Heather's Gift (11 page)

Brock bounced against the wall as Sarah cried out and jumped for her brother, protecting him from the wrath of four bodyguards. The biggest of which was Rick, who looked ready to retaliate rather forcefully.

“Call them off, Cade,” she yelled, dangling from Dillon’s neck as he tried to pull her loose. “Don’t you let them hit him.”

“Dammit, Sarah,” Dillon cursed. “Get off me so I can kick his ass.”

“You moron.” She kicked his shin as he stumbled against the opposite wall. “Do you have a suicide wish I don’t know anything about?”

“Dammit, Sarah, let him go.” Brock was laughing, though the blood on his rapidly swelling lip didn’t look too amusing.

He gripped his lover’s waist and with Dillon’s help lifted her away from his body. Dillon stood ready, his eyes narrowed as he watched the August brothers.

“Pack your stuff, Sarah, you’re coming to the house with me, where you’ll be safe,”

he growled aggressively.

“I don’t think so, Carlyle,” Brock grunted. “Get over yourself and have a drink. Enjoy your visit with Sarah then you can head home. Alone. The same way you showed up.”

“Dillon, are you causing trouble again?” Marly entered the fray then, her amused voice drawing eyes as she stepped into the entryway. Dressed in snug jeans and T-shirt, she looked like a mischievous teenager rather than a fully-grown woman.

“Marly, you look pretty as ever,” he sighed. Heather noticed most men sighed a bit wistfully when they saw Marly.

“Thank you, Dillon.” She stepped into Cade’s arms and sent Heather a warning glance.

What?
She frowned the question back at her. Marly looked over her head at Sam. Heather glanced back then moved quickly to place herself in front of him, close. He looked ready to kill. Instantly his arms went around her, and she almost laughed at the instinctive response. If she put aside the whole sharing issue, the August men could be rather endearing.

“I’m not going anywhere, Dillon,” Sarah told him with a vein of exasperation.

“Now why are you
really
here, because we both know you knew I wasn’t leaving with you.”

“Where’s that drink I was promised?” He turned and headed into Cade’s study after shooting him a veiled look.

“Keep your people out here, Rick,” Cade ordered as he headed into the room behind Dillon.

Lora Leigh

Heather’s Gift

64

“Cade.” Rick stopped him as he moved to pass. “Don’t keep information away from me, man. We can’t protect you, or catch this stalker if you start hiding things from me.”

Cade’s eyes narrowed. “My family is my life, Rick,” he bit out. “You’ll have everything you need to know, I promise you that. But some things are just not any of your damned business,” he bit out before stalking into the study. Heather stayed quiet. Sam led her into the room and she didn’t balk. Dillon looked like a man on a mission, and evidently his sister wasn’t the entire mission.

“I talked to the sheriff, earlier.” Dillon poured himself a stiff drink as the door closed behind Sam and Heather. “I found out about Tate and the explosion from him. But what they don’t know, and one of my hands told me, was that Tate had a friend. They aren’t certain who. One who knew quite a bit about your family and the situation here. One who promised Tate some interesting information.”

“How do you know about this?” Cade asked him, his voice dark, warning.

“Tate liked to talk when he drank, Cade. He told a lot of people he would have some interesting pictures soon. Pictures of the August men…” He paused, his jaw bunching as he glanced at his sister. “Explicit pictures from twelve years ago.”

Tension thickened in the room.

“If he had them, the sheriff would have found them,” Cade pointed out logically as he glanced at the others in the room. “Whoever’s behind this was using the bastard.”

“But he told a lot of men, Cade. Men who wouldn’t mind watching you fall. And he hinted that the person with the information was right under your nose.”

A pin drop would have echoed in the room, the silence was so thick, as all eyes turned to Heather.

“No.” She shook her head, feeling her hair swish against Sam’s chest as his arms went around her again. “Rick hand-picked this team. It has to be one of the cowboys.”

“It could be anyone,” Cade murmured.

“Cade, Rick needs to know about this,” Heather said firmly, as he watched her intently. “If there’s even a chance it could be one of his men, he needs to know.”

He drew in a deep, hard breath before nodding abruptly. “You’re right. But just Rick, Heather. And you better get ready to spend a hell of a lot more time with Sam than you have been so far.”

Lora Leigh

Heather’s Gift

65

Chapter Fifteen

They ran a ranch. Fences needed mending, cattle needed to be moved, horses needed shoeing and stables to be cleaned. Hay was being baled in preparation to stack within the barns and a thousand other details that needed to be taken care of. Days went by with no news, and no report of strangers or otherwise unusual occurrences. Sam was losing patience and control. Heather was with him damned near every second of every day and Rick watched him like a hawk.

The pressure was starting to get to all of them. He was sniping at Cade and Brock, and caught himself just short of sniping at Heather. He needed her too bad. The ache to touch her, taste her, was about to drive him crazy.

Sam knew Cade and Brock were chafing at the restrictions being placed on them within the house as well. They were all damned tired of stalking the confining, if comfortable rooms, and waiting on something that never came. Sam knew if he didn’t get away from it, he was going to snap. He needed to be outside where he could feel the breeze, taste freedom. Where he wasn’t haunted by nightmares, or Heather’s arousing scent.

The nightmares that haunted them all were growing worse for him. He never truly remembered them, but the terror that filled him when he awoke was damned near as sharp as that of the first rape…

He shuddered, pulling on thick leather gloves as he closed his mind to the thought. He gave his head a hard shake, then narrowed his eyes as he realized he was no longer alone in the stables. He turned his head slowly and there she was. Damn, he’d been praying he could avoid her. At least for today. She was dressed in snug jeans with what was obviously a pair of child’s chaps belted around her lean hips, a tan tank top and well-worn boots. He wanted to strip her and fuck her until she couldn’t tempt him anymore. He wondered if he could ever take her enough to reach that point.

“Tell Rick to assign someone else,” he bit out sharply as she pulled a pair of dainty leather working gloves from her back pocket and started to pull them on.

“Don’t worry, cowboy, I know how to saddle my own horse, and how to ride it.”

She smiled cheekily. “Do I look good in the chaps? I always wanted to wear a pair.”

She would look damned good in nothing
but
the chaps. He narrowed his eyes, imagining it, imagining her, bare except for leather chaps and his cock plowing between her thighs. He clenched his teeth, fighting for control.

“Wear ‘em somewhere else,” he bit out, tightening the cinch on his horse’s saddle.

“I don’t have time to wait on you, Heather.”

Lora Leigh

Heather’s Gift

66

“Well you better, big boy.” She strolled casually to one of the stalls, loosening the gate and clipping a lead to the horse it contained. “I’m your babysitter today, sweetcakes. Ride out without me, and one of the boys will put a tranquilizer in your ass. Cade’s already given them permission, by the way.”

He snarled in fury. Like he wasn’t well aware of what Cade had fucking done. Goddammit, he wasn’t a child any longer to be protected by the other two and he was getting sick of being treated like one. He was two years younger than Cade, not two years old.

He started to speak when he saw her click the small comm. link over her head, attaching the tiny speaker to her ear, the mic wand extending to her cheek.

“Two to ride, whose check?” Her voice was low as she tested the device. She glanced at him with a mischievous glitter in her eyes. “Oh boy. Sis is playing watchdog on us. There goes our fun, cowboy.”

Sam crossed his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes as he watched her check her gun, the loaded clip, and the spares that she tucked into her saddlebag. The automatic pistol was tucked back into the holster behind her hip, and still, she was listening to whatever orders were coming through that damned comm. link.

“Tell Tara to assign someone else,” he said again, his voice louder this time. “Now.”

She rolled her eyes as she tightened the saddle and tested it experimentally.

“Give it up, Sam.” She shook her head as she looked up at him. “I’m part of this team whether you like it or not.”

“Fine, be a part of it somewhere else then.” He held his horse’s bridle in a tight fist as she mounted her horse.

He felt equal parts lust and rage thundering through his system. She looked like a living flame perched on the back of that damned horse. A ready target for the psycho stalking him.

“I won’t ride out with you,” he said softly. He wouldn’t jeopardize her. He couldn’t.

She tilted her head as she stared down at him. Her green eyes were quizzical, her expression curious. “Do you doubt my abilities, Sam?”

Doubt her? He didn’t doubt in the least that she was the sweetest, softest thing he had ever touched in his life. That her heat, her passion, wasn’t the hardest thing in the world to resist. That he wouldn’t destroy her before it was over with. But he would be damned if he would lead her into the hands of a madman. He didn’t answer her. He couldn’t answer her. He wanted to scream, to howl out in fury at the injustice of what he faced. He couldn’t do either. He glanced out the open stable door, remembering his need to smell freedom. It wasn’t worth the possible sacrifice. His stubborn determination had sentenced his brothers to hell; he wouldn’t allow the same thing to happen to Heather.

Lora Leigh

Heather’s Gift

67

He shook his head wearily as he unsaddled his mount. Poor Rusty. He patted the roan’s rump. The stallion had been itching to run, just as Sam had.

“Sam?” Her soft voice questioned him.

“I won’t endanger you.” He tossed the saddle and blanket atop the saddle rail and led the horse back to its stall.

She sighed impatiently behind him. “Sam, you can’t go out alone. You know that. Did you forget what happened the last time you did that?”

His fists clenched as he locked the stall door.

“Yeah, Heather,” he bit out, turning to her slowly. “Something real fucking easy to forget…”

The scene surged through his mind, but it wasn’t Tate, it was Marcelle. Blood colored his vision as violence surged through his body for one hard, long second. He could feel his muscles tightening, his fists clenching as though to defend himself against the fury of a memory that never fully revealed itself.

“I’m sorry, Sam.” She dismounted, her face pale, her eyes wounded as she watched him. “I’ll find someone else to ride with you…”

He stopped her. Before he realized it he had gripped her arm, pulling her around until he had her pressed against the stall divider, her slender wrists shackled by his hands and stretched above her head. He stared down at her, breathing roughly, rage and desire burning through his body in equal measure.

“You don’t understand,” he growled roughly. “Listen to me, Heather. For God’s sake, for my sake, listen to me. Stay the fuck away from me. Please. I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to be the cause of your pain.”

She wiggled against him, her hips pressing closer, her stomach cushioning the hardon raging behind the material of his jeans. He fought for his control, his muscles tensing, bunching as she watched him from those knowing, though innocent, eyes.

“How much longer are you going to wallow in self-pity, Sam?” she finally asked him, and the very gentleness of her voice was like acid on an already burning wound.

“How much longer will you let him destroy your life?”

He stared down at her unblinking, fighting the overwhelming anger that made him want to hurt, to control.

“As long as it takes, Heather, for the smell of blood and semen mixing to get out of my fucking head,” he finally bit out. “Take that away, baby, and then we’ll talk about it.”

He threw himself away from her, knowing if he didn’t he might never be able to later. Her eyes were swimming with tears, her face pale with stress and pain as she watched him, and he couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear looking into her eyes, knowing she saw him for who he was, for what he was. Knowing that in one careless moment, in one passion dazed encounter, he could place her at the mercy of a madman once again. Lora Leigh

Heather’s Gift

68

He whipped his hat from his head as the fingers of his other hand pushed violently through his hair. There was nothing he hated worse than this feeling raising inside him. The burning anger and pain. The shame. It never failed to trigger the need to connect, to ease the aching emptiness inside his soul. The need to touch, taste and hear the screams of pleasure. But it wasn’t Marly’s or Sarah’s he needed to hear. It was Heather’s. Lora Leigh

Heather’s Gift

69

Chapter Sixteen

“Cade, he’s headed back in,” Heather spoke into her comm. link as Sam stalked back to the ranch house. It worried her, the intensity in his blue-gray eyes, the fury that tightened his body.

Anger was riding him hard and it was easy to see that the coming eruption could be more than any of them wanted to face. For all his joviality, the bleak dark core she glimpsed in his soul seemed all the more dangerous.

“Thanks, Heather. We’ll take care of him.” His voice was darkly brooding, anger and concern mixing in a haunting brew that tore at her heart. Three men, each scarred in different ways and fighting for survival. It terrified her, wondering if they would be able to fight their way clear of this one.

And it hurt her. She knew how such episodes ended. The blistering heat of the female cries as the August brothers joined in an orgy of sexual intensity with them. Though Sam didn’t seem to be taking part as often as he had in the past, she knew he had at least taken part in that damned limo. The danger surrounding them only increased the edge of lust that glittered in the men’s eyes on a constant basis. They were highly sexed, and more than a little dominate. And though Sam seemed more playful than forceful, she could see the core of that dark sexuality becoming more apparent. The closer the danger came, the more that edge seemed to intensify. The stalker shadowing their every move was getting closer. Several attempts had been made to breach the house. Each one had gone unnoticed by any of the investigators until long after it had been too late to catch sight of him. The bastard knew the ranch too well to suit any of them.