by Lora Leigh
Ignoring the other two men as they called for Rumbles, Skye thought it was no wonder the pug didn’t answer to a name like that. She moved quickly to the bedroom.
She came to a hard stop at the end of her bed, remaining quiet and simply staring at the picture of innocence that Logan had called a little monster.
An impish, mischievous little bit of fluff was what she was. And once again, she’d destroyed one of Skye’s favorite articles of clothing.
Where the hell she had found the pale green silk blouse Skye didn’t have a clue. It had been missing for days. But there she was, lying on her back in the middle of the bed, the torn shirt covering the upper half of her body and part of her squished little face. One little eye peeped from the side of the material as she slept, and her little legs were sprawled out as far as such short little legs could sprawl.
It was her favorite sleeping position. And for some reason, the entire time she had been with Skye, each morning she’d found her way off the bed without waking her, done the impossible and found a piece of clothing before climbing back up, tearing it just enough to make it unusable, then falling asleep again.
She was going to have to move the makeshift steps at the end of the bed, she thought with a sigh. The stacked boxes that led to the trunk in front of the footboard made it very easy for the pup to find her favorite spot on the bed.
Skye missed her, she realized. The past days without the pup’s warm weight against Skye’s side as she slept had made the nightmares come harder, darker. She didn’t want to dream. She didn’t want to relive things she should be able to forget.
As Logan moved behind her, his chest brushed against her shoulder as he laid the side of his face against her head.
“I see her and all I want to do is wrap her up in cotton and find a steel vault to protect her in until all this is over,” he said softly.
Skye knew where he was going with it.
“She would die,” she said just as softly, aware that Crowe could be somewhere behind them. “She’s little, but she thinks you need her. She needs you to need her. If you don’t, then she’s going to lose all that love, all that heart, she’s given you.”
And the puppy wasn’t the only one Skye was talking about. She was talking about her own heart, the one she had given him when she was fifteen years old, at her sister’s funeral, as Skye watched that single tear drift down his cheek and into the beard he had worn, even then.
“You named her?” Skye kept her voice so low it barely had sound.
She felt like crying herself, because she knew him, knew the type of man he was, just as she knew what the thought of losing another lover did to him.
“Rumbles,” he said softly.
Skye shook her head. “She’ll come to you if you call her Bella,” she said quietly.
Logan sighed heavily behind her.
The anger, frustration, and tension still raged between them, but then so did the hunger. There was no getting away from it, and they both knew it.
His hands settled on her hips as his forehead pressed against her shoulder.
“I knew to stay away from you,” he whispered. “The first morning I awoke and saw you sunbathing, all but nude on that damned patio, I knew you were trouble.”
She leaned into him. She’d deliberately lain right there so he could see her. So she could see if the untemptable could be tempted.
“Logan,” she whispered his name on a sigh, a plea. “You have to stop them now. You have to let me help you.”
“I don’t need help, Skye,” he denied. “I don’t need your help or anyone else’s, because I’m not doing anything.”
“Since you and your cousins have no idea the resources I can tap or the fact I’ve trained for this my entire adult life, then I forgive you this insult. Just this one.” It was a shaky laugh, one that she couldn’t keep the pain or the disillusionment out of.
“I feel honored.” There was a breath of a sigh in his voice. “But I think I’ll definitely pass on your lovely offer, baby. Another death on my conscience might finish destroying me.”
Especially if it was Skye.
Holding her to him, feeling her warmth, he couldn’t imagine living if a monster took her away from him.
“That’s what they want,” she said then. “What all of them want.”
His jaw tightened as he stepped away from her, regretting the loss of her warmth more than he wanted to admit. But stepping away from her was imperative. She was too confident, and she was making him think, making him wonder—
“Did you hear me, Logan? They want to destroy you.” She faced him now, her expression imperative, her gaze filled with emotions he didn’t want to see. Because they made him ache, made him hungry for what they represented.
“There is no ‘they,’ Skye.” He gave his head a hard shake. “If there was, then the other two are gone now. We just have the third to capture.”
“Logan, the profiler hasn’t revised his opinion.”
His jaw tightened. “The other two are dead, Skye. Thomas Jones died the night he killed Jaymi. Lowry Berry was killed more than a month ago when he attacked Cami. There’s only one left.”
She shook her head. “I talked to them, Logan. They sent an agent to Marietta’s crime scene, to her home, and to the autopsy. Their profile stands. I specifically questioned that. It hasn’t changed.”
“And my mind hasn’t changed,” he assured her as he moved to the bed, scooped up the pup and the ruined shirt into his arms, and headed to the doorway.
Before leaving the bedroom, he turned back to Skye one last time.
She stood in the middle of the room staring back at him, that long, dark hair cascading around her, nearly to her hips, making her look even tinier, even more delicate, than she actually was.
Her blouse was still a little uneven, her hair finger mussed; at some point she’d kicked off her sandals. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and, to him, the most deadly.
A woman he could love.
“Go home, Skye,” he ordered her again, wearily. “Move back in with your foster parents; hire a bodyguard. Hide until this is over. I’ll come for you then.”
She shook her head. “You won’t. And I’m not leaving. I’m smart enough to know I can do this without your help. I’d prefer to work with you. Trust me, Logan, you really want to let me in on this.”
The rejection in his gaze broke her heart. “Trust me, Skye,” he answered then. “I really don’t.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
As he’d noticed with Marietta Tyme, Logan had excellent taste in women. And he was damned efficient, for a while, in keeping his lovers hidden.
He knew there had been more than the three he knew of.
Marietta in Denver.
Jenny Perew who lived in a little house on several acres of land in Mount Sterling.
Ellen Mason in Grand Junction. Unfortunately, she had several roommates. As a journalist for a local paper, she didn’t have a nine-to-five job and she wasn’t as predictable as Perew was. That meant sweet little Jenny got to die first.
His boss wasn’t happy that he’d found no others, believing that Logan, the only blond Callahan, was perhaps sneakier than the others, because it was reputed he had an incredibly high sex drive.
It was laughable.
The old bastard he was working with had probably forgotten what a real sex drive was decades ago.
Getting it up without the taste and feel of his victims’ blood was something his boss hadn’t been able to do for a while.
It wasn’t a problem he had, though.
To all appearances, his sex drive was normal, if a little vanilla. His life was predictable and he was trustworthy.
He almost chuckled at the thought as he cut the lights on the quiet little car he’d stolen to drive into Mount Sterling. He doubted Jenny would even hear it as she drove up the lane.
She had no dogs. She had no boyfriend or housemates. And tonight, she was home.
He
checked his watch. It was two in the morning, there would be no witnesses, and Skye O’Brien, Logan’s last alibi, was out of town for the night.
Something about an early doctor’s appointment, he’d heard her tell another customer at the post office.
And his boss had a meeting that evening, keeping him busy and out of the way while preparations were being made.
What excellent timing.
It gave him a chance to choose his own victim, to take her, to complete the sexual, fear-filled, agonizing acts that he’d begun to crave.
And to do it in a way that would show his boss once and for all that he knew exactly what he was doing.
Still, each plan he’d come up with had been rejected after Logan had managed to escape jail for the murder of Marietta.
As though it were his fault.
He’d warned his boss, warned him countless times not to dismiss Logan’s winsome little neighbor, Skye.
He’d watched them at several of the Socials, their smiles just a little warmer than ones they gave others. Their gazes lingering just a second longer on each other than they should have.
But no, Skye knew better, he’d been told. Skye wasn’t a trollop for the Callahans to take advantage of so easily.
The old fool. He would be amusing if he weren’t threatening to become so damned dangerous.
And now, to tell him to halt any further plans until he had considered their options?
Their options?
Didn’t he think they were just a little too deep here to pull out?
Stepping from the car, he latched the door quietly and moved around the house to the back door whose lock he’d sabotaged that morning.
It would feel locked from the inside. Jenny would be certain she was secure. But from the outside, it would be as simple as turning the knob to open the door. Stepping into the house, his head lowered, the Stetson he wore shielded his face just in case there were cameras.
Identical to Logan Callahan’s.
Moving silently through the house, he made his way to the little downstairs bedroom and slipped into the open door.
It was dark.
He was early.
And Jenny was sleeping deeply.
Pulling the drug-soaked cloth from his jacket, he removed it from the protective baggie before stepping to her bed.
Moving quickly, he gripped her head, slapped the cloth over her mouth and nose, then held tight to her struggling form.
It only took seconds actually.
The fear in her eyes for those seconds, though, had the cum pumping from his engorged penis to fill the condom he’d already rolled over it.
Shit. He would have to be damned careful disposing of it.
He had all the time in the world to be careful now, though.
Dropping the small duffel bag from his shoulder next to the bed and drawing in a deep breath, he willed himself to patience.
Turning his hands palms-up, he flexed his fingers, still not quite certain of the feel of his new “hands.” Latex of a sort, with the prints he’d managed to get on two fingers, none other than Logan Callahan’s.
Just in case the son of a bitch couldn’t come up with an alibi. That was the plan. He was just hoping it would work now.
He wasn’t quite so cocky this time, though. Logan had escaped every attempt to frame him. There was no sense banking on this working, but at least he’d have fun for a few hours.
He’d planned this, just as he had Marietta’s death, down to the last detail. No mistakes. There was never so much as a hint of any evidence he didn’t want found.
Why couldn’t his boss see the genius he was working with?
He took all the risks, and his boss thought he could just hang him up to dry until he wanted to taste the blood himself again.
It wasn’t going to happen that way and he would just make certain his boss realized that.
His dick was hard, blood pumping fierce and heavy through the hardened shaft as he moved then to cut away the pretty little woman’s nightgown.
The cotton gown wasn’t near as soft and pretty as Skye O’Brien’s, but peeling the strips of it from her body sure as hell was fun.
Like an early Christmas present.
He was going to fuck her until she was gasping.
He was going to watch her bleed slow and easy.
He was going to leave her right here when he was finished. Naked, spread, her blood soaking the bed and nothing more.
He tied her to the bed, spread eagle, then unpacked his supplies.
Plenty of disinfectant.
He wouldn’t leave anything this time.
No scrap of material.
No fingerprints.
There would be no hair.
No DNA but one very pretty little woman.
Pulling his hat from his head, he laid it upside down on the dresser.
He undressed slowly, his newly shaven body free of hair and scrubbed of dead skin cells. The mix of thin latex and aerosol he’d put together and sprayed over his body ensured nothing of him would be left behind. He just had to make certain he wore a condom and kept his balls in the baggie taped around them.
The precautions were necessary.
But the terror in her wide, wide brown eyes was so worth it—
Ahhh, and what a hell of a good time his boss was gonna be missin’.
*
The meeting wasn’t set for midnight; it was set for four. It would have looked too unusual to see his vehicle leaving his house that late at night. Too many would have noticed.
To see him driving into the mountains after noon, though, wouldn’t have seemed that unusual. He did it often enough that it wouldn’t have been remarked upon. And this meeting was too important to allow others to witness.
Twenty-four years, two attempts, and still the job hadn’t been completed. He’d allowed himself to be swayed by intricate plots and imaginative schemes designed to fail and to keep him from his ultimate goal. To ensure he never gained what should have been his all along.
So many years.
When it had begun, he had been a younger man. A man with optimism. A man who believed in all the careful details and plans he had made over the years.
Only to learn that too often there were so many others willing to destroy those carefully laid plans.
That final triumph had been denied him, despite the years and the hard work. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how many he killed or how often he conspired or with whom, he had been denied what he had worked so hard to attain.
He had bled for it.
He had shed blood for it.
More than two decades later and still he was denied all he had dreamed of.
He was taking the simpler route now. Time was running out. He was no longer a young man, nor was he in the prime of his life. And he had been fighting this battle far too long, just as his father and his grandfather had fought for what should have been theirs, only to see it taken from them. He should have done this sooner.
As he made the turn into the mountains and drew ever closer to the meeting he had planned, he acknowledged the error he had made from the beginning. This was the route he should have taken. Rather than forcing his partners to stain their hands with blood as well, he should have forced them to contribute the funds.
He should have allowed someone else to stain their hands with blood. Allowed someone else to simply kill those fucking Callahan brats or their fathers before they’d had the chance to breed. To steal what he had thought to claim as his own.
What had he done instead?
Instead, he had allowed himself to be convinced, to feel that smallest iota of sympathy for those incompetent twits he had been working with.
To have mercy on the children.
His father had always told him that killers of children were given a very special place in hell. It had been the only rule his father had, never shed a child’s blood, and neither his father nor he had done so.
And that had been his fi
rst mistake.
The second had been in believing the Callahan cousins had given up the fight for the land their parents held when they went off to the Marines.
Clyde Ramsey had somehow known the plot to frame the three young men for murder had only been a stay of execution. They would have died in prison, and Clyde had known it.
Wily, intuitive, that old bastard had ensured the cousins shipped off to the military instead. The one place their enemy had no influence. Then Clyde had fought the battle for them.
That son of a bitch. He was wilier than most and it had taken far too many years to kill him. Far too many years and too many resources. He’d been blocked at every turn, and in those years he’d learned his partners in crime were no more than enemies in disguise.
There had been a time when he had considered letting it all go. A time when he had convinced himself he could do without that dream that his father and his father before him had envisioned.
He’d been willing to accept life as it was.
Then David Callahan had returned to Corbin County. Along with his brothers, he had returned with a hunger for vengeance and a refusal to relinquish the past. That refusal had ensured more blood would be shed.
Pulling the vehicle to the clearing in front of the rotting line shack he’d indicated, he sat for a moment and allowed memories he rarely visited to intrude upon him.
A woman, eyes so bright with life, her hair long and filled with a multitude of curls as she laughed up at him. Her lips were pert and bow shaped, and soft as the finest silk. Her kiss had made him forget about the plans his father had made him swear to complete.
He wanted nothing more than a life in her arms. Nothing had mattered but loving her. Seeing her smile when his eyes opened each morning. Seeing the love he knew would soon glow in her gaze.
Nothing else had mattered.
Nothing—
His hands tightened on the steering wheel as the remembered fury began to rage through his soul.
For years he had courted her, loved her, tried to seduce her. For so many years he had convinced himself that the way to her heart was his patience.
She had taken one look at that Callahan bastard and within weeks had eloped, her belly already filling with their first child.