Hail Mary

by Vale, Lani Lynn

“I’ll allow her to come,” he murmured. “But you’ll come with Rafe. I’ll arrive separately. Just in case.”

  I grinned and pressed myself back into him, feeling the hardness that always seemed to be present when he was this close to me.

  “I love you, Cobie.”

  My heart felt like it was full to bursting.

  “I just don’t want y’all to get hurt.”

  I knew he didn’t. Which was why I’d allowed him to wrap us both—Mary and I—in cotton.

  “Can we go to dinner, too?”

  He squeezed my hips, and then let one go to run his hand up the length of my exposed back.

  Then he pushed down in the center of my back, bending me over the bed, and I went without complaint.

  “You’ll have to do a lot of convincing for me to do that.”

  I shimmied my hips, and he laughed huskily, causing my pussy to clench with need.

  That laugh. That laugh would always get me.

  I could be madder than a hornet, and all he would have to do was laugh, making his handsome face break out in a smile, and I’d lose every single bit of attitude. All over a smile.

  Why?

  Because I was a sucker for the man. All he had to do was share that happiness—the happiness that I’d had a part in bringing out in him—with me, and I was putty in his hands.

  The next few moments were a lesson in patience as he stripped off his underwear, followed by mine. Then proceeded to tease me relentlessly with his fingers, followed shortly by his tongue.

  By the time he was standing up behind me and pressing his length to my entrance, my legs were already on the verge of collapsing.

  He held me up by my hips as he pressed himself inside of me. He didn’t stop until he was buried fully inside.

  Every single inch of me was filled with him.

  “Fuck,” I breathed, bracing my forearms on the bed as he slowly started to move in me.

  He was slow, oh, so slow.

  But it was what I needed. What we both needed.

  I bit my lip as he pressed himself deep, twisting his hips.

  “God,” I breathed.

  Dante didn’t speak, just continued to fuck me.

  His hips would press against my backside for long moments. His pubic hair teasing the pouting, sensitive lips of my sex.

  Then he’d pull back, taking my breath with him.

  In. Out. In. Out.

  By the time I realized I was close, I knew it was going to be big.

  The sounds of not just our breathing, but also my wetness and moans filled the air. And before I could even think to warn him of my impending release, it was upon me.

  The orgasm was something that I experienced every single time with him. Relentless and all-consuming.

  My eyes closed, and I dropped my face into the comforter to contain my scream.

  I didn’t want to wake the child in the room down from ours. Not yet.

  So, I silenced my screams and let him take himself the rest of the way there without much help from me.

  He came moments after me, filling me with his seed.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he breathed, running his hand down the length of my spine.

  I smiled into the sheets, then pushed up just as he pulled himself back.

  I felt his release run down the length of my inner thigh and rushed to the bathroom before it could make too big of a mess.

  Once I was cleaned up, I heard the pounding of tiny little feet making their way to our room.

  I had to laugh as Mary appeared, peeking around the corner almost as if she knew she was interrupting something.

  Luckily her father had heard her coming and had pulled on clothes.

  I, on the other hand, hung out in the bathroom while Dante led her out into the hall.

  Distantly, I was aware of them heading toward the kitchen. The sink turning on. Cabinets pounding.

  And then Dante discussing what to have for breakfast with her.

  All the while, I stayed there, naked, standing in front of the bathroom mirror.

  I took in my appearance.

  The bright pink scars that lined where my breasts had once been were never going to be pretty.

  My body was skinny, and my belly poked out almost obscenely, even at five months gestation.

  My face was flushed from what Dante and I had just done…but I felt beautiful. Dante made me feel that.

  Smiling, I walked away from that mirror, not one hint of embarrassment anywhere in me.

  I was proud of my body. Dante loved me and the way I looked.

  And I loved him.

  I loved his little girl—our little girl.

  I loved everything about my life now.

  Drake was a dark cloud hanging over us…but I just knew that everything would work itself out in the end.

  We—Dante and I—had suffered too much loss for it to turn out any other way.

  Right?

  Chapter 26

  I am so horny that I’m legitimately worried about your safety tonight.

  -Text from Cobie to Dante

  Dante

  The day went off without a hitch.

  I found an RV that I liked—one that would fit us all perfectly.

  Drake hadn’t magically appeared.

  Rafe, however, had discovered some new information, though.

  Rafe came by after we’d gotten home to explain a few things and discuss it with us.

  He learned that Drake had been a military arms distributor of sorts. He was the one who held the merchandise that was stolen from the military until they found a buyer, and then Drake would deliver the merchandise for a cut of the profits.

  However, the last shipment that Drake had obtained, he’d apparently stolen from the original thieves. They found the merchandise after I’d unknowingly led them to Drake’s fortress, which just so happened to be located beneath Cobie’s old place—the same place where he held me captive for months.

  Once the merchandise was returned to the military, the government moved forward with officially charging Drake with conspiracy to sell military arms, theft and a bunch of other serious charges that would get him a hefty prison sentence once he was convicted.

  Although not the sole person responsible for the theft of the merchandise, he was the only one they had been able to identify so far. So, until he could be found and questioned, he would be the only person charged in what they claimed was a theft of millions of dollars’ worth of U.S. military inventory.

  Rafe had said that they also suspected that Drake had been involved in over two hundred similar thefts of retired military inventory over the last few years based on the similarities between the cases.

  Which meant Drake was in a world of trouble when he finally did surface.

  “Dante?”

  I blinked at the clock.

  “Yeah?”

  My eyes were burning, and I wasn’t sure what the hell I was doing still up, but I was.

  “I have a question.”

  “Shoot,” I said, looking over at the couch beside me.

  Mary was asleep on the cushion, curled into the arm of the couch as she hugged one of my tennis shoes to her chest. Why she had one of my tennis shoes, I didn’t know. But whatever. If it helped her sleep, I’d give her one of my steel-toed work boots to hold on to. Sleep was our friend around here.

  I’d worry about all the dirt she got on her in the morning.

  “I need to iron my clothes for tomorrow, and I have a problem.”

  Tomorrow, we were going to a follow-up appointment with Cobie’s oncologist to do a round of tests that would determine if she was cancer free.

  I blinked, trying to get the fog of sleep out of my eyes. “Yeah?”

  “There’s a slug in my iron.”

  I lifted my fist and rubbed my eyes. “There’s a what in your iron?”

  “A slug,” she answered, confirming that
what I heard originally was indeed what she’d meant to say. “I don’t know how it got in there, but it’s in the little reservoir where you put the water for the steam feature. I tried filling up the reservoir and pouring it back out, but the slug is too fat.”

  I honestly had no idea what to say.

  “Uhhh,” I murmured.

  “And I don’t know what to do. This is a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar iron. Seriously, I can’t throw it away. It steams shit and everything. I don’t know what to do!”

  She sounded somewhat hysterical at this point.

  “Will it still work with the slug in there?”

  “Yes,” she answered hesitantly. “But what if it dies?”

  “Then use it for now, and when I’m not so tired, I’ll look and see if I can fix it.”

  She snorted. “I don’t think you can. I’ve looked all over, and it seems like it’s all one piece. I don’t think there’s any way to get the little water container off of the actual iron. I’m still not sure how the little bastard managed to get in there.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that.

  “You’re sure it’s a slug?”

  In answer, she got up and walked out of the room. Moments later she was back with an iron that did, indeed, have a slug in it.

  Hmmmmm. “Imagine that.”

  Cobie rolled her eyes and put the iron on the table. “I keep thinking about putting salt into it. But I decided against that idea because it’d be just my luck that it would go in there and melt the dang thing. Some weird, gross, thick sludge will probably form in there that’ll never come out, and then I’ll lose the steam feature on the iron forever.”

  I stared at her, blinking a few times but saying nothing in reply, because honestly, what could I say to that?

  “How about we just buy you a new iron?”

  Before she could reply, my phone rang.

  I cursed and leaned forward to answer it before it could wake Mary up—who’d been more than fussy today. She had two teeth coming in, and she was not a happy camper.

  “Yeah?”

  “We have a multi-vehicle wreck on the interstate. They estimate over a hundred cars are involved.”

  I winced. “Let me get Rafe here, and then I’ll head over. What mile marker?”

  Once I received the mile marker from Travis, I hung up and immediately called Rafe.

  Rafe answered, not sounding tired at all despite the late hour.

  “Yes?”

  “I have to go to work. Can you come over?”

  I heard shuffling, then a female’s voice on the other end of the line as he left what sounded like the bed.

  “Yeah,” he confirmed. “I’ll be…”

  “You always choose her over me!”

  I didn’t know what to say to that outburst from the woman on the other end of the line.

  Rafe said something viciously, and then I heard a door close.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I’ll be there in ten.”

  Then he was gone, leaving me staring at the phone in surprise.

  “What is it?”

  “Rafe had a woman with him.”

  “Janie?”

  Was that hopefulness in her voice that I heard?

  “From the sounds of it? No, I don’t think so. It sounded like another woman. Whoever it was, though, sounded jealous. She wasn’t very happy that I called and he was leaving.”

  “Hmmm,” she said, sounding disappointed.

  Ten minutes later I placed a goodbye kiss on Cobie’s lips as Rafe walked through my door.

  After getting in my truck and pulling up my alarm app to ensure it was once again set, I walked out and never once thought that I was leaving my new little family with danger lurking around the corner.

  Because had I known what was waiting for them, I would’ve never left.

  I would’ve stayed.

  I would’ve never done what I did next.

  Chapter 27

  A body like this doesn’t happen overnight. It takes the college years, pregnancy, neglect, and three extra tacos.

  -Cobie’s secret thoughts

  Cobie

  “Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey,” I cooed, tugging lightly on Mary’s big toe.

  She pulled it away from me and then snuggled down into the couch.

  Rafe started to laugh.

  “Shut it,” I snickered, bending down to run my finger along the length of Mary’s foot. “If you don’t wake up, Mary Me, you won’t get a yummy breakfast. That means cereal.”

  I sang the last words to her, thinking it would rouse my sleeping beauty, but it didn’t.

  She just pulled her foot away again when Rafe stood up from his position.

  One second I was standing beside the couch, staring down at Mary who’d refused to let go of Dante’s tennis shoe, and the next I was falling backward.

  Glass shattered, the world around me sounded like it’d exploded, and I was disoriented.

  I couldn’t figure out what to do, I wasn’t sure where I was. Hell, I could just barely manage to breathe.

  I was so confused, and I couldn’t remember anything.

  Distantly I was aware of another bang, this one much sharper than the last.

  Then I felt my body moving.

  It took me a long time to finally come back to myself, and when I did, I was shaking in fear.

  I'd never been so scared in my life as I was right then.

  “You think I want to do this?” Drake hissed in my face. “I don't. But he's given me no choice.”

  I looked at him like he was crazy.

  I was in a car. Drake was in my face, and I could hear crying—I assumed from Mary—in the car with me. I didn’t see Rafe anywhere in the car.

  “We're gonna do this, and to make sure you don't accidentally get out...”

  He started to duct tape me to the seat. That's when I started to struggle.

  I should've started earlier. Should've tried to get away before. However, I knew that any way I tried was going to end badly for me.

  “You know what?” He paused in wrapping the tape around me. “This won't look like an accident if I do it like this.”

  I agreed. Though I wasn't going to tell him that. He didn't need to know I agreed or disagreed.

  The man was unhinged at the best of times. At least lately. Ever since he'd found out I was dating Dante, he'd changed into the man that Marianne had described to me.

  “Why are you doing this?” I cried.

  I felt sick to my stomach, scared beyond belief and on the verge of a total breakdown.

  Dante was going to see this, and his world was going to implode for a second time.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  “You gave me no choice.” Drake tightened his hold on my hair. “First, Marianne had to go and steal the life insurance money from our son’s death—which I planned out quite perfectly, thank you very fucking much. I sold our house to help pay the debt, but it wasn’t enough. I had to make it look like I fucking cared about that cunt by paying for her hospital stay—which also ended up taking away from the money I had saved. Then, I felt like I was finally catching my lucky break when you gave me your house—all that equipment and storage in it allowing me to make money elsewhere by allowing them to use those tools and storing their shit in the shop—charging them more for my services and building my underground bunker with the extra. Storing even more shit for them. Then you went and took that away from me. I had already tried to contest Marianne’s will, and fucking Dante shut that down. I tried to get custody of that kid claiming I was the child’s father. Not that I would have ever wanted that stupid freak of a kid, but I would’ve gotten a good payout on her, what with her being disabled and all. Plus, with her mother being dead, I could’ve gotten something soon. It would’ve tided me over…but then your stupid freak of a boyfriend’s family ruined that for me, too.”

  That was the first time I’d heard a
nything about him contesting the will or him trying to obtain legal rights to Mary.

  I honestly didn’t think even Dante knew about it because he would’ve told me. That information was a little too important not to share.

  He growled.

  “Well, no more!”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  I didn’t know what Drake was involved in. Again, I’d stayed out of that part of the situation that Dante was dealing with because, frankly, I didn’t want to know.

  But now, I felt lost. Why would he need this kind of money? What was he into that he needed so much this badly and this fast?

  “Please,” I whispered. “I didn’t do anything to you. Mary didn’t do anything, either.”

  “Fuck you, and fuck Mary.”

  I opened my mouth to say something else, but before I could, something changed in Drake’s panicked eyes.

  He reached for me.

  “We’ll just do it this way.”

  Then he slammed my head so hard against the steering wheel, so fast and hard, that it was the last thing I remembered.

  In the darkness, the terror was gone and things weren't as they seemed.

  ***

  Dante

  If I never relived the last moments of my wife and childrens’ deaths in my dreams, my life would be perfect.

  I scrubbed my hands down my face, trying to clear my mind of the last of the nightmare that I had while I tried to catch an hour of sleep on my office couch.

  Even now, twenty minutes later, I was still feeling the effects of that chilling dream.

  I was driving to make a pick-up before heading home to pick up my girls, and my heart was still pounding.

  I relived my worst nightmares in my dreams, over and over again.

  Or I should say, I used to before Cobie came into the picture.

  Now, though, I had a woman who woke me when the shadows crept in.

  Then again, that woman did a lot of things for me I was just now realizing.

  For instance, washing my clothes. Once she learned that Lily used to do it the same way as she did, Cobie changed up her habits. She started folding them differently than she had been doing for years just so I didn’t have a reminder of that loss whenever I looked at my folded clothes. She didn’t do this because I had asked her to or because she didn't want me to remember Lily, but because she was trying to slow the barrage of memories in an attempt to make sure I didn't have fucking panic attacks.