by Leigh, Lora
By all accounts and research, Sheila Rutledge was a good girl.
Her heart had been broken once by Ross Mason, a young man who had used her to further his own ends. He had, at a very vulnerable time in her life, used her to get to her father and to gain an important government position within the financial sector.
The knowledge of Ross Mason deception had caused Miss Rutledge to retreat behind a wall of frigid unconcern where men were involved. Until a man named Nick Casey had arrived in town five years before to work for Ethan Cooper at the Broken Bar.
Gossip, it appeared, had been focused on Miss Rutledge and her bouncer since the day she had met him.
And in the past nine or ten months, it had only become stronger.
Since the night Miss Rutledge had left the bar with her bouncer and spent the night at his apartment.
They were an item, despite the fact that it seemed the young miss was determined to hold on to the man whose past was shrouded in shadows.
Strange, the fact that Captain Rutledge seemed blissfully ignorant of the fact that Nick Casey wasn’t who he said he was.
Of course, Rutledge himself had a rather shady past as well. A man in his fifties and he’d never risen above captain? For all his connections and political friends, his rank should have been far higher. Which meant somewhere, in some way, Rutledge had compromised his position and his values.
Ahh, such tangled webs.
A sigh filled the pickup. Following Miss Rutledge, knowing the task ahead, weighed heavily on the shoulders.
It wouldn’t be easy, terrifying her, harming her. She was a gentle person, a kind person, and forcing her to pay the price for a past she had nothing to do with would be a haunting act. It would be a memory that would haunt not just the present, but the future as well.
Hands tightened on the steering wheel. The vehicle began to accelerate. No, harming her wouldn’t be easy, but what other choice was there?
Beau refused to make the call.
There was no gossip that his woman was in danger, Miss Rutledge had kept her suspicions to herself. No one else knew her home had been broken into. No one knew a vehicle followed her a little closer each night.
No one else knew about the phone message she had on her recorder.
Beau had no idea his lover had been targeted and had not yet made that all important phone call.
It was time to ensure that all knew Miss Rutledge had a stalker. One willing to kill her to achieve whatever ideal she represented.
The vehicle accelerated further, moving steadily closer to the small car ahead and the future Sheila Rutledge might well pay the ultimate price for.
TWELVE
Sheila watched in her rearview mirror as the headlights behind her accelerated at an unusual speed. They were moving faster, coming up on her at a speed that was rarely used on the back road that led to the exclusive estates outside Simsburg.
The mostly retired residents didn’t drive like bats out of hell. Like the vehicle behind her and the one that had ridden her ass for the past several trips to the bar. For some reason, she never failed to miss the driver who came up on her like an Indy Car driver and, after a few seconds, zipped around her as though she weren’t even there.
Tonight, though, it wasn’t zipping around her.
This time, it wasn’t a car but a monster four-by-four. The powerful sedan that had come up and gone around her at such high speed was absent. The chrome grill of the pickup filled her rearview mirror, the lights almost blinding as they speared into the back window.
And it wasn’t trying to pull around her.
Sheila slowed down, and the truck slowed.
She sped up, and the truck sped up.
She didn’t take any more chances.
With her heart in her throat, she hit the call button on the steering wheel.
“Casey.” She had to fight to steady her tone for the voice-recognition software that powered the automatic calling feature of the Bluetooth connection.
The sound of the phone’s ring was overly loud in the car as the truck’s motor revved behind her. And it came closer. Impossibly closer.
A second ring as her gaze jerked back to the rearview mirror.
“Sheila, you okay?” Casey’s voice came across the line, concern filling it.
Yeah, that was right, she never called anyone as she drove home. It was an agreement made when she first began carrying the flash drives from the bar to her father.
“I have a tail.” Her voice was trembling now. “A close one, Casey.”
The sound of the truck’s powerful motor giving a hard, dark growl behind her sent fear pumping through her system.
“Stay on the line,” he ordered. “Turk, Jake, Iron, and I are on our way. How far away are you, baby?”
She swallowed tightly at the threatening rumble of the vehicle behind her as it advanced, slowed, then advanced on her once more.
“I’m about fifteen minutes from home, Casey. I’m passing through Gator Bay now.”
Gator Bay was the locals’ nickname for the road she was on because of the increasing number of alligators seen on the road and along the edges of the swampy marsh further out.
“We’re coming after you, sweetheart—”
At that second, the sound of the engine behind her revving and the harsh, shocking impact of the truck’s grille on her bumper caused a shocked scream to escape her lips.
Her foot hit the gas harder as she fought to control the little car and edge away from the truck as it nearly rammed her again.
Casey barked out her name, the sound of loud voices and harsh orders being called out on his side of the connection echoing around her.
“Oh my God, Casey, he just hit me,” she cried out as she clenched the steering wheel and fought to get more speed out of the car. “I can’t outrun him, Casey. Oh God, I can’t outrun him.”
She was trying, but the car wasn’t built for speed. They were doing seventy down the little country road and Sheila could feel the tires’ grip on the road lessening with each curve she took at that speed. They threatened to skid, to throw her sideways; at one point, the back end almost fishtailed as she hit a particularly tight curve.
A curse exploded from her lips as the headlights behind her gained on her once again. A second later the impact of the truck’s grille on her already abused bumper had her cheek hitting the steering wheel as she nearly lost control once again.
Sheila screamed as the car was thrown forward, the tires screaming as she fought to control the vehicle, to employ the driving lessons Casey had given her when she had first taken the job as courier from the bar to her father’s office.
“Casey!” she cried out as the truck suddenly rammed the back of the car again. “Casey, I can’t stay ahead of him!” she screamed.
“By God you will!” he screamed back at her. “I didn’t spend those months teaching you to drive to let some asshole defeat you.”
Fear was a cold, hard lump in her throat as she pressed her foot harder to the gas, barely managing to keep from being rammed again as both car and truck tires squealed going around another curve.
The car was jerked sideways as the tires lost precious traction. Fighting the steering wheel, Sheila finally managed to straighten the vehicle when another hard nudge from the back nearly had her crashing into the guardrail protecting motorists from the deep, still waters that ran alongside the road in that area.
She could feel the terror lashing at her. There were alligators in that water. They’d been driven into the area after the last tropical storms had swept through. As though they were tired of playing in the Everglades and decided to come to Texas and play there instead.
And Sheila was terrified of them.
“Casey!” she gasped as she finally sped past that danger, only to have the next heavy nudge throw the car onto the wide graveled shoulder of the road before she managed to fight the car back onto the blacktop.
The headlights s
tayed behind her. No matter how hard she tried, how fast she went.
“I can’t take much more!” she screamed as the next nudge nearly jerked the steering wheel out of her hand. “Casey, where are you?” she cried out desperately.
“I’m coming, baby. We’re passing Gator Bay. I’m almost there.”
“Oh God.” She pressed the gas harder.
The truck was trying to come around her.
She was afraid of what that meant, terrified of allowing the huge vehicle to come around her. It had been years since Casey had taught her the defensive driving techniques, and then, they hadn’t had someone actually trying to knock them off the road.
“Casey, I can’t keep him behind me,” she said, feeling the tears, the terror threatening to choke her. “Oh God, Casey, I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand. Casey, I’m so sorry—”
“Sheila, don’t you dare let that bastard win.” Casey felt his guts clenching with pure, unimagined terror as he pushed the truck as hard as he dared, speeding around the curves at a speed he had never dared before as he raced to get to her.
Beside him, Turk grabbed hold of the handgrip above him and continued to report through the Bluetooth he wore to Cooper and the others behind them.
Casey and Turk had managed to tear out of the bar well ahead of the others when the call had come through.
He heard her scream again, then swore insanity was only seconds away as he heard the horrifying explosion of a weapon and Sheila’s agonized scream of his name as glass shattered around her.
“Fuck! Fuck! Sheila!” He was screaming her name as he pushed the truck harder, his foot landing heavily on the gas and sending the truck careening around the curves. He listened to Turk yelling out a report to Cooper as he jerked the Glock from the holster beneath the jacket he wore and checked the clip despite the wild ride Casey had him on.
“Sheila!” Casey screamed her name again as he heard an impact and the sound of what he knew was the driver’s side air bag inflating. “Sheila. Answer me, damn you. You will not leave me like this. I won’t let you.”
She wasn’t answering.
Casey felt such an insane rage overcoming him that he didn’t know if he could control it. God help whoever, whatever had struck out at her. If she was harmed, if anything had happened to her, the pain he would deal out to the culprit once he found him would be unimaginable. No mercy.
“I have her.” Mechanical, cold, the voice came over the line. “The past has come to collect, and the future no longer has a defense. I have taken her, and there is nothing you can do to stop me.”
Casey heard the weapon cock as he slid around the curve to see the vehicles in the small clearing off the road just ahead.
A black-garbed, shadowed form took off running as Casey raced for the location.
He let it run.
The truck sped away just as Casey swung into the clearing and came to a bone-jarring stop next to Sheila’s car.
He was aware of Turk sliding over and the truck racing off after Sheila’s attacker as he jumped out and ran to the car.
The driver’s side door was open and his woman, his life, was slumped over the air bag, blood smearing the inflated pillow as he searched desperately for a sign of movement.
“God no! Sheila. Baby.” He was terrified to touch her, fear unlike anything he had ever known in his life gripped him, took him by the throat and strangled the sanity from him as he reached in for her.
Terrified of what he might see, Casey gripped her shoulders and eased her back carefully.
She was breathing.
Tears, honest to God moisture that hadn’t touched his eyes in longer than he could remember, as her eyes slowly blinked open and he watched her take a shaky, confused breath.
“Casey.” The tears she held back slowly fell from her dazed, confused eyes as he lifted her from the car only to collapse to the ground beside it as he held her tight to his chest.
His head bent over hers as he shook, trembled, and felt the first rivulet of saltwater ease from one eye to her hair as he rocked her, held her, and let himself believe she was alive.
“No more games.” Ragged, torn, he whispered the words against her ear as he let his head lower further against her. “No more games, baby. I love you. I love you clear to my soul and beyond, Sheila. Oh God, baby.” His hands stroked over her, and he found himself terrified that feeling her alive and breathing against him was only a dream. “Sweet, sweet Sheila. How I love you.”
“What? Casey. What?” She forced him to pull back, to lift his head as she stared back at him blinking, her gaze confused, filled with disbelief. “Me?” She shook her head, clearly confused. “But why?”
He touched her face, desperate to feel her warmth, to feel her alive. “Why do I love you?” he laughed raggedly, cherishing her tears, her confusion, even her disbelief. Cherishing her and the fact that he could hold her, that she was in his arms where he intended to keep her. Safe, as he intended to ensure she stayed. “Because you make me warm in a place where I think I’ve been cold all my life, Sheila. Because the first day I saw you, I began to live. God help me, Sheila, because you’re my fucking life and I think I died listening to that bastard try to kill you.”
He framed her face with one hand, his thumb brushing over her tear-drenched lips as they parted in shock—and was that hope in her gaze?
“You love me?” Her hand gripped his wrist. “You love me?”
“With everything in my soul.”
Her lips trembled. The scratches on her face still seeped blood, tears still filled her eyes, and she was the most beautiful thing in the world to him.
“I’ve always loved you,” she whispered. “I thought I’d never see you again, Casey,” she suddenly sobbed. “I thought I’d never get to tell you I love you. That I didn’t understand until I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, that the only reason was because you loved me.” Her breathing hitched as his lips touched her. “I wanted to tell you, and then there was glass exploding around me.”
He laid his finger against her lips. The horror of hearing that gunshot would live in his nightmares the rest of his life.
“I have you,” he swore. “I have you, Sheila, and I’ll never let you go. That son of a bitch will never get the chance to touch you again.”
Because Casey was determined to kill him.
His lips touched hers. Tears, a hint of blood, and the overwhelming knowledge of love filled his senses as her lips parted for him, her hands moving to his neck, his hair, as her lips met his.
“I love you,” he swore again before he kissed her deeply, licked her, tasted her. He let the knowledge that she was alive seep inside him. Let the truth of it wrap around him.
Because Casey knew, he couldn’t have survived otherwise.
THIRTEEN
One week later
Ross Mason was led from his hotel room in Corpus Christi in handcuffs.
Once, years before, he might have been a handsome man, the man Sheila Rutledge had once believed she loved, though it was rather doubtful.
A weak chin, plain brown eyes, shaggy hair, and a plump midsection—it was hard to imagine he had ever drawn the gaze of a woman as lovely as Miss Rutledge.
Though, perhaps her once-deep shyness and the loss of her mother had caused her to look beyond the surface to that weakness beneath and unconsciously believe he would be the one who would not leave her, would not betray her.
That had nothing to do with looks. Betrayal came in all shapes, sizes, races, and creeds. Betrayal came when one least expected it, when one could be destroyed by it the most.
It was a lesson that only the strong survived.
Miss Rutledge had survived that lesson and lived to find a man who might or might not know honor. Who seemed to understand it, live by it.
There was no doubt now Nick Casey wasn’t Beauregard Fredrico.
Beau knew nothing of trust, honor, or t
rue love. He knew nothing of holding a woman tight or of risking his own life to save hers, as Nick Casey had done.
No, Nick was not Beau.
The call had not been made before Ross Mason had been revealed as the attempted murderer of the young and lovely Miss Rutledge. There had been no reinforcements called out, no waiting army of loyal men willing to give their lives for the one their fathers had pledged to defend. And those sons would readily pick up arms now and travel across the seas if it meant the heir to the past would return and retake the legacy that had been meant to be his.
The past was truly dead and gone, though. There was no way to convince those men that there was no way to resurrect that past, that glory, or that wealth.
Not that the Fredricos had understood the business anyway.
Giovanni Fredrico, once known as Gio the Giant, hadn’t ruled the families as he should have. There had been no blood shed for infractions, just as the whores had not been punished when they fell in love and defected, and the drug dealers had not been murdered, painfully, when they stole the product that was the lifeblood of the organization that had once ruled with a steel fist.
Once, before Giovanni had taken the mantle of leadership.
Once, before his son Beauregard had turned his nose up at the legacy that he had been honor bound to claim.
The bastard.
A fist clenched, jaw tightened, and the familiar rage began to burn like a wildfire within a chest that had been ripped open, the very heart extracted so long ago.
No, Nick Casey was no Beauregard.
That suspicion had been there before Sheila had left the bar the night Ross Mason had followed her.
It was the reason only Ross had been following at first.
Realizing there was trouble following Miss Rutledge hadn’t been easy. Diverting suspicion had been even harder.
Casey had nearly caught sight of the shadowed figure moving through the darkness to take the pictures needed.
The one of Ross Mason pointing that gun at the girl’s head just seconds after firing into the car and causing the wreck would be a haunting memory.