Danger In Oleander: A Cowboy's Heart Novel Read online

  Chapter Four

  Hurrying down the steps of her grandmother’s home, Emily flung the screen door wide open, and hurried out onto the front porch. She brought her quick speed to an abrupt stop when her eyes found a sight that froze her right down to the core of her being.

  Pulling up in front of Belle and Amy’s farmhouse, Johnathon shut the engine of his car off before he stepped out of a replacement version of the one that John had destroyed by using his body to slam down onto the hood of it. He shot her a coy, teasing smirk as he stood by the driver side door of his vehicle with his average built body dressed in one of the lavish business suits she had gotten used to seeing him in.

  “Hi there, sexy.” He said, speaking to her in a tone to match the way he was looking at her. “How are you doing this fine morning?”

  Oh fuck me…I didn’t count on my ex from hell to show up here this morning…but it looks like I am going to have to deal with him and get rid of his ass on my own once and for all.

  Upset at seeing the very man that had caused her so much grief, Emily managed to hide those emotions and put on a face of absolute anger and disgust towards him.

  “What in the hell are you doing here?!” She let her hatred for him come out in her usually sweet voice with no sign of her restraining it. “You have no business being here, Johnathon.”

  “Is that anyway to treat your boyfriend?”

  “You really must be hard of hearing…Well... I will repeat what I said to you at my grandmother’s party.”

  She made her way down the steps of the porch and right up to where he was standing. Emily showed no fear towards him as she glared at his eyes, and spoke in a way to let all of her anger come out at one time.

  “We are not a couple anymore, Johnathon, and we never will be as long as I have a say in the matter.”

  “That pathetic cowboy can’t match up to what I have to give to you.”

  “There is nothing that you have that could possibly match up to what John has to give to me.”

  Emily found one of his hands grabbing her hips, and pulling her up against him. She widened her eyes in shock of what he did even though he was merely smirking at her as he spoke to her.

  “How about we go back to my place, and I show you how a man really takes a woman’s breathe away?”

  Oh hell no! There was no way that she was going anywhere with her ex-boyfriend, especially somewhere alone with him.

  Emily brought her hands up, and hit them against the upper part of his body while her legs were kicking against his lower half in an attempt to free herself from him at the same time her voice was screaming out to the heavens.

  “Get your hands off of me, Johnathon! If you don’t let me go right now, you are going to regret it!”

  * * *

  The frantic screams of his woman fueled his speed even more as he was nearing the entrance to Belle’s ranch. John’s strong arms pumped at his sides, giving him that little bit of strength to push him that much more.

  I hope that I am not too late…Please don’t let me be too late. I have to make it there before that rich snob puts his hands on my lady.

  John made his way around a side of the barn, and froze for a brief moment at what his eyes were looking at.

  About twenty feet from him, Emily was struggling with all of her might in Johnathon’s grip to get away from him while he was moving them to the passenger side of the car with a sick and twisted smile on his face.

  “Let me go, Johnathon!” Emily screamed out with a cry of heartbreak coming out to the surface and reaching to the heavens. “I don’t want to go anywhere with you!”

  And you won’t be, Emily.

  With as much power as he had possessed in the race up the road, his adrenaline kicked in, and propelled his tall body towards where Johnathon had moved them to a side of his vehicle with his body in front of hers. John drove his shoulder into his body, and sent the two of them rolling around on the dirt floor. He moved to sit up a bit enough to where her ex could see his face while one of his hands had balled up into a tight fist.

  “Nobody puts their hands on my woman!”

  His words flowed out of his mouth in the form of a hate filled growl, matching the rest of his body language.

  “…Nobody.”

  John brought his fist down, and had it to collide with a side of Emily’s former flame’s face. He listened to Johnathon letting out a pathetic sound as his tall body moved to get off of his.

  Come on, John! Do some more damage to him! His conscience had become riled up and wanted him to do more than just one punch to the person on the ground. Kick him in his gut…Punch his face…Do something!

  I am not done with him…but I have to get Emily away from here and to my place before he regains full mobility.

  John knew that his woman’s safety came first above his own desire to take out the source of all the troubles that had come to them lately. She was first and dealing with Johnathon came second.

  He caught a glimpse of him holding his face as his body shifted, and his focus switched over to where Emily was by the sports car with tears coming out of her eyes, and rolling down the soft skin of her cheeks. The visual of her in need of him brought him away from the fallen form of Mr. Warren’s body, and towards where she was waiting for him.

  Chapter Five

  Emily’s overwhelming relief made it impossible for her to remain where she had been standing. With tears in her eyes and a soft cry slipping out of her mouth, she left the side of Johnathon’s car that she had been pinned against, and rushed towards the cowboy who had stolen her heart.

  “John…”

  Her voice slipped out of the confines of her soft lips in a way that showed her absolute joy at him having gotten him away from her.

  Throwing her arms around the back of his neck, Emily buried her face into a side of his neck. She closed her eyes, tightly, to bring an end to her crying but found the tears still coming out of them regardless.

  “John…Oh John…”

  Her body shuddered out breaths as she spoke with her mouth against his neck. The sensation of his strong arms moving around her body, and pulling her up against his only made her shiver much more.

  “I was so frightened, John. For a moment…I thought that Johnathon was going to have his way, and take me from here before you made it back to stop him.”

  Emily found that her muffled statement must have been heard by his ears fairly well due to the feeling of his hands running up and down her back in tender, caring strokes, attempting to help her feel safer and more comfortable there with him. She slowly brought her face from being pressed against him, and looked up towards his face with a few tears lingering in her eyes.

  “You have no idea how scared I was, John.”

  Her eyes locked onto his gentle, loving stare that had been fixated on her since she had brought her head back to gaze upon his face. Emily maintained the eye connection with him while she listened to the sound of his deep, Texan accent coming out in a tone full of unconditional love.

  “There was no way that I would let that rich asshole abduct, and do horrible things to you, darling.” John whispered out his words to her with all of the passionate fire he had burning inside for her. “Emily…I would rather die than have someone take you out of my life.”

  “John…”

  “You are the best thing to happen to me in my whole life…and there is no way in hell that I am going to lose you.”

  * * *

  John let all of his emotions of her come pouring out into his voice. He wanted her to see for herself how strong his feelings had grown for her during the time they had spent with one another.

  He reached up with one of his hands, and brushed the tip of his thumb to brush tears away from the edge of one of her eyes before doing the same to the other. His hand shifted to press the palm of it against her cheek, cupping it, and keeping it lifted up for them to have eye contact with one another.

  “The Devil himself couldn’t sca
re me away from you, Emily.” John whispered. “No amount of temptation on his part could get me to walk away from such a beautiful woman that stands before me.”

  John watched a smile of unconditional love form across her face while her eyes started to brighten up. A faint, sensual smile slowly moved across his face as he listened to the sweet sound of her voice.

  “I feel the same way for you, John.” Emily replied, focusing her formerly teary gaze on his piercing stare. “There is nothing that can drive me to leave such a wonderful man that has shown me there is such a thing as true passion and pure love.”

  “And you will never have to know the feeling of being without me in your life, darling.”

  John leaned his head down towards her face, and gently pressed their lips together, kissing her with all of the love that burned deep inside of him for her. He moved his other hand onto the small of her back, and let it rest there instead of pulling her against him.

  I know that you really don’t want to hear me, and have your moment with your little southern angel ruined. His conscience whispered towards him from the confines of his mind. But you need to get Emily and yourself out of here before Johnathon can get back to his feet.

  He knew that his conscience was right. Her ex-boyfriend was on the ground not far from them, and that he could get up at any time to get his hands on them again. John had to get them out of there, and back to his place in order to distance them from him.

  He eased out of the kiss with her, and glanced over in the direction of Johnathon to find him sprawled out, holding his face, and nestled twenty feet from his treasured sports car that was still running.

  That will do just fine.

  John got a hold of one of her hands, and moved them towards the vehicle. He glanced towards her, and motioned her to the passenger side of the vehicle as he stepped to the driver side while speaking to her at the same time.

  “Let’s get out of here, and put some distance between him and us.”

  Chapter Six

  Emily didn’t hesitate for a single second. As soon as she had heard John tell her to climb inside of Johnathon’s new and expensive vehicle to replace the one he destroyed, she gave a node of her head, and hurried over to the passenger side of the vehicle. Her right hand grabbed onto the metal handle, and flung the door wide open. Emily slid herself onto the black leather seat, and shut the door behind her with enough strength that it caused a loud sound similar to her grandmother slamming the front door on her worse day.

  “Hey!”

  The noise of Johnathon’s voice screaming out from outside of the vehicle caught her attention, and had her to look out the passenger side door’s window.

  Nestled on the ground about twenty feet away, Johnathon had managed to roll over onto one of his sides to face the direction of where his car was nestled with an expression dripping with frustration and unbridled anger rising to the surface.

  “What in the hell do you think you are doing in my car?!” Johnathon asked, demanding an answer from one or both of them. “Get out of there right now or you are going to regret it!”

  The sight of her former boyfriend’s face, as well as the sound in his voice, showing off all of his unadulterated rage made Emily’s body tighten up, and her stomach knot up several times. The way he not only spoke towards her but looked at her with his face frightened her all the way down to the very core of hers soul.

  Before a word could some out of her mouth, a gasp slipped out instead due to her body being flung backwards into the leather seat. It took Emily a moment to realize what had just happened: John had gunned it, and sent them flying around to the other side of Johnathon’s body so he could get a good glimpse at him and kick up some dirt.

  She waited for the vehicle to stop before her eyes looked to where John was gazing out his window towards her ex in time to hear him talking to him.

  “You don’t mind if I borrow your car for a little while do you, Johnathon?” John asked. He used a coy tone in his deep Texan accent at the same time he revved the engine up. “I am just going to take it out for a little joy ride is all.”

  “You are not taking my car anywhere, you little-“

  “I am sorry but there is nothing little about me, Johnathon…You can ask Emily about that.”

  Her face nearly turned blood shot red from catching what John had said to her ex-boyfriend. She didn’t ever assume that he would be so brazen that he would go out of his way, and announce, quite publically, about how she knew his true ‘size’.

  Emily proceeded to speak up but found her voice having fell silent due to him accelerating the vehicle once more, and sending them flying at a top notch speed in the direction of the entranceway to the ranch.

  * * *

  Ah man…That feels so good!

  A wicked grin danced across his face at having kicked dirt up with Johnathon’s expensive tires, and threw it in his face after putting him in his place.

  Tossing dirt in the face of that ignorant son of a bitch makes me feel so good right now.

  How does it make you feel to know that you just embarrassed the hell out of someone that you refer to as ‘your woman’?

  John’s heart dropped and nearly stopped at what his conscience asked him while he was guiding the vehicle pas the entrance to Belle’s ranch, and onto the stretch of road that ran down to where his home, as well as others, were nestled.

  Surely he didn’t make her tense and uncomfortable from his remark to her ex-boyfriend. That was not his intention.

  Once he got the vehicle onto the main road and started down it towards where his small house stood, John turned his head to a degree, and looked over to where Emily was nestled in her passenger side seat.

  His assumption about her not being embarrassed or on edge about what he said to Johnathon went out the window the moment his eyes discovered how her cheeks had a reddened tone to it, and her body language told him how uneasy she was at his ‘announcement’ to her former flame.

  Oh no…

  John found his body being overwhelmed with disgust and anger for what he had uttered towards the man at the form without any regard for Emily’s feelings.

  What have I done?

  What have you done? His conscience asked, coyly. You not only embarrassed that little punk back at the ranch…but also left Emily feeling like she is nothing more than a piece of property to you.

  The answer he got from within to the question that plagued him made him much worse than he did when he first asked the question, silently, to himself.

  He managed to guide the vehicle down the stretch of road with little difficulty, and pull it up beside where his home was. His hands guided the car around to the backside of the building, and parked it to where it would be out of sight of Johnathon once he started down the road on foot in search of it. After he had shut the engine off, John looked over to her, and found her head to be hanging a bit and her to be biting her bottom lip to a degree.

  I can’t take this…I have to fix this. I can’t let her feel like she is nothing at all but just a piece of ass to me. She is more than that to me, and I plan to show her that right now.

  Chapter Seven

  John reached over towards one of her hands closest to him, and slipped his fingers between them. He watched her eyes move down in the direction of their hands with a hesitant look in her gentle gaze. John waited for Emily’s stare to make its way to his own before his deep voice started to pour the core of his heart and soul out to her.

  “Emily…” John whispered. “I want to apologize to you for what I said to Johnathon back at the ranch…about you.”

  He was wrong about talking about her in the way he did, and making her out to look like a whore or a slut. That was not his intention at all, but he didn’t take the time to really think before he spoke.

  “I didn’t mean for what I said about you to come across in the manner it did, and make you uncomfortable by me saying it.”

  “I know you didn’t mean for it to come out like
it did, John,” Emily replied, “but it still bothered me a lot with how it made me look to my ex-boyfriend.”

  The tone in her voice made his heart nearly break due to the intense amount of pain and heartache that was resonating from it. Not only had he said something way out of lien about the one woman whose opinion meant the most to him, but he had caused her to feel pain, something he never wanted to do.

  “I know that no amount of me sitting here and begging you for your forgiveness or trying to turn back time to change what I said is going to take everything away, and make it all better.”

  Speaking from his heart, John slid the palm of his right hand away from her hand that he had been holding, and placed it against a side of her face, gently, with absolute tenderness in his touch to match the growing sound in his Texan accent.

  “However…I am going to make damn sure to start making up for what I did right now, and have what I said seem like just a horrible dream.”

  “I know that you are going to do that and so much more, John.” Emily replied, speaking from his heart, in a tone that matched his own. “I believe you one hundred percent.”

  “That is good to know.”

  He let his hand linger on her face for a little while longer before he slipped it away, and over to the door handle on his side. Slipping his fingers around the black door handle, his voice started to have a little more serious tone coming to the surface of it.

  “Now…We have to get ready for when that crazy ex-boyfriend of yours decides to show his ugly face around here in an attempt to look tough when he is nothing more than a whiny little bitch.”

  * * *

  Sitting on the passenger side of the car, Emily watched him ease his door open while a smirk started to dance across the fair complexion of her face.