Love Under Two Wildcatters (21 page)

“The first thing we have to do,” Colt said, “is make sure Susan’s safe.” He said that to her brother, who nodded enthusiastically. “We have to find someplace to stash her so she’s protected. Then we have to do what we can to find out who’s behind this. I don’t trust the police to give it their all. Especially if Detective Carrerra is involved.”

“Susan is right here,” she said out loud, “and nobody is stashing me anywhere. That is, of course, unless you two are willing to be stashed with me.”

“I’m not hiding,” Colt bit out.

“Neither am I,” Ryder said.

“Well, that makes three of us. So let’s stop talking about what’s not going to happen and start trying to figure out who’s behind all this.”

Colt looked over at Joshua, who had sighed in resignation. “Is your sister always so stubborn?” Colt asked.

Josh flicked a glance at her in the rearview mirror, meeting her gaze. “Yes, unfortunately. But I have to concede her point. Facing trouble head-on is the Benedict way.”

Susan smiled. Having won that skirmish, she let Ryder pull her into his arms. “I think we should call the dads,” she said. “They might have an idea or two how we should proceed.”

“Maybe your fathers will be able to help us convince you to stay out of sight.” Colt’s low grumble reached her from the front seat.

“Obviously you haven’t met my dads.” Despite everything, that was something she was looking forward to.

Chapter 17

It wasn’t that Colt didn’t appreciate the conference call Josh and Alex set up with Jonathan and Caleb Benedict, their fathers. He did, and Caleb’s promise to reach out to some of his contacts and see what could be done to expedite things was a gift Colt didn’t think he could ever repay.

But he was anxious to be alone with his family.

His family
. He’d thought of Ryder that way since before they went to live with Mike Murphy. He and Ryder had found each other at a time when they were both alone, neglected and abused boys. They’d become brothers by choice. Family.

This was the first time he’d extended that definition to include a woman. Of course, Susan Benedict wasn’t just any woman. She was
the
woman. Not just the woman who had made his and Ryder’s family complete, but the woman they would spend the rest of their lives with.

He still wasn’t sure what kind of a husband or father he’d make. Thinking about that made him nervous as hell. What did he know about being a dad? He’d never had one, himself. He guessed there’d be time to worry about that later if, down the road, Susan decided she’d stay with them.

For right now, tonight, he’d been watching Susan ever since she walked to Josh’s car a couple of hours before, and he had his suspicions about just how “all right” she really was.

Finally, after the senior Benedicts had been contacted, listened to, and had advised, after a prescription for pain medication had been arranged for and delivered, and pizza brought in and consumed, the younger Benedict brothers left. Clothing and other essentials would be delivered in the morning, but for the night, they’d be fine.

“We should make a list of all the things that need to be done in the morning,” Susan said, and to him at least, her smile seemed overly bright. “You’ll want to contact your insurance company, although you may get a bit of a hassle because of the criminal investigation. If that happens—”

“Susie?” Ryder’s voice sounded quiet, and Colt smiled because that one quality told him Ryder had the same suspicions he did.

“Yes, Ryder?”

“Where exactly does it hurt, babe, and how bad?”

Susan blinked, resembling a wide-eyed owl. Her face went blank, and Colt would bet she was working so hard at trying to be in control of her discomfort she didn’t even realize she’d gotten sloppy at her attempts to hide it.

“Um, I’m just a bit stiff, is all. Nothing much.”

Stiff my ass
. In a heartbeat, Colt understood not so much where and how much she hurt, but where and how she’d
gotten
hurt. He would never forget those horrible seconds when he’d looked down, seen that trip wire against her leg. He’d reacted on instinct and with as much speed and agility as possible, but he hadn’t been gentle in the process.

“Come here, sweetheart.” He didn’t get up from his place on the love seat and kept his tone deliberately soft. When she got up stiffly and then walked over to him, he began to undress her. Since Ryder came to stand directly behind her, she couldn’t escape. As if realizing the game was up, she sighed and closed her eyes.

The woman was covered in bruises. He’d taken the worst of the impact, both of the explosives and hitting the ground, but he’d rolled them both away from the house, which meant he’d rolled himself on top of her.

He had done this to her, damn it.

“Stop. That’s why I didn’t tell you, because I knew you’d get that haunted look on your face. You saved my life, Colt Evans. Do you think I give a good damn about a few bruises?”

“
I
give a damn, Susan. I very much give a damn. Come on, now, let’s see the rest of it.” He and Ryder finished the task of stripping her. Bruises covered both hips and a spot just under her breasts where his arms had banded around her when he’d grabbed her and thrown them both to the ground. She had a scrape on her right knee and one her left elbow, both of which looked raw.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you, sweetheart.”

“It really is all right. This is a much better outcome than being blown to smithereens across your front yard.”

“
Oh, God
.” Because he could see that so clearly, because she had come close to just such a fate, Colt closed his eyes and shuddered.

Susan stepped closer to him and wrapped her arms around him. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“I thought I’d lost the both of you.” Ryder’s voice sounded raw. “I understood in a heartbeat what was happening, and I was too fucking far away to get to either of you.”

Colt looked up at his best friend. Ryder’s expression underscored the words he’d just said. The two of them were closer than brothers—closer because they’d chosen each other, clung to each other when they’d had nothing else. Now, together, they’d both fallen for the same woman.

They’d all been through hell, one way or another, tonight.

“I think we all got the shit scared out of us,” Susan said. She wiped tears from her face, sniffed, and then inhaled deeply. “The important thing is that none of us was seriously hurt. Let’s go soak in the spa and then just go to bed. I really need to feel the two of you on either side of me tonight.”

“That sounds like a damn good plan,” Colt said.

* * * *

They didn’t make the tub as hot as they normally would. Susan had gotten a good look at Colt’s back. Turnabout was, after all, fair play. The burns were higher up, on his shoulders. But cuts and gouges speckled him.

He hissed a little when he slid into the water. Then he relaxed back and sighed.

Susan situated herself where she liked best to be, in between these two strong men. She’d taken a moment to put some music on the sound system that piped through the apartment—tonight, soulful jazz. Now, she closed her eyes and let the water and the music and, most especially, the company, soothe her.

“I keep asking the same question,” Ryder said.

Susan knew he was thinking about the attacks. How could he not be?

“You mean, why us?” Colt asked him.

“No, not that so much. Not ‘why us’. You know me. I’m constantly amazed that we survived long enough for Mike to take us in, in the first place. I never did figure we were due more than shit for luck. I’m more surprised when things go well for us than when life craps on us.”

Colt chuckled. Susan could only shake her head. “A real pessimist, are you, Mr. Magee?”

“I prefer to think of myself as a realist, Ms. Benedict,” Ryder said. “And I’ll have you know the one good thing about being a pessimist is that you’re never disappointed.”

“I suppose I could give you that,” she said, “but it’s very small comfort.”

“So, what question do you keep asking yourself?” Colt asked.

“Why now? What’s changed that this is happening
now
?”

Susan opened her mouth and then closed it again. She really didn’t think her having entered these men’s lives would have prompted anyone to attack them. She had no shadows in her past. The couple of relationships she’d been in had ended amicably enough.

“That is a good question,” Colt said. “The only thing that comes to mind is the deal we signed with Benedict Oil and Mining.”

Susan turned her head and looked at Colt. He met her gaze.

“There was a huge write-up about it in the
Houston Chronicle
. Benedict Oil is one of the companies to have done well during these last couple of years. And so, by the way, is
Dos Hombres
. That’s good business news, and the deal has received a lot of press.”

“We’d always operated as if tough times were just around the corner,” Ryder said. “So when tough times actually arrived, we were prepared.”

He lifted his hand from the water and stroked a dripping finger down her nose. “You might say that was my pessimism at work.”

“Do you think that could be it, though?” Susan stretched out her right leg, examined the scrape on her knee, then lowered her leg into the water again. “I mean, I’m not unaware of how tough so many people have had it these last two years. So many people out of work, so many homes foreclosed on. It’s heartbreaking, no doubt about it. But why would someone pick on you just because you’ve been successful?”

“Jealousy, maybe.” Colt shrugged then sucked in a breath when that unthinking action obviously hurt. “Seeing our success, could be someone’s made us a target out of spite. If that’s the case, and it’s a random thing…hell, how would we ever find out who it is?”

“I guess our only hope is that whoever it is got sloppy again and left lots of clues,” Susan said.

“I hate feeling useless,” Colt said. “Waiting around for this asshole to make another move. I’d much rather be doing something about it. Point me in a fucking direction, and let me fix it.”

“Damn straight,” Ryder said.

Susan could hear and feel the tension seething from her men, which in her mind defeated the entire purpose of soft music and hot bubbling water before bed.

She supposed there was only one thing for her to do. She needed to take the situation in hand, so to speak.

“There’s nothing any of us can do tonight.” She kept her voice sounding quiet and reasonable. “In the morning, we’ll go to Lusty, meet with my dads. We’ll contact the investigators and see if there’s been any progress. But for now…” She said nothing more, just reached out her hands and captured two not-entirely-soft male cocks.

“You meaning to distract us with sex?” Colt asked.

“Oh, absolutely,” Susan said.

“Good,” both men said at the same time.

Susan felt her smile stretch wide. “I’m so pleased my little plan meets with your approval, gentlemen.” Since she chose that moment to begin to stroke and squeeze, neither man’s response came out particularly clear and lucid.

She loved the feel of their cocks in her hands, the way their cocks swelled for her, strengthened for her. The silkiness of the water complemented the silkiness of their male flesh. She thought it a wonder that just here, from where the very definition of masculinity stemmed, that the texture of the male skin could be so soft to the touch.

Closing her eyes, she let her senses guide her, the pulsing of cocks, the hitching of breaths. She could do this, devote her entire attention to pleasuring them, because she loved them. She was only mildly aroused herself. Being a woman, she garnered another kind of sexual pleasure by stroking her men to full arousal. It felt just as primitive, this sense of caring for her lovers as no one else could, of giving them a singular surcease. It fed a wholly feminine need in her as necessary as the need to climax.

For this one night, it would be enough.

Closer now to rapture, her lovers reacted with equal ardor as they began to thrust into her hands. Her thumbs stroked over the tops of their cocks, spreading the viscose lubricant they gave her, inhaling deeply as the scent of them, these men she loved, permeated the moist air around her.