Sophie Oak - Pure Bliss

The new mistress of the Circle G fell asleep between her men, her thoughts no longer on the past, but dreaming of the future.

Christian Grady looked at the woman cowering at his feet. Actually, she wasn’t cowering as much as he would have expected. It was another annoying moment in an already annoying week in a ridiculously annoying town.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?” He wasn’t sure the bitch understood English at this moment.

Lucy Carson turned her arctic-blue eyes up toward him. “Fuck off.”

Yes. She was proving to be something of a nuisance, but then this whole goddamn town was out-of-its-mind crazy. The fiasco at the sheriff’s office had proven that to Christian beyond all doubt. Luckily little Lucy hadn’t caught sight of him at the station or he might have been completely fucked.

“I’ll tell you again. I’m going to call your friend, who happens to be my wife. I’m calling her from your phone, you dumb bitch. She’s going to pick up, and I’ll explain to her that I will kill you if she doesn’t come to me. You will cry prettily and beg for your life.”

“I will say it again. Fuck you.”

Lucy, it turned out, had quite the mouth on her. Christian felt his anger swell. He hated vulgar females. Lucy had seemed a sweet, accommodating sort. When he’d taken her out to pump her for information about Hope, he’d actually thought that she was innocent. But no innocent cursed in the face of danger. No innocent spat at her abductor. Lucy was a whore. Only whores fought.

“We’ll get to that, I’m sure.” Whores always wanted a good fucking, and it was nothing less than they deserved. Christian fought his urge to slap the bitch. He held up her phone and took a picture, making sure the lighting was all right. Morning light filtered into the cabin he was holed up in, lighting every cut and bruise he’d already given Lucy. He examined the picture. A person would be able to tell who she was and that she wasn’t exactly in a happy place. It would certainly do.

“Smile for the camera.” One more should do it. He made sure to hold up a newspaper with the date on it. The Bliss Gazette was a waste of the paper it was written on, but it did the trick. Hope would know he had her friend, and that soft heart of hers wouldn’t be able to handle it. She would come to him.

And she would know what he planned to do with her.

Little Lucy fought against her bonds. She looked down at her hands, twisting them, the friction marring her skin. She’d been easy to catch, harder to hold. She’d fought like a wildcat, but he had help. It had taken all three of them to hold one small woman down after she’d figured out that her little date from a couple of days ago had gone all wrong. He guessed he should be lucky that little Lucy wasn’t as tied into the town’s gossip mill as the rest of them. As far as he could tell, she was a fairly new citizen. She’d been ridiculously open with him when she’d thought he was a lovesick swain. She came from a large family in another town. She had numerous brothers and sisters, and she’d grown up in poverty, the rest of her town looking down on the trashy family she’d come from. Oh, it had been so easy to tell her what she’d wanted to hear—that she was lovely and he didn’t care where she’d come from.

But the minute she’d realized he wasn’t what he’d said, she’d turned and become a problem.

“Do you want me to stay, boss?”

Christian sighed as he looked up at his flunkie. This man had been with him a short time. He missed Jerry. Jerry wouldn’t have asked. Jerry would have known what to do. Unfortunately, Jerry was also very close to his height and his weight, and when he’d woken and realized that his home was going up in flames and he had the chance to start again, he’d sacrificed Jerry for the greater good. For Christian’s good. Jerry’s body had been his second chance.

“No. Go out to the ranch, and be there when Hope gets my call.”

The man nodded. He was an idiot, but a useful one. Christian had picked up him and his friend outside of Duluth. They were small cons, but fairly decent at bringing in the ladies. Their Western charm had worked well, and when he’d needed them to find jobs, they’d gotten it done. They could get close to Hope. They could bring her home.

Where he would decide if she lived or died.

“Sure thing, boss.”

“You said she spent the night with them.” Christian wanted to call the words back the minute they came out of his mouth. It was a weakness, but he couldn’t help it.

“That’s what I heard.”

“No one saw her sleep with them?”

The man in his cowboy hat shook his head. “No one was in there with her. No one really knows what happened.”

But Christian had his suspicions. He waved the man out, his brain whirling with unsavory possibilities.

His employee strode out of the purloined cabin. It seemed empty enough. From what Christian understood, it was a summer place, and summer was over. The nearest neighbor was a mile away, and no one in town thought Michael McMahon gave a crap about anything but his own grief. He wouldn’t notice Christian’s little domestic drama play out.

He was alone with Lucy, and soon Hope would be here. Hope would stand before him, and he would look into her eyes. He would know the truth.

And he would be her judge and her jury, and possibly her executioner.

Hope let the water wash over her, a light joy infusing her. Every muscle ached, but she’d slept better than she had in years. She’d cuddled down between them, their bodies heating her skin and offering a bulwark against the world outside. Their arms had wrapped around her, and she’d been encased in their unique warmth.

Now the water was warm, sluicing over her body, washing her as clean as her words the day before had washed her soul.

Trev had been right. The truth was the only way to cut through the pain, to find the path. And the truth had brought her home.

She shut off the water to the shower and heard James and Noah arguing in the bedroom about who had to make the bed and who should go and fetch the coffee. She smiled, her heart full. They were obnoxious and all hers.

She thought about breaking up their fight, but decided to concentrate on making herself presentable. If she walked out now, she would be forced to drop her robe, and then she was screwed. Literally. They were insatiable.

Twenty minutes later, she glossed her lips and walked into the bedroom. Peace. Quiet.

It wouldn’t last long.

She got dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Someone had moved her clothes from the guest room. She felt a sweetness pierce her heart when she realized all three dressers had clothes in them. The boys had moved in, and they had moved fast.

The door opened, and James poked his head in. “Hope? Baby, come to breakfast. We have to eat fast this morning. Noah’s got a load of cattle to check out. We’re taking them to market in a week or two. I want to make sure they’re damn healthy before we sell them.”

She took a deep breath because she’d spent way too much time with Nell. James wanted to make sure his cows were healthy and in good shape before he slaughtered them and turned them into burgers. She shrugged. She liked burgers. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

At least she got to get dressed this morning. She’d been a little worried that they would want her running around naked at the breakfast table, but apparently the herd’s medical checkup trumped the need to see her boobs while devouring pancakes.

She stared at herself in the mirror, not quite recognizing the woman who looked back at her. She was a rancher’s wife. Well, almost. And a vet’s wife. She had better get used to working with animals, because they would dominate her life.