Hot as Sin (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #2)(19)
Author: Bella Andre

He was pretty average sized, but his grip on her in the parking lot had been surprisingly strong. Considering she was about ten pounds underweight at the moment, April knew she’d be no match for him if he decided to pull over and force himself on her in the car.

Her stomach continued to churn. She wasn’t a virgin, but the number of guys she’d slept with didn’t matter anymore.

She knew she needed to stop being such a cowering baby and get the hell out of his car. But as she waited for her opportunity to escape, the minutes only ticked by faster and faster, bringing her another step closer to ending up his prisoner.

Each minute that clicked by on the digital clock on the dashboard felt like an hour and she prayed that something would happen, that they’d get in an accident or a cop would drive by and see the gun. Of course, none of those things happened.

But just when she thought she was permanently out of luck, the traffic picked up and the rain started falling harder. April shot the man a surreptitious glance. He was focusing more on driving than on keeping his gun trained on her.

This was her chance.

Quickly unlocking the door, she threw herself out of the moving car onto the street. Her kneecaps and elbows and shoulders all hurt like hell as she rolled on the blacktop, but she barely noticed as she got back on her feet and started running. She needed to go somewhere crowded.

He wouldn’t try to grab her again if there were people around, would he?

Sighting a gas station across the street, she ran as fast as she could through the rain on the slippery four-lane road. People were filling up their tanks and didn’t seem to take much notice of her as she slid to a stop in front of the mini-mart.

Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she called Dianna, not remembering until the last second that her sister was in the hospital and might not have access to her cell phone.

Amazingly, Dianna picked up and April’s words all ran together. “Some guy grabbed me. I need help. I got away from him and I’m at a gas station.”

April was frantically scanning the front of the building for any street numbers on it that she could give, when she felt the familiar pressure of a gun shoved into her ribs.

“Stop talking and give me the phone or I’ll kill you right here, right now,” he whispered.

She hesitated for a moment and he cocked his gun.

“Trust me, little girl, I don’t have a damn thing to live for. I’ll shoot you first, then I’ll shoot myself. It’d be just as easy to do it here as it is somewhere else. But if you do what I say, you just might get to live.”

April’s hand shook as she handed him her phone and watched him shut it, then followed his instructions to get back in the car without making a sound or looking like he was forcing her.

“Who did you call?”

“I couldn’t get through,” she lied, but he had already flipped open her phone. DIANNA was at the top of her call list.

He slammed the gun into her jaw and she was stunned by the flash of blinding pain that ran through her.

“What did you tell her?”

“Nothing,” she moaned around the blood in her mouth.

He hit her with the gun again, harder this time across the forehead, and the pain was so ferocious she barely heard him say, “You stupid bitch, you better not have ruined everything for me. Does she know where you are?”

She was in too much pain to lie and the “no” escaped her before she could pull it back. Even as she waited for his next blow, the sunlight seemed to dim. The last thing she heard was a muffled, “Fuck,” before she passed out.

Hours later, finding herself bound and gagged in a closet, she couldn’t help but wonder, Why does bad shit always happen to me?

Three months ago, she’d thought leaving San Francisco was the best thing for everyone. Especially after she’d overheard Dianna’s public relations team tell her she’d better “rein April in before she does something to make headlines.” She hadn’t stayed to hear Dianna’s response.

Sure, April knew she was a screwup that no one wanted, but it killed her to hear the words come out of someone’s mouth.

Clearly, the whole sister-as-guardian thing was a nice gesture on Dianna’s part, but it hadn’t worked out. So when April’s new boyfriend, Kevin, asked her to come with him to Colorado, she didn’t even have to think about it, she just packed a bag and got on the bus.

The two-day ride gave her plenty of time to think. All her life, she’d been angry with Dianna for getting to stay with their mother while April had been sent off to live with strangers. At the same time, when Dianna finally pulled her out of the system, she hadn’t known how to respond to Dianna’s overwhelming affection, to the way she wanted to hang out all the time and do girl stuff like go to the mall and get makeovers.

Life as a foster kid either made you weak and scared of everything—or it gave you calluses. Everywhere. In the throes of teenage angst, the more her big sister tried to reach her, the more she’d pulled away. Rebellion was what April did and she did it well, but then even that got old. Predictable.

By the end of the bus ride to Vail, April had made the decision that she was ready to stop being Dianna Kelley’s screwed-up little sister. She was ready for something new.

She was ready for a better life.

It was a two-day hike through the Rockies to the Farm and frankly, she was a little freaked out about living in an intentional community.

But, amazingly, she’d found herself fitting in with the band of misfits. And for the first time, she almost felt like she was part of a family.

Her brothers and sisters on the Farm accepted her for who she really was. They didn’t try to change her clothes, her hair, or the music she liked. While Dianna had always coddled her, she was given real responsibilities on the Farm as a cook. She was surprised by how natural it felt to stand over a hot fire, to pound herbs together with a mortar and pestle, to knead bread until it was just the right consistency. Up in the Rockies, she felt more at peace than she ever had.

And then guilt started creeping up on her, slowly but surely, day after day, week after week. When she’d finally asked to use the Farm’s lone phone line and checked her voice mail, she cringed listening to Dianna’s anxious string of messages. It was time to set up a meeting to show her ubersuccessful big sister that she was finally doing something good, that she was finally on the right track with her life and was coming into her own.

With the only access road newly blocked by fallen trees, it was another two-day hike into town. It wasn’t an easy journey, but April liked knowing that she had the skills to take care of herself, that she didn’t need to rely on Kevin or anyone else to get where she needed to go. Besides, Kevin had split the Farm a few weeks after they’d arrived. He hadn’t expected the workload to be so high or the drugs to be nonexistent. She hadn’t been particularly sad to see him go.