The Vixen and the Vet (17 page)

“Or you’ll what?”

“Let go of me, Lance.”

He didn’t. He put his other arm around her waist and jerked her up against his body, pressing his lips to her neck as his erection pushed aggressively against her belly. “No, I don’t think so. I think you owe me after I helped you get away from that dinner without embarrassin’ yourself. I think you owe me a few kisses at least.”

Savannah hauled back her free hand and slammed it into Lance’s face with all her might, connecting with his nose.

“HELL!” he cried, letting go of her to reach up and cradle his bleeding nose.

Savannah didn’t wait to see what happened next. She turned and ran, as fast as she could, toward the light of the houses. She was panting and sweating, and her flip-flops fell off in the heavy sand, but she kept running until her legs were pulled out from under her. She fell hard on the sand, tasting grit on her tongue as the wind was knocked out of her lungs.

“You low-rent Northern slut! You punched me?” Lance’s weight was crushing her already depleted lungs, and Savannah panicked, grappling at the sand as he straddled her back. “I tried to be nice.”

Suddenly he moved to the side, then rolled her over and was upon her again, straddling her hips as he shoved her dress up. “
Look at me, Savannah. I want you lookin’ in my eyes when I take you.”

The change in position allowed her lungs to release, and she sucked in a gasp of air, reaching up with her fists to pummel whatever part of Lance she came in contact with, but he was strong and had her at a disadvantage. He grasped both of her wrists with one hand roughly,
pinning them over her head, hurting her.

“You’re
gonna stop that right—”

Before he could finish his thought, Savannah cleared her throat and spit into his face, covering one eye and part of his cheek in slick saliva, which slid down his face, mixing with the blood of his still-bleeding nose. His eyes flared with fury in the dim light afforded by the nearby
houses, and he smacked her face hard, his palm connecting with her lips, which slammed into her teeth. Her head reeled with shock as she tasted the metallic flavor of blood on her tongue.

“
Whorin’ around with a cripple when a perfectly good man wants to take a crack at you, you ungrateful tramp.” He reached up under her dress, and she felt him grab the waistband of her panties when she heard someone calling her name.

“Savannah? Savannah, you out here?”

“Hey, now, Savannah? You here?”

Two voices.
Goosey’s and Jenny’s.

Lance sneered toward the sound of the voices. Then he looked back down at Savannah, removing his hand from under her dress and kneeling at her side so he wasn’t straddling her anymore.

She half rolled, half jerked to her stomach, then to her hands and knees, coughing and sobbing, and started throwing up on the sand.

“Oh, no!”
Goosey’s voice was closer now, drawn by the sounds of Savannah’s puke.

Suddenly Jenny was kneeling beside her. “Oh, Savannah, honey, you drank too much.”

Lance spoke from beside her. “Poor thing hooked me in the nose when she leaned over and started retchin’.”

Neither Goosey nor Jenny addressed Lance, but Savannah felt small hands under her shoulders, helping her up.

“Come on now, Savannah,” said Jenny. “We have to get you cleaned up.”

Savannah stood up, brushing the back of her hand over her mouth.

“Oh, honey,” said Goosey, zeroing in on her bleeding lip. “You hurt yourself!”

“I … I, uh…” Savannah tried to catch her breath, but latent fear and fury still made it hard to breathe. She looked down at Lance, who sat on the sand, pressing a handkerchief to his bleeding nose and looking up at her with mean eyes.

“We were havin’ a little fun. Wrestlin’,” he said, challenging Savannah with his glare.

“
Wrestling
?! You were about a minute away from raping me!” shouted Savannah, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, then drawing it away. A thin strip of blood stained her hand. Tears ran down her face, but she barely felt them, and she didn’t wipe them away. She stared down at Lance until he turned from her, looking out at the water.

“
That
is an ugly word. And I think I look worse than you do, Miss Savannah,” he said. He was trying to be light about it, but she could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

“I’m filing charges,” she said, and both Jenny and Goosey gasped. Filing charges was an aggressive, Northern way of handling differences, but Savannah didn’t care. Lance Hamilton was a menace, and every girl in Danvers should know to beware.

“Drunk girl goes for a walk on the beach. Both she and her companion end up bloody. Looks about even steven to me. Maybe I should file assault charges too.”

He was right. He hadn’t actually done anything to her that she hadn’t done to him. They were both bleeding, and there hadn’t actually been a rape. What good would it do for them both to file assault charges against each other? “You’re trash, Lance Hamilton.”

“Savannah, you come on back up to the house now,” said Jenny quickly, pulling on Savannah’s arm.

“You are a snake. A rat. A lowlife rapist,” snarled Savannah, throwing her sandy hair over her shoulder and shrugging off the girls.

“Now, now, Miss Savannah. Ain’t becomin’ to call names,” said Lance calmly, still seated on the sand, looking out at the ocean.

“Come on back to the house, honey,” said Goosey. “We’ll get you cleaned up.”

“You two know what he is. Just as well as I do.”

Neither young woman said anything. Jenny reached out and took Savannah’s hand. “You’ve had a time of it. Come on back to the house now, Savannah.”

Savannah bent down close to Lance’s ear. “If I ever hear of you touching another woman the way you touched me tonight, I will write the biggest, baddest exposé that ever hit Danvers, and
everyone
will know the scumbag rapist that you are.”

Lance chuckled smugly without looking up, and Savannah turned, walking back up to the house arm in arm with Jenny and Goosey.

The first time you see a future with him

Asher drove back into Danvers late afternoon on Saturday, wondering what time Savannah was getting home from Myrtle Beach the next day. They had a regular planned date for Monday afternoon, but that was forty-eight hours away, and after everything they’d shared on Thursday night, it felt like forty-eight million years. Urgency had always been a strong component of his relationship with Savannah—he’d wanted her from the start, from the first moment she arrived on his doorstep in her sister’s sundress holding a plate of brownies—but what he felt now had grown into something visceral, an all consuming feeling for which you might change the course of your life.

He pulled into his driveway and rounded the car, taking his small duffel bag out of the trunk before heading into the house. Miss Potts opened the front door.

“Afternoon, Miss Potts!” he exclaimed.

“How was Maryland?”

“They’re making the mold. I go back next weekend for the fitting. Weekend after that, it’ll be finished.”

“And your …?”

“My face?” He sighed, walking past her into the front hallway. “Not quite as simple.”

“How many?” asked Miss Potts.

“At least four,” he said. “Maybe seven.”

“
And what are they planning to do?”

He let his bag fall from his shoulder onto the marble floor and faced her. “Ear. Nose. Jaw. And some of my cheek.”

“That’s a strong start,” she said. “Your leg?”

He shook his head. “I’m leaving it alone.”

“Couldn’t they—”

“No. My face only.”

She gave him a grim smile and nodded once, looking away as though there was more to say, but she didn’t know how to say it. “Can I, uh, can I get you some food?”

He looked closely at her. “Is it me, or are you acting funny?”

She looked away quickly, bustling toward the kitchen. “Why I …”

“Miss Potts,” he said, following her. “What’s going on with you?”

She stopped in front of the kitchen sink, turning to face him.

“Now, before you blame me,” she said, “I’ll have you know I had nothing to do with it this time.”

“With what?”

“I… I admit that I led Savannah astray the weekend before last, but that was only because I wanted her to see you as a man, not an invalid.”

“What did you do?” he asked, worried now.

“Nothing, Asher. I swear. Nothing.” She shrugged helplessly. “She canceled Monday. No explanation. Just canceled.”

“What do you mean?”

“Savannah called here this morning and canceled your meeting on Monday.”

His heart fell, and his hand started sweating. He clenched it into a fist. Myrtle Beach blared in his mind like a neon sign.

“What did she say?”

“She said she wasn’t able to make it and to tell you sorry. She hung up quickly.”

Asher’s mind reeled. It didn’t make any sense. He combed through their last interaction in front of her house, and he could think of nothing that would indicate her pulling away from him.
The boys are renting the condo next door.

He turned away from Miss Potts so she wouldn’t see the confusion in his eyes.

“Did you hear a lot of noise in the background, like she was having a great time? At the beach? At a party?”

“No. No, I didn’t.”

He swallowed, reaching up to scratch an itch, and was surprised to feel his uneven skin under his fingertips. It still surprised him sometimes to realize how badly injured he was. And she’d been at Myrtle Beach with a bunch of good-looking guys. His breath hitched as he thought of her with someone else. But no. That wasn’t Savannah. She’d just been with
him
on Thursday night.
She wouldn’t … I mean, she wouldn’t …

“When did she call?” he asked sharply.

Miss Potts took the phone out of its cradle and handed it to Asher. “Look for yourself.”

He pressed the menu button to look at recent calls, scrolling back two calls to find Savannah’s. 11:23 a.m. Then something occurred to him. His brows furrowed together as he stared at the phone.

“
Savannah
called to cancel? Or her mother called to cancel for her?”

“Oh, no, dear. It wasn’t Judy. It was definitely Savannah. If my memory’s right, Frank and Judy are away on mission weekend for Stone Hill Methodist.”

He turned to look at Miss Potts. “But the call came from her parents’ house.”

Miss Potts nodded.

“This morning.”

She nodded again.

“But Savannah’s in Myrtle Beach.”

Miss Potts stared at him, seemingly at a loss, then shrugged her shoulders.

As his mind scrambled to figure things out, he absently dropped the phone back into the cradle. Then he turned on his heel and headed back toward the front hall.

***

Savannah winced at her reflection in her bedroom mirror. There was a crust of reddish-brown blood, and a little bruising under the place where Lance had split her lip, and it was puffy and discolored. She’d stopped by the local clinic on her way back into town, and the doctor told her it would go away in a couple of days, but for now she looked like she’d been in a bar fight.

After Goosey and Jenny had walked her back to the beach house, Savannah asked them to bring Scarlet inside without alarming her. Scarlet flounced into the bedroom, annoyed to be pulled away from the barbecue, but her face fell when Savannah looked up from where she sat on the bed.

“Vanna! What happened?”

“Your future brother-in-law got a little fresh with me,” she said, making a decision to downplay what had happened. She wasn’t interested in ruining Scarlet’s entire weekend. She could explain in further detail once they got home.

“What? Lance?”

“The very snake.”

“Oh, Vanna, are you okay? I’m sure it was a misunderstandin’,” she said weakly. “Why, Lance is just a big ol’ flirt.”

“No, miss,” said Savannah, with flint in her eyes. “He’s not.”

And something in her tone must have conveyed the seriousness of the situation, because Scarlet didn’t argue. Maybe she knew Lance was dangerous. Maybe she’d even been on the receiving end of his untoward attentions once or twice.

Savannah took a shaky breath, walked to the closet, and rolled out her still mostly packed suitcase.

“I’m going home,” she said, heading into the bathroom for her bathing suit. “I can’t stay.”

“No! No,
Vanna. Don’t go.” Scarlet ran to her sister, took her hand, and pulled her up against her. “Vanna, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry this happened.”

“Me too. But I’m still going home,” said Savannah, her nerves still a little shot from what had almost happened on the beach. “I’m not pressing charges. When you see Lance, you’ll know why.”

Scarlet’s eyes widened.

“But if he ever goes near another girl again, I will fillet him, Scarlet. So help me, I will end him in print.”

Savannah called a cab and made it to the airport by ten o’clock, for the last flight from Myrtle Beach to Washington, D.C. She spent the night at an airport motel in Washington and arranged for a private car to take her home in the morning. She’d be sending the bill to Hamilton & Sons. That was for certain.

She gazed into the mirror and touched the discolored skin gingerly, grimacing as pain shot from her mouth to her brain, worsening her headache. There’s no way it would be healed by Monday. Maybe Wednesday, if she was lucky.

Miss Potts hadn’t pressed her for more information when she told her she wasn’t coming on Monday, but Savannah heard the disappointment in the older woman’s voice. Savannah hated that she was letting Asher down. She hated not being able to see him, but she was embarrassed by what had happened on the beach, and she didn’t want for Asher to think, even for a moment, that she’d been after alone time with Lance. It was just best to wait until Wednesday and not open the whole can of worms.

She sat down on her bed to check her e-mails. The quiet afternoon in her parents’ empty house had been productive, at least. She’d sent the third installment of her article to
McNabb, and he called her almost immediately to tell her how much he liked it.

“I’ve decided to print the whole thing at once, Carmichael. A big, beautiful Lifestyles piece on the Fourth of July. How a local girl and wounded soldier found love. It’s going to be a smash.”

Savannah had smiled weakly at the phone. Even with Asher’s name changed to Adam, Savannah employing her pen name, Cassandra Calhoun, and Danvers never mentioned, she still didn’t feel entirely comfortable sharing the intimacies of her time with Asher. The latest story had been about family supper, movie night, and Asher telling her he was falling in love with her.

As she’d written the story, she typed the words, then erased them, then retyped them, staring at them for a long time:

In the early-morning hours, I woke up beside him, bathed in rising sunlight. I pressed my fingertips to his scarred face as he looked into my eyes and told me he was falling in love with me.

She declined, of course, to add that they’d both been naked and that, as soon as he’d said these precious words, he went on to thrust so far and deep into her that he ended up giving her the best early-morning orgasm she’d ever experienced. She moved the cursor over the words “falling in love with me,” highlighting them and staring at them for a long moment. She was falling in love with him too, and she hated that their story was the only way for her to dig herself out of the professional hole she found herself in. She wished there was another way, but there wasn’t. She just had to hope that Asher either (a) wouldn’t read the article at all, or (b) would forgive her for using parts of their story.

She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling, wondering what he was doing right now. Was he at home, reading a book in
the grove? Or having a late lunch in his study? Taking an afternoon nap or chatting with Miss Potts over chess? She longed for him brutally, wishing she could jump in her car and drive to his house. They could spend another weekend together and just let the days melt into Monday. And the nights. Oh God, the nights. Her breathing quickened, and her pulse hammered. She’d never had a lover as patient and passionate as Asher. It was as though he couldn’t get enough of her body, and she certainly couldn’t get enough of his.

At some point, she’d stopped seeing his injuries entirely. They certainly didn’t shock her anymore. His lips, his hand, his strong arms and beautiful torso … He loved her as she’d never been physically loved in her entire life. She was addicted to him. It was harder and harder to imagine the future without him.

The doorbell had probably rung twice before she heard it, cutting unwelcome into her lazy daydreams. She made her way downstairs. Her mother had told her that a friend from church was dropping off bridal magazines for Scarlet. It couldn’t possibly be anyone here to see her; she was supposed to have been in Myrtle Beach all weekend.

As she opened the door, she gasped, reaching up to cover her injured mouth as her eyes slammed into Asher’s.

She was too late. He’d already seen.

His face, which had, in an instant, changed from surprised to happy, now showed confusion and worry. Reaching forward, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist gently and pulled it away from her mouth. As he stared at the ugly contusion, he sucked in a gasp, and his chest swelled as he held it. She tried to pull her wrist away, but he held on tightly, so her efforts only managed to pull him inside. He pushed the door closed behind him with his foot.

“What happened?”

“I …” She panted lightly as he still held her wrist. “I, um …”

“Don’t bother lying,” he said softly, lowering her wrist and releasing it, so he could brush her lips with the feather touch of his thumb, examining the small contusion. “I’ll know.”

His gaze found her eyes, which searched his desperately, and, to her horror, she felt herself crumple against his chest, weeping into his shoulder as his strong arms encircled her.

***

I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill
Lance Hamilton.

Savannah sat curled up next to him on the couch. He had his arm around her shoulder, and she burrowed her head into his neck with her legs tucked under her body. She’d stopped crying a little while ago, but his fury had grown white-hot and dangerous despite the calming way he stroked her shoulder as she told him what had happened in Myrtle Beach. Every muscle in his body longed to find Lance Hamilton and smash his fist into his face.

God, if Goosey and Jenny hadn’t followed her … if they’d waited another few minutes to go looking for her … It was bad enough that Hamilton had touched his polluted lips to Savannah’s neck and reached under her dress. Asher felt the adrenaline rush that made every protective instinct rise to the fore, and pulled her closer, pressing his lips to her hair. Hamilton would get his. Asher would see to it. For now, he needed to concentrate on Savannah.