Chapter 40 Summer
Summer
“It’s me, kitten.” Rebel’s voice instantly dispels the fear that has me practically immobile. I’m not good at doing bad things.
He touches me, and it’s like a live wire.
I jump into his arms, my legs wrapping around his hips. “What are you doing here?”
“Recognized the rental, and Owen said this place belongs to one of those pricks you saw earlier today. Figured you were up to something and that we better check it out.”
I glance over his shoulder at the other man. His features are obscured by the low light, but now that I’m not scared out of my mind, I can make out Owen’s stature.
“You shouldn’t be here, little,” Owen says. “What were you thinking?”
“We need to go,” Dizzy insists, pushing past my brother to get to Ivy and Kelsey. She’s lost that carefree and dizzying edge. “He said he called the cops. I... we cannot be here when they arrive.”
She’s almost too freaked out. It’s weird for her.
“What happened up there?” Rebel looks to the top of the stairs.
“Summer was a bad ass,” Dizzy grins. “But we really need to get gone.”
Rebel raises an eyebrow.
“Total bad ass,” Kelsey agrees.
“I wrangled a confession out of Kurt.” Too bad I don’t think I have quite enough of a confession to take it to the cops. At least not locally.
“We should get moving,” Owen says. “You know Kyle’s the sheriff now.”
This time I can’t suppress the shudder that goes through me. I want to be sick.
“Come on,” Rebel takes my hand and we follow the others out of the garage and into the street, which is vacant.
“Where’s the rental?” It’s not where I parked it. “How did you get here? How do we get out of here?”
“Jett took my truck to Violet’s,” Owen says.
Rebel takes my hand and leads me in the other direction as a vehicle turns onto the street. “Storm took the rental over there too so there was less chance of placing it or us in the vicinity if we had to leave fast.”
“Violet’s shop is a two-minute dash between buildings from here. And it makes sense for the cars to be seen there,” Rebel says. “I don’t think there’s a person in town that doesn’t know Violet has been working out at the Heart Ranch lately.”
“It’s an alibi.” I mentally face palm myself. I should have considered that.
“How do we get out of here?” Dizzy asks.
“Over the back fence,” Owen says.
Kelsey, Ivy, and Dizzy sprint through the long grass behind the garage. Dizzy scales the fence in a matter of seconds. She reaches down for Ivy’s hand and pulls her over before reaching for Kelsey.
Owen gives Kelsey a boost to make it easier on her.
My breath is coming hard and quick by the time we make it to the fence.
Rebel lifts me off my feet and hands me up to Owen who is straddling the top rail. “Careful with my girl.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s not like she’s suddenly not my sister,” Owen says, hauling me over the fence. Somehow my belly doesn’t touch the metal. “I’ve been taking care of her for years. That doesn’t change just because you’re in the picture.”
Rebel is right behind us as we hop down on the other side.
We run to catch up with the others who have all made it onto the next street. It’s a block to the main road from there. I’m puffing but not as much as I would have been before Rebel talked me into training with him when we first started working together. That feels like a lifetime ago.
A soft glow emanates from Violet’s storefront, and we hurry toward it.
Owen raps a beat on the door—a code of sorts my brothers share—and a few seconds later Jett unlocks and opens it.
Inside, the store is warm and fragrant. Polished wood floors the color of honey are matched with lilac walls. A side-by-side fridge holds buckets of flowers. Empty pails sit waiting to be filled with new bouquets come morning.
Foil balloons and Hallmark cards fill racks on the counter. The flower shaped wall clock ticks closer to eleven. It’s getting late.
“It smells like a garden in here.” Dizzy claps her hands and sways her hips. “So whimsical.”
“It smells like...” Owen’s chest expands. “Apple pie.”
Jett locks the front door behind us. “Violet is in the backroom brewing chamomile. She’s not calm.”
“Let me go check on her,” Owen says.
“Storm already is,” Jett tells Owen before my eldest brother disappears into the backroom.
Rebel grabs my waist and pulls me back against his chest. He wraps both arms all the way around my middle.
“Little?” Jett asks me, but his worried glance is for the woman brewing tea.
“I’m fine.” I shoo him away. I’ve never seen him, or any of my brothers—except Burke—act like this. “Go ahead.”
Jett strides out of the room too as I turn to curl my hands around Rebel’s neck. He picks me up by the waist and carries me to the furthest corner of the room, out of listening distance of Kelsey, Ivy, and Dizzy.
“I should be angry at you.” Rebel’s fingers graze the swell of my belly. “I want to yell at you for putting our girls in trouble.”
“Our girls?” I stare at his chest. At that spot over his heart, where I would hear how hard it beats if I were to rest my cheek there. “That seems unlikely, given the history in both of our families. I’m the only girl in how many boys?”
“Eleven.” His lips twitch. “Which is why they’re going to be girls. It’s about time our numbers were evened up.”
“Okay, mister. But I don’t think that’s how baby math works.” I rest my head against his shoulder. “We’ll have boys. Marty and Romeo.”
“We’ll see.”
“Don’t like Romeo?” I tease.
“We can wait on names until we know.” He kisses the top of my head. “You should’ve stayed at the ranch, but I may have rubbed off on you more than I planned to when I pushed you to do things you weren’t comfortable doing.”
I find that reassuring boom under my cheek—the steady thrum of his heart. I love him so much. “You helped me find my strength and confidence. A sense of security I didn’t know how much I needed.”
“I’m glad.” He smiles at me.
I stare up into his blue eyes and hope he will understand. “I can’t let them get away with it anymore. That’s why I had to get a confession. And I did get one. With their help.”
I glance at my gal pals.
“I’ll drive up and down Main Street and play it over a megaphone if that’s what it takes for everyone to understand who Kurt and the rest of them are.”
“I’m all for that. Especially since I have a feeling they haven’t changed their ways,” he says. “Just next time, take me with you. Let’s do it together.”
“I would have asked you to come with me, but you and my brothers were doing something sneaky. Care to explain?”
“Bonding.” He smirks, but then it turns serious. “We went to see Duke about a goat.”
“You went to...” I step back.
“We weren’t actually talking about a goat,” he says.
No, my brothers went to threaten Duke. And Rebel went along like it was some kind of loyalty test. “I suspected as much.”
They’d wanted to take matters into their own hands back when it happened, too, but I’d been too ashamed and worried that maybe I was partly to blame.
Scared they would do something that would take them from me when I needed them more than ever.
So they’d taken me to the sheriff instead and that had made everything a hundred times worse.
And I’d taken myself far from them as soon as I could run away from Devil’s Bend. “I should have let them deal with this a long time ago.”
“Those guys who hurt you shouldn’t get to live their lives without consequences. Duke hurt Violet too,” he says. “Or... your brothers think he did. She didn’t exactly confirm or deny. But she was there when we arrived. Fleeing.”
Shit. Poor woman. They’re still acting like they own this town. Like the women in it are something to use until they break. “So, you did what to him exactly?”
“We asked him some questions.”
“With your fists?” When I run my thumb over his knuckles, he lets out a hiss.
His pupils look darker in the light. “He said some things. But we also asked him questions.”
“Did you get any answers?”
“Nothing we didn’t already know,” he says. “He sent the card. He probably hoped you’d freak out and want to go home.”
I do want to go home. But I won’t run away this time. I’ll leave when the wedding is over, and when I’ve shed light on the evils this town perpetuates.
“We did find some common ground. Your brothers and me are on much better terms.”
Owen must have overheard because he says, “We’d be on better terms if you’d marry our sister and make an honest woman of her. There’s still time for you to go missing before those babies come, Hollywood.”
“Leave him alone, Owen,” Jett says, having entered the room with Violet. Storm files in behind them, a bowl of apple pie in one hand. The spoon in his other hand is halfway to his mouth.
“Joking,” Owen says.
Rebel’s eyes crinkle in the corners. My emotions expand and make my eyes sting. If anyone asks, I’ll blame the damn pregnancy hormones. ‘It was the baby’ sounds a hell of a lot better than crying over my brothers accepting Rebel.
“I’ve made tea,” Violet says. “If anyone wants some.”
“That would be lovely.” Kelsey is the first one to move. She’s halfway across the room when a police cruiser cuts its motor in front of the shop.
“Kyle,” Owen mutters, shifting so that he’s standing in front of Violet.
Jett and Storm close in on either side.
“He’s here for me,” I say at the same time Violet slips between my brothers and tells Owen, “He’s here for me.”
Dizzy jumps up and flaps her hands like she’s trying to take off. “I can’t be here. West is going to kill me. This is bad.”
Ivy grabs her hand. “Is there a back door?”
“No,” Violet says. “But go that way, then down the hallway. You can hang out in the storeroom. He needs a warrant to search the place. You’ll be okay there.”
“Thanks,” Ivy says before the two girls run into the back room.
Kyle adjusts his weapons belt under his paunch as he steps onto the sidewalk.
There’s no time to worry about why Dizzy is scared of the cops—or if it’s West she’s in fear of—as the sheriff clocks the rest of us through the shop window.
“Still can’t believe that jack off’s a cop,” Jett grumbles.
“Sherrif’s department. I see you in there.” Kyle’s lips turn up in an ugly manner as he zeroes in on me. Lifting his fist, he pounds hard enough to make the door rattle against the casing.
“I hate that sound,” Rebel says through gritted teeth. His hands wrap around my biceps, a current of strength as my heart bangs hard against my ribcage.