The Love Ranch (BWWM Romance) (12 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

Tiana unhappily loaded the dishwasher, her gaze fixed on an unseen spot. He had been avoiding her. It was two weeks since he said so much as a word to her and even though Lauren had, true to his word, packed up and left the very next day, Christian’s attitude towards her had not softened in the least.

In fact he had avoided her so pointedly that Jamal had started to ask if Mr. Langfield was mad at them. It didn’t help that her feeling of being watched had increased and she was damned if she was going to tell Christian that.

From the corner of her eye, she saw someone run past the kitchen window, crouched low, with a hoodie over their head. Curiously, she angled her head to see better; she caught merely a flash of wine-colored hair and then the person was gone. It had to have been a woman, she decided. The build was too slight to be a man, especially not Hank. Lauren was gone though, right?

Thinking of Lauren reminded her of the last time she had seen the other woman and Tiana immediately forgot about the crouching figure she had seen. Laura’s eyes had been puffy and swollen almost shut from crying. She had looked nothing like her usual polished, cosmopolitan self. She had been clad in a t-shirt and jeans of all things, her hair was swept into a careless ponytail and her face was scrubbed clean of all makeup.

“This is all your fault you know,” Lauren had spat, glaring at Tiana across the huge expanse of the kitchen.

The skillet slipped from Tiana’s hand as she jumped.

“I’m not sure I follow you,” she had said politely, even though she knew, God help her she knew.

The heartbreak on the other woman’s face had been so obvious that even a blind man could have seen it. Focusing on it had helped Tiana pretend her own heart was not breaking in her chest.

She had known immediately though that the woman was referring to Christian.

“Christian called off our engagement. He’s offered to compensate me for the effort it took me to come here!”

“I... see?” Tiana repeated.

“It’s your fault, you stupid bitch,” Lauren had yelled angrily, all the veins in her neck standing out in stark relief. Then before Tiana could so much as respond, Lauren had turned on her heel and fled.

Tiana sighed now, her hands drying some plates. It was ironic that in two short weeks, she had managed to burn just about every meal, annoy everyone in the kitchen and on the grounds, and alienate everyone generally but Jamal. She had also managed to skip meals so much that she felt a little faint.

Her baby was the one person not mad at her, she thought smiling as she thought of the roses he had taken to bringing her every day. He had apparently wrapped the head gardener around his little finger too because the man had taken to having a single rose ready for Jamal
to take to his mother every day. 

She had been miserable for two weeks, she admitted to herself, and Jamal was becoming worried. She could see the worry in his young eyes when he looked at her these days and that worried her. She didn’t want her son worrying about anything but being a kid. Even her studies had suffered. She had been unable to do anything at all in the two weeks since their quarrel.

With a sigh of exasperation, she dumped the last of the silverware to drain and wiped off her hands with a towel.

She loved Christian, she admitted silently to herself. She was in love with him. But somehow, admitting it to herself was one thing, and saying it to him was something entirely different. But Christian made her feel alive, he made her feel joy beyond anything she had ever felt, he made her want to do things she had never done before like ride a horse across a field or make love in a cottage.

She whipped off her apron with a sigh; she had to make this right. Even if they could not be together, she couldn’t lose him as a friend. He was so good with Jamal, and really kind to her but even he had to admit that marriage was another kettle of fish.

I can’t do this, she told herself, slamming out of the kitchen. If he was going to avoid her just because she had hesitated at his offer of marriage, she was going to tell him a thing or two about what she thought of his behavior!

“Have you seen Christian?” she asked the first man she came across.

He was bent over a task that looked to her like he was shoeing a horse, his large cowboy hat covering the better part of his face. He didn’t bother to look up as he grunted “Barn!”

Then he spat out a huge, fat glob of tobacco and saliva, aimed straight at her feet. Tiana escaped the splash only barely by jumping back just in time.

She marched out to the barn, anger helping her along as she blew furious breaths out through her nose. The bunkhouse was empty, she realized immediately as she stepped into it.

Suddenly, a chill blew right across her and she shivered. Goose bumps appeared on both her hands without warning and every last hair on the back of her neck stood right on end.

Oh God, Hank had found her?

Slowly, she turned around, her heart in her throat, and then she paused in surprise. It wasn’t Hank at all; it was that annoying cowboy who had given her a speech about riding while hitting on her. What was his name?

“You!” she said. The cowboy hat told her that he was the same ranch hand who had almost decorated her feet with tobacco few minutes ago.

“I see you remember me, huh?” he asked, chewing some more tobacco.

“Christian isn’t here,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Yes, I know,” he agreed.

“Then why did you say he was?” she asked, past the constriction in her throat. Surely she was wrong. He was looking at her with that familiar and disgusting way he had, his eyes seemingly stripping her shirt and jeans right off of her.

She felt dirty and naked.

“I wanted to have some time alone with you,” he murmured. He grinned stupidly at her, his slack-jawed expression making her want to plant her fist in his face.

Rick! His name was Rick, she remembered.

“Well, Rick, be assured that I am not interested in spending time alone with you today or any other day,” she said.

She saw surprise flare in his eyes and realized he had counted on her not recognizing him, much less knowing his name. Well he obviously had something bad planned but now he knew she could identify him, she relaxed, banking on the fact that he was a coward and he would turn tail and run.

His next words however, froze her heart in her chest.

“Of course you remembered me. I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that we were soul mates.”

Then he began to walk towards her, his stupid dopey grin slashing his face. His stench reached her from five feet away and automatically, she took three hasty steps back. His grin vanished, his eyes taking on a cold, hard quality.

“Why are you running away from me?”

“I’m not. I just... I need to check on my son,” she lied desperately.

“Mm. The handsome little boy. What is he, four? He’s definitely a cutie.”

The way he asked made Tiana’s skin crawl as she realized with absolute certainty that she was in the presence of a pedophile.

“You keep away from my son,” she said, her anger fueling her with enough courage that she stealthily began to search for a weapon.

Her temporary distraction was all the opportunity Rick needed, and he sprung, his heavy hands wrapping about her shoulders in a bruising grip as he wrenched her close to him.

Tiana
screamed; fright, anger and revulsion surging through her all at the same time. She lifted her hand and slapped Rick as hard as she could and then in the next minute, all the breath whooshed out of her as he shoved her backwards and sent her careening into a stall door. She collapsed to the floor, dimly thinking that she was bound to have a bump the size of an egg on her head by morning. 

Rick knelt astride her, his huge legs pinning her down even as she felt his ham-sized hands fumbling with the buttons of her shirt.

“Help,” she screamed, still struggling weakly beneath him.

His hand brushed her breast and suddenly, she couldn’t hold back again, she retched, vomiting right all over him and herself.

She saw his face twist with revulsion and then thankfully, just then, he was wrenched away from her by another force. She stared blearily as she heard the sickening sound of knuckles connecting with flesh.

Christian roared with rage as he slammed his fist repeatedly into Rick’s face. Tiana decided she must have taken quite a blow to the head when she bumped into that stall door because she could have sworn just then that she saw Hank appear and jump into the melee. Except, he wasn’t helping Rick fight Christian; it was actually the other way round.

Warm hands raised Tiana tenderly from her prone position and she looked up into the kind eyes of Ambrose the head gardener.

“Come on, sweetie. Rose will help you,” he said as he guided her towards the door.

“Christian,” she began spinning around in alarm as she heard someone grunt.

“Will be just fine. You should fear more for that Rick guy,” Ambrose told her gruffly, his gnarled hands holding hers with surprising strength.

“You poor thing,” Rose crooned immediately when she saw Tiana. “We always knew that Rick character was up to no good.”

Tiana nodded her agreement as Ambrose guided her into the house then she wrapped her arms around the tea mug Rose had thrust into her hands and watched as Ambrose called the cops. His white head bobbed repeatedly as he earnestly made his report to the dispatcher.

Tiana smiled in spite of herself when she heard Ambrose say, “You ask me one more idiotic question in that tone, Cyrus, and I’m gonna come down to that station and blister your ear myself! And you tell your mother I want to speak to her!”

Even from where she sat, Tiana could hear Cyrus apologizing profusely for asking Ambrose if the suspect was armed.

Several minutes later, the cops pulled into the driveway, sirens blaring as they carted Rick away and took him for a little ride downtown.

***

“Tiana?” someone said, shaking her awake insistently. “Tiana!”

She opened her eyes, staring around in confusion as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. She was in her bed and dusk had fallen! How had she gotten here?

“Tiana!” the voice said even more insistently.

She turned in the direction of the voice, although she already knew who it was; Christian!

“Are you alright? He didn’t hurt you did he?” Christian asked, his eyes serious and darkened with concern as he stared into hers.

“Uh, no. I was... That is, you saved me just in time.”

His gray eyes watched her carefully, holding her gaze.

“Are you sure? I could have sworn...”

“He tried to hurt me, but he didn’t,” she interrupted. She wasn’t eager to relive what had happened in the barn.

“I suppose he confessed to the slashed tires and other stuff?”

“No. It’s weird but he swears he didn’t do it,” Christian said.

Images of what he had been willing to do to her flashed through her brain. Nausea roiled within her and she felt as though her entire skin was crawling with worms.

“I want to take a bath,” she announced, rolling off the bed and right to her feet.

Christian rose from the side of the bed immediately. “Sure. I understand. But come find me in the library when you're done. We need to talk, plus there is someone here to see you.”

“Someone?”

“Uh... how about we wait till you get downstairs after your shower?”

“It’s not Hank, is it?” she asked in a small voice, feeling faint.

Christian didn’t respond but his face told her everything. Hank was waiting downstairs like a civilized human being instead of charging up here and stealing Jamal.

But she wasn’t taking any chances though. “Jamal needs to be away from here,” she said, striding towards the door.

“Take your bath first and then hear Hank out. Your son is safe, I promise.”

“Where is he?” she asked, her eyes wide with fright and apprehension.

“I sent him to Tiny Tim’s with Rose and Ambrose and my foreman, Chase.”

Tiana relaxed a little then with a little nod, she fled into the bathroom; her body did itch all over.

She scrubbed her body vigorously, washing off Rick’s stench. She washed her hair while she was at it, enjoying the flush of the warm water through her hair.

She was done in record time and she hastily tugged on a short skirt and a New York University t-shirt she had picked up from the Salvation Army years ago.

She quickly dialed Tiny Tim’s from memory as she walked down the stairs.

“Tiny Tim’s, who the hell is this?” someone asked over the phone.