Ridge Creek Reunited (Ridge Creek Duology) (18 page)

Even bedraggled and covered in powder, she still manages to pin me with a savage glare. “Let me go,” she hisses.

“Sure,” Gina announces as she removes her arm from Victoria’s chest and drops her hand from her back.

Suddenly freed, Victoria wastes less than half a millisecond before she launches forwards, both arms out in front of her, straight towards me. “Jesus,” I hear Anton mutter from next to me as he steps forward to place himself between me and the crazy dust monster headed my way. “She’s relentless.”

“That’s one fuckin’ word for her,” I hear Jake mutter as I duck my head sideways and past Anton to see what Victoria plans to do next. Peeking from my vantage point behind Anton, I see Victoria acknowledge the wall of Anton before her as she rocks to a halt. Frustrated at Anton’s defensive maneuver, she swings her glare to Jake and starts moving his way.

“I said what the fuck is she doing on the
back of your bike?”
Victoria roars again as she stops about a foot away from Jake and stares up at his face. I see she’s not stupid enough to try to put a hand on
him.

“We’re going for a
ride,
” Jake answers her coolly. “Something
you
never wanted to do.”

“Oh no you’re not,” Victoria hisses back. “I want her
gone.
”

“That’s not your decision to make
Victoria,” Jake replies slowly and lethally, his voice dripping with threat.

“In the eyes of God, you are my
husband
and as such, you are supposed to
honor
and
respect
me. Part of that respect is to not wave your filthy fucking floozy under my nose. I want her
gone.
”

“Victoria…” Jake growls low and lethal again at the exact same instant that I snap.

Snap as in I
lose
it.

My pulse rate
finally
spikes. Which this time has nothing to do with fear but has
everything
to do with anger.

That bitch just called me a filthy fucking floozy.

Nobody calls me a filthy fucking floozy. I’ve been called many things over the years and some for good reason, but
never
a
filthy fucking floozy
.

Launching into action I jump sideways to round Anton and fly at Victoria. Unaware of my impending attack from her side, she doesn
’t see me coming. With my arms extended out in front of me, I charge straight at her side and hit her with force. One hand lands flat against her bicep and the other almost misses her body entirely. Almost but not quite because as my first hands connects with her bicep, her body starts to twist which means my second hand connects squarely with one of her breasts and I
shove.

I shove so hard she flies sideways and twists at such speed that she loses her footing and slams to the ground on her ass. Putting both hands out behind her to slow her fall, I hear her squeal in agony as her bandaged hand connects with concrete half a beat before her good hand connects and then her ass slams to the ground.

A small cloud of dust erupts from her clothes as I halt and stare down at her pathetic ass sitting on the ground. I figure she can thank me later for dusting at least some of that crap off her carefully put together outfit.

Snatching her hands from behind her, even I have to admit she looks in pain. Holding both hands in front of her, I can see blood starting to ooze from the bandage on her right hand and it makes me pause for a moment. She look
s like she’s in
severe
pain.

I then remember what she just said about me and decide I don’t care whether she’s in pain or not. Glancing from her hands back to her face I stoop over and close the space between us. “I am not a
filthy
fucking floozy,” I snarl. “First, to be a floozy, one has to have slept with multiple partners. Considering I have slept with but two men in my entire life, I am damned near positive that I’m
not
a floozy. One of those men I was with for over ten years before he
died.
Which means that I did not in fact,
ever
cheat on him because he was dead before I slept with the second guy. That second guy is of course Jake. Who, even though I only met him recently didn’t seem to take it lightly that I slept with him. That would be because I
didn’t
take lightly. It just felt right and I decided to go with it. He also made it clear that he doesn’t
share
which therefore means that I will not be aiming for any other sexual partners in the foreseeable future. About the remark that I was filthy, well – words cannot express how
wrong
you are about
that.
”

Still nursing her bleeding hand, Victoria pales.

Considerably.

Which I find interesting because throughout this whole escapade she’s had flaming red, angry cheeks to match her flaming red hair. Being set on with a fire extinguisher, Karate tackled by an Amazonian woman and scorned by her husband seemed to have no effect. My words however, did.

“You’ve
slept
with him?” She whispers slowly up at me as she drops her hands to her lap and sags visibly. “You’ve
slept
with my husband?”

Go
d. That does sound bad doesn’t it?

I may not be a floozy but she sure makes me sound like a home-wrecker. Which would probably be just as bad except for the fact that I
know
Jake is trying to divorce her ass. Her not signing the paperwork does not in my books mean that he has to live a life of celibacy while he waits for her to limber up her signing hand.

Deciding there’s no reason to keep going
there,
I answer simply. “I think I’ve already covered that part.”

Deflating even further, Victoria visibly shrinks before me. He
r face softens and a look of misery washes over her. In fact she looks so miserable and pathetic that I start to backtrack again and worry about her bleeding hand and the coating of chemicals she has on her.

“Jesus Christ,” I hear Jake mutter from behind me. “You done for today
Victoria or what?”

“Apparently so,” she says softly looking up at Jake with pathetic eyes that look blank and lost.

It’s then that I see movement out of the corner of my eye and watch as Gina walks over to Victoria and offers her a hand. Victoria scowls at her momentarily, sighs then takes the offered assistance. Standing slowly, she stares at me with a blank look on her face and then moves her eyes to Jake as she says, “I’ll sign the papers.”

Jake looks momentarily stunned before his face tightens back into a look of suspicion. Sliding his eyes to me he replies, “Good.” He then reaches out with his hand and tags my elbow so he can slide me in close to him. Nodding to Anton and Gina, he looks towards Stephen. “Give us five minutes. We’ll meet you in the communal room.”

Shifting his eyes to Emma, “Show ‘em where it is.”

Sliding his eyes back to Victoria his voice turns lethal again. “Stay the fuck away from me, my shop, Ma’s
restaurant and Arianna. I see you again, you’ll regret it.”

Victoria nods as Jake tucks me closer to his side and guides me towards the front door of the shop.

The Prenup

Arianna…

“What the fuck was that sweetheart?” Jake rumbles softly as he runs his nose slowly along my jugular and towards my chin.

L
eaning back against the bedroom door, the one we barely made it through before Jake slammed it shut and pinned me to it, I struggle to formulate words. Reveling in the tingles running up my spine as Jake’s nose travels its slow soft course of my neck, I can only manage one word. “Umm?”

“Umm what?” He asks softly again, as he arrives at my jawline and softly nibbles his lips against the bone.

“Which part?” I ask as I roll my head back to give him easier access to my jaw. I then find myself whimpering as he removes his lips from my jawbone to run his hot wet tongue along the same route he just ran his nose.

“The sexy as hell, I’m not taking any more shit from
anyone
display you just gave us all. It’s about time you came out of your shell. Been waiting for it. A woman that survived what you did doesn’t spend the rest of her life taking shit. She does exactly what you did today. She takes no shit - from anyone.”

“She was out of line,” I mumble as his lips hit mine and we
kiss.

A wet, luscious kiss.

A phenomenal kiss.

A kiss that rocks me to the core and makes me want to hum.

Cutting the kiss off
way
to early, Jake gives my bottom lip a final nip before he pulls away. “She was. Now I’d happily stay here all day and do all sorts of dirty shit to you but we gotta get moving. There’s people waiting to talk to us and then we gotta hit the road. We also need to take a quick shower coz I can taste whatever that funky white extinguisher shit was all over your skin. Grab some fresh clothes for us both sweetheart and I’ll meet you in the shower.”

Feeling disappointed that I’ve lost his lips I sigh regretfully. I then perk up again as I realize we are heading for the shower.

Together.

“Okay,” I agree with a chirp and a grin.

Jake smirks at me, pulls me away from the door and gives me a final peck on the lips. “See you soon.”

Suffice to say we were not back in the communal room in five minutes. It turned out to be more like half an hour.

*****

“A copy of the DNA test results,” Stephen announces sliding the A4 sized sheet of white paper across the table
to set it in front of me. “It’s confirmed, you’re my daughter.”

My eyes flicker from his sincere blue eyes down to the piece of paper. Not much on the page makes sense to me, it’s a blur of numbers and colors but there is one part that is circled and highlighted
. It says, ‘
Probability 99.999918 percent
.’

“Okay,” I reply softly as I stare at the piece of paper in front of me. It seems legitimate. And I would almost take it as Gospel except there
’s one significant anomaly impacting the report sitting in front of me that needs questioning. “But it’s Monday.”

I look up to see confusion on Stephen’s face. Clearly he has no idea what I am talking about. “We took the test in the early hours of Saturday morning and now it’s
Monday.
” I prod him again.

“Yes?” Stephen replies still looking confused before the penny finally drops. “Oh,” he continues, “I have
contacts,
” he assures me.

“Contacts that complete DNA tests over the weekend?” I ask incredulous than anyone would be diligent enough to be working weekends on a job as boring as analyzing DNA.

“Yes, for a fee…” Stephen starts to explain before I cut his sentence short.

“I’ve sent off for another test kit, can we do it again?”

Stephens eyebrows draw together as he considers my question. “Of course, but why?”

“Because I never
saw
you take your swab. I need to be positive. One hundred percent positive,” I reply as Jake’s reminder that I should make sure the test was legitimate swirls through my mind.

“I see. Fair call I suppose. Unnecessary, but I can understand your concerns. Let me know when your kit arrives and I will make myself available to you. It may however take some coordination as I am flying back to Sydney later this afternoon.”

“We’ll come to Sydney,” Jake joins the conversation. Until this point he’s been sitting quietly to my right, his arm thrown around my shoulder, his hand curling my upper arm in a protective and supportive stance.

“
We
will?” I blurt swinging my head sideways to confirm he just announced he’s planning on us both going to Sydney, together. To visit my so called father.

Jake nods and moves his eyes to Stephen. “I have someone in Sydney I need to meet with anyway. I’ll kill two birds with one stone. We’ll stay at your place.”

I watch as Stephen’s eyebrows lift and his top lip twitches slightly. He looks amused that Jake has boldly invited himself to stay without an official invite.

“You will,” Stephen agrees with a nod. “We can discuss Patricia.”

Shit. I forgot about her.

The woman who has allegedly been pretending to be my mother all these years. I need to decide how I plan to deal with her. Do I even care that she’s not my mother? Right now she thinks I’m dead and doesn’t expect to me see me ever again. I had planned never to see
her
again. Perhaps it would be best left this way? Taking Patricia to task over her crime will mean I need to resurface. Do I want to do that?

I’m happy with my life exactly the way it is. I like
, no
love
my new life and apart from the odd freak out about not having any old friends to Facebook with, what am I missing? What value is there in pointing the bone at Patricia?

Very little.

There is however one rather big problem with anything I decide to do. It’s the unfortunate matter that the decision is not all mine to make. Stephen has a stake in this. He lost a daughter. He lost a wife. The biggest crime as I can see it was the crime committed against him.

Shit.

He might not leave me any choice
but
to resurface.

“I want a DNA test for Patricia as well,” I announce suddenly. One set of green eyes and one set of blue eyes land on me simultaneously. They both look concerned. I can see the cogs whirling in two sharp male minds.

Jake is the first to respond. “That’s a good idea.”

Stephen however, takes a lot longer to respond. He looks unhappy about my statement. Watching me intently for a short while, I watch as his face slowly relaxes. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he just put his Poker face on. Somewhere behind that face, is still an unhappy man.

“That’s not necessary,” he finally announces shifting his eyes slowly to stare at the piece of paper in front of me. “You are my daughter. Your second test will confirm this and we can move forward from there. Being my daughter and the heir to my considerable fortune is all that matters. Being my daughter and keeping you
safe
is all that matters.”

Jakes arm drops from my shoulder as he suddenly pushes his seat back and stands up. “Sure, sounds like a plan. Now we need to get moving so is there anything else we need to discuss Stephen?”

Stephen shifts his eyes from the paper to look at me as he smiles softly. He then moves his eyes to Jake and a chill races down my spine as I detect the faintest hint of lethal in his voice. “I look forward to catching up with you both in Sydney. Anton will relay your travel arrangements to Gina when the time comes.”

Standing next to me, Jake stoops a little to hook me under the elbow and encourage me to stand. “Anton can go home,” Jake announces. “Leave a number, we’ll call.”

Watching as Jake wraps his arm protectively around me to pull me in closer to his body, Stephen disagrees. “Anton stays.”

Stiffening slightly against me, Jake growls his annoyance before reasserting, “He can go home.” His voice is suddenly deep, very deep. So deep that I swear my panties dampen just a smidge as his angry growl vibrates through to my soul.

“I need to know she’s safe, I need to receive updates,” Stephen continues beginning to look agitated. As agitated as he did the first night I met him.

“She can ring or text you if and when she feels like it,” Jake responds, the aggression now clear in his voice. “You can ring my boys in our camera room, get updates whenever you like. We don’t
need
Anton here.”

And with the statement, I can sense that Jake is
finished.
I sense this because now he’s not only stiff as he stands next to me. He’s also giving off a vibe.

A powerful vibe.

The vibe that you first experience as a child in the school yard when someone says to you tauntingly, “Say that
just one more time.”
The vibe that if ignored, you soon learn you shouldn’t have crossed that line and you
really
shouldn’t have said whatever it was that one last time. You realize you should have just
let it go.

Jake’s vibe is so strong you can feel it pulsing in the air around us and I start to wonder whether Stephen is about to make the dumbest move of his life by continuing
on his Anton bent.

My eyes slide upwards and I twist my head to look at Jake’s jaw. In line with the vibe I
’m feeling, I can see a muscle twitching along his jawline. I move my eyes to Stephen and can see he’s thinking long and hard about what his next words will be.

For his sake, I hope they are the right ones.

“I understand you came to an agreement last time you – interacted with Anton,” Stephen states cautiously. “I believe the agreement works for you when you are unable to escort Arianna yourself.”

I feel Jake relax slightly. “Yes I did and yes it does,” he mumbles as he lifts a hand to scratch his chin. “I can’t be with her all the time.”

Holy shit I think Jake’s going to back down.

Jake looks across to the bar where Anton, Ritchie and Gina perch looking uncomfortable and very much out of their natural environment. Each of them has an untouched beer sitting in front of them. It would appear that none of them drink on the job.

Hilarious.

I also sense they’ve never sat at a grotty bar that comes complete with a little green bird storming up and down its length screeching a mixture of Swahili and English profanities. Jambo has noticed their unease as well because he
’s putting in overtime to be loud, rude and I think,
very
entertaining.

Anton sensing Jake’s eyes on him turns his head and
lifts his chin. I cringe when I see his black eye, split lip and broken nose. Jake gives his own slight chin lift in his direction before returning his attention to Stephen. “I’m heading out for a week or so for business. Ari’is coming with me. I don’t want him following us.”

Stephen nods his understanding. “Agreed. Anton can use your time away to
conduct other
business and find more suitable accommodation. Living in a hotel is not sustainable long-term. He needs to find a house. He will remain as a resource for your use however you see fit. He’s a good man.”

“I got that when we had our chat,” Jake mumbles under his breath before admitting he has conceded by adding, “I’ll hook him up with my realtor.”

“Thank you,” Stephen replies pushing his chair back and standing. “I’ll leave you to it.” Rounding the table quickly, he takes me by surprise when he leans in and presses his lips to my cheek. “Be safe.”

The second his lips touch my skin, Jake stiffens again. I don’t blame him. I don’t think I’m at the hug and kiss stage of our relationship yet.

Even if he
is
my father.

Steven sensing the tension he
’s causing backs off quickly. Nodding to Gina and Ritchie, he strides towards the door to the shop front. Gina and Ritchie stand. Anton looks around awkwardly and starts to rise from his seat too.

“Stay,” Jake orders pointing a finger at Anton. “We need to have another chat.” Anton smirks slightly and sits back in his seat as Stephen disappears through the door to the shopfront.

Gina glances at Anton and mouths the words, “Good luck.” She then turns to Jambo and says, “Goodbye amusing bird.” Ritchie looks at Jambo then back at Gina and grins.

My eyes scan the three strangers at the bar for a moment and then it hits me. They
’ve suddenly relaxed. Stephen has left the room and nothing unsavoury happened. Hell didn’t freeze over, a biker bar brawl didn’t break out and no more fire extinguishers were engaged. They were on alert waiting for bad things to happen.

“Gotta move,” Ritchie announces nodding in my direction and making haste towards the door. Gina is half a step behind him. No further pleasantries are exchanged before they disappear through the door to follow Stephen.

Jake wastes no time in striding across the room to close the door to the shop front behind them. Moving with purpose, he pulls the door closed and strides straight back to the bar where Anton is sitting quietly, his dark eyes watching Jake as he moves across the room towards him.