Her Outlaw Saviour

The Wee Comforts

"What are we doing?" Lee asked softly, almost breathlessly. "You are still healing. I can not cause you further harm."

He was right, and Elspeth knew it. Despite her pain, she could not deny that Lee's presence gave her comfort. Being away from him brought back the dark fear that had loomed over her since Kevin's attack.

"It's madness, it must be, but I know you. Somehow, some way, you are not new to me." She said it and realised he made it seem as though she had never been hurt, ever. She only knew that the comfort he gave her, she was unwilling to relenquish. She wanted him to be near her, with her, his arms around her. He was, somehow, her newfound safe place.

Lee knew it, too. When he looked at her, he did not see a broken woman. He really did fear taking on something as heavy as this. God knew he had his own secrets...

...He was a year in the past. Lee looked down at his hand. His revolver had just fired all six rounds into the man that had come after his sister. There he was, dead, on the ground, and he had killed him. "Lee, you'd best leave before the cops get here," said Alexis Harper, his twin sister.

"Thank you for saving me again, but I can't lose you!"

Lee looked into her tear heavy eyes and felt a pang of fear. "Lex," he cried out. "He was gonna fuckin kill you! They can't say I murdered him! I had to protect you!"

Alexis rushed to him and hugged him fiercely. "I am alive because of you. Please go before I don't have you! You are the one who has always had my back, now let me have yours!"

Lee came back to the present with a force that nearly gagged him. No. He would not leave this time. He had to know why this woman intoxicated him so.

"Elspeth, i don't have much," he said as he looked at her. "In fact I am stayin with a friend from my home state. Do you mind if I take you with me there?"

Elspeth was relieved that she would not have to be in the place that held nothing but darkness and pain. "Lee, I will take the wee comfort of being in a safe place with Connor, knowing you will be there to keep us from further harm. Does your friend know to expect us?"

"Yes, hon." Lee replied. "He does. I sat the night I met you and talked with him and his wife, and they both said to bring you if you wished. I want you to know, I will sleep on the sofa and you and Connor can have my bed. I do not want to rush contact that could make you uncomfortable or worse."

Elspeth thought hard about it. As badly as she wanted Lee near her, most of the s****l assault brought on by Kevin happened when she was sleeping. She did not want to lash out at a man she barely knew,a man that offered safety and respite. A man she was beginning to feel was her version of perfectly imperfect.

The drive to where Lee was living was a fairly long one. The sway of the car over the road lulled Elspeth into a serene sleep, at first...

She was on a boat. A sloop that was going out to a much bigger yacht. On board, there were many people dancing, laughing, and drinking. She was excited to have been invited to a yacht party! It was summertime in Key West, Florida, and she was high and wanted to have some fun. The dinghy slowed and stopped beneath the ladder that allowed access to the foredeck. She found her balance amid the rocking that the waves were causing on the small boat and reached up and climbed. As she reached the top rung, a handsome face peered over. It was Kevin Treacle. Their first meeting.

"Who are you, pretty thing?" He asked.

"Im Elspeth, but you can just call me Elz. That's what most people do anyway."

She replied as she extended her hand for help onto the deck.Kevin reached down and helped her over the last rung.

"It's nice to see a fresh face here for crying out loud! Richter only ever seems to invite escorts and gold diggers to his parties. Which are you?"

"I'm neither, are you a yank, or a wanker?" She sputtered out, rather insulted.

" I'm the gal with the party favours. If you want any you'd best learn some fuckin manners." She said laughingly as she set her bag down and pulled two kilos of high-quality cocaine from her bag.

"So can you party, or are you just a whelp?" She asked Kevin. He took her challenge and they drank, smoked weed and did line after line as all the rest paid and paid.

She woke with a start as the car slowly came to a stop. Lee looked at her.

"Did you know,you talk in your sleep? How long have you been clean?" He asked. She could tell he was not judging her.

"Clean from which drug? Barb pills, coke, or meth?"

She was not ashamed of her past. Her past gave her Connor. Her past had brought Lee into her life, no matter what he was to be to her.

" A decade from pills, four years from coke, and three and a half years from meth." She said.

"I was a dealer. It's easy to charm rich folk into buying dope when the Scot comes out here in the States. They ALL loved to just hear me talk and would buy to keep me there and talking."

She looked down at her hands.

"That is how Kevin and I met. We were on a yacht, I got him high as f**k and we conceived my boy. He showed his true colours when I took him to Kansas to see his older son. I caught him, not even in bed, f*****g Jimmy's mother in the kitchen." She laughed weakly.

"I left him there without a word. He didn't even know I had seen them he was so into what he was doing with that awful little tart. I drove all the way to Auburn and only stopped because my car broke down. I gave birth to Connor here, and out of nowhere, ten months ago, he called me out of the blue begging for a safe place to go, so for Connor, I let him come stay. I have never regretted any decision more than I regret that one."

'So he had planned to get in and ruin her.' Lee thought.

This bastard and his ploys reminded him of what Casey had done to Lex. 'He lured her with promised help for her son and used him to control and abuse her, sick motherfucker!'

"Elspeth," he said to her, "You do not have to fear him ever. As I said before, as long as I am around, no one is going to hurt you again."

She could sense that he meant it. She instinctively leaned over and laid her head on his right shoulder. He ached to kiss her again, but was so afraid he would drive her away. He didn't think he could take that blow, but he could not tell her, nor could he show her how she made him feel. Not if it posed a risk of not having her in his life.