Page 12 of Taken By my Brothers' Best Friends

“Just tell me. I’m not playing twenty questions with my kidnappers.” I realized we were leaving the main house and tried to struggle. The ropes just grew tighter to my utter dismay. “This is bullshit.”

“I think it’ll be more fun not to tell you.” Dean hoisted me off of his shoulder and into the backseat of their truck without a single grunt.

“What kind of workout do you do? I’m not light and you’re not even winded.” I frowned when he leaned across me to put my seatbelt on. “If you hadn’t tied me up, I could do my own seatbelt. Jerk.”

“Are you always this big of a pain in the ass or do you take some days off?” He slammed the door shut and got in the driver’s seat. Lennon climbed in next to him in the front.

“I’m not a pain in the ass. Where’s rope boy?”

“Oh, he’ll love that.” Lennon turned the radio on. “We’ll just drown her out.”

Like hell. I raised my voice. “Drown me out? I don’t think so. Not only was I the hog-tying champ, I was also the winning speed talker for five years straight at the local carnival. I got extra credit for my clarity and ability to project my voice. The drama teacher at school begged me to be in the plays but I was too busy with Jimmy Dean. He was my pet pig I got for 4H. Jimmy Dean died of heart failure when I was nineteen. Which is weird, because doctors now use parts of their hearts in human patients, so like, shouldn’t their hearts be stronger?

“I have a friend who had a pet deer from her time in 4H. She named him Mother, like Mother Dearest. Get it? It was great. Confusing for the judges, though, apparently. She never won anyribbons. Although she could’ve for her baking. I think she lives in Austin now, married to a pretty woman with a mullet. Can you believe those came back into style? You guys are old. Do you remember the first time mullets came around? I bet you both had one. You seem like the mullet type.”

Dean slammed the truck to a stop and got out. I heard him searching around in the toolbox he kept in the back of the truck and jumped when he threw open my door. He had a roll of duct tape in his hand and a look on his face that left no room for misinterpretation. He was going to use the tape.

“Wait, Dean! Don’t duct tape me. I might be allergic to it. You’re going to make my face swell up and maybe even kill me! Just let me stay here and we can forget this whole thing ever happened. Okay? Okay. Dean, don’t do it! Stop! I’m going to kill—”

He pressed the tape over my mouth and then moved his face closer to mine, until we were basically nose to nose. “If you manage to get this tape off, the next thing I use to shut you up isn’t going to be as nice.”

I lifted my eyebrow at him. What the hell kind of threat was that?

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Hellcat.” He slammed my door shut again and got back in the truck.

I sat there, fuming and full of questions. Where was Reed? What did he use his ropes for? Why didn’t I feel panicked? Where were we going? I got no answers and instead, I got a completely silent ride away from the ranch.

With nothing to do, my brain went on a hundred different trails, chasing thoughts with no ends and searching for things that felt forgotten. I wiggled my toes in my shoes as I took a deep breath in through my nose. There was a reason I didn’t hang out in the silence. My brain made me crazy if I wasn’t listening to something or talking about something. Writing was the onlything that really helped. None of that was going to be happening, though.

I leaned against the door and rested my head against the window. The sun was coming up and the glass was warm already, a sure sign it was going to be a scorcher that day. Somehow, the warmth and the rhythmic motion from the truck mixed with my lack of sleep and I felt myself nodding off. I tried to fight it but it was useless.

CHAPTER 11

Dean

I came downstairs after taking a quick shower and nodded to Lennon at the kitchen island. He had his laptop open in front of him and a look of concentration on his face that made me think something might’ve been wrong. “What is it?”

He shook his head. “She’s been asleep for damn near twelve hours. Should we wake her up?”

I snorted. “Are you insane? She’s finally quiet.”

He laughed and shrugged. “You’re not wrong. Reed came home while you were in the shower. He’s upstairs, in a mood. They got nothing from that big motherfucker. Judging by the bruises on Reed’s knuckles, he really tried to break him, too.”

Frustration clawed at my throat and I had to grab a glass of water before I could talk. “We should compile a photo catalog of all the sheriffs within a hundred miles and see if one of them is the guy who chased Vera. That would go a long way into getting to the bottom of this. Find him, find the boss.”

“We’re retired, D. Not only that, we’re in charge of her safety. Nothing else.” Despite what he was saying, I could see his own frustration eating away at him.

We’d been retired for all of six months and we weren’t great at it. After selling our security company, though, we didn’t have any need to ever work again. Except, we’d come to Devil’s Den, Texas, to see if some hard manual labor would cure the retirement blues. I’d been starting to lose the itch at the back of my mind from not having a job but it was back in full force after someone threatened Vera’s life.

“We could do both.” I stood next to him and watched the live footage of Vera sleeping. “She really does look sweet when she’s asleep. It’s almost a mind fuck.”

“She’s something else. The way she took that asshole down last night was amazing.” Standing up and stretching, he movedaway from the computer and grabbed a slice of pie from the fridge. “I love Georgia. I’ll always love Georgia. There’s something about this town, though, man. The pie even tastes better.”

Reed walked into the kitchen and I saw he’d bandaged his knuckles. He saw me looking and shrugged. “If she sees them, I don’t want her scared.”

I grunted. “I’m not entirely sure she has that emotion.”

“She still asleep?” When I nodded, he frowned. “Shouldn’t she be awake, torturing us by now?”

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