COWBOY ROMANCE: Justin (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 1) (53 page)

Kendal raised her eyebrows. “That sounds promising.” 

“I hope so.” Lexy couldn’t peel her eyes off him. “His name is Alex, by the way.” 

“Ah, finally the mystery man has a name.” 

“Shhhh.” Lexy hastily tried to silence Kendal as he returned with their drinks. “Thanks, Alex.” She looked like a young schoolgirl making googly eyes at a boy on the playground.  

“It’s my pleasure.” Alex gave her a smooth wink as he went to leave. Kendal couldn’t help but laugh at the tension between them.  

“Alex?” Kendal called after him. “Why don’t you sit and have a drink with us?” Lexy looked like she might kill Kendal, which made it all the more fun. 

“Well, I’m working…” 

“Oh come on! We’re the only two in here.” He looked around for a moment before looking back at them with a smile. 

“Okay, but just for a few minutes.” 

“Of course.” Kendal laughed at the daggers Lexy was trying to throw at her with her eyes. “So I know that you know Lexy, but I’m Kendal.” 

“I’m Alex.” He held out his hand and Kendal took it firmly in her own.  

“So, Alex, how long have you worked here?”  

“Um…around a year, I guess.” Alex shifted nervously in his chair and shot an uncomfortable smile toward Lexy. “I’m glad you decided to come out tonight.” 

“Me too. It’s great to see you.” 

“Oh,” Kendal said, pointing between the two of them. “So this is why you insisted on us coming out so early?” She thought Lexy might fall out of her chair with embarrassment, but she couldn’t help it. It was too much fun. 

“Well, we were going to come out anyway. Like, we just came out a little bit earlier,” Lexy explained. The door alarm went off as customers came in. They all turned in unison to see who it was.  

“Excuse me. Duty calls,” Alex said nervously as he made his way back to the bar were an older couple was now sitting.  

“Really, Kendal?” Lexy squealed.  

“What? It was funny.” 

“I hate you!” She laughed, punching her arm. “You owe me a drink.” 

Kendal rose, took both of their empty glasses up to the bar, and had Alex fill them again. “This round’s on me,” he said as he slid them to her. 

“Are you sure? That’s so nice.”  

“Just put a good word for me in with Lexy.” 

“I can do that.” Walking back over to their table, Kendal slid Lexy a drink and a sly smile. 

“Oh God. What now?” 

“He gave me free drinks if I would put in a good word with you.” Lexy’s cheeks lit up pink with embarrassment. She looked over her shoulder and caught Alex staring at her. They exchanged an awkward wave and both returned to what they were doing.  

“In all seriousness, he seems really sweet, Lexy.”  

“He does, doesn’t he?” An involuntary smile spread across her face. It truly made Kendal happy to see her so giddy over a guy. It had been such a long time since either of them had tried to put themselves out there.  

The girls swallowed down their first drink and then a second and then a third before they had realized it. Nearly two hours full of laughter and happiness had passed in what seemed like an instant.  

Kendal heard the door open and turned casually to look through the smoky air at who was entering. Instantly her stomach dropped, and she thought she might be sick. She watched a fully tattooed arm reach out for a barstool. As he sat with his back to her, the ever-so-familiar white skull stared back at her.  

“What’s wrong?” Seeing Kendal’s face go pure white, Lexy followed her gaze to see what had upset her.  

“That’s the guy,” Kendal whispered. “The guy from the street.” 

“Are you sure?”  

Kendal nodded without shifting her eyes from him.  

“Should we call the police?” Lexy’s voice was shrill with fear. 

“And say what? He hasn’t committed a crime to report.” 

“You could tell them that you saw him watching you through your window.” 

“They have bigger things to worry about. Let’s just get out of here, okay?” Nodding, Lexy quickly grabbed her purse and Kendal’s hand before heading straight for the front door. Kendal noticed that the bald, tattooed man was now on the phone. As she passed him, he turned to face her and gave her an eerie smile that sent chills down her spine. 

As they walked outside, Kendal crossed her arms tight across her chest in an attempt to keep the chill out. A large group of bikers had just pulled up and were pushing their way past the girls to get inside. Still holding Kendal’s hand, Lexy started quickly in the direction of their apartment. Suddenly a car came to a squealing stop beside them and a man jumped out in front of them. He grabbed Kendal around the waist and easily picked her up.  

“Help!” Lexy screamed. Kendal fought with all of her might against the large man, but it was no use. He pulled a rag from his pocket and held it firmly over her nose and mouth until her body went limp. Lexy jumped on the man’s back and continually hit him in the face over and over again. After throwing Kendal in the backseat, he turned his attention to Lexy.  

As a giant would flick an ant, he easily peeled Lexy from his back and threw her to the ground. Within a second he had jumped back in the car and driven off. “Help! Someone please help!” Lexy continued to scream. She heard a motorcycle engine rev and looked up to see the man, Luke, from the night before speeding off after the car. She lay on the pavement in tears, feeling helpless and terrified. 

* 

Luke 

“Are you going to talk to her?” Luke’s friend Jason asked. 

“Who?” 

“Who?” He mocked Luke’s tone. “That girl from last night. The hot one with the even hotter friend.”  

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if she’ll be here.” 

“Stop acting shy. We all know why you wanted to come back to this specific bar tonight. You’re hoping to ‘accidently’ bump into her.” 

Luke broke out into a smile, realizing that he was caught. “Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing.” 

“I mean she’s hot and all, but is it worth all the work?” 

“I don’t know, man. This one’s different. There’s something special about her. I’d be kickin’ myself tomorrow if I didn’t at least try.” 

Jason laughed at the seriousness that suddenly overtook Luke. “All right, dude. Don’t get all sappy on me. Let’s get a drink.” He started to head for the door, and Luke called after him. 

“You go on ahead. I need to make a call real fast.” As Luke began dialing his phone, his attention was drawn across the street. 

“Help!” he heard a girl’s shrill voice call. Looking to see what was happening, he saw a girl had jumped on a large man’s back and was hitting him repeatedly. His heart leapt when he saw that the man was holding a limp woman’s body. Luke quickly jumped from his bike, but it all happened too fast. As the man threw the limp woman in his backseat, Luke saw that it was the girl from the night before.  

Luke ran back and jumped on his bike as fast as he could when the man jumped back into the passenger seat of the car. Without giving it another thought, he raced off behind the car, hearing Kendal’s friend’s screams for help fading into the sound of the wind. He hoped that one of his friends would comfort her until the police arrived.  

The black car whipped in between vehicles on busy highways with Luke flying behind, trying his best to keep up without being detected. They drove for nearly thirty painfully long minutes before they turned off the highway and onto a side road. Scared he may be seen, Luke turned off his lights and kept a decent amount of distance between himself and the taillights that threatened to disappear in front of him.  

The road shortly turned to gravel, and although Luke would have normally cringed at the thought of driving his bike on gravel, he didn’t even give it a second thought. The dust became so thick that he had to get a little closer to be able to see their taillights. Suddenly their brake lights came on, and Luke held his breath, thinking they had seen him.  

Luckily the car turned onto a long gravel drive. As their headlights lit the scene before them, Luke saw that they were pulling up to what seemed to be a run-down warehouse. Luke stopped his bike halfway down the drive and parked it behind a row of overgrown bushes. Peering through the branches, he saw two men get out of the car, Kendal’s limp body thrown over one of the man’s shoulders.  

Once he was sure that they had both entered the building, he snuck up the rest of the drive until he was right against the building. With his back pressed against the wall, he tried hard to steady his breathing so that it wouldn’t be heard, but the thought of them hurting her made his blood boil. Taking a deep breath, he moved very slowly over to the window on the front of the building. Peering in, he saw the large man from earlier tying Kendal’s ankles and arms to a rusty old chair that sat among the piles of crates littering the abandoned warehouse. 

Another man stood in front of her, one Luke had not seen before. He must have been the one driving the car. The man reached back and smacked her hard across the face. It took everything in Luke not to bust in there and beat his ass at that very moment, but he knew it wasn’t smart. It would be two on one, and he had no idea if they had weapons on them or not. As Kendal began to come to and hold her head up by herself, the man that had hit her nodded for the other large man to leave.  

Luke didn’t take his eyes off Kendal, scanning her to see if she was okay. He could hear the man speaking to her but couldn’t make out the mumbled words. Suddenly he heard the door two feet away from him open, and he found himself face to face with one of the largest men he had ever seen. 

* 

Kendal 

Kendal awoke with a start to her face stinging and looked frantically all around her. She squinted into the bright light that radiated from the single bulb hanging in the middle of the room. Once her eyes had finally adjusted to the light, she took in a deep, staggered breath. Trae, the man from her nightmares, was standing before her. 

Hastily she tried to get up but found that her ankles and wrists had been tied, binding her to the old, cold chair underneath her. “Trae,” she breathed. 

“Hello, Kendal.” Trae wore an eerie smile. “I did always want to try bondage.” He let out a laugh that made her skin crawl. 

“What’s going on?” Kendal struggled to keep her heavy head upright. 

“Well, I thought it was about time we had a little talk, don’t you think?”  

“I have nothing to say to you.” Her head felt fuzzy, and she had a hard time focusing on everything that was happening, but she tried her hardest to sound tough. 

Trae let out a fake laugh as he walked in a circle around her, running his hand along her shoulders as he went. “Funny, since you had so much to say to everyone else about me. What’s wrong? Just scared to say it to my face?” 

“What do you want from me?” 

“I want you to publicly admit that you lied.” 

“Lied?!” Kendal laughed. “Trae, I was admitted to the hospital. I was in a coma for two days due to brain trauma! Please explain to me how I could have made that up!” 

“You told people that I beat you. You ruined my reputation.” 

“I never told anyone that! You know what I told people.” Kendal laughed through the tears that ran down her cheeks. She couldn’t believe that this was happening to her. She thought she had finally been free from him, but she could not have been more wrong. 

“I’ve had people watching you. You prance around all day like you ain’t got a care in the world.” 

“You are literally crazy! I moved to a whole different city where no one knew me because I wanted to avoid 
ever 
having to talk about you or that night ever again.”  

“You clearly didn’t do very well at covering your tracks. Ya know you’re not the only person at that little dive bar you go to, right?” 

“What?” 

“I believe you’ve met Alex.” He laughed. “He really didn’t look familiar to you?” 

“Who? What are you talking about?”  

“Alex, the bartender at Henry’s. He’s my cousin, you idiot. You’ve met him before.” Kendal thought long and hard. She had always thought Alex looked familiar, but she could never place where she knew him from. Suddenly it hit her. Several years ago she had said a mere two words to him at one of Trae’s family reunions.  

“Alex?” she asked in disbelief. She couldn’t believe the sweet, handsome bartender that she had trusted was the reason she was here. Kendal prayed that Lexy was not taking comfort in his arms right now. 

“I still don’t understand. He…he…he must have overheard me talking to Lexy,” she stuttered as she tried to find the words to say. She couldn’t wrap her mind around everything that was happening. “I’ve never told 
anyone
 else about what really happened that night.” 

“Clearly you did. Think my boss just made that up and fired me?” 

“How is it possibly my fault that you got fired?” 

“Apparently Alex wasn’t the only one who heard you talking that night. Some little snitch told my boss. He said I was a ‘hazard’ to have around.” 

Kendal shook her head. “Why would he fire you without any other problems?” 

“Cause I might have got in a couple fights too, but it wasn’t a big deal. Fire the people pissing me off, not me.” 

“Holding me here isn’t going to get you your job back. You’re not thinking clearly,” she tried to reason with him. 

“You telling him you lied will.” 

“Trae, are you kidding?” Kendal laughed forcefully. “Why in hell would I do that?” 

“Cause you have to.” Trae took a step closer to her and ran his hand down her cheek. Kendal flinched away from him as she felt bile rise in her stomach at his touch. “Here’s your options.” Grabbing her chin, he forced her to meet his eyes. “You tell my boss you lied, or I make you disappear so I don’t have to worry about this shit anymore.” 

“Screw off!” Kendal growled through clench teeth and spat in his face. 

“You bitch!”  Kendal braced herself as Trae pulled his fist back with full force. Before he had a chance to hit her, the door to the warehouse came flying open. 

Trae quickly jumped back and pointed his gun at the man in the door. As he stepped into the light, Kendal caught her breath. “Luke.”  

Luke stood tall and strong in the doorway with his gun drawn and pointed at Trae. “Get away from her!” he yelled. 

“Who…who the hell are you?” Trae fumbled over his words in fear. 

“A concerned citizen. Now take a step away from her.”  

“You have no idea what is going on here,” Trae growled through clenched teeth. 

“Enlighten me.”  

Caught off guard, Trae stumbled over his words and began to sweat profusely. “She…she ruined my reputation. That bitch got me fired from work.” 

“Trae! You put me in the hospital!” Kendal snapped. “I didn’t tell anyone what happened!” Luke’s face dropped with each word she said. 

“You did!” Trae screamed at the top of his lungs. “Alex heard you! A month ago you were bashing me in a bar!” 

Kendal shock her head in disbelief. “You put me in the hospital. You deserve anything that comes to you.” With tears streaming down her face, Kendal suddenly felt a sense of empowerment. She had finally gotten to say the thing she had been thinking for the past year. 

“Now it’s time to finish what I started.” Raising the gun, he pressed it against Kendal’s temple.  

“Get away from her!” Luke yelled as he took a few large steps toward them. 

Shaking, Kendal swallowed hard and tried a different approach. In a soothing voice, she said, “Trae, don’t do this. It won’t change anything. It will only make things worse for you.” 

“Say one more word and I swear to God I’ll shoot you.”  

Luke’s voice came booming around them. “Get away from her or I’ll kill you!”  

“Trae, you don’t have to do this.” As Kendal spoke the words, Trae’s angry eyes fixated on her. 

Luke ran as fast as he could across the room and tackled Trae while his attention was still on Kendal. Once he had him on the ground, Luke tied his arms behind his back with some wire he found nearby. He kicked the gun from Trae’s reach and quickly ran to Kendal’s side. “Are you okay?” Kendal couldn’t find any words to say, so she just nodded. 

He fumbled over the ropes that held her down as quickly as he could. Within seconds, she found her hands were free, and she pulled them in front of her to get the rest of the rope off her wrists. By the time she had done that, he had freed her legs and she was able to stand. She wrapped her arms around his waist and let the sobs she had been holding in overcome her. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered as he kissed her forehead. Pulling her tight against him, he stroked her hair and tried his best to make her feel safe. “I had no idea, about any of it.” 

“I know.” She cried into his chest. “There’s no way you could have known.” Kendal pulled back to meet his eyes. “I’m so sorry for how I treated you last night.” 

“Don’t be.” He pulled her back into a tight hug before he continued. “I understand why you didn’t want anything to do with me if that was your impression of bikers.” 

“Thank you for understanding.”  

“Look at me for a moment, though.” She took a step back and looked up at him, feeling like a small child. “I promise you that I am nothing like him, okay?” Kendal nodded. “I can promise that not only will I never hurt you, I won’t ever let anyone else hurt you either. You deserve so much better.” 

Kendal put a hand behind his neck and slowly pulled him down to her level. Ever so gently, she planted a kiss on his lips that seemed to go on and on. “Thank you,” she whispered. At that moment, sirens came splitting through the air, and they could see flashing lights through the windows. 

Luke answered her confused expression. “I called the police when I arrived. Over here!” he called to the cops who came storming into the room. “One kidnapper is over here on the ground, and the other is unconsciousness outside the back door.” 

Through all the questioning and the night that quickly turned to morning, Luke never left her side. Kendal had never felt such peace and comfort in her entire life. She hoped the feeling would never end.