Lisa almost made a move then but stopped herself in time. With only one of the idiots close by, she probably could have gotten away, but with two of them near enough to grab hold of her, she didn’t think she could do it.
They were still arguing over whose fault it was for them having so much difficulty getting her into the cabin when another car swerved into the yard, its headlights blinding her. Oh, God. She had to make a move now. If any more of their gang arrived to help, she’d be in worse trouble.
Kicking at Ham, hitting him in the stomach with one foot and the face with the other, she used that force to pull out of Gordie’s hands. Though he did tighten his grip, she still slithered away, twisting and pushing at him as she did so. Starting to run in the opposite direction of the headlights, she got about a foot and felt her leg being twisted to bring her down again. She instinctively kicked out and caught Gordie in the side of his face.
Scrambling away from Ham’s reaching fingers, her toe caught in a tree root, and she went down hard to her knees before pushing her way up and speeding away. Panicked, sweating, screaming inside her head, not seeing which direction she’d chosen, she would have escaped except hard arms caught around her waist from behind and held her against a man’s body that had no give… none at all.
“What the fuck is going on here?” She heard the words and didn’t know whether to be relieved or twice as scared. She stopped fighting.
Gordie spoke up. “Thank goodness you got here in time, Kane. We was just going to have a party with this little package, and she decided to give us a hard time. Ham said she was suckering you; she was at the bar with some other dude. Decided to pay her a lesson for you. Wanna come and join us?”
“Chrissakes you two, she’s my neighbor’s daughter and a good girl. What the fuck is wrong with you? We don’t need to have any cops coming down on us now. Not with our plans. Jesus.”
Ham whined as he tried to get to his feet and tripped twice before he could find his balance. “I wanted to play with her. She’s pretty, Kane.”
Kane pushed Lisa behind him and reached for Ham’s shirt. In seconds, the idiot was hanging in the air and Kane was shaking him like a bad pup. “You listen to me, both of you.” His glare found Gordie and he stilled, caught in the menace. “You ever lay your hands on her again, I’ll kill you.” The words seemed ripped from Kane’s throat with all the ferociousness of a man who had no give. There wasn’t one person there who didn’t understand… he meant exactly what he said.
“Okay. Sorry, man.” Ham struggled to make Kane lower him. Instead, Kane pushed him away like he’d been holding a sack of crap and didn’t like it soiling his hands. He glanced at Gordie and seemed to accept Gordie’s nod. “Sorry, Kane.”
He leaned around Kane to connect with Lisa. “Sorry. We’re a bit stupid and drunk right now. All’s okay, right?”
Lisa ignored him. Instead, she moved to Kane’s truck and went to get in the front passenger seat. That’s when warm hands helped her inside and Lance’s arms closed around her willing body.
“You came.”
“Yeah, but first I had to find Kane to see if he knew where they might take you. He didn’t want anyone to see me, made me stay in the truck, but if there had been any problem, you bet your sweet ass I would have been there in an instant.”
Lisa curled into his arms like a child. “He told them I was a neighbor’s girl. Then he said he’d kill them if they ever touched me again. He meant it, Lance. He was furious.”
“Don’t blame him. You’re an innocent bystander and they had no right to grab you like that. Why did they anyway? Why you?”
“Ham, the ugly one, said he’d seen me with Kane, and I must have been cheating on him with you and so they were going to teach me a lesson.”
“Ah! It makes a stupid kind of sense. You were with him at the newspaper earlier.”
“Yeah, I was. But… how did you know?”
Big mouth, stupid son of a…!!