Page 190 of Crossed Wires: The Complete Series

That’s didn’t hurt, did it? That’s ’cause you’re my special girl. Now I’m going to do it again, but I want you to touch?—

Shame sliced through her. Hot. Mortifying.

She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, biting hard into the flesh. Pain to numb the pain.

“Please,” she finally croaked, her mouth dry, her throat thick. “Just go. Please.”

The sound of boot heels on the cottage’s wooden floor told her Keith and Marc had left. She raised her head, blinking away the tears blurring her vision to stare at the closed door.

The doorjamb next to the lock was splintered, no doubt where Keith had kicked it open. She frowned, wondering if she could still lock it.

Swallowing the dust coating her mouth, she pushed herself away from the sofa and crossed the floor. A tremble was beginning to take her, deep within her core. She could feel it in her belly, her soul.

Refusing to let her hands shake, she flicked the little toggle that would engage the lock.

A dull click filled the room like a gunshot.

She fixed her stare on the knob, her heart slamming in her throat, and wrapped her fingers around the old brass knob.

She turned it to the right and pulled.

The door didn’t budge.

She was alone.

All alone.

Chapter7

“What the fuck do we do?” Marc stared at Amy’s cottage, his heart a sledgehammer in his chest. “We can’t leave her.”

“I don’t think we have a choice at the moment, mate.”

He glared at Keith, angry. Furious, in fact. Not an emotion he normally experienced. “So we’re heading off? What if Big Mac comes back?”

Keith shook his head, the sinking sun casting his face in dark shadows. “He won’t.”

Marc narrowed his eyes. “Do you think…” His fists balled. “Would McNamara really have…” He couldn’t bring himself to say what he was thinking. The idea was sickening. Ronnie McNamara was a tosser, but he wasn’t a rapist.

Was he?

Keith let out a choppy sigh. “I dunno, mate. Hughsie mentioned yesterday he’s been hitting the grog hard these last few days and he’s pissed off about Hazel putting him in his place on Saturday. I suspect he was hoping to have a shot at Harper himself before we came along and messed up his plans. That would explain him telling her we were gay.”

A scowl twisted Marc’s lip. “Harper and Big Mac? She’s got better taste than that.”

“She’s also scared out of her fucking mind right now.” Keith’s jaw bunched. “And that doesn’t sit well with me.”

Marc scrubbed his hands over his face. “Hell, you almost killed a guy in front of her with your bare hands. She’s bound to be scared. You reckon she needs some space from us?” A dull chill settled in his stomach at the thought. “She said Big Mac didn’t touch her. You reckon this, what we’ve been doing, is all…too much too soon?”

Another ragged breath left Keith. He swiped his hat from his head, worrying his hair with his other hand. “I dunno,” he muttered.

Marc let out a low growl. “I’m going after Big Mac before he gets to Hunter. Make the bastard tell us what he did.”

Keith returned his hat to his head, disgust and rage simmering in his eyes. “As much as I want to deal with McNamaramyway, we need to play this straight. We need to make sure he’s gone to Hunter and that the cops are notified.”

Marc frowned. “Y’know the cops are going to question you too, mate. Probably even arrest you. It’s not the first time you’ve dealt with a fuckwit before.”

Keith’s way of dealing with men who sexually harassed women he cared for was very simple and bloody. The last time Keith “dealt” with someone, that someone—a dickhead in Cobar who tried to follow Amy into the loo at the rodeo—ended up in the hospital with a broken jaw, fractured cheekbone and shattered nose. It hadn’t helped the wanker’s cause that he was the same man who’d been sending Amy drunken text photos of his crotch. Nor that he was the same idiot who’d declared loudly and to anyone caring to listen that Keith’s retired cop father was corrupt after Keith beat him for the Cobar rodeo title.

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