Branded

by Tori Carrington

  All coherent thought fled from Trace’s crowded brain…

  Chapter Four

  JO HAD IMAGINED this moment in a thousand different ways. But she hadn’t anticipated the little details that combined to blow her mind. Like the way Trace looked down at her, his expression reflecting an internal battle—ride her like the wild mustang she was, or try to tame her with soft whispers.

  She wanted to be broken.

  More, she wanted to break him.

  Guessing that the intimacy of being face-to-face was what held him back, she shifted until she was free, and then rolled over and raised herself up on all fours, lifting her bottom and reaching between her legs to reestablish the connection.

  His groan told her he approved of the new position. Within seconds, he was filling her to overflowing, thrusting into her with an urgency she’d been seeking but hadn’t been free to express until now.

  Oh, yes…

  The restless yearning she’d felt earlier pooled low in her belly, robbing her of breath, seizing her every muscle, propelling her every move as she pushed back against him, taking every inch of him in, holding tight when his deep thrusts increased in speed. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her hips, his pelvis slapping against hers, the scents of latex and her juices and his sweat teasing her nostrils as her vision slowly darkened to a small circle of light. Until her entire body shivered and shuddered, awash in golden sensation.

  This, oh yes, this, was what she had been seeking. And she now realized that only Trace Armstrong could have given it to her…

  SOMETIME JUST BEFORE DAWN, Trace awakened to the sound of Alma making a racket in the kitchen, most likely in an effort to rouse him. He lay across the rumpled sheets, staring through the window at a bruised sky that the sun would soon heal. He didn’t have to look to the other side of the bed; he knew Jo was gone. Had felt her slip away an hour or so earlier to sneak out of the house, disguised by shadows, likely to head back to the bunkhouse. And then he’d finally dropped off to sleep himself, exhausted yet strangely exhilarated.

  The image of her perfectly rounded bottom rose in his mind. Or rather, the raised outline of a mustang that had been burned into her skin. Obviously, the mark had been made long ago. And must have caused her a lot of pain, given the thickness of the pale, twisted scars he’d first felt with his fingers, then later visually examined.

  She’d been branded.

  Trace rubbed his eyelids with his thumb and index finger, trying to remember a time when he’d felt so…strange. Lighter, somehow. As if he’d just gotten a straight eight hours of sleep rather than a few stolen minutes here and there between bouts with Jo.

  Alma banged a pan. He grinned and looked at the clock.

  Shit. He was late.

  He sprang from the bed, just then remembering that he’d left his clothes downstairs. He began to get a fresh pair of jeans from the drawer when he discovered that his discarded duds were draped over a nearby chair. Alma? He didn’t think so. Had Jo done it? Seemed likely, since Alma would have left the clothes there just so she had an opening for what would likely be a lengthy interrogation to find out who he’d had over the night before.

  Definitely not a conversation he planned on having with her. Or with anyone else, for that matter. What happened last night…

  Well, what happened last night was a one-shot deal. Two adults looking for a little recreational sex.

  He grimaced as he dressed. Who was he kidding? He didn’t do one-night stands. All right, he didn’t do them anymore.

  So what did that mean, exactly?

  “It means you’re going to have to keep your fly buttoned hard, and your stupid-fool grin buttoned even harder so that no one figures out that you’re having an affair with your only female ranch hand.”

  He went downstairs to grab a handful of whatever Alma was cooking up, then head out the door to where the guys were already gathering at the stables.

  AS WAS USUAL every third day, Trace wouldn’t be going out on the range with the men. Instead, he would stay around the ranch offices, seeing to business and catching up on paperwork. He noticed that Jo was hanging around the fringe of the crowd, not quite out of sight, but not making her presence obvious, either. And Trace couldn’t exactly single her out to see how she felt about what had transpired between them the night before.

  Vern followed him into the stables. “What’s the plan, Boss?” the older man asked, matching his stride.

  “Like we discussed yesterday?”

  “Yeah, the back nine.”

  Trace looked at him. “Sheriff Brody catch up with you last night?”

  “Yep. I told him I’d get information about the latest two hands we hired on a couple months back.”

  “Jackson and Milford?” Trace asked.

  “That’d be them.”

  “Miss Dorie can probably see to that for you.”

  “Which is why I’m coming in with you.”

  Trace chuckled as they reached the “offices” at the back of the stables, a couple of glass-enclosed rooms. He held open the door for Vern, but the older man motioned for him to go in first.

  “Miss Dorie can see to what?” a voice demanded.

  “Good morning, Miss Dorie,” Trace said to his office manager. He was long past being shocked by her teased orange hair and thick, catlike eyeliner. She was easily old enough to be his mother, but she dressed like she was ready for a night on the town instead of a day in the office, with her tight knit pants and brightly colored blouse. “You’re in early.”

  “I’m in at the same time I’m in every day.”

  A couple of years back Trace had heard one of the men wonder if she spent her nights out, and came straight to work after, which would explain why she was dressed the way she was. Trace hadn’t wanted to pursue the line of thought. He knew she was a widow of ten years, and had grown children that had been raised pretty much as Trace and Eric’s brothers. Beyond that, he didn’t care to speculate what she did with her time.

  If he noticed that Clinton West, the stable manager, hung around the office more than he should, well, that was their business, not Trace’s. So long as the obvious flirtation didn’t interfere with their work, it was no never mind to him.

  Vern had taken off his hat in deference to her, and wished her a good morning.

  “So you must be the one with the request,” she said with a smile. “What can I do for you, Vern?”

  Trace leafed through the messages on her desk while the two talked about the latest hires and getting the information to the sheriff’s office.

  “I can see to that before lunch,” Miss Dorie promised.

  Vern expressed his appreciation, then began backing toward the door, part of a generation that didn’t cotton to a man turning his back on a woman.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Trace said, putting the messages down again.

  “You want me to get Doc Nelson on the line?” Miss Dorie asked.

  “I’ll see to it when I get back.”

  “Remember, we’ve got the barbecue this weekend and need to nail down the odds and ends,” she called after him.

  Trace closed the door behind him. While it wasn’t possible to completely prevent the stable smell from permeating the offices, there was no sense in letting in more of it than he could help.

  “What do you know about Jackson and Milford?” he asked Vern.

  The foreman put his hat back on and positioned it as they walked. “Not much. They’ve both worked for Johnson, and they’ve been doing good since hiring on, but beyond that, I couldn’t say.”

  “Art Johnson?” he asked, recalling that it had been one of Art’s daughters who had been raped.

  “That would be the one.”

  Trace frowned. “Isn’t Jackson the hothead?” He remembered an incident about a week or two back. The younger man had nearly charged one of the regular ranch hands when he asked Jackson to clean up after himself.

  “That’s him. But he only gets that way after he’s
knocked back a couple.”

  “He go out at night by himself?”

  “Not as I can tell. Pretty much sticks around the place even on his nights off. Says he’s got a wife and couple kids up in Abilene, but doesn’t make much of an effort to go see ‘em.” Vern shrugged. “I’m thinking maybe family problems.”

  “Maybe.” They stopped walking just outside the stable doors. “You might want to keep a closer eye on him.”

  The foreman nodded. “Will do. Anything else?”

  Trace’s gaze took in the hands as they finished saddling up. He spotted Jo. If his extra attention to the new men and the sheriff’s words had anything to do with their one female ranch hand, he wasn’t owning up to it. He was a concerned citizen and boss, nothing more, nothing less. And it wasn’t good business to have a rapist on the payroll.

  “No, no. You go on ahead. Give me a yell on the satellite phone if you run into any problems.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  THE DAY OUT ON THE DUSTY, hot range had seemed longer than most. Jo took off her hat and dragged the cuff of her shirt across her sweaty forehead. Never had she been so glad to spot the Wildewood Ranch on the horizon. It was all she could do not to prod her horse into a gallop and run full out for the man who had occupied her thoughts throughout the day.

  Instead, she dropped back, taking up the right flank of the herd and shouting for Scout to nip at the heels of a stubborn steer that had veered out of line.

  The black-and-white border collie did his job and then came back to her. Was he favoring his back leg? It appeared so. She’d have to see if maybe he had a stone lodged in his paw.

  Minutes later, the herd was in the paddock, and she was turning her horse over to a stable hand for cooling down and feeding.

  Jo stripped off her gloves and called for Scout to come to her. He ran back and forth in front of the stables, pretending to direct operations, then darted toward her. She crouched down and gave him a hearty scratch behind the ears.

  “Good boy. You did a great job today.” She smoothed her hand down his side and reached for his back leg. He fought her. “Whoa, easy there. Let me just have a look.”

  His panting filled her ears as he reluctantly allowed her to play doctor. She ran her thumb over the pad, checking for tenderness. There was no reaction.

  She released him and patted him again, accepting a single lap to the chin before he scrambled back toward the stables, where one of the hands had filled his water bowl.

  “Arthritis.”

  Jo slowly got up, the sound of Trace’s voice behind her making her instantly aware of everything that had passed between them the night before. “Pardon me?”

  He was standing with his hands on his hips, his gaze on the dog. “The best Doc Nelson can figure is that Scout has a touch of arthritis in his back right hip.” Trace’s eyes slid to her and she caught her breath. The setting sun caught him at just the right angle, turning his brown eyes to gold. “Scout’s going on twelve years old. Most dogs his age are already retired.”

  She smiled, smacking her gloves against her palm to rid them of dust before tucking them into her back jeans pocket. “But not Scout.”

  “No, not Scout. Vern thinks he’ll just up and disappear while out on the range one day, and we’ll never see him again.”

  Jo knew some animals were given to that wild behavior. A sort of long, final walk to the next incarnation.

  “I’ve thought about putting a leash on him and keeping him at the stables…” Trace murmured, as if thinking aloud.

  “No. No, don’t do that. That’ll kill him even quicker.”

  “That’s what I thought, too.”

  The dog in question finished slurping up water and headed back, wildly wagging his tail. Trace crouched down and Scout instantly flipped over for a thorough belly rub. Jo’s own belly suddenly felt warm. What she wouldn’t give to throw herself at Trace’s feet and have him rub her tummy…

  He looked up at her from under the rim of his black hat. Hell if she didn’t think he knew exactly what was on her mind.

  “Hey, Boss, you coming out to the bunkhouses for dinner?” Jackson asked as he passed.

  Trace rose to his feet. “Not tonight. I have a couple of things to finish up before I call it a day.”

  Jo took that as her cue to head off with the other hands, pretending she wasn’t disappointed that she wouldn’t be seeing him again that night.

  Chapter Five

  JO STEPPED OUT OF the small bathroom connected to her room at the far end of the bunkhouse, rubbing a towel over her wet hair. She was fully dressed, in jeans and a T-shirt, her bare feet making soft sounds against the bare wood of the floor. Once a week a cleaning person came through, but being tidy herself, she couldn’t be sure when, because she never saw her or him, only detected the scents of pine cleaner and bleach.

  She picked up her watch from the dresser. Half past nine. Despite the previous evening’s activities, she wasn’t anywhere near tired. She put the watch back down and tossed the towel over the back of the desk chair.

  As far as lodgings went, her room was one of the best in the long bunkhouse. It had probably been built with visiting clients in mind, and was more spacious than the others. She had little doubt that she’d been put here to keep her separate from the guys at the other end. She’d seen their rooms, and near as she could tell, they were assigned two to a room, with either twin beds or bunks. The large community room with pool tables, a fireplace and a large-screen TV divided their rooms from hers.

  She had her own television, in a small sitting area with a love seat and coffee table, at one end of the room, a queen-size bed at the other. And the space was decorated in a way the others were not, with flowery curtains over the miniblinds, a matching bedspread, and contrasting striped upholstery on the furniture. A bit like a nice suite in a hotel rather than a typical bunkhouse room with shared bathroom.

  Jo knew she was being given preferential treatment because of her sex, but at least she didn’t have to worry about a snoring cowboy sleeping in the bunk above hers.

  And she didn’t have to worry about anyone noticing her coming and going.

  She opened the door and leaned against the jamb, looking at the brightly lit main house nearly a quarter of a mile away. The house she’d left early that morning.

  Should she head up there again?

  Her answer came by way of her chirping cell phone.

  She sighed and stepped back to the dresser. While she didn’t get great reception out on the range, Trace had set up a tower near the stables to ensure access on the ranch.

  She glanced at the caller ID.

  Her mother.

  Lately, it seemed if it wasn’t her mother, it was Carter, who presumably had stayed in the area with the hope that she’d change her mind and invite him over again. She had no intention of doing that.

  Jo frowned and considered letting the call go to voice mail. But she knew that ignoring Miss Daisy Mae’s call now would make it doubly worse the next time she talked to her.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Oh! You startled me, JoEllen. Dear me, I’ll never get used to that caller ID. What happened to the good old days when someone didn’t know who you were?”

  Jo didn’t bother to point out that she would know the call was from her mother regardless. She was the only one who phoned her outside of Carter.

  “How was your day, dear?” her mom asked.

  “I’ve ridden worse.” Jo picked up her towel from the back of her chair and hung it on the bathroom door handle, as if her mother could see that she wasn’t keeping her room tidy. “How’s Pa?”

  “Your father is well. He finished that birdhouse he’s been working on for me this evening.”

  “That’s nice.” Since he’d retired from ranch life himself, her father’s days were filled with being at his wife’s beck and call, catering to her every whim. And her whims could be doozies. Constructing multistoried birdhouses was one of the tamer requests. “Give him a
hug from me.”

  “I don’t see why I should. You’ll be here tomorrow to give him one directly.”

  Jo sat down on the bed and ran her fingers through her damp hair. Tomorrow was one of her two days off, the second being Saturday. Some of the hands stuck around the ranch on their off days, others went to wherever they called home.

  Jo went to her parents’ place.

  “You’re right. I’ll give him a hug myself tomorrow.”

  She sensed her mother’s sigh of relief. Could she have somehow picked up on Jo’s intention to cancel the visit, as she had the past two times? More than likely. Of course, it didn’t exactly take a NASA astrophysicist to work out the odds.

  “I was hoping that you could stop at that little doughnut shop downtown on your way over tomorrow, sweetie. You know, to pick up one of those bourbon pecan pies I like so much.”

  Jo fixed the right cuff of her jeans. “Sure, Mother.”

  “That’s a good girl.”

  She swallowed hard and looked up at the ceiling. “Is there anything else? It’s been a really long day and I’m beat.”

  “No. No, that’s all. I just wanted to make sure you were still coming, so I don’t have your father get out the good china for nothing.”

  Jo didn’t bother telling her that she didn’t have to get out her good anything, that she wasn’t coming over to drink tea out of tiny teacups, but to see how they both were doing. She knew her words would only fall on deaf ears.

  “I’m coming. Good night, Mother.”

  “Good evening, JoEllen Sue. Sleep well.”

  Jo slowly took the cell from her ear and pressed the disconnect button, sitting for long moments staring at the piece of technology that had allowed her mother to follow her all over the world, when all Jo wanted to do was escape.

  There was a sound outside the open door. She immediately slid her hand under her pillow, her fingers molding over the cool, hard metal of her M9 Beretta. The instant the shadow appeared, she pulled the gun and held it on the unexpected visitor.