Broken Road

Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

The ride back to the ranch later that night could be described in one word according to Devil.

   Hellish.

   Her pain meds had worn off and the ones she had just taken hadn’t kicked in yet. Her hand was throbbing with a vengeance of fury fit for a roaring tornado. Pulses of stinging pain shot through her fingers and she winced. She was groggy and grumpy and utterly drugged out of her mind with her sleeping pills from the hospital. They had had to put her out for the stitches.

   The silence in the cab of the truck was bugging her as it grew awkward. She turned to look up into the pale face of Mr. Canter and reached her free hand up to poke his cheek.

   “I know you don’t like women and all, but no need to turn glum just because you’re holding me in your lap. I could have sat by myself ya know. I already said I was sorry,” Devil grumbled at him crossly.

   He didn’t say a single thing but he took her hand in his and paced them on his knee.

   It said nothing, yet it said everything at the same time. She knew that something was wrong with him and it was something that was eating away at him inside. She could tell by the pained and hollow look in his silverish blue eyes.

   “What’s wrong?” she asked, frowning at him.

   Winthrop said nothing but glanced down at her gravely and then looked back out the window as his mind eats away at him.

   She was a daughter of two mobs and the mother of his brother’s child. It didn’t take long for him to put two and two together. They had said his brother had died in the cross fire of a gang shooting, but it may have been more then that. Devil could every well have been the reason for his brother’s murder.

   Yet as he glanced to the now sleeping woman in his arms he found he couldn’t believe that she had had anything to do with it. His heart felt tight at the feeling of seeing her hurt. She already had a hard time trusting people like he himself did and he couldn’t see her as a killer.

   He brushed back a loose lock of hair from her forehead. No, she wasn’t one and he was just making trouble. Her past was just that, the past. Yet there was some doubt…

*~*~*~*

Three.

   That was the number of days she had been ordered to stay in bed and rest. It was also the number of days she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Mr. Canter and she was pissed.

   The saying ‘hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn’ was about to get a new meaning. Especially when that woman was a Devil.

   It was well passed bed time fro everyone, but she didn’t care. She stormed out of her room stomping down the stairs to the main level of the house. She found him in the office and the sight that greeted her eyes pained her more then he would ever know.

   He was setting in the chair looking at the pictures on the wall with a bottle of whiskey in his hand that was already half empty. Devil didn’t miss the three already empty bottles on the desk.

   His long hair was messy as if he had run his hand through it a million times. And who knew? He might have done just that. His strong cheeks and chin were cover in stubble that made him look as if he hadn’t shaved in days.

   His eyes moved sightlessly over the pictures as he took a long slow swig of the whiskey.

   A memory of Devil’s father flashed in her mind and caused her to wince. Her father had been like this many times after he had drank to much. Then he would turn to the nearest person and start to beat them till they were broken on the floor. The person had always been her. Devil had made sure of that so he would hurt her mother or her little sister Lily yet that hadn’t stopped him the last time-