The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  A voice she unfortunately knew all too well.

  The man had impeccable timing. When they invented that whole thing about Murphy’s Law, they surely were thinking of Declan.

  “Sounds like your boyfriend’s here.” Doug looked annoyed as he chewed on his lip. “You two have a fight or something?”

  “Or something,” Sadie concurred. “He’ll understand if I don’t come to the door.”

  His gaze sharpened on hers, a knowing smile ghosting his lips. “Trying to protect your sweetheart, hmm? Endearing. But foolish. Get up.” He emphasized the order with a movement of the gun. “This might work out better than I planned.”

  Sadie trembled as she slowly rose, trying to figure a way around this. No way did she want to be responsible for luring Declan into a trap. He might be heading her shit list right now, but there was no question regarding her feelings. She cared for him way too much to be able to tolerate him being hurt.

  Sensing her hesitation, Doug shed his friendly act like a snake sheds its skin. He grabbed her hand, thrusting it into the steaming mug.

  Sadie gasped, eyes pricking with tears, but the gun jammed against her ribs kept her from shouting.

  “Scream,” he said next to her ear “and I’ll make you watch while my brother cuts your boyfriend into little pieces. You don’t want that, now do you?”

  Sadie shook her head, fighting growing panic. Whatever she had to do to get Declan away from here, by God she was going to do it. This man was completely insane.

  “Now march to the front door and tell the asshole you don’t want to see him. Tell him you’re going back to that ex-fiancé I heard you talking about to your friend. Your flight leaves in a couple hours. Not to bother attempting to contact you, because you won’t accept his calls. And Ms. Mayhew?”

  He waited for Sadie to look his way.

  “Try anything funny, and I’ll shoot him where he stands.”

  “Understood,” Sadie whispered starkly, cradling her now-throbbing hand against her chest.

  And went off to open the door for Declan, who was threatening to use his key.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  DECLAN figured that barking at Sadie like a junkyard dog wasn’t the best way to go about winning her over, but he was starting to get annoyed. Did she think it was easy for him to grovel?

  And he knew the little pest was in there because her car was in the driveway.

  Kathleen had mentioned a job interview with one of the local elementary schools today.

  More evidence that she really planned to stay.

  That particular thought had drifted through his head on the drive home from the cemetery. The idea that maybe she was just… biding her time until her ex-fiancé came begging. Like maybe this whole coming home thing was just a ruse to get him to shape up. It had put Dec in a black mood before he’d even gotten here. Not that Sadie was manipulative. She was actually pretty straightforward. And surely if she was hunting work she must be serious about staying.

  But the possibility that she might not be caused his stomach to take a nasty dive.

  She’d damn well better be staying.

  Aggravation lent urgency to his knock. He hadn’t done all that soul searching and other uncomfortable stuff just to let her waltz away from him. Now that he knew he was in love with her, she’d better cooperate if she knew what was good for her.

  Hell, there was a chance, albeit slim, that she might be carrying his baby.

  And because that was both strangely appealing and nauseatingly terrifying, he got even angrier that she was pretending not to hear him.

  They were going to talk, whether she wanted to or not.

  He edged toward the living room windows that opened up onto the porch, hoping to catch some sign of her in there sulking. But the heavy curtains had been pulled tight. And drops of rain rolling off the trees onto the metal roof put up enough racket that he couldn’t hear squat.

  Except the thundering of his own heartbeat.

  He wiped sweaty palms on his damp jeans.

  Maybe she was in the shower or something, but he suspected she was just being difficult. It seemed to be her stockin-trade. So with less tact than he might have wished for, he reminded her that he had a key.

  “I’m fixin’ to get irritated with you, Sadie. Answer the door, or I’m using my key.”

  When no answer was forthcoming, he pulled the key out of his pocket. Vampire, his ass. If she didn’t want him using it she shouldn’t have given it to him. He was wet, hungry, exhausted from the lack of sleep, and he was sick of being kept standing on the porch.

  And he needed to see her, damn it.

  He was just about to thrust the key into the lock when the door opened, albeit grudgingly. The crack, just wide enough to allow for conversation, was in no way an invitation to come in. And beyond the crack, Sadie stood in stocking feet, a black skirt topped with a pale pink jacket, her hair twisted back in some kind of up-do, stiff posture anything but welcoming.

  And so beautiful she made him ache.

  “About time,” he thundered, because years of being a jerk didn’t just go away like that. And besides that, jangled nerves never made for a good source of tranquility. “We need to talk, sweetheart, so step aside and let me in.”

  Maybe the endearment would cancel out the yelling.

  Or, judging from her expression, maybe not.

  “No,” she shook her head adamantly. “I want you to leave. Now.”

  But her voice was shaky, her eyes were wide, and he figured she was full of crap. “You don’t want me to go, Sadie. There are things we need to discuss. Look, I know I shouldn’t have run out like that, but –”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she quickly cut him off. “I… I’m going back to Rick.”

  “Like hell,” he said without thinking. “I won’t let you.”

  A shadow of emotion passed behind her eyes before she mustered some irritation. “You can’t stop me. My plane leaves in a couple hours. It was fun while it lasted, but I need you to accept that it’s over. Now go away.” She started to shut the door.

  He shot a hand out and blocked it. “Not so fast there, honey. You and I are going to talk. Did you think last night meant nothing?”

  “Well, you certainly ran out fast enough after it was over.” But she waved a hand, impatient with dismissal. “Look, it was fun,” she repeated. “No hard feelings.”

  If she thought that, she had another think coming. He hadn’t beaten himself up just to be dismissed.

  And it wasn’t like Sadie to let him off the hook that lightly.

  Which meant she was either lying, or their lovemaking really hadn’t meant anything to her.

  Either option was enough to make him lose his temper.

  “Fun, huh? Yeah, I usually consider the possibility that I may have impregnated a woman a good time. Kicks and giggles, those broken condoms. You think that you could just blow into town like some kind of traveling carnival, show the local yokels a good time before moving on? Fly back to your fancy boyfriend? Doesn’t work that way, sister. Not when it’s my child you might be carrying.”

  She looked at him like he was crazy. But then something like panic overtook her face. “As interesting as your carnival analogy was, the fact remains that I don’t want you here. Go home, Rogan. I’m not pregnant, and I’m not letting you in.”

  Had she just called him Rogan?

  She started to grow frantic. She’d gone sheet-white and her chin was quivering. “Please just go away. It’s over, Rogan. Get that through your thick head. Go call Kathleen and cry on her shoulder.”

  The fog of confusion swirled around his head as she struggled to shut the door, but instinct propelled him to throw his shoulder heavily against it. Something was definitely not right.

  The hackles on the back of his neck rose and his protective instincts kicked in. Then he realized, belatedly, that she’d been trying to convey a message, and battering through the door might not be the best plan.

 
But it was already giving way to his weight.

  “No!” he heard her cry out, as she was knocked back and he fell forward, stumbling toward her. He caught her and twisted so that when they landed he’d catch the brunt of the fall.

  It was only then that he saw the gun.

  And the man standing above them, holding it.

  They hit the floor in a tangle of limbs.

  “Not a rocket scientist, is he?” the guy who’d been working on Sadie’s alarm installation said in a pleasant tone.

  “She doesn’t want you.” He addressed this to Declan, who with his arms pinned beneath Sadie couldn’t move to stop the blow. “Too bad.”

  Then the butt of the gun descended.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “IT’S about time.” Sadie’s exclamation sounded like a mixture of profound relief and exasperation. Then she drew a shuddering breath and let it out on a “Thank God.”

  Declan wasn’t sure what there was to be so thankful about, because his head hurt like a bitch.

  And where was she? He couldn’t see her, but she sounded nearby.

  Stirring, swearing, because most of his body ached in one way or another, he struggled to open his eyes. Something sticky caked his lashes together.

  He pried one open, which did a fat lot of good, because there were two of everything and both were blurry. So he closed it again to steady the nauseating swirl.

  Wherever Sadie might be, he hoped she was more comfortable than he was. Something hard and sharp poked his back, and his damp clothes had gone cold and clammy. His mouth was dry. His tailbone hurt. And his right arm pulsed with the pins and needles that signified a loss of circulation.

  Declan tried to shake it out, ended up opening the eye again and glancing toward it.

  “What the hell?” he slurred at the handcuff, which looked to be attached to the exposed pipe on some sort of sink, the metal support of which had been poking him. The pipe was rust-stained and didn’t appear to be functional, sporting a hole through which he could fit his thumb.

  If this was Sadie’s idea of kinky, they needed to have a discussion.

  He put more effort into sitting up.

  “Don’t move so much,” Sadie called over, anxiousness in her voice. “I’m pretty sure you have a concussion. It’s taken forever to wake you up.”

  Declan desisted because moving was agony, though he did continue to wiggle his fingers. He had to get the blood flowing again somehow. That was about the limit to his thought processes for the moment. Everything else was superseded by pain.

  Confusion made his thoughts stick together, so he made a concerted effort to sort them out.

  The broken condom… running out of Sadie’s bedroom in a panic… Kathleen holding him while he cried, God help him… Sadie trying to tell him that she was leaving…

  Calling him Rogan…

  The security man pointing the gun at Sadie’s head.

  Shit. “Sadie.” Oh God. “Honey, are you all right?” He struggled against the handcuff, screw the headache. He had to see if Sadie had been hurt. Ignoring her protests, he sat up and looked at her, swaying a little as the room shimmered into focus.

  What he saw made him wish he hadn’t bothered.

  “I’m okay,” she said quickly, when she saw the look on his face. “It’s not what it looks like.”

  It looked like he needed to kill someone. Her pretty pink jacket was muddy, her feet bare, and she was handcuffed to an old iron bed frame which stood against a wooden wall across the room. A room he’d never seen before. Wet hanks of blonde hair had fallen out of the twist, hanging shapelessly around her head. Drying wisps curled skyward, and leaves bobbed in the curls, shaking as she shivered.

  And when he saw the tear in her blouse, everything inside him went cold.

  An angry welt sliced across her exposed left breast, the delicate lace of her bra hanging in tatters. Her little pink nipple puckered when she trembled, whether from cold or from fear he couldn’t say. A primal rage rose inside him until he was homicidal.

  He yanked against the handcuff so hard he lost skin.

  “Calm down. Declan. Calm down,” Sadie commanded when he started pulling against the pipe. It must have been apparent what he was thinking, because she tried to diffuse him before he went mental. “I got caught on a bramble of some sort when we were coming through the woods. It tore my shirt. They didn’t… they didn’t hurt me.”

  Yeah, she looked like she was really okay. “Your security contractor was holding a gun on you. You’re half naked, and you’re bloody.” In his book, that was injury enough. He kicked with contempt at the pipe holding him in place. “And now we’re chained like animals. Where the hell are we?”

  “I’m not sure.” She tried to soothe him with her voice. “But just be still. The handcuffs won’t budge. Believe me, I’ve tried. You won’t help matters by knocking yourself out again.”

  “The asshole hit me,” Declan recalled, details rushing back to him with blinding clarity.

  “No kidding,” came the voice of sympathy. “You know, you’re about as biddable as a rock.”

  “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

  “I told you to get lost.” Sadie’s tone was full of frustration but lacking heat. “Did I have to draw you a picture? I thought even you’d understand go away. Hell, it’s practically your mantra.”

  “I was under duress,” he complained, the resulting explosion in his head really ticking him off. “It’s been a lousy couple of days. And you were sending mixed signals, honey, so don’t try to blame everything on me.”

  “Mixed signals?” she repeated, incredulous.

  “Yeah. Your lips might have been saying it didn’t mean anything, now leave, but those big baby-doll eyes were conveying you jerk, with some underlying save me. Plus you were still wearing the suit from a job interview yet telling me your plane was leaving in a couple hours. What the hell was I supposed to think?” He gingerly touched his free hand to his head. All this talking was so not helping.

  “You were supposed to vacate the premises because I said so. Just because we slept together doesn’t give you the right to ignore my wishes. Failing that, I hoped you’d deduct from my clever code the fact that something was amiss.”

  “Yeah, I got that,” he said grimly. “Right before I knocked you down and saw the gun.” Then he stopped prodding his split scalp to look her over. “You were trying to get me out of there to protect me.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “He threatened to shoot you if I didn’t get rid of you.”

  Guilt and fury warred in his chest. “So that bit about going back to your fiancé –”

  “Total crap.”

  He heaved out a sigh that was pure frustration. “Just so you know, that was the exact wrong tactic to get rid of me.” Although he was damn glad that she’d used it. He shuddered to think of her facing this alone.

  A wry smile lifted one corner of her lush little mouth, and he wished he was close enough to stop it from trembling.

  “I’m, uh…” Words escaped him, because this whole thing was such a disaster. “I apologize, Sadie. For being an idiot. Both today and last night.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off with a decisive look. “This is most definitely not the time or the place to go into this, but when we get out of here we need to talk.”

  “It’s okay –” she started.

  “No, it’s not. But more important now is how we’re going to get out of… wherever this is. Were you blindfolded when they brought you in?”

  “No, I wasn’t blindfolded, but we were in the back of their van so I can’t say for certain exactly where they’ve taken us. We’re deep in the woods. It looks like some kind of fishing cabin, maybe.” She nodded toward the old board walls which groaned and sighed with the whistling wind. And the smell of brine seeping up from the floors suggested the presence of a marsh or tidal creek nearby. One grimy window behind Declan shed the only light, filtered through clou
ds and leafy canopy. Other than the sink, an old table and the bed frame, the place was empty and had been for some time. Except for the rodents who’d left their droppings. Sadie shivered and moved her legs. “Wherever we are, it’s off the beaten track. We had to walk a ways through the woods from where they parked the van. You, they carried.” She pointed to the ratty blanket they’d used to wrap him.

  “Who are they?” Declan asked, returning his attention to her after surveying the blanket. “Did Rick –”

  The glare she sent him cut that question off.

  “This has nothing to do with Rick. The men are looking for something the last renter left in the house.” She explained about the message she’d discovered on the answering machine, and how they’d played security professionals to gain access after their burglary attempt failed.

  “Damn,” Declan breathed. That was not good news. He’d half hoped this had something to do with her ex-fiancé, although why he’d want to kidnap Sadie, Dec had no idea. But at least it would have meant they stood a good chance of making it through this without being slaughtered.

  But now slaughtering seemed pretty much a given.

  It was only surprising that they weren’t dead already.

  “Any idea why they left us here, still kicking?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “You showing up threw a wrench in their plans. I think they’re trying to find a way to make our disappearance look perfectly normal so that Kathleen doesn’t get involved. They want to be able to keep searching the house without interference.”

  “What the hell are they looking for, anyway?”

  “I’ve no idea. Something they’re obviously willing to kill for. I –”

  Her words trailed off as she heard the voices. She looked wildly at Declan, and he stiffened. Gave the handcuff a futile tug.

  Whatever the men had in mind for them, he guessed they were about to find out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  KATHLEEN figured she was wasting her time as she strode into the Mount Pleasant Police station, but it was her day off, so what the hell. She’d already wasted the morning playing some kind of psychologist/relationship counselor hybrid to her little brother, so it wasn’t like she was going to get much of anything else done anyway.