Love Under Two Benedicts (18 page)

“I’d like that.” Mention of the journal brought to mind the promise she had made Matthew and Steven the night before about a different sort of journal.

Steven came into the kitchen just then, kissed his mother and her, and then looked down at Benny.

“Does anybody here want to go see some horses?” he asked the room in general.

“I do! I do!” Benny jumped up and down in excitement.

Bernice announced she wanted to go out to the barn, too. “It’s been too long since I’ve come out to the ranch to visit.”

“This would be a good time for me to go and get those photo albums,” Kelsey said. She felt no qualms leaving Benny in the hands of the Benedicts. Steven was so good with the little guy, and Benny and Bernice had taken to each other on sight. “I have them in a storage locker off the highway between here and Waco.”

“McCluskey’s?” Steven asked.

“Yeah. I put a lot of my stuff in storage there when I moved from Austin. I should be back in an hour or so,” Kelsey said.

“Take your time, love. We’re going to be busy in the barn.”

Ten minutes later, Kelsey waved as she navigated the car out of the driveway and headed toward Lusty. Because she was driving farther than just her usual five minute jaunt between the ranch and the restaurant, she’d activated her Bluetooth and set her cell phone in the console beside her. Traffic was never brisk through town, especially in the morning.
 
She turned the radio on low and took her time driving through the small town. Looking around, Kelsey shook her head. Even today, she could see families, groups of people who lived and loved together, standing in front of stores where they’d obviously bumped into friends coming and going. Yet she’d never noticed until Matthew and Steven had taken her to the museum and out to the ranch that first time that a happy couple more often than not included three or even four people.

“Talk about being blind,” she said aloud as she stopped at the only traffic light in town. It turned green, and she passed the museum and then the sheriff’s office. Matthew and Adam’s cars were both there, and she lifted a hand in a wave, not knowing if anyone saw her or not. Soon she was motoring past her apartment building on her way towards the state road and her destination.

I should stop on the way back and grab some more clothes for myself
.

She needed to do laundry but could do it at the ranch.
 

She accelerated once she reached the state highway, and her cell phone rang. Reaching up to her Bluetooth, she pressed the button.

“Hello?”

Matthew’s smooth voice came over the line.
 
“Hey, pretty lady.” Kelsey smiled because she could hear the smile in his voice. “Where you headed on such a fine morning?”

“Out to the storage place to get those photo albums. How’s it going?”

“Slowly. When I saw you drive past, I decided I needed a break. I’m only about a minute behind you.”

Before she could say anything, her car jolted, and she gasped.

“What’s wrong?” Matthew’s voice left teasing behind.

“Some son-of-a-bitch just rammed—” She was jolted again, harder this time. Her eyes flicked to the review mirror.
 
A Ford Taurus had pulled back but began accelerating again. “Fuck off!”

“Kelsey!”

“Asshole in a tan Taurus seems to be…Oh, shit, he’s coming up beside me. Matthew!”

He was yelling in her ear, but Kelsey couldn’t answer. It took all her concentration to hang on to the steering wheel. The Taurus rammed her car on the driver’s side, and she spared a glance but didn’t recognize the hat-wearing driver behind the wheel. Uncertain whether to speed up or slow down, she began to apply the brake.

Was the asshole drunk? Kelsey spared him another glance. He seemed to be widening the gap between them. Then he narrowed it again. This time, the impact was harder, and Kelsey lost control of the car. It left the road and careened toward a tree.

She had no time for more than a sharp curse as car met tree and glass shattered and metal screamed.

Chapter 16

The moment Kelsey gasped and told him she’d been rammed, Matthew turned on his lights and siren and stomped on the gas. Then she swore, and he heard the sound of the other car ramming her, and his heart tripped in his chest as he screamed Kelsey’s name.

He knew he couldn’t be more than thirty seconds behind her. He crested a small hill and saw in heart-stopping clarity what he heard with sickening dread through the cell phone. Kelsey’s car hit a tree.

The Taurus that had run her off the road had come to a stop but now sped off, likely in response to Matthew’s siren. The driver swerved in his haste to pick up speed. Matthew caught the first three letters of the license plate, saying them over and over to himself so he wouldn’t forget.

He very badly wanted to wrap his hands around that bastard’s neck and squeeze the living shit right out of him, but he had to let him go.

Police procedure dictated in this kind of situation that the victim came first.

“Oh, Christ.” He couldn’t think of Kelsey as a
victim
. Bringing the cruiser to a screeching halt, he jammed the gearshift into park and practically leapt from the vehicle. Running for all he was worth, he reached her car, yanking and yanking until he got the driver’s door open, calling her name the entire time.

Kelsey moaned in pain, and it was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard. Bits of plastic littered the interior of the car, and his woman, still strapped in, sat with her head back against the seat.

“Sweetheart?” His hands shook as he stroked her. He took a moment to examine her and the car. He’d move her if he had to but wanted to see how badly she was hurt first. There was no smoke coming from under the hood and no smell of gasoline. So far, so good.

“Oh, fuck.”

“My sentiments exactly.” As he watched, she opened her eyes, blinked, then turned looked at him.

“Hi.”

“Hi yourself. I want to get you out of here. Where does it hurt?” He couldn’t keep his hands off her. She was alive. She could talk.

He’d been a cop long enough to know she could easily have been killed.

“I think I bumped my head.”

“Yeah, I see a bit of a goose egg coming up. Anything else?”

“Shoulder where the seat belt grabbed me. I wasn’t going very fast, Matthew. As soon as that jackass pulled up beside me, I slowed down. I guess I should have stopped.
 
I never expected him to ram his car into the side of mine like that.”

“Most people can’t think rationally in a moment like that, baby. Thank God we were talking at the time. Okay, I’m calling for an ambulance.”

“I don’t need an ambulance. Really. They’d just cart me off to Waco, and I’d be in the ER for hours. ”

“You’re fucking getting an ambulance. Deal with it.”

He just stared at her as she unfastened her seat belt. Because she seemed determined to get out of the car, he helped her. He kept his hands on her until he saw she was steady.

“See? I’m standing on my own two feet. I’m shaking, a bit sore, a little scared, and a lot pissed off. But I’m not hurt badly. I don’t need an ambulance.”

She was standing
and
lucid. “Fine, then you’re going to the clinic in Lusty. Come sit in my car while I call Adam.”

“Can we go to the storage place first, since we’re almost there? I want—”

Matthew stopped and stepped in front of her, and she must have finally realized how coldly furious he was because she immediately shut up then shrugged her shoulder.

The shrug made her wince.

“We are going immediately to the clinic. If you say one more word about going anywhere
but
the clinic, it’ll be the hospital in Waco for you. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is more important to me at this moment than making sure you’re okay. Got it?”

“Got it.”

He drew her into his arms and held her. He knew she could feel that he was shaking. He didn’t care. “Scared the living hell right out of me. I thought we’d lost you.”

He felt her arms come around him, and he felt
her
trembling. “I thought you’d lost me, too.”

He led her to his cruiser, then eased her into the front passenger seat. He took a moment to run back to her damaged vehicle. Her purse had tumbled onto the floor, and he grabbed it, making sure he got everything that had fallen out of it. He returned to his own car and called Adam. He told him what had happened and gave him the information he had on the Taurus. Then he shut the radio off and turned the car toward home.

“Adam’s contacting the highway patrol. They’ll likely meet him at your car. Adam’s already issuing a BOLO. Once they’ve finished forensics, it’ll be towed. Gord Jessop has one of the best car repair shops in the entire county. They’ll probably take it there.”

“Okay. The guy must have been drunk.”

Matthew divided his attention between the road and his woman. “Don’t close your eyes, baby. I don’t want you passing out on me.”

Kelsey laid her head back. “I don’t feel anywhere near to passing out. I’ve got a mild headache, is all.”

“I’ve no doubt. You’re also likely black and blue all over.” And if she wasn’t really sore right now, she would be in the morning. It only took about twenty minutes to drive back to Lusty. Matthew pulled his cruiser to the curb in front of the clinic. He wasn’t surprised when Steven’s Jeep squealed to a stop right behind him. Steven had the passenger door of the cruiser open and was lifting Kelsey out of the car before Matthew rounded the hood.

“Jesus.” Steven’s face looked white and tight with fear.

“I’m all right, Steven. Where’s—”

“Mom’s at the ranch with Benny. Adam called me.”

Kelsey didn’t argue about being carried. Matthew followed his brother and Kelsey into the clinic. Shirley had the door open to the first exam room, and Doctor James Jessop was already there, waiting for them.

“All right, let’s have a look at what you’ve done to yourself. Gentlemen? If you would give us some privacy?”

Matthew looked over at his brother, then turned back to his Uncle. “She’s ours,” he said. “We’re not going anywhere.”

* * * *

Kelsey had never been fussed over like this.

At first she’d wondered whose idea it had been to keep her so occupied with visitors she didn’t have a moment to think about the accident. Then she realized that, much as the people of Lusty had immediately pitched in to provide for Benny, they’d jumped at the chance to pamper her, too.

“Don’t fret,” Bernice said as she set a small tray on the bedside table.

Kelsey thought she’d feel embarrassed under the circumstances. They’d brought her back to the ranch and tucked her into Steven’s bed, and here was Steven’s mother serving her hot tea there.

She felt odd but not embarrassed.

“I’m not used to being waited on,” Kelsey said.

Bernice pulled a chair up beside the bed and poured out the beverage. “Nonsense,” the older woman said. “There comes a time, now and again, when a woman ought to be waited on.” She smiled, and Kelsey realized anew that Bernice was still as beautiful as she appeared in the picture Steven kept on the mantel. Considering that photo had been taken nearly thirty-five years ago, that was certainly saying something.

“I think for some of us,” Bernice said, “learning how to graciously accept that pampering and learning how to ask for help when we need it are two of the hardest things to learn in life.”

Benny had been put down for a nap, and although he’d protested at first that he wasn’t a baby and he wasn’t tired, he’d fallen asleep within minutes.

Steven had gone out to the barn once he’d been assured that Benny slept and she, Kelsey, had been made comfortable.

Matthew had headed out to join Adam at the scene of the crash.
 

Both of her men had been badly shaken by her accident, and she had to admit she had been, too. She’d never encountered anything like what had happened to her on that state road earlier.

She hadn’t gotten a real good look at the driver, but the man behind the wheel of that Taurus
had
to have been drunk.

She simply couldn’t think of another explanation for what had happened.

Because Mrs. Benedict sat with her, and because she’d lived the last many years without a mother or a motherly friend, Kelsey thought maybe the time had come for her to begin that lesson on how to be gracious while being pampered.

“It’s kind of strange having this conversation while I’m in your son’s bedroom.”

Bernice laughed. “Oh, sweetheart, I know how you feel, but this isn’t Steven’s bedroom. This is the master bedroom.”

Kelsey recalled Steven had said that the first night they’d…well, their first night together. She tilted her head to the side. “Come again?”

“The master bedroom is meant to be shared, Kelsey. When we moved out and turned the house over to Steven, he remained in his own bedroom. Now you’re here. This bedroom is as much yours as it is his or Matthew’s.”