Page 68 of Surly Sheriff
She shrieked and shot to her feet, dodging his grasp by mere inches. He chased her up the stairs and into the master bedroom, hemming her in against the wall between the two windows. Right where he imagined the bed would go. Clasping her hands high above her head between one of his, he pressed his hips to her, working his free hand under her top. He pulled down the lacy cup of her bra, and closed his dirty palm over her soft breast, kneading and caressing.
“Hmm.”
“Did you enjoy the show?” he asked, his face a mere breath away from hers.
Rae’s eyes sparkled. “It was … enlightening.”
“Enlightening?”
“The beauty and power of your body is a potent aphrodisiac.” She tilted her hips, rubbing against him. “The way your muscles flex and pull—Humph.”
He slammed his mouth to hers. The time for talking was over. And as she didn’t protest his dirty and sweaty body, he showed her exactly how strong his body was by holding her against the wall wielding his iron.
Later, as the first stars appeared in the evening sky, they walked out onto the balcony. He spread his dusty sweatshirt on the tiles and pulled her down.
Sitting between his spread legs, Rae leaned back against his front, and started talking. She spoke of a fearful princess who roamed her country looking for a place to escape the monsters chasing her. Then one day, while driving her chariot along a country road, she came across a man and his dog. Being a kind-hearted person, the princess stopped and offered them a lift.
It turned out the man was a gallant knight, albeit a rather grumpy one. And instead of being the rescuer, the princess herself was rescued from the relentless shadows hounding her.
Rae tilted her head back, sliding her palm around the back of his neck. Her fingers pressed into his nape, and he looked down, meeting her earnest gaze. “I should do the right thing and walk away. Today.Now. The thing is … I’ve fallen in love with you, Beauford Stirling, and find myself unable to do the right thing.”
16
Just right
Beau stood in the doorway and took a moment to compose himself. His relief at seeing his sister sport a huge grin despite her recent trauma was immense.
It started with a call from Nate two hours ago …
“Bella’s water broke. We’re on the way to the hospital.”
He and Rae scrambled out of bed, flung on clothes, and rushed to the hospital. They made the ten-minute drive in seven as the roads were deserted in the middle of the night.
“Bella’s blood pressure spiked,” Mr. Fisher informed them when they entered the maternity waiting room. “They’ve taken her to surgery. Emergency cesarean. Nathaniel is with her.”
The next while dragged, the anxiety in the room tangible. Mrs. Fisher didn’t help with her intermittent weeping.
“Bella will be fine,” Rae repeated, glued to his side. But he heard the tension in her voice and simply held her closer.
If something happened to his sister …
He couldn’t contemplate life without his twin in it.
Finally, a nurse appeared in the doorway. “Mom and babies pulled through just fine. You’ll be able to see for yourself in a short while.”
The short while turned out to be another fifty endless minutes before the nurse returned. He offered Nate’s parents to go in first, so another ten minutes went by before he and Rae walked into the ward.
Nate, pale and haggard, stood guard at the top of the bed, right next to his wife’s shoulder. Beau moved forward and settled a hand on the man’s upper back. “Congratulations, brother.”
Nate merely nodded, his attention on his new family.
Beau followed his line of sight, catching Rae trail a finger across the foreheads of the tiny humans lying on the bed beside their mother.
She said something to Bella, but her words were swallowed by the sounds of gunfire and screams echoing in his mind, transporting him to another time, another life, replacing the image of the sweet and innocent babies wrapped in their pink and blue teddy bear blankets with a brutal and bloody vision of another baby, half its face blown away by a bullet.
His bullet.
Stomach churning, he turned away, swallowing hard. But the bile rose, burning its way into his esophagus. He fled the room and rushed down the hallway, bursting into the public bathroom. Thankfully unoccupied, he reached the toilet just in time, vomiting the dreadful vending machine coffee he’d forced down earlier. Spent, he flushed the bowl and wiped his mouth on his sweatshirt sleeve. He fell to his ass, pulled his knees up, draped his wrists over them, and dropped his head to his chest. Closing his eyes, he drew in haggard breaths.
