by Amanda Boone
Jessa had no idea how big the ranch was until she and Ethan stepped outside and she saw the huge barns. “Wow.” She tugged Caleb’s jacket around her tighter as she scanned the pastures beyond the outbuildings. “You run this place with just seven men?”
“Not hardly,” Ethan told her as he scooped her up in his arms, and carried her across the snow to the barn door. “We keep about twenty full-time hands, and hire whatever extra men we need for calving season, round-ups and drives.”
Inside the barn Jessa smiled as she watched the heads of two dozen curious horses appear over the stall doors. “You’ve got these guys, too.” She walked up to a big white gelding and stroked his nose. “Boy, I miss horses.”
Ethan chuckled. “You sure are comfortable with them.”
“I originally trained to be an equine vet, but it’s an expensive practice to set up. I still see a few show horses, but mostly my days are spent looking after cats and dogs.” She rolled her eyes before she moved to the next stall, where a bright-eyed paint dipped her head to nuzzle Jessa’s neck. “Hey, honeybunch. Aren’t you a sweet girl?”
“Rosie is my work horse,” Ethan told her. “And she probably smells me on you.”
Jessa turned her head and sniffed her shoulder before smiling slyly at him. “Eau de Cowboy. I like it.” A sharp whinny drew her attention across the barn, where a big chestnut stallion glared back at her. “Sounds like someone’s jealous.”
“Pete is just bad-tempered,” Ethan said with a sigh. “My brother Caleb bought him at a stock auction, and he’s been a pain in my ass ever since.”
Jess went over to Pete’s stall, and stopped just as of reach of the horse. “Ethan, he’s got blood on his mouth.” She glanced around. “I need to cover his eyes so I can get in there and have a look at him.”
Ethan handed her a head drape, which she quickly pulled over the stallion’s face. Once Pete had quieted, she opened the stall door and slipped inside.
“Let’s see what’s hurt you, big guy,” Jessa said in a soft, soothing voice. Keeping one hand on his hide so he knew where she was, she performed a quick visual assessment. “His lip’s got a nasty gash in it. I see fresh cuts on his forelegs, too.”
Ethan picked up a dented, overturned feed bucket. “Had himself a temper tantrum, kicked the bucket, and then tried to eat.” He showed her the bent, bloody rim.
“Did your vet leave a suture kit here?” When he nodded she sighed with relief. “Okay, I’ll need that, some hide salve and bandages for his legs.”
While she worked on the horse, Ethan asked her if she could remember anything else about the man who had kidnapped her.
“He was middle-aged, about six foot, with thin, sandy hair, and these awful pale blue eyes.” She shuddered a little as she tied off a suture. “At first I thought he might be a doctor, but he was just wearing a white suit.”
Ethan hesitated before he handed her the salve. “What color was his car?”
“It was white, too.” She reached for some bandages. “I didn’t get the license plate, but it was a Lexus. How many people around here drive that kind of car anyway?”
“Not so many,” Ethan said grimly.
* * *
Once Jessa had finished treating Pete’s injuries, she tidied up the stall and replaced his trampled feed bucket with a plastic bin she wedged in one corner. “I’d keep his grain floor-level until that lip heals, so he doesn’t bump it and open it again.”
As Ethan followed her out to show her where to wash up, he debated on whether or not to tell her that his neighbor, Richard Demesse, had abducted her. Knowing that her kidnapper was only a few hundred acres away would likely terrify her. And if she said anything to his brothers, they’d want to form a posse and go lynch the attorney.
“Ethan?’ Jessa frowned up at him. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah.” He felt like a shit for not telling her the truth, but the situation was too rocky to handle right now. Instead he held out his hand. “Want to see what’s in the hayloft?”
Her gaze darted up before her smile turned puzzled. “You mean, like bales of hay?”
“No, something else.” Ethan took her hand and led her over to the ladder, helping her up onto the rungs before climbing up behind her to the loft. Watching the sway of her tight bottom made his cock swell against his zipper, and when he stepped off the ladder he was ready to grab her adorable little ass with both hands.
“Okay,” Jessa said as she turned to him. “What do you want to show me, Cowboy?”
“You have to find it first.” Ethan glanced down meaningfully at his crotch before he sat down on a wide row of bales. “You look, and I’ll tell you if you’re hot or cold.”
“Let’s see.” Jessa went first to the barn window. “Over here?”
“Cold. Iced over. Frozen solid,” Ethan said as she moved away. As she spun around and walked toward him, he smiled. “Warmer. A lot warmer. Hot.” He cleared his throat as she stepped between his thighs. “Scalding.”
“I still don’t see anything.” Jessa dropped down to kneel, and rested her hands on his big thighs. “Maybe you’re hiding it from me.”
Ethan loved how playful she was. “Not really possible.”
She glanced down at the thick bulge in his pants. “Oh, I get it. You put it in your pants.” She slowly unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned and unzipped him, and reached inside his briefs as if searching for something.
Ethan inhaled sharply as her soft, cool fingers curled around his shaft. “Do you like it?”
“I’m not sure what it is.” Jessa pursed her lips. “It feels very big.” She eased his cock out of his briefs and pretended to study it. “It looks a little painful, too.” She brushed her lips across the straining bulb of his cockhead. “There, does that feel better?”
“A little,” Ethan said, his voice rough. “But I think it needs more.”
“More of this?” Before he could answer Jessa parted her lips over him and enveloped his tip with her warm, wet mouth.
“Oh, yeah.” Ethan pushed his fingers into her hair as she sucked on him, and sighed when she took her mouth away again. “Don’t stop now, darling.”
Jessa pushed him so that he was flat on his back, and then stripped off her jeans before she straddled him in reverse. Looking at her bare buttocks as he felt her mouth on his cock made Ethan utter a deep groan before he clamped his hands on her thighs and spread them.
“You’re all wet down here, girl,” he breathed as he stroked the pretty place between her thighs. “I think I’d better do something about that.”
Now it was her turn to moan as Ethan covered her sex with his mouth, and licked at her sweet, damp folds. He felt her shudder as he pushed his tongue into the soft ellipse of her pussy. Jessa sucked his cock deeper, and he showed her his appreciation by slowly laving her hard, pulsing little pearl.
Ethan could feel his balls tightening, and lifted her off him to turn her and plant her on top of his cock. “Come on, Cowgirl,” he teased her. “Ride me now.”
Jessa’s hands shook as she frantically positioned his thick cock between her thighs, and lowered herself onto him with a stuttering sigh. As her pussy slid down the length of him, Ethan reached up to cup her lovely breasts, and squeezed them in time with the gentle thrust of her body over his.
It didn’t take long for her pleasure to burst, or for him to spill his cream inside her. Jessa collapsed on his chest as he stroked her back, and sighed as they cooled down.
“I like what you keep in the hay loft,” she whispered. “Could you move it to my bed tonight?”
Ethan chuckled and was about to answer when he heard the barn door slam open. “Liam, I’ll look after the horses,” he called out. “You and the boys check the cattle.”
“I’m sorry,” a smarmy voice said, “but Liam can’t do anything right now.”
Jessa froze and stared at Ethan with wide, frightened eyes. “That’s the man who took me. The psychopath.”
Chapter Five
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Jessa wanted to scream, but she made herself pull back on the borrowed jeans and duck down as Ethan straightened his clothes. When she looked down she could see Liam and Caleb standing with their hands behind their heads, and the monster behind them pointing a shotgun at their backs.
“Stay here,” Ethan muttered to her as he went to the ladder.
“Come on down, too, Dr. Cooper,” the man said. “I know you’re up there, and if you don’t, I’m going to turn one of these rednecks into a quadriplegic.”
Jessa exchanged a look with Ethan before she followed him down the ladder and stepped off to face her abductor. “You don’t have to do this. I haven’t reported you to the police, and these men have done nothing to you. If you leave, right now, you can get away.”
“Have you fucked all of them yet, Doc, or just this one?” The monster turned to Ethan. “I bet the little whore was very grateful for the rescue. But be honest, neighbor – is she really any good in the sack, or shouldn’t I waste my time?”
Ethan’s expression turned to stone. “You’re not laying another finger on her, Demesse.”
Jessa eased her hand in her pocket, and curled her fingers around the suture scissors she’d used on Pete. She also noticed some movement outside the back barn windows. “Wait. I’ll go with you. Just don’t hurt anyone else.”
The monster leveled the shotgun at Ethan. “Never going to happen, Doc.”
Jessa stared desperately at her cowboy, and Ethan gave her a direct look before eyeing the windows and then the floor.
“Down,” Liam called out sharply, and Jessa and all three brothers dropped as gun fire shattered the windows.
“No, no, n—” the monster’s voice dwindled to a wet gurgle as he jerked a few times and then crumpled to the ground.
Ethan yanked the shotgun from his spasming hands and held it trained on him as he shouted, “Clear.”
Jessa pushed herself up and went to the kidnapper, who stared up at her in confusion as blood bubbled from the side of his mouth. Wet red stains blossomed on his white jacket from the three large gunshot wounds in his chest.
“No,” the man got out before a gush of blood erupted from his mouth, and he went still.
“It’s all right, darling.” Ethan held her close as the rest of his brothers rushed in, and Liam covered the corpse with an old saddle blanket. “It’s over now.”
* * *
While waiting for Jessa to finish giving her statement to the local sheriff, Ethan drank three cups of terrible vending machine coffee and paced the length of the lobby twenty times. Liam finally told him to sit down before he tied him to one of the flimsy plastic visitor chairs.
“Will you stop it already?” his brother demanded. “She’ll be fine.”
“She’s traumatized,” Ethan countered, and then dragged his hand through his hair. “I don’t think she’s going to forgive me for keeping from her that I knew it was Demesse.”
“What, for the fifteen seconds before he showed up and tried to shoot us all?” Liam made a rude sound. “If this is you in love, brother, you’re not going to be worth the powder and shot to put you out of your misery. Ask her to marry you.”
“After knowing her exactly two days? Yeah, sure.” Ethan got up to pace the small room again, but at that moment Jessa walked out to join them.
“They’re going to have a special team come in and search his property,” she told them, her voice tight. “So they can see if they can find the remains of his other victims. They think he might be responsible for quite a few.” She looked up at Ethan. “Thank you for waiting for me.”
“Come on.” He put his arm around her and gave Liam a warning look. “Let’s go home.”
Once they arrived back at the ranch Liam took the rest of his brothers out to do their chores while Jessa went into the kitchen and helped Ethan warm up Buck’s pot of chili.
“I called one of my nurses at my practice, and she’s arranging to have a car delivered here for me,” Jessa said as she took down the plates from the cabinets. “I’ll need to get back to Billings as soon as the roads are clear.”
Ethan nodded, and then said what he really thought. “Don’t go back.” As she stared at him, he took the dishes from her hands and set them aside. “Stay here. Stay with me. I’ll buy whatever you need – clothes, shoes, I don’t care. Just don’t go.”
Jessa rested her hands against his chest. “Then when will you want me to leave, Cowboy?”
Ethan bent his head to brush his lips over hers. “Never. I know we just met yesterday, and we don’t know each other, and we live on opposite sides of Montana, but I don’t care. I want you here, with me.”
“Well, that means closing my practice, and giving up my apartment, and living with you and your six brothers on a lovely ranch in the middle of nowhere.” Jessa thought for a moment before she nodded. “Okay.”
He laughed before he could stop himself. “I’ll never let you leave, darling. You know that.”
“Cowboy,” she said, smiling up at him. “I’m never going to want to go.”
THE END
Protected by the Cowboy
Love in Ghost Lake Ranch
Book 2
(Can be read as a standalone book)
By: Amber Duval
Protected by the Cowboy
Chapter One
“You see those shoulders?” a female voice murmured behind Christopher Boone. “They’re like roof beams – and omigawd, that chest.”
“He’s so tasty.” A second woman made a lip-smacking sound. “I bet he’s got a six pack that won’t quit. Oooh, Shawna, look.”
“Okay,” Chris said to Lyle Jenkins, the owner of the feed store. “They’re checking out my butt now, right?”
“Yep.” Jenkins lost his fight to hide a grin as he finished ringing up the order. “Will that do you for this trip? We’re closing early next week for Christmas, remember.”
“We’re good, Lyle, thanks.” When Chris turned around, the two young women ogling him sighed in blissful unison. With a tolerant smile he touched the brim of his Stetson and said, “Ladies” before he headed out to his truck.
He didn’t mind the thrilled giggles that followed him, or the other looks he drew from people in town shopping for the holidays. He’d been stared at since a growth spurt in the fifth grade had shot him up to six feet. By high school he’d put on another six inches, and working his family’s cattle ranch had added heavy muscle to his broad build. Inheriting his Dad’s coal-black hair and Mom’s bright blue eyes hadn’t hurt, either. Girls had flocked to him like greedy geese around a grain spill.
Chris liked attracting women, too. He had a healthy sexual appetite, and on his downtime he enjoyed their company. He only wished he could have the same effect on the one girl he’d loved since the first time he’d set eyes on her.
In his mind’s eye he could always summon the image of Rebecca Rose Carson, the prettiest girl at Crystal Valley: Long, silky-straight dark hair the color of sweet chocolate, solemn doe-brown eyes ringed with gold, and a petite, perfectly feminine body with high, pert breasts and a matching bottom.
Rebecca had also been the most unavailable girl in school, thanks to her strict father. One of the richest men in Montana, Big Bill Carson bred world-class race horses, but he flashed his money too often and was known to be a snob. Because he didn’t allow his daughter to date, and Rebecca hardly spoke to anyone, most people thought she was stuck-up. Chris knew from secretly watching her for years that it was shyness that kept her aloof.
After graduation Chris hadn’t seen much of Rebecca, and when Big Bill had remarried he’d heard she’d stopped coming to town altogether. People gossiped that it was because she was sickly, but Chris firmly believed her overbearing, controlling father was keeping her locked up in his fancy mansion. Every time he’d tried to call Rebecca, the old man had told him she couldn’t come to the phone.
“Morning, Chris.” Lyle’s son Jimmy came out of the feed store with a handcart loade
d with heavy grain sacks, and pushed them to the snow-crusted curb. “Hey, did you hear about Old Man Carson?”
Chris picked up a hundred-pound sack and toss it into the back so hard the truck rocked. “No, what’s he bought now?”
“The farm, man.” Jimmy grimaced. “Last weekend he got trampled to death. They just had the funeral yesterday.”
“Trampled?” As Chris began loading more sacks he tried to wrap his head around that. He’d never liked Rebecca’s father, but as an experienced breeder the man probably knew more about horses than Chris did. “How’d that happen?”
“No one knows for sure. They found him dead in a stall with Whiplash.” The boy shook his head and huddled deeper in his jacket as a cold breeze wafted around them. “Man, you couldn’t pay me to get within a mile of that crazy stallion.”
“Shame.” Chris looked down Main Street, which led directly to the hill where Big Bill Carson had built his mansion to overlook the town. “Maybe I’ll stop in and pay my respects to the family.”
“You might want to hold off,” Jimmy said. “My ma said they’re packing up his daughter to send her to the loony bin.”
Chris’s chest knotted. “What? Why?”
“Her stepmother, Holly? Told Ma that Becca’s all messed up in the head.” The younger man shook his head sadly. “Guess she couldn’t handle losing her dad like that.”
#
Rebecca Carson sat on her lumpy bed and stared at the Bible in her hands. She’d stayed in her room since her father’s funeral, and everyone thought she was too devastated to speak to the visitors who came by to express their condolences.
She couldn’t feel anything but afraid for her life.
For two years Becca had kept silent about the abuse she’d suffered so she could prepare for her escape. She’d squirreled away every penny of her meager allowance, and kept a hidden bag packed with clothes and provisions. She’d even figured out how to get away without being seen or missed immediately. All she had to do was go up in the attic through the access panel in her closet, crawl to the window that had never been fitted with an alarm sensor, and wait there until one of the local merchants’ trucks parked beneath it. She’d even gotten the rope she’d need to lower herself down to the truck.