by Ciana Stone
“The hell you didn’t. I walked away from that deal with—”
“A sight more than you put into it and my woman,” Mr. Legacy said and looked at Herbert Pursell. “Thanks for your hospitality, Herbert, and the offer, but I’m going to have to pass.”
He turned his head and looked right at Wayne and the other boys. Something in his gaze made Wayne feel that Mr. Legacy had known they were there all along. “Logan, let’s go, son.”
“Yes, sir.” Logan cut Wayne and Wes an apologetic look. “Sorry.” Then he hurried to comply with his father’s order.
Wayne and Wes looked at one another, then at their fathers, who were watching them. From the look on his father’s face, Wayne was sure he was going to get his backside tanned. Normally that would have scared him, but at the moment he was too curious about what his father and Mr. Legacy had said.
What were they talking about and how could Wayne find out?
His thoughts snapped back to the present as the elevator stopped and the doors opened. She stood there holding a cocktail glass. He stepped out of the elevator, and she met him, putting the drink in his hand and rising up on tip toes to graze his lips with hers.
“Welcome home.”
How was it that she could wash the anger and frustration from him with two words and a kiss? He looked down at her, taking in her beauty and feeling that familiar longing. He wanted her. Wanted to make her formally his.
He’d asked too many times to count, but she always said no. She wouldn’t marry him. She wouldn’t start a war neither of them could win. But she would be his and she would love him.
That had to be enough. At least for now. But one day Wayne was going to marry her.
Even if she was a Legacy.
*****
Marcus Bannon nursed his beer as he listened to the drunk sitting on the next stool slur out his tale. He checked his phone to ensure it was still recording. One of his clients, Harris Garen, was going to want to hear this. It sounded like a screwed up fantasy to Marcus, but he was smart enough to know that anything regarding the Legacy family was of interest to Garen, and if it panned out to be something useful, it would be of financial gain to Marcus.
“Gotta hit the head.” He rose from his stool. “Keep an eye on my drink?”
“You got it,” the drunk said.
Marcus made his way to the restroom but stopped outside the door and pulled out his phone. His call was answered on the fourth ring.
“What do you have for me?” Harris Garen asked.
Marcus gave Garen a quick recap of the story the drunk had told. There was a momentary silence before Garen responded. “Bring him to me.”
“Where?”
“The warehouse on 27th. I’ll be there by three.”
“I’ll have him there.”
Marcus pocketed his phone and returned to the bar. “Well, buddy I’ve had about as much of this fine establishment as I can stand.”
“You don’t want another?” the drunk asked.
“Not here. But if you wanna join, I’m going to head over to a bar in the city.”
“You buying?”
“You know it.”
“Count me in.” The drunk polished off his drink and tried to stand. Two attempts later, Marcus took the man’s arm, helped him outside and into the car.
Marcus closed the passenger door and walked around the car to get in behind the wheel. The drunk was already half asleep, mumbling incoherently. Marcus didn’t care. Better for the man to pass out. It made him easier to manage.
As he drove, he thought about what the man had said. He’d claimed this fantastic event had taken place thirty years ago. On a whim, James took out his phone to run a voice search online. “Multiple deaths of teenagers in Legacy, Texas circa 1987.”
He waited for the request to be processed. The electronic voice of the phone’s virtual assistant returned the search results. Marcus started at the top of the list and had the phone read each. The longer he listened, the more interested he became.
In the autumn of 1987, Joshua and Fuller Beaudreaux, along with Matthew and Michael Legendre and a teenage girl, Allison McDaniels, had been found dead in the forest five miles from the Legacy family’s spread. The Beaudreux and Legendre boys were related to the Legacy family, nephews from the mother’s side.
The exact nature of the teenagers’ deaths was reported to be an animal attack. There were several kids who had survived. Gil Spencer, Rusty Stills, Logan Legacy, and Micky Andrews.
Marcus cut a look over at his drunk companion. Could this be one of the kids who survived? And if so, what really happened that night?
Moreover, why did it matter to Harris Garen?
Chapter Two
Logan walked outside and stood on the stone patio that jutted out from the rear of the house to provide a view he considered to be one of the most beautiful on earth. Sixty-five thousand acres of land belonged to Legacy Ranch. The Legacy family’s business was diverse with interests in cattle, horses, sorghum, soybeans and marijuana for medical use.
That, however, was just their business “at home”, so to speak. Legacy Ltd. was a major player in the energy field and had interests in many hi-tech companies, along with natural gas, oil, windmill farms and solar energy technology. The family owned one of the most profitable companies in the world and as it was a private company, all of the stock belonged to the family.
Not just Logan’s immediate family, his parents, brothers, and sister, but his extended family, the Legacys, Beaudreauxes and Legendres. At last count, the family numbered nearly four hundred members by birth and far more by marriage.
Every child born who was of Legacy, Legendre or Beaudreaux blood was awarded stock in Legacy Trust, along with, a college fund and twenty-five thousand dollars they received the day they graduated college.
Logan smiled. He could think of no better investment for the future than ensuring every child of the family an education and money to start their adult lives, wherever that might be. Unlike some of his parents’ generation, he didn’t expect the younger generation to be content to settle down in the town of Legacy right off the bat.
He understood the need to get out, see the world and figure out where you fit in. If it ended up being in Legacy, so much the better. If not, then that didn’t diminish the familial bond. At least not in his book.
Thoughts of family and bond turned his mind to Sabine. His investigator had not been able to locate her, and not even the women of the Beaudreaux or Legendre clans claimed to know how to find her. Logan was certain it was Sabine who’d sent him the note.
A Judas wolf walks among you.
How like her to put it in that way. A Judas wolf was one that has been captured, fitted with a radio collar and then turned loose to lead hunters back to its pack. Once the wolf’s pack was found, aerial gunners would fly in to slaughter all but the Judas wolf. It was left alive in hopes it would join another pack for the killers to slaughter.
It unsettled him in a big way to contemplate how they were being betrayed and the danger it posed to the family. Logan took a seat and started out over the landscape. To the west lay the town of Legacy, founded by his grandfather. It was a thriving township, and the ranch one where people from various branches of the family were constantly coming and going.
If they had a Judas wolf among them, it had to be someone who had particular knowledge of something an enemy to the family wanted.
Or an enemy to the Kindred.
That thought had discomfort starting a steady climb up his back, leaving muscles tense in its wake.
The thought also, unfortunately, sent him careening back in time to the last time he’d seen Sabine.
Logan was starting to regret his decision to attend the New Year’s Eve celebration. His entire family had traveled to Lafayette, Louisiana to the estate of his paternal grandmother, Clarissa Maria Legendre Beaudreaux.
Most of his mother’s family was there, from both the Beaudreaux side and the Legendre. He esti
mated there to be well over two hundred people filling the massive old mansion and its grounds. Music played, drinks flowed, people danced and talked and laughed. It was a grand time.
Except for him. These sorts of gatherings bored him. The endless small talk made him irritable and being around this many people felt like all of the oxygen was being sucked up. He needed to be outside, away from the crowd.
Logan might be running the family business, but he did that primarily from his home in Texas. He still worked the ranch as much as possible and given the chance between working with a new horse and attending a dinner party, he’d take the horse any day of the week.
His mother speculated that his antisocial attitude was why he was single again in his mid-forties. What woman wanted a man who never wanted to do anything or go anywhere?
Maybe she was right. He had just divorced wife number two, so his batting average at marriage was pretty damn bad. Or maybe he just kept marrying the wrong women. He shoved the thought aside, grabbed a longneck beer from tub of ice and headed out across the vast lawn. When he reached the fence, he walked alongside it until he found the gate and let himself out.
The land was not manicured on the other side of the fence, but it was beautiful. Old oaks spread their branches, patches of grass competed with deep thick moss that flourished in the damp shadows at the base of the ancient oaks.
Moonlight slanted in silver shafts through the branches of the trees, dappling the ground. Fireflies danced in the darkness, and bugs floated in the light while crickets and frogs provided a symphony of their own.
Logan felt the tension leaving him as he stood there, soaking up the peace. He blinked and then squinted at movement in the distance. On feet long trained to be silent, he started forward, keeping to the shadows.
The closer he got to the spot where he thought he’d seen movement, the more he could hear it. A woman. Humming softly.
What would a woman be doing out here alone at night?
He continued in the direction of the voice, ducking beneath a low branch. Then he saw her. Standing with her skirt gathered up in her hands, her feet in the water of the lake. Her face was turned up to the sky.
Logan walked up behind her, sticking to dry land. She continued to hum for a moment, then turned and smiled at him.
She was gorgeous. Dark hair cascaded in a riot of waves, strands lifting in the breeze like silk tendrils, caressing her bare arms. The dress she wore clung to her slender frame, presenting a picture of subtle sensuality and supreme femininity.
It was, however, her eyes that were so arresting. Like lilacs in spring, rimmed with long dark lashes beneath thick, elegantly arched brows, her eyes dominated a face that a man would not be likely to soon forget. Eyes of a color he’d seen only one other time in his life.
“Logan James. It’s been a long time.”
It couldn’t be. She’d disappeared from his life when he was fifteen years old. “Sabine?”
“You seem surprised.”
“Shouldn’t I be? I haven’t seen you since you were seven. Since – well, you know.”
“Yes. I know. Since I went away.”
“Without saying goodbye.” He knew it was petty. Twenty years had passed since that night—a night when they were both kids. How could he hold it against her that she left? She had, after all, saved him.
“I couldn’t say goodbye to you, Logan James. I loved you. I’ve loved you my entire life. How could I say those words when the one thing on earth I didn’t want was to leave you.”
“You were a child. What could you know about love?”
Sabine’s smile seemed sad. She reached up to steer tendrils of hair from her face, her movements so graceful it seemed like part of a dance. Despite his disbelief and that old resentment that she’d disappeared, he found himself mesmerized by her.
“I knew that as long as I could remember, whenever I was afraid, you were there to make me feel safe. Whenever someone cast hurtful words at me, called me a bastard or Cajun trash, you were there to defend me, to make me feel that I belonged.”
Sabine made no move to brush the tears that tracked her cheeks. She seemed unembarrassed by her emotion, unashamed at the way her soft voice cracked and choked as she continued. “I know that you were the one who stood between me and the wrath of your father, who did not want me there. I know that you covered for me on that night. I knew all that Logan James, so how could I not love you? The sun rose and set on your shoulder. You were my world, and when they exiled me, my world was destroyed.”
Logan blinked, hating the way his eyes filled and his chest hurt with suppressed emotion. He heard the truth of her words. Hell, he’d always known it. Sabine had worshiped him as a child and he’d not only taken it for granted, but he’d blamed her for leaving when it was never her choice. He’d never once stopped to think what effect that decision might have had on her.
Before he realized it, he was in motion. Three steps and his feet splashed into the water, soaking the hem of her dress. One more step and his hands were gripping her upper arms. “I’m sorry, Sabine. I didn’t know they would send you away. When I found out, I tried to find you. I’ve tried so many times, but it was like you’d just vanished.”
She smiled and lifted one hand to the side of his face. “I did.”
“Where did you go?”
She shrugged. “Wherever they sent me.”
“Doing what?”
“Surving. Learning.”
“About…” Logan still couldn’t put it to words. He never had.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And the Kindred are stronger for it.”
“And you? Have you been happy, Sabine?”
“Sometimes the best we can hope for is to be safe, Logan James.”
“Will you ever call me anything but my full name?”
She laughed softly. “Perhaps.”
“You’re beautiful, Sabine. I often wondered.”
“Thank you. You are exactly as I dreamed.”
Logan suddenly felt ill at ease. He was becoming far too aware of her beauty and sensuality. He released his grip on her arms and stepped back. “Would you like to return to the party?”
“No.” She followed, stepping out of the water. “I’m not in a party mood.”
“Then can I give you a lift somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, sure. Where?”
“Where are you staying?”
That rendered him completely speechless. “Uh – at the main house.”
She held out her hand to him. “Then why don’t you come with me? I’m staying in the guest house.”
Logan hesitated, unsure what the invitation meant. “What exactly are you inviting me to do?”
“You know.” She closed the distance between them, draped her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe. “I’ve waited my whole life for you, Logan James.”
When she kissed him, he jerked back and stared at her in shock. “Sabine—”
“Shhh. Kiss me.”
The request seemed incestuous. He’d changed her diapers as a baby, for god’s sake.
“I’m not a child anymore.” Her whisper was the call of a siren, her eyes drawing him in like the magic from a sorcerer’s spell.
“I— ah…damn.” He couldn’t refuse. Didn’t want to.
He gathered her into his arms and claimed her lips. Time fell away; the world stopped spinning, and nothing existed other than the two of them. He felt her desire in the tension of her body, tasted it on her lips, and it obliterated everything but his need.
A thought flitted through his mind that this was wrong. He should stop. But stopping wasn’t in his power. She’d roused something inside him he hadn’t known existed, and now that it had been awakened, he’d never be the same.
No, he wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t even if he wanted to. He didn’t know where the certainty came from, but he knew beyond all doubt that his entire life had been leading to this moment.
<
br /> Sabine gently guided his hands to her face, then moved hers to the buttons of his shirt, nimbly unfastening each. When she parted his shirt and pressed her hands against his chest, his entire body flushed with heat. Her fingers fanned out and curled briefly into his flesh before relaxing.
Logan held her mouth prisoner to the kiss, feeling a trail of heat as her hands moved over his chest. Her fingers traced the tattoo on the left side of his chest, and he could have sworn he felt an electric tingle from the touch.
Sabine broke free from the kiss, her hands moved down his torso and then to his sides before they tightened on him. He looked down into her eyes and his breath caught in his throat.
Could this be the child he knew, grown into a woman whose beauty took his breath away?
“Come home with me or have me now, Logan James, but have me this night. I’ve waited my whole life for this.”
It was not an invitation he would turn down. Hell, he couldn’t. He was mesmerized, intoxicated. His answer was to reach for the straps of her dress and lower them over her shoulders.
She worked her arms free, and the dress slid down the length of her body to puddle around her feet.
Logan’s gaze followed the fall of the dress, taking in the swell of breasts topped with nipples that tightened in the night air, a torso, long and lean that flared out into the curve of her hips. Her legs were long and well muscled; her form one of grace but strength.
When his gaze returned to her face, he found her watching. She reached for the buckle of his pants, making short order of loosening it and his pants. Sabine put her hand on his chest and walked him backward, away from the lake shore.
She stopped beneath an old oak and turned her attention back to his slacks. Logan felt the whisper of air against him as she worked his pants down. Sabine placed her hands behind his head, guiding his mouth to hers as she lifted one leg and wrapped it around his waist.
Logan didn’t need more invitation than that. Cradling her ass in his hands, he lifted her. She reached between them to take hold of him, rubbing the head of his erection against her wet sex.