IF THE DARK WINS
CALLE J. BROOKES
LOST RIVER LIT PUBLISHING, L.L.C.
CONTENTS
Also by Calle J. Brookes
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Epilogue
Excerpts
Excerpts
Other Titles by Calle J. Brookes
Paranormal
DARDANOS Paranormal Romance
Live or Die
The Blood King
The Seer’s Strength
The Warrior’s Woman
The Healer’s Heart
Once Wolf Bitten
Awakening the Demon’s Queen
The Wolf’s Redemption
The Wolf God & His Mate
God of Nightmares
DARDANOS: THE LAQUAZZEANA
A Warrior’s Quest
Out of the Darkness
Warrior Blind
The Witch
Balance of the Worlds
The Healer’s Soul
DARDANOS: THE ADRASTOS
The Outcast
The Forlorn
The Beloved
The Betrayed
Romantic Suspense
PAVAD: FBI ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
Beginning (Prequel 1)
Waiting (Prequel 2)
Watching
Wanting
Second Chances
Hunting
Running
Redeeming
Revealing
Stalking
Ghosting
Burning
Gathering
Falling
Hiding
Suspense/Thriller
PAVAD: FBI Case Files #0001
“Knocked Out”
PAVAD: FBI Case Files #0002
“Knocked Down”
PAVAD: FBI Case Files #0003
“Knocked Around”
FINLEY CREEK SERIES
TRILOGY ONE
Her Best Friend’s Keeper
Shelter from the Storm
The Price of Silence
TRILOGY TWO
If the Dark Wins
MASTERSON COUNTY SERIES
Seeking the Sheriff
COMING SOON
Wounds That Won’t Heal (Finley Creek Trilogy 2)
As the Night Ends (Finley Creek Trilogy 2)
Seeking (PAVAD: FBI Romantic Suspense 15)
Discovering the Doctor (Masterson 2)
Calle J. Brookes is first and foremost a fiction writer. She enjoys crafting paranormal romance and romantic suspense. She reads almost every genre except horror. She spends most of her time juggling family life and writing while reminding herself that she can’t spend all of her time in the worlds found within books. Calle J. loves to be contacted by her readers via email and at www.CalleJBrookes.com.
Calle has several free reads available at CalleJBrookesReads.com
For my grandfather, the best man I have ever known.
You will be missed.
Oct. 2015
For my grandmother, who gave me the courage to try. Without you and your love of romance, I never would have made it this far.
Feb. 2016
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If the Dark Wins
Calle J. Brookes
Lost River Lit Publishing, L.L.C.
Springs Valley, Indiana
Est. 2011
The Lost River Lit Publishing, L.L.C. name and imprint are the sole properties of independent publishers Calle J. Brookes and B.G. Lashbrooks. They cannot be reproduced or used in any manner; nor can any of their publications or designs be used without expressed written permission.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, or locations, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Copyright © 2017 Calle J. Brookes
Cover by Lost River Lit Publishing, L.L.C.
All rights reserved.
If the Dark Wins
Finley Creek
Book 4
1
The letter came on a Tuesday near the end of March. The man came on the first Thursday of April. Lacy McGareth looked at the man and wondered just what the going rate for making one of the wealthiest ranchers in the state of Texas disappear would be. It would almost be worth it.
Travis Worthington-Deane was as offensive as his name. Although he sure didn’t look offensive. He was just too pretty. Too perfect. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired and green-eyed, he walked onto her slightly lopsided porch and demanded to speak to the one who’d stolen her ranch from him.
Well, that was guaranteed to set Lacy’s teeth on edge from the very beginning, wasn’t it?
She stared at the man for a moment. “I don’t know who you think you are, but you need to get off my porch before I shoot you. Trespassers aren’t wanted.”
“Neither are
land thieves, darlin’. Even pretty ones.” He adjusted his white Stetson with one hand and stared at her.
“I bought my ranch fair and square.” Using every penny she had saved up and a prayer. Had it not been a foreclosure, she never would have managed it—and if the realtor hadn’t been a friend who’d stayed up late to put in a very last-minute bid just as the auction ended.
“It was supposed to be mine. I was the only bidder. The old woman who lived here promised I could have it when she passed.”
“The old woman was my aunt, and she wanted me to have it.” And the small amount of cash she’d inherited from her aunt had gone a long way toward Lacy’s bid.
The ranch had been in her mother’s family for five generations, but when her mother had died in a wreck when Lacy had been eleven it had been sold to pay off her mother’s bills. A great-aunt had repurchased it a decade later.
She’d contacted Lacy a few years ago to reconnect with the only family she had. It had been awkward between them, but Lacy had made the effort. Dorothy had been the only biological family Lacy had had.
Now she had no one. She was the last McGareth of Finley Creek County. One of the county’s most historic names and she was the last.
This was the original McGareth ranch, and it was hers. That most of the land had been gobbled up in the last decade by the man in front of her didn’t change that fact. Or make her like him all that much.
The ranch and the two hundred acres surrounding it were hers. No Worthington-Deane was going to take that from her. “What do you want? I assume you’re the one responsible for the letter?”
“I’m going to offer you a more than fair offer for this place.” The man smiled, revealing a too-perfect set of teeth. He looked… too sculpted, or genetically engineered to be a perfectly masculine specimen. Like a perfect cowboy-android—that’s what he was. Perfect.
“No.”
“Can’t you be reasonable?”
“No.” Like she hadn’t heard that before. Many people in her life had told her to be reasonable—usually when they wanted her to do something their way.
“Surely you don’t think you can keep up with this place all by yourself?”
“No.” She had no intention of just keeping up with it, she was going to make it shine. Make it her home again. The way it should have been.
The room her mother had painted for her when she was six was just down the hall. Her twin sisters’ room was right next to it. They had been three when they’d died, along with their mother.
“Do you even realize what you are saying?” He took his hat off his head and wiped at the sweat. It was a balmy ninety already, and he was showing evidence of it. So was she--her place didn’t exactly have air conditioning. Something she was determined to rectify soon.
“No.”
“Are you always this stubborn?”
“No.” Yes. When it mattered. Stubbornness was what had gotten her through the last sixteen years.
“Can you say anything else?” Hard to miss how irritated he was becoming. Lacy resisted smiling. She wasn’t going to let a man like him bully her into giving up one of the biggest dreams she’d ever had. She’d finally made it home.
Lacy opened the screen door and stepped more fully out on the porch, avoiding the trap board that she’d been meaning to fix the night before. She’d gotten called back to the hospital on an emergency call and hadn’t been able to finish what she wanted. “No.”
“Listen, why won’t you consider it? You can’t be attached to this place.”
“I am. Very, very, very attached. In fact, you want this ranch, you’re going to have to pry the deed from my cold, dead fingers.” She smiled at him and walked right up to him.
She wasn’t afraid of this guy. Well, not too afraid, anyway. She’d seen more nightmares than he could ever count. He wasn’t going to be able to intimidate her. Nothing intimidated her any longer. Besides, she already had her pistol within easy reach.
The last few months had taught her some valuable lessons, after all.
“You really think a slip of a girl is going to be able to manage a two-hundred-acre ranch all by herself? What are you going to run on it? Cattle? Sheep? Horses?”
“Angora-paccas.”
“What?”
She smiled again. It was a running joke between her and her friends. She had no intention of raising any kind of animal on the ranch. She was just going to live there. And one day pass it down to those it rightfully belonged to.
If she ever married, that was. She still had another three to five years in her surgical fellowship before she was even going to contemplate a relationship.
“Pretty little Angora bunnies and alpacas. That’s what I’m going to run here, Mr. Worthington-Deane. Bunnies. Maybe a few turtles. That’s it, I’m going to raise turtles. But whatever I do with it, you don’t get to say. Like I said when I called you Tuesday. My ranch is not for sale.”
She yanked the hat out of his hand and slapped it back onto his head, stretching up on her toes to do it. She wasn’t all that tall at five-seven. He had a good eight or nine inches on her. Probably a hundred pounds, too. Pure lean muscle. “Here’s your hat, I suggest you hurry. I have company coming, and you’re wasting both our times. Bye-bye, now. Watch out for my pet rattler on your way out. He lives beneath the porch. I think. It could be an alligator. I’m not brave enough to look closely. Want to?”
TRAVIS STARED at the pretty little nutcase in front of him for a moment. What would happen if he picked her up and dropped her straight down the well he knew was behind the house? She was small enough to fit. He could toss her in blonde head first. Wrap his hands around that small waist and…
Green eyes snapped fire at him, tempting him.
He was close enough to see a few freckles over the bridge of her nose, and a tiny scar where she’d had it pierced at one time. Who was this woman, anyway?
He’d had his secretary look up the name of the new owner of the old ranch that now sat right dead center of his much larger spread, but he’d forgotten the name in his hurry over here. He’d received her response to his formal letter in his own mail just two days after he’d sent it.
Hell no, asshole.
It had been rather succinct, hadn’t it?
He had to admit, the interloper wasn’t exactly what he’d expected. She was younger, for one thing. Less than thirty would be his guess. She didn’t look like a ranch woman, either. The boots and jeans, maybe. But the rest of her...no.
She wore a skinny little blue tank top that showed off some seriously smooth skin. And some nice female flesh. The kind a man liked to look at. The hair was pulled up off of her neck, but some had escaped. It was long and curled and light.
The jeans were old and ragged in all the right places.
Hell, if he didn’t want her ranch, he probably would have played very nicely with this neighbor.
He’d burned that bridge, obviously. He wasn’t giving up, though.
“Don’t touch my hat,” he ordered, just as an older BMW pulled in the drive, carefully avoiding the potholes that should have been fixed long ago.
This prickly little porcupine probably left them there on purpose.
He looked over at the car as two women climbed out. Travis was always an appreciator of women and these two...
Nice. Very, very nice. Second look worthy—even third look.
“Lacy?” the redhead said. “You ok?”
“I’m just peachy, Jill. Mr. Worthington-Deane was just leaving. He got his answer. He just doesn’t want to take it.”
“I see.” The shorter redhead eyed him like he was a snake and her little blonde friend a mouse. They stepped up to her side. He looked at them for a moment, then decided to at least try to charm them. Maybe her friends would see reason somehow.
“I’m here to buy Ms...” Hell, he didn’t remember her name, did he?
She smirked at him. “It’s doctor, actually. Dr. Lacy McGareth. Owner of the last McGareth ranch in Fi
nley Creek.”
“Doctor of what?”
“Of medicine, you idiot.”
Well, that surprised him. She didn’t look like any doctor he’d ever known.
“Lace...” the brunette stared at him out of ridiculously large brown eyes. She looked like a china doll or one of those glass ballerinas his mother liked to collect. She was the tallest by a few inches, but the most delicate looking. The short redhead was just as beautiful; it was the hair and the classic allure that caught a man when he looked at her.
But it was the blonde’s sexy earthiness that would stay with a man the most. “I’m going to up my original offer by twenty-five percent. Move back to town, close to the hospitals.”
“Don’t start this again. The answer is no. No, no, no, no. I could sing it for you if you’d like?” She patted him on the cheek.
He had to admire her boldness.
The friends were eying him like he was about to eat them all. It was actually a strange reaction and he couldn’t figure them out.
Sometimes the best strategy was retreat. And Travis had the time to do just that. He’d give the girl two more months out there on the ranch, right during the hell that was a Texas summer, and let her see. She’d accept his offer then.
He had no doubt about that.
“Ladies, sorry to have bothered you.” He said the hell with it. She’d already touched him, she deserved it. Travis grabbed the hand she still had between them. He brought her palm to his lips and kissed her right in the center. He watched for the reaction that he expected would come.
And react she did. With a hiss and a jerk, she yanked her hand back like he’d burned her. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
“Oh, I’d like to. I’d really like to. If you or either of your friends are interested in dinner, I’m more than willing. They’re really pretty, too. But probably a whole lot nicer than you. Like I said, ladies.” He tipped his hat politely, ignoring the wariness in two pairs of brown eyes and one green. “I’ll be seeing you again, Doc. You can count on that.”
What a strange little trio of females they were.
2
A logical person didn’t turn down his final offer of four times what she’d paid for it. Not without a good reason.
Travis had gotten the hint loud and clear.
Her ranch was safe. He was a businessman—he’d lost on properties before. And he wasn’t one to dwell on situations—he was better off strategizing other solutions to his problems.
If the Dark Wins (Finley Creek Book 4) Page 1