The Billionaire of Bluebonnet (10 page)

This was the big party her sister had gone to? Where they passed out boxes of condoms as soon as you paid to get in? Beth Ann clutched the bag to her chest and smiled tightly. “Actually, I think I'll go find her on my own, thanks.”

The fur-headed one stepped out in the rain with her to open the gate. “Luck to thee, fair lady. May ye steer clear of the dragons in the forest.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” she said dryly, and headed down the path.

The rain pelted her, the ground underneath her feet slushy and sucking at her strappy Louboutin sandals. She was pretty sure they were ruined, but she hadn't brought a spare pair of shoes. That was fine—she hated these shoes anyhow, and they were far too pricey for a beautician to own, anyhow. They'd been a gift—an apology from Allan when he'd cheated on her. She didn't regret ruining them. She wouldn't have worn them if she'd have thought she'd be spending her Friday night in a muddy forest looking for Lucy, after all.

The two men didn't follow her down the path, just went back into the tent at the front. She clutched the bag and stumbled down the dark, overgrown path, heading for the first campfire in the distance.

“Wait, milady,” called a voice behind her.

She turned, hopeful. Maybe she wouldn't have to go searching in the woods after all. “My sister?”

But the man—Baldy—jogged out to her, and presented her with an apple.

Beth Ann stared at it for a moment, then back at him, confused. “I'm not sure I follow.”

“By QuestMaster rules, if a gentleman wishes to show a lady his favor, he presents her with an apple.”

How terribly awkward. “Oh, well, listen, honey. That's nice, but—”

He leaned in. “It is all in how you receive the gift, milady. An apple from a potential lover can be a teasing token.” He leaned in as if sniffing the apple, and turned a hot gaze on her.

Beth Ann took a step backward. “That's nice of you, but I'm not sure—”

As she watched, he turned over the apple and began to tongue the base. Over and over, stabbing it with the tip of his tongue and continuing to give her the same heated glance. As if he were making love to the thing.

Oh, mercy. This was rather horrifying.

He held the poor, violated apple out to her, then bowed.

She raised a hand in the air. “I really must pass.”

Baldy frowned. “That's not how the game is played. You must accept it and then demonstrate your decline of my favor by using the apple.”

She was doing no such thing. Beth Ann pulled out her phone and checked the time. “It's getting late and I really have to go. Sorry. I'll have to learn the rules next time.” She gave him a tight smile, and then disappeared down the path as quickly as she could.

Lord, to think that an apple could be used in such a graphic manner.

To her relief, he didn't follow her. She did, however, run into three more girls a bit farther down the path. They were about Lucy's age and dressed like wenches. Very loose wenches. They smiled as they sauntered past, ignoring the rain, and she noticed each one carried a beer mug and an apple. She continued on to the nearby campsite, and smiled at the people gathered there as she approached. More teenage girls were here, and she scanned the faces, looking for Lucy. No luck. Thes
e girls were scantily dressed and sat on the laps of men in tunics and capes. All were oblivious of the rain pouring down. One couple in the back of the group was making out as if they didn't realize they were in public. Or in a rainstorm.

“Excuse me,” Beth Ann said, stepping forward and giving them a little wave.

“A fairy,” one of the girls said with a drunken giggle, raising a mug. “Behold her sparkle.”

“Yep, that's me,” Beth Ann said cheerfully, determined to put a pleasant face on things. “Sparkly. Isn't that nice of you. Listen, honey, I'm looking for Lucy Williamson. Have any of you seen her?”

One of the men stood and gave her a puzzled look. “I know not of a Lucy.”

“Sounds like a mundane name,” another wench piped up, then belched.

“There are no mundanes here this eve, milady,” said another.

This was going to be a long, long night.

Chapter Two

Two hours later, she was no closer to finding Lucy. If her sister had been hiding at one of the campsites, her friends and fellow QuestMasters had done an excellent job of concealing her. Everyone she asked had never heard of a Lucy, and she didn't know her sister's QuestMaster name. Everyone, it seemed, had one. She'd met a Sparkle Blossom, a Megan the Fair, a Ragnar the Great (who didn't seem so great), and three different Aragorns.

She'd also met a lot of drunks and had run across a lot of people making out. She'd been propositioned more tonight than she'd ever been in her life. Apparently the QuestMasters geared up for the big tourney tomorrow by drinking heavily and sleeping with anything that said yes. And here she'd thought they camped out in the woods because they were into nature. Turned out they were just into underage, unsupervised drinking. She'd seen more teenagers carrying bottles than she'd seen adults to supervise them.

The rain didn't seem to be slowing down the QuestMasters any. They wandered from campsite to campsite, laughing and drinking despite the rain and now inches-deep mud. Most of the campfires had gone out in the torrential downpour and her newly purchased cloak was little more than a sodden blanket around her shoulders. She'd taken off her shoes when they'd started to sink in the mud instead of slide. Now she carried them in the bag along with the condoms and alcohol.

And despite all her searching, still no sign of Lucy. But every time she passed another couple making out in the open, or another teenage girl swinging past with a drinking horn, she was even more determined to find her sister. Seventeen was a little too young for this sort of thing, and some of the men here were older than Beth Ann.

It was getting harder to tell the trail from the rest of the ground, since it was all turning into a sludge. She tripped over a root and pitched forward, but caught herself on a nearby bush. Ahead, she could see someone moving and heard the clinking of a costume. “Hello?”

A girl approached and in the low light of a nearby torch, it looked as if she wore a belly dancer costume that was soaked in rain and mud to the point that it was indecent. Her other arm carried multiple bottles of booze, from what Beth Ann could tell. She glanced at Beth Ann's dress, then back at her. “You with the cops?”

“Do I look like a cop?”

The girl squinted at Beth Ann in the darkness. “No?” she said hopefully.

She crossed her arms over her chest, wishing for the hundredth time that she had a flashlight, or that it'd stop raining for five minutes. “I'm not one.” When the girl sagged with relief, she pressed on. “Are there cops here? At the Tourney?”

The girl shifted her burden in her arms uneasily. “Maybe.”

“My goodness, why would cops be here?” Beth Ann smiled, as if totally oblivious to the minor in front of her carrying alcohol. “That's just silly.”

“I know,” the girl blurted, relaxing a little. “But that's what I heard back at the Templar camp.”

“Templar camp?”

The girl gestured behind her. “Back there. It's quite a ways into the woods but they have the best alcohol.”

Maybe that's where Lucy had headed. “That sounds like where I want to go. Can you show me the way?”

The girl shook her head. “I need to vacate the premises if the cops are here. Someone at the Templar camp told me they were making people leave.”

Well, good for the cops. They were going to have a field day with this place. She raised her voice to speak over the downpour. “I'm looking for Lucy Williamson.”

The girl fidgeted in place, her wet hair plastered to her skull. “I don't know her.”

“I know,” she bit out, then forced the pleasant smile back to her face. “I don't know her QuestMaster name. But she's tall and skinny with blond hair and bright green nails.” She'd painted them for her sister just yesterday.

The other girl brightened. “I think I saw her earlier. She hang out with Lord Colossus?”

“Yes!” Finally, she was getting somewhere. “Have you seen her tonight? Where?”

Again, the girl gestured into the thick woods. “Back at the Templar camp.”

Beth Ann gave her a thumbs-up as the rain picked up once more. “Thank you.”

All right, she'd find this damn Templar camp once and for all.

* * *

What a way to spend a Friday night, Colt thought to himself. His mouth curved in a cynical twist as the man in front of him seemed determined to try and back his car out of the parking lot that had turned into a bowl of mud. The tires spun uselessly as Colt crossed his arms over his rain slicker.

The man finally turned and looked back at Colt. “It's stuck.”

“I know.” He gestured at the parking lot full of cars. “They all are. Entire road's washed out.”

“Even the dirt road?” The man seemed clearly skeptical. “We can't walk out to the highway?”

“You can,” Colt said lazily. “Mud's two feet deep along the way.”

“What do we do?” said the half-naked woman at the knight's side.

Colt gritted his teeth. He kept getting the same damn questions from all these people. He knew it was because they were all drunk—or high—but it was getting tiresome. “I'm with the local fire department. We're here to evacuate the campground and take you somewhere dry until the situation with your cars can be assessed.”

“The fire department?” the woman exclaimed in surprise. She gave him an appreciative look that made him uncomfortable. “Really?”

He was tired of babysitting a bunch of drunks. When they'd called him to help out this evening, this was not what he'd had in mind. He'd volunteered, of course, since he'd thought there were people in danger. Not really—turned out that there were just a bunch of idiot teenagers that needed to be fished out of the mud. “Leave your vehicle and head out to the end of the main road, ma'am.” “Sir, an all-terrain vehicle will be swinging by shortly to pick up more people.”

They'd already taken several loads of the group--drunk and obnoxious--to a nearby motel under renovation. The owner had generously volunteered his rooms for the group at no charge, and Colt wasn't entirely sure the man knew what he'd gotten into. He pulled a label off a sheet and handed it to the guy. “Put this on your windshield. Leave your keys with me, and your name. We're making arrangements to have your vehicles removed once the road is safe again.”

The fire department wasn't used to dealing with this sort of thing. Getting a cat out of a tree? Fine. Hauling a car out of the mud, sure. Hauling a hundred drunk teenagers out of the mud? Not so much. After watching the fire chief scratch his head for a few minutes, Colt had suggested that they get the keys from the teenagers, tag the cars, and organize a list of who needed to be towed. They could deliver the cars once they were freed from the mud. Problem solved.

The fire chief had liked that idea. In fact, he'd liked it so much that he'd given Colt the job. And Colt? Well, someday he was going to learn to shut up so he wouldn't have to deal with idiots like the one standing before him, protectively clutching his keys.

The man—who was dressed as a barbarian, if the Conan hat was any indication—slapped the sticker on the inside of his windshield and gave Colt a suspicious look. “How can I trust that you won't steal my car?”

Colt eyed the 1992 Pontiac the man had been determined to move. The tires were bald, the paint peeling, and he was pretty sure there was a foot of trash on the floorboards of the vehicle. “Not interested, I assure you.”

The man gave him another skeptical look until another volunteer showed up. Mike. He looked at the barbarian, and then at Colt. “How's the evacuation coming, Waggoner?”

“Just about done rounding up keys,” he told Mike. “Then I'll do one last sweep of the woods to make sure we have everyone.”

Mike nodded, adjusting in his rain slicker. He glanced over at the kids, then back to Colt. “The rain's not letting up. Entire campsite's just about washed out. I was told that a hundred fifty people signed in at the gate, and we're rounding up the last few right now.”

Colt nodded, staring into the deep woods, wet and dark with rain. The trees were barely discernible with no moon out and a steady downpour. “Sweep shouldn't take long, then.”

Mike nodded. “We're almost done here. Then you boys can head back home to your wives.”

The barbarian handed his keys to Colt suddenly, and Mike paused, waiting while Colt tagged the keys with the man's information, and then added them to the pile in the bucket he was carrying. As the two walked away to the main area where the teens were being evacuated, Mike snorted and looked over at Colt. “Isn't this the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen?”

“It's pretty up there.”

“My one night alone with my wife and I get to spend it pulling Frodo and his buddies out of the mud.” He nodded at the helmet of the man walking away. “What's he supposed to be?”

“Don't know. I'm afraid to ask.” Colt double-checked the tags on the keys and slapped a sticker on the inside window of the car, away from the rain. The sticker marked that the vehicle had been noted and the keys collected for eventual towing. That vehicle taken care of, he moved farther down the swampy parking lot, his rain boots sucking in the mud with every step. He checked the cars for the emergency stickers, making sure that each one had been taken care of. The last thing he wanted was to miss a car and have to hunt down the owner at a later date. This needed to be a one-and-done scenario.

There was a small car he'd missed, sunk into the mud between two trucks. The sides of the vehicle were heavily splattered on the sides, as if it had arrived after the rain had begun and had to plow through the mud. The two trucks next to it were sunk deep, the owners having tried to move their vehicles when they realized the rain was coming down so heavily. Tried, and failed, succeeding only at swamping the car next to it with even more mud. Even through the coating of filth, he recognized the light lime green of the car, and the make. A Volkswagen. Curious, Colt ran a hand over the back windshield, wiping away the splatters of mud.

The window read
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'
and the salon phone number. Underneath the logo, it read hair nails waxes tanning.

Well, he'd be damned. Snobbish, prim Beth Ann Williamson was here in this drunken mudfest? That didn't seem right. He scratched his chin, scowling at the sight of the car. No way she'd be here with this crowd. She thought she was too good for this sort of thing. If a leather-kilted barbarian—or whatever he was supposed to be—approached someone as proper and high-maintenance as Beth Ann, she'd probably call the cops. He peered into the back of the car.

“What are you doing?” a girl's voice called at him, accusing.

Colt turned with a scowl, staring down at the bedraggled blond head of what looked like Beth Ann Williamson's younger sister. Patty, he thought for a moment. No, Lucy. A local girl. He knew the Williamsons—everyone that had grown up in Bluebonnet did—even if they didn't know him. Or want to know him.

He gestured at the car. “That your sister's ride?”

Lucy crossed her arms over a damp velvet dress. It was ridiculous-looking, the heavy skirts two feet deep with mud, and the entire thing was so heavy it looked like it was going to drag her down with it. “Might be hers. Why are
you
wanting to know?”

Ah yes. She was definitely a Williamson. Unwilling to let the teenager rile him, Colt ignored her nasty tone and gestured at the car. “I need her keys so we can arrange a tow when the tractors get here. Go tell her.”

Lucy looked uncomfortable. She didn't move.

“What?”

She didn't move.

“What?”
he repeated irritably. These damn idiots were getting on his nerves. They all acted like they were being carted off to jail rather than rescued from a washout. “Talk.”

Lucy fidgeted, and that annoyed Colt. He knew Beth Ann wasn't a fan of his—the opposite, really. Had she said something to her sister to make her want to avoid him? Be wary of him? Lucy was too young to remember him well, since he'd left for the marines right after high school. He'd been gone for nine long years, way too long for a kid to remember . . . , but she might know his younger brothers. Impatience flashed through him. Was this just another Williamson being a snob to a Waggoner? If so, he didn't have time for this shit.

“Do I need to remind you that this is an emergency situation?” He gestured at the Bluebonnet Emergency Services logo on the sleeve of his jacket. “If your sister isn't willing to comply with the rescue—”

“That's not it,” Lucy said quickly. “I haven't seen her.”

“You haven't seen her?” He arched an eyebrow.

The girl fidgeted. “I thought she was here to take me home, so I had people cover for me. She probably thinks I'm off at the Templar camp.” Lucy shrugged again, wiping her wet hair away from her face with bright green fingernails.

A wave of sheer irritation flashed through him. This girl had deliberately led her sister astray and risked her safety. And in the process, she'd created more work for him.

He turned, hands on his hips, and surveyed the parking lot. This entire evening was a mess. In the distance, he saw volunteers laughing and joking around with men in costumes. He thought he might have even seen one take a swig of an offered drink as they waited for a ride. Disgraceful. The military would have never run an evacuation like this.

He knew the others weren't military—they were just volunteers from the city that had abandoned their Friday night plans to fish out a bunch of drunk kids—and adults—from a mudslide of a campground. It didn't mean it didn't irritate him. No one had their act together, and here he was, taking keys from a bunch of drunk ingrates when he could have been somewhere else. Anywhere else.