by Sharon Sala
“There it is. When we were kids we named it Foster Falls, because it was close to Grandma and Grandpa Foster’s house, but I don’t think it ever had an official name.”
“Oh, look!” Beth said. “Look at that rainbow! Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yes, very beautiful,” Ryal said, but he wasn’t looking at the waterfall—he was looking at Beth. He put his arms around her and kissed her gently at first, and then harder, hungrier.
Beth leaned into his embrace as he parted her lips with his tongue. A shock wave ricocheted through her as she felt his erection through the fabric of his jeans. That was what she wanted—all that power—inside her. She pulled back and reached for his belt with shaking fingers.
“Ryal…”
He heard the question in her voice, but he was already on the same page. His answer was to shed his clothes as fast as he could get out of them, then strip her bare. Before she had time to worry about the temperature of the water, he scooped her up in his arms and stepped off the bank into the swiftly moving stream.
It wasn’t deep, no more than knee-high, as he kept walking toward the falls. The closer they got, the louder the water became. One moment the spray from the falls was on their faces, and then, the next thing Beth knew, he’d carried her through the cascade of water to the rock wall behind it and set her on her feet. Their hair was wet and plastered against their heads, and the mist continued to blanket their skin, while the thunder of the water matched the blood rush inside their bodies.
Their gazes locked.
He cupped her breasts.
She encircled his erection with her hands.
His nostrils flared, and for a moment she saw his eyes close in quiet ecstasy.
She moved her hands, and his body followed. The silken feel of his foreskin was in direct contrast to how hard he had become. She thought he groaned, but the sound was swallowed up by the water’s roar.
Ryal put her arms around his neck, then picked her up and lowered her slowly onto his shaft. She locked her legs around his waist, breathing deeply in quiet satisfaction as he filled her.
He braced himself against the rock wall with one hand while holding on to her with the other, then began to thrust.
Beth tightened her hands around his neck and held on, her face buried in his shoulder, her breasts flattened against his chest, and rode him hard. There behind the falls, the water thundered against the rocks until they were deaf to everything else—even the beating of their own hearts.
It was the most sensual experience of Beth’s life. She couldn’t hear a thing over the sound of the falls. There was nothing but the sensations of their bodies locked together in one pounding thrust after another, the feeling of the blood rushing through her veins and building in the valley between her legs in a ever-tightening spiral of lust and need, until she thought she would die from the pleasure.
Ryal was lost in what they were creating. He had no control. No thought of Beth. No thought of tenderness or care. Just a mind-bending need to keep pounding himself against the wet heat of the woman in his arms.
When the climax hit Beth, she felt as if she were flying into a million little pieces.
When she peaked, the muscles inside her core clamped around Ryal like a warm, wet fist, pushing him over the edge. He came with such force that it nearly sent him to his knees. Still deep inside his woman, he spilled his seed.
When it was over, they both sank into the water, their foreheads touching, their hands still locked in a death grip around each other.
Beth opened her eyes to find Ryal watching her. When he spoke, she read the words on his lips, rather than heard them.
“And I love you, too,” she said.
They sealed what they’d done with a kiss, and then slowly made their way out from under the falls and back across the stream to where they’d left their clothes.
Ryal wrung out the length of Beth’s hair as best he could, then dried her off with his shirt before he helped her dress. When he finally put on his own clothes, he hung his shirt on the bushes to dry.
“My feet are too wet to get in my boots,” he said.
“We can go barefoot awhile,” Beth said, as she crawled up on a flat rock nearby. She eyed the droplets on his thick black hair, and then reached forward and caught a droplet off the ends of his eyelashes before it fell into his eyes. “You are one sexy man, Ryal Walker, but I guess you know that, don’t you?”
“You make it happen, Bethie. This part of me has never been for anyone but you. I love you. I never want to spend another day without you.”
Beth’s heart twisted anxiously. “I hope we can make that happen,” she said.
“Don’t say that,” Ryal cautioned. “I keep telling you this is all going to work out. They’ll put that SOB in prison and the world will go on, this time with us in it together, not on opposite sides of the country.”
“Promise?” she asked.
“Promise,” he said, and took a sandwich out of the sack and handed it to her, then took one for himself, unwrapped it and took a bite.
Beth did the same, eyeing the beauty of the area as she chewed and swallowed. She caught Ryal watching her and almost blushed, still self-conscious about how abandoned their lovemaking had been.
“You’re turning me into someone I don’t know,” she said.
“No, darlin’. I’m not changing anything about you. It’s just that when you’re with me, the real you comes out.”
She knew he was right, but it was still disconcerting to know that this lustful, wanton woman had been inside her all along.
When she didn’t answer, he got a little anxious. “Are you okay?”
She glanced back, then smiled shyly. “I’ll let you know when my head stops reeling.”
He grinned and took another big bite of his sandwich. As long as she was good, he could handle anything.
“I wish I had a sketch pad,” Beth said, as she continued to admire their surroundings while they ate. “This place is amazing.”
“We’ll have to come back here sometime when all this is over. You can take as long as you like to draw it,” Ryal said.
Beth smiled. “Really? That would be great!”
“Really,” he said, then finished off his sandwich.
She ate most of hers, tossing the remnants into the water to feed the little fish she could see darting in and out along the bottom of the streambed.
“There’s a storm coming in,” Ryal said, as he pointed up to the building clouds. “We’d better head back to the house.”
Beth remembered the last thunderstorm, the constant crash of thunder and the white-hot flares of lightning. That had been the night they’d first made love. It had been great inside the house, but she didn’t want to be caught out in anything like it.
She got off the rock, and began to look around for her shoes and socks while Ryal did the same. He folded up the sack and put it in his hip pocket, then held out his hand.
It never crossed Beth’s mind to hesitate. Her hands were nearly healed, and after the way they’d just made love, the bond she felt to him was so strong that she wouldn’t have rejected his clasp if she’d been openly bleeding.
“If we’re lucky, we’ll get back to the house before the rain begins,” he said, and started walking.
“Don’t slow down on my account,” she said, and increased her stride to keep up.
Their trip home was less leisurely than the walk up, but it was physically easier, since they were moving downhill. By the time they reached the clearing at the back of the house, the wind was changing.
“Just in time,” Ryal said, as they crossed the last twenty yards and hurried onto the back porch. Before they got inside, they heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. “That’s probably James with the groceries.”
Beth stopped on the porch with Ryal as James’s dark truck appeared around the corner of the house and drove all the way up to the steps before he stopped.
“Oh, man, I thought that damn sto
rm would beat me here,” he said, as the wind began to whip the tree limbs. “Grab some sacks and let’s get all this inside before the rain hits.”
They got the groceries inside just ahead of the first drops, and had just begun putting everything up and catching up on news of the family and the mountain, when the front door suddenly flew open with a bang.
Ryal spun toward the sound just as Quinn came striding into the kitchen.
“Sorry about the door. The wind caught it as I was coming in. It also took the tent while I was making sure no one had followed James up here. I found the damn thing but didn’t have time to put it back up before the rain started. Decided I was too delicate to stand out in another storm.”
Beth put a hand on Quinn’s arm. “You’re soaked. Ryal has a dry shirt. Go change before you make yourself sick.”
Ryal watched surprise come and go on Quinn’s face.
“Yes, ma’am, I believe I will,” he said quietly, eyeing Ryal to see if there was an objection, then left the room.
“I’ll start some coffee. Hopefully it’ll get made before the power goes off,” Ryal said.
“None for me,” James said. “I’d love to stay and visit, but Julie’s uneasy when it storms, and I want to get off this slope before the road gets too slick.”
“Drive safe,” Ryal said. “And thanks for the delivery.”
James grinned, then winked at Beth. “Totally my pleasure. Ya’ll be careful. Call if you need anything.”
“Thanks again,” Beth said.
James waved and then ran out the back door, jumped into his truck and took off down the mountain as fast as he dared to go.
Ryal slid the coffee carafe into place and turned on the coffeemaker as Beth walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“I love the Walker brothers.”
Ryal laid his hands on hers. “Thank you, baby,” he said softly.
Quinn soon joined them, sheltering with them until the worst of the storm had passed. When there was nothing left but a little wind and the rain dripping from the leaves, he got up.
“I need to get back and get set up before dark.”
“You didn’t get any sleep today, did you?” Beth asked.
“I’m good,” Quinn said. “You just worry about my big brother.” He smiled to soften his words, and moments later he was gone.
“Do you need to go help him put up the tent?” Beth asked.
“No, and he wouldn’t welcome the help anyway, so I’ll leave him to it. Let’s brown up some of these short ribs and then put them in a stew pot with a can of that beef broth. We need to let them simmer for two or three hours before we add the vegetables, but this feels like a good night for a one-dish meal.”
Farther down the mountain, Moe sat in his car, hidden off the road in the cutout behind the trees and bushes, tracking James Walker’s progress on his laptop.
When James finally stopped, Moe made a note of the coordinates, then waited to see what happened next. When the truck began moving again, he realized James Walker was heading home. This time, when the truck stopped, Moe knew where he was at. Confident that he also had a good idea of where Beth Venable was hiding, he drove out of his hiding place and carefully made his way off the mountain and back to Mount Sterling.
He rented another room for the night, but in a different motel, then drove down the street to a restaurant. After the day he’d had, he felt like treating himself to a decent meal.
The storm swept through Mount Sterling as he dined, and by the time he’d paid the bill and was ready to go back to his motel, it had passed.
Once inside his room, he got back on the laptop, punched in the coordinates where James Walker had stopped, then used an overlay of a county map to get an idea of the location. After that, it was a matter of researching land-deed records until he found out who owned that particular plot of land. To his surprise, it had belonged to a man named Elder Foster, who was deceased.
The name didn’t mesh with anything he knew, so he began another search on Ryal and James Walker, and found out that their mother’s maiden name was Foster. That was when he began to smile. It was all falling into place. Dead granddaddy’s house was being used as a hideout. It was the perfect location for staying under the radar.
Moe checked all his notes one last time, then put in a call to Ike Pappas and waited for it to be answered.
Ike’s nerves were on edge. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this out of control. Adam was MIA, and Valenti had threatened him. The friends he’d called to dine with him had made their excuses and begged off, claiming a sick child. Of course, he knew it was possible that was the truth, but his gut feeling said otherwise. It wasn’t that they would have been shocked to learn he’d committed a murder. It was just that they didn’t want to be associated with him right now in case of an arrest. He understood that. But it still pissed him off.
Ike’s anger kicked in. By God, he wasn’t going to let a bunch of pussies run him into a hidey-hole. He called an escort service, made a reservation at one of his favorite restaurants and then booked a suite at a nearby hotel. He was going to eat steak and fuck his brains out, and sleep somewhere other than the guest room in his own damned home.
Tomorrow was always a new opportunity for things to change for the better. God knew they couldn’t get much worse.
He was at the restaurant waiting for his “date” to arrive when his cell phone began to vibrate. He started to let it go to voice mail, then checked the caller ID and saw it was from Moe Cavanaugh, so he headed for the men’s bathroom. Once inside, he locked the door for privacy and took the call.
“This is Pappas.”
“Mr. Pappas. I have some very promising info.”
“I don’t want promises. I want facts,” Ike snapped.
“Then these are my facts. I think I’ve located her position, but I can’t be sure without revealing myself. If that happened, I think they’d move her again, so I couldn’t take the chance.”
“Yeah, okay, I see your point. So where’s she at?”
“Can I send you all the info in an email?”
“Yes, but not to me. Send it to Kalamata Press dot org. I’ll be watching for it. Are you sending it tonight?”
“Yes, sir, and then flying back to L.A. tomorrow.”
“As usual, your fee will be paid via direct deposit into your account. Same info as always, I assume?”
“Yes, Mr. Pappas. Same as always.”
“Thank you,” Ike said. “I hope your work pays off.”
“So do I,” Moe said. “I’m always at your service.”
As soon as Ike hung up, he washed his hands and returned to his table. Within minutes his date arrived. She was a tall, leggy brunette, with boobs the size of water floats and a waist he could span with both hands. Just how he liked a woman to look. This promised to be a good night after all.
Back in Mount Sterling, Moe was hard at work compiling his notes and suggestions. Once he finished, he fired the memo off to the email address Pappas had given him, booked a flight on the first plane out in the morning that was heading to L.A., then set the alarm and went to bed.
Ike wasn’t the only Pappas with fucking on his mind that night. But it wasn’t a woman Adam wanted to fuck—it was Ike, and not in the literal sense of the word.
He’d been watching the house for hours. When he saw his father leave for the evening, and saw what he was wearing and that he was driving himself instead of using the driver and the family limo, he knew Ike would be in someone else’s bed tonight, with a woman for hire playing with his dick. This was better than he’d hoped for. As soon as Ike was out of sight, Adam came out of hiding and drove down the street and onto the estate just as he’d done for the past ten years. When he got to the house, he was met by the housekeeper.
“Mr. Adam. You just missed your father,” Beatrice said.
“I didn’t come to see him,” Adam said. “I came to get some of my fitness gear that I stored in the basement. I
’ll be down there for a while, sorting through boxes.”
“Will you need any help?” she asked.
He frowned. “No. I don’t want to be bothered, and as soon as I’m finished, I’ll be gone.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and eyed him curiously before quickly looking away.
He knew she was thinking about the mess they’d found in Ike’s room, but he had no intention of satisfying her curiosity. Without wasting any more time, he headed for the basement door.
Once he’d committed himself to testifying against his father and promised hard copies of documents to back up his claims, he’d known the first place he would look. As he proceeded downstairs, he remembered a night long ago when he was just a kid, and how he’d stayed awake playing with a new toy long after he was supposed to be in bed.
He’d heard his father’s voice in the foyer below and run to the landing to meet him. But Ike hadn’t come upstairs to bed. He’d gone toward the kitchen. Thinking he would get a midnight treat with his father, Adam had followed on bare feet, only to find the kitchen empty. When he saw the door to the basement slightly ajar, he peeked in and saw the light on downstairs. Curious, he tiptoed quietly down the stairs just in time to see his father walk into a storage room and turn on a light. To Adam’s surprise, when his father pressed on the wall, a secret door swung inward.
Adam had gasped, then clasped his hands over his mouth and dashed back up the steps before he could get caught. Even then, he’d known that was a place that was meant only for his father. And while he’d always remembered where it was, he’d never gone in. He’d never had a reason to—until tonight. With no time to waste, he went straight for the storage room, turned on the light and then closed the door behind him before he began to search for the trigger that would open the secret door.
He closed his eyes and thought back to that night, trying to remember where he’d seen his father put his hands, then began his search.