He sat there and stomped his boot heel one more time then whipped out his cell phone and dialed Dirk’s number. When the call connected and Dirk’s weaselly voice came on the line, JT fired off instructions, ignoring all of Dirk’s nosy questions, and made him promise to get his ass in his truck right that minute and come bring him the parts he needed.
Slapping the phone shut, he stuck it in his pocket as he pondered how he’d pass four hours, plus the time Dirk would take at the shop getting him what he needed. Dark thoughts came to his mind as he imagined crawling under the blue tarp to keep his wife company. His wife. And she was going to stay his wife until he deemed otherwise.
His phone rang again, and he nearly cracked the hinge whipping it open as he cursed the one calling him. “What?”
“JT, it’s me, Dirk.”
“I know it’s you, asshole! What do you want?” Last thing he wanted was another cell phone conversation with his idiotic, moody brother. “Shit!” he swore, realizing she might have a cell phone on her. He’d have to get out there when the rain let up and check. While he waited for Dirk to explain himself, he checked the glove box for the knife he kept in there. It was probably sharp enough to cut her blue jeans off of her so he could have some fun without untying her.
“You there, JT?”
“What? Why aren’t you on the road yet?”
“I had to get gas. It’s going to be late by the time I get there, and it’s supper time. You want me to bring you something to eat?”
This is what an aneurysm feels like! JT rubbed his face hard and said, “Umm, sure. Bring me whatever you can find along the way.”
“Anything in particular? McDonald’s? Taco Bell? Whataburger?” A gust of wind hammered rain against his windshield.
Headlights lit the darkness behind him, illuminating the dash faintly. He sat tight and thought about how good a Whataburger with hickory-flavored barbecue sauce and fried onions would be right about now. His mouth watered, and then he shook his head. “Just bring me a burger with everything on it and a coke and fries, and hurry damn it!” He looked in his side-view mirror, waiting for the vehicle to fly past him so he could climb out.
“JT…”
“Motherfucker! Will you just spit it the fuck out!”
“Why are you out on Highway 73? You were in Divine, weren’t you? Is that where you took off to this afternoon?”
“Dirk, it’s none of your damned business what I’m doing! Just bring me the alternator belt. Get your gas, get your food, and get your stupid ass out here! I’m sitting in the middle of a lightning storm and you want to have a conversation.”
Dirk raised his voice and showed a little backbone for once. “Hey, you’re the one who needs a rescue. You better not have bothered Lily—” Dirk’s words were cut off so abruptly JT thought the call had been dropped, but he could hear Dirk breathing hard on the other end of the line.
Gritting his teeth, JT growled as the lights in the dashboard finally went dead. “What do you know about it?”
When he replied, Dirk didn’t sound like himself. “I know that if you think you’re getting her back, Clay Cook is going to have a thing or two to say about it.”
JT curled his lip in disgust. He’d taken Lily without so much as a peep from that pansy-ass motherfucker. Suddenly his windshield lit up with the headlights of a stream of vehicles topping the last hill he’d gotten over before the truck died. Full-on panic seized him when they didn’t race past but surrounded the truck instead. He fumbled clumsily with the door handle, but it was too late.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Del braked and pulled to a stop a short distance from the Toyota. The deputies pulled to sharp stops, surrounding the white truck. A sheriff’s deputy stopped Clay as he tried to run past Del’s truck and halted him as well when he jumped out into the thunderstorm. This was the worst possible place for them to be, on high ground with lightning striking all around them, but all he could think of was how Lily felt being out in it. As if to emphasize his worry, a bolt of lightning struck less than a quarter of a mile away.
The deputy barred his way and called out, “Stop, sir. Let the sheriff handle it.” Del watched Hank Stinson pull his service weapon from its holster and approach the driver’s door along with the other armed officers.
“JT King, roll down the window!” Hank called out over the noise of the storm as he shined his large flashlight at the truck.
Del saw the window begin to descend slowly as King rolled it down.
Hank shouted, “Hands where I can see them!”
JT complied, sticking his large hands through the window. JT yelled something unintelligible as Hank aimed his flashlight into the cab of the truck. He looked back at one of the deputies and shook his head, then gestured to the bed of the truck.
A deputy opened the tailgate and hollered as he pulled back a tarp. “Back here, Hank!”
Simultaneously, Del and Clay bolted away from the deputy when he was distracted by the discovery, and JT slammed open the door of the truck.
The emergency vehicle lights and flashlights glinted off the barrel of JT’s hand gun as he raised it and pulled the trigger. Heart pounding, Del and Clay both ducked down between the vehicles and King’s truck but kept moving toward where Lily must have been restrained in the bed of the vehicle. Several more shots were fired, and Del heard the sounds of a struggle, followed by one final round being discharged.
“Call two ambulances,” Hank hollered as he holstered his weapon and bent down. “All clear!” He stood with a weapon held between two fingers and handed it to another deputy. “Let’s get her out of this storm.”
A deputy squatted by the door of the Toyota and then said, “Make that one ambulance and the medical examiner.”
Del had seen a lot of death over the last eight years, more than he cared to remember. He didn’t take it lightly, but hearing those words was satisfying and there was no way to deny it.
The deputy was pulling the items off the tarp that weighed it down as they both climbed into the bed of the truck and discovered Lily spread eagled, tied down with speaker wire. In the strobing lights of the vehicles combined with the lightning, Del picked at the speaker wire, trying to get her loose. Her hands were discolored like her circulation had been cut off, and seeing that added to his frustration as the wires refused to give. Clay was having similar difficulty with her ankles judging by his sounds of annoyance.
Hank pointed his flashlight into the bed of the truck and reached for a pair of wire cutters that had been discarded by her foot. He handed them over and asked, “She okay?”
As he waited his turn for the wire cutters, Del gently lifted her head and grimaced at the large knot on the back of her head. She was unconscious, but he sent a prayer of thanks heavenward that she was alive and warm. “She’s got lumps on her head and her brow is bleeding pretty badly, besides being soaked.”
“Bring a blanket!” Hank called as he held the tarp to shield her as the chilling rain increased and pounded down on them.
Clay handed him the wire cutters and then crouched over Lily, shielding her with his body as Del carefully cut away the thin but strong plastic-coated speaker wire. He was partially glad she was unconscious because it would have hurt like hell as the blood rushed back into her hands. He stroked them gently as he repositioned her with her arms close to her body and no longer stretched painfully tight.
The fact that Lily was unconscious scared the hell out of him because he didn’t know the extent of her injuries. But he was grateful that she had likely been unconscious for the entire painful experience.
One of the deputies brought something to Hank and said a few words. Hank frowned and turned to Clay as he held up a cell phone. “Hey, Clay. Isn’t this the shop’s phone number?”
Distractedly, Clay glanced at the lit display and said, “Yeah, why?”
Hank scowled and said, “This is King’s phone and the call history shows an incoming call to him from the shop, earlier this week.”
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Del looked at it when Hank showed him. “I can guarantee you that Lily didn’t call him, and neither did we.”
“I figured as much, since you let me know you’d filed a restraining order against him.”
“What the hell?” Clay growled as he sat upright and looked back at his vehicle. All but forgotten, Tabitha Lester sat in the passenger seat of Clay’s truck, looking like she was ready to shit peach pits. Clay turned to Del and murmured, “Stay with her?”
“You know I will. Go deal.”
Clay leaped from the truck bed and stalked to his vehicle. Del was gratified that there was enough light so he could see the fear that showed in Tabitha’s eyes. This was taking jealousy and possessiveness too far. He looked forward to Clay getting to the bottom of it as he yanked open his truck door and spoke sharply to Tabitha.
“I have a feeling the high and mighty Miss Lester knows more of this story than she’s let on. Pride goeth before a fall,” Hank muttered as he took out his notepad and walked over to Clay’s truck, speaking into his radio as he went.
Del heaved a sigh of relief when an ambulance topped the hill and rolled to a stop beside the Toyota while the deputies redirected the traffic that had backed up on the highway.
Just then, he heard Lily moan over the noise of the storm and activity surrounding them. He barely restrained himself from crushing her fragile body in his embrace, he was so relieved.
Epilogue
From her lounge chair positioned a safe distance from the bonfire, Lily sat beside Grace and watched with shared enjoyment as Maynard Goodwin approached their friend LuAnn and began a conversation. LuAnn smiled rather shyly at him, obviously attracted. Unable to hear what was being said, Lily still knew the moment Maynard confessed that he was the rodeo clown who had terrified LuAnn so badly. His handsome face was serious and his body language completely sincere as he offered his apology personally and reached for her hand.
LuAnn looked up at him and pulled back for a second with a shadow of fear in her eyes. Maynard smiled and said something, and she smiled back tentatively. When he reached for her hand again, she nodded and cautiously placed her hand in his capable grasp.
“Aww!” Grace said with a tremble in her voice. “I love a happy ending! I’m such a sap. I think I’m gonna cry.”
Lily leaned toward Grace as she watched them walk onto the portable dance floor and “Drunk on You” by Luke Bryan began to play. “If he’s a rodeo clown, how can this have a happy ending? Won’t that be…difficult?”
Grace giggled and replied, “Nope. Mayn is forty-five years old now. Being a rodeo clown is even more dangerous than being a bull rider. He didn’t just face one bull a night, he faced them all. He’s been really lucky, too. He retired from the rodeo circuit this winter. That charity rodeo he was at the night he and LuAnn met was his very last commitment. Not to change the subject or anything but I’m really glad things turned out the way they did. Any idea what you’re going to do about JT’s property?”
Since, technically, JT and Lily had still been man and wife and JT had left no will, Lily was responsible for the distribution of his property and wealth.
“I’m turning over ownership of the mechanic shop to Dirk, so he can do whatever he wants. The rest I’m donating to charity. Everything I wanted from my time in Durst I already have with me,” Lily said, looking over at her dad. Les Valentine sat in a lawn chair nearby, chatting with Jack Warner’s dad and Teresa’s father. It hurt her heart that his time with them was likely very short, but she was grateful he was there.
“And Tabitha?”
“Clay fired her.” Clay had decided to close the shop for the day because Tabitha’s employment had been immediately severed and the temping trio was on their way to Branson, Missouri, for a postholiday vacation. He’d wanted to stay home with her, and she hadn’t complained too much. “So, he has an opening if you know anyone looking for a job.”
Grace grinned and said, “That’s a plum job. I’ll ask around.”
Lily sighed happily as she and Grace watched LuAnn look up at Maynard the ex-rodeo clown. He pulled her gently into his embrace and swept her around the dance floor.
A little while later, Lily blew a kiss as she slipped away from her men after reassuring them that the ache in her head was barely noticeable. They might not understand, but there was no way she could sit still when Grace smiled at her from Ethan’s side by the dance floor and crooked her finger at her.
Lily’s arms rose above her head and pure, unadulterated joy flowed in her veins as Kelly Clarkson’s spirited vocals poured out of the speakers. The girls all hooted and joined her, forming a circle around her as she moved to the music of “Stronger.” She felt triumph in every beat in her heart.
It was JT’s choice to die in his folly, thinking he could take her out of Divine. She was in Divine, and Divine was in her. She was there to stay, and she planned to never leave again. The music flowed through her muscles, and she’d never felt stronger in her life. Sure she was injured, but she was a survivor. That chapter of her life was over, and she hooted in happiness with the other girls as the song came to an end. They closed in around her and hugged her and cheered for her.
The group parted suddenly on the dance floor. Lily turned and saw Clay and Del both walk toward her. She gasped when they both stopped and knelt on one knee.
One of the women gasped and another sobbed as Clay removed a white velvet ring box from his pocket. Both Clay and Del’s faces were intense with emotion. Clay’s playful green-gold eyes and Del’s soulful gray-green eyes smoldered with love and desire for her. Clay opened the box to show her the ring, and they each held out a work-roughened hand to her.
Clay entwined her fingers with his as he said, “I lost you once, Lily. Now I have you back in my life and I never want to let you go. Marry me?”
Feminine-sounding sniffles could be heard all around them.
Del claimed her other hand and said, “I love you, Lily. The day you came back into my life was the happiest day…until this one. Say you’ll marry me.”
She pulled them to their feet and said, “Today was the start of the best part of my life. I’m free and I’m yours.” The men rose and crushed her between them, bestowing kisses to whatever part of her they could reach as she held on tight.
Like the phoenix bird that Seth was tattooing for her and each of her men, Lily felt herself soar as she rose from the ashes of her old life.
THE END
WWW.HEATHERRAINIER.COM
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I live in South Central Texas, writing the type of novel I love to read: more erotic and edgy than the mainstream, with plenty of sweet romance mixed in. I write erotic romances exclusively for Siren Publishing, under their Everlasting imprint. My love of romantic fiction began as a teenager when my mom gave me copies of Kathleen Woodiwiss’s “The Flame and the Flower” and Bertrice Small’s “Skye O'Malley.” To this day I'm pretty sure that was her idea of the “birds and the bees” talk.
My husband and I met in a scenario very much like the ones I’ve written about. He was the alpha hero who stepped in when this “damsel in distress” needed rescuing from a nefarious pervert. It’s no wonder I went on to write erotic romance when I had him to inspire me. My favorite type of hero is the gentle, lovable giant but readers will discover a variety of heroes and alphas in my novels, from nearly perfect to very flawed. I hope readers relate to my heroines, and the challenges and dilemmas they face head-on.
I love to chat with readers on Facebook. When I actually remember to post my articles, I like to talk about my books and whatever else comes to mind at When One is Not Enough, a ménage romance author’s group blog, and my own blog, The Divine Tease. I'm also a regular participant at Righteous Perverts Live Chats every Wednesday night at 8:00 pm (central) at www.righteousperverts.com. When not pounding on my keyboard, I'm usually busy corralling my kids or loving on my smokin’ hot husband, who thankfully loves to cook.
Also by Heather Rain
ier
Ménage Everlasting: Divine Creek Ranch 1: Divine Grace
Ménage Everlasting: Divine Creek Ranch 2:
Her Gentle Giant, Part 1: No Regrets
Ménage Everlasting: Divine Creek Ranch 2:
Her Gentle Giant, Part 2: Remember to Dance
Ménage Everlasting: Divine Creek Ranch 3: Heavenly Angel
Ménage Everlasting: Divine Creek Ranch 4:
Rosemary’s Double Delight
Everlasting Classic: Divine Creek Ranch 5: Spurs and Heels
Ménage Everlasting: Divine Creek Ranch 6: Maya’s Triple Dare
Ménage Everlasting: Divine Creek Ranch 7: Summer’s Indiscretion
Ménage Everlasting: Divine Creek Ranch 8:
Lydia’s Twin Temptation
Ménage Everlasting: Divine Creek Ranch 9:
Their Divine Doctor, A Holiday Ménage
Available at
BOOKSTRAND.COM
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Divine Phoenix [Divine Creek Ranch 10] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 36