Jeff bounced up and down on the couch. “This might be a good spot, but maybe the floor would be better. That way your boyfriend can get a bird’s eye view. What do you think, Skippy?”
I just stared at him, concentrating, waiting for him to put that knife down and move and make himself distracted.
“Looks like I need to move this table out of the way. We’re going to need some viewing room.” Jeff stood and shoved the coffee table about five feet to the side of the living room. It was then or never, I took advantage of the noise of the table scraping across the hardwood floor and banged my hand on the floor, breaking my thumb. I may have dislocated it as well, which is what I was trying to do. It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but I managed to stifle the groan. With my thumb broken and dislocated, I slipped my hand out of the handcuff. While he was untying Gabrielle from the chair to move her to the floor, I untied my feet. When he turned his back to help her lie down, I charged him, sending both of us over the back of the sofa. I pounded him in the face as the handcuffs still attached to my right wrist flew along smacking him in the eye. We wrestled, rolling across the floor. He managed to get on top and slugged me in the jaw. Adrenaline must have kicked in because I didn’t even feel the pain in my thumb anymore as I yanked him by his hair and pulled him off of me. All I could think about was what he could do to Gabrielle if I didn’t succeed in taking him out. He got to his feet at the same time I stood and he came at me swinging. I ducked and came up with a hard right cross to his cheek. The sound of bone cracking against bone permeated the room and I stumbled backwards, shaking my hand from the sting. Jeff took a couple of steps toward me, but I charged him with all my might, sending him and me through the back screen door. We fell hard onto the concrete, but he was under me and took most of the impact. I jumped to my feet ready to go at him, when I realized he wasn’t getting up. I saw blood oozing from the back of Jeff’s head and the edge of the hedge clippers I’d left on the patio the other day sticking in the side of his neck. I suddenly knew how Lena had felt when she’d killed Troy. I raced back in to Gabrielle, her eyes horrified. I gently pulled the tape from her mouth and quickly untied her hands.
“Where is he?” she asked, tears streaming down her cheeks as I held her tight against me, so thankful that he hadn’t gotten the chance to hurt her. Forgetting for the moment that I’d been angry with her about her mother, forgetting that she hadn’t had the courage to introduce me properly, forgetting that my thumb was killing me. “Did you knock him out?”
“You might say that.” I took my phone out of my pocket and called the police.
There would be no his word against ours this time. Jeff was dead. The police came and took our statements. They were the same two officers that had come into the bar earlier. Turned out they’d been keeping tabs on Jeff on a hunch that he was the same guy another woman had identified from a police sketch as the man who’d raped her a few nights before. But when they’d brought Jeff in for a line-up, the woman wasn’t able to identify him as the guy because she could have sworn her rapist had darker hair, but they still had their suspicions since he’d had that episode with Gabrielle, which restored my faith in our illustrious Turtle Lake police department. Unfortunately, the two cops had been called away on an emergency while they’d been at the bar and missed Jeff’s departure from there. They deemed his death an accident, which it was. If I had to do it over again though, I would have killed him before I ever let him put another finger on Gabrielle.
Chapter 46
Gabrielle
The police had turned on every light in the living room while they were here investigating. They’d said they needed the light as they searched the scene. As soon as they left, I slowly got up and began turning them all off. Brodie stood in the middle of the room watching me.
I picked up a small battery operated candle and flipped the switch on the bottom. It gave us enough light to see each other, but dimmed the rest of the room.
“I’m not ready to look at this room in so much light yet,” I admitted.
He sat down on the comfy chair by the window. “We can keep the lights off.”
“For how long?”
“For as long as you want.”
“I don’t want to see the chair Jeff had me tied to or the table he slid across the floor to make room.”
“I’ll get rid of them.”
I nodded and he stood and picked up the chair and tossed it outside. I think I heard it shatter into pieces. Then he went and picked up the table and took it out too.
“Better?”
I nodded and reached for the glass of brandy Brodie had given me a few minutes ago. I sipped, letting the warm liquid burn and soothe at the same time.
“You okay?” Brodie asked, sitting across from me.
“Yeah. You?”
“Not exactly.” My eyes met his and a dangerous burn tore through my soul. I wanted him to hold me, but he didn’t. He hadn’t really touched me since those first few moments right after Jeff had died when he came and untied me, holding me tightly, yet briefly. “Gabrielle, I hate that that monster was in my house.”
His house? Yeah, technically it was his house, but I’d been living here for three months and in light of the last four weeks, I’d thought we’d moved beyond what was his and what was mine. I considered this to be my house too. Maybe not on paper, but in our minds. Perhaps it was just a slip out of habit.
He drained the little cordial glass containing the brandy and stood. “It’s been an exhausting night. I’m going to bed.”
Without another word, he went to the front door and made sure it was locked, doing the same to the other two doors in the house and then took off toward the bedroom. He was upset, I got that, but couldn’t he at least have given me a few comforting words before retiring, considering what we had just gone through?
I sat in the room alone thinking about the night and how it had all transpired. Starting out with the surprise visit from my mom, the way Brodie’d left, the angry expression on his face as he glanced at me before shutting the door. If he hadn’t left, the episode with Jeff might never have happened. I’ll admit, I’d wanted him to leave. I didn’t want him subjected to my mother’s cruel and critical remarks that I knew she’d never be able to keep from making, directly or indirectly at Brodie’s expense. He’d never have her stamp of approval. The type of man she would pick for me needed to be wealthy, established, and clannish. To my delight, Brodie didn’t possess any of those persnickety qualities. I’d never be able to be with someone my mother approved of. Yes, I’d wanted Brodie to leave but I didn’t realize it would backfire on me. I picked my sorry self up from the couch and headed toward the bedroom, stopping midway down the hall as I passed the guest room, half thinking maybe I should spend the night in there; nixing that idea as I remembered reading somewhere that couples should never go to bed angry.
Chapter 47
Brodie
I knew the minute my head hit the pillow that I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I lay on my side in the dark wanting so badly to talk to Gabrielle. Unfortunately, I didn’t think tonight was a good night considering what had happened. I knew the danger of Jeff raping her had to have been frightening and she didn’t need me adding to the pile of emotions that must be swimming around in her head with my own brooding and feelings of rejection. I’d learned a valuable lesson tonight. No matter how much I loved Gabrielle, or how much she acted like she loved me or thought maybe she did, I’d never be good enough for her. That revelation tore into my heart, breaking it completely in half. Gabrielle came from money and I was just an average guy with dreams no bigger than owning a well-run bar in a town where I got to play my bass a couple nights a week with a band that managed to obtain some nice gigs every once and awhile.
A faint breeze tickled the hairs on my legs as Gabrielle lifted the sheet and slid in beside me. I closed my eyes, glad that she’d decided to come to bed. No matter how hurt I was, I didn’t want her sitting out in the living room all night thinking
about Jeff. She may be embarrassed by me and not love me the way I wanted, but I still loved her and cared about her. The thought of not having Gabrielle in my life stole my breath away, as surely as if I’d fallen into the deepest, darkest part of the ocean without an oxygen tank.
“Brodie?”
I thought about staying quiet and letting her think I was asleep, but that was foolish. “Yeah?”
“Are you asleep?”
“No.
Her arm gently and timidly found its way around my waist and I melted. Unable to resist her, I turned around to face her.
“I’m so very sorry I hurt you.”
That statement was everything I’d wanted to hear, but upon hearing it, a lump formed in my throat and I could do nothing but stare into her tear-filled eyes.
“I never meant to hurt you.”
I finally found my voice. “I get it.”
“Do you? Because I don’t think you do. I know what you think.”
“How could you possibly know what I think?”
“The reason I didn’t introduce you as my boyfriend to my mother is because I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? Just okay?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, how’s this? How the hell would introducing me, the man you’ve been sleeping with for the past several weeks, the man who loves you and you think you love back, how would introducing me as your boyfriend to your mother hurt me?”
“I was sparing you from any odious comments she would have made toward you, directly or indirectly.”
“Sparing me? Honey, I don’t need you or anyone sparing me from anything.” Now Gabrielle was just making things worse.
“Up against my mother you do.”
“And what makes her so dangerous?”
Gabrielle sat up. “She’s evil.”
I propped my elbow up and rested my head on my hand so we’d be semi eye to eye. “Go on,” I prompted, almost laughing at the evil comment, but I was too angry to give in quite yet.
She sighed and twisted two of her fingers in her other hand. “She has this idea that I need to marry someone who …” she looked at the ceiling then back at me. “…runs in the same circles as she does.”
“You mean someone who is as wealthy as she is.”
She looked at me. “Yes.”
“And I don’t qualify.”
She nodded. “But it’s not just that. She would have been rude to you and she wouldn’t have even given you a chance and I couldn’t have that. She would have cut you down with that silver tongue of hers without taking the time to find out who you really were or caring.”
“And who am I?” I’d already forgiven her back when she first said she was sorry. I loved her too much to stay angry, but it was sort of fun listening to her grovel. Besides, I wanted to hear her tell me, in her words, just who she thought I was.
“You are the most wonderful, kind, sexy man that could ever walk this earth. And I don’t think I love you.”
My eyes snapped to hers and I stopped breathing.
“I know I love you. And I am so, so sorry.”
I pulled her to me and captured that sweet mouth of hers with mine. Pulling my body up and over hers so that she lay under me. The sudden need for her flooded me like a tsunami. The way her body always responded to mine drove me crazy. The way she kissed me, so passionately and urgent, I had trouble thinking about anything except her. She felt so good. I cupped her breast in my hand before grazing my tongue down her neck, finding the nipple that begged to be sucked. She bucked her hips under me at the sensation. Slipping my fingers inside her panties, I pulled them down her silky legs and off. I kissed my way down to her stomach. Teasing her nipples with my thumb and finger, kissing the silky skin of her thighs before tasting the sweet ambrosia she secreted. She gasped out a long moan as her first orgasm flowed through her. I loved the sweet sensual expression on her face as she came, so beautiful and sexy it overwhelmed me and took my breath away.
I’d already been naked, a habit I had acquired over the past couple of years, and I was hard as a rock and ached to be inside of her. Gabrielle wrapped her legs around me urging me toward her. I slipped inside her silky folds and entered that realm of ecstasy. I loved this woman.
No one had ever taken me to such depths of passion before.
“I love you, Gabrielle.”
“I love you, Brodie.”
There was no sweeter music in the world than those words attached to my name, flowing like honey from Gabrielle’s sweet lips, and the orgasm flowed from me and into her, filling her with my love as she quivered under me.
I lay half on top of her with my chest beside her, our legs tangled together, our chests heaving in unison, our hearts beating fast from the intensity.
She could have a ton of rude and awful relatives and I wouldn’t have cared.
When we caught our breaths, I moved to my back and she placed her head in the crook of my shoulder. “So, you’re not angry with me anymore?”
“No. As long as you realize that I won’t put up with whatever your mother thinks of me.”
“Good. Because after you left, I told my mother that I was in love with you, so now you’re stuck with me.”
I wrapped my arms protectively around her, enveloping her and pulling her in to me so one of her legs needed to go over the top of one of mine. I lifted my other leg and placed it over her foot. Her body fit so perfectly with mine, and I never wanted to move again.
“I promise you, Gabrielle, you will never be sorry for allowing me to love you. I’d buy you the moon if it were for sale. I don’t have a lot of money, but I’d beg, borrow or steal it if it made you happy.”
Chapter 48
Gabrielle
Just as my mother had threatened, the car arrived promptly at seven. When she’d called to remind me about dinner a couple of days ago, I told her I wouldn’t come, that I didn’t want to be subjected to any of her match-making schemes. I was happy and in love with Brodie, and she’d just have to learn to deal with it. I’d never stood up to my mother until that day last week when she’d unexpectedly showed up at the door. At that point, she’d sighed heavily into the phone and insisted that I bring Brodie to dinner, too. She wanted to meet him.
She’d made reservations at a fancy steak house near the hotel she and my stepfather were staying in. Kurt was apparently working on location around the area. How convenient. I knew there had to be another reason my mother was in the area. I didn’t think she’d come up north just for my sake.
“The car is here,” Brodie called over his shoulder as he peeked out the window. He turned to me and gave me a sexy grin. “You look beautiful.” I was wearing a simple, sleeveless black dress stopping mid-thigh, and black three-inch heel sandals. My hair hung down my back the way I knew Brodie liked it, but I’d added a sparkling clasp at the top back, pulling some of the hair away from my face.
I took a step toward him, breaking the distance between us and his lips grazed mine. I pulled back after the light kiss, admiring the way he looked. He wore a silvery-grey silk jacket that illuminated his tanned skin over a white shirt, leaving the top couple of buttons open, and black slacks. He looked very scintillating and sexy, almost like I’d plucked him right off the cover of GQ magazine “You.” I swallowed. “Look amazing.”
“I know how to clean up.”
“That you do.”
“Are you ready?”
“Yeah.” My hands were on his arms, holding him still from heading out the door. “Listen. If at any time during dinner you want to leave, just let me know.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Brodie, I mean it. She can be very malicious when she doesn’t get her way.”
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“With my life.”
“Then have a little faith. I’ll be fine.”
“Oh yeah, my mother’s last name is Bradford
now. Not Demeres.”
The restaurant was as I’d expected. The maître d’ led us through a room with soft lights hanging from the ceiling above each table, affording just enough illumination without being overbearing. White linen tablecloths draped over square tables in the center of the large room, with elegant looking booths also donned with the same tablecloths. My mother and stepfather sat in a room off the main dining room. A private room. I rolled my eyes knowing she’d gone out of her way to flaunt her prestigious and affluent lifestyle just for Brodie’s sake. He grabbed my hand, I squeezed his a little, and he shot me the sexiest guileful grin I’d ever seen. I wondered if I should be worried or proud.
My stepfather and mom stood as we entered the small private room. My mom gave me a small hug, while my stepfather embraced me with all the love and affection any father would have for his daughter. Regardless of all his wealth; my stepfather was the most generous, friendly, likeable man—other than Brodie—on the entire planet and I adored him. I often wondered what he saw in my mother, and why he put up with all her snobby friends, but even with her faults, she was beautiful.
“Mom, this is Brodie.”
“Nice to meet you Mrs. Bradford.” Brodie extended his hand to my mother and she gave him a small, tight-lipped smile, accepting his hand in that gracious way of hers, yet managing to hold on to an undertone that said, I’m better than you. My mother pulled off the graceful, patrician act as though she’d been born for it. Maybe she had been.
“Brodie, this is Kurt, my stepfather.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” Brodie said, smiling.
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