"Good. Now how'd it go with Paddy?"
"Not good. I've forgiven him. But Rafe's being a jerk." Bren shook her head. "Patrick Ryan was young, overwhelmed. He made the wrong decision. And he's had to live with his mistake, which came calling today."
"So what are you going to do with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome?"
"I should kick his ass back to Texas." Bren frowned. "But I love him, Jo."
Jo's arm went around Bren and pulled her next to her. "Honey, he loves you, too."
"He said he never had any intentions of making himself known to me or the boys. I believe that. He only came to find his brother." She frowned. "Then stayed to find his killer." Neither had happened.
Jo snuggled closer. "Ah, the siren and her bewitching red hair were too much for the dashing rogue."
Bren snorted and pulled away. "You actually read that stuff?"
Jo laughed. "All the time."
"Seriously. What am I going to do?"
"Next time you see him, tell him you love him. Figure out a way to break the news to the boys, and live happily ever after."
This wasn't a fairytale—although it did have its villain. Speaking of which... "On a different note, what are the odds Wes will serve jail time for Smiley's murder?"
"It's hard to say. He's been slapped on the wrist for cruelty in the past, so there's a history. This is different, though. He stole your horse, paid for transport, and had it slaughtered. It's possible he'll get a few years."
Bren pulled on her lip. "Nothing like a murder charge, though."
Jo nodded. "If you're right and Wes really did kill Tom for revenge, he's covered his tracks well. I don't think any more digging is going to bring that to the surface." Jo sighed. "I think you need to focus on the present and not the past."
Jo was a dear friend. Her words were a gift, and if Bren had enough sense, she'd accept the advice and her life would cease to have so much drama. Then again, drama followed Bren like her own dark shadow. It was part of her. Trying to rid herself of it—impossible.
Bren sobered at the thought and let her body sink deeper into the cushions. She needed to get on with her life. Wes couldn't hurt her anymore, short of hiring a hit. Considering he'd be the prime suspect, that scenario wasn't likely.
"Hey." Bren nudged Jo, a sly smile curving her lips. "Since we're having girl talk, while you were investigating Rafe, did you find out his brother works for the DEA?"
She gave her an odd look. "Yeah, I saw mention of that when I was checking into the Langstons. Trey was their biological son. I think he's a few years older than Rafe."
"You never ran into him when you worked for the DEA?"
"It's a big organization. I never met him."
Something told Bren Jo wasn't being completely honest. Maybe it was the selective words.
I never met him.
But Bren had an inkling that the name Trey Langston made Jo uncomfortable. She might not have made the connection to Rafe before. What were the odds? But it seemed highly probable she knew of him.
One of these days, when the two were old and gray, she'd wheedle it out of her. But for now, Hugh Jackman beckoned. And she really needed the distraction—Rafe's look-alike or not.
Bren grabbed the movie off the coffee table. "I think I could use a laugh. And you're spending the night, so get comfy. You can stay in dad's room. Even has clean sheets."
Chapter Thirty-Three
Bren awoke with a start. Had she dreamed it? She remained stock-still, her fingers tightening on the blankets. The sound came again, but it was different this time, like heavy soles crunching pebbles or glass?
Jo?
Bren reached for the light on her nightstand and struggled with the small switch until an audible click broke the silence. The relief that light would accompany it shot disappointment straight to her gut when she remained in darkness.
"Shit," she moaned. "Not again! I paid the damn electric bill."
She threw back the covers, her toes curling the moment they met the cold wooden floor. She tugged down Rafe's shirt, the one she'd shoved in her backpack when they were rushing to get to the tunnel in Mexico. It was unwashed, and, not wanting to remove his scent, she'd traded her horse pajamas for it before she slipped into bed. Admittedly juvenile and purely teenager, it had purpose—she'd fallen asleep.
The heavy pine door of her bedroom creaked when she opened it, and Bren moved down the hall. An eerie blue light from the far window down the hall glanced and shimmered off the walls. Jo's door was open, and Bren peeked inside. Her bed was empty. Bren gripped the doorknob. The glass... Maybe she was in the kitchen. Bren continued down the hall, peering into each bedroom and the hall bath, all empty. She took the first step, the carpet runner soft and giving beneath her bare feet. And then she heard it. A click. A footstep.
Jo only had soft slippers.
The gun. Bren made a move. Damn it—she didn't have it. Rafe, thinking she'd shoot herself in the foot or do real damage to someone else, had confiscated it.
Bren listened hard. Maybe she hadn't heard the footstep. She didn't hear anything now.
She wanted to call Jo's name, but her instincts were leaning heavily toward suppressing that need. Although the tingle of fear racing across her skin was unfounded—her only enemy was in jail—she'd go with her gut and hope the ridiculous notion of a hired hit man was wrong, and one didn't jump out and satisfy his contract.
She took her last step off the stairs and hesitated. She was defenseless. Bren peeked around the corner into the dining room, expecting the curtains to flutter, but they remained still. Just like her heart, which wanted to stop beating the moment she caught spindly tree limbs dancing menacingly across the lace.
Breathe.
She let out the air she'd been holding. Get a grip. There's no one here, damn it. The country dining room sat untouched. The last time she'd served dinner was Christmas, and that broken woman didn't exist. Whether her intuition was right or she was having a case of the creeps, she snagged the silver candlestick, one of a matching pair she and Tom had received as a wedding gift. It was the closest thing to a weapon she had. She pulled the wax candle from it, laying it on the buffet, and set her sights on the kitchen.
The tingle that something was amiss became stronger. The house was too quiet. Bren gripped the candlestick and moved tentatively toward the doorway to the kitchen, the intermittent gray light from a passing window the only light to guide her. She edged around the wall and peeked into the kitchen. Sharp slivers of cobalt blue, the remains of the only glass left of an original set of eight, glittered on the floor, catching the night-light's glow from the wall outlet.
Her shoulders tensed and then relaxed a fraction at the gallon of milk sitting on the center island. She shook her head. The glass she could clean up. It was an oddball, anyway. The candlestick she'd been holding like Lady Liberty's torch, she let drop to her side. Where the hell was Jo? If she was looking for a broom, it was in the laundry room. Bren angled her head and glanced inside the small room to the left, only to find the washer and dryer and a laundry basket on top.
Coming around the center island, Bren grabbed the cap to the milk, the simple task interrupted when Bren's toe touched something furry that moved. Every hair on her body stood at attention, and she willed herself to look down. Her adrenaline spiked, and her hand dipped to retrieve Jo's furry blue slipper. Its softness a sense of security, she held it to her chest. But her safe and secure world tilted when she saw Jo's body lying motionless on the floor.
Bren dropped down next to her, the candlestick falling. Her hand trembled above Jo's forehead, the gash jagged and oozing, dark with blood. "Jo! Oh my God."
Her hand flew to her mouth. Oh God, I need a towel—something. Her legs shook, and she struggled to her feet. And then she felt it. The shadow. It darkened the floor in front of her, cutting Jo's pale body in half as it swayed across the soft features of her face.
Bren stiffened. She pushed up from her knees and swung wildly.
A solid punch landed at the base of her head, and she fought to remain standing. Her arms gaining mobility, she fisted her hands and swung, but her target dodged her and came around. A movement in solid black, it pinned her arms to her side. Her back moved up against something resilient yet substantially larger than her—a man's chest. His breath, heavy and hot from exertion, brushed her bare neck, and she shivered.
"No!"
She struggled, and he shifted his body. Forcing her over, he pushed her face down on the center island. Her arms flailed, and she managed only to knock the gallon of milk to the floor with a hollow thud, the milk splattering her calves. He pressed her cheek against the granite countertop, cold and hard, her last thought before something soft was shoved into her face, the smell pungent and sweet—everything went dark.
Bren's eyes fluttered open. She couldn't see. Her hands flew to her eyes to make sure they actually were open. They were. But the sudden movement reawakened the angry thump at the base of her head. She pressed her fingers into her scalp and stopped at the knot behind her ear, cringing at the size. But the fluid movement of her hand gave renewed hope. She moved her legs. He hadn't tied her up. Bren ignored the pain and sat up slowly. Her hands reached into the darkness and came up short when she touched a stone wall, cold and damp. She pulled her fingers in.
He's coming back for me.
Her heart sped up. She slid forward, the give of springs beneath her bottom making it clear she was on some sort of bed or cot. She blinked into the darkness, hoping her eyes only needed to adjust. Her sight unchanged, the dark only became a frightening obstacle. She scooted toward the end of the mattress, her toes scraping cold ground. She bent over to touch it and dropped to her knees, recognizing the pungent, moldy earth. Her fingers dug into the floor, dirt slipping under her nails. She must be in some sort of basement.
She wasn't dying in this hellhole.
She stood and held out her hands, afraid of what she might bump into. She couldn't waste anymore time. It didn't matter where she was. She needed to get out. There had to be a door. She only needed to find it. She took tentative steps until her hands ran into another cold, wet wall. She continued groping, trying to find the door. One hand rested on the wall, her fingers coming into contact with something slick and glossy, the other trying to find a way out. Frantic, she shuffled her feet forward and winced when her toe struck something hard. Her hand dropped—it was a table. She moved her hands across it. Slick paper sticking to her sweaty fingers and palm, she pushed it aside until her finger bumped into something smooth and hard. Her hands formed around it. It was wide and round and fluted at the top—a glass sconce. Lantern. God, please let there be a lighter... matches.
Her hands trembled, anxiously feeling around for anything resembling a lighter or a matchbox. Everything else she pushed to the floor. Then her fingers ran across something—a small rectangular box. She snatched it, the top of the box moved like a sleeve, and she thought she'd crumple with relief. Her fingers dug inside, touching several pieces of thin wood and rounded tips, and she fumbled the box. It fell. A quiet thud and then the scattering of matches made her cringe.
"Shit!"
Bren dropped on all fours. Her hands shaking and moist, she searched the dirt floor. Her hand bumped into the box first, and her knee landed on several wooden matches, the weight pressing them into her skin. She lifted her knees, afraid she'd snap them. They remained glued to her clammy skin, and she plucked them from underneath her knee and held the box firm in her other hand. There were three matches. She needed to use them sparingly. Standing, she kept the matches in one hand, the matchbox in the other. She moved toward the table and felt around with her fists and arms until her knuckles bumped up against it. Bren transferred the matches to her other hand with the matchbox and lifted the glass off the lantern. If she managed to light it the first try, she wouldn't need the others. She leaned over, struck the match, and held the flame up and touched it to the wick. The match burned lower, the wick refusing to take the flame. Choking back tears of frustration, she drew the match down toward the bottom of the lantern where the kerosene was kept. It was bone dry. The flame burned her finger. She bit down on her lip, dropped the match with a curse, and was plunged back into pitch blackness.
Damn it. She had only two tries left to get it right. The next match she'd find the door and hope there was no lock to wrestle with. If not, the third match would be used to work the lock. She prayed it was something simple she could break through.
Bren shivered. Barefoot, wearing only Rafe's shirt and her panties, she was chilled through her skin by the dampness. But she was alive and wanted to stay that way. She pulled on every fragment of strength. Jo's limp body invaded her mind, and she swayed, not knowing if she were even alive. She needed to get her help. But first she needed to get her wits about her and calm the rattle of fear shaking her insides.
She took the match, pinning it between her fingers and rubbed it along the box until she met with friction. She struck it, her mind racing with what she had to do when the flame came to life. She held it up and began to search the walls.
She gasped, and her pulse beat furiously in her temples. The walls made of stone, the joints twined in moss were covered in photos. There were small snapshots, some larger, but the theme was the same—they were all of her. He'd blown them up, her face life-sized and carefully trimmed in her likeness, her brown eyes staring their warning.
Terror turned her blood to ice. A wave of dizziness came over her, and the room, with its apocalyptic collage, seemed to spin.
The heat of the match brought her around, and she remembered the door. But it was too late. The flame singed her finger, and she dropped it, the orange glow burning the matchstick on the ground. The thin wood curled into a gray ember before darkness descended.
Bren fell to her knees, her hands covering her face.
Tears escaped through her fingers, and she dashed them away. Think, Bren. She lifted her head and remained there quiet, except for her sniffing. Then she stopped, and her back went rigid. She remained on her knees and listened. Shuffling—it came again, closer. Scraping. The jiggle of a lock—she held her breath—an audible click.
Heart pounding to the point it would beat out of her chest, she struggled to her feet. Her breathing came in quick, hard pants.
God, don't let me hyperventilate.
Hands out in front, she searched for the bed and the only place to hide until he found her.
And he would find her. She knew with every rising hair along her neck she had miscalculated in a fatal way. There was someone far more evil than Wes Connelly fixated on her. And what he would do to her and for how long caused her terror-numbed brain to freeze up. She couldn't begin to search it for his identity. She would know soon enough.
Her main focus now was to survive him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
What the hell was he doing? Rafe huddled under his sleeping bag.
Freezing my ass off, for one.
Uneven ground and twigs poked his back no matter which way he turned, which was increasingly difficult with Roscoe's boulder-sized, jowl-hanging head resting on his shins and Finn pinned against him.
He guessed that Finn's "I'm not afraid of the dark" mantra, after Aiden had ridden him before lights out, had fallen short of its mark.
Brothers...
Finn shivered, and Rafe touched his soft cheek. Cold. He should have realized a seventy-degree day in mid-March would plummet to near freezing by two in the morning. Rafe concentrated on the mesh window in the tent's roof. Blanketed under heavy clouds, the metallic smell of rain all around him, his heart weighed a miserable ton. What did his mama used to say? She was full of advice—Mrs. Sawyer Langston—and she was his mama, the only woman in his life who could set him straight when he'd find himself in the doldrums for one reason or another.
Nothing weighs heavier than a sack of regret, Rafe Austin Langston, and you best remember that.
So he didn't know Tom Ryan, but he knew
his boys. He loved them like his own. Even with all the shit with them, they were his only glimpse into the past and what he and Tom would have shared. It would have to be enough.
A cold raindrop nailed him in the eye, and he blinked.
Wake up, cowboy.
Regret he was done with. He loved her. And whether Bren wanted to believe it or not, she damn well loved him, too. She was just too stubborn to admit it. He had a good mind to gather his nephews and go get her right now. His lips curled with wicked humor—that burned her ass, too. They were his nephews, and he had every right to remain a part of their—
Aiden let out a sneeze and huddled deeper into his sleeping bag. Rafe pulled Finn closer, the boy's small body trembling against him.
He'd never hear the end of it if he got her boys sick. And, selfishly, it gave him a good reason to see Bren. Not that she'd welcome him in the middle of the night. But considering he was returning her boys... Shit. That didn't make much sense. His house was closer.
Ah hell. I'm doing it anyway.
Never too late... He checked his watch and grimaced—two ten in the morning. Or too early to set his world right. He nudged the hound with his knee. A droopy eyelid rose, and the dog licked his chops, his loose-skinned jaw nestling deeper against his leg. "Up, Roscoe," Rafe ordered, his voice a low grunt, so as not to disturb the boys until he'd packed them up.
Rafe forced Roscoe's head up again with his knee. The dog yawned, pulled himself to his feet, and shook his head. The melodious jingle of his tags, a prelude to a harmonious existence with a redhead he was bound and determined to sway into marrying him. He smiled and hoisted himself up.
He took the cutoff from the main driveway to Bren's house.
"Sweet—we're home." Aiden pushed Finn off his shoulder. Finn mewled, transferring his head to Rafe's arm. The three were packed in the front seat with wet-smelling hound and supplies in the back. Rafe couldn't help but smile. Family was growing on him, even the damn dog.
But the spritz of rain, enough to blur his vision, and monotonous grind of the wipers didn't help bolster his courage. He checked the clock in the dash and winced, almost two-thirty. He was half-tempted to turn around and call it a night.
Relentless (Fallon Sisters Trilogy: Book #1) Page 29