Van, Becca - Coming Home (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (13 page)

Bella watched as David strode into the room. She couldn’t help her gasp as she saw the left side of his face. The skin was puckered where he had been burned from the hot pan she’d slammed against the side of his head.

“Take a good look, you fucking bitch. The last thing you’re going to see is what you did to me,” David snarled.

Bella shrank back as he came closer to the bed, the large knife in his hand glinting occasionally as light from the other room caught the blade. She tried to kick out at him, but he jumped onto the bed, straddling her thighs and using his weight to hold her in place. She couldn’t breathe, the sight of that big knife moving toward her making her pant and whimper in fear.

“Yes, be very afraid of me, little girl. I’m going to love having a piece of you before I kill you,” David said, his voice now totally devoid of emotion.

Bella felt the cold blade against her skin as David sliced her shirt and pants away from her body. She felt so exposed and dirty, his eyes traveling the length of her scantily clothed body. She’d put on the underwear she’d had from her own time. Her bright-red, lacy G-string and matching lace bra were totally out of place in the small, dingy cabin.

“What the fuck? Well, aren’t you just the little whore. Who would’ve thought you’d be parading around in such skimpy underthings? Guess you are just the whore I thought you were.” David placed the metal blade between her breasts and sliced her bra then the side strings of her panties.

“Please, don’t hurt me,” Bella whimpered.

“Why the fuck should I be lenient on you after what you did to me, you fucking bitch?” David screamed at her, grabbing a handful of her hair and pulling her face up close to his as he leaned forward. “Look at what you did to me. I’ll never be able to show my face in town again, thanks to you.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you like that. You scared me. You were going to rape me,” Bella cried, tears streaming from her eyes.

“Yeah, I was. You should have just let me have a piece of you and left it at that. Now. Now, I’m gonna have to torture you for what you did to me,” David screamed, spraying her face with spittle in his mad ranting.

“Please, no. I wouldn’t have hurt you, but you attacked me. Can’t you see I was just defending myself?” Bella sobbed, her breathing so rapid she was in danger of passing out. She tried to concentrate on calming her rising hysteria and panicked breathing. The last thing she wanted to do was pass out now. She needed to keep her wits about her if she was going to get a chance to escape with her life.

Bella whimpered as David released her hair. She flopped back down on the pillow, relief coursing through her at the sudden reprieve, and closed her eyes. Her eyes snapped open as the knife sliced through the skin of her upper arm. She turned her head, relieved to see only beads of blood seeping from the shallow cut. She was surprised she didn’t feel any pain. She looked up into at him, only to be even more afraid as she saw the glazed look of concentration on his face. He was going to cut her all over, and there wasn’t a fucking thing she could do about it.

Bella prayed to God, thanking him for the opportunity to have met and loved her men and begging him to help them find her in time to rescue her. She drifted in and out of consciousness, her mind flitting from one memory to the next, making her smile and feel full of love. She saw her husbands’ faces staring down at her with such tenderness as they made love to her. She saw the face of her sweet baby girl, grinning up at her, her eyes drifting shut as her belly, full with her momma’s milk, made her sleepy. She kissed her daughter’s head and breathed in her sweet baby scent.

Bella jerked back to awareness, determination coursing through every cell of her body. She was pregnant. She had a baby girl growing in her belly, and there was no way in hell she was giving in without a fight. She looked down at her body, her blood seeping from various knife cuts, but they weren’t deep wounds. Maybe David didn’t really want to be doing what he was to her.

“You are a coward, David Ryder,” Bella spat at him. “Only cowards attack people smaller and weaker than themselves. Only cowards tie up helpless women and cut them up. You must be such a disappointment to your father. My God, just think about what he’s going to say when he finds you, his son, cutting up a helpless woman. He is going to be so proud of you. Not.”

“Shut up,” David whimpered, clutching his head between his hands, the knife falling onto the bed, obviously forgotten.

Bella knew she had broken his concentration, and the only way she was going to get him to keep from hurting her any more was to keep at him.

“I can just imagine what your mother would say to you if she could see you now. Do you think she’d call you the coward you are? Only bullies, people sick in the head, would do what you’re doing to me. I can help you if you let me. All you need to do is untie me and let me go. I’ll get a doctor to come and see you. You need help, David. You’re sick in your mind.”

“You’re right about that, little missy. I’m so sorry I didn’t do anything before.” Sheriff Nate Ryder’s voice echoed in the quiet of the room. “Oh God, David. What have you done?”

“Pa. I’m sorry, Pa. She walked around that ranch in man’s clothes. The voices in my head said she was mine, not the Aldridge brothers’. They stole her from me. I had to get her back.”

“David, come on out to the fire, and we’ll sit and talk awhile,” Sheriff Nate said quietly, easing further into the room.

Bella watched as David climbed from the bed to face his father. Her eyes slid back and forth from father to son. David had the knife back in his hand, his arm bent, the knife pointed toward his father. Sheriff Nate had his gun in his hand, his arm hanging loosely by his side.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know what your ma was doing to you when she was alive. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you from her. If you had come to me and told me what was going on, I could have done something about it. That little girl hasn’t done anything to you, David. You need to let her go,” Sheriff Nate commanded.

“She’ll tell on me if I do. What am I going to do, Pa?”

“You let me worry about those things, son. Now, I’m going to untie her. I don’t want you to move, David,” Sheriff Nate said as he moved to Bella’s side.

Bella and the sheriff kept their eyes on David, and he released her wrists.

“I want you to keep still. Don’t move a muscle and draw attention to yourself. You get out of here fast when he’s not looking. My horse is right outside the door. You climb up into that saddle and head on out straight away from the cabin. Keep riding straight, and you’ll ride right into the Triple A Ranch,” Nate whispered.

Bella just nodded her head to let the sheriff know she’d heard him, too afraid to draw David’s attention to her now that it was on his father.

“You’ve done a bad thing, son. You know I’m going to have to take you in,” Nate said to David, his voice full of sad resignation.

“You don’t have to do that, Pa. We can just pretend it never happened. I’ll be good from now on. I promise.”

“You and I both know you ain’t right in the head, son. I can’t keep covering up the bad things you do. This time you’ve gone too far. If I let you go now, you’ll just find some other woman to obsess over. What will you do then? You were going to kill this time, David. I can’t let you hurt anyone else.”

Bella watched as father and son moved cautiously around each other. She saw the muscles in David’s body tense, readying to strike against his father. She screamed in horror as David leapt at his father, the blade of the knife sinking into his father’s belly as the sheriff lifted his arm and pulled the trigger. Father and son fell to the floor, both writhing in pain until their last breaths left their lungs.

Bella felt sick to her stomach, the stench of blood and urine permeating the small room. She scrambled from the bed, pulling the sheet around her body, and ran. She was sobbing and shaking as she mounted the dead sheriff’s horse and kicked it into a gallop. She never once looked back.

Bella was frantic to reach her men on the Triple A Ranch. She knew they would be worried about her, and she just wanted to hold them and have them hold her in their arms. She nudged the horse again, her vision impaired from the tears in her eyes. She prayed her mount wouldn’t stumble in a hole and send her flying through the air and send her tumbling to the ground. She could feel blood seeping from the cuts on her body and knew she needed to clean them up and stem the flow. She gasped and held on to the horse’s mane when it stumbled but gave a sigh of relief as it gained its balance. The horse’s hooves pounded into the ground. Every step was jarring through her entire body, and she felt so tired and weak. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold on, but she wasn’t about to give up now.

She gripped the side of the horse tighter with her knees and even though the reins were in her hands, she didn’t pull on them. She clung to the pommel instead and let the animal beneath her carry her, racing through the night.

She needed to get home to her men. She needed to see them with her own eyes. She didn’t know how long she and the horse traveled for. It could have been minutes or hours. Everything slowed down and seemed so surreal. The horse was breathing heavily, and it was lathered with sweat. She didn’t want to push it too hard, but she couldn’t stop. The words in her head rolled around her mind over and over again.
Get home. Get home. Get home.

Bella was thankful the animal seemed to know where she wanted to go. She didn’t need to direct him at all. She could hardly see now. Tears were still flowing from her eyes, and the wind rushing into her eyeballs made it worse. She startled as the shadows of trees rushed past her, and she flinched as a thin branch caught her on the cheek. She bent down low over the horse’s neck and sobbed as her aching hands clung to the saddle. She didn’t know if she would be able to let go when she reached the house. She listened intently when she thought she heard pounding hooves on the ground. But she thought she was imagining things when she only heard the sound of the hooves of the horse she was mounted on beating into the ground. She peered through the dark but couldn’t see much.

Get home. Get home. Get home.

Chapter Fourteen

“Where the fuck could she be?” Clint roared with fear and frustration.

“I don’t know, but someone was here. There’s water all over the place, and I found some blood on the timber decking outside,” Marcus yelled.

“David. That fucking bastard’s a dead man,” Adam yelled.

It was already dark out, as Clint and his brothers had worked a bit later than usual because of their late start. When he’d found no sign of Bella in the house, he had been filled with dread. At first he had thought she had been taken from them, back to her own time. But once he had seen the spilled bucket and signs of a struggle, he knew she had been taken against her will.

“We have to hurry,” Marcus yelled at him as he vaulted into the saddle.

Clint mounted his horse, and he and his brothers galloped at breakneck speed, praying he would reach his wife in time to save her. It would take them a good twenty minutes to reach David’s cabin even at the pace they were going. He was only five minutes into their journey when Clint pulled his horse to a skidding halt, hand up, a silent signal to his brothers that someone was coming their way.

The sight that met his eyes had his heart lifting from his belly in relief. Then fury took hold as he saw the blood on the sheet wrapped around their wife. He nudged his horse back onto the trail, eager to intercept his woman.

Clint saw Bella jerk her horse to a halt, her breath sobbing out as she spotted her him and his brothers. She practically threw herself from the horse, her knees buckling as she slid to the ground. He jumped down to the ground and reached for her, hesitating. She was covered in blood, and he didn’t want to hurt her any more than she was. She looked up into his anguished face as he reached out for her, and he sighed when she threw herself into his arms.

“Bella, you’re bleeding. God, baby, what did he do to you? Where is he? How did you get away?” Clint asked, his words running together, his fear for his wife coming out with his words.

“I’m all right. He didn’t hurt me that bad. He’s dead. His father shot him. They’re both dead. God, David stabbed his own father, and the sheriff shot his son at the same time,” Bella said then scrambled from his lap, moaned, doubled over, and retched.

When she was done, Clint carefully lifted her into his arms. He passed her over to Adam when his brother mounted, and he headed back to the ranch. He set a slow, easy pace, careful not to hurt his wife by jolting her too much.

Clint watched as Marcus carefully carried Bella into the kitchen and held her on his lap while he prepared his wife a bath. He stepped up to her and leaned her back against his chest while Marcus held her steady and eased the sheet off of her body. He groaned with anguish when he saw the long, shallow cuts on her body.

“Bella, darlin’, are you in pain?” Marcus asked. Clint heard his brother, but he had to strain to hear him because his voice was no more than a whisper, as he stared down at her body from over her shoulder.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you? I’m surprised I don’t feel anything at all,” Bella answered.

“Baby, look at me,” Clint demanded, walking closer to his wife.

He looked at her and knew the anguish he felt for his wife was visible on his face. He looked over the cuts on her body, then back up to her eyes again.