Passion's Fury (The Doms of Passion Lake Book 2) (6 page)

As soon as they pulled up in front of the house, two mirror images of the man sitting next to her came out the front door and down the steps.  Both of them went around to the passenger side and opened the door.  The closest one said, “Hi, Kylie, I’m Caleb.”

“And I’m Ash,” said the one standing right behind Caleb, giving her a wink and a teasing grin.  “Welcome to the Hot, Hunky, Bad-Ass, Commando Spa, where guest satisfaction is our primary objective.”

Laughing, she met Caleb’s eyes and her heart stopped. A steel band tightened around her chest, squeezing the air out of her lungs.  She felt as if she’d been zapped with a bolt of lightning.  The current passing between them was so powerful, it raised the hairs on her arms.  His hand came up to cup her cheek, his heat sizzling her skin.  “Oh, sugar,” he said in a low voice that rumbled over every nerve ending in her body, turning her bones to water.  “You feel it too, don’t you?

She tried to look away but found it impossible.  His gaze held hers as if it were a physical force binding her to him.
Holy crap!
What was she getting herself into, here?

Caleb’s chest tightened.
Jesus Christ! 
Her scent enveloped him, bubbling through his veins like the finest champagne, hardening his cock so fast he nearly swallowed his tongue.  No wonder Simon had been so sure about her.  The connection between them was so much more powerful than he’d anticipated, he momentarily lost focus.  This beautiful woman was everything they’d been searching for all their adult lives.  He knew it with a certainty that stunned him. 

Releasing her cheek, he reached one arm beneath her knees, slid the other behind her back and pulled her sideways off the truck seat into his arms, being careful not to knock her feet against the door.

Kylie just put her arms around his neck and studied his strong, masculine profile.  He was identical to Simon and Ash in every way, except…he seemed
bigger
somehow, more alpha, more…
more
.  The sheer force of his personality made him the first brother one looked at.  His thick black hair was slightly longer, curling at his nape and around his ears.  Ash’s hair was like Simon’s.  It was going to be impossible to tell those two apart.

As she looked at Ash over Caleb’s shoulder, she got lost in the endless sapphire blue of his eyes.  She bit her lip, feeling overwhelmed.  “I’m sorry to be such a bother.  Maybe I should just stay at the Bed and Breakfast and live off of room service until I can walk again.” 
Yeah, like I can afford that!

“And how are you going to get to the bathroom?” Simon asked, coming around to join his brothers.  “Or take a shower if you can’t get your feet wet.”  He was carrying the two plastic Walmart bags.  Kylie stared at them, unable to stop thinking that those two measly bags held everything she owned in the world.  The sudden sense of hopelessness that swept through her sent tears welling in her eyes. 
Oh, crap, here we go again.

To her utter astonishment, Caleb bent his head and pressed his lips to the track left by the first tear to roll down her cheek.  “Don’t worry, sugar,” he murmured.  “We’ll take good care of you.  And you’re not a bother, so stop frettin’, okay?”  It was phrased as a question, but it was definitely an order.  An order from a man who was evidently accustomed to giving orders and expecting them to be obeyed.

Kylie gulped. 
Uh-oh
.  What was she getting herself into?  For someone as determined as she was to stand on her own two feet—so to speak—and take charge of her own destiny, she seemed to have placed herself in a situation that might well prove to be completely untenable.

And
then
what was she going to do?

“How are your feet feelin’?” Caleb asked as he lowered her into a comfortable recliner, raising the lever to bring up the footrest.

How do you
think
they’re feeling?  They hurt like hell. 
“Fine.”

Caleb straightened and frowned down at her.  “Okay, sugar.  Now, that right there?  That was not quite true, was it?  How can we possibly give you what you need if you’re not truthful with us?  Please don’t feel you need to be stoic or tell us only what you think we want to hear.  We value total honesty in this house.”

Biting her lip, she eyed him warily.  “I don’t want to be a burden to anyone.  I mean, you’ve been so kind, offering to let me stay here, I just don’t want you to feel like I’m taking advantage or anything.”

Ash walked over and placed his hand on her shoulder.  “We would never think that, Kylie.  And, believe me, if we didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here.  Now let’s try this again.  How are your feet feelin’?”

“They’re throbbing.  It’s like they have their own separate heartbeat.”

Simon stepped forward, handing her a glass of water and a white pill.  “This is a pain pill, darlin’.  You’ll be takin’ one every four hours.  There’s no point in bein’ in pain if you don’t have to.”

She flashed him a smile.  “Thanks, Simon/”

“Much better,” Caleb murmured as the three brothers watched her swallow the pill.  “Now, Kylie, Simon said your house exploded?”

She nodded.

“Can you tell us exactly what happened?  If you’re in some kind of trouble, we’d like to help, but we need to know exactly what we’re dealin’ with.”

She stared at him, blinking owlishly, gnawing on her lip.  “I-I don’t know.”

Ash approached her chair and handed her his iPad.  On the screen was the front page of The Philadelphia Inquirer.  The banner headline read, “House bombed, woman missing.”  The article ended with, “If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Kylie Ferrell, please contact the Philadelphia Police Department.”

“You need to tell us everything, Kylie,” he said gently.

She hesitated for a moment before saying, “Then I guess maybe I should start with the murder.”

CHAPTER THREE

A look passed between Simon, Caleb, and Ash.  “Yeah,” Caleb said, “that would probably be best.  And don’t leave anything out.”

“Okay.”  She folded her hands in her lap, a prim gesture that the Rafferty triplets found totally endearing.  “For the last five months I’ve been working as a bookkeeper for an awful man, a CPA named A. J. Moretti.  I was his office assistant, a job which consisted mostly of doing all the bookkeeping for several of his clients. Clients who came in wearing five-thousand-dollar Italian silk suits, accompanied by bodyguards.  Clients who were”…she gave a delicate little shudder…“intimidating.  Okay, that was a lie.  They scared the hell out of me and when I left last Friday afternoon, I made up my mind to call in on Monday morning and tell him I quit.  But he called me around eleven-thirty that night, just as I was getting ready for bed, and said he needed me to come back into the office.  It was an emergency.  It wasn’t the first time he’d called me back to work late at night.  So I went.  In hindsight, probably not my best decision.  But I thought it would be better to tell him in person that I quit.  I was tired of his assuming that I had no life and was at his beck and call at any hour of the day or night.”  She shrugged.

“When I got there, I knew right away something was wrong.  The office was dark and the light switch didn’t work, but there was enough light coming in from the street to reveal that the place had been ransacked.  A light was on in the inner office, but there was no sound.  The door was slightly ajar, so I pushed it open.  My boss was lying across his desk, his head in a pool of blood from a gunshot wound right in the middle of his forehead.”  She shuddered.  “The place had been torn apart.”

She looked up to find all three Raffertys watching her, their eyes full of sympathy and concern.  “I wanted to run.  Just…back out the door and leave, let somebody else find him, but I-I couldn’t do that.  It wouldn’t have been right.  So, I called the police.

“They took me to the station, questioned me for hours.  Practically accused me of killing him myself.  It was awful, just awful.”  She shook her head.  “I was terrified they were going to arrest me and charge me with murder.”  Her throat thickened with tears as the memories came flooding back.  Those two burly cops towering over her, so close they were practically on top of her, deliberately invading her personal space and making her feel caged in and trapped.  Hammering away at her with rapid-fire questions, accusing her of keeping two sets of books.  “I’ve never been so scared in all my life.”  She shivered, a move that did not go unnoticed by Caleb, Ash, and Simon.  All three sets of shoulders were tense, as if they were having to fight themselves not to pick her up and pull her onto their laps to hold and comfort her.  But they stayed put, encouraging her simply with their presence and their words.

“Go ahead, darlin’,” Simon said.  “Tell us what happened next?”

“They finally let me go around eleven-thirty yesterday morning.  When I walked into my house, I could hear sounds in the bedroom, so I walked down the hall and pushed the door open.  My boyfriend, Brad Sullivan was in our bed.  He and his
production assistant were…um…” She just shook her head, unwilling to continue that line of thought.  She took a couple of deep breaths and continued, hands twisting in her lap.  “I threw them both out and spent the rest of the afternoon gathering all of Brad’s things and tossing them out into the back yard, including the bed sheets.   That’s why I was sleeping on the couch.  Just couldn’t bring myself to sleep in the bed.  I was half asleep when I suddenly heard my name.  I looked around and saw my photo on the evening news.  The announcer said Moretti was known to have dealings with the Mafia and that I was a possible witness to his murder.  That’s when I knew the police were not through with me.  So I decided to pack a bag and leave town.  I toyed with the idea of leaving right then and there, but I needed money. So I figured the next morning would be soon enough.  I could go by the bank, close out my accounts, and just…kinda disappear for a while.”  She paused, sitting upright to take a sip of water, before sinking back against the recliner.  “The sound of the explosion woke me up.  It was so loud, I didn’t know what it was at first.  The concussion waves blasted out all my windows and blew my front door wide open.  I was so dazed, I just walked out, dressed only in sleep shorts and a T-shirt.  My adoptive mother’s afghan was draped around my shoulders.  I-I think the back of the sofa is what kept me from being more injured than I was.  It saved my life.”

Ash just shook his head in compassion.  “Baby, I can’t imagine how terrifying that must have been for you.”

“Even after I got outside, I still had no idea what had happened.  I just stood for what seemed like forever, in the middle of the street, watching flames engulf my house.”  Her head moved slightly back and forth.  “It-it didn’t seem real.  I kept thinking I was going to wake up and Brad would be in the kitchen making breakfast.  In the space of twenty-four hours my entire life had been turned upside down and ripped apart.”

“It’s all right, Kylie,” Simon murmured.  “We’ll help you put it back together.”

Again, tears filled her eyes and she swallowed convulsively trying to control them in order to resume her narrative.  “For some reason, as I walked out my front door, I managed to grab my laptop and my purse, so I had my car keys.  I got in my car and started driving.  I drove around aimlessly for over an hour, trying to decide what to do next.  I realized that I couldn’t wait around for the bank to open.  I had to disappear.  But I had no money, no clothes.  And if I used my credit card they might be able to track me.”  She smiled.  ‘I watch way too much
Law and Order.

“So I drove to the nearest ATM and withdrew my cash limit, three hundred dollars.  This would have to buy everything I needed, including food, gas, clothes, even basic supplies like deodorant and toothpaste.  Then I remembered I had a couple of changes of clothes and some sneakers in a gym bag in my trunk.  So I pulled into a deserted office building parking lot and put this outfit on.”  She jiggled the front of her track suit.  “I used my headlights to pick as much glass out of my feet as I could and started driving, heading south.  I stopped at a Walmart and bought the things in the plastic bags.  Used their restroom to clean up a bit.  Got some gas and food and drove through the night until my engine started making that god-awful noise.  And then it was raining and I couldn’t…I just…I lost it.”  Tears spilled over and tracked down her cheeks.  “Everything just came crashing in on top of my head and I-I—”A sob ripped from her throat and the men couldn’t stand it anymore.

Simon stood up from the sofa, crossed the room, scooped her up and sat in the recliner himself, with her in his lap, her legs draped over the arm of the chair.  He just held her, kissing her hair, murmuring over and over, “It’s okay, darlin’.  You’re safe now.  We’ll take care of you.”  Caleb and Ash knelt on both sides of the chair, resting their heads on the overstuffed arms.  Ash stroked her arm, Caleb her leg.  They remained like that for a long time, the only sound her quiet sniffling and Simon’s soothing voice.

More than anything in the world she longed to just let go and let these men look after her, care for her, possibly, even, eventually, come to love her.  But she’d learned the hard way that she couldn’t rely on anyone but herself.  She had to be in charge of her own destiny.  So she steeled herself against the massive appeal of these three brothers, telling herself it was for the best.  She could not afford any entanglements right now, no matter how tempting.

“You’re right, Caleb, I am in trouble,” she agreed when she could speak again.  “And that’s why I can‘t let you help me.  My being here puts the three of you in danger and I don’t want that on my conscience.  You shouldn’t be made to suffer just because
my
life is all screwed up.  So I’ll be leaving as soon as my car is ready.  It would kill me if anything happened to the three of you because of something I did.”

The three men looked at each other again.  Finally Caleb spoke.

“Kylie.  Honey.  How could you possibly think we would allow you to leave here and place yourself in danger?  You couldn’t be in safer hands.  I’m a former SEAL, Ash was a Green Beret, Simon, Delta Force.  We have skills and resources these people who are after you never even heard of.  So, don’t spend one second worrying about tryin’ to keep
us
safe. 
We
will keep
you
safe.”

She stayed where she was, her head resting on Simon’s chest.  Fresh tears started down her cheeks as she shook her head.  “No,” she wailed, “I can’t let you do it.  I’d never be able to repay you.”

Ash chuckled, a sound filled with wicked promise.  “Oh, baby, believe me, we’ll come up with something.”

Caleb patted her knee and got to his feet.  “Is there anything else, sugar?  When you arrived at the office did you see anyone else there?”

She bolted upright but was immediately pulled back down by Simon’s arm around her.  “Oh, yes, I forgot about that.  When I got out of my car in the parking garage, two men were getting into a large black sedan, maybe a Lexus or something like that.  As they drove past me, I got a good look at the driver.”  She looked up at Caleb, shaking her head.  “I didn’t recognize him.  He wasn’t one of our regular clients.  I only saw him in profile, but I’m sure I’d never seen him before.”

“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

“Yes,” she nodded.  “I think I would.”

“Do you think these two men had something to do with the bombin’ of your house?”

She shrugged, chewing on her lower lip.  “It’s the only thing that makes sense.  I mean, who else even knew about me?  Other than the several million people who happened to be watching the nightly news on WTXF Saturday night.”

Ash stood too, coming around the foot rest to stand with Caleb.  “Don’t worry, baby, we’ll get to the bottom of this.  We have a friend, Jason Ingram, who can find out anything about anybody, anywhere, anytime.  We’ll put him to work on Moretti. By the time he’s done, we’ll know everything there is to know about your former boss, includin’ how much starch he liked in his shirts.  Then we can make plans to put an end to this threat to you.  In the meantime, you just concentrate on gettin’ better and let us worry about all the rest of it.  How does that sound?”

“Too good to be true,” she answered candidly.

“Is there anything we can get you?” Caleb asked.  “Something to eat, perhaps?”

“Are you kidding?  After that breakfast I just ate, I’m not going to be hungry for a week!”

Simon laughed.  “Oh, I think once you get a whiff of Katie’s Barbecue, your appetite will perk up.”

“You know what I’d really like?” Kylie asked.

“What?”

“I’d like to brush my teeth.  And I’d kill for a shower.  I haven’t had one since Friday morning.  I must smell like a goat.”

“You smell like a sexy, delectable woman,” Simon assured her.  “And you can’t take a shower.  You can’t stand on your feet and you can’t get them wet.”

“She can shower sitting down,” Ash suggested.  “We can put her feet in plastic bags and put her in my shower.  It has that big bench and the hand-held.”

“How does that sound to you, darlin’?” Simon asked, ducking his head to place a kiss on her temple.

“Like absolute heaven,” Kylie said.  “I can’t wait to get clean.  I feel really grungy.”

“Great.  I’ll get the plastic bags.”  Caleb turned and headed for the kitchen.

“Get some duct tape, too,” Ash called after him.

Simon lowered the footrest and scooted forward in the chair.  Ash bent down and plucked her from Simon’s lap.  “C’mon, baby, let’s get you upstairs and into the shower.”  He headed for the grand mahogany staircase in the foyer.  At the top, he turned left, carrying her along a balcony, down a short hall, and straight into a large, masculine bedroom, decorated in shades of deep blue and chocolate brown.  “This is my bedroom,” Ash murmured.  “My shower is the largest, except for the master, and it has a built-in bench so you can sit down.”

Ash’s bathroom was gorgeous.  The glass-enclosed shower, large enough for four people, had all natural stone tiles, some with fossilized plants and animals, and antique bronze fittings, featuring multiple shower heads, including a hand-held.  Light streamed in through two high windows, as well as a skylight.  By this time both Caleb and Simon had caught up with them.  Ash deposited her on the seat and took down the hand-held, placing it on the bench to her right.  To her left he placed a folded washcloth, a dish holding the bar of soap Kylie had purchased at Walmart, along with the bottle of shampoo she had also purchased.  Caleb went down on one knee on the tiled floor and gently removed her socks and unwound the gauze wrapped around her feet.  “Wow, Kylie, these look really painful.”  He held up each foot to let Ash see the extent of the damage. 

“Aww, baby, no wonder your feet hurt,” Ash said.

“Don’t worry, sugar,” Caleb added, “we’ll get you better.  And we’ll keep you safe while we’re doin’ it.”

To Kylie’s utter surprise, both men bent forward and placed gentle kisses to the bottom of each foot.  The tenderness of the gestures touched her heart like nothing she’d ever known.  Crap, she’d never known men like these, uber-macho, yet not afraid to be tender and caring.  It would be so easy to just let go and let them look after her.

Caleb eased a soft plastic bag onto each foot, taping them around her ankles with gray tape, looking up at her with a grin.  “Duct tape” he intoned, holding up the roll in one hand and pointing to it with the other, like a pitch man in a commercial. “Use number one hundred and ninety-seven.  Taping bags to feet.  I’d use bandage tape, but it doesn’t keep out water all that well.  I don’t want to pull off skin when I take this off, so be quick and don’t use really hot water.”  He stood.  “Do you need help undressing?” he smirked.