Aidan’s eyes flew open. They were wide with terror. He pulled at his restraints and seemed to be trying to talk, but there was a rag in his mouth. Lucas raced to him and pulled the rag out.
“Run, Lucas!”
But it was too late. Something moved behind Lucas, and he felt the right side of his head light up before the world went dark.
* * * *
Aidan felt sick as Lucas fell to the ground. Dwight had perfected the art of slamming the butt of a rifle into a person’s head. He might not be the best foreman in the world, but he was damn good at knocking people out. And he was an accomplished killer. Aidan’s vision was still hazy, and he smelled gasoline. Was that a hallucination? How much of this was real? He prayed Lucas was an illusion, but he didn’t hold out hope.
“Don’t hurt him. He doesn’t know anything.” Aidan was pretty sure it wouldn’t work, but he was willing to try anything at this point. He couldn’t stand the thought of Dwight shooting Lucas in front of him. He prayed Lexi was somewhere safe. How long had he been out? Obviously long enough to get dragged to the barn and tied down with his own damn rope. “Please don’t shoot him. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Dwight stared down at the body at his feet. “When you first told me about those two, I thought you were insane. Now I’m just disgusted. I might be a killer, but at least I’m not a damn queer.”
Aidan’s head was pounding, but the gag was gone. He didn’t scream, because that was a surefire way to get that nasty rag shoved down his throat again. Besides, Bo was too far away to hear him. Only Lexi had a possibility of hearing him, and he couldn’t risk her running in here and getting herself killed.
“I’ve been listening to you talk for a year, and it always made me sick.” Dwight reached down and grabbed Lucas’s wrists and pulled him, dragging him across the wood floor of the barn. “Do you have any idea what it took to sit there and listen to you whine about your sex life? But it gives me a couple of outs. You see, you might think that you’re being brave, but what you did last night was stupid. Everyone saw you kiss Lucas. The police here aren’t going to care that you got yourself killed. They’ll say that’s what happens to gays.”
Dwight might have a point about the sheriff. He hadn’t been terribly friendly last night, but he’d done his job. It might have been different if Karen hadn’t been gift wrapped and served up on a silver platter. That was obviously Dwight’s doing, but he let that go for now. Dwight needed to understand this wouldn’t be as easy as he thought. “Bo won’t let it go. And I assure you Jack Barnes won’t take kindly to his brother being murdered.”
For the first time, Dwight looked like he was sweating a bit. He dropped Lucas and stepped away. “I can’t worry about that now. I can’t let you live. I should have smothered your ass while I had the chance, but you didn’t remember. The doctors said they thought you would never remember, so I let it go. I didn’t want to kill Tanner and Link.”
A sudden flash of Link going down spun across Aidan’s brain. He’d been so fucking young. Tanner had been an accident. Aidan could almost forgive what happened to him. A firefight was scary and chaotic, but Link died in the quiet aftermath. Link had been murdered in cold blood. “But you did it anyway.”
“I had to. I wouldn’t survive in prison. Do you have any idea what I’ve done to survive? I had to stab myself to make it look like I’d been in a fight. That takes guts.”
Dwight was one delusional son of a bitch. “I bet Tanner’s wife and kid and Link’s parents would disagree with you.”
Dwight picked up the rifle he’d put down when he moved Lucas. He held it casually against his body. “I had to take care of myself. No one else would do it. And now I have to take care of you.”
“There’s no war here to slow down an investigation. Someone will figure out that you did this.”
He shrugged. “I don’t see why. I’ve been careful. I’ve never once said a bad word about you. I’m the loyal friend who sat by your bedside and followed you home to make sure you were okay. Now, Bo, he’s talked his mouth off about how pissed he is. That boy can’t handle his liquor. He was a might miffed you got the ranch. And I’ll make sure the sheriff knows how much you embarrassed him last night at the fair. No one in these parts wants a queer in their family.”
Dwight was severely underestimating this town, in Aidan’s opinion. There would be some people who wouldn’t accept him, but not all. Even the ones who wouldn’t condone his lifestyle wouldn’t want him dead. Dwight was in for a mighty big wake-up call if he managed this.
“How exactly are you going to frame my brother? That’s not his gun. Everyone knows he loves his Remington Model 7. He would never use yours.” Sometimes Aidan thought Bo loved his rifle and the hunting that went with it far more than he would ever love any woman. He was pretty sure Bo slept with that rifle from time to time.
“I have no intention of shooting you. I’m—well, Bo—is going to lock you in the barn and set it on fire. By the time the ranch hands see the smoke and make it back from the east pasture, it will be too late. I’ve already hidden the gas can in Bo’s trunk. Dumbass doesn’t even lock his car.”
God, he prayed Lexi was still asleep. He couldn’t bear the thought of Dwight tossing her inside with him and Lucas. He pulled uselessly against the ropes he’d lovingly fastened to this table for his subs. This barn was supposed to be a playroom, a place where they could be themselves and love each other however they wanted. Now it would be his tomb. The ropes bit into his flesh, tearing at his skin. He felt blood start to leak from his wrists. Was that a little bit of give?
“Hurting yourself isn’t going to help.” Dwight stood over him. He had the rag in his hand. He shoved it into Aidan’s mouth. Aidan fought, but he gagged as the rag nearly found the back of his throat. He had to concentrate to breathe. “Can’t have you screaming, can we? I wonder if they’ll think you and that boy down there were playing your kinky games and Bo couldn’t take finding you like that. Or, hey, maybe they’ll blame Lexi. No real woman wants to lose her man to another man.”
Dwight pulled out a match when he got to the door of the barn. “Don’t worry too much. I poured the gas around the inside perimeter. The only window is up in the loft, and I made sure it’s closed. The smoke will kill you before the flames get to you. I’m not a monster, after all.”
The monster he’d been friends with lit a match and dropped it to the ground. Fire lit and raced like the tiny Matchbox cars he and Bo used to play with. It raced up the track that led all the way around the barn. Within seconds, he and Lucas were surrounded by flames. Dwight slipped out of the door, and it snapped into place. He had no doubt Dwight had locked it behind him.
He couldn’t see Lucas. He had to pray that he wasn’t close to the fire. Aidan struggled with the ropes. He wouldn’t give up. He was too close to everything he wanted. Lucas’s life was on the line. He pulled, trying to get the screws to give. He would try everything he could because he was not going to let that son of a bitch kill his loves.
Aidan pulled and pulled as the smoke began to fill the barn.
Chapter Nineteen
Lexi thought about getting up and going after Lucas. It might be fun to watch the way the Master handled getting attacked by his sub. Lucas might get a spanking. That would definitely be a sight to see. She sighed and stretched. He might be getting a spanking even as she lay here.
When had she started thinking of Aidan as her Master? Even back when they were living a very vanilla lifestyle, she’d dreamed about being able to call Aidan Master. It had been Lucas who introduced her to BDSM, but Aidan had always been everything she wanted in a Dom. His alpha nature was what attracted her to him in the first place. She and Lucas might be halves of a whole, but they needed Aidan to complete them.
She let her mind drift. She felt truly relaxed for the first time in forever. She was getting married. No long engagement this time. They were going to elope. Vegas, here we come. She knew her mom might be upset, but Lexi wasn’t t
aking any chances this time. She was tying that man up.
Or would it be Lucas? How exactly did they figure that out? Her mom had married Jack, and Dani had legally married Julian, but Lucas wasn’t exactly a sub in the way Sam and Finn were. Why the hell am I thinking about this when my men are out there doing hot, dirty things to each other?
Maybe she wasn’t as sore as she thought.
She pushed the covers back and put on one of Aidan’s T-shirts. It covered everything that needed covering. She would grab a cup of coffee and then go sneak a peek. Then she would sit down and write for a while. That sounded like a great way to spend the day.
She stopped at the door when she heard a cell phone chirp. Lucas’s. He must have forgotten it, a sure sign he’d relaxed. She found it buried underneath the scrubs from the previous evening. Aidan had decided they would keep the scrubs for when they needed to play doctor. She glanced down at the number. Ben Dawson. Oh, she wasn’t about to miss that call.
“Hello.”
There was a pause. “I’m sorry. I’m looking for Lucas Cameron. Is this Lexi?”
“In the flesh. Lucas is doing things he really can’t do with a phone in his hand. I’m afraid you have to talk to me.”
A low, seductive chuckle came across the line. “Oh, sweetheart, I would love to do more than talk to you. Have you decided to leave those two boys you were playing around with? Maybe you would like to see how semi-psychic twins do it. I can answer that question. We do it better. Hey!” Ben’s voice went from sexy to irritated in a second. “You didn’t have to throw something at me. I get the picture, asshole. Fine. I’ll move on. Chase wants to talk to Lucas.”
Weird. Chase forced Ben to make his phone calls? Those twins were a very curious pair. “Lucas isn’t here. I can have him call you back.”
A slow sigh came over the line. “No, don’t bother. We’re coming out there. We’re at the police station right now. Chase is nervous about something. I’ve learned to trust his instincts. He’s an asshole who throws staplers at his own brother and refuses to talk on the phone because he’s sure it’s going to give him cancer, but he’s freaky on target when it comes to stuff like this.”
“Did they let Karen out?” Lexi was a bit surprised. She’d heard they were planning on throwing the book at Karen. By the time Bo had come to pick them up the night before, everyone had known that Karen had been found drunk in her car not far from the accident.
“No, she’s still in jail, but Chase is certain it wasn’t her.”
That was in line with what Lucas thought. God, she wanted it to be Karen. It was very disappointing. She’d been looking forward to seeing Karen in an orange jumper. “They found her in her car in a ditch. She wrecked it after she tried to kill us.”
“Then why didn’t her airbag deploy?” Ben asked. “According to the report, she blew a 1.6 on the breathalyzer. She was two times the legal limit. There’s no way she drove that car, much less managed to drive Aidan’s truck off the road. That was deliberate and took discipline Karen Wilcox simply doesn’t have. But of course we can’t get anyone to see that here. These cops like open-and-shut cases.”
He had a point. “If not Karen, then who?”
“Chase has been looking into the firefight Aidan was injured in. He doesn’t like it.”
“I’m sure Aidan didn’t like it, either.” But she didn’t see why Chase was spending his time on it.
“No, you don’t understand, sweetheart. Things don’t add up. The reports don’t make sense. Why was Aidan hit from both the back and the front? PFC Creely explains—and I’m using air quotes here—how it all went down, but I don’t buy it.” There was a muffled pause as though Ben had put his hand over the phone, then he was back. “Fine, I’ll tell her. Chase wants you to know that this was the sloppiest report he’s ever hacked into a government database to read.”
Interesting. “Does he do that often?”
“Often enough to get the FBI interested in us. There’s a reason we had to go through McKay-Taggart to get this job. Some people like to watch baseball. My brother likes to hack high-security systems.”
Maybe Chase Dawson would be the one in an orange jumpsuit. But that was irrelevant. “What did the report say?”
“Specialist Tanner’s injuries were to the back of his neck. According to Creely, Tanner broke position and ran. But Chase checked his records. Tanner was set for Ranger training two weeks after his death. He was seasoned. He’d seen worse fighting. He wouldn’t have run. Most of the men killed in the fight were taken out by M16s. Unusual, but not unheard of. Insurgents can get M16s, too. And then there’s the fact that all the weapons were recovered from the scene. All but one. PFC Creely said he lost his M16 somewhere between the scene and the hospital. That makes ballistics tests impossible.”
“Who is this Creely guy?” She would like to have a talk with that asshole.
“It’s Dwight Creely, Aidan’s foreman.”
Holy shit. Dwight, who constantly harped on Aidan to take his sleeping pills. Dwight, who got agitated every time Aidan started to remember something. “You think Dwight killed those men and shot Aidan?”
Ben hesitated, but only for a second. “Suspect is the proper word. We don’t think he killed all of them, but what if he panicked? What if he accidently killed someone and shot Aidan? Big Tag is calling an associate from the Agency to see if he can find anything out. It wouldn’t be the first incidence of friendly fire the US Military has covered up or just plain looked over. But we think Creely wants it buried, and it looks like he’s willing to kill to keep Aidan quiet. This was never about you. This is about Aidan.”
“You have to come out here. Come now.” She let the phone drop. That son of a bitch was out there with Aidan. Unless Lucas had found them, Dwight was alone with Aidan, and she had no idea what Dwight had planned next. It was obvious to her now that Dwight had done what he did to get Aidan back to the ranch where he could watch the only man who could put Dwight away. Now that Aidan was starting to remember, Dwight had decided to take him out.
She stopped in the middle of the hall. She couldn’t panic. Panicking would tip Dwight off. She needed to stay calm. She went to the office and pulled up the radio. If Aidan was out on the range, he should have his radio with him. She tried to turn the radio on but got nothing. She checked the cord to make sure it was plugged in, but all she came up with was a ragged end.
Someone had cut the cord to the radio. Someone didn’t want the cowboys on the range to be able to get in contact with the house.
Her hands shook. Ben and Chase were on their way, but it was twenty minutes from town. She couldn’t wait.
Think. Think. Think.
Aidan’s dad kept a multitude of guns in the house. She remembered that from her previous visits. It had been years, but she seriously doubted Aidan had gotten rid of all of them. Lexi remembered that there was a gun cabinet in the closet. She opened the closet in the office, and sure enough, the gun cabinet was still there.
And locked.
Damn it. The desk. She rushed to the desk and prayed the key was there. She opened the desk drawer and found something much better than a key. Sitting right there on top of some papers was a revolver. She was going to have such a long discussion with Aidan about gun safety right after she saved his ass from the man trying to kill him. She picked up the revolver. Damn, it was a heavy son of a bitch. She found a fast load cartridge. Six bullets. Hopefully she wouldn’t need them at all, but she wasn’t going to go after PFC Dwight Creely with a crop, and that was the only other “weapon” she had seen in that closet.
She silently thanked her stepfathers. Jack and Sam had taught her how to use a pistol and a rifle. They had taken both Lexi and her mom to a shooting range. Her stepfathers’ belief was that if she and her mom were going to be around guns, they should damn sure know how to use them. She popped the cartridge into place. The phone was sitting right there. She picked it up and dialed her mother’s cell, praying she made a connection. Her mom
and stepdads were twenty minutes away, too, but she was calling in the cavalry.
“Hey, baby, how are you doing this morning?” Her mom sounded cheery and awake.
Lexi didn’t have time for chitchat. “I need you to send Jack and Sam out to the ranch. Do not come yourself. Matter of life and death—maybe mine, definitely Aidan’s. Love you. Bye.”
Lexi hung up the phone. It immediately rang again, but she let it go. She knew her mother. Jack and Sam would be on their way. Whatever happened, at least she knew someone she trusted was coming for her.
She clutched the gun at her side, holding the barrel down and away. She started back toward the bedroom. She didn’t even have on shoes. She would get dressed and then go after them. It would be okay. So far Dwight hadn’t done anything blatant and open. She could see now that he’d tried to blame someone else for his crimes. He would lie in wait. She had time. She would find Lucas and Aidan in a ridiculously compromising position, and they would wonder why she was running around with a gun. By that time, Ben and Chase would be here, and Jack and Sam would be hard on their heels.
Then why had Dwight cut the radio cord?
There was no rational reason to do that unless he was making his move. If he sent the ranch hands out of range of cell phones, they would have no way to call for help.
Prickles of trepidation raced along her skin. She rushed into the kitchen. She would get dressed and find them and pray it wasn’t too late.
She was rushing through the kitchen when she stopped. She felt her hands begin to shake as she realized what she could see through the small kitchen window. It was a window over the sink, draped with faded yellow curtains. It framed the scene in a sort of weird normality. Dwight stood in front of the barn door. His back was to the window. He stood there casually, a rifle at his side. Why was he watching the barn? Was he waiting for Aidan to come out of the barn? Would he shoot Aidan?
Smoke. The faintest hint of smoke drifted from the barn.
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