Chapter 42 #2
He disappeared and returned quickly with the rope, hog-tying the guy. He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Relief filled her, and she started to breathe easier. At least she did until she saw Harvey’s face as he glared up at her. “How the fuck did you get up there?”
“With the ladder?” she said quietly.
“And where is the ladder now?”
“Down on the ground. Oh shit! Watch out for Chuck Roast!”
Harvey turned to see the steer pawing the ground behind him.
But he’d had enough. He had had enough. No damn steer who thought he was a bull was going to attack him.
He wanted Lily down off the roof and safely in his arms, and then he wanted her over his lap, where he was going to spank her ass until his arm tired.
As he’d been driving away, something had been niggling at him. He’d known that there was something he was missing.
She wouldn’t just change her mind like that. He’d let his hurt feelings overrule his common sense.
She did love him. He knew that she did.
And so he’d turned around, realizing that something had to be wrong. Never in a million years would he have guessed that she’d been threatened by a man with a gun.
“Stop,” he told the steer, holding out his hand. To his shock, it actually worked. Chuck Roast came to a stop and stared at him.
Harvey turned and walked toward the barn.
“Oh my God, he’s following you, but he’s looking at you like he loves you,” Lily said. “How did you do that?”
“Chuck Roast knows what’s good for him, and he knows that what’s good for him is to obey me.” He held a finger up to her. “You would do well to learn that, Lily St. Clary. I can’t believe you sent me away like that, that you lied to me.”
“He threatened Piggy Wiggy!” she cried. “He had a gun. He was going to shoot her unless I sent you away. Clem loves Piggy Wiggy. She loves all the animals on this ranch, and so do I. I couldn’t risk their lives.
And I definitely couldn’t risk yours. Because he threatened to shoot you too unless I managed to send you away.
I’m so sorry, Harvey. I didn’t mean a word of it. ”
He felt some of the tension inside him ease.
“I know you didn’t mean a word of it, baby, but that doesn’t mean that your ass isn’t toast as soon as I get you down from there.
” Actually, maybe that was a bit harsh, considering everything she’d just been through. “And once you’ve recovered from this.”
He found the ladder and set it up, but then he realized he had another problem. He didn’t want her climbing down on her own, so he started to climb up.
“What are you doing?” she called out as she peered down over the roof at him.
“Don’t you move,” he snapped. “I don’t want you moving one inch. You might fall off.”
“I’ve been up here before, and I didn’t fall,” she told him.
“Why the hell did you come up here before?” he snarled.
“To get away from Chuck Roast when he was trying to stampede me. Only that time, the ladder fell over and disappeared.”
“It disappeared,” he asked. “How did it disappear?”
“The llamas love the ladder. I don’t know why, but they like to cart it off. Don’t worry, they’re stuck in the back paddock. Jaret didn’t want them anywhere close while he was patching the roof yesterday.”
“I do not like that you had to climb up onto a barn roof to get away from a steer.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t like it either,” she said. “I got stuck up here when the llamas took the ladder. So I had to wait until someone came home.”
Yeah, he really, really didn’t like that.
He couldn’t believe she’d been here five nights and Clem hadn’t called him until last night. Why hadn’t she contacted him earlier?
Maybe because Lily needed some time here with her sister.
Perhaps. But she could have given him a bit of a heads up.
“Right, I’m coming up to get you. Stay there,” he ordered.
“I can come down on my own,” she told him. “I’ve done it before.”
“Stay there. Hear me?” he said sternly.
“Oh, all right,” she said.
“Good girl,” he told her.
She peered at him over the edge of the roof with wide eyes.
“And stay back from the edge,” he added, feeling alarmed. She could easily slip, fall, and break her neck.
God, he had to get her away from this place. There were too many hazards.
“It’s really all right,” she said. “I’m far more competent on the roof now than I was last time.
I nearly slipped off last time. Of course, when I flew up here with that asshole chasing me, I had the gun in my hand, so I was a bit unsteady and slower than I should have been.
And Chuck Roast knocked the ladder away right as I had reached the roof.
So I was kind of dangling there for a moment.
Good news is that I have way more upper body strength than I thought. ”
“You’re giving me an ulcer,” he told her. He could easily picture that in his mind, and he had to pause for a second on the ladder to wipe his brain clear.
She’s safe. She’s safe. Nothing will happen to her again.
Only there was a man with a gun who had threatened her, then chased her as she climbed a ladder with a loaded gun that could have gone off at any moment.
Not to mention clinging to the roof of a barn with said loaded gun. Oh, fuck. Yeah, he was going to vomit.
“Are you sure it’s an ulcer and not indigestion?” she asked, “Jaret apparently gets a lot of indigestion.”
“If Clem is anything like you, then I understand.”
“Oh, you think me and Clem are alike? Thank you. I’d love to be like Clem. She’s so brave, courageous, and funny. Hey, maybe you and Jaret can form a support group. Husbands of St. Clary women.”
He’d reached the top by then and watched as her face grew pale.
“Husband, huh? I like the sound of that.”
“You do?” she whispered.
“Of course I do. I’m going to get a ring on that finger as soon as I can, and then you won’t be able to leave me again. Or tell me to go away. Because once you marry me, it’s forever, Lily St. Clary. And there is no getting away from me once you’re my wife.”
“I don’t want to,” she told him. “I didn’t want to push you away. I was just doing what I thought was best.”
“Yeah, what you thought was best,” he said as he climbed up onto the roof and took the gun.
Thank fuck the safety was on. He could breathe a bit easier now.
He set the gun to one side and drew her close to his side. “But it wasn’t for the best, was it?”
“He would have shot you,” she exclaimed. “I had to send you away. How come you came back anyway?”
“I came back because I realized you wouldn’t have just changed your mind like that.
And I’d let my hurt feelings and temper rule rather than my brain.
Oh, and I would rather he was threatening me than you,” he told her.
“Thinking about you running away from him, climbing onto a roof with a loaded gun, and then clinging to the roof of the barn . . . yeah, I really don’t want to think about that at all, and I would much rather you hadn’t lived it.
So if there is ever a threat to you again, you will let me handle it. ”
“I don’t know if I can promise that,” she said.
“You will promise it, mo bhreáthracht. Trust me. After you get your ass spanked, you won’t ever want to disobey me on this.”
“Not sure I want a spanking,” she said.
“Pretty sure you don’t get a choice.”
“Hey, that’s rude. You said that I did, that I could say if I didn’t want that.”
“That was before you sent me away while a man was holding a gun on you. That deserves a punishment.”