She stared at her room. It felt like a stranger lived here. Her bedroom was upstairs with the huge four-poster bed, where the smell of motor oil and horses and men’s cologne dominated. Where she could hardly take a step without tripping up over Max’s cowboy boots or slipping on one of Logan’s shirts.
Savannah sighed and sat. She knew she needed to tell them about this, it wasn’t like she could hide her inability to walk outside forever. She hated that she felt nervous talking to her own husbands. They’d promised to love and cherish her no matter what.
And she’d promised the same. As well as to obey them. She blushed a little as she remembered their insistence that that part be left in her vows. They could be total Neanderthals at times.
But they were all hers, and she didn’t want to lose them.
She didn’t like feeling so needy and insecure. This wasn’t her. She wasn’t her mother. What husband was her mother on? Five or six? It didn’t really matter. In the end, they all left once they found out the truth: That the money wasn’t worth putting up with her batshit crazy mother.
Momma fell in love hard and fast. And they fell out of love with her just as hard and fast.
Her mother had nearly had a heart attack when she’d told her she was marrying two men. Although Savannah wasn’t sure if she’d been more shocked by the fact that there were two of them or that they were ranchers.
Her mother said ranchers like it was a dirty word. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d been rich. But two struggling ranchers . . . If her mother had lived in the eighteenth century, she’d have been calling for her smelling salts. Luckily for Savannah, her mother had soon latched onto husband number six—she thought it was six—and forgotten about her daughter.
Savannah preferred it that way.
She hadn’t even called to check on Savannah after the attack. Max had called her and left a message explaining what had happened. And she hadn’t been able to tear herself away from her new husband in order to pick up the phone and see how Savannah was doing.
Savannah was a grave disappointment to her mother. She knew her mother told people she was overseas. Hell, she could tell them she was living on Mars and doing it with two-headed aliens for all Savannah cared. She had no plans to go back to that life.
Although it seemed she wasn’t really living this life either.
She hadn’t told her mother the rest of it. About the community she now lived in. The way the male residents of Haven took it upon themselves to protect all the women and children. That their safety was taken very seriously, and God forbid any woman put herself in danger. She’d find herself over her man’s knee, and if she didn’t have one, the sheriff was within his rights to assign a guardian to watch over her.
Savannah had been spanked plenty of times. She had a penchant for getting into trouble, and truthfully, she kind of liked it when her guys went all caveman on her. The sex afterwards was amazing.
But they hadn’t once threatened to spank her since she’d been taken. No, they’d been treating her like fragile glass, as though she might shatter with a wrong touch or word.
She knew they’d been scared. Even Logan, who so rarely showed how he felt, had had tears in his eyes when she’d woken up in the hospital. It was going to take them all time to recover.
The phone ringing from the office made her rush out. She quickly grabbed it before it stopped.
“Hello?” she said.
Nothing on the other end.
“Hello? Grandma Evie, is that you?”
Nothing.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
Heavy breathing. Fear held her paralyzed for a few moments. Was it him? Was he calling her?
“F-fuck you!” she screamed then ended the call. She stumbled back, staring at the phone as though she expected it to grow fangs and bite her.
What should she do? What if it was him?
Protect herself. She needed to protect herself.
The guns.
Max had shown her where the key to the gun cabinet was kept when she’d first moved in. She’d just laughed at him and told him she’d never touched a gun and she didn’t intend to.
Logan had wanted to show her how to shoot. She’d asked why she’d need a gun when she had two strong men to protect her.
You were such a naïve idiot, Savannah.