Raging Love Read online

  Chapter 3

  Colt

  Savanna hadn’t said a word after the fire had consumed the whole barn, leaving it as a pile of charred rubble. She managed to scoot over in the truck to enable me to drive us back to the house. I carried her in the house and put her in bed. She had anxiety medication she took when things got too hard for her to handle, it seemed like she was having to take at least two a week lately.

  After getting her settled enough, I headed back to deal with the aftermath of the fire. At one point, there had been three ladder trucks and two engines here at the ranch. As I drove back, I noticed there were only two trucks left. Firefighters were walking through the still smoking debris. My mother was standing pretty far back talking to the fire chief. I recognized him from charity events we had both attended. I approached him and held out my hand. “Sorry you had to come out tonight.”

  “It’s my job. I was just tellin’ your mama that the inspector is goin’ to need to come out for insurance purposes.”

  “Yeah I figured as much.” I kicked a couple pieces of charred wood back toward the pile of ash.

  “I’m guessin’ this is where the big event was goin’ to take place?” The fire chief wrote something else down in his clipboard and looked back up at us.

  “It was. Now I have no clue what we are goin’ to do,” I said honestly.

  My mother put her arm around my back and started rubbing it. “We will get it all figured out. Don’t worry about that right now.”

  I nodded. There wasn’t much to say. Everything for the wedding was in that barn. The only thing that we still had was Savanna’s dress. This was a total fucking disaster. Conner was standing around talking to a firefighter, while Ty and Miranda were on my mother’s front porch just watching from afar. I kept looking around at my family. I knew they were all concerned, but there wasn’t shit anyone could do now.

  The sheriff’s department showed up about an hour later. I guess that was how long it took them to talk to some of the people who had worked hard to try to contain the fire. The fire department had just pulled away and my mother had taken everyone else inside. It had been daylight for about an hour so I estimated that it was around seven in the morning.

  “Looks like you guys had a rough night,” he said as he climbed out of his vehicle.

  “You could say that.” I shook his hand. “So what’s goin’ on?”

  “I figured since this is goin’ to be major news around town, I would get on top of this. I need to know if you think anyone could have started this fire. Is there anyone with a vendetta against your family? Anyone that you could think of that would hurt your family?”

  As I was thinking about who could have done something like this, I saw Ty pulling a shirt over his head and walking toward us. “Hey man what’s going on?” He asked.

  “He was just askin’ if we know anyone that could have done this on purpose.”

  Ty shook his head and let out a sigh. He got ready to say something, but we noticed Aunt Karen flying up the driveway. She jumped out of the car and came running toward us. “John, thanks for coming so fast. This is why I called you.” She handed him a cell phone. I recognized it right away from all the bullshit we had gone through before. It was Miranda’s.

  Ty and I just looked at each other and watched the officer looking through the messages.

  “They are all from a blocked number, but I’m sure it’s him. We hadn’t heard anything, but with the wedding being in the papers, I guess it gave him reason to believe she was back. Are they in any danger John? Do they need to leave the ranch? They have a small child to think about, you know.”

  “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 guests 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 t
o 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 giant 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 feared 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 pretended I was moving around dancing with Colt on our big day.

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

  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.

  “Yuppers!”

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

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

  “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 getting 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 closed.

  What guy does that?

  My guy does, that’s who!

  I climbed back on the bed and reached for the dress bag, but noticed that the bed felt so completely comfortable. I kicked the dress to the floor and backed up on the bed, staring at my hot ass fiancée standing over me with his eyes closed. It was probably wrong to be seducing him with my drunken eyes, but that was exactly what I was doing. Colt was the finest man I had ever laid eyes on. Every inch of him was a sculpted masterpiece. I dreamed about his arms holding me and the things he did to me with his body. I had stud
ied every inch of him so many times.

  “Is it put away?” He asked.

  “Nope,” I said as I licked my lips, knowing damn well that he wasn’t going to be patient forever.

  I maneuvered myself to the edge of the bed and put two fingers inside of his pants, in order to pull him toward the bed. Once he was standing at the edge, he opened his eyes, but I was already starting to undress him. I was drunk and extremely horny. I needed him in the worst way. I wanted him to make all of the pain go away.

  “I want you.” I grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his head.

  Colt’s chest was like licking heaven. I ran both of my hands up and down each side and over his little nipples. “You are drunk.”

  “I want you Colt. Please…” I backed myself onto the bed and tried to seduce him with my eyes. The problem with that was that Colt had the most beautiful light green eyes that I had ever seen, well besides Conner who had the same. Colt could look at me and melt me within seconds. His eyelashes were so dark and his full eyebrows matched his dark head of hair. Since he hadn’t had time to shave, his facial hair had come in and covered most of his face making him look older and more distinguished. Colt licked his lips as he watched me watching him.

  He leaned down over the bed and came within inches of my body. “You know I don’t like being with you when you are incoherent. I want every time to be just as enjoyable for you as it always is for me.”

  His words melt me.

  “Baby, I will enjoy every second of this.” I grabbed him by wrapping my legs around his waist and pulled him over top of me. I had no balance, but Colt managed to catch himself before his body toppled on top of mine. I didn’t let him pull away. Instead, I grabbed him by the ear and pulled him toward my mouth. Our first kiss was rough, as our mouths crashed together. The stressful day mixed with the liquor caused me to want him like it had been months. I yearned for his touch and wanted his hands all over me, especially while I was laying there naked.