“You’re ours, and nothing is ever going to change that.” Jackson ran his other hand over her head. “So it’s your call, Tinker Bell.”
She’d known they would stand with her, no matter what. She took a moment to think about what she’d already said to Jeremy. She really was lucky, all things considered. Yes, she’d been through hell. But she had come out of it stronger, better, and with two smoking hot men who loved her beyond all reason.
How many women could say that?
“You just tell me where I have to be and when. I was powerless when he abused me. I’m not powerless anymore.”
Kate gave her a huge grin. “I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. We are all so proud of you.”
Kate’s words warmed her down to her soul, as did one other person’s pride in her.
She was proud of herself, of the person she had become, and the life she was determined to build.
Chapter 22
“I guess it makes perfect sense. If the beds and the showers and the tubs are all ‘Lusty-sized,’ I guess the sleepovers should be, too.” Ari looked around the room at all the women who had gathered, just to hang out.
“I think I’m a little overwhelmed,” Carol said. Then she grinned. “My guys were trying to get from me what all this was going to be about. I told them not to worry. It was just women getting together to talk about men.”
“Oh, that was a good one. And a good way to torture them, just a little.” Chloe beamed. “Once we saw how big the list of attendees was getting, we decided to have it here at the Big House—and in the great room,” Chloe said. “It’s a big space but it always seems so friendly to me.”
“This sleepover was definitely an idea that took on a life of its own.” Tasha Garwood shook her head, but she was smiling.
“I think this was a wonderful idea!” Kate Benedict, clad in a floor-length flannel night gown, settled herself into one of the chairs that lined the great room.
The women had brought sleeping bags and inflatable mattresses, blankets and food and wine. Country music played in the background, and there was such laughter and chatter that Ari found the whole event simply amazing.
These were the women she worked with, and the women she’d had as clients. Some she knew really well, and some only a little. There were women of her own generation—her coworkers and Ginny, Susan, Kelsey, Tracy, Tamara, Julia—and others, more than she could count. Then there were more seasoned women—Bernice and Abigail Benedict, Samantha Kendall and Anna Jessop. And, of course, Grandma Kate.
“Do you recall last year, Grandma, when the men herded us into this very house, and set Steven as a guard on us?” Susan asked.
“I do indeed.”
Bernice came into the room carrying a tray of chocolate chip cookies. The aroma of them exploded into the air, and Ari’s mouth watered. Abigail came in right behind her sister-in-law, pushing a tray with wine glasses, already filled.
Ari wasn’t much of a wine drinker but she reached for a glass of white wine and a warm cookie. “I can honestly say I have never had this particular combination before.” Then she looked at Susan. “Why did the men do that? Herd you all into this house?”
“They can’t help themselves sometimes,” Bernice said. “Their protective warrior side kicks in, and they just act.”
“In this case, however, they acted rashly—and falsely,” Tracy said. “That was when a drug lord had put a contract out on Peter, and we knew he was headed our way.”
“So the men circled their wagons by rounding y’all up?” Carol asked.
Julia giggled. “Uh-huh. And as we were sitting here, discussing the matter over tea, we realized the man wasn’t going to head for Tracy’s place, like the men all thought he would.”
“He would head for the clinic, because that’s where he would believe Peter would be.” Tracy nodded.
“Okay, you lost me,” Ari said.
“He’d already arranged to have Peter’s ‘woman’ kidnapped. But the woman his minion grabbed was Julia, not Tracy,” Ginny said. “He thought, when she’d been rescued, that she was badly injured—I do believe that was your man, Emily Anne, who gave him that false impression—and pointed him toward Lusty.”
“It was Connor,” Emily Anne said. “Before he quit working that secret government job. He told me all about it.”
“That’s why you reasoned he’d be heading for the clinic!” Carol said.
“We all figured out that was indeed where he would be going. We also knew that if we told the men this, they wouldn’t listen to us. They already had come up with their ‘master’ plan and were all hunkered down around Peter’s house, with two of my sons sitting around Main Street on look-out duty.” Kate sighed.
“I’ve heard that men sometimes fail to understand how logical we women can be,” Ari said.
“Sometimes?” Anna shook her head. “It’s just a good thing that we women can understand our men. It allows us to find ways to work around them, when we have to.”
“Amen to that,” Samantha said. “I was out of town at the time and missed all this excitement.”
“So what happened?” Ari settled herself on a cushion on the floor by Grandma Kate’s chair.
“We came up with a plan. Kelsey was sent out to distract her husband,” Tracy giggled, “and the rest of us headed to the clinic.”
“Boy howdy, were the men pissed when we succeeded in nabbing that bugger.”
Ari laughed along with everyone else. She happened to look over at Chloe, and her smile was a little less bright than everyone else’s. Daring when she never would have in the past, she said, “What you went through with your own trial by fire must have been a nightmare for you.”
“And still is from time to time,” Chloe said. Then she looked at Samantha, and then at Ginny. “But I’m not sorry. I was only the agent of what happened in that apartment that day. Lockwood wrote his own sentence, long ago. But if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t change the outcome. Grant had a very hard time, later, knowing that I’d had to do what he would rather have done for me. I think he has more nightmares about that than I do.”
“It’s the quality that makes men wonderful, and exasperating at the same time.” Kate’s voice, the dulcet tone now familiar and loved, turned everyone’s attention to her. “Men are physically stronger. But women—women are emotionally, and spiritually stronger. We cry, and thank God for that. But our tears cleanse. They wash away old garbage, and make room for new beginnings.”
“Women are quite often the glue that binds together families, churches, and communities,” Samantha said. “We’re the ones who hold the hearts of our men and our children in our hands.”
“Being a woman isn’t easy,” Bernice said. “But the satisfaction we feel, when we cradle our husbands between our thighs, or our babies to our breasts, is unrivaled by any accomplishment anyone could name.”
“We can earn a living, and make a home,” Abigail said. “We can empower our daughters and our sons to go out into the world and make a difference—or to be a little league coach and make just as big a difference right here at home.”
“Throughout history, our strengths have been noted, and at times, feared,” Anna said. “This is why for so many years the world of man sought to control and corral us with laws and societal structure. But in the end, we’ve prevailed, regardless of the apparent limitations within which we live.”
“We prevail and we flourish, because our spirits are indomitable.” Kate looked around the room, and then met Ari’s gaze. “We have all of us faced moments when we’ve doubted our decisions, and sometimes, our own worth. But in the end, if we are lucky, our sisters will gather around us, and bolster us, and reflect back to us the good, strong, loving women we are.”
“I never had sisters or a mother to love me,” Ari said. “And I’ve done things of which I am not proud. But I understand, here and now, that all these things had to be so that in the end, I could come here, to this place—to all of you.” She raised
her glass of wine and knew, even as she did, and even as her tears tracked down her face, that she belonged here, among these wonderful women. “To the women of Lusty. May we continue to love—and confound—our men!”
“Oh, here, here!” Kate raised our glass. “To the women of Lusty!”
Ari thought it was the most satisfying toast anyone ever made.
* * * *
Jackson stopped out on the sidewalk of the Lusty Clinic and looked up at the sky. If he hadn’t known they were already in October, the sky would have told him with its paler blue tint. Texas or Montana, a man could know where he was by just looking at what Mother Nature gave him. Mother Nature, and fate. He slid his arm around Ari when she moved into his left side.
On his right, his brother—his twin and best friend—clapped him on the shoulder.
“Feel better?” Cord asked.
“Hell, yeah. Stupid of me to put off asking those questions out of fear.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it, brother, I’d have probably done the same thing.”
Jackson doubted that. Of the two of them, Cord was the more strategic thinker. Jackson was usually just the “get ’er done” guy. This time, it had worked to his disadvantage, and he’d gone two full months living in fear that one wrong move would land him in a wheelchair, or the morgue.
He had to avoid concussions, of course. But otherwise, he could just live his life. Robert suggested that if he was still concerned—and who wouldn’t be—they could schedule CT scans every few years.
It sounded like a plan to him.
Speaking of plans. He looked over at Cord and raised one eyebrow. His brother nodded. He looked down and then kissed the top of Ari’s head. “Hey, Tinker Bell, have you ever been camping?”
“Does sleeping on a half piece of cardboard over a city sewer grate in winter count?”
She’d been smiling as she said that, but he shuddered anyway. “No, that doesn’t count, baby. We want to take you camping, just overnight. We have a tent and an air mattress. And you don’t have to worry about being cold or feeling alone, because we’re going to keep you tucked in nice and tight between us.”
“That’s a sacred promise, Red. You’ll never feel cold, or alone, ever again.”
“Well, in that case, I would love to go camping with you.”
They’d already had the truck packed with everything they needed. Cord drove, heading north out of town, and then turning east on one of the gravel roads. Fifteen minutes later, he turned the truck onto the beginnings of a new driveway, and continued on past it.
“This is where you brought me that night,” Ari said. “This is your land.”
“That’s right. I’m impressed you recognized it, since you’ve only seen it in the starlight.”
“That was a special night for me, and I remember, because of the way the two of you talked about this land.”
“It’s in our genes,” Cord said.
“Grandma Kate told us that every Benedict since Caleb and Joshua has had a visceral connection to the land. I think that’s true, whether you’re a Benedict born in Montana, or Texas.”
“Aren’t you tied to Montana land, then?”
“No, Tink. It’s not the state or the location.” Cord had stopped the truck not far from where they’d parked that other night. Just ahead was that slight rise of land. Jackson got out of the truck and held his hand out for their woman.
Cord joined them and took her other hand as they led her to that hillock. “Now that you can see what you’re looking at, what do you think?” he asked.
Ari looked around, as she had before, this time seeing the features of the acreage in the late afternoon sunlight.
The land had been left fallow, unused all these years. Waiting. He and Cord didn’t need much. The truth was they had enough money invested to do them the rest of their lives. But it wasn’t in their nature to be idle, or to trade on past celebrity.
“It’s good land. What kind of a house would you build here?” she asked.
“What kind would you?” Cord turned the question right around to her.
“It’s not my land,” Ari said.
“About that.” Jackson turned her, so that she faced him. He picked up her right hand. “I love you. God, Ari, I love you more than I have words to say. You complete me. When I’m with you, and when Cord is with us, I feel—I feel like a king. As if everything is new and possible. So let’s build a house here big enough and strong enough to hold the occasional spat and a ton of love. Let’s build a house comfortable enough to raise a family. Let’s build us a home, together. Ari, will you marry me?”
They didn’t give her a moment to even consider. Cord picked up her left hand, and kissed it. “I love you so much, Ari Stein. You’re what had been missing all these years, and I never even knew it, until that first moment when you sneered at me.”
Ari laughed, even though her beautiful eyes had overflowed with tears. Jackson didn’t mind these tears in the least, because they weren’t tears wrung from pain.
“Ari, I can’t imagine my life without you. Please marry me. Marry us both, and let’s begin, together, to fashion our very own happy-ever-after.”
“Yes. Oh, God, yes. I love you both so much. I never imagined I could have a happy-ever-after. Thank you. Thank you for loving me and saving me.”
“Oh, baby, you’re the one who saved us.” Jackson kissed her, a sweet, chaste kiss to seal the deal, and then handed her over to his brother.
Cord did the same thing, and then grinned, and looked to him. He knew his cue, and reached into his pocket for the ring.
“We had this made especially for you over in Divine. Fellow by the name of Clay Cook is an artist when it comes to designing jewelry. Emerald, because they remind us of your eyes. Tear-drop cut, because with every tear you shed, you were healing, and we both feel so grateful to have had a hand in that. And those diamonds on either side? That’s us—that’s how we’re going to be, with you between us for the rest of our lives.”
“It’s the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen.”
“We got it inscribed, too,” Cord said.
Rather than look herself, she tilted her head and looked from one to the other of them.
Jackson felt his face color just a bit, and thought it was a hell of a time to discover that after all he’d done in his life, he could still blush. “It says, ‘You brought the magic, you are the magic.’ A little hokey, but it’s how we feel.”
“I don’t think it’s hokey at all.” She held out her hand and waited. Jackson picked the ring out of the box, and turned it so his brother could get his fingers on it, too. They’d actually practiced this part, putting the ring on a small skewer, because they didn’t know if they could do this together—and they so very much wanted to.
Together, they slid the ring onto her finger.
“Thank you. It’s beautiful. I don’t think I could be any happier than I am right now. I know the next few days are going to be tough. I’m really not looking forward to this trip to Indiana. But I also know that you’ll be with me through it all. I’ve never had anyone to lean on when things have been tough.”
Jackson picked up her left hand, and then kissed her there, right on the top of the ring they’d put on her. “We’re yours, Tink. There’s no place else on earth we’d rather be than right there beside you.”
* * * *
The office smelled a little bit of leather and lemon oil, the latter likely used to polish the mahogany desk.
The large window that looked out over downtown Indianapolis glistened in the mid-day sun. Outside, trees wore their coats of autumn splendor, vibrating in the brisk wind of an Indiana fall day. Ari suppressed a shiver. She was looking forward to getting back home. Back to Lusty.
They couldn’t leave just yet. Almost, but not quite. There was still business to attend to.
Ari had never been in a District Attorney’s office before. The fact that it was DA himself, Edgar Reynolds, who had interviewed
her and her stepbrother had been a bit of a surprise. She thought that she would be dealing with a clerk, or even an assistant district attorney.
Probably the combination of having to prosecute a United States Congressman combined with being represented by Jake Kendall and the Lusty Town Trust of Central Texas. She wasn’t unaware of the fact that the Benedicts, Kendalls and Jessops were pretty important people, and not only in Texas.
A knock at the door announced the arrival of Mr. Reynold’s administrative assistant. She handed the two packets of papers she carried to the DA, then stayed to show them what they had to do.
The next few minutes were filled with both her and Jeremy each reading, and then signing their statements. Jake, Jackson, and Cord had signed as witnesses.
Her men had been phenomenal during the entire afternoon. They’d each held her hands as she’d recounted, in necessary graphic detail, what she had suffered at the hands of her stepfather, Thaddeus Bishop.
Jeremy had given his accounting before she’d arrived, and had offered to step out while she’d given hers.
Now it was nearly over. Thank God.
“Thank you for coming forward, and for being willing to testify at trial.” Mr. Reynolds directed his comments to both her and Jeremy. “I’m not going to sugar coat things for you. Unless the Congressman pleads ‘no contest’, you will have to come back and testify in open court. That will be unpleasant for you both.”
She shared a look with Jeremy. Then she met the gaze of each of her men in turn. “Yes, it will be unpleasant, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll be here.”
“As will I,” Jeremy said. “He’s gotten away with too much for too long. No more.”
Reynolds sat back and then nodded to Jake.
“Ari?”
“Yes, Jake?”
“We’ve made arrangements for something, if you want to take advantage.”
She couldn’t claim to know Jake Kendall all that well, but something in the man’s tone alerted her. She gave him her full attention. “You’ve made arrangements for what?”
Love Under Two Quarterbacks [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 24