by Sable Hunter
LOVE FOUND A WAY
HELL YEAH!
BY
SABLE HUNTER
and
RYAN O’LEARY
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Love Found a Way
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2016 © Sable Hunter
Cover by JRA Stevens
Down Write Nuts
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
At six-foot-six and two hundred-fifty pounds, T-Rex Beaumont covers the ground he walks on and men step aside when he passes by. Raised in an abusive family, T is convinced he’s inherited his father’s dangerous temper. He’s resigned himself to being alone, so afraid he’ll hurt someone he loves…until his world is turned upside down by a woman who won’t take no for an answer.
Glory Bee Hudson has her own set of issues. She’s a wanderer, a modern-day Gypsy who has made a habit of trying to outrun the things that threaten to conquer her. Childhood leukemia. An uncaring family. A heart that isn’t nearly as strong as her spirit. But no matter how hard she tries, Glory can’t escape her uncertain future.
When these two meet, sparks fly. T sees a temptation he must resist and Glory sees a man who doesn’t know his own appeal. Determined to convince him he’s worthy of love, she pursues T with unrelenting fervor. After being hit by Hurricane Glory, he succumbs, unable to resist her beauty, sweet sexiness, and joy of life. Both agree their liaison is temporary. Neither see love and a future in their stars.
But fate has another idea. The impossible occurs. Love finds a way to give them exactly what they need – each other.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE END
About the Author:
Other Titles from Sable Hunter:
CHAPTER ONE
PROLOGUE
Rex Allen Beaumont Jr. (T-Rex) as a young man
“Pick up those post hole diggers and get to work. I want every one of these posts in place before you come in for supper. Do you hear me?” The voice giving the directions was hard and harsh.
“Yes, sir.” T-Rex didn’t argue. He never argued with his father. He knew better. Rex Beaumont Sr. would not hesitate to knock T flat of his ass for talking back to him. Digging the holes was no problem, the work needed to be done and he would do it. A fence across this section would keep the pigs his father wanted to buy from escaping into the swamp. The barrier might keep the gators from getting to the pigs, but T doubted it. A worry he knew to keep to himself.
As he worked, he let his mind wander to what he would do when he was finally able to get the hell out of this place. T dreamed of going to New Orleans, maybe getting work on a tugboat or on a construction crew of some kind. Anything to get away from his old man.
Thunk! Thunk! He pounded the sharp edges of the tool into the dense gumbo clay, forcing the blades deeper, then tugging them out. “Dammit!” With each time pass he stopped to scrape away the thick, sticky mud, there was just no shaking it off. The clay clung to the steel like despair clung to his soul. Over and over he repeated the process, placing half a dozen posts before he stopped to wipe the sweat from his brow and grab some water. As he drank deeply, he let his eyes rove around the swamp he loved so well.
His home.
What a shame he’d have to leave a place he cherished to escape a reality he hated.
T knew every square inch of this vast, green, water-logged expanse as well as he knew the back of his hand. He knew the banks where the big alligators basked in the sun and the trees the big snakes seemed to favor. He often took his sister, Alice, on long walks down to the inlet to see the herons nesting, and he gathered his mother beautiful flowers where the hidden fields of purple iris grew.
Anything to get out of the house when his father, Big Rex, was home.
Unfortunately, leaving, keeping his distance, came with a hidden cost. When he was gone, he wasn’t there to protect his mother and sister from his father’s angry fists.
As he mused about the harsh realities of his life, he fanned a mosquito away from his face, his eyes scanning the area. Just standing still in this one place, he could see an array of life on the bayou. The bump of a bull gator’s eyes and forehead broke the surface of the slow-moving waters. A few yards away, a big, black, coach whip snake lay draped over a cypress knee, still as a stick, waiting for a frog to come hopping by. Even closer, a dragonfly buzzed around a palmetto bush, the creature’s iridescent wings reflecting shades of opalescent pink and blue in the dazzling light of the sun.
Draining the water bottle, he tossed it into a nearby wheelbarrow, the sudden noise causing the snake to slither away and the gator to sink beneath the green water. Only the dragonfly seemed unperturbed by his presence. T picked up the post hole diggers to go back to work, when he heard it…
“T-Rex, help me!” His sister’s scream flew from the front porch of their Louisiana swamp house straight to his ears.
At the desperate, heart-rending sound, T started running, post hole diggers in hand. Knowing his father and the rampages he was capable of throwing, the sharp tool might come in handy. “Alice!” he yelled, mainly to let her know he was coming to her as fast as he could. He jumped over palmetto bushes, bounded over bogs, and splashed through shallow water. As he ran, he startled a nutria rat, causing it to rush into the bayou with a splash.
T might be only sixteen, but he was almost a match for his father – almost. Big Rex was a bull of a man, six-foot six, three-hundred pounds. He had three inches and a hundred pounds on his son, but what advantage Rex might have in bulk, T claimed the upper-hand in youth and speed. “Alice!”
When he erupted from the dense undergrowth into the clearing behind his family’s home, he could hear the ruckus. The slaps and blows his father was doling out on his hapless sister rang loudly in the stark, Louisiana, midday heat. “Stop!” he bellowed, rounding the corner. “Stop, Dad!” Now, he could see it wasn’t only Alice in the eye of the storm, his mother was doing her best to stop him, yanking at his arm, earning herself a blow and a fierce push to the ground.
“Stay out of this, woman!” Big Rex snarled.
The closer T came, the hotter his anger grew. Alice barely weighed a hundred pounds, and his father was jerking her around like a rag doll. “If I catch you with that no-count Wilson boy again, I’ll kill him.”
“Daddy, no. We didn’t do nuthin’,” Alice protested weakly between sobs.
Her protest only ea
rned her another punch, a punch so hard she fell backwards off the porch. T raced to catch her, but arrived only in time to help his sister to her feet. “Are you okay?” Alice was a year and a half older than him, yet he towered over her. “God, your lip is bleeding, sis.”
“I’m okay,” she murmured softly. “It’s nothing.”
“Wait and see what I do to her next time,” Big Rex growled.
Having all he could stomach of his father’s cruel tirade, T steadied his sister, then jumped on the porch and seized Big Rex by the shoulders before he could go for his wife. “Stop it! What’s wrong with you? We’re your family!” Holding the big man was like trying to hang onto a mad grizzly.
“Wrong with me?” the older man bellowed. “What’s wrong with you? Are you disrespecting your old man again?” Rex fought free from his son’s grasp and pulled back his fist. His mother, frail and weeping, grabbed her husband’s arm, only to have him fling her to one side like so much garbage. “Get off me, bitch!”
“No! Enough!” Hurt and devastated beyond belief, T just wanted it all to stop. “You’re not going to keep doing this!” Launching himself at his father, T grabbed him around the shoulders and attempted to wrestle the big man to the ground.
“Fuckin’ little upstart!” With a hard yank, Rex tossed T to one side, but instead of walking off, he stalked forward. “You don’t interfere in my business. Do you understand? I brought you into this world and I can take you out.” Taking his son by the collar, Big Rex rammed a fist into T’s face so hard that everything went black.
Glory Bee as a child.
“I don’t feel good, Mama,” Glory whispered against the soft material of her mother’s dress. She knelt, her head in her mother’s lap, too sick to care she’d have grass stains on her knees when she arose.
Vivienne stroked her daughter’s long, golden hair. “I know. You’ve had a hard time, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I’m just so tired.”
“We’re all tired, Glory.” Her mother’s voice was full of overtones. Hopelessness. Resignation.
“I’m sorry, Mama.” Picking up some of the fabric of her mother’s skirt, she rubbed the material nervously between her fingers. At fifteen-years old, she understood her predicament too well. Living with acute lymphoblastic leukemia was rough, but seeing what it did to her family was even worse. Her father hadn’t been able to take the pressure; he’d walked out when she was six. Now, even though her stepfather and mother were good to her, she could hear them arguing late at night over the amount of time and money her illness consumed.
“Let’s pray this new drug the doctors are planning on giving you works.”
“Do you think it will?” Truthfully, Glory was afraid to look beyond today. Tomorrow seemed so elusive.
“It certainly costs enough.”
Vivienne’s harsh laugh after her comment wasn’t meant to hurt Glory, but it did. “I know, I’m sorry,” she whispered again.
“Mama! I’m hungry!”
Her little sister stood in the doorway. She wouldn’t come near Glory if she could help it. Little Lexi didn’t understand what was wrong with her sister, so she just stayed clear. Sitting up, Glory shuffled to one side so her mother could rise.
“Do you want something to eat too, Glory?”
“No.” Glory shook her head. “I think I’ll just rest.”
“All right, come inside soon, it’ll be dark before you know it. Remember, you have a doctor’s appointment in the morning, so do your homework tonight if you feel like it. You’re so far behind, I’m not sure you’ll ever catch up.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She watched her pretty, young mother take Lexi’s hand and laugh at something the little girl said in her high, squeaky voice. Glory couldn’t remember the last time her mother smiled at her. Pangs of regret hung heavily in her chest. She’d missed so much because of this damn disease.
If she ever felt like it, Glory intended to take life by storm.
One day changes everything
T-Rex
Again. It was happening again.
T-Rex steeled himself for what he was about to find. He could hear his sister’s screams even before he brought his pickup to a full stop. The old man was at it again.
Slamming on the brakes, he threw the truck into gear. When his mother called him to say his father was drunk and going crazy, T had been about a half mile away helping his friend, Spicer Ford, work on his boat. He’d dropped everything and driven like a bat out of hell to get here. Over the last few years, their family situation had progressively grown worse. His father’s temper was hotter and his ability to restrain himself was nil, Rex Sr. seemed to have grown more and more unreasonable…and more dangerous.
Big Rex wasn’t the only one who had changed. T was different also.
He was bigger, now the same size as his father. He was older, twenty-one, a man in his prime. And he was angrier – sick and tired of the way his father abused his mother and his sister.
Jumping out of the vehicle, he ran toward the house, making massive strides with his long legs. The sound of breaking glass and faint cries for help spurred him on. In one powerful bound, he went from the bottom step of the porch to the top, skipping four. “Ma! Alice!” He knew his sister was visiting from college. If he’d been her, he would’ve stayed far away. T did his best to provide for Alice, taking extra jobs to supplement the scholarships she won. If all went well, his sister would be a registered nurse soon and could escape this hell hole.
“Please, Rex! No!”
Even as he pulled open the door, he could hear the slap and his mother’s scream. When he barreled in, T was horrified to see his sister held high in the air, his father’s huge hands wrapped around her neck. Squeezing.
“Put her down!” he exclaimed, rushing over and wresting Alice from the madman’s grasp. “Call the ambulance, Mom!” T could see his sister was badly hurt. Unconscious. Blood was coming from her mouth. She’d been severely beaten and choked. “After you call the ambulance, call the cops!” T shouted as he gently laid his sister on the floor. “I can’t fuckin’ believe this!”
“Watch how you talk in my house, boy!” Big Rex snarled as he grabbed T’s collar from behind. At the jerk on his clothing, T stood, his view of the world and his home becoming skewed by his fury.
T saw red.
For years, he’d tried to stand between Big Rex Beaumont and his wife and daughter. He dreaded leaving his father alone with them. T had begged them repeatedly to walk away from the mine field their home had become over the years.
Everything slowed, became dream-like. He could see the walls, the worn furniture, the curtains, the carpet – the photos on the mantle, his mother’s knick-knacks on the shelves. Everything should’ve been familiar, but seen through the haze of rage, it was as if he were a stranger in a strange place.
“She’s not breathing!” Doreen Beaumont wailed, even as his father began striking T-Rex - over and over – in the face, his gut, his chest. One hard pounding blow after another. Rex Beaumont’s rancid breath fanned hot over T’s face. Fending off the pounding, he was achingly aware of his sister’s still, broken body behind him.
“She’s dead. Alice is dead!” his mother screamed.
Agony pierced T’s heart as he processed the nightmare. The wild look in his father’s eyes as he continued his maniacal attack enraged T. A rising tide of rage at the senseless scenario engulfed him and for the first time, he allowed himself to fight back, to retaliate, to push – to beat back at the onslaught of hatred from the one man who should have protected them, not hurt them. “STOP!” he bellowed, shoving his father away. “No more!”
T’s strength was fueled by angry adrenaline and the force he put behind the push propelled Big Rex Beaumont backwards with flailing arms. Losing his balance, he careened against the stone fireplace, falling hard, his skull bashing against the rock hearth with an awful, audible crack.
For one heartbreaking moment, everything went still.
T
stood, chest heaving, the realization of all that was happening crystalized in one horrific dawning. On one hand, his father lay deathly still, blood pooling beneath his head. On the other, his sister hung limply in his mother’s clutching arms. Both sights were more macabre than any he could remember.
But even worse was his mother…
She was gazing at him with the same expression as when she would face her abusive husband.
Fear. The look on his mother’s face when she met his eyes was fear…of him.
Glory Unplugged
“Slow down, Glory,” her mother chided. “You don’t have to do everything all at once.”
Glory flung herself down on the grass at her mother’s feet. Her favorite place to be. She was panting from the exertion and the Louisiana heat. “I can’t help it, Mama. I’m a busy bee.” There didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day for her to accomplish everything she craved to do.
Running by the creek, catching tadpoles.
Climbing the big oak in the backyard.
Chasing butterflies.
Lying on her back in the grass at night to count stars.
Hopscotch. Jumping rope. Swinging in the park.
Swimming. Riding her bike. Making friends.
Fishing. Picnics. Camping out.
At sixteen, most folks would consider her too old to be doing some of the activities she was enjoying. Glory didn’t care. She’d missed so much. Every moment she could, she raced at a frantic pace, playing catch-up on life. Nothing seemed mundane, nothing seemed boring. She wanted to do everything, go everywhere.
More than anything, Glory loved to take long walks. Even when she’d been sick with leukemia, it had seemed to her if she could just walk off and keep going, she’d be able to leave her disease behind. Anytime she felt confused or hurt, going on walkabout as she called it, always seemed to help. There’d been times her folks had to come looking for her, but they seldom found her. When she’d tire, Glory would just lie down to rest on soft grass or straw until she felt like getting up and going farther.