When It's Right(64)

“. . . Pain in My Ass. Have you seen him?”

All Gillian heard was “pain in my ass.” The same thing her father said to her over and over again, day in and day out. The huge man’s face faded and shifted into her father’s. His heavy black coat turned to a white T-­shirt. Blood bloomed across his chest. He reached out to her again, but she sank back against the fence, bent at the waist, and fell through the railing, her heart thrashing against her ribs.

He’s back.

He’ll hurt her again.

Fear washed over her and stole her breath. She tried to breathe but couldn’t get any air.

She scrambled back as he leaned through the fence and reached for her again, grabbing her ankle. She screamed. Boots ran forward and reared up, but the horse didn’t hold her attention—­the man coming after her did. Boots’s hooves landed inches from her leg. She scrambled backward on her hands, kicking with her feet to push herself back and her father away. Her broken arm hurt like hell, but she didn’t care or stop. Everything inside her screamed, Run!

The man practically dove through the fence, stood tall over her, using one big hand to push Boots away. He took several steps toward her. She flipped over and tried to crawl and stand at the same time to run away, but she wrenched her knee and fell again, rolling over to her back, arms up to ward off the attack she knew was coming. Blake appeared out of nowhere and shoved the man in his chest, stopping him from coming forward. Relieved to see Blake, she stopped trying to get away.

Blake said something to the man, but she couldn’t hear him over the thrashing guitars as the music blared in one ear and her heart pounded in the other. She pulled the earbud out and tried to take a breath, but still couldn’t fill her lungs with the fear engulfing her. Everything in her wanted to jump up, flee, run as fast as she could, but she hurt so bad.

Blake stood with the man, his back to her. The guy explained, “I told her I was here to pick up my horse. I asked if she’d seen you, and then I don’t know what happened. She scrambled to get away, but spooked the horse. He reared and almost trampled her to death.”

Blake turned and stared at her, so much sadness and pity filling his tawny eyes. The same shade the man standing next to him had. In fact, they looked very similar to each other in height and build. Her brain stopped screaming for her to run and started processing the things around her again.

Blake took three steps to her but stopped five feet away and kneeled down, sitting back on his heels. “Gillian, sweetheart, please take a breath. Slow and easy,” he pleaded.

Her gaze darted from him to the other man and back. She tried to breathe but couldn’t.

“Sweetheart, look at me. No one is going to hurt you. I promise. Look at me.”

She shifted her focus back to him.

“That’s it, sweetheart. I won’t let anyone hurt you. This is my brother Gabe. I should have told you he was coming today. I’m sorry.”

Gabe moved to Blake’s side and kneeled down, arms braced on his thighs.

Gillian put both hands up to stop him from coming closer, even though he made no move to do so.

“Hey there. I’m real sorry I scared you. I didn’t see that you were listening to music and couldn’t hear me. I never meant to scare you. I’ll tell you, you took ten years off my life when that horse nearly stomped on you. That’s all I was trying to do, get you out of the way of that horse.”

Boots stood to her side, staring at Blake and Gabe.

“He’d never hurt you, would he, sweetheart? Boots loves you. He tried to protect you from Gabe. Like you, he didn’t know Gabe wouldn’t hurt a fly. I promise you, Gabe’s no threat. He’d stand between you and danger the same way I would. I know telling you that doesn’t really change your mind, but . . .”

She put her hand up to stop him. Her breathing slowed, but her heart still pounded. For the first time, she realized tears tracked down her cheeks one after the other.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Blake. She turned to his brother. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. Totally my fault,” Gabe said. “Blake told me about you. I should have known better than to come up behind you. He’s right though, you’ve got the prettiest hair I’ve ever seen. What color is that?”

“All of them,” she whispered.

Gabe laughed. “That’s about right.”

Blake stood and took two steps toward her. She put her hands up again to stop him, so he kneeled in front of her again. Gabe remained low behind him.

“Sweetheart, your hand is bleeding. After covering twenty feet of dirt and grass, your knee must be killing you. Come to me. I’ll take you up to the house. We’ll get you some pain meds, and you can rest.”