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“That's… not right.”
Deuce crosses the space, resting his hands on my shoulders. With his ink and piercings, long hair and leather, I laugh at him. “You’re the devil on my shoulder.”
He grins. “Damn right I am. And as your personal devil, I’m telling you, there’s nothing wrong with getting back in the swing of things with someonetemporary.” His dark eyes hold mine uncomfortably. “And yes, your sister is worried but you gotta get your feet wet, so to speak.”
I rake a hand up the back of my head as he moves to sign the paper held out to him by the water heater technician. Once the man is gone, I tell Deuce, “That sounds a lot likeusingher.”
Deuce smiles. “That’s calleddating.”
After waving Bear and Ev off, I slide my boots and vest on, adding my hat as I step out the back door. She’s taking him in town to look at wedding stuff with her so I can bale hay today, something I cannot do with Bear under my feet. Way too fucking dangerous. The bales are extremely heavy.
Tugging my right glove on, eyes set on the barn, I stop inmy tracks, a shiver winding through me, leaving my spine straight at the sound of a piercing feminine scream.
What was that?Quickly I turn around, jogging back through my house, out the front door, my breath already coming fast. Ev’s SUV isn’t out front–so it’s not like she drove back here in a second with a massive, screaming emergency.
That’s not her style anyway.
I stand ten paces out of my drive, front door open, one glove on, heart racing as the piercing cry comes back, louder, more violent, echoing through the vast ranch land.
I turn to face the Ellington household. When I’d taken Bear out to Ev’s SUV and buckled him in, giving him a kiss goodbye, I’d seen Juni and Ivy loading the back of Juni’s car. I overheard Juni telling my sister they were going up north for a few hours to procure some of the tattooing supplies that didn’t come in Ivy’s shipment.
I didn’t notice that Dolly was there.
The scream echoes through the sky one more time, and my boots are tearing through the gravel before I realize it, headed straight for their front door. I slam my fist against the aged, flaking wood.
Juni raised herself and her two sisters after their father passed, and she did a damn good job. The women that we moved next door to have been nothing but helpful, sweet and kind. The way they embraced me using my property to have a farmers market, which would undoubtedly press on them due to their house location, was incredible.
But raising good people while trying to pay the bills has clearly and rightfully been the pressing responsibilities. The Ellington house could use some work.
No one answers my knock, and just as my pulse sinks into a normal cadence, there’s another chest-rattling scream, raw and painful. Urgency and fear have me racing around the back of the house, to the glass sliding door. I cup my hands to the door and peer inside, but the house is undisturbed.
Cautiously, I bring my fist to the glass, knocking gently so as not to break the door. I could, though. My panic and strength could easily get the better of me. The scream sounds off again, and bumps rise up along the length of my arms.
I see Dolly again, curled up next to Bear, and again at the farmers market in her booth, glancing back at him as she greeted folks.
I try the door but it’s locked, and I’m one second away from breaking a window when she appears.
Dolly steps out from the back hallway, her honey hair a tangled, damp mess around her face. She calmly tucks it behind her ears as she comes toward the sliding door, a blue-and-white gingham sundress clinging to her youthful curves.
But all I see is blood.
Streaking her forearms, splattered across one of her thighs, smeared along her forehead and another drop above her top lip. She walks slowly through the living room and I find myself pressing both palms to the glass impatiently, watching her walk to me, my heart pumping as fast as it did the day Bear was born. Different kind of adrenaline.
As soon as the click of the lock sounds and she slides the door back on the track, I’m inside the Ellington house, Dolly in my arms as I carry her into the kitchen. “What’s wrong?What happened? Are you okay? Is someone in the house?” I pepper her with panicked questions.
Lowering her to the counter, I study her face and head, using my hands to manipulate her body, lifting arms, moving hair,searching. Searching for an injury, a bruise, a cut, a gash—something to explain the horrendous screams and all the blood.
After my breathing and panic steadies just some, I rest my hands on the counter on either side of her slender legs. “Dahlia,” I breathe, unable to find a cut of any kind. “What’s hurt? Where are you hurt?”
“No one is in the house,” she finally says. “And… it’s here,” she answers quietly, outstretching her leg. She takes my hands, bringing them to the top of her thigh, her wide blue eyes holding mine captive as she wraps my grip on her soft, private skin. Her blue dress is all bunched up at her waist, and I know my hands should not be this high.
“Where?” I ask, focusing on my hands banding her upper thigh.
“Down,” she urges, her voice calm and kind of detached, a little eerie after all the screaming.
I pull my hands down her leg and when I get to her knee, my cock thickening from the velvet feel of her bare skin, I ask, “Where, Dolly?” I find my worry compounding.
“Keep going,” she says softly, swiping her tongue along her top lip, licking away the drop of blood left there. I keep moving my hands down until I’m holding her foot in my hand, her leg lifted an inch off the counter. I move my thumb along her arch, and discover a large gash, about three inches long.
