Stealing Sarah: a Cowboy Fairytales spin-off (Triple H Brides Book 3)

by Lacy Williams

  Stealing Sarah

  Lacy Williams

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Keeping Kayla sneak peek

  Also by Lacy Williams

  Prologue

  "Shh."

  Something was wrong.

  A frisson of fear crawled up Sarah Campbell's spine as she turned the lock on her front door. She fumbled the black medical bag between her hands.

  It wasn't dawn yet, and shadows abounded. Her porch light had gone out last week, and she hadn't replaced the bulb yet.

  Had she heard a voice? She strained her ears.

  Everything was silent. Even the Texas wind that usually rattled her eaves had stilled. Cold seeped into her skin through the coat, and she'd stuffed her gloves in her back pockets.

  Maybe it was remnants of the nightmare. She usually didn't love being awakened in the middle of the night, but she hadn’t been sorry when her cell phone had clattered on the nightstand, pushing away those dream images. The specifics had fled with sleep, but she could well remember the terror she’d felt.

  No reason to be afraid. She was just still spooked from the dream, right?

  With a horse in labor and the colt turned breech, she didn't have the luxury of giving in to silly fears. Or going back to bed.

  She stepped off the stoop, and her feet crunched in the dead winter grass.

  A hulking shadow separated from the corner of her house and lunged toward her.

  She dropped her leather bag. Screamed. An arm snaked around her waist from behind, and a hand clamped over her mouth before more than a half-second of sound had emerged.

  A bright light—a flashlight?—shone in her eyes. She blinked against it even as her eyes watered. She tried to see past it, to see who was behind the light.

  "This her?" A male voice growled in her ear.

  She struggled. Her elbow connected with flesh somewhere behind her, eliciting a grunt.

  The iron bands of his arms around her didn't give.

  "It's her." A male voice from behind the flashlight said. The light clicked off, but the brightness remained burned into her retinas. She couldn't see his face in the darkness that remained.

  Her mind scrambled to process what was happening, how she could get out of this.

  Her phone. It was stuck in the hip pocket of her jeans. If she could just maneuver her arm around, she could—

  Rough hands patted her down and then her chance was gone because the man not holding her had stripped her of her phone. She heard it hit the driveway pavement and then a crunch as he stomped on it. No!

  Her phone was gone.

  Okay. She tried to breathe, tried not to panic as the hand over her mouth made it increasingly difficult.

  Think it through. Who would miss her?

  She hadn't spoken to her fiancé James in thirty-six hours. He was working a huge case and wouldn't even register something was wrong if he didn't hear from her this morning.

  The call that had woken her had been from the answering service that handled the clinic's after-hours emergencies. If she didn't show at her client's barn, they would call back. If they couldn’t get her, they’d have to call one of the other vets.

  The clinic opened in two hours. If she didn't check in by nine, they'd know something was wrong. Could she survive that long?

  The man with his arms around her loosened his grip slightly, barely enough for her to move. "Where's her bag?" His breath was hot on her head and stunk of halitosis.

  The other guy bent, and she heard him rifling inside her medical bag.

  Her chest started to burn.

  She struggled harder, tried to bite the hand over her mouth, tried to shriek or scream or anything.

  There was a scrape of metal against glass, and she hoped he wouldn't break her stethoscope, one of the thermometers, or the ophthalmoscope. What was he looking for?

  "There's nothing here," the crook growled. Then he got in her face. "Where's the drugs? The pain pills? Ketamine? I know you keep it on you."

  Drugs? That's what this attack was about? Heart pounding, she struggled against the hand over her mouth. Now that her eyes had adjusted somewhat to the dark, she could see the creep in front of her—the cell-phone smasher—was wearing a ski mask. She could see a mustache where the mouth hole was, but nothing else.

  Ski-mask looked at the brute holding her. “She can’t tell me with your hand over her mouth.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  He removed his hand, and she gulped in a burning breath of icy air.

  There was a small metal safe in her covered pickup bed. Controlled substances were state-regulated, and she could only carry a small supply. Even that had to be locked up.

  She doubted the guys attacking her would care about the details.

  "I don't have any," she lied. “They’re all at the clinic.”

  Ski-mask backhanded her. Pain exploded in her cheek, sending stars dancing in front of her eyes. The force of the blow knocked the breath from her chest. She stumbled on the sidewalk, almost went down to her knees, but the hand at her waist caught her.

  "Don't lie to us!"

  She sucked in a breath, tried to rally a scream. Her neighbor Wanda was an early riser. If Sarah could just—

  This time the hand that clapped over her mouth didn't allow any room to breathe at all. Her lungs ached for air.

  "What about the truck?" asked the man holding her.

  Her head spun as they shoved her down the tiny sidewalk to her truck parked in the driveway, a darker blob in the dark morning, equidistant between her house and Wanda's.

  She couldn’t think. Panic shook her limbs. A breath. She needed air. She tried struggling again, but she was suffocating. Weak.

  Were they going to kill her?

  "Keys," one voice said, as if from a far distance.

  "Where are they—" The voice faded out as her conscious wavered.

  "Where are they?" This time the shout in her face roused her. Still, the hand was clamped over her face.

  She shook her head, eyes watering uncontrollably.

  And then they clocked her on the head. Once. Twice. Pain radiated through her skull, down her spine.

  Everything went black.

  Chapter 1

  Four weeks later

  Sarah tapped away at the keyboard, inputting a report on the one-month-old colt she'd seen earlier this morning at the Bar-None ranch just outside of town.

  The day had been cold, made worse by dry north winds, so she was thankful to be indoors, but her eyes crossed from staring at the computer screen for so long. She'd been at this all afternoon.

  She took off the reading glasses she used to work on the computer and raised her gaze from the screen to the good-sized window across the room that overlooked the parking lot and behind that, the empty field that belonged to old man Murphy. The last of the light was seeping past the horizon, leaving the nearly-empty lot dark.

  She let her eyes unfocus and remembered the two-hundred-pound colt frolicking around its mother, breath puffing out in the cold, crisp air.

  Those moments observing a healthy animal were what made her job worth the long, unpredictable hours, too much time spent driving between calls, and sometimes having to work in bad conditions.

&n
bsp; A pair of headlights turned into the lot, flashing into her window momentarily as the vehicle pulled up next to her truck.

  Memories flashed behind her eyes. Blood rushed through her veins. Her adrenaline pumped.

  She went to the window and closed the blinds against the darkness and whoever had just pulled up.

  There was nothing wrong. No attack coming, even if her body insisted there were.

  It wasn't happening again.

  Probably one of the other vets had forgotten something in his office.

  She forced her breaths to even out. Beeps from the hallway outside her office indicated the alarm system being deactivated. Then came the sound of the back door opening and closing.

  Two barks sounded from the indoor kennels, one low and gruff and one high-pitched.

  It was late. What would they think about her being in the office?

  She glanced around to make sure nothing was out of place. The leather sofa beneath the window was free of its usual mishmash of vet implements, the ever-present stethoscope stowed in her bag for once. Everything else in the messy office appeared normal.

  Her last check was that her long-sleeved sweater covered the scratch on her wrists. The bruises left by her assailants had faded, but one deep cut was taking its time to heal properly.

  "Sarah?" That was Jessie's voice. Her assistant, who was supposed to be on maternity leave.

  Sarah's breath whooshed out, and the tension left in a rush, making her bones feel like jelly.

  She'd only seen her friend once since the baby had been born, and it appeared Jessie had slimmed down a considerable amount. A long, floaty dress almost reached the floor, and with her mahogany hair down around her shoulders, she looked beautiful. Or maybe it was because Sarah usually saw her in scrubs. During house-calls, Sarah's normal uniform was jeans and work boots, her hair tied back.

  Jessie looked lovely, and very, very tired.

  "What're you doing here?" Sarah leaned one hip against her desk.

  "What are you still doing here?" her fiery assistant returned. Jessie propped one hand on her hip. "We talked about this before I went on maternity leave. You're working too much."

  That kind of sass wouldn't be appropriate in another clinic, but Jessie had come on board six weeks after Sarah had hired on at the small-town clinic, and they’d just clicked. When Jessie was around, she usually kept Sarah from becoming the job.

  Unfortunately, Jessie couldn't fix what was wrong with her.

  Sarah shrugged and gestured with the glasses she still held to the piles of file folders threatening to avalanche off her desk. "I've got a lot to do."

  It was a lame excuse and Jessie knew it. Unfortunately, she also knew Sarah and her work habits. Jessie stepped into the room and glanced at the top folder. "Did you pull these from one of the filing cabinets?"

  In other words, were they open files or closed?

  Jessie looked up with a challenge in her gaze.

  Sarah tried not to wince. "Okay, so I'm working on a project I probably don't need—"

  "One of the office staff can go through those old files."

  "So can I." Sarah owned a quarter of the practice. She didn't have to explain herself to Jessie, her employee.

  Even if Jessie was one of a few friends Sarah could claim.

  They stared at each other. This was something Sarah wouldn't—couldn't—back down on. Not tonight.

  Finally Jessie nodded slowly. "Okay. But how about you work on this tomorrow? I haven't been out of the house in two weeks, and the girls and I want to take you out for a night on the town."

  Sarah scrunched her nose. "You don't need to worry about me. What girls?"

  "Mostly your sister and me."

  Sarah couldn't imagine what kind of girls' night out they had planned in Taylor Hills. The sidewalks rolled up at nine around here. "Why didn't you just call me?" Then it would've been easier to say no.

  Maybe they'd worked together too long. Jessie seemed to read her mind as she smirked and reached over to Sarah's phone, where it lay face-down on the desk. She picked it up and flashed the screen at Sarah. Six missed calls.

  Sarah sighed.

  "I figured the only way to break you out of this quicksand"—she gestured to the piles on Sarah's desk—"was to bring you a rope myself."

  It was a nice gesture, but Sarah wasn't interested. Not tonight. She started to shake her head.

  Jessie's face fell. Her expression turned serious. "Okay..." She looked to the side for brief seconds and then back at Sarah. "It was supposed to be a secret but..."

  "What's a secret?" Sarah almost barked the words. Surprises were not her favorite thing, not since the attack, anyway.

  "Kayla planned this big birthday bash. A surprise party for you. I'm supposed to get you there."

  Of course Sarah's sister would do something over the top. They'd both spent years in foster care, and sometimes they’d even missed birthdays completely. Now that Kayla was an adult, she could throw whatever huge parties she wanted.

  "It's the big three-oh," Jessie said. But instead of excitement, her voice was more pleading. She rubbed a hand at her lower back. "Look, she started planning this all the way back before Thanksgiving. After—"

  Sarah cut off that line with a glare.

  Jessie waved her hand, glossing over what Sarah didn't want to mention. "After everything, I told her you probably weren't going to want a big party. Cate did too, but you know Kayla."

  It was impossible to talk Sarah's sister out of something she'd set her mind to. Their sister-of-the-heart, Cate, was much more sensitive than her blunt persona put off, and Sarah knew that if Cate hadn't been able to get through to Kayla, no one would.

  "What if I don't show up?" The one niggling hope that maybe she could not go died as Jessie shook her head.

  "Then you'd have a living room full of your closest friends and your business partners wondering why and worrying about you." Even more than they already are, she seemed to say silently.

  Or maybe that was just Sarah's imagination. It'd been overactive since that weekend.

  "Fine." She grumbled the word, but Jessie lit up. "Just let me check on the big Newfie before we leave."

  She would go and get it over with.

  Chase Ford stood in the kitchen doorway of Kayla Campbell's ranch-style house as the birthday girl came through the front door to shouts of “Surprise!” from her friends.

  He saw the wince she tried to hide beneath her faked shocked reaction. Obviously, Jessie had told her. Probably a good thing, considering.

  Sarah looked tired. More than the exhaustion, shadows chased behind her hazel eyes. That was no doubt the reason Kayla had insisted on this shindig on one of the coldest nights they'd had so far this new year. Even Sarah’s hair, in a braid, seemed limp and pale. Maybe it was the lighting in the room. Or maybe not.

  The attack was still haunting Sarah. And none of them knew what to do about it.

  It was certainly giving him recurring nightmares. He'd been on an errand at the feed store when he'd overheard someone talking about an attack on the "pretty lady vet." He'd been worried enough to interrupt their conversation and found out that it'd happened two days before. He was barely Sarah's friend—high school didn't count—so of course nobody had thought to notify him, but two days was enough time for the story to burn like wildfire through their little town. Taylor Hills had experienced petty theft and some drug use, sure, but something like this... Sarah had been attacked in her own front yard by two unknown guys, badly beaten, and left for dead. They’d emptied the small safe in her truck of all the drugs inside. So far, they hadn’t been apprehended.

  No one had found her for hours, not until the older lady who lived next door had ventured out in the cold to take out the trash. Sarah had suffered from exposure and near hypothermia.

  Now, her scrapes and bruises had healed. But he could tell she was still suffering. Still having nightmares? He didn't know.

  He knew it could've been so
much worse. Thank God she was alive. He was sure he hadn't offered that many frantic prayers since Gideon Hale's princess-wife had nearly been assassinated over a year ago.

  All the drama had clarified one important thing for him.

  He was in love with Sarah.

  He hadn't meant for it to happen. He wasn't even on her radar. She was engaged to someone else, for crying out loud.

  He'd had a huge unrequited crush on her during high school but never done anything about it. Even then, she'd been out of his league. After she'd left for college, they'd lost touch. They'd reconnected as friends last summer, and while he had thought it was only their friendship that had deepened, he'd been wrong.

  His feelings were a tangled knot. And he was desperate to keep them a secret. There was no reason for her to know he cared about her, not with the way things were.

  And that's why he slipped unobtrusively back into the kitchen on the pretense of checking on the cake. Kayla had wrangled him into being a part of this birthday gig two months ago.

  And of course he wanted to be here for Sarah. Just not too visible in a room of her successful friends. His jeans and boots pegged him as a lowly cowboy, not like the slacks and button-up shirts her partners wore or the trendy clothes her girlfriends were in. He'd long ago left behind the kind of people who cared about the in styles, and he'd thought he didn't care about that stuff at all.

  But he didn't like the way his clothes reflected his life, proved he didn’t belong in this circle, either. Back when he’d chosen to leave it all behind, including the education he could've had, he’d never thought he might fall for someone like Sarah. And now it was too late to be the kind of guy she’d want.

  Her sister Kayla was an entrepreneur was working to start a no-kill dog rescue. The property she'd bought was close to the Triple H ranch, where he'd worked since his early twenties, but the house and barn were obviously too much for one person and falling down around her. What was a young, single woman going to do out here? He didn't know.