“Smile for the camera.” One more should do it. He made sure to hold up a newspaper with the date on it. The Bliss Gazette was a waste of the paper it was written on, but it did the trick. Hope would know he had her friend, and that soft heart of hers wouldn’t be able to handle it. She would come to him.
And she would know what he planned to do with her.
Little Lucy fought against her bonds. She looked down at her hands, twisting them, the friction marring her skin. She’d been easy to catch, harder to hold. She’d fought like a wildcat, but he had help. It had taken all three of them to hold one small woman down after she’d figured out that her little date from a couple of days ago had gone all wrong. He guessed he should be lucky that little Lucy wasn’t as tied into the town’s gossip mill as the rest of them. As far as he could tell, she was a fairly new citizen. She’d been ridiculously open with him when she’d thought he was a lovesick swain. She came from a large family in another town. She had numerous brothers and sisters, and she’d grown up in poverty, the rest of her town looking down on the trashy family she’d come from. Oh, it had been so easy to tell her what she’d wanted to hear—that she was lovely and he didn’t care where she’d come from.
But the minute she’d realized he wasn’t what he’d said, she’d turned and become a problem.
“Do you want me to stay, boss?”
Christian sighed as he looked up at his flunkie. This man had been with him a short time. He missed Jerry. Jerry wouldn’t have asked. Jerry would have known what to do. Unfortunately, Jerry was also very close to his height and his weight, and when he’d woken and realized that his home was going up in flames and he had the chance to start again, he’d sacrificed Jerry for the greater good. For Christian’s good. Jerry’s body had been his second chance.
“No. Go out to the ranch, and be there when Hope gets my call.”
The man nodded. He was an idiot, but a useful one. Christian had picked up him and his friend outside of Duluth. They were small cons, but fairly decent at bringing in the ladies. Their Western charm had worked well, and when he’d needed them to find jobs, they’d gotten it done. They could get close to Hope. They could bring her home.
Where he would decide if she lived or died.
“Sure thing, boss.”
“You said she spent the night with them.” Christian wanted to call the words back the minute they came out of his mouth. It was a weakness, but he couldn’t help it.
“That’s what I heard.”
“No one saw her sleep with them?”
The man in his cowboy hat shook his head. “No one was in there with her. No one really knows what happened.”
But Christian had his suspicions. He waved the man out, his brain whirling with unsavory possibilities.
His employee strode out of the purloined cabin. It seemed empty enough. From what Christian understood, it was a summer place, and summer was over. The nearest neighbor was a mile away, and no one in town thought Michael McMahon gave a crap about anything but his own grief. He wouldn’t notice Christian’s little domestic drama play out.
He was alone with Lucy, and soon Hope would be here. Hope would stand before him, and he would look into her eyes. He would know the truth.
And he would be her judge and her jury, and possibly her executioner.
Hope let the water wash over her, a light joy infusing her. Every muscle ached, but she’d slept better than she had in years. She’d cuddled down between them, their bodies heating her skin and offering a bulwark against the world outside. Their arms had wrapped around her, and she’d been encased in their unique warmth.
Now the water was warm, sluicing over her body, washing her as clean as her words the day before had washed her soul.
Trev had been right. The truth was the only way to cut through the pain, to find the path. And the truth had brought her home.
She shut off the water to the shower and heard James and Noah arguing in the bedroom about who had to make the bed and who should go and fetch the coffee. She smiled, her heart full. They were obnoxious and all hers.
She thought about breaking up their fight, but decided to concentrate on making herself presentable. If she walked out now, she would be forced to drop her robe, and then she was screwed. Literally. They were insatiable.
Twenty minutes later, she glossed her lips and walked into the bedroom. Peace. Quiet.
It wouldn’t last long.
She got dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Someone had moved her clothes from the guest room. She felt a sweetness pierce her heart when she realized all three dressers had clothes in them. The boys had moved in, and they had moved fast.
The door opened, and James poked his head in. “Hope? Baby, come to breakfast. We have to eat fast this morning. Noah’s got a load of cattle to check out. We’re taking them to market in a week or two. I want to make sure they’re damn healthy before we sell them.”
She took a deep breath because she’d spent way too much time with Nell. James wanted to make sure his cows were healthy and in good shape before he slaughtered them and turned them into burgers. She shrugged. She liked burgers. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
At least she got to get dressed this morning. She’d been a little worried that they would want her running around naked at the breakfast table, but apparently the herd’s medical checkup trumped the need to see her boobs while devouring pancakes.
She stared at herself in the mirror, not quite recognizing the woman who looked back at her. She was a rancher’s wife. Well, almost. And a vet’s wife. She had better get used to working with animals, because they would dominate her life.
“Goddamn it.” James’s voice rang through the house.
Hope sighed and opened the door to the bedroom. She hoped James and Noah weren’t fighting again. She would have to get some advice from Rachel on how to handle them when they started acting like five-year-olds.
“We need to start barring the gates at night. That’s a nice car, though.” Noah stood at the front window, his brother at his side.
“It’s a dumb car for the mountains.” James peered out the window and then whistled. “Whoa. Is that really what I think it is?”
Noah’s voice was hushed and reverent. “1969 Camaro.”
“Holy crap. That’s a beauty. Z28. You know the horsepower that has?”
Hope looked out the window, too. “It’s a car.”
Both of her men turned at her like she’d said something utterly sacrilegious.
“That is a classic muscle car,” Noah explained. “It’s eight cylinders of pure power.”
Hope wasn’t impressed. She bet it didn’t even have a CD player. Even her little piece of crap had a CD player.
The Camaro charged up the road, churning dust behind it. It stopped at the long, circular drive, and the door opened. Out of the passenger side, Cade Sinclair unfurled his long, lean body, his eyes covered with mirrored aviators. Jesse McCann got out of the driver’s side and said something to his partner that made them both smile.
“See, that just ruins everything,” James said, frowning.
“Now it’s a douchebag car,” Noah agreed.
Hope sighed. “I’m sure they’re here to give me an update on my car. Will you give them a break?”
Noah held up her small cell phone. “They could have called. Phones work here, too.”