Page 4 of No Fear
She’d frozen when he came through the door. She’d hunkered down, preparing for the worst, but the worst she’d been imagining was nowhere near as bad as what had actually happened. Because she could have prepared herself if they were drunk or high and wanted to force their way into her room to hurt her. She’d learned to defend herself from those kinds of attacks by now. But she never could have prepared herself to learn that her brother was a traitor.
An idiot? Yes. An asshole? Of course. A murderous psychopath? Sure. But a traitor? And to his own friends? To his crew? The men that he had always chosen above her, above himself, above everyone? Until tonight, Rachel would’ve said that was impossible, but now she knew just how stupid her brother really was.
He’d turned on the Bomars. The Bomars! Men that were renowned for their love of violence and using their fists to solve problems. Men whose idea of a vacation home was their cell over at the local jail. Men that wouldn’t blink an eye when it came to destroying the person responsible for threatening and hurting their own family members. Because family was everything to them.
She knew that the Bomars were criminals. Dangerous, violent thugs that would just as soon beat a person up as talk to them. And they scared her, scared the living hell out of her. But she also knew that no matter what she had heard from Craig and from other people in town, that they weren’t all bad.
Skylar was dating one of them. Colt, one of the twins. Well, one of several sets of twins really but in Rachel’s mind there was only one set that mattered. Colt and Cash weren’t mixed up in the Bomar crime ring if you listened to rumors and she’d certainly never seen them hanging out in the trailer park with her brother like she had some of the others.
Colt had been coming into the salon for as long as she’d worked there and she’d noticed the way he watched Skylar from the start. It had scared her. The intensity of the way he looked at Skylar, talked to her, had worried Rachel. Any man that had ever looked atherlike that had meant nothing but harm.
When she’d told Skylar about her worries, her boss had only smiled though. She’d taken Rachel under her wing and explained that sometimes people, like things, weren’t what they seemed. She’d asked Rachel to look past the big, tattooed Bomar boy’s exterior and though she’d been doubtful there was much more to the intimidating man she’d kept an eye on him.
She’d watched his every move for months, waiting for him to slip up, to get angry and lash out, to take instead of giving, but instead she’d seen exactly what Skylar had wanted her to see. Colt wasn’t like the men she knew. He was gentle with Skylar, always tempering his strength to her softness, cradling her close, hugging and kissing her. And the touches, the kisses, they were freely given, not taken, because she’d seen the dreamy, lovesick way Skylar looked at him too.
Colt was a good man, despite his last name. He was still brutally intimidating, rough around the edges and dangerous as hell, but he wasn’t a threat to Skylar. Or to her. It had taken her a lot longer to realize that than it probably should have but it was true.
After she’d let herself believe that every man, Bomar or not, might not be out to hurt the women in their lives, it had been easier to see that Colt wasn’t some sort of anomaly. Skylar’s best friend, Jemma, was engaged to Colt’s twin, Cash, and those two were downright adorable together. Always finishing each other’s sentences, always touching, and Cash doted on his fiancé as if she was his sole reason for breathing.
And it wasn’t just the twins…
Her heart thumped too hard in her chest and she blew out the breath she’d been holding. There was one other Bomar boy that she’d been around recently. He’d been good to her, kind to her, and if she was honest with herself he didn’t scare her at all, at least not physically.
The way her pulse raced whenever he walked into a room scared her. The way her knees went weak when he smiled at her was terrifying. The way just thinking about him right now made her want to leap up and run to him, throw herself into his arms, bury her face against his broad chest and beg him to protect her, made her fear for her sanity.
Because she couldn’t run to him.
He was one ofthem. He might not be involved in the family business but he was still a Bomar. He might be nice to her but that would stop as soon as he found out the truth. She was related to the traitor responsible for threatening his family and if she told him he might turn her over to his cousins to interrogate and do God only knew what else to.
Even knowing that it was stupid, that it was unfair, that putting him in the middle of her mess would only cause trouble and probably make him hate her, she still wanted to go to him.
Because as silly and stupid as it might be, she was half in love with him and had been from the day she met him.
He’d been so gentle with her that first day on the street when she’d been terrified someone was hiding in Skylar’s busted-up salon waiting to attack her. He’d seemed to understand her irrational fears immediately and instead of telling her that he was safe, that he wouldn’t hurt her, he had shown her. He had spoken softly, made no sudden movements and hadn’t tried to touch her at all. He had been patient as he coaxed her into responding to his questions and somewhere between looking up into the most intense set of navy blue eyes she’d ever seen and the feel of his hand in hers as he bandaged her cut, she’d fallen unequivocally and irreversibly in love with him.
He had earned her trust that day. He was the first man to ever do that. And she thought he had feelings for her too. She had no idea why or how that was possible but she knew that it was.
Men like him, strong, brave, worldly men, shouldn’t be attracted to fragile, breakable, damaged girls but she’d seen the way he looked at her. Nobody had ever looked at her like he did. Not just with desire, there had been plenty of men that looked at her with that, enough to scare her and turn her off the entire gender, but none of them had also looked at her with understanding and unexpected softness like he did.
He hadn’t pushed her. Hadn’t even mentioned their mutual attraction. He’d simply been a friend to her the past few weeks, a good friend. And if she put aside the flutter in her belly at just the thought of him, and focused on what was important right now and in this moment, she knew that wanting to go to him was about more than her attraction to him.
She wanted him, sure, but sheneededhim for the safety he could provide.
Craig would never mess with her if she had someone to protect her. Someone strong. Someone intimidating. Someone that scared him. And there was only one man she knew that could accomplish all of those things but not scareherto death at the same time.
Her survival instincts kicked in and she rose to her feet. She could do this. She would do this. She had to. It was the only way. The little voice in the back of her head told her it was crazy, a gigantic risk, but it was one she had to take.
He would help her… wouldn’t he?
First things first, she had to get out of here. She quickly grabbed her purse and started searching it for things she would need. She didn’t have a car but she shoved the keys to the trailer inside and then thought about money. She didn’t have much but every penny she’d managed to save was hidden behind the vent in the bottom of her closet. She had to take it with her, wasn’t sure when or if it would be safe to come back here. She was already reaching into the closet when the door to her bedroom crashed open behind her.
Rachel screamed. Her head jerked around and she caught a glimpse of her brother standing in the doorway. She stumbled backwards, trying to put more space between them. She tripped over the shoes on the floor and fell with a panicked squeak, trying to catch herself and pulling half of her clothes and hangers down with her as she fell on her ass.
Craig chuckled, “Guess it’s a good thing they didn’t name ya Grace.”
“I-I-I…” Her stutter choked the words off in her throat and her tongue wouldn’t work.
Her brother only stared down at her looking half-amused and half-suspicious, “I don’t have time to decode you, Ray-Ray. Just need to ask you a couple questions and yes or no answers will suffice, k?”
