The Jilting: Summer (Mandrake Falls Series Romance Book 1)

by Catherine Lloyd

  Scout stretched over him, her bare legs chafing against his jeans. It was the most erotic sensation he’d had with a woman. Half-naked, Scout seemed vulnerable and fragile. It drove him insane seeing her soft, pink womanhood pressed against the thick denim that covered his erection.

  “Then you were thinking of me sexually first because the camping trip came later. I wish I’d known. Why didn’t you make a move?”

  “I thought about it. I thought about it a lot. It’s hell on a teenage boy having a girl for a friend.”

  It was a good thing he didn’t know Scout was thinking the same thing he was on that camping trip. He wished he had his self-control to thank for not jumping her, but it was fear of Walter Rutherford that made him keep his hands to himself. The fantasies lingered though, sometimes cropping up in the middle of having sex with one of his girlfriends.

  Scout straddled his middle, sat up and slipped out of the shirt. Her breasts lifted above him, large for her small, thin frame. He cupped them and squeezed. “Come here.” He pulled her down, taking one perfect nipple into his mouth and suckled. Her head tilted, her eyes closed. Ryder closed his too so he wouldn’t see her, forcing him to slow down. This time would be much better for her but only if her body was ready to accept him.

  He rolled her underneath him. Instead of touching her, Ryder slid down and positioned himself between her legs.

  “What are you doing?” She sounded alarmed.

  “Don’t be scared. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Ryder stroked her thighs wider and kissed her warm, sweet, wet center.

  Scout bolted upright. “Whoa.”

  Ryder ignored this. His mouth had found the nub. He tasted her, flicking the tight bud with his tongue. Scout’s body responded like she’d been electrocuted. She flung back against the cot with a sound that was between a grunt and a howl and fought to get free of his mouth.

  This was only the beginning. In a few seconds she would stop fighting and give in to the arousal which was much slower and more shattering than when he’d used his fingers. Scout’s body went limp and she sounded like she was babbling a nonsense language. She was in another place and soon he would bring her home.

  It took less time than Ryder thought. Scout stiffened, her hips thrust up and she let out a cry that almost took him with her. Her flesh shivered and pulsated under his tongue. Ryder suckled, quietly holding her there, though she was ready for him now. He wanted to wait, to savor this moment. There were some emotions that were impossible to talk about, to explain. Pleasing Scout sexually had filled Ryder with a mixture of gratitude and joy and pride. If it took his whole life he would never untangle his feelings for her.

  She reached for him, her eyes dark. Her hands found the button of his jeans and she unfastened it. She didn’t speak. He caught her silent seriousness and undressed without a word. They had said everything they had to.

  They had both wanted to believe they could survive the consequences of having sex but this pleasure had come at a price. He wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was, that they could never go back to being what they were. The feelings they had for each other had just got bigger—too big to contain in a childhood friendship. Ryder knew himself too well. He couldn’t join Scout in the life she wanted but he would hold her back from getting it. He would use this night to keep her from giving her heart to another man.

  There was no other way. As soon as Scout was safe again, he was going to put the farm on the market, request a transfer and leave town.

  He found her mouth and kissed her tenderly, fervently. Her legs parted, responsive, giving him everything he could ask for, but he took his time entering her, dragging out the experience of being inside her, knowing that one day he’d want to relive every detail.

  Be who you can be with her tonight. Don’t think about who you’ll be tomorrow.

  Long into the night Ryder made love to Scout, over and over again, until both were spent and they fell asleep in a hot, sweaty tangle on the cot.

  Chapter Ten: The Honeymoon Is Over

  RYDER WAS aware it was morning even before he opened his eyes. The birds were better than any alarm clock, kicking up a racket in the early morning chill.

  Scout was still sleeping. After last night, she needed the rest. He’d pushed her to her sexual limits. She was willing but she didn’t know what she was getting into. He did. If this passion or madness or whatever it was between them hadn’t been driven out after last night, well, it was a damn good thing he was leaving town.

  He climbed over her, disengaging his leg from between hers and sliding his arm out from under her stomach. Scout slept like she was the only one in the bed. Ryder stretched and shook his leg to get the blood flowing. Painful prickling shot through his leg. He blew air and stamped his foot like that ever helped.

  It only took him a few minutes to wash up and he considered making breakfast. There was coffee and a camp stove. He could make them coffee before heading back to town, he thought, suddenly unwilling to leave the lookout. Ryder picked up his clothes and dressed. He found Scout’s panties, shorts and the tee shirt, shook them out and set them on the end of the cot. She slept, twisted up in the sheet, her hair wet with sweat and her mouth slightly parted.

  What she had done with that mouth last night.

  He exhaled through his teeth. Not a good sign, Dean. Fantasizing about her this soon after the night they’d had was not a good sign. Better get the farm up for sale pronto. Better wake her up. Better get going before he changed his mind.

  Ryder soaked the towel and turned back to the cot.

  That’s when he heard it: snapping twigs accompanied by low voices, in the far distance, muffled but unmistakable. Ryder’s ears stretched toward the sound as he moved silently to the window, crouching on the cot to see out without being seen. Terry and Roy were about a hundred yards from the pickup. In that orange vest, Roy’s progress through the bush was easy to track.

  “Scout!” he whispered. “Wake up.”

  Scout opened her eyes and she smiled at him, lazily. “Hi.”

  Ryder grinned at the senseless rush of pleasure it gave him seeing her smile. “Hi yourself. Here, wash up and put your clothes on. Time to go. They’re here.”

  She stared at him in confusion. And then her eyes darkened to oak as the memory returned. Her skin turned a succulent shade of pink when she realized she was naked.

  “Where,” she asked in a hurried whisper.

  Scout took the cloth from him and scrubbed it over her body, in the places he’d been, which was everywhere. She reached for her panties and in a bizarre bout of modesty tried to pull them on under the sheet.

  “Outside,” he whispered back. “Not far from the truck. They haven’t seen it yet. I think they’re lost. We can reach it before they do if we leave now.”

  The voices were louder now. Scout could hear them too. The sound galvanized her into action. She flung back the sheet and pulled her shorts on. Her breasts bounced as she fought with the zipper. Ryder opened his mouth to say something but the words died on his lips. She was even more beautiful in the daylight if that was possible.

  “What are we going to do? They might see us when we start down the ladder,” she whispered, snapping him out of his trance.

  Ryder found his voice. “We have to take the chance. We can’t get trapped in here. They’ll starve us out.” He flipped open trap door. “C’mon, you first.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you can run faster than me.” Ryder helped her through the door. Every second counted. “As soon as you touch ground, start running. The keys are in the ignition. You have to make it to the pickup before they do or they’ve got us.”

  “What about you?” She looked up at him.

  “I’ll be right behind you, but Scout, don’t wait for me. If you make it to the truck, get in and drive. Just go. I can lose them in the bush if I have to.”

  She stopped, gripping the ladder’s rails. “I’m not leaving you, Ryder.”<
br />
  “It won’t come to that. Just keep moving. They’re getting closer.”

  Scout dropped to the ground and took off running, darting with amazing speed through the woods. Ryder kept her in view, praying that his estimate of the distance between them and the truck was accurate.

  “Over here! Roy! I hear them!”

  Ryder’s blood froze. Terry was moving quickly in Scout’s direction. The hit man had heard her in the bush. Scout’s life came down to being the fastest. With Terry between Ryder and the pickup, he was cut off from her.

  A shot rang out.

  “Terry! You got her?” Roy was at the pickup.

  Damn him straight to hell! Where was Scout?

  Ryder dropped low and slunk through the bush in a wide loop. He moved behind the trees until he could see the pickup about twenty feet away. Roy was pacing the small clearing, scanning the forest for a sign of Scout. Terry emerged, red-faced and panting from the opposite direction. “Where is she?”

  “I thought you had her.”

  “Why would I have her? I was chasing her toward you. You were supposed to cut her off.”

  “She didn’t come this way. I’d have caught her. Are you sure it was the girl you heard in the trees?” Roy glanced around uncertainly. “Maybe it was a bear.”

  “It wasn’t a bear you idiot, or we’d both be dead. It was the guy. She has a guy with her, he could be trouble. If they radioed for help federal agents will be crawling up our asses in no time. We’ve got to find them.”

  Roy peered into the wood. “Let’s get out of here, Terry. This is a big goddamned forest. They could be anywhere by now.”

  “They wouldn’t leave the pickup. No, she’s here, close by.” Terry’s dark rodent eyes flicked over the trees.

  Roy took a couple of paces. “That looks like a trail there, through the scrub. I can just make it out. Let’s try it. Maybe they holed up in a cabin nearby.”

  The two men headed off in the direction of the tower. Ryder waited a beat and then crept to the pickup. He climbed inside as noiselessly as possible. Where the hell was Scout? He’d give her one more minute and then he’d have to risk being seen to look for her.

  Scout peered at Terry and Roy from her hiding spot under a huge rotted log. Ryder wasn’t with them. When Terry fired the gun, Scout made a split second decision to dive under the rotted log and wait him out. She couldn’t outrun a bullet. Now she jumped to her feet and darted for the truck. She had no idea where Ryder was but he couldn’t be far away. If the hit men didn’t have him, then he was safe somewhere nearby. She wasn’t going to leave without him. She just had to get to the truck without being seen, find Ryder, and get out of here.

  “She’s here! Terry! I’ve got her!”

  Scout choked back a scream and dove behind a tree just as Roy in his bright orange vest came crashing through the bush. A large branch lay nearby and Scout jumped on it. Hefting it like a club, she swung in a wide blind arc and clobbered Roy on the side of the head. The big man went down with a bellow. Scout flung the branch away and began running in the direction of the truck. Trees whipped her face and the undergrowth clawed at her ankles until she burst from the edge of the wood. The truck engine flared to life. Scout’s heart stopped.

  “Scout! Get in!”

  “Ryder!” she screamed. Scout flung herself at the passenger door and dove inside.

  Roy appeared out of nowhere with Terry close at his heels. Ryder swore and slammed the truck into reverse. Roy took a flying leap at Scout’s door and caught it. Her window was rolled down. Scout screamed.

  “Get rid of him!” Ryder yelled.

  She pounded on the big man’s hands but he hung on like a leech. “Let go! Let go! Let go!” Scout leveraged her feet up and pushed hard against Roy’s face.

  “Stop that! We just want to talk to you! No violence, a negotiation!”

  “For God’s sake, Noel lied to you. I don’t know anything about the money!” Scout pried Roy’s fingers up, bending each one back as far as it would go. A normal man would have let go, unable to stand the pain, but Roy’s grip only seemed to get stronger. “Ryder, he’s not letting go!”

  The forest road was slowing them down. Ryder’s eyes darted to the rear view mirror. Terry was closing in on them. He had a gun. “Bite him!”

  Scout stared at Roy’s hand. “I’m not going to bite him. I don’t where that hand’s been.”

  “Look, sweetheart,” Roy begged, wincing, “your fiancé says you’ve got the money so let’s talk. All we want is what’s ours and no one gets hurt.” He was clinging to the door with his considerable strength.

  “And I told you Noel lied! He was stalling for time!”

  “That’s bullshit! My partner and I are sick of both of you. We want our money and we want it now!” Roy lunged through the window, grabbed her throat and brandished a gun to her head.

  Scout screamed as Ryder gunned the engine. The truck spun wildly out of control, throwing Roy off balance. Scout fumbled for the door handle. She felt the cool metal in her finger just as Roy caught her by the shoulder. She jerked the handle up and the door swung wide taking Roy with it. He tried to recover, arms pin-wheeling as momentum sent the big man flying into the bush.

  Scout slammed the door. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Ryder snapped a look at her ashen face. “You okay?”

  Scout nodded, too shaken to answer. Ryder looked as green as she felt. He grimly pushed the accelerator to its limit and they spun over the logging road toward the Interstate. Scout risked a glance in the side mirror. Terry stood unmoving in the middle of the road. Roy was nowhere to be seen. Terry raised his gun and fired. Scout ducked involuntarily. The bullet landed harmlessly far behind them. They were out of range.

  Dust swirled about Terry and he sneezed. Between the goddamned trees and the dust, his allergies were giving him grief and now there was a strange rash on his skin that itched and burned. He tried to rub the grit out from under his lids. He’d had a miserable night’s sleep in the woods and for what? This operation had been a complete fiasco from beginning to end.

  Roy groaned and emerged, shamefaced, from the bushes. “That girl is one tough chick. Maybe Trace was telling the truth and she’s the one who masterminded the theft. I wouldn’t put anything past her.” Roy rubbed the side of his head where Scout clubbed him with the branch.

  “We’ll never know now because she knows we’re tailing her! I told you the plan was to let them think they were in the clear so the girl would lead us to the money. No one gets hurt. No one calls the cops. What are the odds are of that happening now?”

  Roy shrugged sheepishly. “Not great.”

  “Not great. Not great, you say. Nothing gets past you.” Terry paced, thinking. “Salvage time. Okay, so now we know why the bride-to-be wouldn’t give up the money to save Trace—there’s a new man in the picture. Right, so that gives us a new play: she gets us that money or we blow the boyfriend’s brains out. Trace will give her up when he finds out she’s already sleeping with another man. He’s a total hypocrite. No morals, that guy.”

  The walk to the cabin wasn’t as difficult as it had been the night before. Even the full moon was no help to them last night. Last night was a horror; stumbling through the dark with branches clawing at their eyes and tangling their hair. Terry couldn’t for the life of him understand the appeal of camping. Their progress was much better this morning; the cabin was already visible through the trees. Terry was starting to believe this job might work out after all. Maybe the bad luck he and Roy had been plagued with was finally beginning to turn. Even his allergies seemed better. He was beginning to feel confident they’d recover the money and deliver up Noel to Scarlett on time.

  The two men flung open the door of the cabin. The chair was empty. No Noel, no girl. Nothing but a tangle of ropes on the floor.

  “Where did you learn to tie a knot?” Terry asked Roy patiently. He prided himself on his patience.

  “Ah, damn,” was all Roy manage
d to get out.

  Terry thumped the back of his head.

  SCOUT’S HANDS stopped shaking as soon as Ryder swung the truck on to the Interstate and the forest fell back behind them. “This is insane. None of this makes sense. I feel like I’m in a movie and someone is going to yell cut. Roy said I have the money. What has Noel told them? Ryder, how am I going to prove I don’t have what they’re looking for?”

  “We’ll give them the hard drive.”

  “We can’t do that. It’s evidence. The FBI will need it to make their case.”

  “I don’t care. They’ll find another way. As long as they think you have that money, you’re in danger. He held a gun to your head, Scout. There was nothing I could do. He held a fucking gun to your head.” Ryder looked at her. “This is mob debt. It’s not the same as being late with your Visa bill. If they think you’ve stolen from them, they kill you.”

  Scout closed her eyes and rested her head against the seat. “They’re going to kill me anyway. They don’t have a choice. You know it and I know it. From the moment I got involved with Noel, I was dead.”

  “Don’t say that. There has to be a way out of this.”

  “There isn’t. Witness protection isn’t going to happen even if I wanted it. I wasn’t aware of Noel’s activities and I can’t ID who he was working for. Terry and Roy are small fry. I’m not giving up that computer, Ryder. It’s the only reason I’m still alive.”

  Scout turned her face to the window and the passing countryside. After they promised to tell each other the truth, she was already lying to him. It wasn’t her life she was worried about, but his. Last night with Ryder had been intense. She said she wanted him to leave marks on her body and he obliged. Ryder made love to her like he was fresh out of prison. She lost her virginity seven times over. They couldn’t go back to being just friends after a night like that. Maybe if they’d stopped after the first time ... (don’t think about it, don’t think about it, put it out of your mind.) It was too late now. He couldn’t go forward and she couldn’t go back. It was useless to talk about it. They weren’t friends. They weren’t lovers. And she was already a dead woman.