Breathless Temptation [Texas Stallions 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (2 page)

Delilah wanted to laugh in his face, but for her father’s sake, she never did. Even though she saw no love between her father and Sharon, she didn’t want to be the only reason her father left the money-grubbing bitch. Thank God for well-written prenuptial agreements.

Loaded to the gills, her father was an extremely wealthy oilman. Raised in Texas with his own family, Marshall later moved to California when he married Delilah’s mother, Pamela. She was a true Texas gal, but when his business affairs took him west, her mother was right by his side. After Delilah was born, her mother suffered from complications and died. People seemed to come out of the woodwork to comfort her father. She was sure he knew most of the people claiming to care about him were just after his money, but after twenty-five years alone, he decided to marry again. Sadly, that’s when Sharon and Warren Marshall came charging into her life.

“Shit,” Delilah cried as she drove slightly off the two-lane road, distracted once again by not only her wandering thoughts but her tired mind.

Eyes wide, her heart leapt up into her throat as she regained control over the car. The long drive from Beverly Hills, California, was starting to take its toll on her. So eager to get away from Sharon and Warren, she impulsively decided to head to Austin and then up to Dallas, where her mother was born. Without thinking, she packed what she needed, jumped into her brand-new, silver Mercedes-Benz, and didn’t bother looking back. She’d tried to call her father to let him know her plans, but like always, he hadn’t answered, so she left him a message instead.

Delilah shook her head a few times. Her eyes were starting to grow heavier, and her thoughts were drifting into peaceful slumber. She not only needed to locate a gas station, but she needed to find a hotel where she could catch a few hours of sleep and recharge her batteries.

Once again, Delilah felt the heavy pull of exhaustion beckon her. Her eyes grew heavier and heavier. Before she had time to snap herself awake, she veered off the road. Suddenly jarred by the car leaving the asphalt, she awoke with her heart lodged in her throat and panic rippling through her chest.

Unable to prevent it, she crashed into a long line of cattle fencing. Barbed wire ripped across the hood of her car, sounding as if a hundred birds began screaming in unison. The explosion of bursting tires roared in her ears as her car jolted to a stop, slamming against something solid, shattering the windshield, and showering glass fragments in all directions.

Dazed and confused, vision blurry, she reached up and touched her forehead. A beating pulse settled in her head just as she noticed a trickle of blood rolling past her brow and temple. The slow pounding began to intensify when she tried to move, but she couldn’t. She was trapped in the seat. The belt was now squeezing her so tight she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her leg was pinned against the buckled door.

Anxiety began to fill her belly and mind as she realized what had happened. She’d crashed her car hard enough to deploy the airbags, and she was covered in glass and dust. An intense weight overcame her mind, along with a cold chill. Shivering in silence, the blackness took her.

* * * *

Clay Garrett’s eyes narrowed as he stared through the front windshield of his black Suburban and tried to make sense of what he saw up ahead. Flashing hazard lights on a white pickup truck faced him on the wrong side of the road, while a silver sedan seemed to be facing the other direction. The driver of the car must have lost control and knocked down an entire row of cattle fencing.

As he drew nearer, he noticed that the white pickup truck belonged to the Boyd family, and since all three brothers, Tyler, Cooper, and Hunter, drove it, he had no idea who was actually on the scene. He assumed one of them had been out inspecting their property when they came across the car mangled up on their land.

He brought his truck to a complete stop behind the white pickup truck and exited his vehicle. He quickly headed toward the silver Mercedes and noticed Hunter Boyd hovering next to the car. Hunter inclined his head in Clay’s direction, and a sudden wash of relief crossed his face.

“Oh thank God you’re here,” Hunter shouted. “There’s an unconscious woman in the car. She’s bleeding.”

Clay halted, reached into Hunter’s cab, and grabbed hold of the CB handset and called out for backup and emergency medical assistance. Then he slammed the door to the truck and quickly moved to stand alongside Hunter.

“Has she moved at all?”

Hunter gave his head a firm shake and said, “No, but honestly I got here just before you did. I heard the accident clear across the ranch and came over to check it out. Trust me. I didn’t expect to see this.”

Clay scanned over the damage done to the car and could tell instantly that the driver had been speeding before losing control. The expensive car looked like it was ready for the scrap heap. Folded in wheel wells, broken glass, caved in door panels, blown tires, and heavily nicked paint, the car was going to need a ton of repairs to return it to its “new” condition.

Clay yanked on the driver-side door to open it, but it was locked. “Step back a little. I’m going to break the back window.”

Hunter nodded and took a full step back.

Clay flipped over his black flashlight, the one he always carried at his hip, and slammed the butt of it against the back window, shattering the glass. He reached forward and hit the lock mechanism, and he heard the click release on the door. Jerking with all his might, he cracked it open. The metal of the door scraping against the caved-in fender had the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. The magnified sound sent a chill down his spine. Even with the symphony of a million pieces of steel rubbing awkwardly together, he continued to pull, tug, and strain with all his might to get to the injured woman.

Hunter placed his hand on Clay’s shoulder. “Here, let me help,” he said, volunteering to add a little extra manpower to prying open the door.

Together, they were able to wedge the door open enough for Clay to shoulder his way in and kneel beside her. He quickly checked her vitals. To his horror, the woman wasn’t breathing.

A sudden rush of amazing strength filled his body. The door of the car practically flew off its hinges as he wrestled his way to get her out of the car. He pulled a knife from his boot and cut her free of the seat belt, then with Hunter’s help they extracted her from the car, trying to keep her as flat as possible. If she had internal injuries, he didn’t want to do any more harm, but he couldn’t leave her in the car, not without sealing her death sentence.

The blonde woman was now lying flat on the ground. Clay knelt beside her, checked for a pulse, listened for her airway, and then immediately began CPR once he confirmed she wasn’t breathing. He arched her chin and blew in her mouth, then began chest compressions.

Hunter removed his shirt, tore the sleeve off, and wrapped her leg in a tourniquet. Her left leg had a clear gash where he assumed the car door had ripped into her flesh. Her jeans were soaked through with blood.

Clay’s chest grew tight as it felt like forever before the ambulance finally arrived but was really only a short few minutes. Regardless, he didn’t think the woman was going to make it. She’d lost a lot of blood and was still showing no signs of life.

Flashing lights lit the night sky, and the paramedics took over the moment they reached Clay, practically knocking him out of the way. Muttering words Clay couldn’t understand, they placed her limp body on a gurney and loaded her into the back of the ambulance. Everything was moving at such a fast pace, he could hardly believe it was all unfolding in front of him. He and Hunter stood helplessly watching as the ambulance sped away. Neither had any indication if the woman they had tried to save was even going to survive.

Clay reached inside the wrecked car and pulled out the woman’s purse. He had to find her identity, had to be able to notify the next of kin. Opening the wallet, he sighed at the picture of the gorgeous woman in the driver’s license photo. Her young face was so full of life and energy. A complete contrast from the woman he’d just tried to save.

“Delilah Devero,” Clay muttered.

Hunter stepped up alongside him, his brows narrowed. “Who did you just say?”

“Delilah Devero. That’s the name of the woman.”

“Holy shit,” he murmured. “Do you know who Delilah Devero is?”

Clay arched a brow and stared. “No, why should I?”

Hunter chuckled. “She’s the only daughter to one of the wealthiest oil families in Texas. If this woman”—he pointed to Delilah’s driver’s license—“is part of that family, then she’s related to Pamela Travis, who married into the Devero family. Pamela Travis’s family owned a good part of Temptation, Texas. I heard that she sold the land before moving to California over twenty-five years ago.”

Clay’s heart twisted at the connection. Curiosity struck him, and he wanted to know what Delilah was doing back in Temptation? What would make a billionaire’s daughter travel alone in the middle of nowhere, Texas? “How would you know any of this?”

Hunter shrugged. “Well, I guess you could say that my brother Cooper is a walking Texas encyclopedia and gets off on good old Texas history.”

Clay glanced back over his shoulder, staring at the fading amber and white lights in the far horizon, and prayed that the woman fighting for her life would find a way to survive. Making calls to loved ones that their beloved family member had been killed was starting to make him hate his job. Even worse, he now had a name to go with the breathless angel, which made it much more difficult to see another woman meet her fate in Temptation.

Delilah woke with the worst headache of her life. The pounding was so intense that it hurt to open her eyes. Her heart galloped in her chest, slamming fiercely against her ribs as she regained her wits. Glancing around the room, she realized she was in a hospital bed and an intravenous line had been taped to her left arm, while her left leg was covered in bandages and throbbed as severely as her head did. Blinking away the blurry vision, she felt as though she’d been hit by a bus.

Shit! What the hell happened?
She covered her face with her hand and had the urge to cry or scream. Her luck sucked.

The unique scent of crisp sheets, medication, cleaning supplies, and other hospital fragrances she couldn’t quite identify filled her nose. In all her life, she’d spent very few days in a hospital environment. In fact, the last time she’d been admitted was at birth, when her mother passed. She went home, but her mother never did.

Her heart did a funny little skip whenever she thought about the woman who gave her life but she never got the chance to know. It was strange to love someone she’d never met. Deep down in her soul, she believed that Pamela Devero had loved her, and it only seemed natural to reciprocate those emotions. Her father had shared stories with her about her mother’s life, how they met, dated, and ultimately fell in love. It seemed his mission to make sure that his daughter knew her mother. Oddly, never once had her father taken her back to Texas to see where her mother was raised. So with all that was going on in her life, it only seemed fitting to make the adventure now. She had to escape her vile stepfamily, and going back in search of her mother’s roots just felt like the thing to do. The idea alone brought her much-needed peace.

Thinking back on the events that put her in the hospital, she remembered being distracted and tired, but she also remembered pressing the brakes with all her might and finding out that regardless of the amount of pressure and frequency she applied to the brake pad, the car never slowed. She’d been helpless to stop the car from slamming into the fencing. She cursed as she wished she’d just been driving a little slower and paying better attention.

How dumb could I be?

A twisted feeling churned in her belly as she again replayed in her mind the events of her failing brakes, wondering if she had been imagining the entire experience. As new as her car had been, she just couldn’t imagine that her brakes were faulty. Her instincts were telling her that perhaps Warren had tampered with them. He’d warned her from the beginning that he’d do something to her if she ever thought of leaving their little family circle, and it was no secret how much she disliked the Michaels.
The damn man is making me paranoid.

Maybe Warren meant for her to be abandoned on the side of the road, where he could easily get to her. She didn’t want to believe that he had done something to her car, something that would leave her injured and in a hospital, but at the same time, the sick, twisted fucker could not to be trusted.
I have every right to be paranoid.

A sudden knock came to her door, and her heart raced with alarm. Had Warren already found her? It was possible. If he had been following her and listening to the police radio, he could have easily honed right in on her whereabouts. Twisting her fingers around the blanket, she fearfully waited for the unknown person to enter.

The door edged open slowly, and the dark-brown eyes of a stranger peered through. With hesitation, the brawny, brown-haired law-enforcement officer stepped into her room. His neatly pressed, light-tan uniform clung to his muscular body. She sighed, more than relieved that it wasn’t Warren.

Then as she took in his entire appearance, her heart did a funny little flip, matching the same reaction in her belly. The soft stare of his eyes made her swallow hard. She quickly studied his strong, powerful posture and felt overpowering warmth fill her soul. There was something unique about the man standing in her room and the solitary quality made her wonder how a man could stop her dead in her track with just a glance.