Bounty (Colorado Mountain #7)

by Kristen Ashley

  She sang right to you.

  Right to you.

  Fuck him, he’d never forget Jussy looking right at him and singing about how easy it was to fall in love.

  Yeah.

  Fuck.

  Him.

  Deke buried that and shook his head. “Work for her, been with her every day for weeks. She’s a good woman. Good soul. Good sense of humor. So she’s a friend.”

  Bubba’s eyes got big.

  Fuck, he shouldn’t have said anything.

  But to shut down the shit he knew was ramping out there, he had to say something.

  “You? A friend who looks like Jus who doesn’t have one of your buds’ rings on her finger?” Bubba asked doubtfully.

  “She’s my boss.”

  “Max is your boss,” Bubba shot back. “She’s the woman who pays Max to do the job. The hot woman with all that hair, Jesus.” Now Bubba was shaking his head. “My baby’s got a good head of hair and she switches it up constantly so I always got somethin’ new and pretty to look at but Jus’s hair—”

  Deke felt an unhappy heat start spreading in his gut.

  “Stop talkin’ ’bout her hair,” he clipped.

  “Stop bein’ such a narrow-minded, short-sighted fuckwad, open your eyes and see,” Bubba clipped back, using a tone not only had Deke never heard from Bub, but also not one anyone who had eyes in their head and could see all the man Deke was had used on Deke. Not to mention Deke wouldn’t have even guessed his friend had it in him. “She’s into you, man. So fuckin’ into you, she wasn’t Jus, and that shit might come from her bein’ a Lonesome, which I’m guessing you know now, bud, but it also comes from just bein’ Jus. No matter what she does, she exudes cool. Any other woman was into you like that without you giving anything back, it’d be cute but it’d also be dorky and maybe even a little sad.”

  Fuck, it felt like the man had punched him in his throat.

  “It’s not sad,” he forced through that throat. “We’re good. We know what we are and it’s all good.”

  “Not good the way it could be,” Bub returned.

  He had that right.

  “So it’s all good,” Bubba kept at him, “why’d you take off and why’d she run after you?”

  “Because I didn’t know she was a Lonesome until last night, somethin’,” Deke said with eyes narrowed on Bubba, not that he cared, just using that to deflect the shit Bubba was giving off Deke, “seems like you knew but you didn’t share. And she thought I was pissed. It was a surprise but I wasn’t pissed. We talked it out and it’s all good.”

  “You talked it out and it’s all good, why no sandwiches today, man? Why’d she get ready in her room, not findin’ a dozen reasons like she usually does to come out and have a natter with you, which translates into coming out and just bein’ around you, and instead she hauls ass outta here tellin’ you she’ll see you on Monday?”

  “’Cause shit’s getting done in her house,” Deke explained logically, since it was true but it was also a lie. “She’s only a couple of weeks away from a full crew gettin’ in here and she’s got you helpin’ to keep that goin’ and she doesn’t have any furniture, brother. She lives her life like this,” Deke threw out a hand to the space, “she gets a microwave, she’s gonna be on that like white on rice. Can’t be on that if the woman doesn’t even have plates.”

  Bubba gave him a look and changed tactics.

  “You should go for that, man.”

  “She’s not my type.”

  Bubba’s head twitched. “You got a type?”

  “Yeah, and it isn’t Jussy.”

  “Jussy,” Bub whispered, looking now like he was trying not to smile.

  “Yeah, Jussy,” Deke bit out. “A Jussy who wants ceilings and walls, not two men standin’ around on scaffolding gabbin’ like women. So how ’bout we get on givin’ her that?”

  Another change came over Bubba and he said low, “She told Krys who she is ’cause her and Krys are getting close.” A small smile hit his lips as he shook his head and went on, “Don’t get that, how Krys makes everyone go through her twelve circles of hell to get in there but she let Jus in. Jus let her in in return. And Jus said she didn’t want us sharing.”

  “I get that.”

  “Sorry, bro. But it was hers to give.”

  “I get that,” Deke repeated. “Now can we get to work?”

  “Yeah,” Bubba replied. “After I go on record saying I think you’re making a big mistake.” He leaned toward Deke. “Huge.” He leaned back. “I don’t know what’s holding you back but whatever it is, got a bad feeling you’re throwin’ away the best thing that ever dropped in your lap.” He lifted a hand, palm up Deke’s way when Deke opened his mouth. “Your life, your choice. Not gonna say another word but I’ll have a word with my woman to get her and her posse to rein it in. But there it is. I’m on record. And I hope you think about it. But your life, your choice.”

  “Can I take it with that we’re done?” Deke asked.

  Bubba nodded. “We’re done.”

  “Then let’s get to work,” Deke muttered.

  Bubba gave him a long look but thank fuck, after giving it, he turned away.

  Deke turned his thoughts from all Bubba had to say.

  It’s good to finally know why you stood me up.

  Shit.

  She sang right to you.

  Right to you.

  Fuck.

  He turned his thoughts from Jussy too.

  And he turned them to giving her the only thing he’d be able to give her that she couldn’t give herself.

  Something she actually could give herself since she was paying for it.

  That being progress on the house she bought that she needed done and made safe so she could find her peace.

  * * * * *

  Justice

  Sunday night, I stood in the great room where I’d come home to all three lamps lit because Deke had left them that way.

  I put that thoughtfulness out of my mind and looked up.

  I had a quarter of a fabulously stunning, wood ceiling laid in a herringbone pattern, the theme from the deck flowing through that space.

  Symmetry.

  I was finally getting it.

  Right in time not to want it.

  Zigs and zags were a lot better, I realized. You could cut and run on a zig, leave it all behind on a zag.

  Now I was stuck.

  I also saw the drywall upstairs ready for Deke to get started on giving me rooms the next day. And with the way he was going, it’d all be done, taped and primed by next week.

  So it was good that that weekend I’d decided what color every room would be painted.

  A flatbed truck was not the best vehicle to go crazy shopping in when you were shopping in a city a couple of hours away so you couldn’t safely put much in the bed, but I’d bought myself so much stuff, on the way home the cab was stuffed full of it as well as my overnight bag.

  In that stuff was kitchen towels and Deke would just have to deal.

  He also wouldn’t because he’d never be using them.

  I sighed and moved to the front door to go out and haul in my stash.

  I brought it in and made sure the front door was locked behind me.

  I then moved to the other doors to make sure of the same.

  I only kept one light on when I went to my bedroom.

  Tuesday, Joe Callahan would be there to start work on my security system. On Saturday, Bubba would be there. And on Sunday, Lacey was showing.

  Which meant, with Cal saying it would take a few days to do his gig, my hope was I’d only have one day alone with Deke next week.

  But that day was the next day.

  I had to find a way to get through it. Show him I could go back to sandwiches and banter.

  I was going to do that but he’d have to deal with me pulling back.

  He got why I’d been guarded before.

  This time, I knew for sure he’d get me.

  * * * *
*

  I heard glass breaking and my eyes shot open.

  I lay still in the dark in my bed, listening.

  Silence.

  But the skin all over my body was tingling like it did when you had a bad dream, woke up and for those first seconds you were sure it was real.

  I didn’t remember dreaming but it could be a dream.

  And anyway, I might not have a security system but I did kind of have one because the roads were a maze to get up there. They were well-tended but the closer you got to my house, the deeper in the mountains you were, there was not a single streetlight. Not to mention, my house was way off the beaten path, down a long lane so you couldn’t even see it from Ponderosa Road. In the dark, you might not be able to see the lane. My mailbox was outside my house, the postman came all the way down the lane, so there wasn’t even a postbox or number to share that up my narrow lane there was anything.

  Not that anyone would know I owned that property. Mr. T made it so my LLC owned it and you’d have to dig deep even to find I owned the LLC.

  So no one there.

  But Deke would be there within hours and Cal would be there to set me up the next day.

  I relaxed, rolled and started to reach for my phone to check what time it was when I heard my bedroom door opening.

  Now moving automatically, adrenaline spiking through me, I didn’t nab my phone.

  I rolled the other way, jumped off the bed and ran like hell toward the French doors.

  I was caught by my hair in a vicious grip and thrown back savagely, hitting the floor on my back with not even an elbow to cushion the fall, this knocking the wind right out of me.

  Which meant he could get on top of me, straddling me.

  I stared into his shadowed face, the ski mask hiding his features and I sucked in breath, twisted my hips and started to try to escape him when he hit me.

  Shot to the left cheekbone first. Another direct hit nearly at the same place. A third one and I hadn’t even turned my head to shake the second one off or had the chance to get my hands up to deflect the blows.

  Stars exploded in my eyes the first and second but scary black started encroaching on the third before he took my hair in a brutal grip at the crown, slammed my head into the hardwood floors (fuck, I needed a rug in there) and then I felt the cold at my neck.

  I quit breathing.

  His ski mask got right in my face.

  “Don’t be any more stupid,” he bit out.

  A guy. From what I could see, white. No way to tell the color of his eyes.

  All this I took in because I had the ability of sight. I wasn’t being smart or thinking ahead.

  I was barely breathing.

  And all of my concentration was on the cold at my throat, cold I knew was a blade.

  He got closer.

  I wanted to swallow. Needed to swallow.

  But I was scared shitless at swallowing and what that might do with what was pressed way too close to my throat.

  “Now be good,” he whispered.

  The cold was gone but he used his grip in my hair to drag me across the floor.

  I felt my eyes roll back in my head, my hands darting up to his wrists to hang on and draw myself up so there wasn’t so much weight pulling on my hair, doing this because the pain of that was so immense, it was insane.

  He dragged me up to my bed, and if I was coursing with adrenaline and panic before, him taking me to my bed, and what he might do to me there, it consumed me and I didn’t think about any blade.

  I just started struggling wildly, pushing, shoving, kicking out my legs, twisting, doing this all begging, “No, please, please, no.”

  He quelled my exertions with four more blows to the face, leaving me blinking and fighting to remain conscious before he got me on my back on the bed, straddled me, wrapped his hand around my throat…and squeezed.

  Moving with reflexive desire to remain breathing, my legs kicked out behind him without me telling them to do it, my hips bucked, my nails tore at his wrist and forearm.

  He just reached beyond me, nabbed something from the nightstand and I saw it illuminate his masked face when he engaged my phone.

  “Password,” he bit out.

  I kept struggling and since he was choking me, gurgling.

  He lifted me by my throat and slammed me into the bed, apparently totally unfazed by any of my thrashing.

  He got in my face, released some pressure on my throat and barked, “Password!”

  “Eight, seven, three, nine,” I breathed then sucked back a harsh, desperate breath but only got half of it in.

  He started choking me again.

  And he did this making a call.

  I didn’t care if he called Geneva, just as long as I got out of this alive.

  So I kept fighting.

  He was bigger than me, leaner than me, fitter than me, obviously stronger than me and really fucking good at choking people.

  He was going to kill me.

  At this realization, my stomach dropped, thoughts exploded in my brain, feelings grazing through me leaving wounds. Fear. Panic. Regret. Disbelief. Pain.

  Fuck, Deke was going to find me.

  Fuck, Deke had a key and if this guy left me where I lay after he was done throttling me, it would be Deke that found me.

  I bucked ferociously with my hips and scored deep with my nails in his flesh, feeling myself tearing through fabric and breaking skin.

  It was like he was a rodeo rider, he held on without a flinch.

  It was happening. Oxygen depletion. The fight going out of me. My vision getting fuzzy. The black seeping in from the outsides of my eyes. He was fading and nothing was in my brain. Not a thing.

  Except focusing all my efforts on dragging in air that just wasn’t coming.

  I stopped flailing to concentrate everything I had on trying to breathe and the gruesome, useless noises I was making attempting to pull in oxygen filled the air.

  “That’s your girl, Justice,” he said into the phone. “Listen,” he ordered and my phone was to my face.

  I feebly lifted an arm to shove it up his jaw in one final effort to push him off me, but it just glanced off, dropping to the side as I kept suffocating.

  He took the phone from me and said in it, “You get me what you owe me. You fuckin’ get it to me. You got a week. You don’t get it to me, she goes down and that other one does too.”

  With that, he threw my phone on the bed and took his hand from my throat.

  I twisted to the side under him, curling into myself, drawing in long, grating breaths, one after another, my hands to my throat.

  “I will get to you. I don’t get paid, you pay,” he whispered in my ear. “You let her know that.”

  Hand to my throat, he turned me, and I thrashed in terror at his grip there again, rasping out, “No!”

  But he just hit me.

  And again.

  And again.

  Which was when it all went black.

  * * * * *

  I woke up on my bed, no idea how long I’d been out. But my face was on fire, my throat was on fire and I had only one thought.

  Get the fuck out of there.

  I scrambled to my hands and knees, awkward and clumsy in my fear, and fell off the side of the bed, landing all my weight on a wrist.

  I didn’t even feel the pain.

  I grabbed the bed and nightstand, the lamp falling off as I hauled myself up.

  I felt around on the nightstand for my keys, and in my agitated searching, they fell to the floor.

  I dropped to my knees to find them, and in the dark actually hit them, sending them careening away from me.

  I did this twice, frantically crawling after them, until I snatched them up in my hand and I held them so tight, the metal bit into my flesh.

  I got to my feet and I ran.

  Out the bedroom into the great room and to the front door.

  I slammed into it.

  It was locked.

  With fumbli
ng fingers, I unlocked it and tore out of my house, my bare feet going from the smooth flagstone walk to the biting gravel of my driveway, and I didn’t care.

  I threw an arm out, half hugging my granddad’s truck, running my arm along its side, the hood as I rounded it to get to the driver’s side.

  I got there, whispered my chant of, “Together, keep it together. Get in the truck and go. Together, keep it together,” in an effort to get the key in the hole to open my door without wasting another second dropping them from my violently shaking hands.

  It worked.

  The door made not a noise when I threw it open (WD-40 could not be beat).

  I climbed in the seat, slammed the door, locked it and went to the ignition.

  “Together, keep it together. Keep it together.” I kept at it to focus on getting the key in, the truck started up and getting the fuck out of there.

  It worked again and I threw the truck in drive, did a tight turn in the wide (but not that wide) circle of gravel that was the end of the drive at the front of my house. And I floored it when I hit the lane.

  Through this, I did not look anywhere or think anything but where I was going.

  And I continued to do this as I drove like a fucking lunatic down my lane, Ponderosa Road and all the rest until I hit Main Street.

  I must have taken that street in the early morning dark going seventy.

  I did not care.

  I drove direct to the police station, screeched to a halt at an angle to the front doors, taking up both handicap spaces. I threw the truck in park, pushed open my door, shoved myself out of the truck and ran to the front door.

  It was locked.

  I looked through the glass door at the officer at the desk and started banging with open palm at the door.

  “Let me in.”

  It came out as a scratch.

  I cleared my throat, still banging, and shouted as loud as my damaged throat would let me. “Let me in!”

  I heard a buzzer.

  I yanked open the door, threw myself through it and raced to the desk where the officer was already standing and on the move, beginning to make his way around it, eyes locked to me.