That innocent daydream quickly vanished. Her new brothers saw her as nothing more than a brat in need of a good beating, and they relished telling her the real reason why Miss Kay had taken Sparrow under her wing.
Miss Kay had made Tootsie a promise to watch out for Sparrow, and Tootsie had been Miss Kay's top-selling whore.
“Better turn him over to someone who can handle him.” Jimbo's words yanked Sparrow back to the present.
“Well, then I guess he better be staying with me, seein’ as how you lost the last one.” Sparrow let the words drip from her lips slow like molasses. Jimbo Crowe, her oldest adopted brother, had turned out to be the very opposite of a protective family member. He used to cuff her and slap her around when no one was looking. The abuse hadn’t ended until old man Squirrel taught Sparrow how to throw a knife. The next time Jimbo tried to corner Sparrow, she used her newfound skill to bury her knife into her adoptive brother’s hand.
Bob Crowe burst out laughing, his tall skinny stature the exact opposite of Jimbo's big hulking one. “That girl don't take shit from nobody.”
Jimbo's eyes would've turned red with rage if he had possessed that ability. Instead, his meaty hand shot out and wrapped around his little brother's throat, easily lifting the man off the ground. “You were saying?”
Bob kicked like a runaway chicken about to get his head chopped off. Even made the gurgling sounds to go with it, before Jimbo dropped him to the ground.
Sparrow had to move fast or she was going to lose her prize to her brother. This was her chance to find out what was really going on, and for some reason, she didn't want to see the camo man tortured by Jimbo. Torture was her brother’s specialty. “I stake my claim.”
She could feel the man's eyes on her, and there was the creeping sensation he was seeing more than she wanted. But she couldn't pay attention to him. Not yet.
Jimbo looked her up and down, and then spit a large wad of tobacco on the ground by his feet. “We'll see how long that lasts.”
Then Jimbo turned and lumbered back toward home. Bob was a little lap dog at his heels.
“Tweedledee and Tweedledum,” the camo man said.
“Come again?” Tweedle what?
“You know, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, off the cartoon,” he said it like she was supposed to know what the hell he was talking about.
“Whatever. Now let's me and you get something straight.” Sparrow took a small step back, her instincts warning her not to get too close. She could sniff a pig out a mile away, but this man wasn't a cop. Which meant he couldn't be bribed. Which was dangerous.
“I'm waiting.” That small smile was back on his face.
Sparrow wanted to rip it right off, but she held her peace.
“You belong to me now. You do what I say. When I say it.” Sparrow steadied the rifle against her shoulder, but he didn't look the least bit worried.
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll turn you over to him.” She nodded at her retreating brother’s back.
He threw a hand up over his heart and stumbled back a step, “You'd just leave me like that? And here I thought we were making progress.” His words teased, but his black eyes were still as empty as a bar pit.
Her threats weren't working against him, probably because he’d never seen what Jimbo could do with a hunting knife. But Sparrow had been forced to watch as her brother flayed a man's back. She swallowed and looked up at the stranger through her thick lashes, careful to keep her thoughts hidden. “Turn around. We're going home.”
“And what if I don't?” He stepped forward and closed the distance between them, forcing her to tilt her head back to get a good look at him.
Her heart kicked up that furious pace again. What could she do?
“I can see your pulse racing. You're scared. That's smart.”
She’d spent years perfecting her front of indifference, but he saw right through her. And if he could see, so could her family. Sparrow gritted her teeth and put the end of the barrel underneath his chin. “If you don't do as I say, then your brains are fixing to feed the birds.”
His smile disappeared and Sparrow felt a surge of dominance. For some reason, even though she held the rifle, she’d felt like he was the one in control of the situation.
“Careful, little girl. I don't take kindly to having guns pointed at my head.”
“And I don't take kindly to strangers spying on my family.” Sparrow held her breath, waiting on his reaction. If he so much as flinched, her over-itchy trigger finger might jerk. She’d never had to shoot a man before.
She studied him, trying to see the face beyond the camouflage paint, trying to get a read on his thoughts, but all she could make out was a strong square jaw. Full lips. Black soulless eyes.
Then his teeth flashed bright white against the black and green paint, the look on his face positively evil. “All right, I'll go along with you. Where to, sweet thing?”
He turned around and Sparrow slowly and quietly exhaled the breath she’d been holding. She wasn't stupid. She might be ignorant white trash, but she knew when death was staring her in the eyes.
And she had Satan himself at the end of her gun.
.
Chapter 2
Jared walked back to his old house with all the enthusiasm of an inmate walking down death row. He didn't feel the cold air, didn't hear the leaves crunch beneath his boots. His vision tunneled on the half-moon circle of dilapidated wood shacks in the clearing ahead.
There were ten in all, plus a trailer on the far right. The largest cabin, the one that sat in the middle, housed the head of the Crowe clan, Miss Kay. She was a direct descendant of the infamous Ma Barker and twice as deadly. This camp acted as her headquarters, with the rest of her people spread out all over the county.
But it was the house just to the right of the middle that held his focus. It was a little house, with an even smaller closet. A closet with a bolt in the floor to which he and Hoyt had once been chained.
Chills skittered across his skin and dread settled heavy in his chest, but the fear he'd felt for so long as a child was absent. A killing rage had taken its place instead.
Two glass pane windows, dirty and faded and covered in cobwebs, sat on each side of a broken front door. A cypress porch littered with trash and warped with age and weather held up the front, just like he remembered. Hell on Crowe Mountain.
Sparrow propelled Jared into the clearing with that gun of hers pressed to his back. People stopped to stare, people he did not recognize. And thank God he didn't, because if he saw his aunt and uncle right now, he’d be tempted to forget his entire guise and strangle them where they stood. No, the clothes and lean malnourished forms were the same, but the faces were unfamiliar. Jared took a deep calming breath. Remember your brother. He was here to rescue Hoyt. But later, once Hoyt was safe, Jared would return.
And he would demolish the Crowe family once and for all.
“Hang a right. We're headed to that trailer over yonder.” Sparrow’s hillbilly twang drew him out of the dark chamber prison of his past.
The trailer would have been considered run down in any other place, and that was being generous, but here it fit right in. Half the underpinning lay twisted on the ground. A set of rickety wooden steps with no handrail led up to the front door. Still, the windows were intact, and there weren’t any gaping holes in the walls. That was about all he could say for this sorry excuse for a home. “Yours?”
“Yep. Bought and paid for.”
Jared turned to catch a brief blush rise on her cheeks, but that stupid, oversized hat swooped down and covered her expression.
He wanted to ask her exactly how long she’d saved up for the piece of shit, but there’d been a note of pride in her voice. He suspected the girl had probably worked long and hard for the privilege of having her own place.
He just prayed she didn't work the way most women up here did—on her back, with her legs spread.
“Nice. I'm guessing that's where I'
ll be staying too?” Jared said.
“I know it probably ain't what you're used to, city boy. But yeah, that's exactly where you'll be staying.” Sparrow’s voice held a tinge of hurt and he regretted his tone.
“Good, it's the best looking place out here. Do I get my own bed, or do I get to sleep in yours?” Jared stopped at the bottom of the steps. Sparrow stumbled forward, stopping just short of crashing into him. She backed up, but her fresh spring scent lingered in the air.
“Hey sexy, you can sleep in my bed,” someone said from behind him. “Hell, I’ll let a brawny man like you in for free too.”
Sparrow stiffened and Jared turned to see a woman, at least he thought she was a woman, approach. He barely checked a smile at her obvious attempt to swing her less than generous hips as she walked. Her hip bones poked out above a sagging mini skirt. Her crop top provided just enough material to cover an almost concave chest, revealing a starkly outlined ribcage. To top it all off, her smile showed two missing teeth. He suppressed a shiver.
“Back off Geraldine, he’s mine.” Sparrow swung her gun toward the woman. Geraldine stopped and scratched her tangled hair. Probably lice.
“Whatcha mean yours? You don’t know what to do with any man, least of all a real man like that.” Apparently the threat of Sparrow’s gun was useless. Geraldine pushed the tip of the rifle aside and swaggered closer to Jared. “But I do. I got all kinds of tricks to please ya.”
Geraldine laid a hand against his chest and Jared flinched back. Lice would be the least harmful thing he could catch from her. “Sorry, ma’am, but I’m afraid I’m already spoken for.”
Before she could protest, a knife appeared around the front of her throat. Geraldine froze and lifted her chin. Jared grinned. His little mountain cat had sharp claws.
“You might not worry about my gun, but you know how good I am with a knife.” Sparrow spoke low and Geraldine trembled.
“I was just wantin’ a touch. We ain’t got no menfolk like him up here.” Her words were cut off when Sparrow eased the blade a little deeper into her neck. Not enough to draw blood, but more than enough to get the point across.
“You remember what we did to Jack Wideman?”
Jared watched, fascinated, as every single ounce of blood drained from Geraldine’s face. Sparrow’s answering smile was feral. “Yeah, I see you do. If I see you waggin’ your scrawny butt near this man again, I’ll give you a personal lesson, just like I did with Jack.”
“No. No…I…I won’t touch him. Never.”
Sparrow thrust the woman away from the trailer and Jared side-stepped to avoid further contact. Geraldine wrapped a bony hand around her throat and took off.
“Dang it, I’ll have to disinfect my knife after touching that trash.” Sparrow wiped the blade on her pants and tucked it into a hidden sheath at her side.
“You were awfully rough on her.”
“You want her touching you?” Sparrow asked.
Not with a hundred-foot pole. He recognized walking syphilis. “No. But she didn’t mean any harm.”
Sparrow scanned the clearing behind them and picked her rifle up off the ground. The few people still walking around quickly made their way inside. Interesting. This little scrawny girl seemed to invoke some fear in these folk.
“City boy. You wanna get her STD? Get in the trailer before you draw more attention.”
Jared took a moment to consider the benefits of letting her continue to boss him around versus taking control now. It would be better to let this play out a while, he decided. Let her think she’d won. Jared lifted his hands in surrender and entered the trailer.
Multiple pairs of dead eyes stared back at him from stuffed heads. Squirrel. Deer. A bear’s head? He turned and shot her a questioning look. No way she'd taken down all these animals herself. “You buy these already stuffed?”
“Let's get something straight. I’m not a sissy girl. And just because I'm small don't mean I can't do that to you.” Sparrow indicated one really screwed up deer head—evidently she'd shot that particular animal in the face instead of the body. Then she reached into a wooden chest next to the door and pulled out a rope. “Now go on through that door.”
Sparrow indicated the only door on the right of the combined living room and kitchen area. The living room was sparse, containing a couple of wood chests, a faded blue couch, and multiple travel magazines lying around. Interesting. The hillbilly wanted to see the world. Go figure.
Jared obliged, curious to see where she was planning to keep him, as if this cardboard box could truly contain him. He turned a loose brass knob on the hollow wooden door to reveal a tiny room that contained a bed, broken dresser and a bedside table. That was it. The bedframe, while once white, had rusted and faded in so many spots he couldn't describe the color anymore. “If you want me to get naked all you have to do is ask.”
“Lay down, put your arms up, and hold on to the headboard.” Sparrow prodded him with the rifle and his curiosity took a turn to irritation.
“You wanna keep that rifle, you better get it out of my back.” He stopped in the middle of the room and waited for the pressure to be removed before continuing. Jared sat, testing the dilapidated bed to see if it would hold under his weight. When he felt sure it wouldn’t crack in two, he laid down to the tune of a loud creak and the feeling of a hundred springs stabbing him in the back.
Sparrow pulled the rope off her arm and approached, stopping just out of his reach. “Are you going to stay still or do I have to go get one of my stepbrothers to hold you down?”
“Yours to command. I promise I won't bite unless you’re into that kind of thing.” Another blush stole across her cheeks and Jared found he was enjoying her discomfort immensely. Most of the women he’d dated were fake, but Sparrow wasn’t like that. Maybe she hadn’t earned her keep on her back after all.
“Grab the headboard.”
Jared once again obliged, curious to see what she had planned for after she tied him to her bed. He didn’t bother resisting—yet. It would be quick work for him to get out of the bonds. His Special Forces training had taught him every escape-and-evade trick in the United States government’s arsenal. He could lull the girl into false comfort, wait until night fell, and use the darkness as cover to go off in search of his brother. And he could finagle information out of the girl without her even realizing it.
Jared was first and foremost a sniper, but he could interrogate just as well. He’d just never interrogated someone like her.
Sparrow propped her rifle against the wall next to the bed. Her first mistake. How easy it would be for him to grab it and turn the tables. Or the ropes, so to speak. But he would let her get comfortable for now.
It had been nearly twenty years since he’d seen her, but Jared could never forget those golden eyes. Eyes that had haunted his dreams ever since. Had she joined up with Kay? Or was she simply one of those poor souls struggling to survive?
The thought of Sparrow slowly starving filled him with a sense of guilt. He should have made her leave with them. Even though they’d been children when she’d freed them, Jared had been big enough to drag her out, whether she’d wanted to go or not.
She leaned over him, reaching for his hands. Her floppy hat fell down, blinding her, and she ripped it off and tossed it across the room. Long caramel-colored hair, full of sun-kissed highlights, waterfalled down the sides of her face and tickled his nose. Her scent surrounded him now, flooding his senses. Honeysuckle and wildflowers. His cock swelled in an instant. Jared gnashed his teeth together, trying to quell his intense reaction to her nearness.
Sparrow leaned down further and her loose tank top gaped open, treating him to a glorious view of surprisingly plump breasts cupped in a plain sports bra. His gaze locked onto her beaded nipples through the cotton. Fuck he wanted to rip that bra down and reveal what was hidden beneath. The loose manly clothes she wore made her look stick thin, but womanly curves were concealed beneath them.
Sparrow sighed and
sat up straight, leaving rope dangling uselessly on his wrists. Jared gripped the metal headboard with his hands, waiting for her next move. She stood there for a moment and studied him, trying to decide what to do. Well, he wasn't going to help her out one little bit.
“Keep your hands right there, got it?” Her voice was stern.
“Yes ma'am.” He had no intention of acting up. Yet.
She placed a knee on the mattress, and in one swift movement straddled him, settling on his belly. Jared groaned and closed his eyes thankful she hadn’t sat down lower on his body; otherwise, she would have gotten her own surprise. She leaned over him spreading her knees wider up his chest. His eyes popped open, unable to resist another view of her bare skin.
“You can stop with the theatrics right now; I know I’m not big enough to crush you.”
If only that were his problem. Her shirt dipped down even more and he fixated on the pale mounds of her breasts straining against the material of her sports bra. It was a crime to lock those beauties up in serviceable cotton.
She should wear nothing but pure silk and lace, perfect for him to rip off her body.
Her hair curtained around him again, and her soft lips parted in concentration as she worked. He was aware of every inch of exposed skin—from the graceful hollow of her neck to her supple forearms peeking out from the rolled up sleeves of her checkered work shirt. Even more aware of the intense heat radiating from her core, pressed so intimately to his chest.
“There. All done.” She sat back, a satisfied smile on her lips.
Jared tugged on the rope. He’d completely zoned out on anything other than her straddling him. It didn't give an inch—the knot she’d tied was worthy of a professional. A small ounce of foreboding seeped into him. “Where did you learn to tie knots?”
“Trapping. Working snares. Been doing it since I was a kid.” Her words were so matter-of-fact, he had no doubt she spoke the truth. Holy shit. He yanked on the ropes, but they didn’t move.
Men of Mercy: The Complete Story Page 53