Chapter 12
Summer
The last thing I thought I would be doing is making friends with my future brother-in-law. Or laughing while he helps me stick flyers to every pole on Main Street in Devil’s Bend.
I don’t mention it to him again, but where I didn’t see similarities between him and Rebel, I do now.
And the way he tells jokes, it reminds me of Rogue.
He shares that broody contemplative quality Riot has too.
But under it all there’s a constant current of tension that my fiancé doesn’t have. That none of the others have.
Nature won some of the arguments in West, but I shudder to think about how nurture has framed his life. The fact that he told me that he faked his death… it blows my mind.
I have more questions than I did before our drive into Devil’s Bend.
The main one being, what type of empire does a man like Robert Hawthorne have?
He’s a man with wealth and power and very few, if any, morals.
West seems to despise his own father. And what he did to Ivy and Dizzy’s mother was monstrous.
But everything online makes Robert Hawthorne sound like a philanthropist.
“Another?” He carries the box of specialized gel flavoring, edible dust, chocolate, and custom sugar pearls secured under his arm, freeing up both hands to pass me flyers.
We’re almost back at the mayor’s office.
Duke’s car with its fancy license plate is parked out front in the mayor’s allocated parking slot.
I still have a thick handful of flyers to get rid of, but we’ve started to attract onlookers.
Which I expected, but I wasn’t prepared for how judged I would feel.
Living in the city… being with a man who is intentionally honest about who he is and wants the same for me…
I forgot how uncomfortable it could be. How unsafe and nervous it would make me feel.
I focus on sticking the paper to the next pole. I know better these days, but I’m not sure Violet does. I can’t do nothing knowing what Duke is doing to her.
A few yards back a couple of gossipy shrews have come out of the hair salon and are clutching their pearls over my flyers. They cut their gazes my way before turning icy shoulders on me.
My stomach plummets into the bottomless pit I used to wish the rest of me could crawl into.
It’s a feeling as familiar as breathing.
One I used to take to heart. Even when I knew what Duke and the others did to me wasn’t my fault, it felt like I must have deserved it.
For a long time, I let myself get lost in that.
I focus on the paper in my hand until the words stop being blurry. Let them stare. It won’t stop me.
Whether they approached her or she went running back to Duke once we left last night, her new bruises are all too telling. “Pass me the rest.”
“I’ll go grab the car.” West takes in the people along Main Street who are staring at us as he hands me the papers. “I think it would be wise to call it. We’ve done enough at this point.”
“That’s what we’re doing. Right after I paper the mayor’s vehicle.
Get the car started.” I straighten my spine and march determinedly across the road toward Duke’s vehicle.
He is going to know that I’ve been here, and that I have no intention of letting him get away with anything more. Or I’m going to try, at least.
I get to leave Devil’s Bend after the wedding. Violet might not have anywhere else to go, and even if she does, there will more than likely be another girl after her.
I’m stronger now. I left town and had a great big adventure. I’m getting my happy ending. I’m going to be a wife, and a momma. I’m going to spend my life with a man who loves and understands me, who supports me, who pushes me. My life is everything I could have ever wanted.
If I can stop Duke and his asshole buddies from hurting anyone else, I have an obligation to do it. Plus, there’s a thrill in getting revenge.
I approach Duke’s fancy car with my head held high, aware to the presence of the dozen onlookers. The first flyer goes on his windshield under the wiper blade. The next I stick to the glass higher up. Right where he’ll look when he gets behind the wheel.
One of the onlookers separates himself from the crowd and strides toward me. “Summer Heart?”
I pause at the raspy, familiar voice. Duke’s brother got older.
When I came into town to pick up Ro and her bodyguard, I saw him at the feedlot and thought he looked exactly how I remembered.
It’s obvious now, without the golden hue of nostalgia, that there are lines around his eyes.
They weren’t there the last time we were face to face. “You look...”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t come any closer. “You do too.”
“You’re papering my brother’s car,” he says flatly.
“I’m making sure this town finally can’t look away from what happened.” I wipe one clammy, trembling palm on my shorts.
“You left,” he says. “Why come back and stir up old memories? Why not leave it alone?”
“I should have done this in the first place.” My voice holds an edge sharp enough to cut myself.
“Summer.” He takes one step in my direction before the door to the office opens and Duke strides out.
He storms toward me. “What are you doing, you crazy bitch?”
Dawson puts himself in his path, shielding me with his back. “Leave her alone, Duke. We can clean up the trash when she’s gone.”
“She is the trash.” Duke glares at me. “You don’t belong here.”
No, I don’t anymore. But maybe Violet does. Or at least she deserves to make that decision without him hurting her. Prick!
“I thought we ran you out of town years ago.” Duke glares at me like he wants me dead.
“Careful, Duke.” Dawson grips his brother’s shoulders. “People are looking.”
His eyes widen and flit to the group gathering nearby.
“Yes. Careful Duke.” He looks worse for wear with a big fat bruise over one cheek.
His eye is bloodshot and his bottom lip is split.
No starched and pressed business suit can put a shine on this sleazy shithead.
“I wouldn’t want my brothers or my beau getting wind that you’re talking about me like that. ”
There’s something about finding my backbone in the town I grew up in that brings the Devil’s Bend twang out in me.
“Summer.” West’s calm voice from the car tells me it’s time to go.
“I’m calling the cops.” Duke, who has given up on getting through his brother, starts tapping violently at his phone screen. “Kyle, she’s here and she’s damaging my property.”
“You’ve got Kyle on his way? Good.” I stick a flyer to his hood and pray the paint lifts when he tries to clean it off. And then I stick another. And another. “You were all involved that night. And I’m pretty sure you’re all involved now.”
“What the fuck is she talking about, Duke?” Dawson asks. “What have you done now?”
The world stops. Not what did you do? Just what have you done now? He knew.
I didn’t want to believe it when Storm came home that day with a busted lip and blood dripping down his face. He and Dawson had come to blows over what happened to me. Their friendship was obliterated because Storm thought Dawson knew more than he was letting on. It’s clear he was right.
I stumble back a step. If he knew, how many people here actually knew the truth and made me into the scapegoat for their precious boys anyway? I always assumed it was disbelief. Was I wrong?
“What don’t I know, Summer?” Dawson asks.
I toss the rest of the papers up in the air and let them rain down on the street while I run for the car. I’m in the middle of the road when I notice the man with the camera in front of his face. He doesn’t lower the device when he realizes I’ve spotted him. He moves closer.
Local media? He must be. I grin at him. “I was wondering when you’d show up.”
“Can I quote you?” he asks. “On what is happening here?”
“Duke Taylor is a perpetrator of sexual assault and domestic abuse.” I glare at him and stick up my middle finger. “He did it to me and no one listened. But I’m not the only one. It’s time we do something about giving him what he deserves.”
West drives the car up behind me. “Get in.”
I climb in next to him. He puts his foot to the floor as I yank on my seatbelt.
“Are you okay?” he asks while we turn down a side street.
I’m kind of stunned. All this time I thought if I could just prove those guys are what I said they are, that people would do the right thing.
But Dawson knew and he’s still protecting his brother.
Of course he is. I don’t know why I expected anything else.
They’re cut from the same cloth. “Yes. I just want to get back to the ranch.”
I want to see Rebel. I need the biggest hug.
I pull my phone out of my bag and start a video call. When his face fills the screen, my chest expands and releases. I didn’t realize how badly I needed to see him.
“Everything okay, red?”
“Not exactly.” We had a plan when we got up this morning. He would go to the pit with Riot and the agent. I’d go into town to collect the ingredients for the cake. “The plan kind of went out the window when Violet turned up with more bruises.”
“Those fucking assholes.” He looks like he wants to punch something.
“Yeah.” That’s when I’d printed up a pile of flyers and decided I was going to paper the town while I was there. “I just saw red.”
“She’s hotheaded like you, brother.” West softens his ribbing with a quick grin that Rebel doesn’t see.
“West. Why are you—”
“Thought it wouldn’t hurt to look around outside of the ranch. See if anything stands out. Make sure she didn’t get into too much trouble posting her flyers. Make sure no one runs your woman off the road like they did our brother last night.”
Like Ro was.
“What flyers?” Rebel asks.
“I put everything they did on some posters and put them everywhere,” I admit. “Including Kurt’s confession.”
“And she made the local news.” West chuckles.
“Shit, Summer.” Rebel takes a breath. “Considering the circumstances, I appreciate that, West. Now bring her home without anyone running you off the road.”
“It wasn’t just Rogue, Ivy, and Dizzy,” I say.
“What?” Rebel and West ask at the same time.
“Ro was run off the road too.” She’d said there was a third car that had caused them to swerve into the path of the oncoming truck.
West takes his eyes off the road. “Come again?”
“Ro was in a car accident yesterday. A vehicle came out of nowhere and her bodyguard had to evade it. Ended up in a fender bender with one of the locals. The other car sped off.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Rebel says.
I’d told him about the accident but hadn’t filled in the details. Ro had been fine and there were more important things to deal with. Plus, I hadn’t known about the goat at that point. I had no idea someone was wreaking havoc on the ranch. Outside of my brothers.
I twist the band on my left ring finger. Then we’d had things to celebrate.
Rebel had filled us in on the trouble Rogue and Ivy had in town, but at that point there’d been a lot more pressing questions having to do with the wedding that meant I hadn’t considered Ro’s accident earlier in the day. “What are the chances that it’s the same person both times?”
West and Rebel are both looking at me with the same bothered expression. It’s uncanny and a tad disconcerting.
“Nicole hired someone to meddle,” West says. “Why would she waste her resources on someone other than Ivy?”
“Because Alec assaulted Ro, and she didn’t stay quiet about it. I’m sure Nicole blames Ro, at least partially, for his death.”
“She is vindictive,” Rebel muses. “Manipulative.”
“And she loved him,” West says. “Enough to seek revenge. Enough to do much more than scare her.”
“You think they’ll try to hurt her?” Rebel says.
“If they see an opening.” West shrugs.
“It’s a good thing she has Tex.” He might not have been able to stop the car accident, but without his ability to drive it could have been worse. Ro could have been hurt. Or left a sitting duck. If he hadn’t been distracted, they might not have crashed at all.
A situation he seemed to beat himself up over on the drive to the ranch and will do what it takes to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“What if she didn’t have Tex?” West asks.
“I would be a lot more concerned,” Rebel says. “She would become an easier target.”
“They’d be more likely to try again if there was a guaranteed opening,” West says. “Or at least… that’s what I would expect because it’s how I would handle it.”
I gape at him.
“If I were trying to hurt someone. Path of least resistance makes sense. Do you think you could convince your friend Ro to take a break from her bodyguard? Perhaps we can draw them out.”
“You think that’s why they haven’t left the ranch?” Rebel starts glancing around as he walks. The sky and trees bounce on my phone screen with each step he takes. “Because I think she might already be taking a break from him since he’s currently talking with Riot’s guys.”
“Where is Ro?” What if she’s in danger?
“I’m not sure.” Rebel’s gaze moves from side to side. “I’ll find her.”
I cross my fingers. “Please be careful.”
“You know I will,” he tells me and hangs up.
“West,” I start, but I don’t know how to tell him that I need to be back on the ranch already. That I won’t be all right until I can see Rebel with my own eyes.
West presses his foot to the gas pedal and the car lurches forward. “We’ll be there soon.”