‘Exactly, I love them but I wouldn’t want them on our doorstep.’
‘Me neither,’ Chloe said as she flashed him her stocking tops beneath the bright red cashmere dress she had chosen to wear that day. ‘Imagine if they caught us fucking in the hall.’
‘I’d rather not,’ Dan laughed. ‘We could help them with the expense of moving, mention it sometime.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes, I know you miss them.’
When the first spring thaw came Dan and Chloe took a trip with Barnie and a couple of other people that they had grown to know and like, and as the sun hit the high skies they watched a herd of bison crossing the plains in western Montana; that day Dan took some truly amazing photographs and one; a large black and white photograph was framed and hung from the wall in the dining room, it was a close-up of three bison’s’ lower legs as the magnificent animals crossed a river, the water splashing up around the animal’s legs.
The ranch was full of Dan’s photography; he had a natural eye for what made a good picture. A large proportion was of Chloe, and some of these were mounted on the walls on the upper levels of the “lighthouse”. Some were close-ups of various parts of Chloe’s body, and a dozen were highly graphic. ‘My mother would call them pornographic,’ Chloe had joked as Dan hanged the dozen framed photographs, six on the walls on the upper floor of the “lighthouse” and six hanged in the library. These were the two rooms that guests were never shown.
Each photograph revealed Chloe in intimate and provocative poses, and Dan’s favourite was an extreme close-up of Chloe’s open mouth, her tongue flicking across her hardened nipple; and this picture took pride of place on the wall directly opposite from where Dan would sit and read to Chloe, the pair of them snuggled up on the sofa, sharing a bottle of wine and Chloe would lie on the sofa, her head in his lap, her face looking up at him as he read to her.
She had found a love for reading but her favourite moments were when Dan would read to her; and she loved to hear him read a Stephen King suspense novel or a crime story by Michael Connelly. Over the Christmas period she had listened to him as he read Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but her favourite story was Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, and she’d made him read the book cover to cover on more than one occasion.
That first year flew by and Chloe kept her promises, every day she wore something sexy and she never got bored of his constant delight and compliments, almost a day never passed where they didn’t make love and Chloe was more than happy to honour their bargain; he cooked and she was the “ultimate slave in the nookie department” as they had come to call it.
Every day without fail Dan would ride Weiser and Chloe joined him on most days riding one of their other horses and as the months passed she became an accomplished rider and they both agreed that life couldn’t get any better.
Because of their violent past together they made every day count, living each day together as if it could be their last, they never argued and although they would do their own things on occasion they were happiest when they were in each other’s company. Dan had been invited to join various clubs in Rockspur, the Wednesday night poker night at Barnie’s was the only activity that Dan took up; he always politely turned down any other invitation that came his way. When he was at Barnie’s Chloe would visit with Suzanne, a young woman who owned a clothing boutique, the two became good friends and when Dan was done at Barnie’s he would drop by Suzanne’s and pick up Chloe; the drive back to the ranch was one of their favourite things; the vast openness of the land, the expansive skies overhead.
A second summer came and went, another autumn falling on them and they celebrated Chloe’s twenty first birthday by flying to England to visit her parents and it was there that the final plans for her parent’s move to Montana were secured; they would be living in Rockspur by that Christmas.
On their return from England they found a car parked in the circular clearing near the front porch. Dan got the Browning from beneath the front seat of the Volvo; neither Dan nor Chloe recognised the car or its occupant.
‘Dan, relax, it could be a Bible salesman.’
‘Yeah, if it is I’ll apologise, but those plates are out of state.’
Chloe felt a long forgotten emotion; fear and she opened the glove-box and removed the small revolver that they always kept there. Chloe opened the cylinder, checked it was loaded and flicked the cylinder back in to place. She tucked the pistol in the back of her tight jeans and adjusted her white sweater.
Dan got out of the car and made no secret of the Browning in his right hand, but he kept the gun pointing at the ground. Chloe climbed over in to the driver’s seat and then slipped out next to Dan.
The man that climbed out of the three year old Taurus was in his late fifties, maybe early sixties and both Dan and Chloe relaxed a little, they doubted anyone would send a pensioner to kill them but Dan didn’t put the pistol away but he did lower the hammer gently with his thumb.
‘Sorry to scare y’all, I was just about to leave a note, telling y’all where I was staying in Rockspur when I saw your headlights turn in off the highway.’
‘How can we help you?’ Dan asked, his voice polite but with a distinct edge of steel to it.
‘My name’s Barry Johnson, I’m sheriff down in Perfection, New Mexico...’
Dan started to raise his gun hand and the sheriff stopped talking mid sentence and raised his hands and laughed.
‘Whoa son, I ain’t here to arrest you both, I’m here to thank you.’
Chloe put her hand on Dan’s arm and pushed his hand downwards and said, ‘I think there’d be more than just him if we were about to be arrested,’ she said quietly to Dan. Dan nodded his head.
‘And why would you want to thank us sheriff, we’ve never been to New Mexico.’
Johnson laughed, ‘Sonny, I’ve spent the best part of two years piecing all this together.’
‘Why don’t you come on in sheriff? It’s a little too cold to be hanging around out here,’ Chloe said and started for the porch steps.
Dan closed the Volvo’s door and said, ‘Sure, come on in sheriff, let’s hear what you’ve got to say.’
Johnson laughed again, ‘I sure could use a cup of coffee, relax Mister Adams; I’m only here to talk.’
Dan smiled at the elderly sheriff and waved him up the steps and in to the house.
‘You drove all the way up here?’ Chloe asked as she unlocked the front door and switched off the alarm system.
‘Yes ma’am; took my tired old bones four days.’
‘Please call me Chloe, and he’s Dan.’
‘Well y’all can call me Barry.’
‘By the way it’s Constantine, not Adams,’ Chloe said later when they were seated at the kitchen table with mugs of hot coffee and cinnamon pastries laid out on the table-top.
When they had come in Chloe had gone upstairs to change and Dan had invited the sheriff on in to the kitchen.
‘You can put that away,’ Barry had said when they entered the kitchen indicating the Browning that Dan still carried.
‘We’ll see sheriff,’ Dan had replied and put the coffee machine on.
Dan was pouring their coffees when Chloe came down in to the kitchen, she had changed in to over-the-knee cream coloured woollen socks and a knitted dress that was loose and baggy and stopped a couple of inches above her socks; a tantalising two inches of caramel coloured flesh glinted in the kitchen’s lights. Chloe had sat down next to Dan and linked her arm through his. The way she was sat showed Dan the perfect view down the open front of the dress; the slopes of her breasts visible only to him. She had tied her hair back from her face with a band.
‘So sheriff why don’t you tell us why you think we’ve ever been to your home town.’
‘Sure thing Chloe and this coffee is the best I’ve had in days. ‘Well, let’s see, where do I begin?’
The sheriff scratched at his stubbled cheeks and then told them all he had learnt.
‘Well it started at McCall’s place, we found things in his cellar that still haunt my dreams to this very day, the folks in the diner said how y’all said we’d be thankful for what you’d done and I can’t argue with you. The man was sick, twisted, the things he’d videoed and photographed, I swear if my hair hadn’t already been white it would have turned there and then in that basement.
‘I found emails he’d sent to various friends of his overseas, a man called Rufus Cartwright in Scotland, another in Australia, a Japanese fella whose name I can’t begin to pronounce no matter how hard I try, and quite a few other men around the world. Some quick phone calls late at night to different law agencies let me know that three of them had been killed and the gentleman in Scotland, well the police up there found his niece in the basement, this Rufus had raped her for a solid forty eight hours, strange thing is they found Rufus’ body mutilated beyond all recognition and the detective on the case let slip that Rufus had been raped himself, pretty bad from what I can gather, but ya’ see the thing is they also found sick shit just like I did at McCall’s.’
The sheriff looked at Dan and Chloe and he knew that they knew to what he was referring to. He sipped his coffee.
‘The same can be said for the Jap and the Australian, sick fucks the lot of ‘em. A second cousin in customs was able to obtain for me, totally on the quiet mind you, I was very careful not to say anything that could point anyone in your direction, passenger lists for various flights in and out of those countries around the times that those men were killed and to my surprise a Dan and Chloe Adams popped up, hell of a coincidence, all those countries, but y’all were well prepared, whoever supplied the paperwork on your aliases did a first rate job, the Adams’s only existed on paper.
‘All I had to go on was what was printed on those passports, that you were British, so over the last year I’ve spent every spare minute on my cousin’s back monitoring every flight in and out of the UK that may contain the Adams’s names and she hit the jackpot when a Dan and Chloe Constantine applied for emigration to Montana.’
The sheriff accepted a refill and Dan smiled at him, ‘Barry, that’s one hell of a story.’
Barry laughed and said, ‘I can spot a bullshitter from two states away Dan, I just wanted y’all to know that the world isn’t totally fucked, that there are still good people left, who in their own small way make the places in which they live better places, small gestures and deeds and they make a difference. I wanted to thank you both on behalf of all those good folk out there. You both have saved a lot of people from those men, who knows how many more people they would have hurt and killed, families torn apart, the ripples would have spread for years, I just wanted to thank you, but if you want to play ignorant, well, after all you’ve both been through, I can’t well says I’d blame you.’
A silence fell over the room and it was Chloe who broke it, she reached across the table and offered the sheriff her hand, Barry took it and Chloe said, ‘I can’t believe you managed to find us.’
‘Chloe,’ Dan warned and Chloe laughed.
‘Hell honey, he’s not wearing a wire, the security system would have told us if he was and if the sheriff here is anything other than what he claims he’d have a hell of a job convincing a court of law.’
The sheriff laughed again and Chloe laughed too, she’d taken an instant liking to the haggard sheriff.
Dan finally relented and smiled and shook the sheriff’s hand.
‘Thank you Dan, sincerely, I thank you for what you both did.’
Dan nodded his head.
Chloe poured them all another mug of coffee and offered the pastries around the table, the sheriff took one, bit in to it and said, ‘I had a hard time finding you both out here, folks back in Rockspur were real tight lipped about the nice couple out at the old Madison place. They like you both a lot, and a lot of the men folk respect you Dan for something that happened at a place called Tull’s, care to tell me about it?’
Dan shrugged his shoulders and Chloe smiled and dug her elbow in Dan’s ribs. ‘My husband is the modest type sheriff.’
‘It was nothing Chloe.’
‘Like hell Dan,’ Chloe said. ‘If you won’t tell the sheriff then I will.’
Dan looked at Chloe and she smiled at him and nodded her head. Dan turned to the sheriff and cocked his head to one side.
‘Do you really want to hear this story sheriff?’
‘Yes sir I surely do.’
Dan got up from the table. ‘In that case you may as well stay for dinner; it’s quite the story...’
‘Jesus Christ Chloe, you can’t be serious?’ Dan said with an incredulous look splattered across his face.
From her position on the bed; flat on her back, propped up on her elbows, her knees bent, and her feet on the edge of the mattress Chloe grinned. ‘Don’t you like it?’ Chloe asked.
Dan closed the door behind him and said, ‘I love it, you look fantastic but isn’t it a little revealing?’
‘Only a little?’ Chloe asked teasing him. She ran her hands over the swell of her breasts beneath her dress.
‘Chloe, we’re in rural Montana, I doubt anyone’s seen a woman dressed like that before, you’ll be the centre of attention, hell for all I know you could get arrested for indecent exposure.’
Chloe bit her bottom lip, a nervous trait that Dan had long noticed and recognised for what it was, she was thinking that she had let him down somehow and he felt a stab of guilt shoot through him; who was he or anyone else for that matter to say what a person could or couldn’t wear out.
‘I’m sorry honey, I’ll change if you think I should,’ Chloe said and slid to the edge of the bed and stood up. Dan crossed the room and slipped his hands around her waist and kissed her.
‘I think you look amazing, I don’t want you to change, who gives a rat’s ass what others might think?’
‘Really?’
‘Yes really, my god I’m going to be all over you tonight, you do know that don’t you?’
Chloe kissed him passionately and when they broke away she said, ‘I love looking good for you.’
Chloe wore a tight black dress, its hem only three inches below her ass, this in itself was not unusual, most of Chloe’s skirts and dresses were damn short but this dress was utterly transparent, a fine gossamer material that showed clearly the lingerie she wore beneath; a black satin balconette bra and matching knickers that clung perfectly to the curves of her ass. She’d shaved her legs in the time he had been out and she wore a pair of black lush-velvet knee high boots with wicked looking heels. She’d tied her hair back in a plaited ponytail and wore just the right amount of make-up; Chloe’s eyelashes were long and thick with mascara and she had used a dark wine coloured lipstick that perfectly accentuated the “bee-stung” look of her full lips.
‘Maureen said Tull’s was the place to go, good food and dancing from six ‘til midnight, we’ll find a darkened corner and you can paw me all night long.’
‘I’ll hold you to that,’ Dan said with a grin.
‘You better,’ Chloe replied. ‘Go take a shower husband then we’ll head over to Harry’s place.’
‘Shit Harry, he’ll have a fit.’
Chloe opened the closet and removed a black light weight coat that had a sash at the middle.
‘Don’t worry honey, I’ll wear this over the dress, but it comes off the minute we’re seated at Tull’s.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ Dan said and went to take his shower.
Dan put the last of the boxes and bags in the boot of the Volvo and climbed in behind the wheel. Chloe grinned at him from the passenger seat. ‘I think old Harry took a shine to you.’
Chloe laughed as Dan reversed out of the parking space and turned the Volvo and pulled out in to traffic.
‘Only because he caught a glimpse of my ass when I bent down to pick up that box.’
Dan laughed. ‘So, do you know how to get to this Tull’s Place?’
‘Sure, Maureen gave me
directions, it’s about ten minutes from here.’ Chloe unfastened the coat and let the coat hang open. ‘Eyes on the road mister, when we get there you’ve got my permission to look and touch all you like, but let’s not crash getting there.’
Chloe was, as always, true to her word. They found Tull’s easily enough and the car-park was already half full as they made their way in to the “best place in town”.
‘You look edible,’ Chloe said.
Dan squeezed her hand and said, ‘I give you permission to eat me anytime you like.’
He was relaxed and felt comfortable in black jeans and a crisp white linen shirt. He’d shaved before they left and had put on a splash of the aftershave that Chloe liked so much. ‘Makes me want to fuck you,’ she had told him on more than one occasion.
Tull’s was a large building, the place split on two levels. Tables were arranged for diners with families on the lower level, a set of wooden steps led up to the second level where there were a mixture of tables and booths around the edges, an oval bar was situated in the centre of the second floor where bar-staff kept the drinks coming, to the rear of the second level was a large dance-floor with expensive, professional lighting and a small raised stage set at the far left corner where a sign pronounced the band for the evening and that the first set was from eight o’clock.
‘Hope to god they don’t play country music all night,’ Chloe whispered as they followed a waitress to a booth near the dance-floor, ‘I can’t dance sexily to Patsy Cline.’
Dan chuckled, he was looking around the place, and they’d received quite a few glances from other couples as they entered the building. Word had gotten around about the new couple in town. A few single men watched Chloe as she passed them on her way to the booth and Dan was thankful that she had kept the coat on. God knows what’ll happen once we sit down, he thought.
The waitress, who introduced herself as Abbie was very friendly and flirtatious towards Dan and once they were seated and they had given Abbie their drinks order Chloe said, ‘I think I’ll have to keep an eye on her, chatting my husband up like that.’
Rage Against The Machine: Special Edition (Dan & Chloe Book 1) Page 49