Cowboy Rescue [Men for Hire 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (17 page)

“Of course I do. We’ve been talking for a while now.”

She prayed that she wouldn’t antagonize him. Getting him angry wouldn’t help her situation. But she couldn’t play along with his delusion.

“No, we haven’t. That was someone else. Only the last few e-mails were from me, and I told you to leave me alone.”

The smile he’d had died. In its place was a frown that held cruelty and anger.

“
You
are the one I was talking to. Don’t you understand? It was you I fell in love with. I fell in love with your dark hair and your mesmerizing green eyes.”

“You’re talking about photographs. Whoever did that fake Friends Place page took photographs off my page and created a whole new person named Torrie Winters. Aside from the photos, nothing about Torrie was me.”

“No!” He whirled away from her and hit a nearby table with his hands flat on the surface.

She inhaled sharply at the array of weapons sitting on top. He had a handgun, a rifle, and a long knife as well as several boxes of food and a large bottle of water. It was only then that she noticed the rolled sleeping bag lying in the corner of the room.

He’s been here this entire time. Watching me. Watching us.

“I love you.”

“But it wasn’t me.”

“I don’t care about the e-mails. I fell in love with you the first second I saw your beautiful face.” He squatted in front of her.

She pushed her back against the wall to get as far from him as possible.

“I don’t care what your real name is. I don’t care what that bitch who pretended to be you wrote. I told her as much when we met, and she still tried to get me to choose her over you.”

“You met with her? Did she tell you her real name?”

He gave her a suspicious look before standing up and stalking toward the table of weapons. His back was to her as he pushed the weapons around the table. Was he deciding which one to use?

“You knew her, you know.”

“What are you talking about?”

He pivoted to face her. “You knew her. Quite well, in fact.”

“Who is she?”

He brightened, then dug into a satchel placed near his sleeping bag. He lifted his hand, revealing the heart-shaped locket hanging on the golden chain.

It can’t be. No. There has to be more than one of those lockets.

“This will look so much prettier on you.” He kneeled before her, unhooked the clasp, then hung it around her neck.

She held her breath as he leaned close, too close. The heat from his body wafted over her as the staleness of his breath burned her nostrils. She had to close her eyes and concentrate to keep from throwing up at his touch.

She opened them when she no longer felt his presence so close to her. But he hadn’t gone far. “Where did you get that locket?”

He touched her again, taking hold of the locket, his fingertips brushing her chest. “From your friend, of course. She said it was yours anyway, so I’m merely returning it.”

“You met Sharron?”
Sharron’s the one who created Torrie?

He dropped the locket and moved away. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have met with her once I declared my love for you.”

Is he apologizing to me? For meeting Sharron or for another perceived wrong?

“But she was so persistent. Then when she threatened to tell you and those men you had hanging around you, I had to meet with her.”

The way he’d said “those men” made her stomach flip over in a sickening way. Had he hurt them after taking her?

“I hated every moment with her. And I promise, now that we’re together, I won’t ever meet with another woman.” He gave her a repentant look, then rubbed his hand along his thigh as though trying to wipe dirt off his palm.

“What happened with her?” She couldn’t bring herself to ask what had happened
to
Sharron.

He averted his gaze from hers. “I couldn’t help it, you know. She kept insisting that she was the one I loved. She was the one who made the fake Friends Place page and used your photograph. She had to be punished.”

He shrugged and made a funny face. “I mean, who does that, right?”

She shook her head, alarm keeping her voice at bay.

“I tried to make her understand that you and I were meant for each other. That her e-mails, while provocative, didn’t matter. But she wouldn’t listen. She shouted at me, calling me all kinds of awful names. But even then I wasn’t going to hurt her. Not until she started using her filthy mouth to say bad things about you.”

Oh, my God.

The evilness corrupted his features, and, once again, she looked into the face of madness. “It wasn’t until she threatened to tell you about me, to tell those men about me, that I got really angry.”

He grabbed the knife off the table. “I had to do it, don’t you see? I had to stop her.”

She swallowed. “What did you have to do?”

He pressed the point of the knife into his palm and a bright spot of red appeared as the blood seeped from the puncture wound. “I had to stab her.”

Oh, my God. He killed Sharron. Is he going to kill me?

He licked the blood from his hand. “Once I stabbed her, she shut up. So I kept stabbing her.” His chuckle was filled with glee. “I liked stabbing her so much that I couldn’t recognize her once I stopped.”

“What are you planning on doing with me?” She had to ask, even if she wasn’t prepared to know.

“Sweetheart, haven’t I made myself clear? You’re going to be mine. But don’t worry. We have all the time in the world for you to understand. Yes, we’re going to have a wonderful life together.”

* * * *

“I’m dumber than a hound sniffing up a skunk’s butt.”

Mike urged his horse ahead of his brothers, keeping his attention on the ground in front of him. Brad was off to his right while Jack covered the area to his left. They’d taken the direction they’d last seen Maria heading while Gabriel rounded up other teams to cover the rest of the ranch.

“We’re all to blame. We started thinking of her as our woman instead of as our client. We let our guard down because of it.”

Mike shifted in his saddle and scanned the horizon. Brad was right, had been right from the beginning when he’d urged them to keep their personal feelings under control. But keeping control while Maria was around had proven too difficult. And now she was the one paying for their mistake.

“Maybe she’s okay. Maybe she just needs more time alone.”

Mike knew Jack was trying to convince himself as much as his brothers, but it was useless.

“From the tracks we found, it’s obvious he got her and carried her off.” Brad kicked his horse and pulled into a trot.

They’d followed her tracks leading away from the house, but the dry, cracked Oklahoma dirt had left little to guide them. Brad was an expert tracker, but even he’d lost the trail a few yards beyond the place where she’d been abducted. That had been several hours ago, and they were losing hope that she was still on the ranch.

“Maybe she got away and hasn’t made it back to the ranch.”

“Stop dreaming, Jack.” Brad tugged his hat lower on his forehead. “We all know what’s happened. Denying it won’t help her.”

Mike cantered his horse beside Brad’s. “Gabriel called the men he’d sent back to her place in Destiny, right?”

Brad pulled out his phone. “Yeah. And Fletcher just contacted me to say that he’s checked her Friends Place page as well as her e-mail. But there’s nothing new. The jerk’s not bragging about taking her.”

“Have we considered calling in the state police?” Mike shifted in his saddle.

Brad could’ve given him a snide remark since he knew the answer to his question. But the time for ribbing each other was over. “It’s too soon. She hasn’t been gone twenty-four hours.”

His stomach churned, boiling his gut, but he ignored it. If he gave in to the fear attacking him, he’d lose what little chance he had of finding her. “Even after what happened to Sharron?”

“Gabriel’s pushing them. Let him handle that part. We need to keep looking. It’ll be dark soon.”

The authorities might not consider her a missing person, but if they took too long to find her, would they find her at all? And if they did, would she still be alive?

Just before they’d started looking for Maria, Fletcher had given them the dark news. The sheriff of Destiny had found Sharron Watkins’s dead body buried in a shallow grave outside town. They should’ve told Maria about Sharron’s involvement in setting up the phony Friends Place page earlier, but they’d let it slip, preferring to work on their personal relationships with her.

“I swear to God, if that asshole hurts one hair on her head, I’ll tear him apart with my own hands.”

Mike felt the same as Jack. “You’ll have to beat me to him.” He cursed under his breath. “I’m never going to forgive myself if she gets hurt. Or worse.”

“Don’t even think that way, bro.” Brad took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow. He adjusted the strap of his rifle and let the weapon rest against his left shoulder.

They each carried firearms, with Brad preferring his rifle and Jack resting his shotgun in its holder hanging from his saddle. Mike rested his thumb on the hammer of his handgun. The leather strap holding it in its holster was unbuttoned and the safety off.

He pulled back on the reins as he came over a short rise. A patch of trees grew in the center of the little valley and smack in the middle of the trees was an old shack.

“Brad. Jack.”

They pulled their horses closer to his.

“Do you remember that shack?”

Jack didn’t respond, but Brad was already nodding. “I’d forgotten about that place. Hell, I figured it had probably fallen down by now.”

“We’d better check it out.” Jack clucked to his mount to move forward.

“Hold up a sec.” Brad leaned back in his saddle. “We don’t want to spook him if he’s in there with her.”

“Right.” Mike dismounted and dropped the reins. His horse, like the others on the ranch, had been trained to stay where they left it. His brothers did the same, bringing their weapons along.

“We go in quiet and check it out. If she’s in there, we don’t want him getting jumpy and doing something we’ll regret.”

“There’s only the one door and the one window.” Mike ran through the possible scenarios. “We could wait him out. He has to come out sometime.”

“Before or after he does whatever he wants to Maria?”

He heard the fear in Jack’s voice. Even if King hadn’t killed her, he might have already done terrible things to her. Things he couldn’t let himself think about. “Don’t go there. We have to treat this like any other hostage situation. Our personal feelings will get in the way.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Mike wanted to knock his brother in the head. “No, it’s not. I’m as afraid for her as you are.”

As usual, Brad was the one to make them get a grip. “Enough of that. We do this straight by the numbers. Now cut the jawing and let’s move.”

They eased down the slight slope toward the shack. Keeping their previous formation, Mike hurried toward the front of the shack and the one door. Brad, his body low to the ground, rushed the right side while Jack took the left. They made it to the shack, then pressed their bodies to the walls and listened.

Mike eased under the dirty window to the right of the door. Taking care, he peered around the edge and squinted, trying to see past the layers of grime. If a lantern hadn’t been turned on inside the shack, he doubted he would’ve seen anything.

Maria sat against the far wall, her gaze locked on the man in front of her. The man had his back to Mike, but he could still take in his stats. He didn’t have much of a physique, which told him that he probably didn’t have training in hand-to-hand self-defense. He wasn’t a large man, but rather one of average height and build. Mike was almost ready to signal to his brothers that they could take him when he noticed the weapons lying on the table. The light hitting the long blade the man held caught his eye.

Shit. That’s probably the same knife he used on Sharron.

Maria’s eyes shifted toward him, then widened before she jerked her gaze away. He could see her take a breath before centering her attention on King again. Mike pulled away from the window and motioned for his brothers to join him. They huddled together.

“They’re in there. Maria’s sitting against the far wall, and she saw me. But she kept her cool. King’s walking around with his back to the door. He’s got a Glock, a rifle that I couldn’t get a good look at, and he’s holding a large knife.”

“Is she hurt?”

Mike shook his head at Jack. “I don’t think so. At least not bad.”

“What are our options?” The muscle in Brad’s jaw flexed.

“We’ve got only one that I can see. We go straight through the door. But keep your weapons low. We don’t want any stray bullets hitting her.”

“So you think we can take him down without firing a shot?”

Mike wasn’t sure, but Maria’s safety came first. “That’s what I’m hoping. Now that she knows we’re here, she’ll be ready.”

Brad placed a hand on his shoulder. “Then let’s do this.”

Maria couldn’t believe it. She kept her focus on King, who seemed to eat up the attention. But that was okay as long as he hadn’t noticed her looking at the window.

But what would the Granger men do? How would they save her? Her mind ran wild with the possibilities. Would they wait for King to leave? With or without her? Would they break in and overpower him? If they did, what could she do to help?

“We’re going to be so happy together, sweetheart.” King put the knife back on the table and picked up the handgun instead. He went to his knees in front of her.

She didn’t want to look at the gun he placed on the floor between them. But she couldn’t keep from doing so. Did she have time to pick it up and shoot before he could stop her?

“I know what you’re thinking. You want to kill me, don’t you?”

She pulled her gaze back to his dark, crazy one. “No. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Not even you. But you have to know you can’t keep me against my will.”