Raging Love (3 page)

“Karen
,
you need to calm down.
I’m
going to have to take this phone to the station. For now
,
I will post someone outside of the ranch keepin’ an eye on anything suspicious. I know you will be havin’ a lot of guest
s
this weekend. Now, as far as these threats, since we don’t have a number and nobody has seen Tucker Chase around, I can’t really do much.”

She shook her head. “This is why I had to send her away in the first place John. It has to be him. Did you read the message?”

I was curious. “Can I see the phone?”

Ty stood over my shoulder as I pulled up the messages.

I know u r back bitch. This is just the beginning.

It took everything I had not to throw the phone across the driveway. This fire was intentional. Miranda’s ex was responsible. I knew it wasn’t her fault, but because of her involvement with him, my girlfriend had to suffer. I wasn’t okay with that.

“This guy is threatening my wife and child. There has to be something else you can do.” Ty was beyond angry. He was literally shaking while talking.

“Son, I understand your concerns. I can bring Mr. Chase in for questioning,” he offered.

“No!” I held my hand up for Ty to shut up and listen. “If they do that it will piss him off more. I think we have all lost enough here. You and Miranda need to stay inside. Don’t go anywhere alone and don’t let Bella out of your site.”

“Like that would ever happen,” Ty said sarcastically.

He never let her out of
his
sight;
in fact he was attached to her hip for the most part.

“I think Colt is right. We need to just be careful. The inspector will be here later and maybe we will know more. We have to have proof before we can pick this guy up and keep him.  If you want to put this kid away, we need to do it by the book.” The sheriff kept looking at my aunt. It was obvious they had something going on.
Good for them and good for us.
That meant he was going to bust his ass to get this shit handled.

Miranda walked toward us. She had on one of Ty’s college sweatshirts and it hung down to her knees. “What’s goin’ on?”

“They think it was Tucker. That son of a bitch sent more messages this morning. Do you believe this shit? We need to think about taking Izzy home baby. I can’t have your lives being in danger.”

I understood how Ty felt and if it was my family being threatened, I would want to leave town too, but them leaving would hurt Savanna even more. I didn’t know how to selfishly ask them to stay just so that Savanna would be able to cope with what had already happened.
This was too serious to take lightly. They were in
danger;
it was more obvious now than ever.

“If you need to leave, we will understand.” I was disappointed, but I needed them to be safe.

Ty wrapped his arms around Miranda and kissed her head. “We can talk about it later.”

My aunt Karen started walking to the police car with the sheriff. I turned to look at Ty and Miranda. It was clear that she
’d
been crying. Her eyes were blood red.

“
I’m
so sorry Colt. You have no idea how sorry I am. I don’t even know what to say. This is all my fault.” Ty comforted his wife and offered me an apologetic smile. For once he really didn’t have anything to do with this.

“Don’t blame yourself Miranda. None of us expected this.”

Maybe we all did, but she couldn’t have known this would happen.

“He would have never done this if I hadn’t dated him,” she cried.

I approached both of my cousins and grabbed Miranda’s hand while Ty stood behind her. “If you didn’t date him you wouldn’t have Bella or Ty. Don’t be so hard on yourself. He made the choices, not you.”

“Savanna is going to hate me. Everything is ruined,” she cried.

“She won’t. She knows this isn’t your fault.”
Actually, she will probably blame you forever. I hated that she would, but I knew her and she will need someone to blame.

I couldn’t say that to her. Miranda and Ty had worked so hard to change their lives. Everyone has skeletons in their closet
, how
could she have known something like this could result in their relationship. He didn’t even want to be with her in the first place.

“I hope you’re right Colt. I know how much she wanted your wedding to be perfect. She didn’t deserve this.” Miranda pulled out of Ty’s arms and started walking back to the house. She held her head down and continued to cry.

Ty turned to me and patted my shoulder. “Let me know if you need anything. I have to go try and calm her down. She’s a mess right now.”

I gestured toward the
house
. “Yeah, go ahead. I need to get back to my house too and check on Savanna. She ain’t taking this good at all.”

The truth was, I had no idea how she was taking things. She refused to speak to me when I took her home and got her into bed.

Ty turned around and started walking backwards. “You may want to give her some space. I know Van and she can’t take stressful situations. She will hold it all in and then eventually explode and you definitely don’t want to be around for that. It is the scariest shit I have ever seen.”

I pulled my hat off and took a deep breath. I had seen her mad, but not like he was describing, although I knew they had some pretty heavy fights in the past. “Thanks for the warnin’.”

“Seriously dude, be careful. It’s scary!” I watched Ty walk into the
house
and started to head back to my truck.

Savanna was probably still asleep. I would make her some tea and convince her that we could get one of the other barns ready in three days. We would make it work. Things were going to be okay.

Chapter 4

Savanna

After Colt carried me upstairs and left to go deal with the aftermath of our newest catastrophe, I got up and went downstairs. I started looking for my medication and couldn’t remember where I had put it.
Knowing him it was on some shelf somewhere. He sat everything up high on account of him being so darn tall.

When I couldn’t find the medicine, I headed straight to the liquor cabinet. If anything could calm my nerves it was Colt’s private whiskey stash. I say private because he kept it hidden from everyone else. I happened to be excluded from the everyone else part since I was his lady.

I was so upset about the barn. All of my dream wedding plans were ruined. How could this have happened to me? I don’t remember doing anything to piss off God or anyone else. I attended church
regularly;
I was a good girlfriend and fiancée to Colt. I always tried to live
responsibly
. It just made no sense.

I knew Colt was mad, especially when he had to rush back out of here. Sometimes I think he knew to avoid me when I got mad. I guess from being an only child my whole life, I had this complex that everything had to go my way, all of the time. When it didn’t, well
let’s
just say that I wasn’t the nicest person. I
had tried to be better, even to ask for forgiveness and guidance from up above, but my temper was something fierce.

With the whiskey finally in my grasp, I opened the cap and took a gia
nt gulp. It burned from the first
moment it hit my throat and I cringed at the kick it had as it went down. My stomach instantly began to warm and I giggled knowing that soon I wouldn’t care about anything. I
wasn’t
normally one to drown my sorrows, but nobody at this ranch could relate to what I was going through.

A knock at the door startled me. I took the bottle and hid it behind the couch cushion as I walked over to answer the door. Sam, our dog, went flying for the door. “Get down girl.”

She sat next to me wagging her tail in anticipation of who could be on the other side. The
deliveryman
stood there with a package in his hands. “Hello there. You don’t have to sign. Just wanted to say hello,” he said as he handed me the package.

“Thanks. Have a good day.”

He always seemed to give me googly eyes when I answered the door. I wondered if he had secret relationships with some of his regular delivery addresses. Since Ty had cheated on me, I assumed that every man, except Colt,
had shady secrets. I don’t know why I always kept Colt on some pedestal, but it worked for my happiness that I liked to keep us in.

I plopped myself back down on the couch and pulled out my hidden whiskey bottle. I was able to have already knocked off a quarter of it. The small box sat in my hand and I began opening it. Low and behold were photo books of Ty and Miranda’s service that I had ordered with one day shipping. As I grabbed the first photo book
,
I fear
ed
what I would see as I looked down at it. Since I had designed them I knew that the pain would rip through me as I saw that decorated barn on the cover. Ty and Miranda were standing in front of it, with Bella in both of their arms. Their picture perfect moment captured just hours before it turned to rubble.

The page creaked as I opened the book for the first time. Page after page I studied the background and not the people in the images. In each one I could see Colt and Conner’s hard work. Every little detail had been perfect for our big day. I grabbed the second book and took another three swigs of soothing liquor. There were pictures of the whole
service; close
ups of the alter Colt had built for us, the wooden dance floor that they stayed up late making level. It was all there in colorful photos.

I closed the book
and
stared at the cover again. They were so in love, so happy with their day. I took the book and chucked it across the room. A picture
of a deer went crashing down to the floor, shattering upon impact. I pulled my knees up to my chest and buried my face into my hands. The tears poured out and I
wasn’t
fighting them. It
wasn’t
fair that they got to have my day. I knew it
wasn’t
their fault, but it still
wasn’t
fair.
In some prissy pathetic way, I just wanted that perfect wedding to happen.

Without hesitation
,
I sat up and began gulping down the burning liquor. As the bottle went from almost full to almost empty, I started to relax. I could feel that my fingers were
numb
and I liked that the room was spinning around so fast that I
couldn’t
remember what I was sad about.

I started belting out ‘it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to’
over and over again
, while sipping the heated liquor. Nobody could hear me, so I assume I was doing it for my own personal pity party.

I crawled up my stairs and headed into my bedroom where I found my wedding dress, in the zipper safe bag. I pulled it out and stripped out of my clothes. Once it was on, well halfway
,
since I couldn’t fasten the back, I climbed up on my bed and finished off the whiskey. The ceiling started spinning around and I preten
ded I was moving
around dancing with Colt on our big day.

“Savanna can you hear me? Wake up
,
D
arlin’.”

I opened my eyes and looked around the room. It was still spinning up a storm, but I was able to make out a very concerned Colt over top of me.  I
giggled when I saw him and reached for his beautiful face. “You forgot to shave tomorrow….I mean this morning,” I giggled.

“Darlin’ did you drink all of this?” He held up the bottle and shook his head.

“
Yup
pers
!”

He shook his head. “Are you able to stand up?”

I shrugged and started to sit up.
Immediately
I felt nauseous. “The room is
spin
nnnn
ning
.”
 

“You need to get out of your dress.
I’m
tryin’ real hard not to look at you in it.”

Oh shit! No, he can’t see me in this dress.

“I can’t take it off myself.” I stood up off the bed and began wobbling like I was going to flop to the ground. The dress was big and I couldn’t find where it ended to grab it. I started throwing the underneath of it over my head in layers. After I got three layers of dress over my head, I realized I was completely stuck inside of it. Colt had originally turned around to prevent gettin
g a good look at it
, but I knew I was never going to be able to
functionally
remove it myself.

“I need your help.”

I felt a few tugs and the dress lifting off of my head. When my face was free from fabric
,
I noticed he was helping me with his eyes close
d
.