Page 20 of Clayton (Bourbon & Blood #2)

Eleven

CLAYTON

I pull into the driveway that runs alongside Bennett’s home. It’s small, but it’s a pretty enough place. Annalee would refer to it as quaint or having cottage charm. I’m shaking my head as I get out of the car. I can’t stop thinking about her. It’s as bad as it was when we first met.

Standing there in the gravel beside the porch, I hear the hum of power tools and follow the noise. Bennett is working in the converted barn behind the house. He looks up as I wander in, and finishes cutting the piece he’s working on before turning off the machine.

In the center of the workroom is an old grand piano. It’s been painted dark blue with enough of the wood still showing through to make it interesting. It’s perched upright and the innards are gone, having been replaced with shelves .

“That’s a cool piece,” I say.

“You and Samuel have your showdown yet?” he asks.

Definitely to the point. “Yes. And it’s done. He signed over everything…I want to talk to you about Mia, and about a few other things.”

He nods and removes the safety goggles he’s wearing.

“You seriously wear that shit when you’re working?” I ask him.

“Ever had a splinter in your eye?” he fires back.

Fuck. I’m wincing just thinking about it. “No.”

“Well, shove a piece of wood in your eyeball and then get back to me on whether or not goggles are a good idea.”

I shudder. “Thanks, but I’ll pass. I’ve been tortured enough for one day.” I pull the deed to the house from my jacket pocket. “That’s for Mia.”

“You’re not going to see her?”

I shake my head. “Not today. You all need to talk about that, decide how you want to handle it. If I’m in there, Mia’s just going to want to talk about Samuel…and I’m kinda done with that topic for today.”

“But he’s gone?” Bennett asks. “He signed over everything and he’s gone?”

“Going. Not sure when he’ll get the hell out of Dodge, but it won’t be long,” I say. I shove my hands in my pocket and lean back against the door frame of the barn. “Do you really love her, or do you just love the idea of her after all these years?”

He cocks his brow and I can tell the question pissed him off. “It’s not really your business…that’s between Mia and me.”

I walk forward until we’re nose to nose. “I’m not here to bust your balls or to talk you out of being with her…but it’s not a stretch to think that ten years apart is a long time, Bennett. People change. People grow the hell up in that length of time. Don’t rush her, and don’t let her rush you.”

I turn to walk away but he stops me. “I do love her. Doesn’t matter if it’s been ten years or a hundred.”

“Then taking it slow for the next few months won’t matter that much, will it?”

He flips me the bird. In this fucked up, weird ass, almost family situation, I take that as a yes and get back in my car as I watch Bennett disappear inside the house.

He’ll be good to Mia and he’ll be good for her, I don’t have any doubts.

But after so long, they need to take their time and not rush it.

Second chances work but if they require a third, all bets are off.

I put my car into reverse and back out of the driveway, just as Carter Hayes pulls up in the rust pile he calls a truck.

He rolls his window down which means he wants to talk.

Pushing the button to lower mine, I look up at him.

And that’s why men drive trucks, I realize.

I’m pissed off at having to look up at him.

“I’ve been working in your neighborhood a lot lately and I know this is the time of day your wife always goes to pick up the kid,” he says. “And it might not be anything, but your daddy’s car is parked just a block down from your house, and I didn’t see your wife leave.”

It’s like my blood turned to ice in my veins. I feel cold all the way through. “Ask Mia to go get Emma Grace and bring her back here.”

Carter nods and pulls past me to turn into the driveway, and I take off in a hail of flying gravel and dust. I’ve got to get to Annalee, and I can only pray I won’t be too late.

ANNALEE

Someone is pounding rocks inside my skull. Opening my eyes, everything is blurry. I’m in my kitchen, in a chair beside the island, that much I know, but I’m seeing double of everything.

“I was really hoping you wouldn’t wake up.”

It’s Samuel’s voice. The fear is instant, spiking my heart rate and my blood pressure, which in turn makes the headache worse.

“What are you doing?” I ask. My voice sounds thick, the words slurred and barely intelligible.

“I drugged you. I helped myself to some of the gas that our local vet uses to anesthetize horses,” he says, almost apologetically.

“Emmitt Hayes let you on his property?”

Samuel laughs. “Of course not. I got him preoccupied with a stray dog that someone, namely me, dumped at his gate after being run over by a car.”

He’d run over a dog to create a distraction? Fuck. I try to sit up straighter in the chair, but I can’t. I realize that my hands and feet are tied together, forcing me to slump forward.

“Why are you doing this?”

“You don’t have to distract me or stall me…I don’t plan to kill you until Clayton shows up,” he explains, holding up the revolver and waving it like a madman. “I know better than to trust him, especially after today. Today, I saw just how much my son was like me.”

Oh god. It’s all starting to come together or the fog from the fucking horse tranquilizer he drugged me with is starting to lift.

“Samuel, I know you’re angry at Clayton, but you have to see that this won’t work! If you do this, you’ll go to prison!”

“I’ll wind up there anyway,” he says. “I can’t trust him not to take what he has on me to the cops. We both know that he’d love nothing better than to see me suffer.”

“Clayton keeps his word…always.” And I’m going to pay the price for it.

It’s not fair to blame hi m. I know that.

And as much as I love him, right now, he isn’t what’s on my mind.

It’s Emma Grace. She’s sitting at her dance class, decked out from head to toe in her pink dance gear, staring longingly at the older girls who already get to wear toe shoes.

What will this do to her? If this crazy son of a bitch actually puts a bullet in me, what on earth will happen to my baby girl?

“He’s a real Boy Scout with all his spying, stealing, bribery,” Samuel says bitterly. “The minute my back is turned, he’ll burn me…but not if I burn him first.”

“I don’t know what that means.” I am stalling, buying as much time as I can. Maybe he doesn’t plan on killing me till Clayton walks in to see it, but the son of a bitch is crazy and could change his mind at any time. Clearly, he’s cracked.

Samuel gets up from the table and starts pacing the kitchen, randomly looking in cabinets and drawers. “It means that my dear son will have a mental breakdown, shooting you, his estranged wife, and his divorce attorney, before setting the house on fire and putting a bullet in his own head.”

I can feel the tears building, trying to break through. I can’t let them. If I fall apart now, there’s no getting out of it. Hell, there’s no getting out of it anyway, but at least I won’t give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

“What about Emma Grace? Do you really want to leave your only grandchild without either of her parents?” It’s a reasonable question, something that would make most people pause at least. With him, I know it’s a long shot.

“There’s always collateral damage, Annalee…

just be thankful she’s not here to burn with you all,” he replies.

Both his tone and his eyes are completely cold.

He’s never been especially warm. Even when Samuel is being pleasant, there’s been a vague sense of unease in his presence.

I thought he was simply a narcissist. I was wrong. He’s a full-blown sociopath.

There won’t be any reasoning with him. I can’t reach him because there’s nothing inside. He’s just a black hole, incapable of feeling. The only things he understands are power and destruction.

I don’t really have a plan yet, only the faintest stirrings of one.

But I have to get my hands free, otherwise, I’m going to die here and so will Clayton when he shows up.

And he will. Because he is the Boy Scout Samuel accused him of being.

When the dance teacher can’t find me, she’ll call him and then he will worry. I feel sick just thinking about.

“Can you please untie my hands for a moment? Just enough to let me sit up straight?” I plead with him, exaggerating the slurred speech.

My head is starting to clear, but he doesn’t need to know that.

If he thinks I’m still loopy from the drugs, he might be a little less cautious.

If I can just get my hands free, I might have a chance.

“No.”

Of course, he’s got to be a dick. Then again, I’m tied to a chair, him being a dick is kind of a given. “Please…it’s the drug. I feel like I’m going to throw up! Sitting up will help.”

He sighs. “I won’t kill you until he’s here, Annalee, but that doesn’t mean I won’t hurt you. Don’t try anything.”

“I won’t,” I lie.

He lays the gun down on the counter and walks toward me. The ropes are tied in such a way that he has to crouch beside the chair to loosen them. The second my hands are free, I grab his hair and slam his face against the island. He hits it with a satisfying thud.

I’m stronger than I look and a hell of a lot stronger than he expected me to be. Once won’t be nearly enough, but I’ve lost the element of surprise. It’s not nearly as easy the second time, still I manage to bang his head against the wood one more time. He pushes me off, the chair tipping over.

Even though it hurt like a bitch, it was just what I needed.

That allows me to slide my feet, and the ropes he’d used to tie them, over the legs of the chair.

I’m free. Well, other than being trapped in the house with my murderous father-in-law, but at least for the moment I have the use of all my limbs.

I’m backing away from the island, barely on my feet before he’s coming at me. Samuel is a big man, tall and broad-shouldered just like Clayton. All the yoga and Pilates in the world isn’t going to make me strong enough to tangle with him. But I’ve got pretty good aim.

There’s a shelf beside me that has all of our pretty and utterly useless dishes on it.

They’re finally going to get used for something, at least. One by one, I send those plates sailing at him.

He manages to duck most of them, but he’s not entirely unscathed.

There’s a cut over his eyebrow. It’s going to scar.

It’s a little twisted just how happy that thought makes me.

The flying dinner plates have bought me enough time to get around the island. I grab one of the knives from the block. The gun is still too far away. He’ll catch me before I can even get close to it.

“You can’t win this, Annalee. There’s no way you can stop me,” he says smugly.

I don’t have to stop him. Just slow him down. Clayton will be here. That’s the thing I keep telling myself. Somehow, someway, he will show up because I need him to.

It’s the last thought I have before Samuel charges me. I grip the knife tighter and wait for the impact.