by Rita Herron
But her mother was gone now, God rest her soul.
Unfortunately so were her dreams of becoming a doctor.
She was broke, alone, and she’d been looking over her shoulder so long that she was half-afraid of her own shadow.
But she had enough sense to know that she was still in danger. Maybe even more so now.
Because Carter Flagstone was most likely looking for her to force her to go to the police about the night of that murder. Which meant the man who’d threatened her life and cut her was probably intent on preventing her from doing just that.
Her own private hell was starting all over.
DARK, HEAVY CLOUDS ROLLED across the night sky as Carter snuffed out the campfire where he’d cooked the fish he’d caught earlier in the stream. He tensed at the sound of a car engine rumbling down the road. He had to hide his tracks.
Still, he was anxious to talk to Dunham and find out if anyone had been snooping around the ranch.
He thought he might have seen something suspicious today. Maybe hints of a cattle rustler. He’d heard they’d had some vandalism and problems before at the BBL, and wondered if this was the same lowlife or a band of rustlers.
Not that he needed to get involved. Hell, no. He had his own problems.
But Johnny and Brandon were dedicated to this ranch, and with more campers due to arrive the next day, they sure as hell didn’t need thieves on the land. Especially if they were toting guns.
Most likely, they were.
He rubbed the matchbook with the BBL logo on it, the image of a group of boys getting shot because they’d stumbled on some rustlers, sitting low and heavy in his belly.
The car engine sounded louder, and he stepped back behind a thicket of trees, gripping his gun to his side as he studied the situation.
Dust spewed in a cloud around the truck, then the muffler made a backfiring sound, and the headlights of a rattletrap truck coasted toward him.
Dunham.
The poor guy’s truck was in worse shape than the one Brandon had loaned him.
Relaxing, he shoved the gun in the back of his jeans, but he waited until the truck had parked and Dunham climbed out before he showed himself.
His boots crunched the dry twigs and grass. “Thanks for meeting me.”
Dunham gave a clipped nod. “You said you saw trouble?”
Carter explained about the two men he’d seen on the hill in the north pasture. “They had binoculars and looked as if they were staking out the lay of the land.”
Dunham made a frustrated sound. “I’ll tell Mr. Bloodworth. We’ll keep an eye out.”
Carter nodded. “How about you? Any sign of Sadie Whitefeather on the ranch?”
Dunham shook his head. “No, man. But I know where you can find her.”
Carter’s head whipped toward him. Could he finally be this close? “Where?”
“She works at the Sawdust Saloon near the reservation. Cocktail waitress.”
Damn. Same job. Different location. And only a few miles from the BBL.
“Did you talk to her?”
Dunham frowned. “Ordered a beer and tried to get friendly, but she brushed me off.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “She’s a looker, man. Half the men in the bar were itching to get in her pants, but she wanted none of it.”
Carter gritted his teeth. She sure as hell had been receptive to him.
At the time, his ego had soared. He’d been thrilled to have her attention, and her body in his bed.
Little did he know that she’d only been using him. Setting him up to take the fall for murder.
She hadn’t been working alone. That much he was sure of. He wanted to know who her partner was. That name would lead him to the killer.
And real freedom. Not this sick shade of it where he was hiding behind shadows and trees, skulking around in the night like a damn snake, afraid to show his face during the day for fear of getting his head blown off.
“Thanks, Dunham, I owe you.”
“Just don’t get yourself caught.” Dunham extended his hand and Carter shook it. “Or killed.”
Carter sobered, knowing either one was possible. And could cause Dunham to go back to jail and land Brandon and Johnny in hot water as well for helping him.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m going to see Miss Whitefeather right now. When I finish with her, she’ll talk.”
A worried look darkened Dunham’s face, but Carter didn’t care. He’d spent five long years rotting in prison for a crime he hadn’t committed, all because of one night in the sack.
Two, if the one he couldn’t remember counted.
Nothing would stop him from making this woman finally tell the truth.
SADIE CLEARED her assigned tables, swept up, then counted her tips. A couple hundred dollars. Hardly worth the never-ending ordeal of fending off dozens of men’s wandering hands.
Still, she needed every penny and would add the cash to her medical school fund. If she ever had enough time to study for the MCATS.
She’d barely been able to finish her undergraduate degree for taking care of her mother during her illness. Now…she was so exhausted after work that she couldn’t think about studying.
Amber waltzed out the door with one of the men she’d hooked up with for the night, and Big T—Teddy, the owner—waved to her to go on. Sadie settled her purse tightly over her shoulder, one hand rubbing the leather to make sure her derringer was still tucked inside, then gripped her keys and stepped out the door.
Although questions and doubts needled her. Would she be able to use the gun if she needed to defend herself? Her Native American roots haunted her—every life is sacred…
At one time, she’d been so close to her roots that she hadn’t doubted her people’s ways. But that was before the attack…
That horrid day had changed everything. Changed her.
And she didn’t like it.
But she had no idea how to rid herself of the fear that plagued her. Not when it was so real.
Nerves tightening her body, she paused, her gaze scanning the dark parking lot and the corner of the alley, searching to make sure one of the men she’d blown off during her shift wasn’t waiting to ambush her. That or the man who’d threatened her years ago. She’d sensed he was following her the last few days.
And now she had to worry about Carter Flagstone.
Stale beer, urine and smoke clogged the air as she rushed to her beat-up sedan. A sound from the alley beyond made her jerk her head around to search again. Something ran across the alley. A stray dog?
Or a man?
Pebbles skittered behind her, then the sound of a garbage lid clanging reverberated through the air.
Anxiety knotted her stomach as she glanced over her shoulder. A homeless man was digging through the trash.
Relieved, she picked up her pace, although the wind lifted her hair and suddenly an eerie premonition skated up her spine.
Someone was watching her.
Adrenaline surged through her, and she ran the rest of the way to her car and jammed the key in the lock. Her hands shook as she opened the door and collapsed inside. She hit the lock, then cranked the engine and tore down the deserted street, her heart ticking double-time as she swung through the alley. She searched left and right, down each side street, over her back to make sure she wasn’t being followed. Then suddenly headlights beamed down on her as a truck appeared on her bumper.
Fear nearly choked her, but she forced herself to turn down another side street to throw him off. The truck moved on, and she breathed out in relief, then cut back through another street to her small apartment.
It was in the seedy side of town, but it was all she could afford, and as she climbed from her car, the smell of refuse and body odor assaulted her. Darting a quick glance around to check for predators, she rushed toward her apartment, a corner unit with sagging shutters, mud-streaked siding and unkempt shrubs and weeds shrouding it, casting it in darkness.
Her hand
shook again as she jammed the keys in the lock. Then suddenly a hard, cold hand clamped around her mouth, and she felt the tip of a gun barrel at her temple.
“Hello, Sadie,” a gruff male voice murmured. “It’s time we talk.”
Chapter Two
Carter wrapped one hand around Sadie’s neck, trapping her in a chokehold as he pushed the gun to her head.
“Scream and I’ll shoot.”
Her body trembled against his, but he forced himself to ignore the guilt that niggled at him. He’d had plenty of fights with men, but he’d never hurt a woman before.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she whispered.
He shoved her inside the dark apartment, then slammed the door, needing cover in case someone was watching and called the cops.
A faint glow from a streetlight outside bled through the worn curtains across the room, and he pushed her toward it. “I’m going to release you, but if you scream or try to escape, I will hurt you.” He spoke low into her ear. “Do you understand?”
She nodded against him, her fear palpable in the way she dug her fingers into his arm where he gripped her neck.
Carter swung her around and pushed her down onto the threadbare sofa, then aimed the gun at her. The shallow light bathed her face, accentuating the terror in her big, dark eyes. Eyes that had once made him melt.
Eyes that had haunted him since with her cunning lies.
She slid a hand in her purse, and he realized she might be reaching for a weapon. Furious, he straddled her, pinning her down on the sofa as he jerked her purse open. She grunted in pain as his weight bore down on her.
He tried to ignore the feel of her soft, feminine curves beneath his. He hadn’t had sex in five years, and her sultry body had been the last one he’d pounded himself into.
Dammit, he wanted her again.
“Get off me,” Sadie said tightly.
His fingers connected with cold metal, and he removed a derringer from her purse then dangled it in front of her. “You going to shoot me, Sadie? Framing me for murder wasn’t bad enough?”
Emotions flickered across her heart-shaped face, those chocolate eyes brimming with sudden tears. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”
What the hell? Were those real tears? Or was she a consummate actress?
For a moment, he studied her, searching for the cold-hearted vixen who had seduced him with her lies, then drugged him and hung him out to dry.
But the woman in front of him looked small, vulnerable, even innocent, as if she wouldn’t hurt a fly. And she was still so damn beautiful that he felt as if he’d been punched in the chest just like he had the first time he’d seen her in that seedy bar fending off the hands of the jerks who thought her waitress services included servicing them.
She also looked terrified.
She should be, dammit.
Sure, she’s terrified. She’s finally been caught at her own game.
Hardening himself, he moved off of her, careful to keep his gun trained on her as he stowed hers in his jacket pocket.
“You know I’ve spent five years in a maximum security prison for a murder I didn’t commit, all because of you,” Carter said in an icy voice. “You drugged me that night, didn’t you?”
She clutched her small-boned hands in her lap, twisting them in the knots of her Navajo print skirt, her face pale and pinched.
“Didn’t you?” Carter growled.
Her labored breath rattled out, then she looked up at him and gave a small nod.
Her confirmation made his chest seize with much-needed relief that he wasn’t crazy, that he hadn’t gone on some drunken rage, killed that man and blacked out and forgotten it.
On the heels of that relief, fury flooded him.
So he had been right. She’d used him.
His hand tightened around the handle of the gun as the memory of waking with all that blood on his hands suffused him. The dingy hotel room, the furniture ripped apart, the tattered clothes strewn about as if an animal had ripped at them.
The jagged hole in the man’s chest, the knife in his hand… “Why?”
Another deep breath, and she averted her eyes. “I’m sorry, Carter. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t want an apology,” he bellowed. “I want the damn truth. Why did you do it? Did someone pay you?” He paced in front of her, waving the weapon, his boots hammering the cheap linoleum. “Did you and the killer plan this, then you picked me out of the bar?” He whirled back around to face her, jabbing his chest with his thumb. “Why, Sadie? Why me? Was I just the biggest fool in the room, or was it because I was falling all over you?”
SADIE WILLED HERSELF to be strong.
Carter had every reason to hate her. But she was terrified he’d unleash five years of rage and kill her.
And as much as she despised herself for what she’d done, she didn’t want to die. “You don’t understand,” she whispered.
He glared at her with condemning eyes, eyes so cold that he could practically kill with them. His face was rugged, jaw unshaven, the scars he’d gained in jail deeper and puckered.
But beneath the rage, she sensed a wealth of pain, pain she had helped cause by her betrayal.
Where had he been the last few days? Hiding out in ditches? Barns?
All because of her.
The memory of the night they’d made love flashed back. He’d been a bad-boy hellion back then, full of anger, the strong-and-silent type; maybe that was what had attracted her. In bed, he’d been physically demanding, too, had made her body ache with want and desire and need. Yet he’d also been gentle and loving, determined to please her as much as he’d wanted pleasure for himself. And his sexual prowess had been overwhelming.
The gentleness was gone now, though, replaced by a steely intent to exact revenge.
“I asked you—why me?” Carter demanded.
She startled at the sound of his booming voice, then forced herself to look up at him. She owed him an explanation.
If it endangered her, then so be it. She was tired of being on the run and smothered by guilt.
“I don’t know,” Sadie said, clenching her skirt in her hands. “Maybe because you and Dyer had a run-in two nights before.”
Carter narrowed his eyes. “We did?”
“You don’t remember?” She sighed. “You and he were both drinking, playing pool. It was nothing, just a bar brawl, but I guess the incident made you a patsy.”
Carter scrubbed his hand over his beard stubble. “Who were you working with?” Carter asked gruffly.
Sadie’s heart thumped with shock. “You have it all wrong,” she said, suddenly realizing that Carter thought she had conspired in the murder he’d been arrested for. “I didn’t kill that man or have anything to do with it.”
Disbelief slashed fierce lines around his chiseled mouth. “You expect me to buy that story? You seduced me, drugged me, then set me up.”
“No,” Sadie protested, although her protests sounded weak, even to her own ears. The truth was, she had helped set him up, even though she hadn’t realized it at the time.
He stalked toward her, then jammed the gun in her face again. He was so close she smelled his anger, felt his breath brush her cheek. “Don’t lie to me. You owe me the truth, so spill it or you’re dead.”
Sadie shook her head, her stomach churning. “You’re not a killer, Carter. You won’t—”
He cocked the trigger. “If you don’t think I’m a killer, why the hell didn’t you stand up for me in court and say that? Why did you let them lock me up?”
“Because I was scared.” Sadie’s hand rose to her neck, then unconsciously to the scar on her chest. It ached, the burning sensation triggered by the memory of the man digging a knife in her chest.
Carter’s look flattened. “Scared? Scared of what?”
Sadie closed her eyes, willing the memories away, but they consumed her anyway. The big man’s beefy hands around her neck, choking her. His rancid breath on her face. His gruff,
steely voice rasping threats in her ear.
Suddenly Carter jerked her head back, and her eyes flew open. “Tell me what happened,” he growled. “Who set me up?”
Sadie wheezed a breath. “I don’t know his name,” she whispered. “Just that he broke into my house after you left me in bed that first night we made love.”
“The night before the murder?”
She nodded. “He had a knife, he…”
Carter’s eyes flickered over her, cold, icy pits of hell. “He what?”
“He put it to my throat. He almost strangled me, then he threatened to kill my mother and me if I didn’t do what he said.” Her breathing grew ragged. “He knew where I lived, that my mother was sick, and he was going to make her suffer....”
Carter’s eyes narrowed to slits as her voice broke, then he swallowed hard, making the vein in his neck bulge. “What exactly did he tell you to do?”
Sadie’s heart wrenched. “To slip you a roofie when you came in again.” Her voice cracked, tears clogging her throat. “I didn’t want to do it, Carter, but I was terrified.”
A heartbeat of silence stretched between them, the tension palpable. “Did he tell you why he wanted me drugged?”
“No.” Sadie shook her head in denial. “I swear, I had no idea what he was up to. I…thought he planned to rob you or something. It never occurred to me that he was planning a murder.”
Carter made a guttural sound in his throat, then stood, moving away as if he could no longer stand the sight of her. Although his gaze remained pinned on her, his look teeming with disbelief, hate and bitterness. “If that’s true, then why didn’t you come forward once I was arrested?”
The scalding sensation intensified in Sadie’s chest, and she rubbed it again. “I told you…I was afraid.”
“The police could have protected you,” Carter bit out. “And you could have saved me.”
The memories flooded her again, trapping her, choking her. “I did try to go to the police,” Sadie said, gasping for a breath. “But…but he found me.”