by B. J Daniels
“Please—”
“I ain’t gonna tie ya tight if ya promise not to try to git away.”
She nodded, wincing as he bound her wrists and ankles. He spread out a dirty sleeping bag for her to lie on. She curled up and closed her eyes, opening them only a crack to watch him, still terrified he would change his mind and assault her before the night was over.
He took the pot down to the creek and came back with it sloshing water that splashed at his feet as he walked. He set it on the fire and dropped the dirty spoon into it. “I ain’t been takin’ care of myself.” He glanced in her direction. She didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe. “I got reason to now. I kin take care a both a us.”
Bo fought sleep, afraid if she gave up to it, something worse might happen. But in the end, exhaustion won out, dragging her down into the darkest of dreams.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BEFORE ANY OF the hired help arrived early the next morning, Buckmaster picked up the phone in the kitchen and dialed the sheriff’s office. He’d sworn he would wait until noon, but Bo hadn’t come home last night. He’d checked first thing this morning, but neither she nor her horse had returned. When he’d tried her cell, it went straight to voice mail, not that he was surprised. This morning, he’d found her cell phone in her vehicle parked in front of the bunkhouse.
That she hadn’t taken her cell phone shouldn’t have upset him. Service was sketchy at best in the area, let alone up in the mountains. Bo would know that.
But if you got in trouble, often times you could find a mountain peak and get enough bars to call for help. Also, you could sometimes track a phone in an emergency through the GPS.
He told himself it was her stubborn pride. From the time she was little, she was determined to do everything on her own. He’d never seen such a pigheaded child who would just plain refuse to ask for help. It was why she hadn’t come to him when she’d realized there was trouble at the foundation. So no wonder she wouldn’t take her cell phone. She wasn’t about to call even if she got in trouble.
Either that or she hadn’t wanted to be found.
Either way, it scared him. His daughter hadn’t returned from the mountains, knowing that by now she’d not only be missed, but also that an auditor was waiting for her.
The line to the sheriff’s department dispatcher began to ring. From the other side of the room, Angelina sipped a fresh cup of coffee and watched him, her face a mask.
Last night they’d made love. It hadn’t started that way. He’d been thinking about Sarah, but that had changed at some point. He’d held his wife, and for a while, he’d felt again the affection he’d had for her when he’d first married her.
It had taken him a while to fall in love with Angelina. She wasn’t an easy woman to love. Also, he’d still been mourning Sarah’s death even after seven years. But Angelina had wound her way into his heart and his bed. He couldn’t discount what she’d brought to his life, if not the lives of his girls.
“Sheriff’s department.”
“I need to speak with Sheriff Curry. This is Senator Hamilton calling. It’s important I speak with him.”
“Just one moment, please.”
Frank, probably still at home, came on the line right away. “Senator?”
“My daughter Bo went up into the mountains on a camping trip Saturday afternoon. She hasn’t returned, and I’m worried,” he said without preamble.
“Have you sent anyone up to look for her?” the sheriff asked.
“Jace Calder volunteered. He left yesterday afternoon. I promised to give him twenty-four hours, but I’m worried something has happened up there.”
“When was she expected back?” Frank asked.
“Yesterday morning.” Buckmaster hesitated. “She had an appointment at her office she didn’t show up for.”
Silence. He could almost hear the sheriff thinking. “You know that we usually wait forty-eight hours on a missing adult unless there are extenuating circumstances.” Bo had been missing not even twenty-four from the time she was supposed to return. “Are there extenuating circumstances?”
Buckmaster thought about the missing money and his daughter. But if he told the sheriff, there was no way he would want to send search and rescue to look for her even after forty-eight hours.
“No,” he said. “But if she isn’t back by this afternoon or I haven’t heard from Jace...”
“Then you let me know,” the sheriff said. “As it is, why don’t I see if we can’t do a flyover? If she’s in trouble, she’d know to try to signal the pilot.”
Buckmaster felt a little better. “Thank you, Frank. I’d appreciate that.”
As he hung up, he looked at Angelina. She’d pulled on a thin negligee and now stood against the light of the window. She really did have a wonderful body.
“You didn’t tell him about the problem at the foundation.”
“No.” He refused to admit that Bo would run away, and if she had, then he had to believe she would come to her senses and return of her own accord. He might not have done a good job raising her, but she still had his blood running through her veins. She wouldn’t take the easy way out. She’d come back and face up to whatever was going on at the foundation. Bo was strong like him.
Stepping to his wife, he took the coffee cup from her hand and placed it on the counter. Then he pressed her against the wall.
“In the kitchen?” she asked, sounding breathless but also excited as he slipped his hand under the silken fabric to feel the heat of her bare skin.
As he brushed his lips over the warm skin at her throat, he had trouble even admitting it to himself, but he was running scared. The ground under him no longer felt solid. The life he’d built felt as if it could topple over in the first good gust of wind. He could sense a fierce storm coming, one much worse than what had already hit him and his home.
For a while, he lost himself in the primitive, age-old act of passion. Later, spent and under the spray of the shower, he got down on his knees and did something he hadn’t done in a long time. He prayed for Bo and the rest of his family. He prayed for Sarah and for Angelina. Then he prayed for his own soul.
Mostly, he prayed for guidance. While he’d taken a short hiatus, now he needed to get back to Washington, back on the campaign trail. But he couldn’t leave until he knew Bo was safe.
Since he’d begun running for president, he’d felt cursed. Was this how his father had felt? Was this why he’d backed out of the presidential race?
He knew it was foolish to pray for a sign from God as to what he should do, but he prayed for it anyway, terrified the curse that had destroyed his father was now on him—and his family.
* * *
BO WOKE TO the sounds and smells of a crackling fire. She opened her eyes and blinked. For a moment, she thought she was still camped in the woods alone. But then she felt the rope biting into her ankles and wrists, and remembered. Her stomach twisted, and she thought she might throw up as her gaze went to the man hunched over the fire. Her skin broke out in a cold sweat. She gulped down breaths to keep from sobbing hysterically again. He wants to keep me for a mate.
As he started to turn in her direction, she hurriedly closed her eyes tight and bit back a cry of desolation. Maybe if he thought she was still asleep...
The kick to her thigh was anything but gentle. “Daylight’s burnin’,” he said. “Hafta get movin’. I cooked ya somethin’.”
She opened her eyes, pretending that his kick had awakened her. She tried to sit up. Her muscles ached. It was all she could do not to groan in pain. But he’d seemed to like it when he thought she was tougher than she looked, so she held silent.
She had to play along. He wants to win me over. If I agree too quickly... Well, she knew how that could go. But if she fought him...
He bent down to untie
the rope at her ankles, his gaze stealing to hers every few seconds. She could tell he was trying to gauge how she was feeling about him this morning. He’d opened up to her last night, telling her a lot about himself and about his life with his father. Did he now regret being that vulnerable with her?
She tried hard to keep her expression pleasant. “What did you cook?”
“Beans. That’s all we got, so no complainin’. I’ll kill somethin’ in a day or two, once we get settled farther in where no one’ll hear the gunshot.”
Bo nodded, realizing that he planned to make her hike miles and miles back into the mountains as far from civilization as the Crazies went.
He untied her wrists. “I s’pose ya gotta go.”
At first she didn’t understand.
“Can’t let ya go by yerself,” he said, pulling her up by one arm. She was still barefoot. As she looked around for her socks and boots, he shook his head. “No shoes. Not ’til I kin trust ya.” He made it sound as if he planned to keep her barefoot for a very long time.
Again she nodded, and she let him lead her away from camp to a stand of thick pines. She limped across the dried pine needles and twigs that hurt the soles of her bare feet, but again she did everything possible not to react to the pain.
“In there,” he said and handed her a small roll of toilet paper. “I’ll be right here. If I hear ya try to run—”
“I won’t,” she said, taking the paper and limping into the center of the cluster of trees.
She’d had so little to eat that all she had to do was pee, but she left enough of the toilet paper that she thought someone might see it and at least know she’d been here. She’d thought about trying to leave a message, but she knew Ray was listening, half expecting her to do something to lose his trust.
“Ya done?” he asked when she came out and handed him the rest of the roll. He seemed a little surprised and maybe pleased that she hadn’t given him any trouble as he led her back to the campfire. The fire he’d built was small, making her wonder if he was worried that her family would be searching for her. What would her father do if someone from the foundation called?
She knew what everyone would think. That she’d run away. How long, though, before her father would send someone up to find her? Or would he wait, assuring himself that eventually she would have to come out of the mountains and face things?
Days, she thought as Ray handed her the pot and spoon. She ate a few bites, knowing she needed to keep up her strength. Ray had made it clear he would be dragging her farther back into the mountains today.
She couldn’t bear the thought. Her legs and feet still ached from yesterday’s hike—not to mention her wrists, which were raw and painful. Last night, he’d tied the rope on her wrists looser, but still the rough sisal had rubbed against her raw skin every time she moved.
Tears blurred her eyes at the thought of another day of torture, and all the while he would be watching her, waiting. Anything could set him off. She took a few more bites of the beans and handed back the pot and spoon. “I’m not sure I can walk as far as I did yesterday,” she said in a small voice, trying hard not to cry. She feared tears would trigger his anger. Or his lust. As she raised her gaze to his, for a moment she thought he might hit her—or worse.
But he just dumped the beans into the fire and stepped to the creek to rinse the pot and the spoon. His back was to her as he squatted by the stream. She glanced over and saw her socks and boots.
Desperately she wanted to run, to go screaming through the forest. Her gaze fell on the crude circle of rocks around the fire pit. Her hands itched to pick up one of the rocks and charge him, slamming the rock down on his head as he crouched over the water.
He wants you to try to get away. He’s waiting for you to do it so he can hurt you.
Bo chocked back a sob as she crawled closer to the fire pit. She glanced toward him. Saw him freeze. He was listening. Expecting it. She busied herself by putting out the fire. Slowly she began to scoop up dirt and dump it on the last of the coals as her chest ached with unshed tears and smoke curled up from the dying fire.
Ray rose slowly next to the creek and walked back to her. He glanced at her as she put more dirt on the embers. Smothered, the fire sputtered out, the smoke thinning into a narrow ribbon as it wound up into Montana’s clear blue big sky.
He handed her the pot full of icy-cold creek water. “Here, wash yer hands.” She did, drying them on her jeans as he reached over and picked up her socks and her boots. “Put these on.” He took the pot from her, trading her for her socks and boots.
She watched him pack up everything, knowing he was watching her, as well. Somehow she’d stilled the need to do something risky that would only make her situation worse. She felt stronger, more capable this morning after having lived through the night. But how could she continue with this unbearable situation much longer?
Bo knew that Ray would eventually rape her. She’d seen the hunger in his eyes after weeks alone in these mountains. The man hadn’t become an escaped criminal because he could control his impulses. It was only a matter of time.
Her mind whirled as she plotted. She would get him to trust her. Then she would find her chance to escape, and she would take it.
She realized she could never outrun him. If she was lucky enough to get on her horse... But she couldn’t depend on that. He would expect her to go for the horse. He would make sure she didn’t get the chance.
No, she thought. She would have to disable him. That thought turned her stomach. She’d never hurt anyone—at least not physically, she thought, reminded of Jace Calder. Disabling such a large man would take a great deal of force. A great deal of violence. And even that might not be enough.
Could she kill Ray?
She finished pulling on her socks and boots and looked up at him.
The naked lust was back in his eyes even stronger than yesterday. He scratched his stubbled jaw for a moment, his look burning her flesh. She dropped her gaze to the dusty ground, tried not to move, tried not to cringe, as out of the corner of her eye, she saw him pull the duct tape from his jacket pocket and step toward her.
CHAPTER NINE
ALEX HADN’T KNOWN what was bothering Emily Calder the day before. But when she came into the coffee shop for her break the following morning, she looked even more upset.
He hoped it had nothing to do with her accepting a date with him the day before.
Normally he didn’t spend much time in any one coffee shop. He liked to divide his time between them. But lately, he’d been making himself useful at the Big Timber one because of Emily. Since he’d started out working in a coffee shop, he still remembered how to make a mean cup of coffee.
When he saw Emily come in, he waved her to an empty table and quickly made her coffee, personally taking it over to her. His cousin and the other barista shared a look that he ignored.
“Here you go,” he said to Emily. “Is everything all right?” he asked more quietly.
She looked up to meet his eyes. “Great.”
“Really?”
“Maybe not great.”
He felt his heart drop, afraid of what she was going to say next. “If it’s about our date...”
She shook her head. “Things aren’t going well at work.”
He couldn’t help his relief. “I’m sorry to hear that. Is it anything you can talk about?”
She shook her head. “But this helps.” She gave him a smile and reached for the coffee.
He watched her take a sip. “Did I get it right?”
“Perfect.” Her gaze locked with his. “Thank you. You really need to let me pay you,” she said, pulling her gaze away to dig in her purse.
“It’s my treat.”
“I don’t want to get you into trouble with your boss,” she whispered.
/> He started to tell her that he was the boss, but something stopped him. She’d said she would go out with him, thinking he worked at the shop part-time. Would it change things if he told her who he really was?
He feared it would, so he let her count out the cost of the coffee—and a tip. “Thanks,” he said and let it go at that. “If you ever need to talk, though...well, you have my number.”
She smiled. “I might do that.”
* * *
BO SWALLOWED HARD as Ray came toward her with the roll of duct tape. She avoided his eyes, trying to make herself as small and vulnerable as possible. As if she wasn’t as vulnerable as she’d ever been.
“Yer goin’ to have to ride the horse,” he said as he knelt down beside her and pulled out a length of the tape. “We ain’t never gettin’ there if yer the one walkin’.”
She was so surprised that she looked up at him.
He must have seen hope spark in her gaze, because his face twisted into a cruel expression. “If ya think—”
“No,” she said quickly. “I’m just relieved. I wasn’t sure I could walk very far.”
He studied her, clearly trying to gauge the truth in her words. “I kin see ya’d be worthless walkin’.” He nodded. “Ya’ll ride, but I’ll be leadin’ yer horse and if ya—”
“I won’t,” she said, not needing to hear any more of this threats.
He grabbed her wrist, his fingers biting into her flesh. “Right. Ya won’t.” He began to wrap her wrists together so tightly that she let out a cry. She’d made him angry. He’d seen how badly she wanted to escape. She couldn’t make that mistake again.
Bo bit her lip against the pain of the tape on her already raw wrists. She wouldn’t cry out again. She couldn’t if she hoped to keep him from hurting her. She could feel him watching her, taking her measure. She’d never met anyone more mistrustful. What had made him like this? She remembered the myriad of scars on his body and shuddered to think. Not that it mattered how he’d come to be the violent criminal the police had tagged him. She had to learn how to avoid upsetting him. She wouldn’t let herself think about how long she would have to appease this man or what would happen when he’d had enough of her.