American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory (16 page)

“This ain’t the end, Sheriff,” he
yelled. “We’ll get our justice. Just y’all wait!”

His brothers were yanking at him
and they disappeared back into the heavy green bramble. They faded off, the
sounds of their voices eventually disappearing, before Nash turned to Elliot.

“Are you all right?” he asked
softly.

She looked at him with such
anguish in her features that the mere expression impacted him. Rolling her
eyes, she couldn’t answer, but he could see the tears coming. She bolted
towards the house without a word, skipping up onto the porch and into the
kitchen door as Alec and Penelope followed. Nash sighed heavily when he heard
the door slam, lowering the gun and turning to his brother.

“I figured they’d start prowling
around here soon enough,” he said, looking at Beau from head to toe. “Good
thing I came when I did. They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

Beau shook his head. “It didn’t
come to that,” he said. “But they tried to touch Ellie. I was about to make a
chivalrous stand when you showed up. Thank God you showed up.”

Nash nodded faintly. Then, he
shook his head, his gaze moving out over the surroundings.

“Damn,” he hissed. “That poor
woman. She was hoping to start a new life out here in the bayou and it’s all
gone from bad to worse.”

“What do we do about the
Loreaus?” Beau asked. “You know they’re not going to give up.  They think
they’ve been wronged and that Ellie is responsible.”

Nash wriggled his eyebrows and
extended the gun to his brother. “Keep this with you for now,” he said. “I’m
going to go inside and see if I can calm her down.”

He turned for the house but a
word from his brother stopped him. “Nash?” the man called quietly.

Nash stopped and turned to look
at him. “What?”

The warm, humorous glimmer was
back in Beau’s eyes. “I like her.”

“Who?”

“Ellie.”

Nash fought off a grin. “So do
I.”

Nash turned for the house,
fighting off the smile that sweet thoughts of Elliot provoked. By the time he
entered the house, he found it quiet and still.  Uncasing his cell phone, he
made a call to the private security company as he wandered from the kitchen in
to big central hall. The twenty-four hour security patrols turned into armed
security patrols. He also made a call to dispatch for the off-duty deputy list.
Hanging up the phone, he headed for the bright lights of the double parlor.

He found Penelope and Alec in the
parlor, spread out over the couches that were still huddled in the middle of
the room because most of the boxes had yet to be unpacked. It still looked like
a warzone. Alec was on his electronic tablet and Penelope was reading a book. 
They both looked up when Nash entered the room.

“Y’all okay?” Nash asked with
some gentleness.

The kids nodded. “We’re fine,”
Alec said. “Mom wouldn’t let us get close to those dudes. She took ‘em on
herself. Hey, did you know there are alligators in the back yard?”

Nash gave him a half-grin. “I
sure do,” he said. “They used to scare the dog-water out of me when I was a
kid.”

Alec and Penelope burst out
laughing. “What’s dog-water?” Penelope wanted to know.

Nash chuckled. “I guess it’s kind
of like pee,” he said, looking around the room. “Where’s your mother?”

Penelope pointed to the ceiling.
“She went upstairs. She’s pretty upset.”

“Do you mind if I go up and talk
to her?”

Alec was already refocused on his
tablet and Penelope shook her head. “Go ahead,” she said.

Nash flashed them an appreciative
smile and headed back toward the central staircase. As he mounted the bottom
step, he heard someone call his name. Pausing, he saw Penelope approaching in
the dim light. He smiled at the girl as she came upon him.

Penelope’s big blue eyes focused
intently on him and she cocked her head. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you have a thing for my mom?”

Nash was a little taken aback at
the blunt question. He had told Elliot that he would let her take the lead when
it came to her children, but the fact was that her children were intelligent
adults. Nash wasn’t going to treat them like a couple of third graders that
needed to be lied to in order to protect them.

Still, he was careful in his
reply because he didn’t want to damage the budding relationship he had with the
family. It wasn’t just Eliot he was worried about; he was worried about all of
them.

“Would you have a problem with it
if I did?” he countered softly.

Penelope leaned against the stair
banister in thought. “No,” she said honestly. “I think it’s great.  She’s been
really lonely without my dad and I think you’re a really nice guy. You
obviously care about her.”

He fought off a smile, averting
his eyes. “Is it that apparent?”

Penelope smiled faintly. “To me
it is, but I notice that kind of thing.”

“What about Alec?”

Penelope wriggled her eyebrows.
“He doesn’t notice stuff like this until it hits him in the face. He’s really
protective of my mom so I’m not sure how he’s going to react if he knows you’re
in love with her.”

Nash’s eyebrows lifted in
surprise. “In
love
with her?

Penelope grinned. “Yes,” she
snickered softly. “Don’t you even know that yet?”

Nash tried not to look or feel
stupid. “I… I guess I haven’t really thought about it.”

Penelope pushed herself off the
banister, heading back towards the front parlor. “You should,” she said as she
walked away. “It’s true.”

Nash stood there on the step,
stunned with the conversation. He thought about his feelings for Eliot, the
utter and complete joy he felt in everything about her, and it began to occur
to him that Penelope was right.  The young woman had hardly spent any time
around Nash and Elliot, but even she could see the feelings that were
developing between the pair. They were strong and pure and radiant.  Penelope
was absolutely right; he was in love with her mother.

Mounting the stairs, he made his
way to the big master bedroom in the front of the house. The door was cracked
open and a soft, golden glow emitted from the room. The second floor was mostly
dark without it. He knocked on the door quietly.

“Hello?” he called softly.

“Come on in,” came the reply.

He pushed the door open to find
Elliot lying on her bed, flat on her back, with her arms up over her face. The
room was illuminated by a half-dozen candles, all burning brightly because
there was no electricity to the room.  It gave it a rather romantic and
haunting feel. Nash made his way over to the bed.

“Hey,” he murmured. “Are you all
right?”

The arms came off her face and
she gazed up at him with moist blue eyes. “I’m trying not to cry again,” she
admitted.

He smiled sadly and sat carefully
on the edge of the bed. His hand found one of hers and he brought it to his
lips, kissing it tenderly.

“You are one tough lady,” he said
softly. “Everything about you is so strong and poised. I’m amazed every time I
see you.”

She rolled onto her side as he
kissed her hand, pushed up against his right thigh. “Were those the guys you
warned me about?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“They said it was their dad that
was killed. Did you know that?”

He couldn’t lie to her. “I did.”

“Were you going to tell me?”

He sighed faintly and lowered her
hand from his mouth. “Eventually,” he said. “I was trying to think of an easy
way to break the news to you. I wasn’t trying to keep it from you, but you’ve
had enough on your mind. That was one more worry you didn’t need, at least not
right away.”

She thought on that a moment,
realizing she believed him. Nash was a man of integrity and she didn’t think
that lying was in his nature. She squeezed his hand.

“I think I’m going to put an
electrified fence around the place, you know, like a prison,” she teased. “When
those guys come the next time,
zap!
”

He laughed softly.  “It might not
be a bad idea,” he said. “Knowing that I’m on to them, however, should keep
them away, at least for now.  They may be idiots but they’re not stupid. They
won’t mess with me.”

Her smile faded as she caressed
his big finger. “That was pretty impressive discharging that shotgun to scare
them off,” she said.  “If you did that in California, they’d have the media all
over you for recklessly threatening innocent people.”

He snorted. “That’s because the
police in California are all afraid of their own shadow,” he said. “They’re
afraid to move because someone might be filming it and put it up on YouTube.
Down here, things are a little different. The police have a little more freedom
to enforce laws because the NAACP and the ACLU aren’t breathing down their
necks at every turn.”

She shrugged. “I believe it,” she
said, gazing up into his handsome face as her thoughts turned towards the
house, the situation at hand. “So now what?”

He looked around the room. “Now
we finish restoring Purgatory.”

She squeezed his hand again. “And
that’s another thing,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me that your brother had
already started the restoration? There were a hundred guys here this morning
working on the house.”

He shrugged. “We need to make
this house livable again and that’s going to take a lot of work,” he replied.
“I told Beau to do what he needed to do to get it done as fast as possible.”

She gazed up at him steadily.
“Did you stop to think that this isn’t your house anymore? What if that’s not
what I wanted?”

He scratched at his neck. “Did I
overstep myself? I wasn’t doing it intentionally if I did. I was just trying to
help you make this place habitable.  You said yourself that you didn’t realize
how much work it needed and since I sold you the house, I feel somewhat
responsible for that.”

She softened up. “What’s this
about you and Beau paying the labor?”

“It’s the least we can do.
Besides, Beau has some plans about that.”

“I know, he told me,” she put her
hand on his thigh. “Seriously, you’re doing way too much.  I don’t even know
what to say.”

“Don’t say anything. Just let me
help.”

She knew he meant well.  She’d
never thought anything else.  Since the moment she’d met the man, he’d been
kind and thoughtful and considerate. He had treated her as if she was the most
important thing in the world. Reaching up, she wound her arms around his neck
and slanted her lips softly over his. Nash reacted instantly, wrapping his big
arms around her and lowering her back down to the bed.

The soft, gentle kiss turned into
something very hot and passionate very quickly. Nash had one arm wrapped
tightly around her while the other roamed her torso, feeling the shape of her
body and the texture of her hair. It was wildly intoxicating and before he
realized it, his hand had snaked under her t-shirt and was now caressed her
soft, flat belly.  The feel of her tender skin drove him wild.

Somehow, he ended up on the bed
next to her, his Sam Browne belt making it very awkward to get close to her,
but he really didn’t care. The hand on her belly slithered around to her back
and he stroked the skin of her naked back, swearing he’d never touched anything
so sweet in his entire life. 

His mouth left her lips, trailing
across her cheek and down her neck.  He suckled on the tender flesh of her
shoulder, her collarbone, dragging his lips up her neck again and to her jaw
line. Then he moved over to her mouth again, suckling her until her lips were
red and raw.

“Mom?”

The sound of a voice pierced
their haze of desire. Nash bolted up from the mattress before he even realized
he had done it.  When next he was aware, he was standing at the end of the bed,
several feet away from a woman that seconds before he had been happily
ravaging.

Penelope knocked on the door,
shoving it open to see that Nash was a proper distance away and that her mother
was lying on the bed, looking rather wide-eyed. Alec was right behind his
sister, pushing the door open wide.

“We’re hungry,” Penelope said.
“Can we go get something to eat?”

“Sure,” Elliot was trying not to
sound breathless as she sat up in bed. “Did you and your brother decide where
you wanted to go?”

“Anything but McDonalds,”
Penelope said with disgust.

“There’s a good restaurant down
the street called Mama’s,” Nash offered.

“Or we could go to the market and
buy fresh stuff, and plug the vegetable steamer into the outlet in the living
room,” Penelope suggested. “We could eat salads and veggies.”

Alec made a face. “I want real
food,” he pointed at Nash. “So does the Sheriff. We vote for alligator ribs.”

Nash grinned and shook his head,
getting himself sucked into a family debate. He reached into his pocket and pulled
out his wallet, extracting two twenty dollar bills and extending the money to
Alec.