Cowboy to the Max
Rita Herron
Rancher Carter Flagstone refuses to take the fall for a crime he didn't commit. Branded a murderer five years ago, he's dead-set on getting freedom–and revenge.But after locating the woman who helped frame him, Carter is shocked to find Sadie Whitefeather scared, alone and hiding out in a remote Texas town. And what he discovers about the unforgettable night they spent in each other's arms makes Carter even more eager to learn the truth. On the run, with no one to turn to but each other, Carter finds forgiving Sadie isn't so hard after all. And clearing his name is more important than he ever imagined.…
Sometimes a cowboy’s only as good as his name
Rancher Carter Flagstone refuses to take the fall for a crime he didn’t commit. Branded a murderer five years ago, he’s dead-set on getting freedom—and revenge. But after locating the woman who helped frame him, Carter is shocked to find Sadie Whitefeather scared, alone and hiding out in a remote Texas town. And what he discovers about the unforgettable night they spent in each other’s arms makes Carter even more eager to learn the truth. On the run, with no one to turn to but each other, Carter finds forgiving Sadie isn’t so hard after all. And clearing his name is more important than he ever imagined....
Sadie was the last woman he’d made love to before his freedom had been ripped away.
And even though he’d hated her for not stepping forward to clear him, while he’d lain on that brick-hard cot every night in prison, he’d fantasized about making love to her again.
Only, now his touch made her cringe with horror.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “You broke in?”
Damn it. He had to be patient. And he had to protect her.
“Because you were screaming,” Carter said, intentionally lowering his voice. “I thought the guy who shot at us had broken in.” He gestured toward the sheers. “Maybe through the window.”
Her gaze darted to the window then back to him, as if she was trying to decide whether to trust him. Whether to believe him.
He suddenly wanted that trust more than anything he’d wanted in a long time.
Almost as much as he wanted his freedom.
Cowboy to the Max
Rita Herron
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning author Rita Herron wrote her first book when she was twelve, but didn’t think real people grew up to be writers. Now she writes so she doesn’t have to get a real job. A former kindergarten teacher and workshop leader, she traded her storytelling to kids for writing romance, and now she writes romantic comedies and romantic suspense. She lives in Georgia with her own romance hero and three kids. She loves to hear from readers, so please write her at P.O. Box 921225, Norcross, GA 30092-1225, or visit her website, www.ritaherron.com (http://www.ritaherron.com).
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Carter Flagstone—He is determined to prove he’s innocent of the murder he was convicted of, even if he has to force Sadie Whitefeather, the woman who slept with him and then framed him, to help him clear his name.
Sadie Whitefeather—She had her reasons for betraying Carter and is terrified of him and the man who threatened and assaulted her five years ago.
Everett Flagstone—He died of lung cancer after leaving prison—or did he?
Dennis Dyer—Carter was incarcerated for his murder—but was he a pawn in a twisted plan to set up Carter?
Jeff Lester—This brute attacked Sadie and has stalked her for five years; why did he want Carter in prison?
Sheriff Norman Otto—He arrested Carter for murdering Dyer. Is he on the right side of the law or does he have a hidden agenda?
Loretta Swinson—Did Jeff Lester’s girlfriend know what he was up to?
Elmore Clement—Carter’s cousin inherited Carter’s father’s land. Only, Carter swears he has no other family. Is Clement a fraud?
To Ms. Culpepper, my childhood librarian
who taught me to love books.
Contents
Chapter One (#ubc93858f-65d7-5812-8df0-be0e108ec0fd)
Chapter Two (#u40e4f331-19a9-5b36-97c9-47ca8db3c015)
Chapter Three (#uac38109d-5e8e-534a-ad29-54a97801a0c2)
Chapter Four (#u9cf3403c-75c7-566e-978a-35711261f885)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Carter Flagstone would die before he would go back to prison.
Which might just happen if he didn’t find out who had framed him for murder.
He rolled over on the makeshift bed he’d made in one of the unused barns at the Bucking Bronc Lodge, breathing in the smell of hay, fresh air and freedom.
A freedom that was temporary at best. One that had come at a cost. A guard had been injured in the prison escape, and fingers were pointing at him as the shooter.
His escape only made him look more guilty of that crime and the murder of that man named Dyer, the man he’d been convicted of killing five years ago.
The police had orders to shoot to kill. His damn mug shot was plastered all over the television and in the papers. And if that guard died and the cops caught him, and by chance he lived, he’d end up on death row.
Yep, Texas held one of the highest records for executions, and adding his name to the list would be his claim to fame.
Just like his sorry old man’s name would have gone on the list if he hadn’t developed lung cancer. Hell, the state had decided to save their money and the publicity. Killing a dying man just didn’t seem worthy.
His bones creaked and his muscles ached as he unfolded his body from the floor and stood. The scars on his arms and chest looked stark and ugly in the thin stream of light seeping through the slats of the barn.
He’d always been a fighter, but prison had hammered in those instincts and made him better at it. Meaner. Tougher. Harder. Unrelenting.
He would use those skills now to find out who’d framed him, put him in jail and ruined his future.
Then he’d get on with his life.
A desolate emptiness filled him at the thought. What life? He’d lost it all the minute the police had slapped the handcuffs on him.
Even before that, he’d been on a downward spiral. He’d had a major rift with his two best friends, who were now rich and owned their own spreads. He’d drunk himself into bar fights and jail more than once before he was incarcerated and earned a reputation that meant no one would hire him if he tried to get a job.
And now his old man was dead, but his ranch had gone belly-up and the bastard hadn’t even had the courtesy to will it to him. It was one last dig into his soul that said how much his father had hated him.
Outside, the sounds of the ranch burst to life. The gentle summer breeze fluttering the leaves on the trees. The noise of trucks cranking as workers started the day. The hush of a mare’s tail swishing flies.
All sounds he’d missed and yearned for daily. Anything to replace the clank of metal chains, keys unlocking cell doors, feet padding in rhythm as the prisoners were led to the mess hall like cattle to the trough.
Well aware he’d return to that mundane life if he didn’t make use of his time, he peeked through the crack in the door to see if the coast was clear. Cows grazed in the lush pastures, two geldings galloped across the flat ranch land, their hooves pounding the grass. The sound of a truck’s engine rumbled down the dirt drive.
Maybe it was Frank Dunham, his buddy from the pen who had landed a job at the Bucking Bronc Lodge. Dunham had owed him and helped him hide out here for the past two days, but if the police found out, Dunham’s parole would be revoked and he’d go back to jail.
Carter didn’t want that on his conscience.
Sweat beaded on his neck as he watched the truck blaze a dusty trail toward the barn. No, not Dunham’s. This truck was black, had shiny new chrome wheels, was newer.
He sucked in a breath, his pulse pounding. Twice today he’d seen choppers flying over the property. Had someone caught wind he was here, hiding out like a trapped animal? Had they called the cops?
His ears perked up, listening for a siren.
Then the truck sped past the barn and veered onto the turnoff for the main lodge. Clenching the edge of the barn door with a white-knuckled grip, he watched it disappear in the trail of dust, then finally managed to breathe again.
Another close call. Another reprieve.
It wouldn’t last.
The last few days on the run he’d felt the devil breathing down his neck at every turn. The cops. The real killer.
The reality that he was a dead man walking.
Determined and knowing that he couldn’t hide out on the Bucking Bronc for long, not with another group of campers due any day now, he unfolded the news article of the fundraiser rodeo Johnny had organized to raise money for the camp and stared at the picture of the woman who could save him.
Sadie Whitefeather.
God, she was beautiful.
Raven-black hair framed her heart-shaped face and delicate features, her high cheekbones accentuating eyes as rich and deep as dark chocolate. Those sinful eyes had mesmerized him, had seduced him. Had made him want to believe that a man like him could not only hold her in his arms but have her.
Those eyes had also held secrets. Pain. A gentle, unspoken understanding that had radiated from her touch.
She had talked of her Navajo ways, her training in medicine with the shaman, her desire to educate herself and become a doctor to help her people. She was also an advocate for the Native American segment and a staunch supporter of environmental issues.
Another seductive quality.
Or so he’d thought.
Dammit. It had all been an act.
She was the reason he’d spent five years in prison, and her day of reckoning had come.
The date on the newspaper proved she’d attended the rodeo a couple of weeks before. Which meant she might be living close by.
For the past two days, he’d been lurking around the ranch hoping she’d show again. Dunham was on the lookout as well, but so far no luck.
His mind rolled back to that fateful night five years ago, and once again he cursed his stupidity. He’d been pissed at his life in general. Mad at his old man for doing an interview from jail, yet again dragging the Flagstone name through the mud.
He’d also had another run-in with Johnny and Brandon. Brandon had beat the hell out of him for sleeping with Kim, his former girlfriend and Johnny’s sister. It hadn’t mattered to Brandon that he’d broken up with Kim and crushed her heart. That Carter had only tried to comfort her.
Hell, it hadn’t mattered to Johnny, either. He’d accused Carter of taking advantage of his sister.
So he’d gone on a drunken tear and ended up at a bar near the reservation. That was where he’d met Sadie Whitefeather.
His body hardened just thinking about her luscious body and the way she’d wound her long legs around him. Her long black hair had hung down her back to her waist, her skin a creamy, sun-kissed Navajo brown, her big, dark eyes haunting and sultry.
One night in her bed and he’d fallen madly in lust.
So he’d gone back for another.
But that night had been his fatal mistake. He’d woken up with no memory of what had happened, with blood on his hands, a dead man on the floor beside him, a man named Dyer who he didn’t even know, and the police on his tail.
She had drugged him. That had to be the explanation.
Then she’d disappeared and left him to rot in jail.
He tapped the picture with his finger. Now he’d escaped and he intended to find her. And he would make her talk.
If she didn’t, he’d show her firsthand the hard lessons he’d learned in prison, where she had sent him.
SADIE WHITEFEATHER SHIVERED at the news photo of Carter Flagstone as the story of his prison escape and criminal record flashed across the TV screen perched on the wall above the bar.
His dark brown hair was shaggy now, his face unshaven, rough with stubble, his eyes tormented, his strong, stubborn jaw set in anger.
He looked hardened, scarred and lethal.
All deadly to a woman whose dreams of making love to him still taunted her.
Not that he would want her in his bed again.
No, he’d probably kill her.
“Flagstone is considered armed and dangerous,” the reporter said. “Police have orders to shoot to kill. If you have any information regarding his whereabouts, please contact the police.”
Her fingers itched to make that call. But she didn’t know where he was.
Only that he was most likely coming for her.
Of course she couldn’t blame him.
What she had done…was wrong.
She sucked in a sharp breath, then rubbed her finger over the prayer beads around her neck. Her mother’s people had taught her that all life was sacred. That all things on the earth were alive and connected. That all things alive should be respected.
But she had been a party to a murder and sent an innocent man to prison for it.
Shame clawed at her, but she fought it, struggling with her emotions and reminding herself of the circumstances.
She had had no choice.
The sound of the bell over the doorway tinkled, barely discernible over the wail of the country music floating through the Sawdust Saloon. But her senses were well-honed to detect the sound, knowing it might alert her to trouble.
A cloudy haze of smoke made it difficult to make out the new patron as he entered. He was big, so tall that his hat nearly touched the doorway. And he had shoulders like a linebacker.
He hooked his fingers in his belt loops, standing stock still, his stance intimidating as he scanned the room. Shadows hovered around him, and the scent of danger radiated from him like bad whiskey.
She froze, her heart drumming as she studied his features. Carter?
Or the evil monster she’d been running from for five years?
She hated to be paranoid, but life had come at her hard the night she’d met Carter.
He wasn’t the only one with scars.
She had her own to prove it.
Her finger automatically brushed the deep, puckered X carved into her chest, now well hidden by her shirt, and traced a line over it. For a moment, she couldn’t move as she waited to see the man’s face in the doorway. He was imposing like Carter and her attacker. Muscular. Big-boned. Large hands.
His boots pounded the wood, crushing the peanut shells on the floor as he moved into the light, and her breath whooshed out in relief.
Even in the dim lighting, she could see he had dark-blond hair.
Carter had thick brown hair, so dark it was almost black.
Her attacker—a shaved head, and he’d smelled like sweat and tobacco.
A group of the men in the back room playing pool shouted, toasting with beer mugs, and two men to her right gave her a flirtatious grin and waved at her to join them.
Sadie inwardly cringed, but remembered she needed this job, and threw up a finger gesturing that she would be right there.
“Your order’s up!” the bartender yelled to Sadie.
Amber Celton, blond, boobs falling out of the cheap lacy top of her waitress uniform, and a woman who would screw any man in pants, sashayed up beside her and gestured toward the TV screen. “Man, I don’t care if that cowboy is armed and dangerous. He could tie me in his bed anytime.”
Sadie wiped her hands on her apron and reached for the tray of beer she needed to deliver. Carter had been seductive, all right.
All that thick, scraggly hair. Those deep whiskey-colored eyes that looked tormented, like they were hunting for trouble. That crooked nose that looked as if it had been broken and needed kissing.
And his mouth…thick lips that scowled one minute as if he was the devil himself, then twitched up into a lazy grin that had made her weak in the knees.
And Lord, those big, strong, wide hands. What he could do with those hands was sinful. Downright lethal.
He had destroyed her for wanting another man as a lover.
And her attacker, the one who’d held her down, nearly suffocated her and cut her, he had destroyed her trust in men in general.
“If I were you, I’d stay away from him.” Sadie hoisted the beer-laden tray with her right hand, juggling it as she added a basket of peanuts. “Five years in a maximum security prison…you don’t know what they did to him inside.” Horror stories of beatings and prison rapes tormented her.
“Yeah, but that means five years without conjugal visits,” Amber said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “I bet he’s ready for a woman.”
A streak of jealousy pinched Sadie’s gut at the thought of Amber taking Carter to bed. Guilt followed that she had helped put him in that godforsaken jail. That five years of his life had been stolen from him when if she’d only told the truth, he wouldn’t have been convicted.
Yes. And you would have been dead and so would your mother.
“Hey, sugar, we’re thirsty,” one of the men yelled.
“And I’m hungry,” his buddy shouted, as he reached out a hairy hand to pull her to him. “Hungry for you.”
Sadie forced a polite smile as she sidestepped his grip, desperately trying to control a nasty retort that would not only cost her a tip but her job. Five years of working in low-rent restaurants and divey bars just to make ends meet and take care of her mother had taken its toll on her body and shattered her fantasies.
But her mother was gone now, God rest her soul.
Unfortunately so were her dreams of becoming a doctor.
She was broke, alone, and she’d been looking over her shoulder so long that she was half-afraid of her own shadow.
But she had enough sense to know that she was still in danger. Maybe even more so now.
Because Carter Flagstone was most likely looking for her to force her to go to the police about the night of that murder. Which meant the man who’d threatened her life and cut her was probably intent on preventing her from doing just that.
Her own private hell was starting all over.
DARK, HEAVY CLOUDS ROLLED across the night sky as Carter snuffed out the campfire where he’d cooked the fish he’d caught earlier in the stream. He tensed at the sound of a car engine rumbling down the road. He had to hide his tracks.
Still, he was anxious to talk to Dunham and find out if anyone had been snooping around the ranch.
He thought he might have seen something suspicious today. Maybe hints of a cattle rustler. He’d heard they’d had some vandalism and problems before at the BBL, and wondered if this was the same lowlife or a band of rustlers.
Not that he needed to get involved. Hell, no. He had his own problems.
But Johnny and Brandon were dedicated to this ranch, and with more campers due to arrive the next day, they sure as hell didn’t need thieves on the land. Especially if they were toting guns.
Most likely, they were.
He rubbed the matchbook with the BBL logo on it, the image of a group of boys getting shot because they’d stumbled on some rustlers, sitting low and heavy in his belly.
The car engine sounded louder, and he stepped back behind a thicket of trees, gripping his gun to his side as he studied the situation.
Dust spewed in a cloud around the truck, then the muffler made a backfiring sound, and the headlights of a rattletrap truck coasted toward him.
Dunham.
The poor guy’s truck was in worse shape than the one Brandon had loaned him.
Relaxing, he shoved the gun in the back of his jeans, but he waited until the truck had parked and Dunham climbed out before he showed himself.
His boots crunched the dry twigs and grass. “Thanks for meeting me.”
Dunham gave a clipped nod. “You said you saw trouble?”
Carter explained about the two men he’d seen on the hill in the north pasture. “They had binoculars and looked as if they were staking out the lay of the land.”
Dunham made a frustrated sound. “I’ll tell Mr. Bloodworth. We’ll keep an eye out.”
Carter nodded. “How about you? Any sign of Sadie Whitefeather on the ranch?”
Dunham shook his head. “No, man. But I know where you can find her.”
Carter’s head whipped toward him. Could he finally be this close? “Where?”
“She works at the Sawdust Saloon near the reservation. Cocktail waitress.”
Damn. Same job. Different location. And only a few miles from the BBL.
“Did you talk to her?”
Dunham frowned. “Ordered a beer and tried to get friendly, but she brushed me off.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “She’s a looker, man. Half the men in the bar were itching to get in her pants, but she wanted none of it.”
Carter gritted his teeth. She sure as hell had been receptive to him.
At the time, his ego had soared. He’d been thrilled to have her attention, and her body in his bed.
Little did he know that she’d only been using him. Setting him up to take the fall for murder.
She hadn’t been working alone. That much he was sure of. He wanted to know who her partner was. That name would lead him to the killer.
And real freedom. Not this sick shade of it where he was hiding behind shadows and trees, skulking around in the night like a damn snake, afraid to show his face during the day for fear of getting his head blown off.
“Thanks, Dunham, I owe you.”
“Just don’t get yourself caught.” Dunham extended his hand and Carter shook it. “Or killed.”
Carter sobered, knowing either one was possible. And could cause Dunham to go back to jail and land Brandon and Johnny in hot water as well for helping him.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m going to see Miss Whitefeather right now. When I finish with her, she’ll talk.”
A worried look darkened Dunham’s face, but Carter didn’t care. He’d spent five long years rotting in prison for a crime he hadn’t committed, all because of one night in the sack.
Two, if the one he couldn’t remember counted.
Nothing would stop him from making this woman finally tell the truth.
SADIE CLEARED her assigned tables, swept up, then counted her tips. A couple hundred dollars. Hardly worth the never-ending ordeal of fending off dozens of men’s wandering hands.
Still, she needed every penny and would add the cash to her medical school fund. If she ever had enough time to study for the MCATS.
She’d barely been able to finish her undergraduate degree for taking care of her mother during her illness. Now…she was so exhausted after work that she couldn’t think about studying.
Amber waltzed out the door with one of the men she’d hooked up with for the night, and Big T—Teddy, the owner—waved to her to go on. Sadie settled her purse tightly over her shoulder, one hand rubbing the leather to make sure her derringer was still tucked inside, then gripped her keys and stepped out the door.
Although questions and doubts needled her. Would she be able to use the gun if she needed to defend herself? Her Native American roots haunted her—every life is sacred…
At one time, she’d been so close to her roots that she hadn’t doubted her people’s ways. But that was before the attack…
That horrid day had changed everything. Changed her.
And she didn’t like it.
But she had no idea how to rid herself of the fear that plagued her. Not when it was so real.
Nerves tightening her body, she paused, her gaze scanning the dark parking lot and the corner of the alley, searching to make sure one of the men she’d blown off during her shift wasn’t waiting to ambush her. That or the man who’d threatened her years ago. She’d sensed he was following her the last few days.
And now she had to worry about Carter Flagstone.
Stale beer, urine and smoke clogged the air as she rushed to her beat-up sedan. A sound from the alley beyond made her jerk her head around to search again. Something ran across the alley. A stray dog?
Or a man?
Pebbles skittered behind her, then the sound of a garbage lid clanging reverberated through the air.
Anxiety knotted her stomach as she glanced over her shoulder. A homeless man was digging through the trash.
Relieved, she picked up her pace, although the wind lifted her hair and suddenly an eerie premonition skated up her spine.
Someone was watching her.
Adrenaline surged through her, and she ran the rest of the way to her car and jammed the key in the lock. Her hands shook as she opened the door and collapsed inside. She hit the lock, then cranked the engine and tore down the deserted street, her heart ticking double-time as she swung through the alley. She searched left and right, down each side street, over her back to make sure she wasn’t being followed. Then suddenly headlights beamed down on her as a truck appeared on her bumper.
Fear nearly choked her, but she forced herself to turn down another side street to throw him off. The truck moved on, and she breathed out in relief, then cut back through another street to her small apartment.
It was in the seedy side of town, but it was all she could afford, and as she climbed from her car, the smell of refuse and body odor assaulted her. Darting a quick glance around to check for predators, she rushed toward her apartment, a corner unit with sagging shutters, mud-streaked siding and unkempt shrubs and weeds shrouding it, casting it in darkness.
Her hand shook again as she jammed the keys in the lock. Then suddenly a hard, cold hand clamped around her mouth, and she felt the tip of a gun barrel at her temple.
“Hello, Sadie,” a gruff male voice murmured. “It’s time we talk.”
Chapter Two
Carter wrapped one hand around Sadie’s neck, trapping her in a chokehold as he pushed the gun to her head.
“Scream and I’ll shoot.”
Her body trembled against his, but he forced himself to ignore the guilt that niggled at him. He’d had plenty of fights with men, but he’d never hurt a woman before.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she whispered.
He shoved her inside the dark apartment, then slammed the door, needing cover in case someone was watching and called the cops.
A faint glow from a streetlight outside bled through the worn curtains across the room, and he pushed her toward it. “I’m going to release you, but if you scream or try to escape, I will hurt you.” He spoke low into her ear. “Do you understand?”
She nodded against him, her fear palpable in the way she dug her fingers into his arm where he gripped her neck.
Carter swung her around and pushed her down onto the threadbare sofa, then aimed the gun at her. The shallow light bathed her face, accentuating the terror in her big, dark eyes. Eyes that had once made him melt.
Eyes that had haunted him since with her cunning lies.
She slid a hand in her purse, and he realized she might be reaching for a weapon. Furious, he straddled her, pinning her down on the sofa as he jerked her purse open. She grunted in pain as his weight bore down on her.
He tried to ignore the feel of her soft, feminine curves beneath his. He hadn’t had sex in five years, and her sultry body had been the last one he’d pounded himself into.
Dammit, he wanted her again.
“Get off me,” Sadie said tightly.
His fingers connected with cold metal, and he removed a derringer from her purse then dangled it in front of her. “You going to shoot me, Sadie? Framing me for murder wasn’t bad enough?”
Emotions flickered across her heart-shaped face, those chocolate eyes brimming with sudden tears. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”
What the hell? Were those real tears? Or was she a consummate actress?
For a moment, he studied her, searching for the cold-hearted vixen who had seduced him with her lies, then drugged him and hung him out to dry.
But the woman in front of him looked small, vulnerable, even innocent, as if she wouldn’t hurt a fly. And she was still so damn beautiful that he felt as if he’d been punched in the chest just like he had the first time he’d seen her in that seedy bar fending off the hands of the jerks who thought her waitress services included servicing them.
She also looked terrified.
She should be, dammit.
Sure, she’s terrified. She’s finally been caught at her own game.
Hardening himself, he moved off of her, careful to keep his gun trained on her as he stowed hers in his jacket pocket.
“You know I’ve spent five years in a maximum security prison for a murder I didn’t commit, all because of you,” Carter said in an icy voice. “You drugged me that night, didn’t you?”
She clutched her small-boned hands in her lap, twisting them in the knots of her Navajo print skirt, her face pale and pinched.
“Didn’t you?” Carter growled.
Her labored breath rattled out, then she looked up at him and gave a small nod.
Her confirmation made his chest seize with much-needed relief that he wasn’t crazy, that he hadn’t gone on some drunken rage, killed that man and blacked out and forgotten it.
On the heels of that relief, fury flooded him.
So he had been right. She’d used him.
His hand tightened around the handle of the gun as the memory of waking with all that blood on his hands suffused him. The dingy hotel room, the furniture ripped apart, the tattered clothes strewn about as if an animal had ripped at them.
The jagged hole in the man’s chest, the knife in his hand… “Why?”
Another deep breath, and she averted her eyes. “I’m sorry, Carter. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t want an apology,” he bellowed. “I want the damn truth. Why did you do it? Did someone pay you?” He paced in front of her, waving the weapon, his boots hammering the cheap linoleum. “Did you and the killer plan this, then you picked me out of the bar?” He whirled back around to face her, jabbing his chest with his thumb. “Why, Sadie? Why me? Was I just the biggest fool in the room, or was it because I was falling all over you?”
SADIE WILLED HERSELF to be strong.
Carter had every reason to hate her. But she was terrified he’d unleash five years of rage and kill her.
And as much as she despised herself for what she’d done, she didn’t want to die. “You don’t understand,” she whispered.
He glared at her with condemning eyes, eyes so cold that he could practically kill with them. His face was rugged, jaw unshaven, the scars he’d gained in jail deeper and puckered.
But beneath the rage, she sensed a wealth of pain, pain she had helped cause by her betrayal.
Where had he been the last few days? Hiding out in ditches? Barns?
All because of her.
The memory of the night they’d made love flashed back. He’d been a bad-boy hellion back then, full of anger, the strong-and-silent type; maybe that was what had attracted her. In bed, he’d been physically demanding, too, had made her body ache with want and desire and need. Yet he’d also been gentle and loving, determined to please her as much as he’d wanted pleasure for himself. And his sexual prowess had been overwhelming.
The gentleness was gone now, though, replaced by a steely intent to exact revenge.
“I asked you—why me?” Carter demanded.
She startled at the sound of his booming voice, then forced herself to look up at him. She owed him an explanation.
If it endangered her, then so be it. She was tired of being on the run and smothered by guilt.
“I don’t know,” Sadie said, clenching her skirt in her hands. “Maybe because you and Dyer had a run-in two nights before.”
Carter narrowed his eyes. “We did?”
“You don’t remember?” She sighed. “You and he were both drinking, playing pool. It was nothing, just a bar brawl, but I guess the incident made you a patsy.”
Carter scrubbed his hand over his beard stubble. “Who were you working with?” Carter asked gruffly.
Sadie’s heart thumped with shock. “You have it all wrong,” she said, suddenly realizing that Carter thought she had conspired in the murder he’d been arrested for. “I didn’t kill that man or have anything to do with it.”
Disbelief slashed fierce lines around his chiseled mouth. “You expect me to buy that story? You seduced me, drugged me, then set me up.”
“No,” Sadie protested, although her protests sounded weak, even to her own ears. The truth was, she had helped set him up, even though she hadn’t realized it at the time.
He stalked toward her, then jammed the gun in her face again. He was so close she smelled his anger, felt his breath brush her cheek. “Don’t lie to me. You owe me the truth, so spill it or you’re dead.”
Sadie shook her head, her stomach churning. “You’re not a killer, Carter. You won’t—”
He cocked the trigger. “If you don’t think I’m a killer, why the hell didn’t you stand up for me in court and say that? Why did you let them lock me up?”
“Because I was scared.” Sadie’s hand rose to her neck, then unconsciously to the scar on her chest. It ached, the burning sensation triggered by the memory of the man digging a knife in her chest.
Carter’s look flattened. “Scared? Scared of what?”
Sadie closed her eyes, willing the memories away, but they consumed her anyway. The big man’s beefy hands around her neck, choking her. His rancid breath on her face. His gruff, steely voice rasping threats in her ear.
Suddenly Carter jerked her head back, and her eyes flew open. “Tell me what happened,” he growled. “Who set me up?”
Sadie wheezed a breath. “I don’t know his name,” she whispered. “Just that he broke into my house after you left me in bed that first night we made love.”
“The night before the murder?”
She nodded. “He had a knife, he…”
Carter’s eyes flickered over her, cold, icy pits of hell. “He what?”
“He put it to my throat. He almost strangled me, then he threatened to kill my mother and me if I didn’t do what he said.” Her breathing grew ragged. “He knew where I lived, that my mother was sick, and he was going to make her suffer....”
Carter’s eyes narrowed to slits as her voice broke, then he swallowed hard, making the vein in his neck bulge. “What exactly did he tell you to do?”
Sadie’s heart wrenched. “To slip you a roofie when you came in again.” Her voice cracked, tears clogging her throat. “I didn’t want to do it, Carter, but I was terrified.”
A heartbeat of silence stretched between them, the tension palpable. “Did he tell you why he wanted me drugged?”
“No.” Sadie shook her head in denial. “I swear, I had no idea what he was up to. I…thought he planned to rob you or something. It never occurred to me that he was planning a murder.”
Carter made a guttural sound in his throat, then stood, moving away as if he could no longer stand the sight of her. Although his gaze remained pinned on her, his look teeming with disbelief, hate and bitterness. “If that’s true, then why didn’t you come forward once I was arrested?”
The scalding sensation intensified in Sadie’s chest, and she rubbed it again. “I told you…I was afraid.”
“The police could have protected you,” Carter bit out. “And you could have saved me.”
The memories flooded her again, trapping her, choking her. “I did try to go to the police,” Sadie said, gasping for a breath. “But…but he found me.”
Carter gripped her by the arms. “I don’t believe you.”
Sadie shivered. “It’s true.”
For a long, silent moment, his eyes bore into hers, then his fingers loosened slightly. “What happened?”
Fury and fear and her own sense of injustice bubbled over, and she unleashed on him. “Because he cornered me in the alley when I was walking to my car. Then he did this.”
Her hands shook as she ripped open the top two buttons of her shirt, revealing the hideous scar the man had left between her breasts.
“He held me down…then he carved me up so I wouldn’t forget.” Tears flowed freely down her face. The cloying smell of her attacker’s cheap cologne and sweat haunted her. The sound of his low, wheezy voice echoed in her ears. “He told me the next time he’d kill my mother and make me watch, then he’d finish me off.”
CARTER SANK DOWN onto the club chair, his mind struggling to register Sadie’s story.
Part of him wanted to deny her claims. Accuse her of lying. Demand she go to the cops, tell the truth and exonerate him.
But her story…her tone sounded so sincere. Riddled with pain and guilt.
And that scar…on her chest. It hadn’t been there when he’d slept with her the first time. And he barely remembered crawling in bed with her the second. It was deep and puckered and was only inches from her heart. He’d been in enough knife fights himself to know it had been a serious injury.
All because of him.
His hands shook in front of him as he stared at the gun he’d held on her, and shame filled him. Of all the explanations he’d expected to hear, the excuses, the lies, the cunning act he’d thought she’d put on to save her own life, nothing had prepared him for this.
On the heels of shock, rage choked him. Who in the hell had framed him and terrorized Sadie?
He slowly lifted his head and looked up at her. The anguish in her expression robbed his breath. The instinct to go to her and hold her, to protect her, surged through him. But he needed answers, so he remained rooted to the spot. Still, he couldn’t drag his eyes off that X carved on her chest between her breasts.
An X to remind her that the sick bastard was watching and could easily kill her.
Sadie averted her eyes as if she was ashamed, her fingers fumbling clumsily to rebutton her blouse.
Fury that some man had assaulted her and scarred her like that ate at him. The man had obviously wanted to destroy her beauty as well as terrorize her with his threats.
The SOB would not get away with it. If—no, when Carter found him, he’d carve him up just as he had done Sadie.
“Who was he?” Carter asked in a thick voice.
Sadie wiped at the tears trickling down her cheeks. “I told you, I don’t know.”
His gaze shot to hers. “What do you mean, you don’t know? You saw his face, didn’t you?”
Sadie made a pained sound in her throat. “I…yes, but it was dark. So dark, I’m not sure I would recognize him.”
Or maybe she’d blocked it out because of the trauma. “Had you ever seen him before? Maybe in the bar?”
Her small shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I…don’t know. Maybe. But there were men like him in the bar every night. Men pawing at me and watching me. I…tried to ignore them.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “What do you remember?”
She sighed, another sound of pain rumbling from her. Then her eyes glazed over, taking on a distant look, as if she was reliving the nightmare. “He was big, almost as tall as you but heavier. And his head was shaved.” She bunched her skirt in between her fingers. “He smelled like cheap cologne and sweat and beer.”
She was right. That description could fit half the men in Texas, especially at that low-rent bar where she’d been working.
He cleared his throat. “Go on.”
She scrubbed at her cheeks as if annoyed with herself for crying. “At first, I was in shock. I…didn’t know where to go.”
“If you’d called the police, they could have protected you and your mother.” And he would never have gone to jail. “And they might have been able to use DNA to track down the bastard who attacked you.”
Her eyes flared with derision. “I worked in a bar, Carter. I’m Native American, too. I know how the police work. They would have made me out to be some kind of tramp.” She sucked in a sharp breath. “Besides, my mother was dying of cancer. I was all she had. I could barely afford to care for her, much less drag her through a scandal.”
“So you just let him get away?” Carter asked, incredulous.
Sadie folded her hands into fists by her sides. “I wanted to come forward, Carter. Believe me, I did. But I told you I was in shock. In fact, the first few weeks after the attack, I was so weak and disoriented I couldn’t even get out of bed, much less remember the details of what happened.”
A seed of hope burst through the darkness eating Carter’s soul. “But you went to the hospital, right? So they have records—”
“I didn’t go to the hospital,” Sadie said in a low voice.
Disappointment shot through Carter. “No hospital. Why?”
“Because I thought he’d find me there. That he’d kill my mother and then finish me off.” She paced to the adjoining kitchen and glanced out the window, her body shuddering as she wrapped her arms around herself. “I didn’t know where to turn, so I called a friend from the reservation. He came and took me there to recover, and so the shaman could treat my wound.”
Carter cursed, strode to her and swung her around to face him. All this time he’d banked on Sadie having the answers he needed to clear himself. He couldn’t accept the fact that she didn’t. “So you’re telling me we have nothing. No evidence. That you can’t identify this man—”
Her face crumpled. “I’m sorry, Carter. I—”
Something rattled outside, jerking his attention, and he threw up a finger to shush her. She tensed, her eyes widening, as he peered through the window at the alley.
A shadow moved across the glass pane then suddenly something crashed through the window where they were standing.
Sadie screamed. Carter jerked her down to the floor as glass sprayed the counter and carpet.
Suddenly smoke began to billow through the room, stinging his eyes and throat.
Dammit. It was a pipe bomb.
Whoever had set it off wanted to kill them.
Chapter Three
Sadie dove down beside Carter, coughing as thick smoke clouded the room. “My God, what’s happening?”
“It’s a pipe bomb. Come on, we have to get outside.” Carter grabbed her hand. “Stay behind me and keep low.” He wielded his gun as if he was ready to shoot, then tugged her toward the kitchen and the back door.
Sadie grabbed her shoulder bag on the way out, her heart racing. The man who’d attacked her… He knew Carter had escaped. He’d been following her.
All those shadows the past few days, the sensation of someone watching her, of someone breathing down her neck…it had been real.
He had come back to kill her, to kill them both.…
Carter pushed open the back door and she ducked behind him, clinging to his hand as they stepped onto the tiny cement patio. She struggled to inhale a breath, desperate to escape the smoke, and rubbed her beads, murmuring a Navajo prayer for her and Carter’s safety.
When she opened her eyes, though, the air smelled rancid and dank, and the alley was dark and filled with more shadows.
“Come on,” Carter whispered.
The sweltering heat plastered Sadie’s hair to her skin and clothes as Carter tugged her around the corner of a dilapidated brick building. She nearly stumbled over a pile of garbage someone had thrown in the street, and clung to Carter to keep from falling.
“Where are we going?” she asked, her lungs churning for air.
“My truck. It’s down the street.”
Suddenly the sound of gunfire rent the air. A bullet whizzed by their heads, and Sadie screamed again.
“Dammit, he was waiting.” Carter yanked her behind the corner of the building. “It was a setup to lure us out of the house.”
“Do you see him?” Sadie asked.
“No.”
She scanned the black corners of the alley, trembling as she watched Carter lift his gun and peer around the edge of the building. Voices echoed from somewhere down the street. An engine rumbled. Tires screeched.
She followed Carter’s gaze, checking the tops of the buildings nearby, the back entrance to the deserted warehouse two doors down, the corner of the street across from them.
Two cars were parked on the curb. The first, a dented green Ford that belonged to the junkie in the apartment next to her. The other, a silver Jeep that had been abandoned days ago and had been stripped, hubcaps and all.
Another shot pinged off the concrete wall by Carter’s head, and he pressed his back against the building to dodge it, then pushed her head lower. “Stay here. I’ll see if I can draw him out.”
Panic streaked through Sadie, and she clutched his arm. “No, don’t go, Carter. He might kill you.”
Carter swung his gaze back to her, seemingly startled that she might care. “I’ll be fine, Sadie. Just stay here.”
“No.” She held on to him like a lifeline. “We’re in this together.”
He narrowed his eyes a fraction, doubt darkening the hues of his eyes, then gave a quick nod. “All right. Let’s make a run for my truck.” He gripped her arm with his hand. “But promise me, if I get hit, you’ll go to the police and tell them everything.”
Fear closed her throat. “Don’t talk like that. You aren’t going to get hit.”
“Promise me,” Carter said. “If you can’t make it to the police, call Johnny Long or Brandon Woodstock. They’ll protect you and help clear my name.”
Sadie nodded, although it terrified her to admit that they might not make it out alive. But if Carter did get killed, she would need help. She couldn’t keep running scared for the rest of her life.
And without Carter, it was only a matter of time before she ended up dead.
CARTER REFUSED TO DIE in this damn alley. And he would not let Sadie become a victim to this lowlife.
Not again.
He sucked in a sharp breath, then pulled Sadie behind him, keeping low as he crept along the edge of the buildings. Pulse jumping, he searched the alley and streets, his senses honed. Where the hell was the shooter?
A trash can lid rattled, then rolled across the alley ahead. Footsteps clattered and a shadow moved. A flash of something metal caught in the darkness and drew his eyes toward the roof of the run-down apartment building next to Sadie’s.
The shooter. Was he up there? Watching? Taking aim?
His mind raced. The pipe bomb had been thrown into the house from the main level. So if this cretin was on the roof, he had a partner.
Another bullet pinged off the metal awning above his head.
“Dammit, this guy is pissing me off,” Carter growled. He turned and fired back at the direction the shot had come from. Not the roof but from behind the Jeep.
His truck was a few more feet away. “Come on.” He yanked Sadie around the corner then cut through another alley in between the warehouses.
A mangy dog pawed at a garbage can, knocked it on its side and began to scrounge through the trash. Voices rumbled from inside the next building, and through the foggy cracked window, he spotted two men. A drug deal going down.
They glanced up, both scowling, mean looking and armed. One headed toward the door as if he thought they might be cops, and Carter picked up his pace, dragging Sadie behind.
Another bullet pinged toward them just as he reached the truck. He shoved Sadie down behind the bumper, jostled his keys from his pocket, opened the driver’s door then coaxed Sadie inside.
“Get down on the floor!” Carter shouted, as he spotted the shooter leaving his hiding spot behind the Jeep to chase them. Another bullet shattered the front windshield, spraying glass as Carter jumped inside. He ducked again to avoid being hit, punched the gas and tore from the curb.
His tires squealed as he raced down the street, and he swerved from side to side to throw off the shooter.
But the sound of another shot bouncing off the truck bed echoed behind him. He glanced in the rearview mirror hoping to see what the man looked like, but he wore a black face mask, black jacket, black clothes.
Only the shiny metal of his automatic weapon gleamed in the darkness.
SADIE CROUCHED LOW, her stomach lurching as Carter spun the truck down the road. The sound of the bullet pinging off the back made her cover her head, and the glass on the floor was digging into her knees.
Carter screeched and swerved to the right in a fast turn. Car horns blared, and another vehicle’s tires squealed as if the car was about to hit it. She braced herself, but Carter must have managed to miss the collision, then he whipped the truck around onto the highway. For the next few minutes, she closed her eyes and prayed as he wove back and forth through town, then she heard the hum of other traffic and realized he’d turned onto the main road.
“I think it’s safe. You can get up now,” he said in a gruff tone.
Sadie was shaking all over. The truck cab swirled as she lifted her head and looked up at him. His jaw was clenched in anger, the beard stubble making him appear rough and dangerous.
So did the feral look on his face.
“Where is he?” she said in a raspy whisper.
“I think we lost him.” He reached his hand out to help her up, and Sadie stared at it for a moment, unsure if she was ready to completely trust him.
Regret flared in his eyes. “For God’s sake, Sadie. I’m not going to hurt you.” He lowered his hand and brushed glass from the seat. “If I’d wanted to, I would have back there at the house.”
But he had threatened her. And he hated her.
Still, he was all the protection she had, and he had saved her life. So she slowly pulled herself from her shock and climbed in the seat.
“Buckle up,” Carter said. “For all I know he had a partner waiting to ambush us.”
Sadie nodded and hooked her seat belt, then leaned her head back, her body racked with tension.
“Did you get a look at him?” Carter asked.
She shook her head. “No, did you?”
“Not his face. He was a big guy, dressed in all black. Wore a face mask.”
“It has to be the same man who threatened me,” Sadie said. “The last few days I sensed someone was following me.”
Carter jerked his head toward her. “You mean since I escaped?”
She clenched her hands together. “Yes. I thought it might be you.”
Carter worked his mouth from side to side. “He probably figured I’d come after you to find out the truth.”
“Because I was the only one who could clear you,” Sadie said, the guilt once again suffocating her.
“Right. And of course, I played right into his hands.” He shot her a dark look. “That means he won’t stop until he kills both of us.”
A shudder rippled up Sadie’s spine, and she turned to stare through the window. Clouds gathered in an ominous gray haze, obliterating the stars. A quarter moon hung low in the Texas sky, the dim glow casting shadows across the cacti, scrub brush and mesquites dotting the wilderness.
Carter steered the truck to the right onto a dusty road, and in spite of the heat Sadie suddenly felt a chill as she realized they were heading out into the country where it would be deserted.
And they would be alone.
She hadn’t been alone with a man in five years.
BITTERNESS AND THE NEED for revenge fueled Carter’s temper. Sadie had helped ruin his life.
But she’d been tortured and threatened to keep her from going to the police on his behalf.
Had the killer targeted him personally because he had a grudge against Carter? Or had he simply been an easy mark because of his drinking?
Sadie’s breathing rattled in the silence, and she rubbed that scar. Anguish rolled through him. The night they’d made love he’d actually thought he’d felt something special with her.
Then everything had gone wrong.
And now she was afraid of him. That was obvious.
Not that he could blame her. Hell, he was a convicted felon. He’d served five years in prison with murderers and rapists and other hardened criminals. He’d tangled with plenty of them in fistfights and knife fights, and spent time in solitary confinement.
And he had held her at gunpoint.
“Where are we going?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Some place to lay low for a while.”
Her eyes widened, her fear a palpable force vibrating in the air between them.
Suddenly aware he was practically kidnapping her, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed. But they’d left the town and civilization behind. Making a snap decision, he swerved off the road, careened to a stop and faced Sadie.
She gasped and clenched her arms around her body as if to protect herself. A mixture of emotions slammed into him again. For God’s sake, she thought he was going to attack her.
Shame washed over him. It had been so long since he’d dealt with anybody but criminals and prison guards who’d treated him like an animal that he’d forgotten how to be human. Gentle.
Reining in his temper, he held up his hand to indicate he didn’t intend to accost her. “I’m sorry about tonight. Is there someplace you’d like to go? Someone you trust to keep you safe?”
Surprise flickered across Sadie’s face, then she seemed to relax slightly. Still, she twisted her skirt in her fingers. “No. There’s no place.”
“Don’t you have family?”
She shook her head. “No. My mother died last year.”
She looked so small and lost and vulnerable that his chest clenched. He wanted to pull her in his arms and comfort her.
But the moment he lifted a hand toward her, she shrank like a delicate flower wilting in the sun. He gritted his teeth, silently cursing the past and the circumstances that had led them to this point.
“How about a friend?” he asked, intentionally lowering his voice. “Someone at the reservation?”
Her eyes widened, pits of steel. “I can’t endanger them, Carter. This man has kept track of me for five years. He knows you’re out, and now that he’s seen us together, he’s not going to give up until he silences us.” She heaved a weary sigh. “And he’ll hurt anyone we care about to get to us.”
Carter grimaced, hating that she was right. He’d long ago learned to stop living on empty hopes and senseless fantasies that people were good. No…most of the time they stabbed you in the back.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, struggling to formulate a plan, but his head ached from trying to figure out his next move. He was a cowboy, not a cop or the devious criminal everyone had pegged him to be.
But he had to think like one if he was going to survive and clear himself.
Having Sadie with him would make it more difficult to hide out. Then again, the police were looking for him, not a man and a woman, so it might serve to his advantage to travel as a couple.
Although if the police discovered they were together, they could arrest Sadie for aiding and abetting a convicted felon.
But what choice did they have? If he left her alone and that jerk found her, no telling what he’d do to her this time before he killed her.
And he would kill her.
Dammit. He had enough guilt to last a lifetime.
He couldn’t live with Sadie’s death on his conscience.
SADIE STRUGGLED to quell the fear raging inside her as Carter started the engine and pulled back onto the road.
She had once been a strong woman. She was an advocate for the Native American community, had fought for her people and their rights. She had studied the Navajo way of medicine, learned the roots and herbs used to help treat illnesses, the prayers and rituals performed to help with the healing of the body, the mind and the soul.
But she had also seen such poverty and backward ways that she had wanted more for her people. She had excelled in school because her education was her ticket out of poverty. She had set her sights on medical school in an effort to bridge the gap between the reservation and the surrounding areas in terms of medical care.
Then her mother had been diagnosed with cancer.
And she’d been forced to take waitressing jobs to pay medical bills and hire a nurse to tend to her mother while she worked. It had been a vicious cycle that had left her drained, and with no time to study, she’d lost her scholarship and her dreams.
Then Carter had walked in that night with his sexy, bad-boy swagger and talked her into his bed, and she’d fallen into his arms. She’d even imagined a relationship beyond the bedroom. A life. A future.
But then she’d been attacked…
Nausea roiled through her. For five years, she’d run from that memory. From the hulking monster who had threatened her and abused her and left her scarred both physically and emotionally.
She wouldn’t run anymore.
Carter had been unjustly accused and incarcerated. But she’d lived in a prison of her own, as well.
A prison built on fear.
Carter deserved justice. And so did she.
Together they would find the truth and go to the police. And if she died trying to do the right thing, at least she’d go to her grave with a clear conscience.
Exhausted, she closed her eyes and let the rumble of the truck eating the miles lull her into sleep. She had no idea what time it was when they jolted to a stop, but when she opened her eyes, they were at a deserted ranch in the middle of nowhere.
A thread of anxiety knotted her stomach, but Carter was scowling as he looked across the property, and he didn’t appear to have sex on his mind.
Instead his face was contorted with pain.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“My old man’s ranch,” Carter muttered.
“Is he here?”
Carter shook his head. “SOB died a few weeks ago. Place is run-down, but we can hide here for the night.”
“Won’t the police be watching it?” Sadie asked.
Carter shrugged. “Maybe. But Brandon said they’ve already searched it once.”
Anger laced his voice, but Sadie decided not to push for more information. Still, as he pulled the truck into a sagging barn, then climbed out and shut the barn door to hide the truck, she realized how isolated they were.
If Carter had been lying about protecting her, he could kill her and dump her out here, and no one would ever find her.
Irritated at herself for losing ground with her resolve to be stronger, she opened the door and slid down from the truck seat. Carter still had her derringer. She had to get it back.
At least with a gun in her hand she might have a chance at protecting herself from Carter. Or from the man who’d stolen her life and her sanity for the past five years with his constant threats.
Her mind warred with her Navajo beliefs, but she had to stand her ground. This man was evil, had scarred her and had destroyed too many lives.
She’d kill him before she allowed him to touch her again.
CARTER SCANNED THE PROPERTY, in case someone had followed them, then grabbed his duffel bag and led Sadie into the house. He hadn’t seen the place in years, and the shabby, run-down conditions were worse than he’d expected.
At one time, he’d had lofty dreams like Johnny and Brandon. He’d known one day his old man would get locked up or killed by someone he pissed off, and he’d thought this land would be his. He’d planned to bring in cattle, some horses, work it from the ground up and have something to be proud of.
Hell, he didn’t even care if he was rich like his buddies. He just wanted something of his own. A piece of land. Freedom. To earn a respectable living.
To be able to walk the streets without people calling him a murderer.
Bitterness welled inside him at the irony that he’d hated his old man and his violent tendencies but that he’d ended up in jail just like him.
And when his old man had been released from prison, he’d come back to the ranch to live out his last days. Had he hoped Carter would show up so he could pound his fists into him one more time before he died?
Or had the bastard mellowed?
A sardonic chuckled bubbled in his throat, riddled with disgust. No, his father hadn’t had a decent bone in his body.
And judging from the peeling paint, rotting porch, cobwebs and dirt streaking the farmhouse, he hadn’t done anything to improve the place once he was released. Of course, he had been dying…
Served him right for all the pain he’d inflicted on others.
Sadie tried to flick on a light, but the bulb popped. Hell, he was surprised the power was still on at all.
“I know it’s a rattrap,” Carter said. “But at least we can get some rest and regroup in the morning.”
Sadie nodded, and he showed her up the stairs to one of the bedrooms. The faded blue paint of his little brother’s room had turned a dingy gray, dust coating the old dresser and iron bed in the corner.
“Was this your room?” Sadie asked, as she glanced at a yellowed poster of a country rock group taped on the wall.
“No, it was my brother’s.”
“Where’s he now?” Sadie asked.
Carter swallowed hard. “He killed himself. Couldn’t take my old man anymore.” And I had already cut out and deserted him.
The familiar guilt plowed through him. He should have taken his brother with him.
Sadie gave him a sympathetic look, but he didn’t deserve it. Besides, she looked dead on her feet. Realizing they’d left her place with no time for her to pack anything, he unzipped his duffel bag, yanked out a denim shirt and tossed it to her. “Here, you can sleep in that. Now get some rest. If you need anything, I’ll be down the hall.”
She worried her lower lip with her teeth. “Carter?”
He turned to go, but paused at the sound of her voice. “Yeah?”
“Can I have my gun back?”
He studied her for a long moment, then his gaze fell to her trembling hands, and he removed it from his jacket and laid it on the nightstand. “Just don’t shoot me with it, okay?”
Relief softened her face. She’d probably slept with that gun since her attack. He understood about the demons that emerged at night and wished he’d had a damn gun in prison.
“I won’t,” she said in a strained voice. But a small smile curved her mouth, reminding him of how beautiful she was, and lust hit him hard.
Dammit, he had to leave or he’d haul her up against him.
What in God’s name was wrong with him? Every night in jail on his cot, he’d thought of her, remembered her seductive eyes and body. Remembered the soft curve of her breast, the dusky ripe brown of her nipples, the creamy skin of her hips, the damp invitation between her thighs…
Then he’d start sweating and shaking and wake up nearly howling like an animal. Because he remembered how she’d used him.
For five years, he’d considered her his enemy.
But now, he suddenly wanted to protect her and make love to her again.
He was damn crazy.
Hadn’t prison taught him he couldn’t trust anyone?
He balled his hands into fists and strode down the steps, his boots pounding out his frustration on the rickety wooden steps. Hell, yeah, it had.
He had escaped for one reason and one reason only. To clear himself. Not to get laid or hook back up with the woman who’d put him in jail.
He’d keep them both alive long enough to find the real killer, then they’d part ways.
Steeling himself, he stopped at the bottom of the stairs. He heard the door close and lock upstairs, and a bitter laugh escaped him.
Why the hell would Sadie or any woman want to be with him anyway? He had nothing to offer.
His boots clicked as he strode through the downstairs searching for more weapons. He found a shotgun and rifle and carried them back up the stairs and down the hall toward his old room. Tomorrow he had to make a plan. Figure out a way to find the man who’d framed him.
But it was late and his adrenaline had waned, so he yanked off his clothes and fell onto the metal bed he used to call his, wearing only his boxers.
Even though he was worn out, he couldn’t sleep for the troubling memories crashing down on him. Memories of things that had happened in this house. A house that had been filled with daily horrors.
The brutal tongue-lashings. The physical beatings. The night his old man had broken Carter’s nose when he’d thrown him against the wall.
The day when he was ten and his father had stripped his clothes, tied him to a tree and beaten him with a switch until his legs had been bloody. His brother had been terrified and had hidden in the woods.
Brandon and Johnny had found him, untied him and carried him to the creek to clean his wounds. He’d been half unconscious, spitting blood and feeling humiliated.
But both of them had admitted that their daddies were just as mean, their houses just as sick and twisted, then they’d shown him their scars. The moment had bound the men together forever.
Carter had vowed to stand by them after that, and the three of them had protected each other.
Another memory splintered through the haze, this one even more painful. The day his daddy had killed his mother.
Carter had run away as fast as his legs could carry him.
He shouldn’t have been so selfish. Should have taken his brother with him.
But his brother had been the golden boy, the one his father loved. It hadn’t occurred to him that his father would vent his rage on him.
And in the end, he hadn’t had to. His brother had killed himself.
And here he was back in the same crummy house he’d started in. Only his life had gone to hell. He had a criminal record, the law on his tail and a man who was determined to kill him breathing down his neck.
He racked his brain trying to recall an image of the man Sadie said he’d fought with in the bar, but those days and nights he’d been in an alcohol-induced blur, and nothing registered.
Disgusted, he closed his eyes and finally collapsed into a fitful sleep. But sometime later, a noise jarred him awake.
A car? Footsteps? He scrubbed his hand over his face, disoriented.
Then a scream pierced the air. A scream that cut through the chilling silence. Sadie’s scream.
Had the damn bastard found them?
He grabbed his gun from the dresser, yanked his jeans on, although he didn’t take time to snap them, then raced down the hall.
He had to get to Sadie.
Chapter Four
Carter raced down the hall, wielding his gun, his senses honed for trouble. He hesitated at the door to the room where Sadie slept and cocked his head listening for…the sound of a man inside? Footsteps? A man’s voice?
“No, stop…please,” Sadie cried. Then a thrashing sound and something hit the floor. A lamp?
A second later, another bloodcurdling scream pierced the air. This one was filled with pain and terror.
He jiggled the door, but it was still locked. How the hell had the man gotten in?
His heart drummed with panic, and he slammed his body against the wooden frame. The thin, rotting wood splintered, and he braced himself and hit it again with all his weight, so hard his shoulder wrenched.
He didn’t care, though. He had to get inside.
The force of the impact cracked the edging and the door burst open. Darkness bathed the room, but his gaze flew to the bed where Sadie was thrashing. A tiny sliver of moonlight sliced through the ratty sheers and broke the darkness, allowing him just enough visibility to search for the predator.
But the window was closed. The room empty, except for Sadie.
Pulsing with sweat, he blew out a relieved breath as he realized she was in the throes of a nightmare.
Shoving his gun into his waistband, he scanned the room again then jerked open the closet door just to make certain an intruder wasn’t hiding inside.
“Stop, please, no…”
Sadie’s tormented cry wrenched his gut, and he shot a quick glance below the bed, confirming there was no one underneath. Then he lowered himself onto the mattress beside her and reached out a hand to wake her.
“Sadie, honey, wake up,” he murmured. “You’re dreaming. You’re safe now.”
“No, don’t.” She threw up her hands and fists and hit him, obviously trying to fend off her attacker.
He gritted his teeth at the sight of her half naked in his shirt, willing his libido in check as the edges gaped open. His gaze fell to the puckered scar at the center of her chest, and he cursed.
She was reliving that night she’d been attacked....
Damn that bastard.
She kicked him, her ragged breathing punctuating the silence. His throat thickening, he stroked her arm and reminded himself he had to treat her with kid gloves. She was terrified and had been abused.
“Sadie,” he said softly.
A guttural sound tore through the air as she shoved at the covers. Then she shifted sideways and lunged upward as if she was going to run. She made it halfway off the bed when he caught her by both arms and pulled her to him. Her body was trembling, her breathing labored, her hands clammy as she gripped his arms.
“Shh, you’re okay, you’re safe, I’m here with you.”
She tried to jerk away again, but he shook her gently. “Wake up, Sadie. It’s me, Carter.”
She stopped thrashing momentarily as his voice registered, although her body went stone still. He cradled her face between his hands, determined to break her out of the terror gripping her. “You’re just having a nightmare.”
Sadie’s eyes flicked open, and she stared at him with a glazed look, as if she had no idea where she was or what was happening.
But the terror in her face at the sight of him made his gut tighten.
“Let me go,” she said in a voice so haunted that he released her immediately.
He held his hands up indicating he meant her no harm, but she shuddered anyway. “I’m not going to hurt you, Sadie. You were screaming, having a bad dream.”
She glanced down at her nightshirt where it gaped open at the top, then at the splintered door where he’d broken it and shock settled across her features. “I’m sorry I…woke you.”
His gaze locked with hers. “No problem. I’m a light sleeper.” He shrugged. “A habit I picked up in prison. Always had to be alert.”
Pain drew her face into a frown, then her gaze lifted to his scarred cheek. Self-consciously he rubbed a finger across it. He’d never considered himself a handsome guy, but before prison he hadn’t been hideous, either. At least he hadn’t scared little children and old women.
“Ugly, I know.”
“I guess we both have scars,” she said softly. “They’ve changed us.”
“Maybe.” But she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever met.
Her tender voice stirred memories of the first time he’d laid eyes on her. She had been wearing a turquoise-and-red Navajo skirt with a red blouse and sandals, her black hair hanging in a long braid down her back, turquoise earrings dangling from her earlobes. The other men in the bar had all been ogling her, muttering obscene comments, talking dirty.
He had wanted to knock their teeth out.
Because he’d wanted her for himself. But not just because he knew she’d be the hottest sex he’d ever had.
There had been something more to her. A deep, reserved, quiet kind of beauty that had triggered his lust but also his admiration. She wasn’t like the other girls he’d known in high school, snotty and materialistic, women who’d looked down on him as the trailer-trash troublemaker.
No, Sadie had looked at him as if she saw something good in him. As if she saw beneath his hard surface to the man he wanted to be.
He cleared his throat, the memory of having her in his bed returning to taunt him. He had loved her with his mouth and hands and body once and brought her to ecstasy. In fact, she had screamed with pleasure.
And he had moaned her name as he’d come inside her.
He balled his hands into fists. She was the last woman he’d made love to before his freedom had been ripped away. And even though he’d hated her for not stepping forward to clear him, as he’d lain on that brick-hard cot every night in prison he’d fantasized about making love to her again.
Only now his touch made her cringe with horror.
She wrapped her arms around herself, jerking her nightshirt tightly to her, then glanced at the table where her derringer lay. “You broke in?”
Frustration slammed into Carter. But the image of that scar flashed in his mind, and he knew Sadie deserved to be skeptical.
Dammit. He had to be patient. And he had to protect her.
“Because you were screaming,” Carter said, intentionally lowering his voice. “I thought the guy who shot at us had broken in.” He gestured toward the sheers. “Maybe through the window.”
Her gaze darted to the window then back to him, her big, dark eyes searching his face as if she was trying to decide whether to trust him. Whether to believe him.
He suddenly wanted that trust more than anything he’d wanted in a long time.
Almost as much as he wanted his damn freedom.
He shifted and leaned against the doorjamb. But he’d waited five long years to clear his name. And nothing was going to stop him from doing so.
Even Sadie Whitefeather.
SADIE SHRANK BACK against the headboard, needing more distance between her and Carter.
Her heart was pounding so loudly she could hear it roaring in her ears.
Having Carter in the bedroom close enough to touch her, close enough to breathe in his masculine scent, felt too intimate for comfort, and it reminded her that she hadn’t been with a man in five years.
And he had been practically naked. God, the man was sexy. But that sex appeal scared her now, too.
Carter might have spent those years in a cell, but in some ways she’d locked herself in a self-imposed prison of her own. She’d been afraid to get close to anyone, had avoided men, especially physical relationships, and had hidden herself away, as if staying invisible and holding on to her secret could keep her alive and assuage her guilt.
But she hadn’t really been living. No, she’d grieved for her mother, berated herself for her lack of courage, tormented herself with images of the beatings and abuse Carter suffered in prison, and spent each day running in fear.
“I’m sorry,” Sadie said again. “I…thought the nightmares were over, but—”
“But my escape brought them back,” Carter said in a self-deprecating tone.
“It’s not your fault,” Sadie admitted. Suddenly weary, she buried her head in her hands. “You’ve been locked up for a crime you didn’t commit, and I’ve been running from city to city, hiding, trying to lose myself, trying to forget.”
“But you couldn’t forget,” he said bluntly.
She shook her head, tears burning the backs of her eyelids. Tears she refused to let fall. She didn’t deserve his sympathy. “No matter where I moved, the truth—and that man—followed me.”
Carter cleared his throat. “Where did you go?”
The last few years of running replayed through her mind. She’d hated the hiding, the lying, the not being able to trust or make friends. “After my mother died, I moved to Houston for a while. Then Dallas. Then Austin. Each time I thought I might be able to escape the bad dreams. The guilt…” Her voice cracked, and she looked up at him with her heart in her eyes. “The guilt over what I did to you.”
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