predict, or repel, that.”
“I don’t think even I could beat those odds, Kat,” Wesley said.
She’d been thinking of herself as a failure. She’d been afraid to contemplate getting back to work because the terror came to her at night in her dreams and the incident replayed in her mind here and there while she was awake. Nothing like what had just happened, of course. But for small moments, here and there, she’d remember, feel absolute terror fill her, and freeze.
But if what they were saying was the way it really was, maybe she wasn’t all washed up as a fugitive recovery agent, after all.
She looked at Wes. “Was this the plan today? To try and make me have a flashback?”
“No. The plan was to try and get you to admit that you have a problem. It killed me to come at you like that—to use some of the same words that bartender said he heard those bastards use that day. But it was killing me, too—killing all of us—to hear you crying in the night and knowing we couldn’t reach you. Knowing, if we asked, you’d brush away our concerns and tell us...that you were fine.”
“I didn’t know you knew.” She looked at each of them in turn. “I have been having nightmares, but I had no idea I was crying, or that you knew.”
“We’ve managed to get you to go back to sleep without your waking up.” Lucas picked up her other hand.
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to handle this, how to overcome this fear.” She’d never felt as vulnerable as she did just then. And yet, even in her vulnerability, she knew she was safe here, with these men.
“I’ll tell you what Robert Jessop told me,” Cody said. “Talking about it is one of the best ways of coping.” He nodded toward the Jessops. “It looks to me like you have three very eager listeners right here. But if you need more—if you need someone who knows exactly what you’re going through—you can call me. I’ll be in Lusty for the next month or so.”
“Thank you. I might take you up on that.”
“Good.” Cody got to his feet. “The guys here have my number.” He nodded and headed toward the locker room.
Kat looked up at Wesley. “Thank you. Thank you for caring enough that you would push me when you knew that was what I needed.”
“You’re welcome. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. Let’s head home.”
Kat sighed. She rested her head against Wes’s chest for one more moment. “That’s exactly what I want to do—go home. I’m having very kind thoughts about that Jacuzzi.”
“Well, we’re having very kind thoughts about you in that Jacuzzi.” Paul got to his feet and offered Kat a hand up.
When she gained her feet, Paul bent down and kissed her. “I like that you called our house ‘home.’”
One look at Lucas and Wesley and she knew they did, too.
Chapter 18
Kat noticed the Cadillac as soon as the SUV took the last bend in the driveway. She’d seen the car once before, parked outside the museum.
“Is that your mother’s car?”
“It is.” Paul turned and met her gaze. “Sorry, Kitty-Kat. We didn’t expect them until later in the day.”
Kat didn’t think the regret she saw in Paul’s eyes was her imagination. “Them?” She beat Lucas on his quest to open her car door for her. When he met her gaze, she tilted her head, letting him know without words that the time had come to fess up whatever it was they all looked just a bit guilty about.
Lucas put his hands on her shoulders. “We wanted to do something special for you. And we thought, all things considered, that it would be nice for you to have your mother here.”
Kat inhaled sharply and shot a look toward the house. That was certainly unexpected.
“Your mother has been very worried about you, Katrina,” Paul said. “But after the sniper incident, she was afraid to try and come to see you. She didn’t want to put you in any more danger. So, at our request, Mel and Connor arranged for her to come here for a visit. She’ll be staying with our folks for a few days.”
“Oh.” Now that she’d thought about it for a moment, she guessed it didn’t surprise her that the Jessops would have made arrangements to bring her mother here.
What seemed strange to her were the emotions tearing through her, jumbled and tangled and messy as hell—and resentment wasn’t one of them.
Then she had no more time to think because the door to the house opened, and the next thing she knew, Edna Lawson came running toward her.
Kat dropped her purse and her gym bag just in time, and when her mother’s arms wrapped around her, she held on to her tight, with both arms. Tears that rarely dampened her face did so for the second time that day.
“There, now. There, now.” Edna’s soft words took Kat back so many years, to when she’d been small and felt so out of place, a tomboy in a classroom with more than a few really girly girls and always the butt of jokes and pranks because girls could be so damn mean.
She’d been teased and bullied and had decided, from that very early experience, that she didn’t need anyone. She’d clung to her mother then when reality hurt too much.
And then I copied my father because no one ever pushed him around, and that’s who I wanted to be.
She’d wanted to be the one who was strong and did exciting things and never got pushed around—and she had been exactly that, or thought she had until just lately.
Her mother stepped back and cupped her face. She used her thumbs to gently rub her tears away. “You don’t look as bad as I feared you would. Eric said you weren’t badly hurt, but then he’s a man. Men don’t often see things the same way as we women do.”
“I’m all right, Mom.” When her mother said nothing, just raised one eyebrow, Kat felt a blush kiss her cheeks. “Well, I’m sore. But nothing was broken, I didn’t have any internal injuries, and the soreness is easing. I am okay, Mom.”
“Of course you are. Now.” She looked up and met the gazes of each of the Jessops. “Anna and I have been having a good visit as we made lunch for everyone. Let’s go inside where we can all get to know each other a little. I can tell you now, the lengths you’ve gone to in order to keep my daughter safe, it means a great deal to me, and her father, and already gives me a measure of the men you are.”
“There’s nothing we wouldn’t do to keep Kat safe,” Paul said.
“And nothing we wouldn’t do to see she has all that she needs,” Lucas said.
“Well, I’m here, so I guess there’s the proof of that. Come now, before the food turns bad.”
Kat chuckled at the familiar saying, something her mom had said often through the years.
Lucas laughed. “Our Aunt Heather used to threaten to feed the meal to the dog, except, of course, they didn’t have one.”
“I bet that didn’t make her threat any less effective,” Edna said.
“No, ma’am.” Wesley laughed. “It didn’t.”
“There you are!” Anna Jessop greeted them all as they entered the kitchen. The mothers had been busy. Not only had the table been extended and set for six, but the aroma of one of Kat’s favorites—chicken soup—filled the room. There was a really big plate of sandwiches and two pitchers—milk and likely sweet tea.
“Edna and I have had a good time getting to know each other,” Anna said.
Her sons had all kissed her cheek, thanked her for lunch, and were currently down the hall “washing up.”
Because she didn’t want to annoy either Mrs. Jessop or her own mother, Kat went to the kitchen sink and used the disinfectant hand soap kept there and paper towels to make sure she didn’t come to the table with dirty hands, either.
“Anna and I have a great deal in common, as it turns out.” Edna took a place at the table, and Kat sat down next to her.
The men cam
e trooping back into the kitchen, and Edna began to serve up the soup.
“You’re both really good cooks,” Kat said. She’d eaten some of the casseroles and baked goods Mrs. Jessop had dropped off, so she knew the truth in that statement.
Edna waved her hand as if dismissing the compliment. “No, I mean personally. We both have a love of history and an interest in art.”
“Edna’s recently taken an archeology course, the same one I completed just a year ago.”
“I’m looking forward to touring the museum later,” Edna said.
“Mom...you took an archeology course?”
“I did. Why are you so surprised?”
Kat shrugged. She accepted the plate of sandwiches from her mom, selected a ham and cheese, and then passed the plate on. She turned back to her mother.
“I don’t know. I just thought...well, it’s always seemed that you just wanted to be at home and be a homemaker.”
Edna raised one eyebrow, Anna grinned, and if she didn’t know better, Kat would have said the men were all studiously not looking at her.
“Well, when you and your brother and sister were younger, of course I was always at home and being a homemaker. Someone had to do the work, and I didn’t have many volunteers. But choosing to actively make a home and raise children doesn’t stop a mind from thinking or a heart from yearning.”
“So you gave up going to college to raise us?”
“Of course not. I chose to be...what is it they called it in the eighties, Anna? Oh, yes, a ‘domestic engineer.’ But I’ve always read everything from romance to biographies and, my goodness, when the Internet came along? It was like going to the library right there in the den!”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Anna said. “When we got our first computer, and as the Internet blossomed, why there was nothing you couldn’t learn about, just for the searching, and all without even leaving the house!”
Love Under Three Valentinos [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 17