Fugitive Millionaire (Fugitive Millionaire Book One) (8 page)

“Oh, you’re gonna get it now.”

Claire squeals as she tries to get past him by making a beeline to the door, but he’s too fast. He grabs her again. “Gotcha!”

“Put me down you…you outlaw.”

“Make me.”

Claire lightly beats him on the chest. “You rogue. Stop manhandling me.”

“Aw, it wouldn’t be any fun if I did. Hey, Claire?”

“What?”

“A cool thought just popped into my mind. Being on the run like this with you, it feels kind of like Bonnie and Clyde.”

“Only we’re the innocent version,” she says lightheartedly. “We didn’t do it, judge, honest.”

They both laugh.

Fabian is feeling lusty. He doesn’t want to wait until nightfall to try out their natural oak bed. “Bonnie and Clyde must have had some great sex after a bank robbery.”

Claire returns his lustful gaze. “Babe, you think outlaw sex is better than regular sex?”

“Let’s find out.”

“Woo hoo! You naughty man.”

Fabian enrobes Claire with his body and they begin making out heavily.

Bump!

They both hear the noise.

“What was that?” Claire asks.

“I don’t know.”

The couple listens intently for a minute or so.

“It’s probably one of the horses being nosy,” Fabian reasons.

They go back to kissing and other sensual pleasures.

Fabian is lying in the snow enjoying the warmth of the sun beating down on his face. He’s feeling happy as a clam because he knows Claire is nearby. He can feel her gentle loving touch even though he can’t see her. He knows he should probably get up and do something useful, but he’s feeling way too good at the moment to move from his current spot. Claire’s soft hands are dancing along his chest. He could lie here all day and let her fingers explore every inch of his body. How could he resist such a tantalizing treat? He enjoys being her boy toy.

Suddenly, Fabian feels a cold chill in the middle of his chest. He looks down and sees a snowball in the spot where he feels the sensation of coldness. He’s not sure why the snowball is there, and he’s puzzled as to why he’s lying in the snow with no shirt on. Shouldn’t he be freezing his butt off? Instead, the feeling of freezing cold is isolated to the area where the snowball sits.

Fabian reaches up and grabs a hold of Claire’s wrist. “Too cold, baby.” The words feel like cotton coming out of his mouth.

Claire moves the snowball slowly across his upper chest and sits it squarely on his left nipple. This sends a cold chill through his entire body. Fabian wakes up with a start. “Huh?”

Fabian is looking directly into her eyes and they are different somehow. The shape and color are all wrong. Is Claire some kind of chameleon that can change her appearance at will? Fabian immediately senses that something’s not right. He fights through his brain fog and forces himself to come out of it. As his mind clears up a bit more, he can see clearly that the woman bending over him rubbing an ice cube on his chest is not Claire—it’s Amanda.

Fabian surveys the unfamiliar room with his eyes. “Where am I?”

Amada smiles like a cat that just captured a canary. “In my bedroom.”

“Your bedroom? Why?”

“Because I’ve got a proposition for you that I think you’re gonna like,” Amanda coos while stroking his bare chest with her nimble fingers.

“Amanda, whatever it is you’re doing, I’m not interested. I’ve gotta get back to Claire.” Fabian struggles to get up off of her bed, but his body is not cooperating for some reason.

“Are you sure?” Amanda says teasingly. “She’s nice, but you need someone who can really give you what you need.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ll find out if you stay.”

Fabian is feeling more like himself again as each second ticks by. His mind has completely left the dream state he was in only a short moment ago. He pushes Amanda’s hands away from him. “No. I’m getting out.”

“Be my guest,” Amanda says nonchalantly. “Go on back to Claire, if she’s what you want.”

“She is.”

Fabian attempts to stand up and walk, but crumbles to the floor with a thud. His legs simply gave away as if they were attached to a rag doll. He quickly realizes he’s been drugged with something and the effects are still lingering in his system. “What did you give me?”

Amanda seems unconcerned about his condition. “Just something to make you calm. It’ll wear off after a while.”

Fabian tries to remember the last thing he ate or drank. After lunch, Amanda had sent Clancy to their guest cabin with a pitcher of fruit punch. They considered it a nice gesture. He and Claire had both drank some after their hot and heavy lovemaking session. That’s how this must have happened.

Fabian makes another attempt at getting up off the floor and realizes there’s something heavy tugging on his waist. He looks down and sees a silver chain strapped around his mid-section. To his horror this chain is linked to a longer chain that is soldered onto a metal stripper pole located near Amanda’s bed. This must be some kind of bizarre dream. First he’s drugged and now he’s chained to a pole. Fabian tugs at the chain with all his might, but the chain is secured in place by a heavy-duty padlock.

“Okay, Amanda, you’ve had your fun. Let me go now.”

Amanda gets up off the bed and stands over him. She gives him a swift, hard kick in the crotch.

“Ow!” Fabian curls up in a ball of excruciating pain.

“Fabian, honey. You’ll find that your life will be a lot easier, and way more fun, when you choose to cooperate with me.” Amanda seizes the opportunity to pour a sweet liquid that tastes like punch down Fabian’s throat.

He gags and sputters. “Amanda, have you lost your freaking mind? This is crazy.”

Amanda doesn’t say anything. She simply watches Fabian as he drifts away from full consciousness once again.

*****

Claire groggily wakes up to pitch-black darkness. For some reason her entire body feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. “Wh…where am I?” Waking up in a room that isn’t her usual bedroom fills her with a strong sense of being out of place. She lies still for a few minutes to allow herself to regain her bearings. “Oh yeah, Colorado.” Now it all comes flooding back. She’s in Colorado with Fabian.

Claire turns to her right and realizes Fabian isn’t in bed with her. She must of fell asleep after they made love. That was in the afternoon. It’s dark out now, so she figures she’s been asleep for hours. Funny, she doesn’t remember getting dressed or making up the bed. But, she must have done it, because she’s lying fully clothed on top of the western style comforter.

Claire sits up and the room spins. She waits for the spinning to stop and her vision to come into clear focus.

Wow. I feel like a wall or something fell on me.

She can’t recall ever being this out of it after having sex. Maybe it’s the high altitude that’s messing with her body. Fabian warned her it might take a while to adjust to it. She just wasn’t expecting it to hit her so hard.

“Fabian?”

No answer. Claire assumes he must have gone into the living room. She can see the light on and hear the TV. She appreciates that he let her continue sleeping into the evening. She’s eager to go out there and give him a big ole kiss. Then she’ll scrounge up something for them to eat from the food items she saw earlier in the fridge. There’s lunchmeat, condiments, cheese and bread for sandwiches.

Claire stumbles to her feet. “Whoa.” She wasn’t expecting her legs to be so wobbly. After briefly steadying herself against the dresser, she shuffles out the door and into the living room.

“Clancy? What’re you doing here?”

Clancy looks up at Claire from his relaxed posture on the couch. He gives her the same warm smile that had made her trust him immediately at the airport. “Hey, there, Claire. Did you have a good nap?”

“Yeah, I did. The altitude here really knocked me for a loop, though. Where’s Fabian?”

Clancy folds his arms and returns his gaze to the TV. “Have you ever watched this show? For some darn reason I’m a sucker for these cooking shows where people get kicked off for stupid shit like…”

Claire’s head starts throbbing with a low-grade headache that seems to come out of nowhere. She rubs her temples with her index fingers. “What are you doing here, Clancy? And, where’s Fabian?”

“I’m just here making sure you’re okay, that’s all. Amanda wanted me to be here when you woke up. She thought you might be worried about Fabian and get all stressed out. Let me put your mind at ease. Fabian is okay. He’s over at the main house with Amanda.”

Claire is confused, has a headache and is still a little groggy from her nap. She’s probably not going to be very good company, but oh well. “I better get my butt over there and join them for dinner. Amanda might think I’m being rude.”

Clancy gets up and strolls into the kitchenette. He holds up a big container of KFC. “Dinner’s right here. We got lots of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuits…all compliments of Amanda. I can warm a plate up for you in the microwave, if you’re hungry.”

Claire is still totally confused. “No, that’s okay, Clancy. I’d rather eat dinner with Fabian and Amanda.” Claire heads for the door, but Clancy grabs her around the waist and swings her away from the only exit.

“Sorry, little miss. I can’t let you go anywhere. Amanda’s orders.”

“What? Her orders? I don’t understand.”

Claire realizes that something is very wrong. Why is Amanda having Clancy stop her from going back to the main house? She’s suddenly overcome by a strong desire to storm over to that home and see exactly what Amanda is doing with her boyfriend. She’s pretty sure he’s not interested in Amanda, but her gut is telling her that Amanda’s flirtatious glances at Fabian during lunch were not so innocent after all. Amanda wants to be more than just friends with Fabian and is probably trying to lure him into fooling around behind her back. Well, that’s not going to happen. She’ll make sure Amanda knows that she’s not going to stand for being disrespected. Claire struggles to free herself from Clancy’s tight grip.

“Let me go!”

She almost manages to pull away from Clancy, but he holds onto her like she’s a longhorn steer that is headed for a branding.

“You wanna wrestle, huh, little lady? Come on. I can hold on as long as you wanna fight me.”

“I thought you said you weren’t a cowboy,” Claire says angrily.

“Well, I’m modest about my skills at times. Truth is I can wrangle with the best of em.”

“Let me go, Clancy. Please!”

“No can do. If you go running over there, we’d both be in trouble,” Clancy says with conviction. “I’m in charge of keeping the peace between you two.”

“You can’t hold me here against my will, forever.”

“Don’t plan too. This whole situation is just temporary. I gotta keep you out of the way until Amanda gets what she needs from your boyfriend.”

Claire stops struggling with Clancy. She realizes that there’s some kind of weird conspiracy going on between Amanda and Clancy that involves Fabian. “Clancy, what is Amanda doing over there with Fabian?”

Clancy seems embarrassed by the question. He scratches his head and kicks the toe of his boot into the floor, signaling he wishes he didn’t have to answer. “Well, now little lady, you got to understand that Amanda is a good looking woman. She’s got her needs. Ryan is gone for weeks at a time when he’s working on a big project, and she’s all alone in that big house.”

Claire recognizes that Clancy is trying to excuse Amanda’s behavior before she even knows what’s really going on. Whatever it is, it’s something that makes Clancy squirm. She’s got to keep pressing him for answers. “What’s that got to do with Fabian?”

Clancy rubs his head and averts looking her directly in the eyes. “Well, I can’t tell you exactly. But, she urgently needs him for something.”

“She wants to screw him, doesn’t she?”

Clancy blushes. “You can’t blame her now. Amanda’s got a certain type she likes. Besides, the two of you don’t exactly have a choice in the matter. We saw Fabian on the news.”

“Amanda said she doesn’t watch the news.”

“She told a little white lie,” Clancy says with amusement.

Now the real truth comes out. Amanda has a hidden dark side that she and Fabian blindly walked right into. It also appears that she’s roped Clancy into helping her pull off her little scheme to blackmail Fabian into having sex with her.

What a conniving bitch!

“When Ryan called and told us you guys were coming here, Amanda decided she was gonna get the most out of this situation. So, you can either stay here and do what Amanda wants, or you can take your chances of getting turned over to the cops.”

Claire is astonished at his boldness. “Are you threatening to turn us in, Clancy?”

“Me? Naw. I ain’t no snitch. But, I can’t say for sure what Amanda would do if you cross her. She’s a princess type that likes to get her way.”

“What if I wanted to leave here without Fabian? Could I walk out that door without you hassling me?”

Clancy shrugs. “Sure. She’s not interested in you, just your boyfriend. Did he really kill that woman?”

“No! He’s innocent. We came out here hoping to avoid the cops long enough to find out what happened to Sloane and clear his name.”

“Oh, well, now you’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place, aren’t you?”

Claire sighs. “I guess so. I’m not leaving here without him.”

“Please understand, Claire, that I don’t personally have anything against you, or Fabian. You seem like nice people. The thing is…Amanda pays me really well to do as I’m told and keep her private life a secret. Ryan doesn’t have a clue what goes on here while he’s gone.”

“What exactly goes on?”

“That’s a secret.”

Claire realizes she’s going to have to play along with Clancy, and this weird situation she’s been thrust into, in order to gain his trust. “Okay. I guess I have no choice but to relax here with you and wait for this whole awful episode in our lives to be over with.”

“I’m glad you understand the situation.”

Claire eyes the bucket of chicken. “You know what? I’m really hungry. I think I’ll take you up on that chicken dinner.” Claire goes into the small kitchen and prepares a plate. She also finds a twelve pack of beer sitting in the fridge. “Hey, Clancy. Is this your beer?”

“Yep. You can have one if you want.”

“Thanks.”

Claire brings her food, along with several bottles of cold beer into the living room. She sits and eats at the other end of the couch. Clancy soon relaxes again and begins drinking the beer. She had purposely brought only one for herself and two for him. She hopes that her assumption about how much he enjoys his beer is going to turn out to be right.

One hour passes. Claire is still nursing her bottle of beer. Clancy has already finished the original two she brought. He is now working on his third. At the commercial break, Claire goes and gets three more bottles of brew and sits them in front of him. “Thought you might want to keep enjoying your favorite beer during this marathon.”

“Thanks, Claire. You’re all right, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not one of those rude and obnoxious New Yorkers you hear about.”

“Well, I never pegged you for one of those types anyway. I could tell right away that you are a good person.”

“And, I could tell that you’re a salt of the earth type of guy.”