Cowboy's Vow to Protect

by Carla Cassidy

  “Back at you,” he replied. “You’re up early.”

  She put a cup of water in the microwave and then grabbed a tea bag. “Apparently, I got all my sleep out. But I did go to bed early last night.”

  They didn’t speak again until she was seated across from him with her cup of tea. “Are you scared?” he asked.

  “I’d be a fool not to be a little bit afraid, but I can’t imagine what could go wrong.” She stirred a spoonful of sugar into her tea.

  “What if for some reason the mic doesn’t work? What if Dillon doesn’t hear when you’re in trouble?” Flint’s gaze searched her face as if memorizing it for the last time.

  “Trust me. I won’t need to wear a wire for you all to hear me if I’m in trouble. I can scream really, really loud.” She took a sip of her tea.

  “But what if he has his hand over your mouth?”

  She slammed her cup down to the table. “What are you trying to do, Flint? Scare the hell out of me?”

  His face flushed with color. “Sorry.” He stared down into his coffee mug for a long moment and then looked back at her once again. “I guess I’m the one who is scared. I’m terrified for you, Madison.”

  She reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. “It’s a good plan, Flint. More important, it’s a safe plan.” She pulled back her hand. “I trust you and Dillon and whoever comes with Dillon.”

  “I know, I know.” He released a deep sigh. “I’ll just feel better once this night is over and Brad is behind bars.”

  She smiled at him. “That makes two of us. Now, let’s talk about something more pleasant.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ve been thinking that I’d love for you to help me come up with names for the baby.”

  “But we don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl.”

  “And I’ve given it a lot of thought and I still don’t want to know the sex before the birth, so we need to come up with the perfect boy and girl name.”

  “Hmm, that’s a tall order. Do you have any ideas at all?”

  “None, although it might be nice if it’s a little girl to call her Abigail. That was my mother’s name.”

  “Abigail is a pretty name,” he replied.

  What she’d love to do was name her son Flint Jr. in honor of the kind and generous man who had taken her in. He was the man who had saved her life...the man she loved deeply. But she had no place to ask him to give his name to the baby she carried. She had no right to ask him for anything more than he’d already given to her.

  “And I’m assuming you don’t want to name a boy after your father,” he said.

  “Goodness, no.” She frowned as she thought of the man she had lived with for the first eighteen years of her life. He had been nothing more than a sperm donor who had reluctantly done his job. They had lived in the same space and he had raised her with verbal abuse and neglect.

  “I’ve never given much thought to baby names before,” Flint said, pulling her from her dark thoughts. “I’ll have to think on it a bit.”

  “While you think on it, I’m going to make us some breakfast. How does a little bacon and some pancakes sound?”

  “Sounds great to me,” he said agreeably.

  As she worked on fixing breakfast, the sizzle of the bacon cooking mirrored the sizzle of nerves in her veins as she contemplated the night.

  Although she was one hundred percent certain that she would be safe, it was only natural that she be nervous. Facing Brad again would be incredibly difficult, but she was up to the task if it meant saving future victims.

  “I don’t hear any name suggestions falling from your lips,” she said after a few minutes of silence. “Didn’t you ever fantasize what you would name your children?”

  “No, I never fantasized about having children.”

  She turned away from the pancake griddle to look at him. “Why is that? Didn’t you ever think about having a family for yourself?”

  “Never.”

  “But why?” She gazed at him curiously.

  He shrugged. “It was just something I never saw for myself. I’ve never been that comfortable talking to women, let alone dating them.”

  “So what am I?” she replied with a touch of humor.

  He grinned at her. “You’re definitely all woman. I’ve actually been surprised by how easy I find it to talk to you, but that doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about the path I’ve chosen for myself. It’s a solitary path.”

  “Sounds like a lonely path to me.” She turned around and then muttered a curse. Damn, she’d burned the first batch of pancakes.

  Once they had the pancakes in front of them he asked her about her mother. “You never talk about her. Do you have any memories of her?” he asked.

  “Not a whole lot, but some.” She took a sip of her tea and then smiled as some of those memories fluttered through her.

  “I remember the smell of her, a scent of lilacs and vanilla. I also remember the sound of her laughter. She was always smiling and finding funny things to laugh about. She found such joy in living. We had this special saying. I’d tell her I loved her and she’d tell me she loved me more. We’d argue about which one of us loved more.”

  Her smile faltered. “I never knew how sick she was. She hid it from me. Even when she lost her hair from the chemo treatments, she made jokes about it. And then she was just gone.”

  Flint drew her from her memories by covering her hand with the warmth of his. “She sounds like she was truly a beautiful woman.”

  “She was.”

  “And I think she’d be so proud of her daughter.”

  “Thank you, Flint,” she replied. “No matter what the circumstance, you always seem to know what to say.”

  “I always just speak what I see is the truth,” he replied.

  As usual, when he touched her in any way she wanted him. Although it was just his hand covering hers at the moment, she wished he would sweep her up in his arms and kiss her.

  Instead, they finished breakfast and then cleaned up the dishes. Madison had a feeling this was going to be one of the longest days of her life.

  Flint went into his bedroom and grabbed a duffel bag, which he placed by the front door for the pretend trip he would take later that evening. The plan was for him to drive to the Holiday Ranch where Mac would then take his truck and drive it out of town.

  Meanwhile, Jerod would drop Flint back at the mouth of the lane to the cabin after dark. And that was when Dillon and his men would also move into their positions hiding in the woods and waiting for the action to begin.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to call this off?” Flint asked once he’d placed his duffel bag by the door.

  “No way,” she immediately replied. “I just can’t wait for it all to be over with. I want to see that man in handcuffs and Dillon hauling him out of the cabin and out of our lives forever.”

  “I sure as hell hope that’s exactly what happens,” Flint replied fervently.

  For the next several hours they took turns pacing the floor and waiting for the hours of the day to tick down. They ate lunch and then paced some more.

  “We’re wearing out your floors,” she joked as she sat on the sofa and watched him pacing back and forth in front of the coffee table.

  “I can’t help it. I don’t know about you, but as it gets later in the day I get more nervous about the night to come,” he replied.

  “Trust me. I feel the same way,” she replied. She’d been trying to downplay just how nervous she was getting for Flint’s sake. But the truth was she was getting so nervous she felt like screaming.

  It was three o’clock when Dillon came by to wire Madison. “Thank God for the advancement of technology,” he said as he affixed a tiny wireless microphone into the collar of her blue sweater.

  “It’s
so small,” Madison said worriedly.

  “It might be small, but it’s mighty,” Dillon replied. “It’s definitely strong enough to pick up all the sounds in the room and those sounds will be audible to me in an earpiece. You don’t need to do anything but keep your sweater in the living room where you’ll face Brad if all goes as planned and he actually shows up here.”

  Dillon turned to look at Flint. “We’ll all plan on being in our positions about nine tonight. I checked the local forecast and there are some clouds moving in so it should be dark by then. You should plan on leaving here around eight-thirty.”

  “But that means she’ll be alone here between eight-thirty and nine,” Flint protested.

  “Brad won’t show up that early,” Madison replied. “He’ll come in the dead of night, hoping to catch me sleeping and unprepared.”

  “Maybe I should leave my gun with you.” Once again the deep concern was in Flint’s eyes.

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t want to have a gun. I don’t know how to shoot and I don’t want him getting it away and using it on me. I’m comfortable with the plan the way it stands. As long as you all ride to my rescue if I scream, I’m good.”

  “You know that’s going to happen,” Flint assured her.

  Once Dillon left to head back into town, Flint and Madison had nothing to do but wait until it was time for Flint to leave the cabin.

  Madison curled up on the sofa to read even as Flint continued to pace the floors. He was obviously far more nervous than she was. Her nerves had settled the minute Dillon had put the mic on her.

  “Flint, for goodness’ sake come sit down,” she said after about fifteen minutes. “Your pacing is driving me crazy.”

  He moved to the sofa and sat down next to her. He released one of his deep sighs. “I don’t want to leave you here alone tonight.”

  “I know, but this has to be done. You’ll be out there in the woods and I know the minute you think I’m in danger you’ll charge in here with guns blazing.”

  “You can bet on that,” he replied fervently.

  It was her turn to deeply sigh. “If all goes as planned tonight, then tomorrow when I wake up I’ll feel freer than I have since the night of the initial attack. I can’t wait to feel that again.”

  “I have a feeling if all goes well there will be a lot of young women silently thanking you for your courage tomorrow.”

  She released a dry laugh. “I’m not courageous. I’m in survival mode. I might be doing this for other victims, but ultimately I’m doing it to help myself.”

  “I’ll just be glad when this is all over.”

  Flint repeated those same words at eight-thirty that evening when she walked him to the front door. He had his empty duffel bag in hand and a deep reluctance in his eyes as he gazed at her.

  “It’s going to be fine, Flint,” she said softly.

  “It has to be fine,” he replied.

  “You’re already supposed to be out of here,” she chided him.

  “I know. I’m going.” He suddenly dropped his bag to the floor and pulled her into his arms. Before she could even catch her breath he was kissing her long and hard.

  It was a kiss that warmed her to her toes, a kiss not just of passion, but also of something else...something soft and wonderful. Her love for him bubbled up inside her. She wanted to tell him just how much she loved him but now was not the time or the place. He had to leave and she couldn’t stop him and screw up the plan by a sudden confession of her deepest emotions.

  He finally pulled his lips from hers and released her. Without saying another word he turned and walked out the door. She closed and locked up behind him and then leaned with her back against the door.

  She closed her eyes and raised her fingers to her lips where the imprint of his mouth still burned. There was no question in her mind...there had been love in his kiss.

  However, she couldn’t think about that right now. She had things to do before Brad showed up. She opened her eyes and pushed off the door. She went directly into the kitchen and grabbed a couple of Flint’s shiny, sharp knives from the drawer.

  Shoving them in various places under the sofa cushions, she then sat to await Brad’s appearance. She trusted the men outside, but she felt better with the knife or three hidden away just in case she needed it. She just hoped Brad didn’t find any of them before she needed one.

  She had two reasons to live through the night. The first reason was the baby growing inside her, and the second was so she’d get a chance to tell Flint how very much she loved him. Now, all she had to do was survive this night and a date with a monster.

  Chapter 13

  Flint walked through the dark woods, his heart pounding like a million wild horse hooves. He headed to the place at the mouth of the lane where Dillon and his men would be. As he walked, his mind was filled with thoughts of the woman he loved, the woman he would never really have.

  The kiss they had shared just before he’d left the cabin was the last one they would ever have, although he would cherish the memories of each and every kiss they’d had since the moment he’d found her in the barn.

  Still, he would give his life to keep her safe through this night. When he thought of her facing Brad all alone, his heart once again raced and he could scarcely catch his breath.

  He arrived at the place where he was to meet Dillon. Apparently, the lawman hadn’t arrived yet. Nothing appeared amiss, but Flint imagined he could smell the scent of something evil coming closer.

  It was too bad evil people didn’t have a distinctive smell to them. It would certainly make them easier to identify. It sickened him when he thought about how often Brad had shaken his hand, how quick the man was to smile in a way that made him appear nonthreatening and wholesome.

  Nobody, absolutely nobody in the entire town would have thought Brad to be so evil. Nobody except the women who had been his victims. He prayed that tonight there was no way Madison would be his victim again.

  Some of his anxiety lowered when Dillon, along with officers Juan Ramirez and Ben Taylor, found him. Somebody had apparently dropped them off for Flint hadn’t seen or heard any cars anywhere near the place.

  He greeted the men in a mere whisper. If it hadn’t been for a cell phone light from Dillon’s phone, he wouldn’t have been able to see them in the darkness. “Have you tried out the mic to see if it’s working?” he asked Dillon.

  The lawman raised his hand to an earbud in his ear. “Madison and I just tested it and it’s working fine. Right now she’s singing ‘Little Boots.’”

  Flint couldn’t help the small smile in his heart. The song was currently popular on the country-western charts and was about a couple shopping for little cowboy boots for their soon-to-be-born son. She’d been humming it or singing it for the past week or so.

  “This may be a long night,” Dillon said.

  “However long it takes, right?” Flint replied. “It’s time to get this bastard off the streets.”

  With that, Dillon told each of them where to station themselves for the night to come. He didn’t have to tell them to stay undercover and keep quiet. They all understood that potentially Madison’s life could be on the line. There was absolutely no room for mistakes.

  Flint took his position on the left side of the house. Although the woods were dark and dense, the moonlight overhead was bright and the cabin was bathed in the silvery illumination.

  What was Madison doing as she waited for the devil to show up at the door? Her fear had to be tremendous. As great as his was, hers would be tenfold. She was the one with her life on the line.

  He wished he were inside the cabin with her right now, holding her closely...protectively. He wished he were close to her to feel her body heat, to smell her sweet scent and feel her heart beating next to his.

  He wanted to be her dragon slayer. He touched the butt of
his gun. He’d like to take Brad out before the man ever reached the cabin’s front door. As far as he was concerned Brad was a guilty man the minute he stepped foot on this property.

  But he knew it was important to Madison for her to feel as if she’d slayed her own dragon with just a little bit of help from the rest of them.

  And if she was successful tonight, if Brad really did show up here, then it would be goodbye for Flint and Madison. He’d already talked to the garage and arranged to pay for her car repairs. It would be ready for her first thing in the morning.

  With Brad in jail there would be nothing holding her back from reclaiming her former life...a life without Flint. He had a feeling he was going to break her heart, as he now realized that casting her back into her own life would break his own.

  But it would be selfish of him to keep her in his life. She needed her freedom to chase the dream she wanted. He couldn’t, he would never, be her dream.

  He hoped Brad showed up tonight. Flint needed this over as much as she needed it. It was growing more and more difficult for him to be around her and not make love with her once again. It was growing more and more difficult for him not to tell her that he was in love with her.

  He stared at the cabin’s front door as the minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness. Thoughts of Madison continued to flood his mind. Their first kiss...her charming laughter...making love to her...finding her in the hay...it all played in his mind like clips from a movie.

  Minutes moved into an hour, then another hour. As it got later and later, Flint’s tension rose. The muscles in his belly and chest tightened. His heartbeat quickened and he was acutely aware of the sounds around him.

  Night bugs clicked and whirred and occasionally the brush surrounding him rustled with little nocturnal creatures that lived in the woods.

  More time passed and Flint began to wonder if Brad was going to show up. Would he be bold enough to just drive in or would he sneak in on foot like a thief in the night?

  Flint had a feeling if he came at all, he would come in quietly. Hopefully, he wouldn’t see or stumble over any of the men lying in wait for him.