Serial Killer Eyes 3 E-Book

Gayle Lynn

• Herausgeber: BooxAi
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

What evil lies in the Black Hills?
After the latest disappearance of a policeman and his girlfriend, the local sheriff goes into high gear. Santee is called upon to help with the tracking of the kidnapper.

Leseprobe

Serial Killer Eyes 3

Vengeance

Gayle Lynn

Gayle Lynn

Serial Killer Eyes 3

Vengeance

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2022 by Gayle Lynn

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Published by BooxAi

ISBN: 978-965-578-048-2

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respected holders.

This story is meant only for adults. It contains adult language, sexual situations, and possibly disturbing scenes, including flashbacks of child physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, which may cause or trigger disturbing reactions.

This book, though it takes place in the Black Hills of South Dakota is not meant to be a Black Hills travel guide. Nor is it a ‘how to’ ranch guide. Artistic license was heavily used in the topography, location, creation of towns, ranch settings, terrain, and how a ranch is operated. If an event or a place was needed for the story such a situation was knowingly invented.

I hope the residents of the beautiful area of the Black Hills will forgive me for playing fast and loose with their world. And I hope the ranchers out there, who have all my respect for an arduous, thankless job that only true lovers of the land and ranching would continue to deal with year after year, will forgive me for all the things I got wrong…some of it knowingly and probably much unknowingly.

Thank you readers. I sincerely hope you come to love Santee, Ruarke, and their adventures as much as I do.

Gayle Lynn

Chapter1

Dead Silence. Before just a ‘yuh right’ concept, but now a reality. Around the massive dining room table, which was actually three large tables put together to seat the entire Sinclair clan, sat eight barely breathing adults and seven teens. The younger children had already been in bed when Dakota and Cheyenne, hauling their most treasured belongings, knocked on the door looking for their sister, Santee Smith. Each breath taken seemed to suck the walls inward and each exhalation bulged them back into place.

Santee’s icy hands had already cooled the mug of honest-to-goodness hot chocolate, made with fresh Sinclair-cow-produced milk and Hershey’s syrup. The marshmallow topping crinkled as it congealed. A total shame because she loved real hot chocolate.

The Sinclair clan’s progenitors, Robert and Regina (Sir Rob and Mrs. Reggie), usually sat at opposite ends, but now they huddled together, eyes mirroring their concern. Their son, Ruarke, Santee’s faux fiancé, former GQ cover—Sexiest man, Gold glove winner, and World Series and American League MVP, sat across from her making her desperate to disappear into a shell like a scared turtle. Beside Ruarke sat Joe, former Ranger now head of security; Pete, former Ranger now bodyguard and pilot; Rosarita, Pete’s flamboyantly beautiful wife, mother of Pete Jr. and Sophia and head of household management; and Ahmed, tasked with her safety by the man whose wife had kidnapped Santee and gifted her to the jaded Arab. Beside Santee was Bobby John, former football lineman, her best friend, and new partner in a ranching endeavor.

The wide-eyed teenagers, who maybe should have been sent to bed; Ruarke’s fourteen-year-old twins Shaynee and Shawnee, tall like their father and blonde and blossoming like their mother; Jamie, the son of Ruarke’s second wife’s husband; Deacon, a local juvenile delinquent-wanna-be who’d ended up on their doorstep beaten by his father and soaked in an ice storm; Hannah, a local girl whose parents couldn’t be bothered and whose brother was taking bets from his buddies on who would be the first to ‘pop her cherry’.

And then there were the two girls, one on either side of Santee; her supposed sisters, Dakota and Cheyenne, blonde and blue-eyed so totally opposite of Santee’s raven hair and pale as glacier-ice eyes.

They had seemed familiar when Santee had confronted them earlier in the family room. But wasn’t one blue-eyed blonde teen very much like another? And what was in the water producing all these blue-eyed blondes? If it weren’t for the tattoos, Santee could have dismissed their claim, but the 7 ☆ and 8 ☆ on their respective shoulder blades were too coincidental to her own 4 ★★★☆.

Santee felt like a tire with a slow leak. And the nagging discomfort in her stitched back was making her head pound.

She looked at the older girl, Dakota, and for just a second; superimposed over the long blonde hair was a slightly wavy mass of raven locks, over her gentle blue orbs were a pair of cobalt ‘back off or else’ eyes, over the soft planes of her face, were sharp cheekbones, a strong ‘never back down’ jaw, and a lifted ‘don’t fuck with me sucker’ chin…all in a face that, though much younger, could have been looking back at her from a mirror. Then it vanished as if it had never been.

Santee shook the vestiges away and cleared her throat. “You need to go back home.”

“Home?” Dakota, the spokesperson, said. “After what they did to you? What HE did to me…to you and me? We won’t.”

Santee stiffened. “You have no idea what—“

“I know everything.”

“You can’t.” Her heart shrunk at the mere thought of Dakota remembering. “You were two. No one has memories that far back.”

“I was having terrible nightmares,” Dakota said with Cheyenne nodding corroboration. “SHE wouldn’t do anything, so I finally went to a teen suicide prevention—“

Santee jerked around toward her.

Dakota held up her hand. “I’m not suicidal, but I hoped they would hook me up with someone who could help me. But the cause was so buried and so far back that nothing worked until…”

“Dr. Ruth hypnotized her,“ Cheyenne said. “And it all came out.”

Santee snorted to cover the horror that the kid might actually remember. “And put a bunch of false memories into your head.”

Dakota’s golden ponytail swung with a firm shake of her head. “I remember you at age six or eight and your name was 4, a number, not a name.”

Santee hadn’t known she’d had a real name until the legal proceedings hit the fan after she’d killed HIM.

“I know that you were the only mother that I ever had. You bathed me, fed me, changed me, and cuddled me. And tried so desperately to keep me from crying. And when I wouldn’t be quiet, HE punished you, not me.”

There had been a choice. HE either punished a baby for crying as babies did. Or HE punished the one who couldn’t keep the brat silent. Santee knew what punishments involved. There’d really been no choice at all.

“I know,” Dakota continued, “you came back, barely able to walk with blood flowing down your legs or out your behind after those punishments.”

A heavy wooden chair slammed to the floor accompanied by horrified gasps. Ruarke kicked the chair away, his normally gentle blue eyes burning with murderous rage. Hands fisted at his sides as he stalked the length of the room and back and forth and back…

“I know that you tried so hard to potty train me at an impossibly young age because if I messed my panties, HE’d wrap your ponytail in his fist and shove your face into the mess and make you lick me clean.”

Santee had almost managed to forget that. The cloying stench that clogged her sinuses and the taste…her tongue worked against it even now.

“I remember the day it happened…my second birthday.”

“Dakota. Don’t.” Sunny, Santee’s dog who made it her mission to assuage all of Santee’s stress, shoved her head onto Santee’s lap, and when that failed to help, she hopped her front end onto Santee’s lap and laid her fire-damaged head against Santee’s chest; Sunny’s one remaining eye so gentle, and empathetic and worried.

“It was a great day. We had a party with cake and ice cream. But you didn’t eat much. You kept watching HIM. Silently begging HIM, but HE was laughing, holding me on HIS lap, and smiling right at you even though HE was playing with me.”

Santee felt electrified. Her hands vibrated, as she pressed them hard to the wooden tabletop.

“When HE carried me off, you followed. “Please don’t. I’ll do anything!” Over and over you begged HIM. Until we went into the den and HE slammed the door behind the three of us. No one else even tried to intercede, not HER and not one of our four other sisters. HE laughed so loudly when HE made you bark like a dog. Crow like a rooster. Slither across the floor on your belly like a snake. And even lick HIS boots.”

And she’d have done, even more, anything if only—

“Then, still laughing, HE kicked you in the chest and continued to kick you until you were outside of the door and closed it behind you.”

Santee barely remembered the pain of the broken ribs. She'd banged on the door, begging and crying as her baby screamed, “Four! Four! Four!” over and over. And then the ultimate shriek of agony.

“HE- HE laughed the whole time,” Dakota said her voice breaking. “I thought I was being ripped apart. And still, I screamed, ‘Four! Four!’”

“And then, just like a miracle, the door burst open and you walked in and closed the door behind you. With a shotgun almost as long as you were tall in your hands, you faced HIM.”

“A double barrel shotgun.”

“HE laughed and said, ‘I didn’t think my little mouse had the guts.’ HE dangled me by one arm.“ Dakota rubbed her left shoulder as if that arm still ached. “HE whipped me across the room where I hit the wall and plopped on the floor.”

“Give me that, little mouse,” HE said as HE tromped toward you, “before you hurt someone.”

“I saw you raise that shotgun, stagger at its weight before leveling it at HIM. And still, HE just kept smiling and slowly advancing.”

Santee’s right forefinger flexed at the phantom memory. She’d been slammed backward into the doorjamb by the recoil of both barrels.

HIS smile froze as HE looked down at the massive crater where HIS chest had been. “You little cunt!” He touched the gore as HIS knees buckled. Blood spouted as HE coughed. “Trouble from day one, but—“ Hack. Hack. The floor trembled as HE landed. “Had to show—“ Hack! Hack! “Don’t fuck with—“ HE face planted and was motionless.

Behind her, the door shoved open, shoving her out of the way.

“Nooooo!” SHE scream-moaned as SHE raced to HIM and gathered the limp, bloody body into HER arms. HER eyes blazed murder as the other four girls edged into the room. “You BITCH!” SHE scrambled to HER feet and descended on you. Kicking and screaming, and soon, the other sisters joined in.

Dakota continued, “We’ve got your medical records. It’s a miracle you survived.”

Cheyenne said, “Left arm broken in two places, both legs broken, one at the femur. Ribs broken on both sides. Cracked vertebrae. Lungs, spleen, liver, and kidney contusions. Broken jaw. Cheekbones. Nose. And a skull fracture that had to be bored out to relieve the pressure.”

No wonder she had a few screws loose, Santee thought.

“And none of our beloved sisters testified in your defense.”

Mrs. Reggie said, “There would have been physical evidence.”

Santee shrugged. “Apparently, I was very sexually precocious. Constantly shoving stuff up me…broom handles, hair brushes. Stuff like that.”

“Goddamn it!” Ruarke growled. His fists shook impotently. If the son of a bitch weren’t already dead—!

“So why did you supposedly break that day?” Bobby John asked.

“Jealousy,” Santee said. “Apparently, I’d always been his favorite, but that day he’d been overly attentive to the birthday girl.”

Sir Rob said, “You were only eight. Did they try you as an adult?”

Dakota answered, “No. But the strangest thing happened while the proceedings awaited Santee’s healing. The judge’s wife died in a mysterious car accident. Four months later our beloved mother married him, and when his grown children raised a fuss, strange things happened to them; one of their dogs was butchered and left on the front lawn, and one of their children was snatched from the yard and later found wandering beside the road miles from home, their houses were vandalized, insinuations of pedophilia and sexual perversion were painted on garage doors, all three had their homes broken into, burglarized, and trashed. They quit objecting real fast after that.”

Cheyenne said, “We suspect SHE was commiserating with him…one lonely widow to another…long before the trial.”

“Son of a bitch,” Bobby John snarled.

“So you went to prison,” Joe stated between clenched teeth.

“Juvie prison,” Santee said.

Even there she’d been targeted; by the older ‘girls’ and by the predominately male guards. She’d fought the girls, losing a lot of battles, until she got bigger and stronger. Spending a lot of time in ‘solitary’ was actually a relief, giving her a vacation from constantly watching her back. There’d only been the guards to deal with in solitary…when they came visiting, but she could just ‘go away’ until they were done and gone. Not so different from life at home.

“As soon as we could,” Dakota said, “we began filtering money out of the old man’s accounts. We found an eager beaver young lawyer to take on your appeals financed by the man who put you there in the first place.”

Cheyenne said, “When we knew you were getting out, we got you a South Dakota driver’s license, credit cards, a bank account, and a saving account, paying off the credit cards from that account and topping off the account from him every month.”

“We found the truck camper and trailer online. It seemed perfect because we didn’t think you’d want to live around other people. This way you could move around and have your own house.”

“I don’t think I want to know how you managed all those highly illegal maneuvers.”

“Probably not,” they agreed with big grins.

“And you found me by—?”

“Tracking the credit card charges.”

“You tracked me here. To these nice people, whose only mistake was taking me in. And now you’ve put a huge target on them.”

Cheyenne and Dakota’s eyes widened as they looked at each other. “We found you by—“

Santee shoved to her feet. “I know how you found me. And they’ll be right behind.”

Both shook their heads. “We were very careful. And they don’t have access to—“

Santee loomed over them, making them cringe together. “You think they’re just going to say ‘good riddance’ and forget about it? Think again, little sisters. They’ll turn over every rock, look under every boulder till they find us. And then all hell’ll break loose.”

“What would you expect them to do?” Joe asked. “I know some guys who’d give their left ah-pinkie to come out here to the quiet, empty countryside and do protection duties. The government had no more use for and cut them loose…many unemployable by normal standards.”

“To get at me, they would kill anything and anyone. They’d shoot the cattle and horses, poison waterholes, and burn the hay piles. But the best would be to wait for a good wind and start a wildfire that’d sweep down on the ranch and level it…buildings, animals, and people.”

Joe looked at Pete and nodded.

“But you won’t have to worry too much because we won’t be here.”

Dakota and Cheyenne looked up expectantly.

“I will lay a trail that a blind man could see and lead them away.”

“Dakota and Cheyenne are going to go back.”

Chapter2

“What?” the girls cried. “No way!”

“You have to. It’s the only way. We can’t have a huge neon banner blinking over this ranch screaming, ‘We’re here! Come get us!’”

“You’re not sacrificing yourselves for us,” Ruarke growled.

“They’re psychopaths,” Santee said. “They have no empathy…no conscience. HE brutalized that out of us way way early on.”

“Not you,” Dakota said.

“You saved us,” Cheyenne said. “Or HE’d have done to me the same thing HE did to Dakota.”

A bitter smile contorted Santee’s face. “Ah, little sisters, you don’t understand. I’m as bad as they are.”

“No, you’re not!” They tried to throw their arms around her, but Santee fended them off.

“Let me tell you about this person you’ve bestowed sainthood on,” Santee sneered. “I knew HE had plans the minute He gave you to me, Dakota. You see, HE was constantly giving me puppies or kitties to play with and love. It might be two days later or two weeks or two months, but I’d always do something wrong and HE’d wring their innocent little necks and put their still quivering bodies in my hands and say, ‘See what you made me do. If you were a good little girl, I wouldn’t have to do such terrible things!’ I tried not to fall for HIS gifts, but I was such a sucker. I learned to remain stoic as their little bodies stiffened in my hands.” Her lips twitched at the memory. “HE was not pleased.”

“That day, your birthday, I knew.”

“You tried to save me,” Dakota cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I remember.”

Santee nodded. “I also tried…other things. And, while He enjoyed my efforts, it didn’t alter HIS plans one little bit.”

“You were a child,” Mrs. Reggie said. “You couldn’t—“

Santee winced as if a stiletto rammed from one temple through her eyes to the other temple. Bright red and blue squirmy worms wriggled in her vision. Her hands were planted on either side of her head in an effort to hold her skull together.

“I knew,” Santee ground out between clenched teeth. “If I hadn’t been such a gutless wonder…. If I’d acted sooner…”

“But, oh no,” she sneered. “I let HIM rape my baby sister before I got up the gumption to do something.”

“But that’s not going to happen again. I won’t be…”. Her heart wanted to say that she wouldn’t let the comfort, peace, safety, love, and home that she felt here to divert her. Not this time. “I’ll leave—“

“Not for a week,” Mrs. Reggie said. Santee stiffened, ready to flare up at the older woman.

“Unless you intend to go to a clinic and have someone else take those stitches out. You either stay here and let me poke around in your back, or you let some stranger.” Mrs. Reggie looked innocently at Santee.

The room was silent as Santee and Mrs. Reggie silently dueled. Then Santee’s lips twitched and her eyes sparkled. She gave Mrs. Reggie a knowing look which made her blush. Santee shook her head and said, “Well played, Mrs. Reggie.” Suddenly Santee felt fully deflated. It was going to be a long haul to get out to the camper. “One week. Then we’ve got to be gone.”

Joe slapped Pete’s shoulder and gave Ahmed a jerk of the head as the three of them headed out.

Santee looked to the shell-shocked S-twins, Shaynee and Shawnee asked, “Can Dakota sleep in your room?"

They nodded and motioned her to come.

“Hannah, Cheyenne is your age, but you’ve already got Ariel and Lexi—“

“It’s fine.”

“Or-“

“No, no. There’s plenty of room.”

Santee sensed something but the beating of the jungle drums in her head made thinking nearly impossible.

Bobby John stood up and wrapped his tree-trunk arms gently around her. “It’ll all work out,” he said.

Santee nodded. “Once we’re gone-“

Bobby John placed a finger over her lips to silence her. He pressed his lips to her forehead and silently vowed that things were not going to be resolved her way. Not if he had anything to say about it.

Santee turned to Ruarke’s father—her horse-training business partner and the father she wished she had. “I’m sorry. I never meant-“

“I know that, child.” He moved in to hug her. The comforting odors of horse and leather filled her corpuscles though she cringed at the bodily contact. “A lot can happen in a week.”

Santee nodded, damnably close to tears which wouldn’t do. Not at all. She knew nothing would change. THEY would still be coming. And she had to be strong enough to break free of the delicate, but oh so strong, ties to this place and these people. At one time she’d been good going solo. Now, that alone life seemed like a vast, lonely, daunting wasteland.

Ruarke held his arm out indicating his suite. It would be so easy to go with him despite the fact that he’d acted the epitome of a male chauvinistic ass. And she was still steamed at him.

They weren’t lovers, but they’d come close only to be broken apart at the penultimate moment by circumstances, every time. They didn’t sleep together because she couldn’t stand to be in bed with a man, instead opting to sleep in his huge shower with all the bathroom lights on, keeping the nasties away.

She had a gigantic amethyst and diamond ring on a chain around her neck, but they weren’t actually engaged.

She wasn’t his type; too tall, too shapeless, too boobless, and as ‘not blond’ as a person could be. He tried. Like any man, he was willing to nail anything that breathed, but she just wasn’t what he desired—evidenced by the leering looks he’d bestowed on the blonde floozy just the other day…precipitating their latest tiff.

Her dogs, Sunny, the abused golden retriever, Rufus, the extremely long-legged pit bull type, and JW, the Belgian Malinois, sat looking up at her. They would adjust to her decision. Each had a doggie bed in Ruarke’s room. It would take a while, but their affiliations would change over to him.

Ruarke usually tried to talk her into his bed. ‘Just until I go to sleep,’ he’d say. And it would be so warm and comfortable. And he’d smell so doggone good which surprised and terrified her that, after everything, she could stand…could desire… to be spooned by this man. But a break needed to be made. Now.

Santee shook her head and pushed past him and out into the night.

“Santee, please!”

She cringed inside at the plea but forced her feet to trudge on.

* * *

“Pete,” Ruarke said into the phone as he paced his room. “I need you to get Santee’s camper door unlocked for me.”

Pete’s heavy sigh carried over the air weaves. “No can do.”

“Peter,” Ruarke growled.

“First off, Ruarke, after Santee got through kicking my butt, I’d still have to face Rosarita, and I’d just as soon not be sleeping on the couch for the next year. And then there’s JW.”

Ruarke flinched at the thought of facing those tiger-like fangs and those shark-like eyes. “I can’t convince her to stay with me if I can’t get close to her.”

“Your mom bought you a week. I’ve seen you in action. I know you can do it.”

But the stakes had never been this high before. Over the course of his baseball career, he’d wined, dined, and bedded many women. None of whom he’d brought home to meet his family…his kids.

It had never bothered him on the rare occasions when he’d struck out, other than his ego. But this…if he failed this time, not only was his heart going to be blasted to smithereens, his kids and his parents—especially his dad—were going to be devastated.

* * *

Santee awoke face down on the converted dinette/bed, the warmth of her dogs and their even breathing soothing her.

The small camper was aromatic with the scent of roses. Two dozen red roses to be exact. The first flowers she’d ever received. It had been Ruarke’s attempt at an apology for ogling a buxom blonde, and it had almost worked. He’d gotten her naked and hot. Just remembering his tanned, muscular body, his hungry lips, his impatient rending of her chemise made her panties moist.

Santee groaned and sat up. Shaynee’s knock on the door last night had been fortuitous. Had they gone all the way, it would have made leaving that much harder.

But at least she’d have known a lover! Rape was the only thing she knew, first by HIM and then by the prison guards. It would have been nice—before she died—and with Ruarke Sinclair. He was way beyond her league, but he sure rocked her boat like a dang tsunami.

Santee paused to bury her face in the delicate rose blooms before heading to the tiny shower, secretly thankful that this wasn’t her last morning in this sanctuary. But then, at least the break would have been swift and clean. Now the next week was going to be a whole series of lasts; the last time she rode her horse, the last time she visited her dogs’ graves, the last time she saw the moon shine across the yard…

And a whole lot of extricating herself from people. The kids wouldn’t understand. Ruarke would feel like he had to convince her to stay, though he’d be relieved when she was gone, and he could go back to his blonde bimbos. Sir Rob would be stuck with a bunch of horses to train alone. Bobby John, her best and only friend, would miss her.

And Rogue. Her beautiful, abused, scarred stallion. How does one explain to an animal that she couldn’t take him?

And the dogs…her sanity. They’d have to stay, also. Her gut twisted as she looked at the three who watched her as she stepped into the tiny bathroom. When her beloved sisters caught up to her—and they would—Santee couldn’t let them butcher her animals, too.

* * *

JW sniffed at the door jamb, body stiff and tense. He looked over his shoulder at Santee, plainly saying that someone was outside.

Santee edged past the canines right hand on her holstered Ruger as she eased the door open. The sight of Ruarke, wrapped in a blanket and sound asleep as he sat beside the horse trailer, clenched her heart and prickled her eyes.

She removed her hand from the holster/pouch on her belt.

“You knew that was Ruarke there,” Santee scolded the big dog.

JW looked up at her with wide innocent eyes. Santee didn’t know why JW and Ruarke didn’t mesh. It had to be a ‘male’ thing, though Rufus and Ruarke got along fine.

They silently exited the camper and crept past the sleeping man. He looked so dang good. Santee wondered what his reaction would be if she kissed him awake. Her face burned as she pictured those sexy blue eyes opening. Those lips curved into a welcoming smile. Those big hands—

Santee jerked out of the delicious dream as JW slowly stalked Ruarke. She hissed and flapped her hand at the dog. JW looked at her and lifted his leg, and the steaming stream barely missed Ruarke’s foot. She would have sworn the dog was smiling as he sauntered off.

The mild summer morning was surprisingly crisp. Santee went back into the camper and grabbed a quilt. It smelled extremely doggy, she decided as she carefully tucked it around the man’s broad shoulders. For just a moment she allowed her hand to rest on that strong shoulder and then ever so lightly cup his bristly face. A strange rumble, almost like the protest of a hungry stomach, built in her chest as her mind memorized him.

He twitched, a slight sexy smile forming.

Santee jerked back and fled. She didn’t hear the sleepy mumble, ‘Santee?’.

* * *

Breakfast was the normal chaos. The younger kids easily accepted that Santee’s sisters had come for a visit. The adults were the quiet ones, making Santee regret promising to stay. She’d have been gone by now and the adjusting could have begun—hers included. She’d lost her solitary survivalist edge and without her dogs…. She didn’t want to even think about what it was going to be like, turning the truck out the driveway…all alone…for the last time.

And to again actively begin the search for a way to drastically shorten her life expectancy. Anything short of suicide—wuss that she was. Sunny and Rufus coming into her life had banked that burning desire for an end to the tormenting memories. The Sinclairs had fully squelched that need, or so she’d thought. But Santee could already feel the rekindling of that self-destructive flame.

“Rosarita, Joe, and I are taking the girls shopping,” Mrs. Reggie said. “Cheyenne and Dakota need just about everything.”

“That’s not necessary,” Santee protested.

“Did you want to take them?” At the ‘I’d rather have a root canal’ look, Mrs. Reggie snorted. “Thought so. Don’t expect us until after dinner.”

“Do all us girls have to go?” Lexie whined.

Ariel, the eldest, and Farah, the youngest of the three Arab girls, nodded. “We don’t need any clothes,” Ariel protested.

Mrs. Reggie chuckled. They were miniature versions of Santee, horse-crazy shopping loathers. Of course, if they needed riding clothes or the dogs or horses needed something, that would be entirely different. “No, you don’t have to go.” The three breathed sighs of relief.

Ruarke’s mother winced at the flash of memory of Santee’s abduction by the girls’ father’s first wife. The jaded prince had seen the internet video of Santee’s rescue of Rogue and that sparked interest had led the entitled woman to kidnap Santee and gift her to the prince. After the prince finally realized that Santee would never truly be his, he returned her to South Dakota and later brought his three horse-crazy daughters to Santee rather than marry the five-year-old, Farah, off and put Ariel and Alexandria, 12 and 8, into harems in order to strengthen alliances with men he despised but needed.

Santee had only been on the ranch a short time when that happened, yet her months-long disappearance had gutted Ruarke, making him a living, breathing zombie, barely eating enough to stay alive and forcing himself out of bed each morning after a sleepless night for the sake of the kids and in the hope that this would be the day they’d find Santee.

Her husband, Rob, had also been hamstrung. If she hadn’t been so sure in her marriage, Reggie could easily have been jealous of the instantaneous bond between the lovely and much younger woman and her husband. But Rob’s love was that of a father, not a philanderer. Rob was an excellent rancher, but his heart had always been in training horses. When their adopted daughter, Savannah, had vanished so had that dream. An unenthusiastic but singularly focused rancher had emerged. But Santee’s appearance had resparked the horsiness in Rob, resuscitating the man Reggie had fallen in love with.

What would happen to the two men in her life if Santee once more vanished from their lives? Already their shoulders carried a defeated slump and their eyes a sad hollowness.

Reggie had gotten them a week. Someway, somehow they had to come up with a solution that would allow Santee to remain.

Chapter3

“We need to talk.”

Santee looked down at the hand on her arm and raised her cold eyes to Ruarke’s heart-throb-blue ones. She twisted her arm free. “I can’t think of anything we need to talk about.”

She turned to head to the barn where Uncle Sol, the head stableman, had a horse saddled and waiting for her.

“You covered me up this morning.”

“So? I’d do the same for any dumb ass who spent a cold night outside for no good reason.”

“No good reason! Dam—“ at her glare Ruarke quickly changed it to “—dang it, Santee. Lord only knows where you could have gotten to overnight.”

Santee halted and turned on him, hands on slender hips. “So my promise to your mother that I’d stay the week was what…a lie?”

Ruarke had a good four inches on her six feet and upwards of one hundred pounds on her, yet he backpedaled when she advanced and jabbed a stiff finger into his sternum. “Of course not. But—“

She forced him backward another couple of steps. “But what, Mr. Ruarke Sinclair?”

“Dang it, Santee.” He grabbed her hand and enclosed it in both of his ‘oh so warm’ ones. “I’m going to have a bruise there.”

Her lips twitched as his heat hit her veins and started a direct course southward. Before it could hit anything, vital Santee shook free.

“Why don’t you go workout with your buddies Pete and Joe and let me get on to business?” Hard as it was to turn away from the pain in those liquid ocean-blue eyes, Santee marched off, ignoring the anguished ‘goddamnit!’ that sounded behind her.

Ahmed, her Arab protector, held out the reins of the young horse but refused to release them to her. He was still recovering from the catastrophic accident where his horse rolled over him, crushing his pelvis and femur or he’d want to intrude on her solitude by riding out with her. “You are making a mistake leaving here. They would protect you.”

Her baleful look made him fight a smile. This mere woman, an American at that, had saved his life when he’d been mortally injured, had shared her precious water during a ferocious sandstorm, seen to his baby-like needs, and would have stood between him and a hungry mountain lion armed with only a small knife. “They are many,” he said. “You are but one.”

Santee ran her hand down the strawberry roan’s neck. “Did you ever see the movie, Jurassic Park?”

“I believe I did.”

“Do you remember the velociraptors?”

“Those vicious smaller dinosaurs?”

Santee nodded. “Vicious. Smart. Cunning. Ruthless. Pack hunters. That will be my sisters. If they were to come here, they’d be of the shock and awe, scorch and burn mentality.” She pulled the rein from Ahmed’s hand and mounted, “I can’t…I won’t let that happen to these good people—just because they made the mistake of bringing a malediction like me into their gentle, loving family.”

She turned the horse away and trotted him out of the yard, leaving Ahmed and Ruarke to watch her graceful movements to the horse’s bouncy stride, her raven ponytail keeping rhythm.

“What the hell is ‘malediction’?” Ruarke demanded. “And how does someone who can’t read have a better vocabulary than me?”

Ahmed pensively watched until his princess—though he wasn’t allowed ‘per her directive’ to call her that —disappeared from sight. He turned to the man who, so obviously, to all but Santee, adored the princess. “I believe it may mean cursed or loathsome.”

“She can’t see herself like that.” Ruarke found her so refreshing, enlivening, aggravating, and even ‘testicles hiding-in-scrotum’ scary at times. But despicable or loathsome? Never.

“It would seem that she does,” Ahmed said. “And she is terrified of plaguing you and yours with her troubles.”

“Well, hell,” Ruarke breathed.

* * *

The next morning Santee looked mournfully at her beloved flowers. The blooms drooped, and petals scattered on the floor. The seductive scent had turned musty and old. Should have taken a picture, Santee thought as she pulled them out, pricking her finger and dropping them into the garbage.

She stuck her finger in her mouth, wincing at the familiar metallic taste. Then she froze.

“Well, nuts!” They were only flowers! No reason to get all mushy about their loss.

Sunny and Rufus looked at her from the dinette. JW pulled his nose from the door jamb.

Santee stomped into boots and clamored out the door before the dogs.

Ruarke lay where he had the previous night but this time zipped into a sleeping bag. Santee halted at what was across his lap. A rifle! Her heart thumped heavily. He’d spent the night guarding her door. Warmth gushed through her erasing the instinct to call him a “dumb ass”. He was a baseball player, for pity’s sake, not a bodyguard. He’d hired Pete and Joe because they had training in that respect. He didn’t. And yet—. Here he was.

He made her so mad and yet had the ability to make her all mushy inside and not just sexually.

She dropped to a knee and touched his shoulder. “Ruarke.”

He surged awake, hands trying to raise the rifle. He realized and smiled that killer smile, his azure gaze caressing her face. “Santee.” Her name was spoken as soft and gentle as his hands were on her breasts.

His hands reached for her, but she pulled back. Oh no, that couldn’t be allowed to happen.

“You need to get up off that cold, damp ground before that leg stiffens up like frozen turkey drumstick.”

“Always the romantic.”

She snorted but held her hand out to him, more than a little surprised that the big man so readily accepted a ‘girl’s’ assistance. His hand clasped her so warmly as she pulled him upright to stand tight before her. She tilted her head slightly to meet his gentle gaze. At 6’ she didn’t have to look up far to his 6’4” and meet his eyes.

“Thank you,” his deep voice rumbled straight through to her groin.

Santee forced herself to pull free and look away from his sexy hypnotic gaze. “You don’t need to guard my door,” she said as she backed away. “It’s not like I’m some virginal prize.” She spun away and jogged toward Rogue’s corral, where the stallion paced, nickering at her tardiness.

Ruarke chuckled, then sobered. The fact that that beautiful woman had such a poor sense of self-worth ripped at his guts. He watched as, still not allowed to lift a saddle because of the stitches, Santee quickly bridled Rogue and climbed the rail fence, where Rogue shifted himself close enough for her to slip onto his bare back. They trotted to the other side of the barn, swung Bandit, that damned Raschid’s horse’s, gate open, and released him.

The two stallions snapped at each other, a couple of studly squeals sounded, and tails flicked warningly, but they trotted side-by-side out of the yard. Leaving Ruarke slack-jawed by the ease with which she’d controlled the two testosterone-driven equines. And the alluring way her body swayed so wastefully atop a dang horse when Ruarke’d give about anything to have her do that atop him.

* * *

At noon Santee rode a trainee into the yard. A big Mercedes SUV was parked in front of the house. Her shoulders slumped. Uncle Sol, who, as far as she could figure out, was no one’s uncle, took the tired mare’s reins as Santee dismounted. Her almost pleading gaze made him shake his head.

Max, Ruarke’s friend, manager, and Bobby John’s hubby; Miri Adams, Ruarke’s bestie, mother of Maddie and Simon, and wife of Sam Adams, football wide receiver and soon-to-be psychologist, were back. Which, of course, was their right, Santee acknowledged as she kicked rocks out of her path on her way into the mandatory noon dinner, mandatory because Sir Rob knew that she would forego eating in order to take Rogue out again. Both Bobby John and Max and Sam and Miri had suites in the upstairs. This was their home though only Bobby John spent much time here. Their families had disowned them; Sam and Miri’s because they were a bi-racial couple and Max and Bobby John’s because they were homosexual.

Santee didn’t know Max that well. He, Ruarke, and Miri were like three peas in a pod. Santee, Bobby John, and Sam had bonded as the three extraneous members of the group.

Climbing the four steps to the porch was like the long climb to the gallows.

There was a motive to this visit. Maybe they’d heard about the impending trouble and had come to take Maddie and Simon back to Massachusetts with them. Normally, Miri was happy to let her kids be parented with their ‘cousins’, leaving her free to live the unencumbered life in Boston society, lapping up the accolades of Sam’s being one of the league’s top wide receivers. Or maybe Miri just didn’t want to have to deal with Maddie’s spoiled rich-girl ways.

Santee pushed into the room and was almost knocked backward by Maddie’s little-girl-shrill voice dominating the conversation.

The men arose and Sam came to her with open arms.

“What’s up?” Santee whispered as his long arms wrapped her tightly.

“Don’t know, but something sure is.”

By the time dinner was over and Santee could escape to the barn, her head throbbed. So many times she’d had to clench her fists and her teeth to prevent herself from taking the brat, Maddie, in hand. The girl had sat on Miri’s lap the entire meal, her voice and its ‘I’ this and ‘me’ that drowned out all other conversations.

And when Miri wasn’t giving in to Maddie’s demands for attention she was draped over Ruarke, hugging his arm to her luscious breasts as if they were lovers rather than just best friends…if that was all they were.

Sir Rob got up to go back to the horses and Santee rose to follow. She still didn’t have his instructions for the afternoon rides. But Ruarke stopped her.

“Wait, Santee. Miri has something to tell us.”

“Oh, let her go," Miri said with the graceful flap of a well-manicured, diamond-flashing hand. “This doesn’t concern her.”

Ruarke looked down at her. “If this concerns me, it concerns her.” He motioned for Santee to sit and then sat beside her opposite Miri and Sam. Miri’s eyes blazed hate at Santee.

“The kids are in the family room now, Maddie,” Santee commented.

“No,” she pouted and squeezed Miri’s neck to the point of strangulation.

Miri patted her daughter’s back. “She can stay.”

Maddie stuck her tongue out at Santee. In an instant, Santee was around the table, untangled Maddie’s arms, and hoisted her over Miri’s head. Only then did the surprise wear off enough for Maddie to unfreeze and kick and howl. Her sandaled toe nailed Miri in the jaw drawing a squawk of pain from both.

“Now you see here!” Miri launched out of the chair. “I’m her mother—“

Santee corralled both little arms with one long arm wrapped around the skinny body and the other arm around Maddie’s legs. All while being cursed at and avoiding being bitten.

“Then be her mother and take her back to Boston with you. If she stays here, she’s mine.”

Santee and Miri’s eyes battled as Maddie shrieked and bucked. Miri turned to her husband.

“She’s right, Miri,” Sam said.

She turned to Ruarke. “Surely—“

“I agree, Miri. You can’t have it both ways. Either we’re raising Maddie, or you take her and do it.”

Finally, she looked pleadingly at Reggie, who stood in the doorway between the living room and the family room. “I also agree,” Reggie said. “You can’t be gone for months and expect to play the parent card for two days, then vanish again, leaving us to get Maddie straightened out. Personally, I wish Santee had gotten fed up an hour earlier, so we might have enjoyed dinner and some good conversation.”

Tears streamed down Miri’s face. “Sam, surely you see— You can’t want our daughter raised by—“ Her watery eyes scraped down Santee and back up. “—someone who would manhandle our child.”

Bobby John snorted, then raised his hands palms outward. “Excuse me, but manhandling, when Ah was a kid, involved my daddy’s knee and a paddle, his belt, or the flat of his hand on my ass.”

Santee shivered as memories of sweltering, pitch black, breathless closets stole up. Days on end spent with no food, water, or bathroom. Where the only escape from the cesspool stench she’d created was the air wafting under the door. And many times HE’d stuff a towel along that opening to cut off any vestige of light and seal in the stench. When her sentence had been served, she’d still have to clean up the mess without the benefit of a bucket, water, or rags. Her tongue worked the inside of her mouth to rid her of the taste.

“Santee.”

She twitched and was back. Ruarke’s gentle concern created a hollow in her chest. She stiffened her shoulders, aware that Maddie had worn herself out and the adults were eyeing her. “So, what was the decision?”

Miri turned away but not before mouthing, ‘I hate you!’.

“MIRI!” Ruarke couldn’t believe his best friend could behave like that.

Santee bumped her shoulder into his and shook her head. The fight wasn’t worth it…not when her time here was so short.

Sam took his sleeping daughter from Santee and carried her into the family room where the other little kids were napping. He put her down on an unused mat and covered her with the soft throw.

Returning to the dining room he looked speculatively at Santee as he circled the table to sit beside his wife. Something Bobby John said had sent her trembling into a not-very-pleasant memory. Bobby John had been able to shrug off his remembered punishment, but Santee had lost all color, barely seeming to breathe, throat working as if fighting the urge to projectile vomit.

* * *

Miri drew a calming breath, forcing herself not to glare at the bitch who had Ruarke’s nuts tied in a knot. How could he? The bitch was so far beneath him…them. When was the last time her hands had seen a manicurist or her hair a stylist? It was beyond incomprehensible that her Ruarke could be so daffy over that bitch!

She tapped the pile of handouts on the table before passing them out to Sam, Max, Bobby John, and Ruarke. She gave Santee her best apologetic smile and shrugged. Santee didn’t seem to care, but Ruarke glared as he moved to share his with that woman.

On her laptop, she brought up the PowerPoint.

“As you can see the main house is huge; six bedrooms, eight baths, two master suites, chef’s kitchen—“

“Where is this?” Santee asked, suspicious of the tropical vegetation. But Florida and South Texas could be pretty tropical.

There are also two-three bedroom houses and four-two bedroom houses—“

“And this is where?” Santee asked again.

“Plus, there are rooms over the garage for the help.”

Santee didn’t like that Miri refused to reveal the location. They’d already had this discussion about a winter retreat in a warm place. Miri had pushed for the Virgin Islands. Santee had commented that being so far away, they wouldn’t be able to go very often, what with the kids in school. Miri had countered that the kids were smart enough that a day missed here and there wouldn’t matter.

The men sided with Santee that closer was better, which really deteriorated womanly harmony. Miri was supposedly looking for something in Florida or South Texas. Santee had suggested the river in Arizona but knew Miri would rather die than look there because it was Santee’s idea.

“Miri,” Ruarke said. “Where is this property located.”

“It’s the Virgin Islands, but just listen. It’s perfect for all of us!”

Santee got up and walked out. It really wasn’t any of her business now that she’d be leaving. If they wanted to spend that many hours flying back and forth it was totally up to them.

* * *

Santee sat on the front porch glider with Sunny and Rufus. Sunny’s head rested heavily in her lap. Inside, things wound down for the night, kids bathed and either in bed or on their way. Outside, crickets chirped and cicadas strummed their wings so loud as to drown out conversation. Far away a coyote howled a lonely song at the slowly rising moon.

Santee struggled to get up the gumption to head across the yard to her camper. Interpersonal relations weren’t her strength and dealing with Maddie and Miri had just plain pooped her out.

Ruarke came out and Santee cussed herself out for not ‘gittin’ while the gittin’ was good’. He sauntered over the epitome of the self-assured male. Gently he scooped Sunny up, sat down tight to Santee’s hip, and put the dog across his lap.

“I’m sorry about what happened today with Miri and Maddie.”