“Wake up, Allister.” Heavy footsteps thudded against the floor before the bedside table jarred and a lamp light flickered on. “Get up. You won’t believe who just showed up at the gate.”
“What is it?” Allister rolled to his side and massaged his eyes, trying to see the clock’s digits and barely aware of what his brother Harley had just said. “It’s four in the morning. Can’t you process a new resident?”
“I could,” Harley replied. “But something tells me you’d have my head if I so much as even tried, especially since a few other fellas are already on their way down to the guard house.”
Allister yawned, stretched, and looked up at Harley. An occasional prankster, Harley would’ve been grinning from ear to ear if he’d thought Allister was about to become the butt of some public joke. And he knew better than to wake him in the middle of the night unless he had a valid reason. “What is it?”
“You’ll want to see her for yourself. Get dressed. And you might want to hurry. Derek, Ryan, and Bradley already have a jump on you and they’re probably interviewing her as we speak.”
“What do they have to do with—” Allister swallowed. A salacious memory flicked in front of his mind’s eye. Ellie Hunter was riding him while Bradley took her from behind. Derek and Ryan had already fucked her like savages and the little vixen had still wanted more. He grinned at the memory, recalling how insatiable she’d been. She’d been willing and capable, eager even.
“It can’t be.” He studied his brother.
“Go ahead. Say it. You’re probably on the right track.”
“Ellie’s in Trouble?”
“You need to hurry. She was bleeding when she showed up here. As soon as she found out the gusher from her stomach was a flesh wound, she—”
“Flesh wound?” Allister jumped from the bed. “What are you talking about?” And what had he missed? Apparently he hadn’t come to quickly enough when Harley had entered his room. Either that or Harley was skipping the important details. “Are we talking about Ellie Hunter Marshall here?”
If they were, how would they handle her processing? As far as Allister knew, Ellie was still married. New residents could enter with their children, but they couldn’t live there if they were “thinking about” divorce or “considering” a separation. Papers must have been filed.
Prior to buying the land that later became known as Trouble, Tennessee, the founding fathers developed a strict list of laws and community regulations. They’d always enforced them in the past. They would not, under any circumstances, accept a woman for residency if she were still lawfully married.
“You’re sure it’s Ellie?”
“I saw her. Hell, I even talked to her. It’s her, Allister.”
“Damn him. If I get my hands on Denny, so help me God—” Allister scrambled around for his clothes. He felt like someone had knocked the wind out of him. “Shit.”
“We need to hurry. She may leave and she doesn’t need to.” Harley went to the door. “Allister, she ain’t married anymore but my guess is her ex-husband doesn’t see her as a free woman just because the courts do.”
“You said a flesh wound. Has Doc checked her out?” Allister hurriedly stuffed his legs in his jeans, grabbed his flannel shirt from the closet doorknob, and snatched up his boots in passing. As usual, they were in the middle of the floor.
“Doc said she’s fine. She’s anemic, which might explain why there was so much blood but when I first saw her? I gotta tell ya, I was afraid we might have to send her to one of the neighboring hospitals. Doc had her stitched up in no time. Now, if we can just convince her to stay…”
“She’ll stay,” Allister snapped, stepping into his boots. “If that bastard tried to kill her, he meant to kill her. It was premeditated and I’ll bet on that.”
“We don’t keep anyone here unless they stay of their own free will,” Harley said, acting like Allister needed the reminder.
“Let me worry about that. She won’t need much persuasion.”
“She might,” Harley said. “Besides, what happened between Ellie, you, Derek, Ryan, and Bradley was how many years ago?”
“Time makes the heart grow fonder.” Allister’s heart wasn’t the only thing weighing in at the moment. With another provocative daydream, illicit recollections were wreaking pure havoc on his rigid body, too. He was having the kind of memories that made a man remember how close he’d come to falling in love.
Close, hell.
“If time tightens those heartstrings, I know four men who will be in knots once they get a load of her,” Harley teased.
“Was that a pun?”
Harley laughed. “Shoulda been. Sounded like one. Besides, last I heard, Derek and Bradley haven’t even looked at another woman since Ellie.”
“They’ve looked all right,” Allister muttered, not giving away anything more. They’d looked and they’d touched. Allister had only looked. He hadn’t held another woman in his arms since the only woman he’d wanted up and married her high school sweetheart.
Allister had told her at the time she was making a mistake. Given what he’d heard about her relationship, he’d been right. In this case, being right hadn’t kept him warm at night. Half the time he stayed up late thinking about her, won