by K. R. Haynes
Searching the stars as she gazed up at them while a soft cool breeze swelled around her, Mary J hoped and prayed with everything she had that her past was well and truly behind her and that Mick would prove her right that he was nothing like her old boyfriend. One abusive boyfriend in one’s lifetime was one too many in her eyes. She deserved to be loved and she deserved to be worthy of a man who was willing to not only love her for who she was but also accept her for who she was. Her ex may have claimed that she was a worthless piece of ass. That just made her all the more determined to prove him wrong, and she could do that by being Mick’s girl. Because in Mick’s arm’s she would be cherished and possibly even loved by him and she damn sure wouldn’t be called a worthless piece of ass by him either, that she was absolutely sure of.
She could surrender herself to a man like Mick. She couldn’t, however, give herself over to another man like her ex. That form of surrender had been taken and beaten out of her until she submitted to him. Never again would she ever allow a man to take from her what she wasn’t willing to give up herself. Unlike her ex, Mick would see her submission to him as a precious and rare gift that he would cherish and honour. She had seen it in his eyes, every time she had gazed into his odd silver-grey orbs. It had been something she had seen glittering in there ever since her gaze found his that night she first strolled into the Convict Inn looking for a job.
Rubbing her hands up and down her bare arms as the cool breeze picked up, feeling a little melancholy from thinking about her past, Mary J drew in a deep, shuddering breath and plastered on a fake smile then headed back inside to see out the remaining hours of her shift. She was looking forward to going home tonight. She had plans to indulge herself in a hot bubble bath while sipping champagne. She would pretend while soaking her blues away in the tub that the warmth of the water surrounding her in the bath was Mick’s warm embrace wrapped snugly around her, holding her tightly to him. Well a girl could dream right?
Chapter Seven
“Any word from Jake yet on the lead he was following up on for us?” Mick asked Randall on the way back to the station. They had both been down at the harbour checking out the remains of the warehouse that had blown up almost two months prior, the same warehouse that had nearly cost Randall his own life.
“He called in this morning, grumbling about how the lead was total shit and he was heading back home. He should be here in a day or so.”
“So we’re back to square one then in catching this bastard. I swear, sometimes I wonder if we’re ever going to catch this motherfucker. He always seems to be one step ahead of us, and when we are close to nailing his arse to the wall he manages to slip away from us. I’ll tell you one thing, mate, that if this fucker keeps this up, I’m close to beating the shit out of something and soon. Just saying is all.”
“Yeah, I know how you feel, bro. I’m not looking forward to telling Chloe that we still haven’t been able to catch him either. I know she still worries that the bastard is just going to show up and attack her again. Plus she’s still haunted by those damn nightmares at night too.”
Mick glanced over at his friend then and could see the pain and the anger coursing through Randall’s body from the hard set of his jaw. Hell, just remembering that dark day they found Chloe beaten and bloodied by the man they were hunting down sent shivers down his own spine. Myke Dillon was a dead man if Mick, Randall, or Jake ever got their hands on the bastard before the police did. Justice would be served on any man who had dared to lay a hand on a defenceless and innocent woman like Chloe Watson.
“I’m sorry, mate, that you and Chloe still don’t have any peace or justice yet over this.”
“I know you are, mate.” Randall blew out a deep breath then. “We will catch this bastard come hell or high water. Myke Dillon is a dead man walking.”
“Tell me something, mate, does Chloe know the name of her attacker or is it something you’ve kept to yourself.”
“Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering if the two women were aware of who had attacked Chloe is all. I don’t want to accidentally say his name and then be caught up in the middle of some kind of domestic between you and sweet thing is all.”
“For one thing, mate, Chloe and I don’t have domestics, ever. What we do have however is animated discussions on the dos and don’ts and by the end of the conversation Chloe usually finds herself over me knee for either being a brat or for just the sheer pleasure of having her present her bare ass to me.”
“Lucky bastard,” Mick mumbled to him.
“Don’t I know it, and to answer your other question, no I haven’t disclosed the name of her attacker to her. Knowing Chloe the way I do, she’ll probably take it upon herself to find out every bit of information she can source about Myke Dillon, which would only end up putting herself in more danger than she is in already. And if she did that, she would definitely find herself over my knee with her ass blushing in no time at all.”
“Well, I better keep my big mouth shut then for her ass’s sake.”
Randall just nodded his head as he parked the car outside the station before turning to ask Mick a question. “Do you think we will ever discover who is behind all this and why?”
“Sure we will, mate, it’s early days, but I have no doubt in my mind that we will catch the bad guys this time round.”
“Good.”
They both exited the car and they made their way to the front foyer of the station to sign back in. Reaching out and gripping Randall’s arm with his hand, Mick brought him to a stop and asked him what was wrong.
His friend answered, “Just remembering those wretched days following Chloe’s attack and still not being able to provide her with the answers or the results she needs for closure. My failure of not being able to protect her that day and not being able to give her what she needs is weighing heavily on my conscience is all.”
“You didn’t fail her that day, mate, and you haven’t failed her since then either. Not as her man and not as her Dom. You need to remember that we did everything we could to keep her safe from that bastard. In the end he outsmarted all of us. However he won’t get away with doing it again. Got it?”
“Yeah, you’re right and thanks for, you know, being there for me and Chloe.”
Mick slapped Randall on the back of the shoulders. “Always, mate, always.” He then released his hand from around his arm. “If you ever need anything, even Chloe, let me know, mate. Remember I’m here for both of you anytime and anywhere.”
“Thanks, Mick, I appreciate the offer. Now let’s stop this gloomy girl-talk crap and get our arses inside, it’s goddamn cold standing out here.”
After they both signed back in they headed down the long corridor to the offices at the back of the building. “Hey do you want to head down to the pub after work? To be honest I haven’t ventured down there all week and wouldn’t mind popping in for a beer,” Mick suggested to Randall hoping he would be his wingman for the night.
Randall raised an eyebrow up at him, a smug smile tugging at his lips. “Have you been avoiding a certain redhead, bro?”
“No.” Mick scowled back at him while scrubbing a hand over the short lengths of his hair. “Shit. I have been avoiding her. Last time I saw Mary J though, it didn’t go down so well, and if it happens again, man, she’s liable to cut off my balls and feed them to some stray alley cat.”
Randall just barked a laugh at him, and then told Mick he was on his own tonight, as he had a hot date with Chloe and he wasn’t about to ditch his fiancée for a beer with his dumbass friend.
“Thanks,” Mick muttered back to him as they both took their seat behind their desks to type up the reports on the information they had gathered from today’s excursion.
It was pretty late in the evening when Mick decided to call it quits. Randall had left hours earlier to get ready for his night out with Chloe, leaving Mick to make his way over to the Convict Inn by himself, not that he minded. Hopefully this time when he saw Mary J, he
wouldn’t suffer the same bout of foot-in-mouth disease he had been suffering from recently. It seemed like every time he was around her, he ended up saying the absolute wrong thing to her. If he acted like a right ass in front of her again, well it wouldn’t be just his balls that would be hurting this time around, that’s for sure.
* * * *
It was getting close to closing time and it couldn’t come soon enough for Mary J. Tonight had been nothing short of a disaster for her. Not only had she managed to drop a whole serving tray holding about a half a dozen pints of beer onto a patron’s lap when some drunk roughly shoved past her. She had also managed to spill a whole bottle of very expensive French champagne all over the damn floor too. And to top off her stellar night somehow the liquor order had been misplaced or lost, leaving the pub short on some of the more popular alcoholic beverages. Not good, not good at all.
To add to the chaos of the evening, the patrons were rowdy as ever, leaving Mary J to wonder if it had something to do with the full moon tonight. The evening’s chaos also had both her and Christian longing to call out last drinks so they could close up. Don’t even get her started on the state of the pub’s kitchen. The chef was in a right mood tonight. Jerry had complained and grumbled nonstop all night long about this and that and everything else in between, leaving her on the verge of telling him to shut the hell up and suck it up and take it like a man if he so much as whinged to her one more time this evening.
God help her and grumpy-ass men.
And here the men had the balls to moan and bitch about the women in their lives and the mood swings they go through that make their lives a living hell. Well shit, in her experience of working with men and listening to them grumble while she served them behind the bar, Mary J would have to say men were worse than women when it came to pissy-ant moods. Now that was saying something. She also knew the leader of that pissy group of men, too, Mick Huon. She hadn’t seen hide or tail of him for over a week, which was unusual for him. Normally Mick would drop by the pub two or three times a week at the end of his shift down at the station for a pint and a quick chat with some of the locals. This week, however, he had been in a big, fat zero times.
If he was going to play hard to get, then she would too.
With an hour before closing time, Christian finally rang the bell and yelled out “last drinks.” Mary J couldn’t believe her own eyes when every damn customer in the pub all converged toward the bar to liquor up. It was like they hadn’t been drinking all night long at all. She shouldn’t be complaining, not when the pub was having one of its busiest of nights in takings for months. Plus, paying customers equalled regular income for her and the other staff. But hell, she was exhausted and so were the other staff.
As the last drink was poured, Mary J found herself searching the sea of male patrons for Mick. Again he hadn’t shown up tonight much to her disappointment. Seeing him somehow became the highlight of her night no matter how their meet and greet turned out. Grabbing a damp cloth, she started wiping down the countertop while Christian and the other waitresses went around gathering up the empty glasses and clearing away the empty bottles before they all knocked off.
Once the bar was cleaned down and the last customer had stumbled out the front door, Mary J checked out the state of the kitchen as Christian escorted the female waitresses out to their cars. The kitchen was in a better state than it was only a few hours ago, and thank god Jerry was nowhere in sight. That man was seriously pissing her off lately and if she could she would have fired his ass for being an arse and for also being so damn disrespectful to her and the other employees. However, her boss would not tolerate her firing his top-notch chef and fellow golfing buddy. So Mary J was stuck with him whether she wanted him or not. A thought crossed her mind then while she checked to make sure all the appliances had been switched off in the kitchen. That maybe she could ask Mick to have a word with the chef. That perhaps a man-to-man talk would help rein in that temper of Jerry’s and make for a better working environment for all concerned.
She shook her head at that thought. She couldn’t ask Mick to do that for her. Perhaps if they were going out then maybe she could then. But they weren’t even bed buddies so she couldn’t possibly ask him for such a huge favour like having a man-to-man chat with her grumpy-ass chef.
Satisfied that everything was as it should be in the kitchen, she headed back out to the bar to start cashing up the tills. Just as she approached the main cash register, she heard a loud thud then a male groan that had her instantly calling out to Christian. But when she received no answer back from him, she called out to him again. “Christian, sweetie, are you all right back there?” She was greeted with nothing but silence. Figuring Christian was just making noise about dumping the rubbish in the dumpster out back, she went back to counting out the earnings for the night and ignored her gut feeling that something wasn’t right.
A minute or two later all the lights suddenly went out in the front half of the bar, leaving her standing in the dark. “Hey, Christian, sweetie, I’m still out the front can you turn the lights back on for me please?”
Mary J stiffened when she was greeted with a stern “no” and that’s when she realised it wasn’t Christian answering her, as he would never speak to her like that, and he most definitely wouldn’t ever raise his voice to her either. Christian was always the first to defend her when Jerry went on his verbal tirade at work, so it definitely wasn’t him who answered her then. Someone else had. The muffled sound of his menacing voice seemed familiar to her too and sent a nervous shiver racing up and down her spine.
Turning slightly to the male voice behind her, her whole body went tense at the feel of the sharp, cold, steel blade pressing against the delicate skin on her throat. With his other arm wrapped around her waist like a steel band, the bastard pulled her roughly back against him. The grip he had on her was an unyielding one. Her heart began to beat erratically in her chest. Fear lodged itself in her throat. It was just her luck that some dumbass punk wanted to rob the pub tonight.
Refusing to let this punk get the best of her, Mary J twisted slightly in his hold. The bastard retaliated and pressed the knife harder into her throat. The sting of the sharp steel pressing into her throat caused her eyes to water. She could feel the warmth of her own blood trickling slowly down her neck. She couldn’t believe this punk had cut her. Both anger and fear pulsed throughout her. Flashbacks of the last time some male tried to get the best of her swamped her mind. She may have been on the receiving end of her ex’s fists that night and ended up in hospital. That ending was so not happening tonight though. She was stronger and tougher now than she had been back then and this punk made her mad as hell for trying to make her a victim once again.
She refused to be another victim to a man who preyed on unarmed women.
Trying to keep her voice as calm as possible, Mary J quietly demanded to the man holding the knife to her throat what he wanted. His answer, however, had the strength to shock her and release all thoughts of fighting against him. It dawned on her then that she was possibly in real danger. One wrong move by her and she could end up dead by his hands.
“Bitch, you’re in no position to make demands of me. So shut the fuck up and listen to what I have to say,” the punk spat out to her angrily. Mary J murmured a shaky “okay” to him and remained silent and still as he continued to tell her his demands. “I have a message for you, bitch, to pass on to that cop you’re always sniffing around like a dog in heat. Tell him to check the northern paddock of Macgregor’s farm. Let him know I’ve left a little present there for him to find.”
The bastard then pressed the knife harder to her throat after jerking her back closer to him. She closed her eyes and let her tears run steadily down her cheeks at the dreaded feel of his erection pressing into her butt. She had to take a steady, shallow breath to try to keep the bile from rising up from the pit of her stomach. The sick bastard was turned on by holding a defenceless woman captive with a hunting knife to h
er throat. In that moment, Mary J knew exactly how her friend Chloe felt when she had been attacked in her own home a few months back.
The bastard leant in and his foul, stinking breath whispered past her ear making her want to hurl. She knew from the menacing timbre echoing in his voice that she had to do exactly what he told her to do. Otherwise he would make good on the promise to kill her if she didn’t obey him. Mary J told him she would relay his message to Mick, and she silently prayed this bastard died for threatening her in the first place.
Then just like that, the knife left her throat and the iron grip around her waist disappeared. She lost her footing when he shoved her violently against the bar. Pain engulfed her head as it collided with the wooden countertop of the bar. She didn’t have time to wallow in the pain. She had to get out of there while she could. Staggering to her feet, Mary J stumbled her way toward the front door of the pub on legs that trembled so badly she fell down a couple of times on her way out. She tried to draw in a few deep breaths to get some much-needed oxygen into her panic-starved lungs while making her escape, but it didn’t seem to do any good.
With a loud bang, she crashed her way out the front door and into the cold night air only to slam straight into a human brick wall. She screamed at the feel of two large male hands gripping her upper arms and shaking her slightly. Oh god, he came back for her. She struggled against him trying to get away. She had to get away from him. Her brain hadn’t told her to look up to see who was holding her in his firm grip. It was only when he spoke her name in a calm, reassuring manner did it register to her that it was Mick who she had run into and not the knife-wielding bastard. All the fight in her body left her then and she sagged against him. His name falling from her lips in relief that it was him here and not the punk with the knife. “Mick.”
* * * *