Fletch
“Their grandmother?”
Alex is visibly shocked.
“Betsy Waters. Sick, isn’t it?” Pippa observes and I can’t say I disagree. “And here’s the kicker…” She pauses briefly for effect. “I knew! Well, clearly I’d forgotten I knew, but something clicked when I saw that trailer and it all came back.”
It’s after four in the morning and we got back to the ranch maybe half an hour ago. All the lights were on and Alex had been waiting up for us. I’d called earlier to give her an update and she’d mentioned alerting the team, who are on their way home. Thomas was wiped and had gone off to bed, but the rest of us didn’t feel like sleeping. The adrenaline is still draining and the fresh pot of coffee Alex made helps to keep us alert as we wait for the team to get home and the sheriff to pick up his ride.
The three of us drove home in his cruiser. His idea. He told Pippa, since she’d already appropriated his vehicle to ram the trailer when the shooting started, she might as well drive it to the ranch. Luckily it was still drivable, despite the substantial front-end damage.
By the time we got here the fire trucks were gone and the big barn was nothing but a pile of blackened rubble. I’d sent Dan back earlier with Buttercup and, apparently, he helped Alex deal with the horses after Doc Evans checked them out. Four of them are now out in the field behind the breeding barn but King and Missy, who were injured, are stabled inside.
There’s little else to do right now but debrief, and there’s a lot of stuff to cover. Especially coming from Pippa. They say trauma can be the cause of memory loss, but apparently trauma can also be the trigger to its recovery.
All the pieces appear to be flooding back and her mouth almost can’t keep up with the flow. Clearly, she needs to share what she remembers and there is a lot to sort through.
Nella, who is tucked under my arm, seems a little shell-shocked as she quietly absorbs and processes all the missing information her sister is providing.
It was the two cousins, Wyatt and Willy, she saw snooping around her rig when she returned from a hike. She’d seen Willy before, visiting Betsy Waters, the same campground neighbor who’d recommended she boondock out on Scenery Mountain in the first place. She remembers the punk had called the old woman, “Gram.”
It wasn’t a Graham or a Grant we should’ve been looking for.
Instead of keeping her distance, Pippa shares how she approached them yelling, hoping to chase them off, but instead of running Wyatt pulled a gun on her. They backed her up to the edge of the cliff before shoving her over the edge. She remembers falling, but nothing after until she came to and founds herself hanging in a tree, without any idea how she got there or where she was.
Interesting that it wasn’t Willy—the punk I’d seen hunting illegally weeks ago and was known to the sheriff—who was waving the gun in any of these scenarios. It had been Wyatt—the polite one, the ‘good’ kid—who apparently was the aggressor.
It’s the quiet ones that can be most dangerous. Willy is a punk, a criminal for sure, but mostly a follower. His cousin, on the other hand, is more disturbing. Wyatt apparently never got into any trouble with law enforcement or even pinged their radar. Yet he’d been the one inciting the violence, which makes me wonder if perhaps he developed a taste for blood after the encounter with Pippa, and killed that couple near Troy.
I don’t think there was any physical violence involved in the robberies prior to Pippa. Or maybe there was and there are cases we don’t know about yet. People get lost all the time, and occasionally human remains are found in the mountains that can’t be identified. But for every bone found, I’m sure there are twenty more that will stay lost forever.
“I’m hungry,” Pippa announces, interrupting my macabre train of thought.
She’s suddenly like an Energizer Bunny, fired up and restless, as she follows Alex to the kitchen.
“She’s back,” Nella mumbles, snuggling up closer.
“Pippa?”
“Yeah. This is how she is supposed to be, a spark plug; vibrant, eyes wide open, and always in tune with herself and the world around her.”
I detect a note of wistfulness. Or maybe it’s just fatigue coming through in the tone of her voice. Either way, I tuck her in a little tighter.
“I’ve always envied her that,” she confesses on a whisper, almost as an afterthought.
I could remind her of what we were doing last night in the exact same spot on the couch where we’re sitting now. Nella was the spark plug then. The live wire I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. The woman who left no doubt what she wanted and how she wanted it.
Even underneath those layers of perceived respectability and false modesty she’s cultivated, the core of her personality is as real, as fearless, and as aware as her sister is.
But she’s been through a lot, she has to be hurting, and she’s got a ton of stuff to process. Maybe this isn’t the right time to remind her of that.
So I tell her something else instead.
“Been scared plenty of times before, but never as scared as I was last night. Wasn’t kidding when I said it cut ten years off my life.”
She tilts her head back so she can look up at me with those warm eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“Nothing for you to be sorry about, but it made me realize how deep I already have you under my skin.”
I brush a finger along her lush bottom lip as she slowly smiles.
“Yeah?”
Tracing the arch of her eyebrow with the same digit, I follow her nose down to its tip, and end up right back at her mouth.
“Yeah. So it’s too soon, and it may well send you running back to Canada—although I’ll hunt you down—but I don’t wanna chance you never knowing I love you, Nella.”
Her eyes gloss over and her nostrils flare as she sucks in a sharp breath, and she’s about to say something when someone else beats her to it.
“Awww…that’s so cute.”
My head snaps up to find Pippa standing ten feet away, a big goofy smile on her face. Alex is right behind her, grabbing her arm.
Max barks twice, jumps up from his bed, and rushes toward the front door.
“All my fault,” Alex apologizes as she pulls Pippa back to the kitchen with her. “I told her to see what you wanted for breakfast.”
Then Jonas’s voice comes booming down the hall.
“Bacon and eggs for days, Sweets!”
Nella
I’m in Fletch’s bed, in his cabin, wide awake.
I can’t seem to stop the film reel that’s been on an almost continuous loop since last night. Of course, it doesn’t help I’ve had to go over the entire ordeal a few times.
I’m so tired, I can’t fall asleep. I hate when that happens. My eyes won’t stay open but at the same time my brain won’t shut up.
Sheriff Ewing finally showed up mid-afternoon. He’d just come back from the hospital where both Wyatt and Betsy were taken. Betsy, who’d started firing at the sheriff out the window, was injured when Pippa rammed the RV with the cruiser. Wyatt was not so lucky, because Fletch’s bullet hit him in the shoulder and he needed surgery. Ewing returned to the hospital so he could talk to Wyatt as soon as he woke up after he’d already questioned Willy in jail.
Talk about a dysfunctional family, with harmless-looking senior, Betsy Waters, firmly at the helm. Or maybe not so firmly, since apparently first Willy, and later Wyatt, were quick to point their finger at Gram as their ringleader. Not a surprise, since Betsy was busy pointing fingers at both of her grandsons.
I still can’t wrap my head around that fact. Ewing told us both Betsy’s sons were out of the picture. One was killed in a hunting accident many years ago and the younger one, Willy’s father, has been in prison even longer. With her own sons gone, she groomed those boys to see her through her retirement. From what I gather, without their mothers’ support.
Hell, the woman turned them into criminals, only to sell them out in the end to save her own old, wrinkly ass. God knows, maybe she sold out her son too. Who does that? What kind of mother or grandmother would sacrifice their own flesh and blood to save their own?
And this is what keeps me awake when my body needs rest desperately.
Fletch tucked me in, kissed me goodnight, and mentioned stopping in at the barn to check on King. He’s been worried about the injured horse hurting himself. The vet already had to come back once today to give King another sedative because he was agitated.
Alex mentioned it would take time and quite a bit of work for the horse to get over the trauma. Apparently, that’s something she does, working with traumatized horses. A horse whisperer, or equine therapist, which I guess is the official title.
She seems to really love what she does. Lucy is the same way, and I know my sister has always followed her heart. I always considered that a luxury, one I myself couldn’t afford, but now with my entire future open maybe it’s my chance to choose with my heart instead of my head.
“I can almost hear you thinking.”
I turn my head to where Fletch is leaning against the doorway.
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I was quiet, ’cause you’re supposed to be sleeping.”
He pushes away from the doorpost and walks to the bed. I move to make room so he can sit on the edge. Then he reaches to brush some hair off my forehead.
“Pain?”
“No, it’s not my leg. My mind is churning.”
Right now it’s stuck on the words he shared with me—and inadvertently Pippa and Alex—in the early morning hours, but I don’t tell him that.
“Wanna talk it through?”
“I’m mostly still processing stuff.”
I know I’m avoiding, but what is in my heart are words I’ve only ever shared with my parents and my sister. They’ve always been special, like the silver cutlery that spends the whole year wrapped in blue paper in a drawer, only to come out for Christmas dinner. I have to work out in my head what it means I want to share them with him—the ripple effect once the words are spoken.
I’m a planner.
He leans down and brushes a kiss to my cheek.
“You’re thinking too hard, Babe. Give me five minutes to get ready for bed and I’ll empty that busy mind of yours.”
The promise of his words is apparently enough to shut my brain down and jump-start my libido, and the next few minutes all I can focus on are the faint sounds coming from the bathroom. The anticipation is so strong, I hold my breath when the water turns off and the door opens.
He’s naked and I push myself up to sitting. I haven’t really had a chance to see him so I take the opportunity to study him in the glow of the nightstand lamp. He doesn’t seem to mind and indulgently allows me a slow perusal.
His body looks as tough as his personality appeared at first. The hard planes earned through honest physical labor, the scars and imperfections showing a harsh passage of years, and the slacking lines and softening of contours bearing witness to middle age. The only thing showing no signs of aging or softening is the proud rise of his cock.
I’ve never studied a man so closely, so honestly. It feels more intimate than roaming hands in the dark. Suddenly I feel the need to allow him the same.
I can feel him watching me as I flip back the covers on the bed and pull his shirt I’ve repurposed as sleepwear over my head, dropping it on the floor. Then I shimmy a little inelegantly out of my panties and toss them on top.
“You’re hurt.”
His voice sounds strangled as his eyes seem to drink me in.
“You’ll be careful.” I give him my trust.
Then his knee is on the mattress next to my hip, his hand fists in the hair at the base of my skull, and his tongue plunges between my lips.
Yesss.
This is what I need. This hunger, this insatiable craving that aches to be satisfied. The grunts, the nips, the skin that heats and grows slick under my exploring touch. The give and take of desire without reservation or apology. Lips tugging at nipples, fingers seeking out wet silk.
His hips ease between my legs as he lowers himself carefully, lifting my good leg wide to allow him room. Then I feel the flushed head of his cock slicking itself along my folds before he plants himself deep.
Skin to skin, soul to soul, without any barriers. Vulnerable.
This is honesty. This is trust.
This is love.
As he stills to allow my body to adjust to him, I lift my hands and cup his face. His dark eyes on me smolder like hot coal. It’s only us in this moment, nothing and no one else.
“I love you, Fletcher Boone.”
I watch as his eyes close and he slowly lowers his lips to mine for an infinitely tender kiss before he mumbles against my mouth.
“I’m a happy man.”