Page 9 of Taken By my Brothers' Best Friends

I turned around in my seat and just stared at the sideview mirror to make sure I didn’t see headlights appear. I was shaky with adrenaline and I couldn’t explain things to Maxie if she was going to shout at me. “Just take me home. I need to talk to Mills and Tate. If that sheriff recognized me, or told someone who could identify me, I’m in trouble.”

CHAPTER 8

Vera

Maxie hadn’t even fully stopped the car before I opened my door. I ran up the porch steps and burst through the front door. I didn’t know what to do, besides tell my big brothers. Mills, Tate, and West were sitting at the dining room table with the new guys. They were playing cards and there was a heavy cloud of smoke in the air from their cigars.

They all turned to me as I burst in. Mills took a swig from his glass of amber-colored liquid and sighed. “What is it, Vera?”

I didn’t care about his tone or anything else. I was freaked out past caring. “I was in town and I was in the alley between the garage and the bar and these two guys came in so I hid. I heard them talking and I think—I think they were talking about drugs, like selling drugs. One of them was in a sheriff’s uniform, but not from here. They left and I tried to sneak out but he saw me and chased me. I didn’t recognize him but what if he recognized me? Everyone knows I live here. I don’t know what to do. I didn’t mean to overhear talk about a drug trade!”

Everyone was quiet for a few seconds and then Mills let out a deep laugh that made me flinch. Tate and West joined him and then the entire table was laughing.

“Are you guys drunk? Did you just hear me?”

Mills wiped his eyes and shook his head. “Areyoudrunk? Did you just hear yourself? Why were you in an alley?”

“That’s not the important part! I heard—”

Maxie came in behind me and crossed her arms over her chest. “She ran from the cops.”

“What? Jesus, Vera! What’d you do?” Tate stubbed his cigar out and frowned at me.

“I didn’t run from the cops! Well, I mean, I ran from a guy in a sheriff’s uniform but just because he started chasing me. He knows I heard them talking.”

“About drugs?” West raised his eyebrows and groaned. “So, you heard some guys you didn’t recognize talking about something that might’ve been drugs? And when you snuck out of an alley in the dark, a sheriff came at you and you ran? Am I getting all of this?”

“Stop it and just listen to me. I—”

“Go to bed, Vera. You’re clearly drunk. Your imagination was always bigger than your common sense.” Mills nodded to Maxie. “Make sure she gets home.”

I shrugged away from her hand and glared at my brothers. “Fuck you. If I end up dead, I want you to feel like shit about it.”

Dean whistled. “It’s good to know that she’s not just that angry at me.”

“Fuck you, too.” I stormed out of the house and didn’t wait on Maxie. I charged down the dirt road towards my cabin, so angry I forgot to be afraid.

I burst into my cabin and slammed the door closed behind me, locking it for a change. I didn’t know what to do. I was so angry I couldn’t think or feel anything else. I reached for my phone in my pocket and froze when I didn’t feel it. In a hot panic I searched every pocket I had. It was gone. I’d lost my phone somewhere and there was a chance the guy chasing me had found it.

My stomach twisted painfully. I’d heard a cop talking about a crime he was going to commit and then I’d left my phone behind to make sure he knew exactly who I was. I was going to die because no one made deep enough pockets in women’s clothing. Life was so unfair.

Because I didn’t know what else to do, I grabbed my stun gun, my cat ear keychain, and then I crawled into my bathtub to hide. My brothers didn’t think I had any reason to be scared, but they were wrong. I’d seen the look on the man’s face before I ran. I had every reason to be afraid.

I replayed what I’d heard again and again, making sure I remembered everything I’d heard. Mark and J were the only names I’d caught. They’d talked about trucks coming in and about Devil’s Den being home. I went over it again and again, trying to work it out in my head. I wanted to know who I needed to worry about. And why. Mainly, I wanted them to go away and never bother me. If I was never chased again in my life, it would be too soon.

I was hiding in my bathtub, listening for any sounds that didn’t belong, and telling myself I was probably overreacting by being in the tub when I heard a sound that didn’t belong. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed but I’d heard my clock in the living room chime more than once, so I knew over an hour had passed. Despite listening for trouble so I could be ready, I wasn’t ready when I heard trouble. I wasn’t a spy or a sexy Bond lady. I was a romance novelist, in secret, and an okay frozen meal chef.

I strained my ears to hear anything else and felt my blood run cold when I heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps. I wished so hard my brothers had been right and I was just a foolish lady who imagined shit. I would’ve loved for that to be the case. I couldn’t believe I’d been right and there was someone in my house.

I turned the safety off on my stun gun and held my breath as the footsteps came closer. They moved past the bathroom door and into my bedroom. I stood up as quietly as I could, preparing for the worst. I was so scared I was vibrating with fear but I wasn’t going to be taken out while crouching in the tub. The footsteps came closer again and stopped outside of the bathroom door. I felt all the blood drain from my face and held the stun gun in front of me, finger on the trigger.

I watched as the bathroom door slowly creaked open and the silhouette of a man filled the doorway. I saw his hand come upand I didn’t wait. I pulled the trigger and two rods shot out of my gun and hit him in the chest. He grunted and went down hard as electricity shot into his body, inside the bathroom with me. I wasn’t sure what to do until the man started groaning and moving his arms like he was going to get up. Faced with my demise again, I jumped out of the tub and tried to get out of the bathroom.

I screamed as he grabbed my ankle and gripped it tight, not letting me go. I fell in a heap on top of him and jammed my keychain into his upper arm, stabbing the sharp metal ears into him again and again. He screamed and let me go, still stunned enough I had time to get up and escape the bathroom. I was almost out of the front door when I stopped and looked back at the bathroom. A wave of fury washed over me. He’d come intomyhome, ruinedmypeace, so he was going to have to be the point I made to my brothers.

Inside a hope chest in my bedroom was one of the ropes I’d won a rodeo event with when I was a teenager. I ran past the bathroom and grabbed the rope, fear and fury making me braver than I was. The man had started climbing to his feet in the bathroom and I knew if he got to his feet, I wasn’t going to be able to fight him. I jumped on his back and knocked him flat to the floor. His head hit the side of the toilet but I could tell he wasn’t dead by the swearing he was doing. I grabbed the arm I’d stabbed first and wrenched it behind his back. Telling myself he was a pig and I was at the rodeo, I wrestled his other arm behind him and tied them tight before spinning around to do his legs, too.

When I finished and climbed off of him, he was calling me every name in the book and flopping around the bathroom floor like a fish out of water. I wanted to fall on the floor next to him and cry but I had to make my point. I searched his pockets, muchto his dismay, and used his thumb to unlock his phone so I could dial the main cabin’s landline.

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