Forever Mine (Providence Series Book 1) (36 page)

Jake looked back at him with a blank look on his face and then dismissed him turning back to us. “Do yourselves and Mr. Montgomery have any enemies or previously disgruntled customers or employees?”

Dad went quiet as he stared ahead thinking this over. “I don’t think so? We all have people that we have disagreements with obviously, but any that would cause them to go to this extreme? No. George would also have told me if he was having issues. We don’t have any enemies of this severity.”

Jake’s eyes flicked to Brett and then to the men of his who were standing amongst us before coming back to Dad and I. “You do now.”

“What do you mean?” I was getting a bad feeling about this.

“When we investigated the accident site alongside your friend Mace’s contacts, we moved one of the beams and found a very small explosive device that hadn’t exploded. Because of this, and as part of protocol, we took samples of different areas of the sight to rule out possibilities like woodworm, rot, and rust. One of the tests taken from the cloth that had contained the message came back positive for explosives,” Jake took a deep breath. “Our weapons expert examined the explosive device, and with the assistance of the other team, we were able to identify it as a device that is only available to and used by the United States military. It also required someone to detonate it by pressing a remote, so they had to have been standing by and watching the whole time. With all of this information, we know that this means that it was someone who was physically in town, and may well still be.”

“Holy shit,” Cole whispered.

“Jesus Christ,” Dad barked.

“What does this mean?” I needed to know if Maya was still in danger and if it had been personal.

“We don’t know any more than what I’ve just outlined there. However, we do have men inquiring about hotel guests and strangers that may have been seen here around the time of the accident.”

“That won’t help, they were gone immediately after it so that they could go after Brett,” Cole said.

“Unfortunately, this is not the case,” Jake replied. “We have security footage from around Brett’s apartment block and the office, of the SUV that pursued him. They appeared to have been waiting for an opportunity suggesting that it is not someone close to Brett or who works for him as they’d have known he was in Dubai.”

“So, we’re dealing with more than one person?” Dad asked.

“This is a possibility,” Jake confirmed before clearing his throat. “However, at this moment, all of the evidence leads us to believe that the two events aren’t connected.”

“What the fuck?” I’d been worried when Jake first started telling us what happened, but now I was fucking pissed. “You mean, there could be two different parties out there gunning for us?”

“It’s the most likely explanation, Ren,” Brett said.
 

“Unfortunately, there’s more,” Jake said.

“More? How much more can there be?” Cole snapped, making us all turn and glare at him for tempting fate.

“We followed up a lead on an Andrew Lamar. I believe he was involved with Maya at some point. Mr. Lamar died in a car accident around three weeks ago; a day before Maya flew to Tampa. The police report cites faulty brakes as the cause, however when Josh looked at the remains of the car, the brake lines had been tampered with. Whoever is doing this appears to have sent you a hell of a message.”

Feeling dizzy I leaned against the wall of the house; someone had killed Andy. I thought about when I got into the car today, I hadn’t even thought to check it to make sure that it was okay, and then I’d had Maya in it. What if there had been a bomb or my brake lines had been tampered? Then I realized - I was going to have to tell Maya about Andy’s death. Fuck!

Walking up to Jake, Dad said, “I don’t care what you have to do or how many men you have to bring in. Find these bastards and keep my family safe. I’m not losing any of them, and we’re not going through what we went through with Maya again.”

“Yes, Sir!”

Deciding I’d had enough, I walked back into the house and went up to the bedroom. I didn’t want Maya to be out of my sight right now, and I also had to figure out how I was going to tell her about Andy. Things had just got even more real.

*
 
*
 
*

“A niece, Maya Price, and the eldest were injured when it collapsed. My man tells me she’s out of the hospital, and Luke Montgomery is still in a coma,” the voice said into my ear, making me smile. “Do you want us to proceed?”

“No, let him live for now. Continue as you are.” I hung up on him. The phone rang again immediately, pissing me off until I saw the number on the screen.

“What have you got for me?”

“I took out the oil Townsend. He’s down but not critical.”
 
I’d never seen the fuck in person, but his voice was enough to inform me that I really didn’t want to.

“Excellent.” This time, the phone was hung up on me, but that was okay.

Looking at the panting beast beside me, I stroked his head and reached for one of his pig's ears, “It’s all coming together Jonas, my boy. Soon, very soon.”
 

It had taken time to plan, but so far it was going perfectly.

*
 
*
 
*

Hanging up from the asshole, I looked toward the hospital. I was glad that the female survived because she was hot and might come in handy in the future if I was without entertainment. I wonder if she enjoyed my gift? It had been a pleasure organizing it.

As it was, I’d been watching my beauty in Piersville since I took this job. All that was holding me back from taking her was that the contract was still ongoing, and I couldn’t have any complications.

Looking at my watch, I saw that it was time for her to leave work, and then she’d go home for her bath. I never missed that show.

With the other one injured, I didn’t have to worry about missing an opportunity, I could take my time and enjoy it as she washed herself for me. There were some jobs that you hated, and some that you loved; this one was most definitely the latter.

29

____

Maya

I’d been out of the hospital now
for a week, and my side wasn’t hurting me anymore. I’d only had a couple of bad headaches, and it wasn’t easy getting around with a broken leg and arm, but Ren had set everything up so that I never got stuck. He’d had a meeting that he couldn’t get out of today, so I was being babysat by Cole, who had insisted on watching Casino Royale and was currently comparing his base jumping abilities to Bond’s.

“I could do that,” he said as Bond jumped from one crane to another.

“Uh huh!”

“Meh, I’d have knocked him out in three punches. One to the gut, one to the jaw and then bam on the side of the head and nighty noodles out he goes. Look at all the shit it caused because he doesn’t have that skill,” he bragged pointing at the screen.

Rolling my eyes and turning back to the screen I caught sight of something huge crawling up the wall and screamed louder than I think I’ve ever screamed in my life. It was like an eight-legged dog!

“What? What?” Cole yelled jumping up and standing on the bed with his arms in a karate pose.

“That…that…what the shit is it?” I sounded hysterical but come on, it was the size of Dash who was now running around the room barking up at his boyfriend.

An even higher pitched scream than mine pierced the room, and my head snapped around in the direction it came from. Cole was standing with his hands on either side of his head with his fingers tangled in his hair. “Kill it…kill it!” He screeched, dancing on the bed and pointing his finger at the beast on the wall.
 

Call me ridiculous, but his reaction was that hysterical and unexpected that I forgot about the Tyrannosaurus arachnid behind me and lay staring at him as he jumped up and down squealing before bursting out laughing.

“Why are you laughing? It’s going to eat us!” He shouted jumping up and down hard enough that my body was bouncing with him on the mattress sending waves of pain through me. It didn’t distract me from the show in front of me, though. “Oh my god it has stripes! It’s trying to trick us like those fake sharks! It’s in my hair, it’s in my hair,” he squealed as he bounced.
 

I was trying to get air through the laughter and pain, but so far all I could get were these tiny little gasps. I couldn’t stop laughing as he continued on about tigers and pretending to be a house cat before it ate our brains.
 
Just as I was about to start panicking at the lack of oxygen in my body, I heard Ren’s pissed off voice shouting over Cole’s theatrics. A thud followed, and suddenly the bed stopped moving, and Ebru was beside me telling me to breathe.

“What the fuck were you thinking you God damn fucking skippy McTaintlicker,” Ren roared in Cole’s face.

“There’s a fucking Rottweiler on your wall,” Cole yelled back flapping his hand in its direction.

As calmly as I’d ever known was possible in the presence of a spider as big as a horse, Ebru walked up to it, smacked it onto the floor and stomped her foot before turning around and raising a brow in Cole’s direction.

“Well then, I won’t call Animal Control,” Cole said with a sniff and walked out of the room.

“I guess now is a bad time to take your blood pressure and pulse then?” Ebru sighed as she went over to her bag and started pulling out what she needed. Cole walked back in with a shovel and a garbage bag in his hands and made a huge production of scraping the Stegosaurus corpse off the floor. Wiping it with an antibacterial wipe and depositing all of it into the bag he headed back towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Ren growled at him.

“To call the Guinness Book of World Records,” he said continuing out the door without pausing once.

“It was the size of my thumbnail,” Ebru huffed making me wonder if her eyesight was good enough to do medicine. That spider was fucking huge.

I need to tell Tony that someone finally had him beat on the spider Oscars. Damn, I wish I’d recorded it.

*
 
*
 
*

Two weeks later…..

I woke up to a sliver of sun coming through the curtains of the sliding doors at the far end of the bedroom. Because my left side was busted, I always slept on my right side facing Ren with my leg and arm on one of the body pillows. Opening my eyes I saw that his side of the bed empty. His Dad had been talking about an issue on the West side of the Ranch, so I guess he’d gone to help out.

He never left me for long, but when he did he rang regularly to check on me. He’d also been there for all of my doctor’s and hospital appointments.
 
Last week I’d had the staples in my leg and arm removed. My surgeon had tried a new approach when he cast me and had cut out a window so that the wounds could be checked regularly. He’d then wound an Ace bandage over the panels once they were put back in the windows. Once the staples were removed, though, they’d put a new cast on to hold it all in place properly, so they’d cut my temporary cast off during this appointment.
 

When the technician had walked over with what looked like a small handheld circular saw, Ren had immediately stood up in between us and laid down the law.

“Hell no!”

“This is what we use to remove casts. It’s perfectly safe,” the technician tried to reason.

“Yeah and what if you sneeze? Or someone comes in and says boo? You’ll jump, and she’ll be a limb down,” he argued. “Not that I wouldn’t love you whatever way you are, baby,” he’d punctuated with a wink.

“Ren, over here please.” I pointed to my right side.
 

“Baby, have you seen this thing? Bruce used one of these once when he was cutting down wood for the fence, and you’ve seen the tip of his pointy finger or lack of one,” he held up his hand with the index finger folded down at the top to make a point; or lack of one, no pun intended.

“Honey, a horse broke free and jumped next to his head surprising him. It’s not the same thing,” I tried to reason with him.

“And you’re telling me something similar wouldn’t ever happen here?” He was still holding up his hand with the tip of the index finger folded down.

The technician coughed beside us getting Ren’s attention again. “Mr. Townsend, I’ve cut yours and your brothers casts off since you were little. Not once did I cut you, and never have I cut anyone.”
 

Ren scowled harder and then stomped over to my side watching the technician like a hawk as he cut my casts off. I thought he was going to pass out when they took the staples out and covered the wounds with a dressing, though. He’d kept saying that it was ‘barbaric’ as the doctor took the staples out with a special device. By the time the end was in sight and they were putting new casts on, I was ready to kill him and kept wondering why I hadn’t asked Colette or Christie to bring me. Oh yeah, because I was never given a choice.
 

After visiting Luke again, I spoke to his doctor; he was getting stronger. My family, Ren’s family and bizarrely Isla’s best friends who were living in her house while she was away had kept him company the whole time, so he was never alone. I left the hospital feeling like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Ren was still grumping about the barbaric cast removals when we got home but stopped when I’d tried to get out of Hulk myself.