Free Destiny Strikes by Theresa Flowers-Lee Page A

understood when her lids lowered that she would not be coming around anytime soon. When she collapsed, he caught her up into his arms before she hit the singed ground. Further complicating the slippery slope of lunacy, a painful jolt shot through his body again, and this time it brought him to one knee. The unexpected discharge from the cargo in his arms was immediate. Her back bowed at an inconceivable angle, and she emitted the most lustful moan Travis ever heard.
    In his current position, her generous breasts, nipples pink as petal points, lay cradled near eye-level. He gazed transfixed by them. They were magnificent.
    The second moan that escaped her lips broke the spell her body put him under. He had to release her before he became one of the perverts he put in jail. Other than her moans, she still hadn’t showed actual signs of consciousness. He needed to get her into her house and himself the hell away from here.
    Her head drooped over his arm, baring her slender throat. He adjusted her properly for the trip inside and her head came to rest against his chest.
    And I thought I had issues, he thought as he maneuvered her through the door.

CHAPTER 10
    Travis stopped by the Erect Gas Station before heading into work the next morning.
    Sleep-deprived and baffled by how his world had slipped through the reins of reality in such a short time, he couldn’t muster the energy to get out of his vehicle to go inside. In a way, with everything around him changing, he wondered if anything could match the alternate universe he’d been sucked into. Was it so farfetched he’d think of Fallon as Linda Blair in The Exorcist ? Then Barbara had been murdered. It all seemed like a bad acid trip if he were so inclined to taking drugs. He pulled down the review mirror and took a good look. Obviously not.
    He stepped from his car and performed a habitual quick sweep of his surroundings. Nothing here was out of the ordinary. After filling the tank, he stepped into the store for a few general items.
    “How you doing, Travis?” Henry raised his hand, motioning him over. “You haven’t been in the last couple of days, and we started to worry, son.”
    The sectioned-off opening behind the checkout counter provided an unobstructed view of the three men sitting at a large round oak table. Every morning it was the same thing: a pot of coffee and gossip. Late evenings filled with listening to the men playing banjos and guitars. Sometimes he stopped in just to hear them swap stories and joke with each other. Almost a year after he arrived in town, each man had offered him their friendship, before grilling him about kin and finding the right woman. Over time, they had begun to treat him like family. He cherished them as well.
    Travis took a seat beside Joe. As he eased into a straight-back wooden chair, he tipped his head, acknowledging them all in greeting.
    In unison, varying “Good mornings” and mischievous smiles adorned their faces.
    Travis frowned.
    He knew they anxiously waited to discuss a curvaceous troublemaker. However, he needed whatever information they had on Barbara, as well as whatever passed through the grapevine about Fallon, and if anyone had noticed anything unusual about the two women.
    Nothing went on in this town without going through these men first.
    They fidgeted in their seats, seemingly anxious to hit him with questions about Seagrove’s newest resident. It did not take long after Donna served his mug of coffee. Travis took his first sip and the questions commenced.
    “Heard you pulled over the little lady on the Harley? Was she as purty as old Joe over here claims?” Jacob asked, his wide toothless grin prominent in his mirth. He elbowed Joe in the side, and Joe took the gentle ribbing in stride.
    “She’s taken over the old Matthews farm over there on Brower Mill Road,” Henry said. “That place has been empty for years.”
    Travis noted how Henry eyed Jacob with a conspiratorial wink before emphasizing,