by Josie Kerr
“I never lied to you, Jeff. Never.”
“What about those real estate classes, huh? You said you were going to the classes to help me, to help us, but you just used me so you could abandon me.” He slapped her hard across the face. “You ruined everything, and now I’m going to ruin you.”
Annie braced herself, her body tense, thighs and eyes shut tight.
Jeff’s chuckling, which turned into a full-on belly laugh, made her peek at him.
“Oh, no, honey. You don’t have to worry about me touching you ever again. I wouldn’t put my dick in you for a million dollars, not now that you’ve been with him.” He stroked her eyebrows with one finger. “You are so independent now. Don’t need anyone for anything. Since you’re Miss Independent, so resourceful, you should be able to get free. Good-bye, Annie.” He shoved the wadded up washcloth into her mouth and walked out the bedroom door.
Jeff had secured Annie’s hands just low enough that she couldn’t reach the bindings with her fingers, and he’d used something that tightened when she’d struggled. Without a hope of getting loose, she’d screamed around the material in her mouth until her throat was raw.
Now she just lay in the bed. She hadn’t felt this helpless, this powerless in a long time.
The acrid smell of burned cookies filled her nose, adding nausea to her sense of hopelessness. She pushed her tongue against the washcloth, trying once again to dislodge it so she could call for help and breathe through her mouth. When that didn’t work, she screamed around the cloth in frustration.
She must have screamed too much, because she got lightheaded and dizzy. She inhaled deeply through her nose, and in addition to the stench of the burned cookies, she now smelled the distinctive odor of gas.
She began screaming and struggling with renewed fervor, but to no avail. She began sobbing in earnest. She fought to keep her eyes open, knowing it was the gas that was depriving her of oxygen.
She struggled more, feeling the pinch of her bindings, and then, exhausted, she slumped, defeated.
“Sweetheart, open your eyes. Annie, baby, open your eyes. Wake up, honey.”
Annie felt a cool breeze brush her face and a sense of someone’s fingers along her jaw. She blinked her heavy eyelids, and she saw him.
Damon Pierce.
Pierce, whose lips were tight with anger and whose eyes were soft with concern as he gently worked the wad of terrycloth from her mouth.
She gasped for air and struggled to sit up. “Pierce,” she croaked. “Damon, oh . . .”
“I know, sweetheart. I know. You gotta stop moving, Annie. You’re making the things worse, making them tighter.” He worked at the bindings with his fingers. “I know it hurts. Hold on.”
He muttered calming things to her in soothing tones, and Annie concentrated on sucking in clean, crisp air. She counted by threes.
“That’s right. You’re doing things just right. Just keep counting.”
“There’s a set of knives,” Annie whispered between breaths. “In the kitchen.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.” He pressed his mouth softly to hers. The kiss stung her sore skin, but to her, right now? It was the most wonderful feeling in the world.
Pierce disappeared from the bedroom for a few seconds and then returned with a paring knife. He sat down on the bed and began to saw through her ties.
“Here we go. Okay, it’s probably going to start hurting when the circulation comes back,” he warned. “Oh, Annie. I got you, sweetheart.”
“I know, Damon,” she said through her tears. “I know.”
He nodded and cut through the last of the binding—a silk tie—and gently moved her hand down, massaging her wrist. Annie laid her hand on his face, wiping the tear that leaked out of his eye.
“Damon!” Annie’s scream coincided with Pierce’s grunt when Jeff attacked him from behind.
“What the fuck?” Pierce whipped around, and Annie watched helplessly as Pierce and Jeff struggled. Pierce bobbed and weaved around Jeff’s haphazard slashing with a steak knife, and then he dove at Jeff’s legs, taking him down to the carpet. Pierce locked onto Jeff’s neck, his arm wrapped tightly around the other man’s throat. Jeff struggled, slashing a few more times, until the force of Pierce’s choke hold blocked the blood to his brain and he passed out.
“Damon? Damon?” Annie scrambled on the bed, one arm still attached to the headboard.
Her head snapped up when, from the living room, she heard the loud bang of a door being kicked in. Annie gawped as the black-clad officers swarmed into the bedroom, securing both Pierce and Jeff, who was now awake and screaming.
“You choked me, you jackass!” Jeff yelled.
“You stalked my girlfriend, you freak! You tied her up and turned on the gas!” Pierce yelled back. “And you fucking stabbed me! I hate being stabbed!”
Pierce grimaced and collapsed against the wall. “Damn, I hate being stabbed. I think I’m gonna pass out.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Pierce groaned and shifted in the hospital bed.
“I know you’re awake, fucker.”
Pierce groaned again, cracking an eye open to see Colin sprawled out in a hard hospital chair.
Colin pointed at Pierce. “You need to stop getting stabbed. You’re fucking up your training schedule.”
Pierce grinned. “Where’s Annie?”
“She’s getting checked out. The doc said they probably wouldn’t keep her overnight. Now, you?” He shook his head. “You, they’re keeping overnight. You got lucky, man. That maniac almost got you in the kidney. Don’t worry—he’s on lockdown. Handcuffed to the bed, the whole shebang.”
“He almost killed Annie, C. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to her.”
“Oh, thank goodness you’re awake!” Annie rushed to the bed and tightly hugged Pierce around his neck. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re okay, Damon.” She pressed her lips to his. “Oh, thank goodness.”
Colin chuckled. “I’m gonna leave you two alone.” He stood and patted Pierce’s shoulder. “I’ll come back and harass you later.”
Pierce took Annie’s hand. He ran his fingers over her bandaged wrist. “Oh, sweetheart.”
“You saved me, Damon. You got stabbed for me.” Tears welled in her eyes.
Pierce kissed the back of her hand. “Not anything you wouldn’t do for me.”
She nodded.
“So, you’re okay?” Pierce searched her eyes, and Annie scooted onto the bed.
“I’m okay. Little banged up, that’s all.” She shrugged. “He could have killed you.”
“But he didn’t.”
“He killed Andrea. He told me.”
Pierce inhaled and nodded. He’d figured as much.
They didn’t say anything for a few long moments, Annie sitting on the side of the bed, holding Pierce’s hand.
Annie lifted her tear-filled eyes to Pierce’s, and he smiled at her. She let out a little, embarrassed giggle, and then her face crumpled.
“Oh, honey, don’t cry. Never, ever cry over me.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.” Pierce let out a surprised laugh. Annie shrugged a shoulder. “Well, you don’t. But I’ve been thinking about something, about us.”
“Yeah? I have, too.”
“Yeah? What have you been thinking?”
“Oh, no. You brought it up. You go first.”
Pierce watched her squirm, and then she looked at him, right in the eye, seeing right to the very center of his being. “I’ve been thinking that I want to . . . be with you. Like, for a really long time.”
Pierce grinned as his heart soared. “Yeah?”
She nodded.
“Well, Annie Hedges, I was thinking pretty much the same thing.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but with a minor detail.”
“Yeah?”
Pierce took both of her hands in his. “I want to be with you, period.” She sucked in a breath. “No time limi
t. As long as we can. That’s what I’d like.” He grunted, shifting in the bed, trying to get comfortable.
“Oh, honey, you need to rest. We can talk about this later.”
“You bossing me?”
“Maybe.” She leaned down and pressed her mouth against his. “Maybe I can change my rule to ‘No bossing unless it’s for my own good.’ ”
“No. You know what’s best for you. You have to learn to trust yourself, Annie.”
“I think . . . that you’re the best for me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And I also think I’m pretty good for you.”
“Oh, I definitely know that.”
“So we figure this out together? Help each other?”
“Absolutely. Can’t imagine anything better.”
A bright smile lit up her pretty face. “Then, let’s do it.”
Chapter Thirty-six
“I can’t believe you found a purple sectional,” Pierce groused even as he eased down into the corner segment. “But this is pretty cool. I can actually stretch completely out.” He wiggled his toes and patted the cushion beside him.
Annie rolled her eyes. “I have to put the groceries away. We can’t keep eating out.”
“Doc said I was good to do some light training, so I take that to mean I’m ready to eat out again.”
Annie popped up from the behind the counter. “Damon Pierce, you are being dirty.”
Pierce wiggled his eyebrows at her, and she just laughed and shook her head. She finished putting the groceries away and went to sit with Pierce on the couch.
“And it’s ‘aubergine,’ not purple.”
“Honey, it’s purple.”
“It’s aubergine.”
“Okay, fancy purple. But it’s purple.”
Annie was getting ready to explain the difference between purple and aubergine when a knock came on the door. “We’re not finished.”
She could hear Pierce laughing behind her as she walked to the front of the small, refurbished Craftsman house. “It’s purple, babe,” he called after her.
After peeking out the peephole, Annie squealed and threw open the door. “I’m so glad you dropped by!” She hugged Ashley. “Johnny, Kyle, and Darren, too? Come on in!” She looked toward the car. “Where are the babies?”
“Oh, Rory and Paddy are wrangling the girls right now. Mama needed some beautification time.”
“You sure did. You were starting to look like Jason and Ryan with that ’stache you’ve got, Ashley. Ow. Dammit, don’t hit me.” Kyle rubbed his shoulder and laughed.
Johnny whistled as he stepped through the door. “Speaking of the twins, Jason and Ryan did a good job on this, huh?”
“They did. We love it. Damon, look who’s here!”
Pierce awoke with a start. “Who’s here? What? Pizza?”
Annie shook her head. Despite the refrigerator full of food, they would probably end up ordering something to be delivered.
Pierce grimaced as he shifted on the sectional. “Why do I get the feeling this isn’t purely a social call?”
Darren and Johnny looked at each other. “We have some interesting news.”
Johnny handed Pierce a sheet of paper.
Pierce’s scowl morphed to disbelief and then to glee. He threw his head back and laughed and laughed, at least until the wound in his flank began protesting.
“Damon, what is going on?” Annie frowned at the big man on her sectional.
Pierce held up the sheet of paper. “It’s all here. It’s almost all right here.” He began to laugh again.
Annie looked to the Richards men for an explanation.
“The forensic accountant had been poking around Andrea Michaels’s files for months, trying to trace where she transferred your money, Pierce. When we searched Jeff Waycoff’s house, we found evidence of Andrea Michaels’s offshore bank account. And when we did very minimal digging, we found the transfers from your accounts to another account and then to the offshore. Everything should be back to rights within six weeks.” Darren shrugged. “You got lucky, man.”
“Son of a bitch,” was all Pierce could say.
Annie shook her head. “I don’t even understand how Jeff got tangled up with Andrea, or vice versa. How did they even encounter each other?”
“Well, Andrea was stalking Pierce; therefore, she was stalking you. Jeff was stalking you—” Johnny began.
“And then when Jeff saw Pierce, Jeff set his sights on him. So it was just chance, really?”
Darren nodded. “Yeah, it seemed to be. Jeff has been real chatty since he got arrested, and he’s just digging himself in deeper. That sumbitch is crazy. Not insane, just crazy. Annie, you got out just in time. He’s one of the scariest individuals I’ve ever encountered.”
Darren cleared his throat. “So, I have some more news. Annie, I think you should have a seat.”
Annie looked from one brother’s face to another. “Okay.” She sat next to Pierce, who put his arm around her and held her close. “What is going on, Darren?”
“Annie, Jeff lied to you about your parents’ deaths. There was a house fire that was determined to be arson, but your parents didn’t perish in the fire.”
Annie scrambled for Pierce, who grasped her hands in his and whispered soothing words in her ear. “What? What?”
Annie was too shocked to realize that the front door had opened, but Pierce’s attention snapped to the foyer, where Kyle led an older woman, a woman who had an uncanny resemblance to Annie, through the front door.
“Annie, darlin’, you’re gonna want—”
“Oh, my sweet Lord, it’s true!” the woman sobbed. “Annie! My sweet girl!”
“Mom!” Annie leapt from the couch and ran to her mother. “Mommy!”
The two women stood in the entrance to the living room and sobbed, holding each other tightly.
Susan Hedges grasped her daughter’s face in her hands and peered at it. “He told us you didn’t ever want to see us again, Annie, and then he took you away. Oh, honey, I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry. I should have taken you and run away from your father, and then you . . .” She began sobbing again and held on to Annie even tighter. “My baby. My baby is alive.”
Annie squeezed her mother, taking deep breaths in through her nose and exhaling through her mouth. When she was ready to speak, she asked, “Where’s Father?”
Susan shook her head and shrugged. “He’s gone. He had a massive stroke a few years back. He was never the same after Jeff took you away. He searched and searched and he said. . . he said that he’d found out some things about Jeff, things that if he’d known, he would have never let him near you. He was on the telephone one afternoon, yelling, screaming at someone on the other end, and then, he just . . .”
Susan cupped her daughter’s face in her hands once again. “But you’re here. Oh!” She stumbled a bit, and Annie led her over to the sectional.
“Mommy, sit down, please. Ashley, can you get her a glass of water?”
Susan rubbed her hands over the material of the couch. “Oh, it’s purple. You always loved purple.” She giggled, sounding much like Annie. “This is such a pretty shade, like an aubergine.”
“Son of a bitch.”
Annie laughed. “Mommy, this is Damon Pierce. We’re . . . together.”
Pierce shifted forward and took Susan’s hand. “I’m so glad to meet you, Mrs. Hedges.”
“You are a big boy! Oh!” Susan held her hand over her mouth. “Oh! You’re the one who got hurt? The one who saved my Annie?”
Annie could see Pierce swallow down his emotion. “I can’t live without her, ma’am.”
“He’s the sweetest thing, isn’t he?” Susan asked her daughter, who bit her lip and grinned.
“I’ve been trying to tell him that.” Annie leaned over and kissed Pierce’s brow. “Oh, Mommy, I just . . .” Annie was overcome by emotion again, so she just laughed and shrugged and tried to pull both Pierce and Susan into her arms.
Epilogue
Annie practically skipped the two blocks from her new home with Pierce to Foley’s Pub. Pierce hung back, admiring the way her white shorts clung to her curves.
“Come on, slowpoke! We’re going to be late, and you know I hate being late,” she called over her shoulder and gave her behind a shake.
“Now who’s being bossy? Twenty minutes ago, you didn’t mind being late.”
She flushed prettily and stuck her tongue out at him, most likely remembering that twenty minutes ago, she’d been laid across the kitchen table with Pierce’s head buried between her thighs.
He chuckled but felt himself getting hard when remembering her breathless orders about what he needed to do to her Right. That. Minute.
Who knew he would like being ordered around in the bedroom?
“Damon!”
“I’m coming, sweetheart.”
He stepped into her space, and she threw her arms around him. “That’s for later,” she whispered, and Pierce felt her lips turn up into a smile as she kissed him.
They walked into Foley’s, too early for even the bouncer to be at the door, and looked around.
Annie’s shoulders slumped. “There’s no one here!”
“At least we’re not late, right?” he teased. Annie narrowed her eyes at him, and he winked.
An ear-piercing whistle rang out through the pub. “Annie, get your ass in here now—women’s meeting!” Ashley waggled a bottle of something and disappeared into the bathroom.
“What is that all about?”
“Oh, I’ll know in about three minutes, I bet.” Annie gave him a peck on the cheek. “I’ll be right back.”
Pierce snorted and looked around the bar, figuring if the women were all accounted for, there must be some men as well. He spied Ryan sitting at the bar, talking to the bartender.
Pierce slid onto the barstool next to Ryan.
“Hey, Goody.”
Ryan snorted. “Not doing good. Not doing good at all.”
“How many of these are yours?” He nodded at the empty glassware in front of the cutman.
“Too many.” Meghan, the bartender, put a glass of water in front of Ryan and a shot in front of Pierce. “He’s cut off. And I told the other bartenders they were automatically fired if they served him.” She looked back at Ryan. “You’ve had yourself a good wallow, Ryan. Now it’s time to put on your big boy pants and live the rest of your life.”