Page 21 of Clayton (Bourbon & Blood #2)

Twelve

CLAYTON

I ease my car onto the driveway at the house. The garage door is closed, Annalee is nowhere in sight, but Samuel’s car is still parked just down the street. I owe Carter Hayes. I owe him big.

Opening the garage door would be too loud. I have no idea what Samuel is up to but I know it can’t be good. Please, do not let me be too late.

I move around to the side of the house. Emma Grace has a bad habit of opening the dining room doors and stepping out onto the deck without locking them back. I’m praying that I’m in luck and she’s left them unlatched this time.

As I approach the door, I hear the sounds coming from inside. Shouting, breaking dishes—I’ve got to get in there. I try the door, and for once, it’s actually locked. Son of a bitch. Breaking the glass is pretty much my only option .

I take off my jacket and put it against the pane before putting my fist through it. There are a few minor cuts, but nothing so bad that it’ll prevent me from knocking Samuel on his ass.

Once inside, I move past the table and to the kitchen door. What I see makes my blood run cold. Annalee is on the floor, Samuel is standing above her with a knife in his hands. They’re both covered in blood, but whether it’s his or hers, I have no idea.

I don’t hesitate. I can’t afford to. Without a second thought, I rush at Samuel, putting my shoulder right into his gut and taking him down. We’re sliding across the kitchen floor until we land against the cabinet with a loud thud. More dishes crash and break. There’s glass everywhere.

I feel the knife slicing at my shoulder, but it’s a total disconnect. Whatever happens, he needs to be subdued before he can hurt her any more. I manage to pin him to the ground. I draw my fist back to hit him.

The sound of it, when his nose crunches beneath my fist, is oddly satisfying, so I hit him again. And again. I don’t know how many times. All I know is that I can hear Annalee screaming behind me and my knuckles are raw and bloody by the time I’m finally coherent enough to stop.

I look down at Samuel. He’s barely conscious and his face is a bloody mess. The knife is on the floor, his hands long since slack. I get to my feet slowly. The blood is rushing still, but that first wave of adrenaline has given way to just gut-clenching fear.

I kick the knife away and turn to Annalee. She’s holding her arm, and I can see the blood seeping through her fingers, but she’s got a gun in her hands.

“I called 9-1-1,” she says. “They’re sending paramedics and the sheriff. Where’s Emma Grace?”

“Mia has her. She’s safe.” Even as I’m answering her, I’m grabbing a towel from the drawer and walking toward her. “Let me see.”

“It’s not bad,” she replies stiffly.

Which means it is. “Let me see,” I tell her again.

Reluctantly, she moves her hand, and I can see the deep gash in her forearm.

There are others—little nicks and cuts on her hands and one on her cheek.

Whether they’re from the knife or from the broken glass everywhere, I have no idea.

I wrap the towel around her arm and put pressure on it. “I should have fucking killed him.”

ANNALEE

I’ve never seen Clay like this. He’s not a violent man, but I truly thought he would kill Samuel.

The fury that consumed him then is something I honestly didn’t know he had inside him.

I know he’s scared for me, and I know how much he hates Samuel, but it’s frightening to see this side of him.

“He’ll go to prison for this. We’re done with him, Clayton. This is the end of it.”

“I should have known,” he whispers. “I should have realized this morning that he gave in too easy and that he was going to try something…but I never would have imagined this. I’m so sorry he hurt you.”

There he is taking responsibility for everything again. “You can’t control him or what he does. That isn’t your job. I’m fine. Really. Just a scratch.”

He gives me a look that is clearly skeptical. “That isn’t a scratch. It’s a fucking stab wound, Annalee. Because my father is a sociopath.”

I lean against him. Oddly enough, it isn’t because I need reassurance, but because he does. “Yes, he is. He’s also nuttier than a ten-pound fruitcake, but currently he’s unconscious because you beat the ever-loving shit out of him, so we’re okay right now.”

“Are we?” From his tone, I know he’s not just talking about the crazy that just went down with Samuel. He’s asking about something else altogether.

I roll my eyes at him even as I hear the approaching sirens outside. “Don’t go fishing just yet.”

The cops are coming in, the paramedics on their heels. I’m being bandaged up. Clayton’s being questioned. I’m being questioned. Samuel’s worthless carcass is loaded onto a gurney and wheeled away to the waiting ambulance.

Oh, the gossips of Fontaine are going to love this.

I sense a vacation coming on. We can leave town and let them get all the talk out of their system before we come back.

Except we’re broke, I remind myself. Or, rather, we’re the Darcy definition of broke, which is probably very different from mine.

My childhood consisted of eating old peanut butter off the spoon because we were too poor to buy bread.

There are definitely degrees of poor, and we’re nowhere near the real shit.

“You’re going to have to run that by me again, ma’am.”

I meet the sheriff’s dubious gaze. “He came here to kill me. But he didn’t want to kill me until Clayton was here to witness it.

He also planned to murder Clayton and his attorney and make the whole thing look like a murder-murder-suicide…

because he’s a nutball. I can’t tell you why he’s a nutball, Sheriff.

That’s beyond my scope of practice as a stay-at-home mother! ”

The sheriff sighs, as if he’s the one having a shit day. “You said he drugged you with horse tranquilizers?”

He sounds like maybe he thinks that’s a good idea. “Yes. He said he stole them from Emmitt Hayes. He ran over a dog and dumped it at Emmitt’s to create a distraction and then stole some kind of sedative gas.”

“Sick bastard.”

“ Really ? The dog is what gets you? Not the fact that he was going to leave my child an orphan?”

The sheriff’s face flushes and he looks uncomfortable for a minute. “I think we’ve got enough, but if we have more questions, we’ll be in touch.”

I realize that rolling my eyes at local law enforcement is probably not helpful, but sometimes you just have to go with it. “Oh, I never doubted it.”

The paramedics informed me earlier that I’d need stitches, which means a trip to the ER. I’m not crazy about it. As the house empties, leaving just Clayton and me standing in the shambles of it, I can actually take in the destruction of it all.

“I think I used every wedding gift we ever received as ammunition against your father,” I say.

He smiles. “Isn’t that the first time we’ve used most of them at all?”

I look at the broken glass everywhere. “And clearly the last. ”

“Let’s go,” he says. “I need to get you to the ER. And me too. I got stabbed in the shoulder apparently. Somehow, I missed that.”

“Tends to happen when you go all ‘Hulk smash’ on someone.”

He laughs and it’s such a sweet sound after the craziness of the last few hours.

“You’re one to talk. You singlehandedly destroyed this kitchen and kicked Samuel’s ass, not to mention giving him a nice little stab wound.

According to the paramedics, if you’d been half an inch to the right, he’d be a dead man. You are officially a badass.”

“Only a little badass,” I protest. I got in a few good licks, but I know that if Clayton hadn’t shown up when he did, the outcome would have been very different.

Samuel was surprised by the fact that I fought back.

If I hadn’t caught him off guard—well, I’m not going to think about that.

I’m going to go get stitches in my arm and if we make it out of the ER before midnight, I’m going to Bennett’s, I’m picking up my baby girl, and I’m going to try to put this insanity behind us.

Looking around the kitchen, I shake my head. “I can’t bring Emma Grace home to this mess. ”

“It’s taken care of,” he says. “I called Evelyn. She’s coming over to sweep up the mess. And once it’s done, Mia’s bringing Emma Grace back home and settling her into her own bed for the night. She’ll be here waiting for us by the time we get home.”

He just perfectly encapsulated why I love him.

The planning, the innate thoughtfulness, the slight cockiness in his assumption that we would be going home together.

Not that I’m going to give him shit about that.

I figure heroically saving my life and arranging to have the mess cleaned up earns him enough brownie points to get off that hook, permanently.

The bonus of arranging for Emma Grace to be back home with us, well that earned him more than my good graces.

It might even earn him actual lingerie from me.

“I love you.”

I didn’t mean to say it. It’s not like it’s a secret or like he doesn’t know. Typically, we’re not ones for saying it. We’ve always been the people who just showed it instead. But it’s out there, and it honestly feels good.

He opens the front door and steps back to allow me to pass. “I know.”

I glare at him. “Don’t you Han Solo me, Clayton Darcy! I’m not pouring my heart out just so you can get cocky!”

“Fine. I love you,” he says, opening the car door.

But as I step past him to climb in, he crowds against me, until we’re almost touching.

I look up and he’s staring down at me with the kind of intensity I would have found terrifying when I met him all those years ago.

“But that’s just a word…it doesn’t even come close to describing everything I feel for you.

When you’re not in my life, it’s like I can’t breathe, like everything is just hollowed out and empty and all I’m doing is marking time till you come back. ”