The Love Ranch (BWWM Romance) (9 page)

The now-familiar prickly sensation at the back of her neck warned her again that someone was watching her, but a quick glance around the park assured her that everyone else was too preoccupied with whoever they came with to pay any attention.

She was being paranoid for nothing, she thought, relaxing against the park bench.

She looked idly around the park, past a woman with a baby in a stroller and three kids with their hands stuck out for the bit of chocolate she was sharing among them; her gaze swept a young couple kissing on a bench and then past a man sitting alone with a flat cap pulled down low over his eyes.

Their eyes met and Tiana’s heart leaped into her throat as she recognized Hank’s mean, beady eyes. She leaped to her feet immediately, blind panic clawing at her insides as she ran straight to the swing set and grabbed Jamal right off the set and into her arms, her feverish gaze flying to the man’s face disbelievingly.

He rose to his well-remembered height of six-five and took off the flat-cap on his head with hands the size of hams. It was Hank alright.

Tiana didn’t wait to see more, she took off at a run, her baby clutched in her arms as she ignored the people turning to stare at her.

“Mommy, who’s that man? Are we playing a game?” Jamal asked, his little hands encircling her neck trustingly.

She risked a quick glance over her shoulder, her hair flying around her head with the quick motion. Hank was running after her, his long legs easily eating up the distance. Desperately, she quickened her steps, her gaze fixed behind her on the nightmarish figure gaining on them.

All the breath whooshed out of her as she ran into a solid brick wall. Raw fear sliced through her and sob worked its way out of her throat. She turned to face her tormentor and felt her muscles turn to noodles with relief; it was Christian!

Another quick glance behind her showed her that Hank had vanished as though into thin air. She turned back to face Christian, her face leeched of all color, her eyes wild with fright.

“Tiana? What the hell? What’s wrong?” he asked, a concerned frown marring his smooth brow.

“H-H-Hank,” she stuttered through chattering teeth.

Christian looked over her shoulder; he didn’t see anything more threatening than a pair of white-haired, elderly lovers lost in each other’s gaze as they strolled up the path. Both of them were at least seventy years old, if they were a day.

“Hank? Are you sure?” he asked. She had never told him exactly why she was so scared of her ex but he knew fear and hers was very real. It was so profound he could almost taste it.

“He’s found us. We need to leave,” she announced in a hushed tone as she side-stepped him and began to race towards the exit from the park. Christian didn’t like the sound of that; she sounded as though she wanted to leave Paradise and not just the park. He wanted to ask her to explain but in her current state, he didn’t think she could.

“We’ll take my truck,” he said instead, guiding her towards it and driving off as soon as she and Jamal
were safely ensconced. 

Jamal lost interest now that the ‘game’ had ended and promptly went to sleep.

“So how about you tell me exactly what we're dealing with,” Christian suggested.

“We? You have a fiancée remember?” she snarled in a voice she barely recognized as hers.

Christian didn’t respond, just regarded her slow and steady, as effective as any response. Within seconds, she felt ungrateful. He was rescuing them after all; whatever else he may be, he had gotten them away from Hank!

“Hank was abusive,” she said, relenting. “He hit me several times, broke a couple of ribs and even busted my wrists and hip bone, twice!”

Christian winced. It wasn’t just what she was saying, but the emotionless, almost accepting manner in which she said it. It was almost as though she had accepted it as a fact of life.

“When I was pregnant with Jamal, they had to sew my cervix shut so I wouldn’t lose the baby.”

“He hit you when you were pregnant?” Christian asked disbelievingly, with quiet fury reverberating through his voice.

There was no circumstance under which a man should hit a woman in his book;  to hit a pregnant woman was sick, twisted, and just plain evil.

“He didn’t like sass. Apparently, I'm as sarcastic bitch.”

“I haven’t noticed that,” he said, frowning as he checked the rear-view mirror to make sure they were not being followed.

“Yeah well, Hank beat it out of me,” she said matter-of-factly.

His heart constricted in his chest. How could he have been so blind? How could he have failed to see how much pain she was carrying around?

“Tiana? You don’t think it’s your own fault he beat you, do you?” he asked softly, his mind working feverishly. Lydia was a shrink. Perhaps she could help.

“I know it was not my fault. Hank is a sick man. He twisted my love for him until I became a puppet. The day he hit Jamal though, Jamal was just two years old and had left muddy prints on his suit pants just as he stood to leave for work. Hank slapped him hard, sending him flying clear across the room. That day, I filed a police report and got his ass arrested. He served time and while he was in the pen, I took Jamal and I left.”

“Good for you,” Christian murmured approvingly and she relaxed against her seat.

She had been afraid he would criticize her for not leaving Hank the very first time he hit her; which was all her own parents and his had said when she almost lost her baby. But he seemed angry on her behalf. In fact, his hands were completely white against the steering wheel as he drove the rest of the way to the ranch.

The ranch?

She sat up apprehensively, half-expecting Hank to pull in behind them as they parked in front of the house.

“We can’t be here. Hank...”

“Would never get past my men,” he interrupted. “Besides, you should know that I would protect you with my life. I would die before I would let anyone hurt you!”

Quiet sincerity rang through in his voice and she realized with a jolt that he meant every last word. Warmth washed over her as she relaxed back against the seat, her fear draining out of her and leaving her boneless.

“Why?” she asked.

“I think you know why,” he said quietly, his silver gaze holding hers so intently that she could have sworn he saw right into her soul.

“Don’t be staring at me like that,” she mumbled with a sniff. “Think of Laura.”

“Lauren,” he corrected automatically, taking her hand in his warm, gentle grasp. “And she’s sure as hell not my damn fiancée!”

“Alright. You’ve convinced me with all that cussing,” she shot back sarcastically, trying to wrench her hand from his grip. It was like breaking a core of iron even though he was careful to hold her loosely enough that he was not hurting her soft skin.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

“I’m serious! I’d never met the girl until my mother showed up in my kitchen with her in tow and tried to sic her on me. Forget her.”

“I can’t. She’s very beautiful. Plus, I don’t seem to remember you objecting when your ‘fiancée’ was introduced to the rest of the class.”

Okay she was sarcastic as hell when she was angry, but he totally deserved it, she thought, silencing her conscience.

“First off, I didn’t say anything because she’s a guest in my home; I wasn’t going to embarrass her by denying her in front of everyone. Also, Lauren’s merely pretty as a Barbie doll, you are beautiful! You're all woman; you just have to look at me from across a room to set me on fire! You are the only woman in the world for me,” he finished.

Tiana stared. That sounded about as close to a declaration of love as anything she had ever heard! Her heart fluttered in her chest and she tried once more to wrench her hand from his grasp.

“I see those words please you, Tiana,” Christian observed. “Take them to heart because they are true. I don’t want a perfect doll in my bed; I want a warm, giving woman with the body of a siren, a heart of gold and the damn best mothering instincts this side of the world.”

“Wow. You sure know how to make a person glow,” Tiana muttered happily, positively glowing.

She looked so pleased with herself that Christian chuckled. He bent his head and rubbed his lips very briefly against hers. The kiss was very brief and very light; so light they were barely touching. Yet, a spark of electricity arced between them, so intense and profound.

Several minutes later, Tiana emerged from the truck, trying to hide how shaken she was by that brief kiss as she shepherded a sleepy Jamal into the house coaxing him to open his eyes enough to see the stairs in front of his feet. She grinned when he yawned, reminding her of a cute little kitten.

She was still grinning when she walked into the house with Jamal, but her smile died on her lips almost immediately. Lauren Baxter, Christian’s supposed fiancée, was sitting with his mother in the living room watching Days of our Lives. They both turned in unison, giving Tiana identical dirty looks that suggested they had in fact just been talking about her, before they turned back to face the television.

Tiana sighed under her breath; on top of everything else with Hank, the last thing she needed was to also have to deal with cat claws here.

Hours later, she tossed and turned, unable to go to sleep as her mind kept torturing her with visions of Hank’s mean, handsome face. Christian would keep them safe, she assured herself feverishly as she hugged her knees to her body.

As though she had conjured him, a slight knock sounded at the door, causing her to jump almost a foot high. Tiana looked over at the door, her heart in her mouth.

“Tiana?” someone called through the thick panel of the door. It was Christian.

Hastily, she ran to open the door. He stood there, looking almost boyish in his pajamas. Somehow, she had always pictured him as someone who would prefer to sleep in the buff.

“Um, something I can do for you?”

“Yeah, you can step aside,” he told her as he walked past her into her room.

“What now?”

“I’m sleeping in here,” he told her calmly as he deposited himself onto the lone chair in her room.

“But...”

“Indulge me, Tiana. I won’t cross any boundaries, not with Jamal in the next room. But I sure as hell won’t get any shut-eye either if I’m worried sick about Hank creeping in your window at night.”

“My hero,” she breathed, grinning up at him.

A dark flush of embarrassment crept up his neck and spread to his cheek.

Tiana hid a grin; who knew the tough, macho cowboy could be embarrassed by a little honest-to-goodness compliment.

CHAPTER TEN

Christian sat watching as Tiana slowly unfurled from her fetal position like a rose responding to the sun’s rays. Outside, the air was chilly with a storm; the sky, a crisp, exhilarating orange as night slid into daylight. Wind rustled through the leaves of the trees littered around his ranch and he walked over to the window, breathing deep as he enjoyed the breaking of dawn.

The slightly chilly weather made him want to ride so badly he could taste it. From the corner of his eye, Christian saw Tiana’s head turning around the room; she was apparently looking for him.

“You’re still here?” Tiana asked, finally seeing him standing over by the window.

“Where else would I be?” he asked with a shrug.

She sat up in one fluid motion as the memory of yesterday apparently came rushing back. “Jamal,” she began.

“Is sleeping off the rest of the hangover. We went down to the library last night when you were out and knocked back a few,” he told her dryly.

Tiana’s eyes widened with alarm.

Seeing her expression, Christian tsked lightly, coming to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Seriously, Tiana, you gotta lighten up and start trusting me,” he told her, half-jokingly.

Tiana relaxed. She did have to start trusting him. He had watched over them all last night when he didn’t have to, hadn’t he? She had just gotten used to having no one but herself to rely on.

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “Force of habit.”

He smiled his understanding. She was sleep-tousled, her hair falling into her eyes with faint wrinkle lines on the side of her face from her position on the pillow and yet she was still the most beautiful woman in the world to him. Her nipples pressed visibly against the thin silk of her nightgown and he deliberately looked away, moving his eyes to her face instead.

“Come riding with me today,” he murmured huskily.

“Jamal...”

“Will be just fine with Rose. In case you haven’t noticed, the old biddy appreciates him.”

“No she doesn’t, she dislikes him,” she said earnestly.