by Jenna Jacob
Though she was always happy to see Colton, his timing, once again, was lousy. Brea felt cheated that her breakfast with Sawyer had been interrupted. Not that she’d planned to offer him anything but food. She wanted to prove to herself that she could find happiness in his platonic company without bedroom gymnastics involved. It was a baby step, but one she needed to achieve.
She invited Colton to join them for breakfast and nearly laughed at the disapproving scowl he aimed at Sawyer.
“Lighten up, Captain America. I didn’t spend the night violating her in every deviant way known to man,” Sawyer drawled, then added under his breath, “but I sure wanted to.”
Colton’s intimidating mien lifted and a crooked grin tilted his lips. “Can’t blame me for making sure her virtue stays intact.”
Sawyer dropped his fork. It clanged on his plate as Brea choked on her coffee. Slapping a napkin to her cover her mouth, she nearly shot coffee out her nose. Bolting from his seat, Sawyer slapped her on the back, asking her over and over again if she could breathe.
Nodding, she coughed out on a hoarse whisper, “I’m fine…I’m good.”’
After she’d regained her composure, she widened her eyes at Colton. “Don’t say things like that. You almost killed me! My virtue hasn’t been intact since the eighth grade, and you damn well know it.”
“Who was the lucky guy?” Sawyer grinned.
“Billy Franklin,” Colton supplied. “A scrawny, pimply-faced—”
“Hush!” Brea covered his mouth with her hand. “We are not waltzing down memory lane this morning.”
“Why not?” Colton asked with a chuckle after he’d pried her fingers away. “I think it’s a cute story.”
“Not another word.” Fire danced in her eyes.
“You can tell me later, bro.” Sawyer grinned. He loved watching her squirm in the hot seat.
“Who was your first?” she challenged Colton. “I bet you can’t even remember her name.”
“Of course I do,” he answered wistfully. “Billy’s sister, Brenda Mae Franklin. She was my first older woman too.”
“Brenda Mae? My god, Colton! How old were you, five?” Brea gasped.
“No. I was fourteen,” he replied indignantly.
It was Sawyer’s turn to choke, but thankfully it wasn’t on his coffee. “Damn. You started young.”
“Who was your first?” Colton asked.
All the laughter drained from Sawyer’s face. “Sara.”
“You mean you were a virgin when you married her?”
Brea’s heart nearly burst in her chest. Married? He was married? Where the hell was Mrs. Grayson? Did she know about the skanky triplets from the hot tub?
To her horror, Brea had nearly behaved exactly like those skanky bitches. She’d almost slept with a married man, too.
“No! You asked who was my first,” Sawyer defended.
“You’re…you’re…You have a wife?” Brea sputtered as anger rose inside her like an island-eating tsunami.
“I did. I’m divorced.”
His words had her caustic surge rolling back out to sea, yet the ground beneath her felt slightly eroded. Sawyer had survived the dreaded Big D. The second most terrifying curveball life could ever throw. The first, of course, being never finding your soul mate among the masses.
“I’m sorry.” Brea reached across the table and softly cupped his hand.
“No need to be sorry, darlin’.” He flashed her a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It was a miserable existence. I’m much happier being free.”
After several long seconds of awkward silence, he glanced at his watch and stood. “I need to get to work. I’ll drop by this evening and make sure you’re doing all right.”
Brea followed Sawyer as he headed toward the door. She was about to tell him he didn’t need to bother, but the thought of seeing him again filled her with such anticipation she bit her tongue.
“Thank you. If you’d like to stay for dinner, I’d be happy to cook again.”
“You don’t have to try and seduce me with your mouth-watering cooking. You’re mouthwatering enough for me.”
A thrilling rush rose up from her toes. Brea nervously licked her lips. If Colton hadn’t been within earshot, she would have tossed Sawyer’s gauntlet right back at him. Instead, she simply sent him an innocent shrug.
He issued a barely perceptible growl before settling his mouth close to her ear. “Dammit, woman. I’m going to be thinking about you in sexy lingerie and cheeseburgers the rest of the day.”
“Good.”
“Why is that good?”
“Because my imagination won’t be the only one suffering.”
“You get rid of Colton, and I’ll call in sick.” He waggled his brows. “We can torture each other in every naughty way, all day long.”
She’d passed her test with flying colors, at least until now. But Brea was well on her way to getting a big, fat F if she didn’t find her spine and tell him…
“Have a great day, Sawyer,” Colton called from the kitchen.
Yeah…what her overprotective, pseudo-big brother just said.
After Sawyer left, Brea hurried back to the kitchen. She didn’t want to stand at the window as he walked away, watching him like an abandoned puppy. Painting on a smile purely for Colton’s benefit, she sat down and sipped her coffee.
“Don’t sit there farting out rainbows and unicorns on my account. Talk to me.”
The look of concern on Colton’s face had her heart fluttering madly in her chest.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“About your fascination with Sawyer. You do know he’s not a settling-down kind of guy, right?”
“I might be a special kind of snowflake, but I’m not stupid.” Brea waved off his concern. “I love you dearly. But I don’t need a daddy or a lecture. What I need are the holes in the wall patched, a new pane of glass, and Emmett’s gun—or at least all his ammo confiscated. If that crazy old fart decides to pepper this place with buckshot again, I’m going that shove his gun where the sun dosen’t shine.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“Damn right I am. I want five minutes not talking, thinking, or fantasizing about Sawyer. All right?”
“Fuck!” Colton closed his eyes and exhaled a long, heavy sigh.
“What?”
“You’re already that obsessed with him? That’s not good, Brea.”
“I’m not acting on it, am I?”
She wasn’t. At least not that very second…well, not too much.
“Only because he left. What are you planning to feed him for dinner…muff pie?”
“Nope. I can’t. I don’t have any hair down there.”
Colton groaned and slapped a palm to his forehead. “Dammit, Brea. You’re like my little sister. I did not need that visual.”
“You asked.” She shoved her hands on her hips. “It’s not my fault you can’t handle the answers. Maybe you shouldn’t be asking such personal questions, sugar.”
“I’m just trying to save you from being hurt.”
“Don’t. If I fall off the wagon and land cunt-first in a field of hard-ons, I’ll climb out again, when I’m thoroughly sated. But trust me. My heart will be miles away from that field of dreams…locked in a lead vault. Feel better now?”
“Not one iota!”
She threw her hands up in the air. “What do you want me to do…super-glue my thighs together?”
“Would you?” He sounded far too excited at the prospect.
“No!” she snapped. “Stop. Now. You’re pissing me off. I’m a grown woman.”
He stood and rounded the table before wrapping her in a hug. Obviously thinking he’d change her mind if he changed tactics, Colton was too transparent for his own good.
“I’m not trying to rile you up, sweetheart,” he began. “I just don’t want to see you hurt again.”
Okay, so maybe it worked…the man was killing her with kindness.
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br /> “I don’t either. But I’m not a china doll. Life is full of hurt and disappointment. I can’t live in a plastic bubble until I’m old and gray. I’m going to have to risk a few bumps and bruises.” Brea gave him a tight squeeze before easing out of his grasp. “I’m grateful for your concern, but I have to find my own way down this new road. If I decide to let Sawyer join me for a couple miles, so what. I know he won’t be walking beside me when I reach the end of my journey. Satisfied?”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he doesn’t love me, and he doesn’t want me moving in with him.”
“And you know this…how?”
“I asked him.”
Colton’s mouth fell open. “You asked him?”
“I did. See? This old dog is learning new tricks. Now close your mouth, eat your breakfast, and then call the glass company, will ya?”
Though a million questions were swimming in the man’s pretty blue eyes, Colton did as she instructed.
He called in a team of contractors. Brea played hostess, offering iced tea and sandwiches to the crews, and by late afternoon, Barbara’s house looked like new. If Brea hadn’t been present during last night’s destruction, she’d have never suspected the place had been blown to hell and back.
After thanking Colton and waving good-bye, she raced upstairs and took a shower. She dried her hair and curled the ends, giving them both volume and a softness to frame her face. After applying a thin layer of makeup, she pulled on a sundress and sandals and added a spritz of perfume. Sawyer had only seen her at her worst. Brea wanted to let him glimpse her at her best…well, her best out of bed.
Brea hurried to the kitchen. She pulled a package of pork chops from the fridge and just as she started mixing a honey-soy sauce marinade, Ozzie began to bark. When she peered nervously around the corner, she saw neither Bigfoot nor a psycho-rapist was looking in the new window.
Then the doorbell rang.
Glancing at the clock, she saw it was four forty-five. Brea smiled, assuming Sawyer had left work early. She hurried to the door and pulled it open. The smile fell from her face. Terror raced through her veins as a stocky bald man wearing an evil grin pressed a gun to her chest and forced her backward.
Ozzie’s hackles were raised from his neck all the way to his tail. He barked and snarled at the man.
“Put dog away, or I kill it,” the man demanded in a thick Russian accent.
“Down, boy,” Brea said in a quivering command. But Ozzie didn’t obey.
The Russian thug pointed the gun at the dog. Brea panicked. As adrenaline pumped through her at the speed of light, she stepped in front of Ozzie. “Wait. Don’t shoot him. Let me put him outside. He doesn’t have to die.”
“Do it.” The man gripped Brea’s hair and Ozzie went berserk.
“No! Down, boy!” Brea yelled.
Boris or Vladimir or whatever the intruder’s name was, pulled her in close to his ugly, too-flat face. “You try to run, I shoot you in the back.”
“I-I understand.”
The gun-wielding thug shoved her away. Brea bent and clutched Ozzie’s collar. Sending up a silent prayer that the beast actually did possess some intelligence, she dragged the still-snarling animal to the front door. The crazed Russian followed behind her, poking his gun into Brea’s spine.
“Outside, Sawyer. Go outside and be a good boy, Sawyer.”
It was a long shot, but she hoped that imprinting his name into Ozzie’s psyche, the animal might go next door. But then again, the Doberman might just tear down the street, forsaking her last few minutes of life on his newfound freedom.
Even if—by some miracle—he went next door, Sawyer was probably still at the ranch. It could be minutes or hours before he returned home. Instead of a candlelit dinner for two, he’d find Brea’s body—bloodied, beaten, raped, and tortured, on Barbara’s glossy hardwoods.
Oh, god. Help me! Help me, please.
She shut the door and inhaled a ragged breath. “I don’t have much money, but I’ll give you what I’ve got. Just please…take it and leave. Don’t hurt me.”
The man began to laugh. It was a vile, gut-churning, and menacing chuckle. “Hurt you? No. You have my merchandise. Get it for me. Now.”
“Merchandise? What merchandise? I don’t know what you’re—”
He drew his hand back and slapped her hard across the face. “Lying pizda!”
Lights exploded behind her eye. Pain seared up the side of her face. Wobbling as fringes of darkness clouded her vision, Brea feared she was going to pass out. Biting back a howl of pain and a scream of terror, she tasted blood…her own.
The vile maniac continued to talk, but only bits and pieces registered through the chaos of panic and pain consuming her.
“Don’t lie again. Weed…”
Brea jerked her head at the mention of her ex.
“The gluppy ukoloť called from jail. He tell me you have the merchandise. Get it for me or die.”
Brea swallowed the bile rising up in her throat. Tears burned the backs of her eyes, and a wave of dizziness threatened to take her to her knees. Weed. This sack of monkey-spunk was a friend of Weed’s? Whatever gluppy ukoloť meant, it wasn’t close to the names she was inwardly calling her dickless ex.
You’ll be going down with me, baby!
His haunting words from jail rolled through her brain. She wanted to scream. She’d stupidly believed Weed had meant she’d be going to prison with him…not this. The motherfucker had set her up. Not only that, he’d told the scary Russian son of a bitch that she had his merchandise…drugs. When the prick found out Weed had lied to him and she didn’t have his precious drugs, the drug lord would kill her…fast and quick. Or she could only hope.
A slow, evil smile curled the scary prick’s lips. “I see in your eyes. You know what I talk about now. Yes?”
With her heart in her throat, Brea’s mind raced like the speeding bullet that would soon explode from the barrel of his gun. The complete and utter terror coursing through her veins was a living, breathing beast.
Stall… You’ve got to stall this lunatic…somehow!
Brea tried to think of ways to buy some precious time.
If she pretended to look for his stash, it might buy her some time. Yet she’d only be prolonging the inevitable.
Either way, she was going to die.
She thought of offering the sociopath some milk and cookies…or belting out in song, complete with a few quirky dance steps and gyrating hip thrusts. Brea knew then that the synopses in her brain could not cope with the promise of her impending death. She’d gone off her rocker…completely and utterly come unhinged. She’d just cracked the fuck up!
“Bring bags. Now!”
“Bags? I-I don’t—”
Shoving the barrel of the gun against her cheek, the batshit-crazy meth-daddy stole the words from her brain and tongue.
“You bring bags with you…here…yes?”
“Just the ones from…”
The closet! But there weren’t any drugs in them. Brea had opened them…shaken them out for Detective Nickel. Whatever bags Weed had hidden this monster’s drugs in, Brea didn’t have them. They had to still be back in Denton.
“Get them. Or I kill you. Then tear place apart with my bare hands.”
She had no choice but to give him the empty bags and pray he’d kill her quickly. She didn’t want to be raped or tortured. But Brea was fairly certain the drug lord didn’t give a shit what she wanted, especially after he discovered Weed had led the man on a wild goose chase.
A flash of something over the Russian’s right shoulder caught her attention. She wasn’t sure if it was a leaf or maybe Ozzie had wandered back onto the porch, but something had moved. An ember of hope flickered to flame, but she kept it hidden behind the neutral expression on her face…well, as neutral as unmitigated looked. To keep from glancing back at the window and alerting the drug-demanding Russian, Brea lowered her lashes and held her breath.
“Get bags or get down on knees.”
Hell no! She was not going to help this prick kill her execution-style by assuming the position. Fuck that!
“They’re up in my room,” she explained with trembling lips. “Do you want to come with me or should I bring them down to you?”
“I follow you.”
Brea nodded and forced herself to take a step toward the stairs. Her legs shook like a big girl’s booty at an all-night rave.
When a knock came from the front door, she froze.
The gunman lowered his weapon to her ribs and moved in beside her.
“Don’t answer,” he snarled.
“If I don’t answer, whoever it is might walk right in. This is a small town.”
The man scowled at her words. “Okay. But tell them to go away. If they don’t, I kill you both.”
Placing her trembling fingers on the knob, she felt the Russian place the muzzle to her head before stepping in beside her, between the door and the wall. With her only means of escape now nestled in her palm, Brea was too petrified to throw open the door and run away. Fighting back tears, she opened the door a few inches to find Sawyer standing on the porch. She knew this would be the last time she’d ever have the chance to lay eyes on him. He smiled, but it was like ice. And when he darted a barely perceptible glance to his belt, Brea dropped her gaze to see a gun tucked in the waistband of his jeans.
He knew. Thank god! Sawyer knew she was in trouble.
“Hey, baby. You ready to go see that movie?”
“I’m sorry. I have a headache.” She tried to sound contrite, but she was too busy darting her eyes to the right. She hoped he would understand that the Russian prick was standing next to her with a gun at her head.
“That’s too bad,” he replied through clenched teeth.
Sawyer raised his hand, fingers extended, as if intending to stroke her arm. But quick as lightning, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her toward him while simultaneously kicking the door open.