Ben
Ignoring the furious looks and screams emanating from inside his truck, Ben turned so that his back was to Samantha before he allowed himself to smile.
He couldn’t help it.
He fucking had his girl back.
He’d definitely earned the right to a smile.
After three years of existing, but not really living… of inhaling without really breathing… he finally had his fiery-tempered vixen back.
And this time, he was never letting her go again. He didn’t care what she threw at him… what lies she concocted… what obstacles she put in his path. He was never allowing her to leave him again. Nor would he ever be stupid enough to let her go. He’d learned his lesson.
He was keeping what was his.
And Samantha Dixon (soon-to-be-Atkins if he got his way) was most certainly meant to be Ihi HIS in every way there was. Hell, she already would have been his if he hadn’t been such a fantastic moron. Why the hell hadn’t he seen past her selfish act three years ago? Looking back on things now, his Sami hadn’t even been very convincing as a self-centered bitch. Why the fuck hadn’t he seen the truth then? Had he really been that caught up in his own misery that he hadn’t been able to see how much she was hurting the day he’d walked out on her?
Fuck it! It didn’t matter now. Right now, he had to focus on getting them back on track.
Which meant getting back in her life, back in her bed, and most importantly, back in her heart.
Failure wasn’t an option. They’d already lost entirely too much time.
Which was why he had concocted a plan.
As far as plots go, it wasn’t exactly as solid as he’d like, and it could definitely use some tweaking, but it was still a workable plan. And necessity was the mother of all invention, right?
All he needed was a little help pulling things together, and that was where he needed a little help from his friends, he thought as he pushed the button on his cell phone to connect him with his buddy’s office.
“Quack and Rack Lodge and Guided Hunts. You’ve got Axton Calhoun.”
Relieved to hear his friend’s voice instead of Ax’s automated voice mail, Ben breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe his luck was finally turning toward the better. “Hey, Ax. It’s Ben,” he greeted his friend as Sami’s muffled voice continued cursing behind him and the metal of her handcuffs impacted the passenger side window of his truck as she slammed her hands against the glass. Turning to shoot her a warning glare, he saw her eyes flash with barely restrained violence and knew he needed to hurry his phone call along before she accidentally hurt herself. “Hey, man, it’s Ben. I hate to bother you at work, but need a big favor on pretty short notice. I’m hoping like hell you can help me out,” he explained, speedily cutting past any small talk to get to the heart of the matter. Since Axton had been one of his first clients upon moving to Paradise and the two men had built a solid friendship over the last couple of years, Ben knew he could depend on his buddy to be there for him when it counted. Plus, he’d confided about his past with Samantha to Ax a little over a year ago when he’d had a particularly hard time on the anniversary of their breakup. At the time, Axton had been battling his own heartache over a woman he couldn’t have and their shared pain had bonded the two men. Ben was counting on that bond now to help him get Sami back.
“So I heard. Sheriff Zeke came by earlier to pick up keys for a couple of my lodge rooms that were meant for your ex and some friend of hers. He said she came to town looking for that new lawyer working with Abel, but stumbled across you in the process. I remember you telling me how much y’all’s split fucked you up. Seeing her again must have been a hell of a shock. You doing okay?” he asked, concern evident in his voice. “Because if you don’t want her here, I can hand her a cardboard box and point her toward the underpass.”
Ben snorted. He knew Axton was only joking, but it meant a lot that his friend had his back. He couldn’t let anyone continue to think of Sami as the villain in their fucked up break-up. Especially now that Ben knew the truth. Thankfully, he hadn’t said a lot about Samantha to anyone. Only Axton had ever gotten the whole story… at least the story as he’d known it then. “Listen, Ax… I’ve learned a lot of things about our breakup in the last couple of hours. Things that I wasn’t aware of when I walked out on Samantha. She isn’t the bitch I painted her to be. In fact, if there’s an asshole in this scenario, it’s me. That new attorney that Abel Turner hired? Her name is Vivian Miller, and she’s my ex’s best friend. She found me this afternoon before Sami got into town and filled me in on a lot of shit I didn’t know about my woman. A lot of really painful things. Long story made short… Sami blew up our relationship because she thought she was protecting me. She was trying to put me first. She knew I’d never willingly leave her – no matter what the reason, so she made it so I didn’t have a choice. I can’t go into everything now, but suffice it to say that I want my vixen back. Badly. She, however, doesn’t know I know the truth about everything and doesn’t want to give me the time of day.”
“Shit, Ben. I’m sorry,” Axton apologized softly. “As a man that knows a little something about having to be extremely cruel to the person you love in order to be kind in the long run, believe me when I tell you that this has probably fucked with her head.”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “That’s why I’ve got to get shit straight between us. And because of Sami’s stubbornness, I’ve just had to go a fairly unorthodox way to do it.”
“That sound ominous,” Ax returned warily. “What’ve you done, Ben?”
“I’ve kidnapped her,” Ben stated without remorse. “And I’m not letting her go until she sees reason. That’s where you come in. You know that cabin on top of Harper’s Mountain? The one on the far west boundary of your property that I stayed in when I did that first photo spread for the Lodge?”
Axton scoffed. “Cabin is a pretty loose word for that shack, Ben.”
“Remote. Isolated. Secure. And most importantly, no cell signal. It’s perfect for what I need,” Ben insisted. “I wanna borrow it for the next 72 hours or so.”
“It’s yours if you want it, but are you sure one of my other cabins wouldn’t be more suitable? I mean, if you’re trying to win your woman back, don’t you want her to be comfortable?” he asked curiously.
“I want her to rely on me. Up there, she won’t have a choice. She’ll have to listen.”
“And if she doesn’t?” Ax grunted.
“Nobody will be around to hear her scream when I handcuff her gorgeous ass to my side,” Ben returned determinedly.
“Sounds like you have your mind made up,” Axton noted dryly.
“That’s because I do, Ax. I can’t lose her again. I won’t survive it,” Ben confessed huskily, glancing over his shoulder to check on Sami again. Seeing her sulking in her seat, he grinned. This plan would work, damn it! It had to. “Listen, I also need you to call Vivian over at Abel’s office and tell her my plan. Have her get Sami some clothes and female crap together. Remind her it’ll be cooler up there and to pack accordingly. Then, have her bring it to you. Then if you could box me up some food supplies and such and bring everything up the mountain before we get there, I’d appreciate it.”
“What about you? Want me to grab you some shit from your place? I’m assuming that you’ll want me to bring up your beast, too?” Axton asked.
Running a hand down his face, Ben groaned. How the hell had he forgotten his dog? Jellybean had been keeping him warm at night since he’d found him as a puppy, wandering down the side of the road at the edge of the woods, half-starved and alone. Now over eighty pounds of solid muscle, his puppy was fully grown and a real handful. One that would not appreciate being left behind.
Smiling, Ben nodded. “Yeah, Ax, that sounds good. Please bring him. Samantha should probably meet him sooner rather than later.”
“Alright. I’ll go get started on this list. I should have everything in place within a couple of hours. I’ll even go ahead and get a fire started in the wood-burning stove.”
Glancing at his wrist watch, Ben nodded. “I’ll make sure to drive slowly on the way up. Thanks for this, Axton. It goes without saying that I seriously owe you.”
“Hell, I’m just glad that one of us finally has the chance to get their girl. Don’t screw it up, Ben,” Axton cautioned. “And I’ll expect a nice size discount on my next promotional photo shoot.”
“Fuck that. Consider it on the house, man. And thanks again. I’ll give you a call from the satellite phone in a day or so to check in,” Ben returned as he ran a hand over the soft hair of his beard as he racked his mind for anything he’d forgot.
“Make sure you do. We’re supposed to get some weather over the next day or so. Could be the first snowfall of the season.”
“Oh, she’ll love that,” he smirked with another stolen look at Samantha. Her blond hair had begun to slip from the messy makeshift bun she’d pulled her golden locks into in an effort to tame the heavy mane on her head. She still look pissed, but her fury had settled into a kind of resolved anger on her pretty face. Mostly, she looked wrinkled and tired, and after the drive she’d had this morning, that made sense. He needed to get her up the mountain and settled into the cabin, preferably before night fully fell and made the rough gravel path almost impassable. “We’ll talk soon. See you later, Ax,” he said before disconnecting the phone and climbing back into the vehicle. Directing a smile toward his fuming passenger, he amiably asked, “So, how are we doing in here? Feeling calmer?”
“Absolutely,” Samantha returned with a scary smile of her own. “I always like to achieve a very zen state of mind before I begin plotting murder. You make less mistakes that way,” she shared, her cool jade eyes sparkling with malice.
God, he’d missed this. The spark…the sass… the inner fire that made her temper burn so bright. Everything that made Samantha who she was. There was nothing insipid or bland about his vixen. Nope, when he was with her, he felt alive in ways he hadn’t realized he’d been missing until now. “I can see I’ll need to be on my toes with you until we get things settled between us,” he remarked as he started the truck and pulled away from the curb.
Making a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl, Sami twisted in her seat to glare at him. “Listen to me you, dimwitted jackass! There’s nothing left to settle between us, Ben. Everything has been settled. We’re over. And we’ve been that way for a long time now.”
Shrugging his broad shoulders, Ben grinned. “I disagree.”
“You disagree?” Sami echoed sharply, cocking her head as her body stiffened. “How the hell do you disagree.”
“I choose to look at things like we were on a break. Break’s over now,” he returned easily. “Now, it’s time for us to get together and work shit out.”
He would have laughed at the expression on her face if he wasn’t fairly certain that she’d try to maim him, handcuffs or not, if he uttered a single word at this point. With her mouth soundlessly opening and closing while her eyes bugged out of her head, Sami looked as if she might begin hyperventilating at any moment. “Sami, breathe,” he ordered, reaching for her cold hand as he kept one eye on the road and the other on her. “C’mon. Don’t pass out on me now. It would be too hard explaining the handcuffs to EMS,” he teased, stroking his thumb across her palm soothingly. “I know this is all a lot to take in, but all you need to understand right now is that I’m not letting you go. Not again. I made that mistake once and nearly lost you. I’ve got a second chance now and I’m not going to waste it.”
“You don’t get a flippin’ choice in that because there’s no second chance here,” Sami finally screeched, finding her voice again as she yanked her still shackled hands from his. “And we were not on a break! You and I are finished. Kaput. Stick a fork in us because we’re done!”
Glancing pointedly at her cuffed hands, Ben smirked. “Like hell. You’re still mine, Sami. You proved that when I had my tongue down your throat less than an hour ago. I just have to remind you again how good we are when we’re together.”
“It’s like talking to a brick wall,” she mumbled, turning her head to glance out the window at the passing scenery as they began to drive out of town, Sami looked over her shoulder. “Wait a second. Where the hell are we going, Ben? This is the way we came into town. Why are we leaving Paradise and where are you taking me?” she asked, her alarm mounting as she bounced beside him in her seat.
“I’m simply avoiding any potential complications and taking you on a little unscheduled trip,” he explained easily.
“Bullshit,” Sami snapped. “This is called kidnapping!”
“Well, if you wanna split hairs about it,” he muttered under his breath as he dropped his eyes to his gas gauge. Luckily, he had enough and wouldn’t need to make any stops.
“Right now, I wanna split your skull with a frickin’ ax!” Sami yelled, collapsing back against the leather bucket seat as she continued to stare hatefully at him. “I can’t believe you’re doing this, Ben.”
“Believe it, beautiful. I want your undivided attention and the only way I know to make sure I get that is to take you where you won’t have a choice but to deal with me. Alone with no distractions. Get comfortable, baby. We’ve got a little drive ahead of us, but in the end, I promise it will be worth it,” he vowed, reaching out to pat her leg. “Just give me a chance, Sami.”
He chose to take her sullen silence as a positive sign.