When Roses Collide

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Harley pulled into the yard, slammed the truck into park and stormed out of the cab. Banging the door closed, though satisfactory, did little to ease her temper. She swore each of her men where the kind of men you could use as a blue print to build a bigger and better idiot. And that included Travis Montgomery, the biggest idiot of them all. Limping up to the front porch, she yanked open the screen only to run into yet another example of idiots gone wild. Shit! Why didn't it ever occur to her before that she was surrounded by them?

"Hey, Harley. You're back already?" Tanner smiled down at her, but it quickly turned into a frown when he got a good look at her. "What the hell happened? Where's your bike?"

"Don't ask," she muttered, shoving past him and heading for her bedroom. There was a tub full of hot water calling her name and she was in the kind of mood to seriously injure anyone who dared attempted to get in her way to it.

"Bo and the guys went out looking for you," he hollered behind her.

Thanks for the heads up, she thought rolling her eyes. Turning on her heel, she put her hands on her hips and gave him a scowl that could curl paint. "I know, Tanner. When they get back, tell them to go to hell." His mouth fell open at her venomous retort, but she didn't care. Whirling back around, she opened her bedroom door and banged it shut behind her, locking it for good measure.

Leaning against it, she sighed. Every inch of her body hurt. Even thinking seemed to be too much effort at the moment. She snorted. At least she had an excuse to not be in top form, but her men...they had none for that display of male ego they'd put on out there on the side of the road. Desi was right. Men were over possessive assholes who didn't have the brains God gave a grasshopper.

Slowly, she eased herself off the door and made her way to her bathroom. Grimacing when she got a look at herself in the mirror. She looked like roadkill. Literally. Shaking her head, she went to the old claw foot tub and cranked on the water as hot as it would go and dumped in a healthy pour of her favorite jasmine bubble bath.

As the bathroom filled with heavenly scented steam, she slowly unzipped her leather jacket and peeled it off. A muffled whimper came out of her when the material pulled away from the dried blood on her shoulder. It was the same scenario when she slide out of the leather pants, only this time...she hissed a curse as the pants tore away from her body. Holy hell. Leaning against the counter, she took in a couple of deep breaths against the pain.

Turning her head, she looked at the shoulder and hip. Both were raw, bleeding and filled with gray bits of grit from the road. Standing there in her bra and panties, she looked for any other injuries. Twisting around, she didn't see anything. Well...at least anything that was oozing blood. She had plenty of bruising though. Poking a rather large purple lump just below her hip, she winced. Oh yeah...she would feeling this for a few days. If she ever saw that black SUV again, she was going to give them a piece of her mind.

Sighing, she unbraided her hair, stripped off the last of her clothes and stepped into the tub. That is if she had any of her mind left to spare after she got done dealing with the men in her life, she thought as she slowly sunk into the hot, bubbly water. Hissing when the water hit the raw spots, she clenched the sides of the tub until the throbbing subsided. Leaning her head back against the porcelain, she moaned when the heat started to work its magic on her soreness and she relaxed.

Her eyes drooped shut as she pondered her problems with the Cro-Magnon men in her life. Somehow her plan to move out of Colorado and relocate at her dad's old ranch had been an epic fail on getting her family to relax their tight, protective leash from around her neck. Sinking lower into the tub until the bubbles tickled her chin, Harley wondered if they would ever ease up. If they didn't, she was going to end up in one of those facilities where she wore nothing but a paper gown and growled at people who passed by. The only thing she would have to look forward to would be lime Jell-O night.