Montana Fire: A Small Town Romance - Book 1

by Vanessa Vale

  “Jane, are you all right?” He sounded concerned.

  “I think I’m scared of your bed.” I giggled. “Everything all of a sudden feels…groovy.”

  Dex took the wineglass from my fingers and placed it on a dresser. “That’s to be expected.” He didn’t sound concerned anymore.

  My foggy brain was slow to process. Next to the wineglass on the dresser were the boys’ gnomes. “Whuh?” I looked at Dex and he was all soft around the edges. I was so confused. What were the gnomes doing in Dex’s bedroom? “The gnomes….how?” I lost my train of thought. “I don’t think I can feel my fingers. What’s…what’s wrong with me?”

  I think Dex smiled. “You didn’t think I’d let you taint my bedroom, did you? This is where I plan to bring my wife someday.”

  I felt wobbly, the room spinning. “I thought….” I couldn’t formulate what I wanted to say. Something about Dex and a wife and me. Gnomes.

  “You thought I wanted you to be my wife?” He yanked me by the hand he still held, pulled me close to him. “I did. Not now. I don’t bring sluts to my bed.”

  I felt so funky, so spacey, so foggy, so…happy. Whatever was wrong with me didn’t feel bad. It was like being drunk, but drunk on happy juice. My limbs were loose, my skin felt tingly. I swear I could feel each and every hair on my head. Even with the weird feelings, I could hear the anger, the evil in Dex’s voice.

  “You betrayed me and you will be punished.” He released me and I stumbled, fell toward the dresser. I grabbed its edge with both hands to keep upright, the movement tipped over George the Gnome and knocked him onto the carpeted floor with a soft thump.

  The lethargic feeling moved into my chest. My lungs felt heavy. It was difficult to breathe. “I…can’t…catch my breath.”

  “Or you may just die. Who knows how much of the drug I should have given you.”

  With those words my body let go, and I fell without fear into blackness.

  * * *

  When I slowly came to, my first thought was about how dry and funky my mouth felt. It tasted like I’d eaten a wadded-up tissue. I slowly blinked, but my eyes flew open in panic when I recognized my surroundings. I was in a horse stall, lying on scratchy hay.

  My body felt sluggish as if I’d had a fifth of whiskey and slept it off. I looked up and blinked some more, clearing the fog. I took in my surroundings. Cinder block walls on three sides painted white. A closed half gate on the fourth. Feeding trough in one corner. I stood up on shaky legs, wobbly like a newborn colt, and recognized the space outside the gate. I was in Dex’s breeding shed.

  This was not good.

  I heard a door open, the clip clop of horse hooves. Dex walked up leading a big, black horse. The animal’s large head came into the stall and he snorted. I stepped back, shaky and afraid. I could feel his hot horsy breath on my skin.

  “Dex! What is going on?”

  “You didn’t die after all.” He sounded as if this disappointed him. Leading the horse away, he looped the lead on the bridle to a ring on the…what had he called it? The phantom mare. Dex returned and leaned his forearms on the half gate, watching me. I backed up further, slipped on the hay and landed on my butt with a jarring thud. That hurt!

  I remembered I’d first thought he was the Marlboro Man. He still looked the same, but now had a mental disorder to go along with his good looks. Ted Bundy came to mind. Handsome, yet completely psycho. Something dark and sinister lurked in his eyes which I hadn’t seen before.

  “I wasn’t sure if the amount I gave you would knock you out, or kill you.”

  I closed my eyes for a second trying to clear the cobwebs. Slowly shook my head. “You drugged me.”

  “Ketamine. Also known as Special K.” He smiled. A creepy, serial killer kind of smile. “Around here, it’s also known as horse tranquilizer.”

  Oh boy. “Dex, you need to let me out of here!” I shouted.

  “Scream all you want. No one’s on the ranch to hear you as everyone has the day off. You will be punished.”

  Those words flashed in my mind. He’d said that right before I passed out. Right when I saw on his dresser…the gnomes.

  “Oh my God. The gnomes. You stole the gnomes from my house.” I rubbed a hand over my face, felt a piece of straw in my hair, tugged it out.

  “A necessary loose end to clean up.”

  The gnomes were a loose end? Then that made me….

  “Ty! Where’s Ty?” I said, panicked. My skin broke out in a cold sweat. Was he a loose end, too?

  Dex shook his head and tsked. “Ty’s dead. Or soon will be.”

  What? A tightness spread across my chest, compressed my lungs so I couldn’t breathe. Dead? I gulped in air trying to remain calm. “But he sent me a text to meet me here. He can’t be dead! Where is he?”

  Dex looked down at his fingernails. “I sent you the text from Ty’s phone.”

  The phone Ty couldn’t find because…he’d dropped it under my kitchen table when we’d had sex the first time. With the gnomes watching us. The pieces were starting to fall into place.

  “You were there.” I was mortified, but body-numbingly afraid. Afraid of Dex and the extent of what he’d done. And why.

  “Saw you having sex in your kitchen? Right after you kissed me? Yes, I was in your back yard watching. You were to be my wife!” His voice changed. Angrier. “I would have shared everything with you. But you gave yourself to another man, out in the open for all the world to see.” Dex’s anger was controlled, focused. Not like a pressure cooker ready to blow sort of way. More like a snake that had been poked one too many times. Ready to strike. The man was mentally insane.

  I was grossed out. Dex had seen something that had been private, something special between Ty and me. But that was quickly replaced by bowel liquefying fear. Ty was dead, and if he hadn’t sent the text, then no one knew I was here. Being held by a crazy man in a horse breeding shed.

  “I’m sorry, Dex.” Placating him might work. “But I don’t understand. Why steal Ty’s cell phone? And the gnomes. Why the gnomes?”

  “You wouldn’t leave it alone,” Dex growled.

  I grabbed some straw, the rough edges poking into my skin. “What?” I wanted to cry from fear and frustration. “Leave what alone?”

  “Morty Moore. You couldn’t leave it alone.” His hands gripped the gate rail until the knuckles were white. “I knew Morty was on the take even before you showed up. He’d been stealing valuable horse semen and selling it completely without my knowledge until about a week before you started nosing around. But you wouldn’t leave it alone. The more you looked, the more you brought attention to me and my ranch. I didn’t want anyone snooping around. Especially you.”

  “Why? Morty stealing horse semen isn’t that big of a deal.”

  Dex grinned. “You’re right. That’s nothing. But millions of dollars of meth is.”

  “Holy crap.” A wave of nausea curdled my stomach. I swallowed, trying not to throw up. “You shot me full of horse tranquilizer so my brain isn’t working that well,” I said sarcastically. “I think you’re going to need to start at the beginning.”

  He shrugged his shoulders, contemplating as if he had all the time in the world. “No one steals from me, so Morty had to go.”

  I looked up at Dex from my seat in the hay. “The explosion.”

  “It would have been considered a gas leak, if it hadn’t been for you.”

  “But Morty wasn’t even there.”

  I heard Dex’s horse snort behind him.

  “Didn’t matter. I got him another time.”

  My eyes locked on Dex’s, realizing what he’d said. “You cut him up and fed him to Ty’s family’s pigs!” What kind of man was I dealing with here? All this time, I just thought he was a pervy Dom-wannabe who had a weird obsession with animal husbandry. That, it turned out, was nothing.

  “I told you, he had to go. What better way to get rid of a body?”

  “Why there? What do Ty’s parents have to d
o with anything?”

  “Nothing. But by then, I’d seen Strickland sniffing around you. I wanted him to know he was getting too close to something that belonged to me. To warn him I could get close, too.”

  My legs had fallen asleep. I straightened them out, the ginger ale tingles reminded me I was still alive. I thought through all the weird stuff that had happened. “The camper?”

  He shrugged again. “Another attempt to show you how easily I could get to you and those you care about.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him off, but knew it wasn’t worth it. This was not the time, nor the place to start practicing for the debate team. But I was getting the answers I needed to figure this whole mess out. Although I was sitting in a horse pen with a homicidal maniac who liked to chop people up for fun blocking my only exit. “Let’s not forget the derby,” I said.

  Dex smiled. “I’d seen you with Ty again. You were mine!” He ran fingers over his mustache. “If you’re not going to be with me, you’re not going to be with anybody. And a hit and run with a derby car would never be linked to me.”

  I mentally tallied all the crazy stuff. Morty on my front steps. Solved. Explosion. Solved. Derby car. Solved. Camper. Solved. Morty’s body. Solved. The more he talked, the less killing he could do. “What I don’t get is why you think I have anything to do with your um…meth?”

  “You nosed around too much. You started to look at my ranch a little too closely. Meth is being made on a far corner of my land, near the national forest. Shipments are flown out of a hidden runway without any problems. In fact, since my property is big enough, no one knows the airstrip even exists. I can’t have you jeopardizing all I’ve built. Besides, the only loose end with Morty is you. With you dead, no one can tie Morty to me except as an employee, which is easily explained away as a man quitting a job. Problem solved.”

  “I won’t tell anyone about your meth,” I assured him. “I can’t anyway. I don’t know anything about it.”

  “You’ll be sampling some soon enough.”

  Huh? That didn’t sound good. I felt green, like the first three months of pregnancy with Bobby. As if I ate a dozen oysters left out in the sun. The Ketamine and my stomach were not friends. I gulped in air, trying to ease the roiling.

  “A horse ranch is a perfect cover for meth. Like I said, lots of land to hide a meth lab and a runway for small planes to carry meth out of state. Shipping boxes of horse semen is the perfect front to move meth to my overseas distributors.”

  Wow. I had to admit it was a pretty good setup. I burped up funky air.

  “All that meth around town?”

  “Mine,” Dex boasted. “Except for the lab in Churchill. That was a competitor, but he had a little accident and the lab burned down.”

  Sure, an accident.

  “To remove the competition. The wildfire Ty’s fighting. Let me guess, you started that?” I asked.

  “To remove the competition,” Dex repeated my words. “Permanently.”

  What was his definition of remove? “Um…” I swallowed down some bitter bile. “Why kill Ty?” Hot tears burned the back of my eyes. I blinked them away. If I started crying now, I’d never stop. I had to remain clearheaded to get out of this. To save Ty. Somehow.

  Dex shrugged casually. “I hope you said your goodbyes.” He pushed off the rail, ignoring my question. Uh-oh. Now what? He’d run out of story and I still hadn’t figured out how to escape. My mind was spinning on a vision of Ty, lying hurt, flames fast approaching. Or was he already dead, chopped up into pieces to be burnt to a crisp? Dex opened the gate and stepped into the stall. I had to tilt my head back to look up at him. His body blocked most of the light. I crab walked away from him, sliding on the hay until I was forced into the corner. The cinder block was uncomfortable at my back.

  He easily grabbed and lifted me painfully by the armpits. I wobbled on legs that were still unsteady. His cologne, which I used to find appealing, was now cloying and harsh. I saw the evil in his eyes up close. No warmth. The cold sweat returned. I felt the roots of my hair tingle.

  “What…what are you going to do with me?” I asked, breathless with fear. I tasted bile again, acidic in the back of my throat.

  “You saw the real side of me when we first met. I wanted you for a sub. I didn’t care you were inexperienced in the lifestyle. I would have trained you, taught you to please me. You’d have been too busy doing that to ever learn about the meth.” He gave me a little shake and my teeth clacked together. “I even tried a different approach, being a gentleman, courting you with dinner, words. You know where that led.”

  Right into the arms of Ty. I thought something had been off about Dex that night. He was definitely not a gentleman.

  “Now…instead of being my wife or even my sub, you’ll just be Jane, my little brood mare.”

  Brood mare? I didn’t think so!

  I didn’t think my stomach could hold out much longer. Even though I was scared out of my wits, I was angry. Smoke-coming-out-of-my-ears angry. Not just because he held me prisoner and had completely obscene plans for me, nor for the fact he’d either already killed Ty or was just waiting for the fire to finish doing his dirty work for him. It went even deeper than that. During my marriage to Nate, he’d molded me into what he wanted me to be. Of course, I let him. I figured doing exactly what he wanted would make him want me, love me. Need me. But I’d learned a lot since I kicked his sorry ass out, and that included never compromising for someone else. No one was going to boss me around again. I wasn’t going to give in to Dex without one hell of a fight.

  I glared at him. “Is that what the horse is for since you can’t get it up?” I struggled against his grasp knowing I’d pissed him off. Good. I saw anger flare in his eyes before he quickly hid it. Direct hit.

  “I had no idea how long you’d be unconscious. I was leading him to the corral when I heard you stirring.”

  I laughed, directly in his face. “Excuses, excuses.”

  Even though I was a little dizzy, I kneed him in his junk as hard as I could. Unfortunately, a woman must have tried this tactic before. His reflexes were quick and all I hit was his thigh, which did nothing but make him furious. Dex changed his grip into some kind of wrist lock. I winced, cried out. Any movement I made caused sharp pain.

  “Don’t worry. Meth will make you do lots of things. All kinds of things. And when you’re so strung out and you’re no good to me anymore, well, an overdose is not hard to accomplish.”

  It might have been sheer terror or the aftereffects of being tranquilized like a horse, but my stomach finally revolted. I threw up all over Dex. Projectile vomit famous with newborns. With babies, it was kind of cute. Me, not so much. His once clean shirt now had funky chunks and orange slime dripping down it. Hopefully, it felt as bad as it smelled.

  “Shit!” he swore as he looked down at himself.

  I had to admit I felt better in more ways than one. He released his grip so I tried to dash past him, my legs jiggly like the Colonel’s Jell-O, but he had a long reach. He yanked me by the arm out of the stall and into the bright, sterile room. It felt as if my arm had popped out of socket.

  The large horse startled, his big eyes bulging with fear. His nostrils flared, probably from the horrible smell emanating from Dex, and he pulled up on the lead. Unfortunately, the horse wasn’t much help to me unless he could go and call the police.

  Dex pushed me roughly against the phantom mare, my stomach pressed into the worn leather. The impact knocked the wind out of me. I didn’t even want to think about the cooties that were all over it. So gross. I tried to wriggle free but Dex’s large hand pressed into my lower back, holding me in place. Breathe!

  “Struggle. I like it.”

  I stopped at once. Sucked in some much needed air, funky smell and all. Think. Think! I had no intention of being raped, now or ever.

  Dex pressed his lower body into me, legs against legs, hips against hips. I felt his erection, hard against me. I heard him rip his soiled
shirt off. It landed on the floor in front of me in a soggy heap.

  “I think we can start our first lesson now,” he said, grinding his hips into me. His hands moved to the waistband of my jeans.

  I felt around beneath the stand frantically searching for something, anything, to use as a weapon. I wasn’t sure what I grabbed but it felt like hard plastic. It was heavy and cumbersome, but I was able to get my right hand on it. In a firm grasp I swung it up and around, twisting my body, using all the adrenaline-induced power I had, and clocked Dex on the side of the head.

  Thwack.

  He gave a grunt and went down like a redwood tree in the forest, landing hard, right next to his horse, which whinnied at the near miss. I stood up shakily and stared down at his prostrate form. The spooked animal pranced in place, his lead preventing him from moving away. He tugged at the bridle, wanting to escape as I much as I did. I scrambled back. Put the phantom mare between us. No way was I going to approach the horse, to ease his fears. I was just as scared as he.

  The animal reared, his front hooves going up and coming down hard on Dex’s head and upper body. With a sickening sound, kind of like a pumpkin being tossed off a roof, I knew Dex wouldn’t be bothering me anymore. No way could a man survive with a horseshoe shaped dent in his head. My stomach lurched, although it was already empty.

  I realized I still grasped my makeshift weapon, the artificial vagina I’d seen in action the first time I’d come to the ranch. I placed it on top of the phantom mare, carefully fighting my need to giggle hysterically.

  Dex had been knocked out, most likely killed. I’d been saved by an artificial vagina. Wouldn’t Goldie think that was a hoot?

  17

  I stared at Dex’s prostrate body, watching, making sure he wasn’t getting back up. Deep down I knew that was going to happen right before pigs started to fly.

  The panicked horse seemed to sense a change in the air, as if the danger was now gone. He calmed, although he snorted a few times and his nostrils still flared. I didn’t blame him. The large room smelled awful, like manure, throw up and blood. I approached the horse with extreme caution, keeping the phantom mare between me and the horse’s hooves. Carefully, carefully I undid his lead and backed away.