Standing there, watching him walk away, Quentin turned to Clayton, “Did that really just happen? You, Mr. Always Cool, started a fucking screaming match with the old man in public?”
Clayton nodded. “Yep. I wish I’d hit him.”
“You’d kill him. And while I don’t have much use for him,” Quentin added, “None of us want that. But since you put it all out there in the open, his financial woes and all, what the hell do we do now?”
“We go to work on Monday like always. Now let’s go see our baby sister and figure out what the hell happened, then I’ll head over to the house. Someone needs to stay with Mama tonight because it sure as hell won’t be the philandering asshole she’s married to.”
*~*~*
“What the hell were you thinking?”
The voice on the phone was low and angry. The defensive response was automatic. “We needed her out of the way. Now she is.”
“Out of the way does not equate attempted murder! Do I have to do everything my own damn self? Invite her out for a drink, be nice! Make friends! My lord, how did I raise someone so dumb? There were ways to get her out of that house that didn’t involve trying to kill her.”
The speaker’s shrill voice prompted a wince. Nervously picking at her manicured nails, she snapped back, “Well, it’s done now. And we might not get another opportunity, so you better find it and find it fast.”
“On the contrary, even though you pulled an idiotic stunt, you did manage to do one thing right… There is no bigger distraction for Mia Darcy than Bennett Hayes. If her focus is on him, you could let off a stick of dynamite beside her and she wouldn’t even notice!”
Her jaw dropped. “So, you’re pissed at me for the accident even though it created just the kind of distraction you needed? That makes perfect fucking sense!”
Her mother’s words, when she replied, were so clearly being uttered between clenched teeth that picturing her disapproving expression was easy. “Listen to me… No more going off script. No more winging it. When I give you an order, you will follow it. Right now, your job is to make Bennett Hayes believe that girl is in danger. As long as he does, he’ll never leave her alone. That boy has a white knight complex if ever I’ve seen one. And, as for Mia… well, who can resist a handsome man who wants to play the hero? Especially one that’s forbidden. If people get hurt, then the police get involved. Neither one of us can afford that. Understood?”
The mention of police brought home just how disastrously wrong things could have gone. She was not cut out for prison. “Yes. I understand. Scare her. But don’t hurt her. Send her running into his waiting arms. Right?”
“That about does it… and if you fuck this up, even though you are my only remaining child, I will hang you out to dry. You hear me?”
She smiled bitterly. Having never been her mother’s favored child, she knew all too well how fleeting the woman’s affections could be. “I never expected anything less from you, Mother.”
CHAPTER FOUR
It was just after midnight when Bennett parked his truck and strode purposefully toward the hospital’s entrance. The electronic doors under the red “Emergency Room” sign opened with a soft swoosh. The girl working behind the desk looked up, and recognizing him as the local lovelorn idiot, offered him a polite smile as she returned to her paperwork. He could feel the side-eye as he walked past and he wasn’t even out of ear shot when she started whispering to her coworker.
There was no denying that it was probably a huge mistake to come back. Clayton had called his aunt’s house and left a message on her answering machine that Mia was okay, but that wasn’t good enough. Bennett needed more than just okay.
He took the stairs up to the second floor. There were only two floors for the whole hospital and all of the patient rooms were up. At the nurse’s station was a girl both he and Mia had gone to high school with.
“Hey, Stace,” he greeted her. “I wanted to check on Mia.”
She glanced up at him, clearly surprised and more than a little worried. “Bennett, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I pulled her out of that creek, Stacy. I ought to be able to find out how the hell she’s doing,” he replied, trying to keep his tone reasonable.
She bit her lip and gave a sideways glance at the other nurses who were on duty, all of whom pretended to be blissfully unaware of what was going on. “I can’t tell you anything about her condition, but her family did sign a release to acknowledge that she’s here and to allow visitors… Visiting hours are technically over, but if you wanted to come back tomorrow and see her, she’s in room two-twenty-eight. It’s just around the corner.”
Bennett smiled at her. “You’re a lifesaver, Stacy. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me! Make your sister give me a big discount the next time I go to her store!”
He chuckled as he walked away. “Will do.”
Around the corner and just out of sight of the nurse’s station, he opened the door to Mia’s room softly. He wanted to see her, to make certain for himself that she was okay, but if she was asleep, he’d leave her be.
The room was dark, save for the small amount of light that filtered in from the hallway. Approaching the bed, Bennett noted the bruises that marred her pale skin. They’d bloomed furiously in the hours since the accident, but he didn’t doubt that over the next few days they’d get worse.
More tired than he’d been in a very long time, the events of the day finally catching up to him, he sank down onto the chair beside her bed.
It shouldn’t have mattered so much. She should have been out of his system ages ago. But she wasn’t, and he very much feared that she never would be. She’d dug in deep and there was no getting her out.
He cursed softly, but in the silence of the room, it was still enough to wake her. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up, confused, disoriented, and then her gaze settled on him.
“Bennett?”
“I just came to make sure you were all right,” he said. “Are you in pain?”
“A little, but I think it’s more of a hangover than anything else,” she replied, her speech slightly slurred.
He smiled. “I think driving your car over an embankment and into a creek might be contributing to that as much as the pain meds.”
“I didn’t,” she said.
The hot clutch of fear was back. “Don’t you remember?”
She gave him a look that clearly stated he was a moron. “Of course I remember… But there was another car there, Bennett. I swerved to miss them and when my car stopped, the back wheels were right there on the edge.”
“So how’d you wind up in the creek then?”
“They pushed me,” she replied calmly. “They drove their car right up to mine and pushed me over the edge.”
The statement was made so matter-of-factly, that even as insane as it sounded, Bennett didn’t dismiss it outright. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes… I’m sure. Didn’t you see them driving away?”
“No,” he answered. The truth was that his attention had been on a break in the trees on the opposite side of the creek bank, just across the bridge. Anytime he was behind her on that road, he’d watch to see her driving around those hair pin turns at a speed that made him sweat. When he hadn’t seen it, he’d known something was horribly wrong. “I just saw all the debris and the churned up mud. I got out to look and saw your car sinking.”
She shivered.
Noting her reaction, he offered. “Let’s not talk about this now… I’ll look into it.”
“Swear to me… Don’t just placate me because you think I’m drugged out of my mind!” she insisted.
“I promise.”
A sad smile curved her lips. “And you always keep your promises.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. “All that was a long time ago.”
“Sometimes it feels like a lifetime.”
He hadn’t meant to bring up the past, though it was always
present between them, a hovering ghost that gave neither of them any peace. Changing the subject, he focused on the here and now. “What kind of car was it?”
She frowned. “Big. Dark color. SUV. I don’t know. I can’t really think right now.”
Bennett rose to his feet. On impulse he leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead. It was an innocent gesture, utterly lacking in any carnal thought or intent. Even then, it was still electric. Touching her, being so close to her, it was salt in the wound.
“I’ll let you know what I find.” He stepped back from the hospital bed and headed for the door and the looming shadow of Clayton Darcy.
“I told you I’d let you know how she was,” Clayton reminded him coolly.
Not in the mood to be taken to task, Bennett cocked an eyebrow at him. “Because a Darcy is as good as their word, right?”
“This is trouble—you are trouble for her.” Clayton made the statement dispassionately, as if matters were always that simple, that black and white.
“I’m not here for trouble… I needed to know she was okay and a second hand account wasn’t good enough. Just because I haven’t knocked the shit out of you, doesn’t mean I won’t. I’m not a scrawny kid anymore and any advantage you had a decade ago is long gone now,” Bennett replied firmly. He wasn’t going to be bullied by them. The Darcy money and the Darcy name had kept him from the one thing he wanted most in life and he was done with it.
“I’m not threatening you, Bennett.” Clayton kept his cool. His voice never rose and his expression remained calm. “I’m just stating the obvious. I know you loved her. I know she loved you. But neither one of you could have handled the shit storm that would have rained down on you if you’d been allowed to go through with your harebrained plan.”
“We’ll never know. You and your worthless asshole of a father made sure of that.”
“I asked you to leave that night,” Clayton said, “and when you wouldn't, I made you leave. If I hadn't, Samuel would have put a bullet in you. Mia didn't need that. She'd lost enough already.”
Bennett sneered at him. “Am I supposed to thank you for that?”
Clayton moved toward him. “You were kids who thought you could live on love. You had no job, no prospects, no way to support her… Mia’s never known poverty. Did you really want to be the dickhead who not only introduced her to it but forced her to live in it?”
That statement echoed the doubts and recriminations that Bennett had battled for the last ten years. He met Clayton’s questioning gaze directly, his jaw clenched and fists tight. He hated having the smug fucker in his head. “Is there a point to this conversation or are you just gonna keep wasting my time?”
Clayton cocked his head to one side and then said simply, “You’re not a broke kid anymore, and Mia’s not a wide eyed little girl. So what the hell is stopping you now?”
Bennett didn’t have an answer for that. Habit. Fear. Resignation. There were a dozen excuses, but not a one of them was enough. “You and I both know Samuel would never let it stand.”
Clayton shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “If you want her, go after her… and leave Samuel to me.”
“What kind of game are you playing?” Bennett demanded. The swirling mix of anger and hope inside him left him reeling, unsteady. It wasn’t a feeling he liked.
“No games… I’ve only ever done what I thought was best for her. That’ll never change.”
Bennett didn’t say anything else as Clayton moved past him and into Mia’s hospital room. Of course, he didn’t need to. Clayton had dropped the bomb and walked away.
“Goddamn the Darcys,” he muttered as he made his way toward the stairs. He needed out, he needed to think, and above all, he needed to figure out if he was willing to take the risk of letting Mia rip his heart out again.
As Bennett left the hospital, his mind was preoccupied with the conversation that had just taken place with Clayton, and honestly, with Mia. She was always taking up space in his mind, whether he wanted to admit it or not. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but he sure as hell believed in hauntings. There was no other way to describe how she made him feel.
Focused on her, on the turmoil that was churning inside him and eating him up, he didn’t notice the dark SUV parked at the back of the parking lot, partially in shadow and all but invisible in the night.
Climbing behind the wheel of his truck, Bennett headed for his house the lonely solace of the big bed he’d be sleeping in alone. Except for Slick, he thought with a smile. The dog would be there, snoring and farting all night, whether he liked it or not.
Easing the truck onto the road, he was nearly at the end of the street before the black SUV pulled out of the hospital parking lot and followed him at a distance.
CHAPTER FIVE
Bennett stared at the tire tracks in the dirt and frowned. Even with all the rain, there was enough left for him to worry. It wasn’t the churned up mess from under the wheels of Mia’s car that bothered him. It was the lone tread of a much larger vehicle right over top of the tracks left by her car that didn’t quite mesh with the single car theory. Those tracks were much more in line with what she’d said at the hospital the night before.
There was a chance, he reminded himself, that the tracks were due to the scene being contaminated. The only thing he was an expert at was building furniture, but common sense wasn’t too difficult to apply. He’d parked his truck on the side of the road. The EMT’s, when they’d finally arrived, had been in the middle of the road. It was still possible some idiot curiosity seeker in a pick up or SUV had driven right up to the edge to look over at the submerged sports car.
It wasn’t just the tracks. There were other things as well. Even though the accident scene had been cleaned, there were still bits of busted plastic and acrylic ground into the asphalt. Since it was considered to be a single car accident, just what could she have connected with in the middle of the roadway?
The sound of an approaching vehicle brought him to his feet, but he relaxed instantly when he saw the battered pick up. His cousin Carter had been ‘fixing it up’ for years, only nothing ever got fixed. Just patched. The muffler had more holes in it than a sieve.
“That damn thing will outlive us all,” Bennett said as Carter parked the vehicle and stepped out.
“What the hell are you doing, man?” Carter demanded. His shaggy dark hair was scraped back into a ponytail and the thermal undershirt he wore was streaked with grease.
Bennet shrugged. “I just feel like there’s more to this than meets the eye.”
“She’s fucking with your head again, Bennett!”
Bennett ignored the anger that statement prompted and focused on the words themselves. “She is in the hospital and very nearly died yesterday. The only thing she’s doing is sleeping off pain meds. I’m out here by my own choice.”
Carter shook his head. “Did she ask you to do this?”
Bennett didn’t answer, but his hard glare was apparently telling enough.
“I knew it!” Carter said. “She batted her eyelashes and here you are, her errand boy, all over again!”
“She asked me to look into the accident because she believed another car was present! Should I have told her no?” Bennett demanded. He wasn’t angry. Just frustrated and tired of everyone in town watching the two of them like hawks. Assholes and opinions, everybody had them.
Carter raised his hands. “You can get as mad as you want to… but the truth of the matter is, Bennett, that girl ties you up in damn knots. She always has and she always will. But if you decide to get tangled up with her again, that’s on nobody but you!”
“You’re damn right. My business, my decision.”
Carter made to walk away, heading for his truck. “Don’t come crying to me when she dumps your ass again… not unless you plan on buying the beer!”
Bennett shook his head. “Before you go off pouting like a two year old, I need you to take a look at this.”
&nb
sp; Carter strolled back over and stared down at the pavement for a split second. “Don’t see a damn thing.”
“Dammit, Carter! Look at the broken plastic from the headlights! How did the rear end of her car go through the guard rail and the front lights get smashed in the same spot in a single car accident?”
Carter stopped and put his hands on his hips as he considered the question. “It’s impossible. The only way that could have happened is if there was another vehicle or something else to strike the front end… Do you really believe that? There’s no proof that this is debris from her accident.”
Bennett stooped down and brushed his fingers over the pavement, picking up fragments of the plastic. “This road was resurfaced a month ago and there haven’t been any accidents in this location other than Mia’s…I went back to the hospital last night to check on her. She told me that there was another car—a black SUV with a deer guard. What if it wasn’t an accident? What if they deliberately pushed her over?”
Carter shook his head. “You’re reaching… you’re reaching because you want a reason to bring her back into your life.”
“No, I’m not. But if someone is trying to hurt her I can’t ignore it,” Bennett argued.
“Sure you can. She’s ignored you for ten years.”
Bennett sighed and rose to his feet. “You don’t pull any punches, do you? Ever?”
Carter leaned against his truck and crossed his arms over his chest. “That woman turned you inside out and you haven’t been right since. You think I shouldn’t ask questions after you played hero and ran off to the hospital like you’re some lovesick Romeo? I might not have made the best grades in school, but even I know that shit didn’t end well!”
Bennett’s lips firmed and his gaze hardened. “I can handle this.”
“I hope so,” Carter said. As he climbed into his truck, he turned around and looked back, “Tread carefully.”
Bennett watched him drive away and cursed under his breath. He wasn’t foolish enough to completely disregard Carter’s warnings. Mia got to him, she got inside his head like no one else ever had. But if she was in danger, he’d do whatever it took to protect her.
Bennett (Bourbon & Blood #1) Page 3