Predator Ridge

by Candace Smith

  He watched her face break into a smile, and he said sternly, “You are not permitted to get all depressed like that again. You don’t pay attention when you’re like that.”

  “Yes, Garrett,” she smiled, and then added shyly, “Am I going to be punished?”

  “Most definitely,” he assured her.

  They traveled down the mountain two weeks later. Garrett had informed Colby he would be going to ranch and would skip the sale. He wanted to know what happened with Roger, and Colby said he would stop by after the trainers headed back up the mountain.

  Garrett had Ashley ride in front of him, sitting on his thighs with her arms hooked around his neck. His fingers slipped under the hem of the sweater when she drifted to sleep, wrapped in the warmth of his coat. She would gasp or sometimes squeal when she woke at the rim of her climax, and he would chuckle softly.

  By the third morning, they were in the foothills. At noon, they wound around a small gully and followed a dirt road. A hanging sign came into view and Ashley looked up at it, remembering when she had thought Garrett was the most dangerous predator in the mountains. The small ranch was still much larger than the cabin, and Garrett brought her with him to explore the outbuildings and stable.

  Colby drove in a few days later, with two men and their slaves. The women worked in the house or the garden while the ranch hands worked the horses and fixed the fences and corrals. One of them would be taking Harvey’s place in the parks when they opened for season.

  Ashley heard Garrett talking about a new slave that would be arriving soon for further training, and she was a little jealous until he told her she could help with her training. He was very busy setting things up, and sometimes she did something wrong, just so he would have to take time to punish her. Ashley had never been happier.

  EPILOGUE

  Kathleen had decided on one last conquest, as the lovers she could attract were slightly older, or slightly less wealthy than those she had grown accustomed to. The wrinkles around her eyes could no longer pass as laugh lines, and even her jaw was less firm than it had been a year ago.

  With Ashley’s disappearance, she had been able to save college expenses, though the man she had been dating was upset that she was not more interested or distressed about her daughter’s abduction. Whenever he had tried to discuss a possible ransom, Kathleen’s face drained of color and she looked physically ill, distraught, and asking him how much he thought the kidnapper would demand.

  As days turned into weeks and then months, Kathleen slowly relaxed. Her funds were apparently safe. Her lover distanced himself from the cold, unfeeling woman, realizing her true motives for their relationship. Kathleen could love no one other than herself and her money.

  Word spread quickly through the privileged ranks, and Kathleen was politely ostracized by the very men she craved. Even the older men, the men in their forties and fifties, would commiserate with her over Ashley’s loss, and then they moved on, sensing Kathleen’s impatience when the attention was once more diverted from herself. She might as well have the girl standing by her side, distracting her prey, as dealing with her ghost.

  The few tries at playing the role of distraught mother and perhaps gain sympathy did not last long. She could not force herself to weep and act miserable to gain their attention. Over the course of the autumn months, she had begun to hate her daughter for disrupting her life. It was the first time she had not been invited to some delicious distraction for the holidays, so on the advice of a man she had met briefly at a gallery opening in New York, she leased a condo in Aspen and decided to try her luck in the ski lodges.

  Even nestled by the slopes in fluffy cashmere sweaters, beautiful auburn curls coiffed artfully around her face, the men smiled but continued on to the pretty socialites tempting them with their youth. Kathleen truly was feeling depressed while she sat on a plush sofa by the huge fireplace and ran a sculpted nail around the rim of her wine glass.

  “Mind if I sit by you?”

  Kathleen looked up into steel gray eyes of a man, perhaps in his early forties, with a rugged jaw and nice tan. The soft leather coat with double stitching screamed money. The cowboy hat looked natural on him, not like some dude pretending. “I’d love the company. The holidays are quite difficult since I lost my daughter.”

  “I’m so sorry. Was it an accident?” The big man sat down next to her, turning so his knees pressed against hers.

  Kathleen seized the opportunity to pretend to be a martyr. This man could be her ticket, and even though he was not the city type she preferred, right now she was scrambling for acceptance. “No, she was ill. I spent the past year caring for her, but she died a few months ago.” Kathleen tried to force tears into her dry eyes, and settled on what she hoped was a look of sadness.

  The man held out his hand. “I’m Colby. My wife died this year, so I know what you mean about having to face all this nonsense alone.” He waved his hand towards the young revelers at the bar.

  They placed their lies over the next few hours, with Kathleen concentrating so hard on the winding story she had made up, she missed the few inconsistencies in Colby’s tale. They ended up in Colby’s apartment for the night, and Kathleen artfully turned the discussion to how depressing the resort town was. “I thought it might cheer me up, but every time I look at one of those young women, or hear them laugh, it reminds me how much my daughter has missed out on.”

  “It’s not working out the way my friends said it would, either. I find myself looking for Agnes, expecting her to tell me it’s time to get back to the ranch so we can set up the tree and she can start baking,” Colby replied. It was depressingly easy to manipulate this woman, and if he possessed the ability to feel guilty about his plan, it would have been dismissed by the calculating woman’s lies about Ashley.

  Kathleen tried to give a look of innocent suggestion. “Is your ranch near here?”

  The man looked down in mock embarrassment. “I hate to admit it, but it’s only a two hour drive from here. I was nervous about traveling further, only to decide I really wanted to ring in the New Year at home.”

  “It seems neither one of us is enjoying what Aspen has to offer,” Kathleen reasoned. “Perhaps you could show me your ranch, and it could help keep our minds off our loss?”

  Kathleen picked up her luggage from the condo and did not even bother to check out. She waited out front in a throng of arriving guests, all so busy with their vacation plans that no one noticed when the black pickup truck drove off with her. They chatted for the two-hour drive, and Colby pulled more of the woman’s fears and frustrations from their discussion to use later.

  They pulled down a winding drive with acres of snowy pastures lining the plowed road. The log ranch house was impressive, and Kathleen was feeling much better about her decision to snare the man. He parked out front and said he would send someone for their suitcases.

  Colby opened the heavy wooden door to a huge entryway, and guided Kathleen by the elbow towards a huge room to the right. She looked around the room at the bar and roaring fire in the flagstone fireplace, past that to a picture window overlooking the mountains, and further where her gaze locked onto a sight in terror. The man from the gallery in New York was propped up against the wall with a drink in his hand while a naked woman was on her knees with her hands strapped behind her and her mouth working his cock.

  “What do you think, Harvey?”

  Harvey looked at the attractive woman and said, “I told you I could see where Ashley got her looks.”

  At first, Colby was unsure about the suggestion Harvey had brought back from his visit with Garrett. The more he thought about it, the more the idea had intrigued him. He did a little checking, and discovered the woman was as coldly attractive as Garrett thought she would be. Harvey tracked her for a month, and reported she was becoming an outcast in her quick moving social circle.

  When he had a drink with her in New York, he had planted the seeds for the trip to Aspen by suggesting a lot of lonely peopl
e seemed to gather there to avoid having people take advantage of their wealth when the holidays brought on the inevitable depression. Kathleen immediately grasped the opportunity such a situation would provide.

  “She’ll be a good, final test for you to practice on before you take your place on the ridge, and then Garrett would like to use her as his first slut for specialty training.”

  Kathleen’s mind was reeling and she tried to make sense of her surroundings. When her feet finally moved to back away, a fist gripped her carefully groomed hair, and she blurted the first thing she could think of. “I’ll pay you. I have money stashed away.”

  Colby turned her so she faced him. “Your concern for your daughter is admirable,” he muttered. “As for your assets, you’ll be begging to turn them over by morning.” He grabbed her breast and squeezed until she shrieked, and said dispassionately, “There’s quite a bit of sag, but she is well past her prime. I’m sure with the proper training you’ll be able to firm her up a bit before she sees her daughter again.”

  THE END