Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell #1)(105)

On the one hand, I was falling in love with Sam and if he could grow to trust me, I could grow to trust that maybe the same thing was happening for him too. And I didn’t want to do anything that might harm that.

On the other hand, with Cooter, I’d chosen the way wrong man for me, blinded by false glory and I didn’t want to do that again. Sam was not Cooter, I knew this. And for years I’d given a certain amount of headspace to what signs I might have missed from Cooter, red flags that, if I’d been older, more mature, I would have caught. There weren’t many but they were there. And what had happened last night with Sam completely shutting me out, I thought, was a red flag.

And my girls could confirm this. Or not. But at the very least talking to them would mean letting it out and getting different viewpoints because the one I had wasn’t so fun.

I didn’t know what to do.

“You should be doing a happy jig,” Teri told me. “But you look like someone ran over Memphis.”

This took me out of my thoughts and I gasped at the very thought of my baby being run over. So did Paula. So did Missy. My two girls loved Memphis. Teri was partial to bigger dogs and ones Cooter hadn’t adored.

“Don’t say that!” Paula snapped.

“Jeez, don’t be so touchy. I’m just saying what she looks like not that I want anyone to run over Memphis,” Teri returned.

“Ohmigod! You just said it again!” Paula cried.

“Seriously?” Teri fired back.

“Okay, I love your brother but oh… my… God.” This came from behind me, it came from Gitte and the last word was breathy.

I looked over my shoulder to see she’d approached. She and Kyle had left the day after they ascertained Sam had my safety in hand. That said, I knew Kyle called Dad and Sam frequently to make sure everything was okay. They’d driven up last night, arriving late, to help me with my yard sale and to party with the gang after all that was my life with Cooter was carted away.

Now, her blue eyes were big and they were staring across the yard.

“Holy shit,” Teri whispered.

“Freaking, freakity, freak, freak,” Paula breathed at the same time.

“Wow,” Missy murmured reverently.

I followed their eyes and blinked. But after my blink, they didn’t disappear like the dreamlike visions their utter perfection proclaimed them to be. They were still there, walking across the yard toward Sam and Kyle.

Two men. Both tall. Both dark. Both seriously freaking fit. And both gorgeous. One was maybe five ten at the outside, years older than the other but this did not detract from his absolutely lusciousness.

“Who are those freaking guys?” Paula asked on a whisper.

“I have no idea,” I answered, with my girl posse still gratefully drinking in the talent. In other words, I had not torn my eyes away from the two men.

They made it to Sam, there were smiles, chin jerks, head nods, handshakes and so much hot guy hormone floating in the air around them it was a wonder every female in a two block radius didn’t instantly become pregnant.

Kyle was introduced. Then Sam’s head turned, his eyes flowed through me then to the street where he gave another chin jerk. I followed his gaze and saw a man, short, bulky, negative body fat seeing as he had so much muscle his muscle was competing with his other muscle to control his frame, sandy blond hair close-cropped to his head and wearing a jacket even though it was eight-two degrees with seventy-five percent humidity got out of his vehicle and leaned to the side.

Bodyguard.

Jeez, I’d been so busy selling my life with Cooter and freaking out about what happened last night with Sam that I hadn’t even noticed him.

I looked back Sam’s way to see him leading the hot guy crew toward the front door.

“We’ll be a minute, honey,” he called to me as he approached the door.

My eyes went from him to hot guy number one then older hot guy number two, both of whom were looking at me with small, polite (but hot) smiles on their (hot) faces then back to Sam.

They were his hunters. I knew it.

I shifted to start toward him and began, “I’ll –”

“No,” Sam cut me off, I stopped moving and saw he had too, his eyes on me. “Later.”

I stared at him and that was it. Sam said later, he meant later. And I knew this because he immediately opened my front door and him and his crew (and Kyle) disappeared behind it without another word.

That was when I stared at the closed door unsure if I should stomp inside and demand to be let in on what was happening in my life. Or whether I should burst into tears because I was frustrated and further, it couldn’t be denied, Sam had hurt me last night. He’d actually hurt me. Something I never thought Sam would do. Or whether I should scream at the top of my lungs to get rid of some of the tension that was bunching my shoulders, up my neck and throbbing in my head

I was unable to come to a decision before Teri, who clearly was so mesmerized she didn’t hear my earlier answer, asked, “Do you know those guys?”

In the intervening days since my arrival home I’d let my girls in on what Vanessa and Cooter did as well as what Sam was doing about it so I answered, “I think they’re Sam’s friends who are dealing with my hit man issue.”

Four sets of female eyes went to my front door.

Then Teri muttered, “I wouldn’t mind my life, or other parts of me, being in their hands. Either one of them.”