Chapter Eighteen
Fresh from his shower, Jaxon gazed down at Destiny in her short nightgown of shiny, soft material. He loved her in that deep red color. It made her brown curls look darker, more striking, against her beautifully tanned skin.
She smiled up at him and held out her arms. “Come here, handsome.”
He got into bed beside her. Charlotte was asleep in her room, and they had the night to themselves.
Destiny was still ecstatic about the news of the adoption.
Jaxon wrapped his arms around her and nibbled her neck, and she slid her calf around his thigh as she drew him down to her.
She kissed him deeply, then traced his lips with the tip of her tongue, sending tingles racing through him.
He was already aroused from thinking of loving her.
She kissed him again, slowly, sensuously, and his heart began to pound. He deepened the kiss, stroking her with his tongue. God, he loved kissing her. She was the sexiest woman he’d ever known.
She brushed his cheek with the back of her hand, sending goose bumps racing across his shoulder. She whispered, “I’m so glad you’re here. My joy’s complete now that I’ve shared it with you.”
He smiled and nuzzled her neck. “I feel like half of me is missing when I’m away from you, honey. I mean that.”
She trailed kisses up his jawline, then blew a soft breath into his ear. He moaned at the exquisite sensation.
“I know that feeling well,” she said.
He cupped her full breast in his palm and took her nipple into his mouth, stroking it with his tongue. She sucked in a breath and ran her fingers through his hair. He loved it when she did that.
She sighed when he moved to her other breast, her nails gently raking his scalp.
She moaned when he left her breast but sighed in satisfaction when he laid kisses in a circle around her navel. She held his head in her hands, guiding him as he trailed kisses to the cleft between her thighs. He slipped his tongue inside, and she gasped.
Smiling, he moved between her legs, opening them wider, then cupped her butt in his palms, holding her open before him. Her fingers stroked the top of his head, her head turned aside.
He inserted his tongue and slid it from bottom to top.
Then he found her sensitive spot and flicked it from side to side.
She gasped, her hands grasping his head.
He took it into his mouth and sucked on it, and she cried out, her thighs tensed with passion.
He stroked it with his tongue as she moaned her pleasure.
He was hard, aroused by giving her what she wanted. Her pelvis rocked as he sucked harder, faster. She was nearly there, and she whimpered her need.
He slipped his fingers inside her. She was hot and slippery, and he thrust in and out, in and out. She moaned louder and sucked in a hard breath.
Suddenly, she pulsed in his mouth. He let her go and stroked her bottom to top with his tongue once, twice, three times. She cried, “Jaxon, now!”
He raised her calves over his shoulders and pulled her hips to him, entering her gently at first.
“Yes! More!” she cried, and he pulled out and thrust harder, again and again.
She clutched his forearms as his hips thrust against her. She cried out his name again as she continued to clasp him inside her.
His arousal grew until he couldn’t hold back anymore. Suddenly his control shattered. Waves of ecstasy blew through him, one after another, and he threw his head back, clutching her to him, every muscle hard as rock.
He stayed like that for what felt like hours, but must have been only minutes. He finally came to himself and lifted her legs from his shoulders. He rolled her onto her side and lay down beside her.
She sighed. “That was wonderful.”
He smiled and wrapped his arm around her waist. “Yes, it was. I’m so happy I’m here with you, sweetheart.”
“You’re a wonderful man, Jaxon. And an amazing lover.” She reached back and caressed his hip. “I don’t want to move.”
He chuckled. “Me neither.” Closing his eyes, he envisioned her face, content from their lovemaking and ready for sleep. She was so beautiful. “Good night, honey.”
“Good night, sweetheart.”
His heart leapt at those words. Now he could sleep.
Jaxon looked out the passenger-side window.
His parents had invited them over for Sunday dinner, and they were taking Destiny’s SUV since it had Charlotte’s car seat in it.
He was happy they’d be spending more time with his family.
The more he was with Destiny, the more certain he was that she was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. And he thought she felt the same way.
Destiny locked eyes with Charlotte in the baby mirror. She had been calm the whole way out of town. “How’re you doing, pretty girl? You’re sure being good.”
“She sure is,” he said.
He relaxed in his seat. Destiny was a good driver, and he looked out the window again, recognizing the ranches as their gates flashed by.
He glanced in the side mirror at an old green truck coming up fast behind them. It looked familiar. Then he recognized it as Maria’s dad’s vehicle, and shock jolted him as he spotted Maria behind the wheel.
“Hold tight!” he yelled, as Maria rammed Destiny’s SUV from behind. “That’s Maria in the truck, honey!”
Destiny fought to keep the SUV steady as they swerved from side to side. Charlotte began to scream, and Jaxon grabbed the wheel to keep the car on the road.
Maria came up alongside them, and he turned into the truck as she rammed them. That kept the SUV stable, but just barely.
Maria sped up, then swerved into them again. This time, the front corner of the SUV took the impact, the vehicle spinning around and rolling over twice before coming to a screeching stop on its roof.
Charlotte screamed in terror as she flailed upside down, restrained by the straps of her car seat.
“My seat belt’s stuck,” Destiny cried. “I need to get to Charlotte. Oh God, help me!”
“Hold on. I’ve got a knife.” He was upside-down, too, but after struggling with his seat belt buckle, it released, and he landed hard on the roof. Righting himself wasn’t easy, but he twisted around to rest on his knees and retrieved his knife from his belt sheath.
“Brace yourself with the steering wheel, honey. I’m going to cut you loose.”
Charlotte’s screaming was upsetting him, grating on his raw nerves. A quick slice cut away Destiny’s shoulder strap, and she held herself up with the steering wheel.
“Good job, honey. Now for your waist. You should land better than I did. Try to get your knees under you when you’re down.” Holding her body away from his knife, he cut the belt away.
Despite having a grip on the steering wheel, she fell hard onto the roof. “Damn!” Then she turned around, climbing between the seat backs to try to quiet the terrified baby.
“Why don’t you let me get her out of her car seat, honey? It’ll be too hard to undo the straps with her full weight on the buckles. Then you can hold her,” he said.
Her face crumpled, but she nodded and, wincing in pain, moved farther back.
Supporting Charlotte’s weight in one hand, he carefully slit the straps of the car seat. She sprawled into his arms, flailing her limbs and crying even louder. He tucked her up against him. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’ve got you.”
With a groan of pain, Destiny moved forward and took the crying baby from him.
“I’m going to get the door open.” It was crumpled and open a crack, so he kicked and kicked until it opened wider.
He squirmed through the crack and heaved with all his might on the buckled door.
With a loud metal-on-metal groaning sound, it eventually gave, and he yanked it all the way open.
“Hand me the baby, honey, and then you come out.”
Destiny cried out as she scooted closer to the door. After handing him Charlotte, who had calmed in her mother’s arms, she turned round and scooted outside on her bottom.
A silver SUV pulled over behind them, and an older man and woman approached them. He didn’t recognize them.
The man said, “How can we help?”
“Would you please call 911? We’ll need two ambulances.”
“Of course. What else do you need?”
“If you could just stay with us until help arrives, I’d appreciate it.”
The woman smiled. “We’ll sure do that.”
Jaxon handed the baby to Destiny. “I need to go back in for our phones and bags. I’ll be right back.”
It took him a little while to locate everything in the upside-down vehicle, but he eventually found what he was looking for. After crawling back outside, he realized that his ankle was hurting badly. Adrenaline was still rushing through his veins.
As he sat down on the ground beside Destiny, he saw that her face had paled. “How’re you doing, honey?”
“My neck and back hurt, but the worst pain is in my ankle. Or my foot. I’m not sure which. It all hurts so badly I can’t tell.” She was wearing Western boots, so he couldn’t tell by looking.
“Would you cut my boot off? It’s killing me because it’s so tight.”
The pain on her face made up his mind. “Okay, just hold perfectly still.” He took out his knife and began slitting the boot at the top. The leather was thick, and he took it slowly, moving an inch at a time. She moaned as he neared her ankle, but he kept going. He slit it all the way to her arch.
Crying now, Destiny screamed as he worked the boot from her foot. Her ankle was already puffy and purple with bruising.
“I think it’s broken,” he said as she sobbed quietly. She moaned as he laid her foot gently on the ground.
“It feels better without that boot on. Thanks,” she said in a tight voice as tears rolled down her cheeks.
He wiped them away.
Destiny looked shaken, and her face was shiny with sweat. He hated that she was in such pain.
She reached for the baby. “I’m so worried about Charlotte. She was thrown around so hard and then hung upside down until we could cut her free. She may be hurt somehow and we just don’t know it.”
“I’m worried about that too.” He moved to sit behind Destiny so that she could lean against his chest.
A few minutes later, sirens sounded in the distance.
The older man went to the road and peered in the direction of the sound. “I can’t see them yet, but they must be getting close.”
Jaxon thanked their lucky stars that the SUV had ended up on the side of the road instead of in the middle of it. There hadn’t been any sign of the old truck or Maria when he’d made it outside. He was so angry he wanted to break something. Preferably her neck.
A moment later, two ambulances screeched to a halt in front of their wrecked SUV, followed by a sheriff’s car, which pulled up behind it.
The older man and woman said their goodbyes and pulled away from the busy scene.
Another sheriff’s car arrived, and the deputy began setting up cones to direct traffic away from the emergency vehicles.
“We were run off the road by Maria Jameson. I have a restraining order against her. She was driving her father’s old truck. It’s a green Chevy,” Jaxon said to the first deputy on the scene.
“You’re sure it was her?”
“Yes. I got a good look at her through the window. She hit us three times, once from the rear and twice from the side. The third time, she caught us near the front and spun us around, and then we rolled over twice. We could all have been killed!” He was so angry he was out of breath.
“You said you have a restraining order against this woman?” The man was making notes.
“Yes, I sure do. She’s not supposed to get within two hundred feet of me.”
“Are you sure she knew it was you?”
Jaxon took Charlotte from Destiny as the EMTs put her on a gurney and nodded at the deputy.
“Yes, Maria knew it was Destiny’s SUV. She’d already knocked out all the windows on Destiny’s truck, and her SUV was parked right beside it.
” Talking about the damage Maria had done to Destiny’s truck made his heart pound with fury.
“Maria locked eyes with me when she pulled up alongside us. She knew exactly who she was broadsiding.”
The deputy spoke into his shoulder microphone, passing the information along. Then he asked Jaxon, “What year would you say that Chevy truck is?”
Jaxon shrugged. “Eighties?”
“1980s green Chevy pickup with damage to the passenger side,” the deputy continued. “Registered to Henry Jameson.”
Jaxon shifted his weight to his other leg, his ankle too painful to stand on. And his body hurt all over from the wreck. Every muscle seemed to be yanked out of place. He bit back a groan and handed the deputy his business card. “Do you have everything you need? I want to get checked out.”
The deputy nodded. “If I need anything else, I’ll call.”
An EMT had been standing by, waiting for Jaxon to finish making his statement. He now helped him onto a gurney and wheeled him over to the ambulance where Destiny lay.
“We’ll keep the baby with her momma,” the EMT said, taking Charlotte from Jaxon.
An EMT inside the ambulance took the baby, and Jaxon called out, “I’ll see you at the hospital, Destiny.”
“Yes,” she called back unsteadily.
God, he hated that she was hurt. If he could only get his hands on Maria. His fingers balled into fists as the EMT took him to the other ambulance and began taking his vitals.
Time seemed to drag as the EMT went about his business. At last, however, both of the ambulances were on their way.
As he felt the vehicle bump back onto the road and the sirens began to wail, he had one thought. Maria had to be put away for what she’d done. He was going to make sure of that.