“We scared you, huh?” Evan asked.
“You terrified me,” she admitted.
“And now,” Kane asked, “Are you still scared, Peyton?”
She fell back against the pillows and closed her eyes. “Not now. No, I’m not afraid now.” How could anything frighten her with three tough cowboys sitting around her, standing guard, ready to protect her? A sigh fell from her lips. Her head rolled to the side, and she watched them as they clustered around her. “No, now the only thing I feel is loved.”
Chapter 10
It took a couple of months for Peyton to resume normal activities again. Even though the injuries she sustained were minor, the nightmares took their toll and often she left for school with dark circles under her eyes.
When the bad dreams stopped, or at least her screaming throughout the night, her grades started to slip. Her overall attitude with life, the Cartwells, and everything in general, drastically changed. Her coach was a friend, and her mentor. With too much death surrounding her, it finally took its toll.
Evan sat at the kitchen table watching her as she stomped across the yard. A truck barreled up the driveway and took the final curve toward the house on two wheels. Peyton never looked back. Evan immediately stood, ready to go and save her if she needed saving.
“Peyton Storm!” A boy jumped out of the cab, took two or three leaps toward her and wrapped her around the waist, pinning her to him. He said something to her, something intimate, something secretive.
Whatever he said, she hauled off with a rapid reply. She hit him.
By the time Evan saw her tight little fist drawn, the first punch was thrown. Evan headed for the door but Kane and Braden beat him there.
“What seems to be the problem here?” Braden asked in a sensible tone while Kane gave the fellow an evil eye.
The younger guy held his lip and bled. “Damn it, Peyton, you throw a mean punch!”
“Peyton?” Braden waited for an answer. “You know better than to hit your friends.” The stench of booze filled the air.
“Yeah, well, maybe you should’ve taught her how to be a lady altogether. The fucking bitch bit me.” He tugged up his shirt and showed off a few bite marks, right above his belt buckle.
Evan watched Braden and Kane. His own dick twitched but their set jaws showed more anger than he’d ever want to go up against. Damn her for going down on the prick.
“I told you, I don’t suck a guy’s cock. You should’ve listened.” She prissed her small ass across the lawn and didn’t look back. She most likely realized they’d take care of her little problem. And they did.
“Trying to get Peyton’s sweet little cheeks around that bad boy, huh?” Kane grabbed his shirt and shook him. “How old are you kid?”
“Seventeen.”
At least he was smart enough to lie and Evan knew it was a fib. Peyton didn’t go out with guys younger than herself.
“Seventeen.” Kane released him. “Is that right?” He took a step backwards. “What the hell?”
He drew back and came through with a swing but Braden grabbed his arm and stopped a direct hit. Cursing, Kane glared at the guy one last time and then headed for the house.
From the porch, he shouted back at his brothers. “Someone explain to our guest why Peyton bit him, and while you’re at it, let him know Peyton doesn’t go out with minors. I started to hit him because he lied to me. If I find out her lips locked around his dick, I’m coming back out here with a gun.
Peyton pulled the bottle of vodka from under her bed. She poured it into the glass of diet soda she brought from the kitchen. She stirred it with a straw, tossed the plastic bottle back into the duffel bag and kicked it back where she found it just in time to look up at Kane.
“What do you want?”
“I want to know why you’ve decided to self-destruct.”
“I’m going through a hard time right now. It’ll pass. I’ll get over it.” She took a gulp of her drink, slammed it on her bedside table and opened her Spanish book.
“Peyton, you said you’d play basketball. You didn’t. You were supposed to try out for the softball team and you didn’t. There’s something going on here, and it’s time you talked to someone. If not me, then maybe Braden or Evan.”
“And if I don’t want to talk to them?”
“You’re going to talk to someone.”
She took another sip of her drink and realized when she stirred it, Kane wasn’t stupid. He reached for the glass and didn’t sniff. Instead, he turned it up and drank the bottom out of it.
“Vodka isn’t going to make the pain go away, Peyton.”
“I’m not in pain,” she replied.
“Oh you’re hurting all right. Everything you’ve done over the last few months proves it. You can’t get away from it and unless you let us help you, it’s going to become a big part of who you are. You don’t want-”
She turned the page in her book and pretended to read. “Go away, Kane. I don’t need your lectures.”
Braden studied them from the hall before he stepped inside her room. “She’s right, Kane. She doesn’t want to hear it. She’s doing fine on her own, it appears. The kid downstairs didn’t even know Peyton before yesterday. She met him on the internet. See how great she’s doing on her own? So good in fact, she almost let some twenty year old loser fuck her. It would’ve been her first time, or so he said, and you were just ready to lay it out for him, huh, Peyton?”
“He’s not a kid. Just because you boys tower over everyone and look older than you are doesn’t mean everyone else is a kid.”
“Are you talking about the kid downstairs or yourself?” Kane asked.
“What difference does it make?” she snapped.
Braden’s jaw set tight. “Peyton, I want this room clean, and I want it tidy before the weekend. I want you to pick up your things downstairs in the living room and start taking some pride in yourself again. Half the time you smell like cigarettes and booze.”
She stuck her lip out and pouted, something she often did whenever Braden scolded her. “I’m too old for you to tell me what to do.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if you’re forty nine and holding. I want you to call your softball coach and ask her to consider letting you try out late for the team. One C on your report card, and you’re grounded. Ditch school again, and you’re spanked.”
“Fine.”
“Then-”
“Oh fuck you, Braden! You aren’t my father.”
He stared at her dumbfounded. “No, you’re right. I’m not your father but I am still a man who cares about you. We all care about you, Peyton. Hell, Kane even saved your life. Maybe someday when you drag yourself out of self pity, you’ll let me show you a clip from the video footage I have. He’s lucky he didn’t die trying to save you.”
Peyton didn’t look up. She couldn’t look up. She slipped deeper into her own misery and couldn’t save herself from the freefall.
“She’s drinking in her room too.” Kane handed the glass to Braden.
“You’re tattling on me?” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I have a right to do what I want in this room. Braden, you said so yourself. It’s my room. I have the right to bring whatever I want into my own room.”
“If it’s legal,” Evan pointed out as soon as he appeared there too.
“Alcohol is legal!”
“If you’re twenty-one.” Evan continued to stick his nose where she didn’t think it belonged, “And you’re not twenty-one.”
“Gang up on me all you want but it’s not going to change anything.”
“It might,” Evan said.
“Young lady, I’m just getting started too after what your friend told us downstairs.” Braden tilted her chin, and she knew he wanted to see her squirm.
Kane sat down in the rocking chair. He looked like he planned to stay awhile.
“First of all, I want your keys,” Braden deadpanned.
“My keys?” she wailed.
“Yes, now.” Braden stood his ground.
“You can’t take my keys. You made me sell my car and without the one you gave me, I’ll have to bum rides.”