The Breaker (Erotic Country #1.) (10 page)

The sound of her cries made him swell larger inside her and he began
pushing into her harder. One elbow rested either side of her head and his hands
tangled into her hair, pulling hard.

She cried out angrily. Her screams only made him fuck her harder. Every
thrust pulled at her arms, tore at her hair and made her core sing with joy.
She panted to stop herself from crying, and ended up squealing instead. When
she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, he buried his face into her neck and
pulled out. He pulled off the smurf coat, slid his shaft in the crack between
her arse cheeks and she felt hot come spurt all over her bum and her back. It
was the horniest sensation she had ever felt in her life and she wanted to lie
there feeling like that forever.

But Brett jerked suddenly away from her, pulling her leg painfully on the
way. ‘Fucking hell.’

‘Ouch!’ What was he doing now? He had barely unloaded. She didn’t like
the way he was snapping her out of her alternate universe so quickly. She
wanted to stay there, groggy, wallowing in it.

Brett grabbed his jeans and swore again.

‘What?’ she breathed in a tired stupor. Her eyes were too heavy to open.
Her body was a dead weight. She still couldn’t move in the chains.

Then, seeming to change his mind, he dropped the jeans and hurriedly
reached for the hobbles. He fumbled with the buckles.

‘What’s wrong?’ She tried to roll over and stop him.

‘Sit still,’ he barked, urgently trying to free her.

Light washed in through the window. A car was in the driveway. Then
another. And another. More light. Much brighter than normal headlights.

As Brett unbuckled the last of the hobbles, she rolled over and looked
out the window. What she saw made her go cold all over.

A car,
followed by two utes, rolled down the driveway. The utes had their huge spot
lights on. She reckoned there were at least twenty people altogether. Several
voices yelled his name.

‘Get dressed,’ said Brett as he threw his legs into his jeans. ‘It’s the
Heads Up boys.’

‘Into what?’ Her clothes were in the lounge room. She didn’t want to run
naked down the hallway. All the shutters were open.

He wrenched a drawer open and tossed her a t-shirt and some boxers. ‘Find
the phone in the kitchen and ring Mrs Carney at the house. Ask her to get hold
of Jim and Tom. Where’s Liz?’

‘In the flat, on her own.’ Sophie was instantly terrified for her.

‘Ring her. Tell her to keep the lights off and hide. Anywhere. In a
cupboard. Under the bed.’

He set off down the hallway and opened the front door.

She quickly wrapped a sheet around her body, ran after him and pulled at
his arm. ‘Don’t go out there. There’s too many of them!’

He turned to her and ran a hand over her face. ‘Do
not
ring the
cops, unless I’m dead.’

She stared wide-eyed at him.

‘Promise me,’ he said.

She swallowed and nodded.

‘Lock the door behind me and then ring Nance.’ He slipped out the door
and closed it behind him.

Locking the door behind him was the hardest thing she had ever had to do.
It felt like feeding him to the lions. She peered through the long narrow
window next to the door and watched him hop down the steps as if he was off to
greet old friends. He looked almost glad to see them. Was that just a front?

She ran to the kitchen and picked up the phone, trembling. The house
number was engaged. A mobile lying on the counter buzzed. She stabbed at the
screen, trying to work out how to answer the stupid thing. Eventually she tried
sliding her finger over it and she heard Nancy’s voice.

‘Bloody Hell, Nance, there’s about twenty of them,’ she said in a
panicked voice. ‘Brett’s already gone out there!’

‘Well don’t you go out there,’ she said firmly. ‘Liz is already here with
me. You stay inside while I ring Tom and the boys and tell them to get back
here.’ The phone clunked in her ear and she ran back to the front window.

The cars reached the end of the driveway and began circling within the
house yard, revving their engines and shining their spotlights over the
homestead. She could hear yahooing and laughter.

Brett walked out into the middle and stood there while the rushing waves
of light circled him. He looked down and kicked casually at the ground as
though he couldn’t be more ready for them.

One car stopped and then the two utes did too, but their lights shone
brightly over the yard. The place went eerily quiet.

A lone man got out of the passenger side door of the car and she heard it
slam shut. He walked directly to Brett and stood before him with his chin
raised. Sophie recognised him: it was Jarred Young. He was smaller and wirier
than Brett, but then most men looked small next to Brett.

Brett held out a hand, as though to shake.

The guy slapped it away and shoved at Brett’s chest. He was looking for a
fight. A murmur rose in the crowd of men, who had all stepped out of their
vehicles. Brett’s feet didn’t move as he deflected Jarred’s shoving. She heard
him speak but couldn’t make out the words. Jarred shoved Brett again and
several of the men began jeering. They were like hyenas, circling a lion.

She wanted to race out there and tell them what a bunch of cowards they
were, that Brett could hammer any one of them without even trying. Even she
could handle most of them. But twenty of them, all together? She was terrified
for him. She glanced up the road, looking for headlights, praying Jim and the
boys would come home soon, but the rodeo was an hour’s drive away. Brett would
be dead by then.

Jarred, spurred on by the mob, swung at Brett and belted a fist into his
face with a nauseating crunch that Sophie heard from the house. Her hands flew
to her face and she stifled a scream.

Brett looked up slowly and rubbed his jaw, then stepped towards Jarred,
towering over him. The place went eerie and silent again. ‘That the best you
can do?’

Jarred swung his fist and landed another one on him, this one sending
Brett reeling backwards. But he found his feet again and walked back to Jarred.
Still he didn’t fight back.

‘Come on, coward,’ Jarred screamed. ‘Fucking hit me, like you hit my
brother.’

Brett spat blood from his mouth and faced up again. ‘I’ve paid my dues,
Jarred.’

‘Not to me you haven’t.’

‘I owe you nothing.’

‘Come on, hit me,’ the man screamed, almost hysterically. ‘Hit me so I
can send you right back to where you belong.’ Jarred’s intentions were clear.

Several other men began goading him as well, and Sophie prayed he would
keep control. If he lost the plot and hit one he would be breaking parole and he’d
go straight back to jail, which was exactly what these guys wanted. What could
Brett do but stand there and cop it sweet? She couldn’t watch.

The realisation that Brett wouldn’t fight back seemed to spur Jarred on,
and he landed fist after fist into Brett’s flesh. Some went under his ribs and
others went into his head. Brett put his arms up and deflected as much as he
could while twenty men yelled every name under the sun at him.

Sophie couldn’t take it any more. She had to do something. She had to
break this up. How? Her eyes flew around the room. Keys. The horse truck.
Sophie snatched them and raced for the back door. She sprinted across the small
pathway between the house and the horse shed and yanked open the door to the
truck, clambered in and locked herself securely inside. She fired it up and
rammed it into gear, flicking on the lights.

The truck rolled around the corner of the horse shed with the high beam
on and every man in the yard stopped and gaped. She drove straight at them,
scattering them and roaring towards one of the utes. She hit the ute and pushed
it until it screamed against its brakes. She pushed it halfway up the driveway.
It spun sideways and she crushed it between the bullbar of the truck and a
fence post, revving the truck until the ute resembled a recycled coke can. Men jumped
onto the side of the truck and banged on her door, yelling. She grabbed for the
air horns and pulled them long and hard, blasting a thunderous noise through
the night, which for some reason spooked them into jumping off. Maybe it just
sounded so psycho. She felt like a mad woman.

She rammed the gear stick into reverse, roared backwards and aimed it at
the car. The driver already had the engine started and its tyres spun as it
shot out of the way. Men ran everywhere. She saw Brett bolt for the house and
stand on the porch, with his hands on his knees, heaving as if he was going to
throw up. She sat with the engine running, watching them disappear up the
driveway.

When they were gone, she shoved the truck into neutral, hung her head on
the steering wheel and burst into tears. She cried uncontrollably, unable to
move, until the door rattled beside her. She wearily reached for the knob,
unlocked it and pushed the door open.

Brett stood glaring up at her, still heaving. His face was a bloody mess,
fat in all the wrong places and with one eye closing over. ‘For for the love of
God,’ he panted up at her. ‘Give me the bloody keys; you are in no state to be
driving.’

A burst of relieved laughter shot from her chest. A man who could keep
his sense of humour at a time like this was worth marrying. She let her
exhausted, tear-filled eyes fall onto him.

 But he wasn’t laughing; he was just standing there looking pissed.

‘What’s up?’

‘That ute you just pushed halfway up the driveway?’

She grinned at him, sure he would have enjoyed that as much as she did.
‘Made a proper mess of it, didn’t I?’

‘That was mine.’

She dropped her head onto the steering wheel and went back to sobbing hysterically.
Just under the wheel, Brett’s hand reached up and took the keys out of the
ignition. Then she felt his arms pull her down from the cabin and wrap around
her.

Her legs flopped over his arm while he carried her back to the house. He sat
on the couch, with her in his lap. She couldn’t unlock her arms from around his
neck. Liz and Nancy followed them through the front door.

‘Jim and the boys are on their way,’ said Nance, slowing and looking
Brett over. ‘You alright?’

‘Had worse,’ he said. But he closed his eyes and winced. Sophie wasn’t so
sure he was OK. She felt him slump beneath her and she crawled off him. Her
eyes caught her bra hanging over the back of the couch and she deftly stuffed
it behind the cushions.

Nancy stepped forward and checked his eyes. ‘You look concussed.’

‘I’m fine,’ he said, but his voice sounded drunk.

Sophie used the moment to discreetly slide a discarded glowing condom
under the couch with her toe.

By the time Jim and Tom came arrived, there was a large gathering outside
the house. Every man from Stoneleigh and Bangaloo Creek seemed to be out the
front. Nancy wanted to take Brett into town to see a doctor but he wouldn’t
hear of it. ‘It’ll go down on my parole report,’ he said. ‘They’ll make up all
sorts of lies.’

It was so unjust. Sophie seethed. Finally Brett convinced them all that he
just wanted to be left alone. The adrenaline was leaving his body and the
bruises were kicking in. Everyone filed out of the house, including Sophie.

*
* * * *

After she’d talked to Liz on the
front porch for at least an hour, Sophie found Brett lying on his back in his
bedroom in the dark. She turned on the lamp and he recoiled. She winced too. Already
his body showed bruises and a nasty cut bled below his swollen right eye.

He rolled onto his
back and lay with his eyes closed, running his hands through his hair. ‘It’ll
never be any different, Sophie.’

‘Yes it will,’ she
said. ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself.’

‘I feel sorry for you.
And Jim and Tom. Everyone here. I’m trouble.’

She sat on the edge of
the bed and touched his cheek. ‘That needs stitching.’

‘Leave it,’ he said,
pushing her hand away.

‘You should go to the
hospital.’

‘No hospitals. No
coppers. I said, leave it.’ He rolled over. ‘I want to be alone.’

Sophie stood slowly
and walked out of the room. Outside, she padded softly across the yard to the
horse shed. Less than a minute later, she returned with the equine medical kit.
It was full of bandages, ointments, liniments, rolls of cotton wool and sterile
syringes. She rummaged around and found what she needed: alcohol, silk sutures
and a curved needle. She cut the silk into lengths, poured alcohol into a
stainless steel dish and dropped them in to soak with the needle.

Back on the bed, she
gently touched his face and inspected the cut. It was at least an inch wide and
was gaping.

He took hold of her
arm. ‘I want to sleep.’

She ignored him and
took some gauze swabs and a small bottle of iodine, tipped one onto the other
and began gently swabbing.