Ben (The Sherwood)

We were quiet then. I was content to just hold her naked in my arms, feeling her skin against mine. Her breasts pressed against my side. Soon, she was asleep while I was wide awake contemplating our future. The when and how soon things should happen. Something we needed to talk about now that this had happened. I didn’t want to wait too long.

Chapter 15

“Ben.” I heard my name and it wasn’t Disa calling me. “Ben.” I opened my eyes and Seth was leaning over me shaking my shoulder.

I glanced to my right to be sure that Disa was covered. Then I looked at my brother. “Now what?”

“AJ and Heath are in the living room with some guests,” he informed me.

I scrunched up my face puzzled by his statement. Rubbed my tired eyes. “What?”

We were whispering but still loud enough that Disa should have heard us. The woman could sleep through a tornado hitting the house.

I slipped out from beneath Disa making sure that she stayed covered by the comforter. “What do you mean they are in the living room and have guests?”

“Well,” Seth scratched his head. “That isn’t all. AJ is hurt too.”

“What the hell…” I climbed naked out of bed and my little brother almost got his head knocked off by the next statement that came out of his mouth.

“So, you are screwing her.”

I grabbed the front of his t-shirt and backed him against the wall, “Do not be a dick where Disa is concerned,” I informed him. The words were clipped and angry. He might be taller, but I was bigger. He knew that I could put a world of hurt on him and I was within an inch of doing that right now.

His hands went in the air in a position of surrender. “Could you get dressed? This is weird and I’m sorry,” he apologized.

I dropped my hands to my sides. “Just don’t,” I told him. I grabbed jeans off the floor and slipped them up my body then I followed Seth to the living room.

“I was watching TV like I do every night after work when these two showed up.” We entered the living room. “With them.” He pointed at the two women sitting on my living room sofa.

I knew instantly that one of these women was Merci Riley, Disa’s sister. “What the ever-loving hell, are you two thinking?” I almost shouted then caught myself when I realized that I could wake my daughter and saw that my brother was bleeding out of his right shoulder. “AJ what happened to you?”

“He’s shot,” the other woman I didn’t know informed me. She was applying pressure to his wound.

“Don’t you think we need to take him to the hospital?” I asked.

“Can’t. Gunshot wounds are questioned. Hawk is getting help,” Heath responded.

I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. “Hawk knows you are shot and didn’t do anything to the person who shot you?” I knew my voice was rising. Apparently, that woke Disa or the fact that I was no longer in bed beside her did.

She appeared in a bathrobe and I could see her pajamas beneath it. She walked past me.

“Merci,” she said going straight to her sister. Merci jumped up from the sofa and met Disa half way. They held each other close while Merci sobbed into Disa’s neck. Whatever she was saying to her was not discernable. The poor kid seemed traumatized right now.

“What the hell happened? You two were going to check on her, not kidnap her.”

“It isn’t kidnapping when she leaves willingly,” Heath informed me. “More like begs to leave.”

I turned to him. I was in shock trying to figure this whole scene out when my front door opened. Dad, Hawk, our sheriff and Daisy Clemmons a nurse from the county hospital walked in the door.

“Oh, hell no,” AJ snapped.

“Would you prefer to bleed to death, asshole,” she responded. “I got out of bed for your sorry ass.”

There was open hostility between these two. We moved to my dining room where Daisy could spread out the things she had brought with her. She sterilized some instruments while I got AJ a bottle of Jack that I had in the cabinet.

“I don’t think that’s going to help,” I told him. “It’s all I have though.”

He glared at me and took several swigs from the bottle before sitting it beside him on the table. Merci started explaining what no one else had and I was truly amazed that things like this happened in Sherwood, Ohio.