by Susan Stoker, Cristin Harber, Cora Seton, Lynn Raye Harris, Kaylea Cross, Katie Reus, Tessa Layne
“Mom? Mom gave us a good example? Mom sat here on this ranch and waited for her husband to spare her a moment or two when he wasn’t too busy. She martyred herself for this place. For him! And now we’re doing it, too. So don’t talk to me about Mom. Don’t talk to me at all!” Lena set down the teacup with a thump that rattled it in its saucer, stood up and strode toward the stairs. “I’m done with men,” she shouted over her shoulder. “And that includes the General. This is my ranch now and I’m running it as I see fit. I don’t care who the General sends.”
Ten seconds later they heard her bedroom door slam.
Cass turned to Alice and shook her head. “I don’t think I can take much more of this day.”
“Go upstairs and take a nap. I’ll hold down the fort,” Alice said. “Get some sleep. You need it. But Cass,” she added, almost as an afterthought, as both of them rose to their feet. “Where did you go this afternoon? When you were in the maze?”
All Cass could do was shrug. “I really don’t know.”
It was the same answer she’d given Brian, and she knew in the morning, she’d have to face what they’d done. She’d have to sort out her feelings for him. Decide what to do next. They’d taken such a chance. She’d never let passion get the better of her that way before.
“I don’t think you were… here,” Alice said. “I don’t know where you went, either.”
“It was… peaceful,” Cass told her. “I felt… safe.”
“I’m glad.” Still, Alice followed her. “It’s going to get better now, isn’t it? Without Howie and Mark and Scott. Maybe it’ll be like it used to be—just us.”
“I don’t know about that.” Sean was still hanging around Jo, and she knew Bob would be back. There was the missing money and the constant threat that the General would take away the ranch. It seemed to Cass there were too many problems to ever sort out.
“Cass…” Alice trailed her to the base of the stairs. “If you tried to follow Mom out there in the maze, I understand why you’d want to. But please—” she touched Cass’s hand where it rested on the bannister “—don’t go. I don’t think… I don’t think we can do this without you.”
Cass swung around to catch Alice in a fierce hug. Alice was right; for one moment she’d been weak and she’d wanted to go, but not anymore. She could never leave her sisters behind. “I’m not going anywhere. I think—I think Mom gave me a reprieve. Time out of time to catch my breath—that’s all. I’m here now, and I won’t do that again. I promise.”
Alice nodded and took a breath when Cass finally let her go. “There’s more coming. I don’t want to say that, but it’s true. We’re not out of the worst of it yet.”
Of course they weren’t. Bob was still prowling around telling people they were getting married. Scott was still out there, a free man even after he’d hit Lena. They were short thirty thousand dollars and their father could take the ranch away at any time. Not to mention the chance she’d taken making love to Brian.
Exhaustion bowed Cass’s head as she made her way upstairs. When she finally crawled into bed, she pulled her sheet up over her head, despite the sticky heat of the day. She’d face the world later.
Right now she wanted to forget everything.
The house was quiet when Brian entered the kitchen late that night. He’d come home from his altercation with Scott with busted knuckles and a sore hand but when he’d found out that Cass had gone to bed, he’d headed down to the stables to muck them out, because the bloodlust he’d felt when he went after Scott still hadn’t abated. He’d known he had to calm down before he could be with Cass again. It had taken hours and a lot of hard work but he finally felt in control of himself.
Cass had to know they were meant to be together, especially after making love in the maze. She’d wanted him as badly as he’d wanted her—and she wanted the kind of life he wanted, too.
The only thing standing between them was her fear, and he couldn’t fight that with his fists; he had to prove to her he could be the kind of husband she could depend on.
He ran the knuckles of his right hand under water for a long time, knowing it was too late to stop the swelling. Knowing, too, it had been worth it.
As a local hard-ass, Scott hadn’t proven to be much of an opponent, despite the fact he had several inches and twenty pounds on Brian. Sometimes his SEAL training came in handy, Brian told himself. This was one of those times.
In deference to Cab’s career, he hadn’t flattened Scott, but he’d given him a good drubbing before dropping him off in front of the sheriff’s office. Let Cab take it from there. He doubted the man would give any more trouble to the women at Two Willows.
Tomorrow he’d have to sort things out with Cass. He wished he could do it tonight, but he wasn’t at his best, and he figured neither was she. A good night’s rest and everything would come clear.
Time to get some sleep. But as he headed toward the stairs, Brian stiffened as a cry rang out and was instantly muffled upstairs.
What the hell—?
Once again he was moving before he even thought about the consequences. He took the stairs two at a time and paused, trying to trace the sound. Cass’s bedroom door was shut, but even as he reached for the knob the sound came again from the end of the hall, where Jo’s white cat, Tabitha, paced impatiently in front of another closed door. It wasn’t the cat who’d made that noise, though. It had been a woman—Jo—and she didn’t sound happy.
He dimly realized he might be about to barge in on Jo and her boyfriend—what was his name? Steve? Sean?—before his shoulder hit the door, crashed it open, and he slid into the room. Tabitha streaked past him. Brian took in Jo sitting in a chair, a laptop with a webcam propped on a stool in front of her, Sean standing behind her, his hands working at the buttons of her shirt while she squirmed and fought, trying to stop him.
“We’ll make good money,” Sean was growling at her.
“I don’t want to!”
Sean never saw Brian’s fist until it connected with his nose. Brian winced as his sore knuckles connected with skin and bone again. Sean fell with a cry on Jo’s bed, scrambled to his feet and raced for the door, blood streaming from his mouth down his chin. Brian lunged for him again, missed and decided to let the man get away. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to stop once he got started raining vengeance on him. Besides, Jo had her knees tucked under her chin and she was crying, Tabitha weaving around the legs of the chair.
He knocked the laptop off the stool, not wanting to stop and figure out how to cut the video feed. The webcam went flying and smashed to pieces against the wall. Brian scooped Jo up, sat on her bed and cradled her in his arms.
“Shh, I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”
As her tears wet his shoulder, Brian decided enough was enough. He would call the General tonight. Tell the sonofabitch to come home and help his daughters. He hadn’t even had time to process why Scott, who had no affiliation with Two Willows besides dating Lena, would come after her for going to sort out some problem with the hands at the Park. What was his connection to them?
He was missing something here. Something that would make it all make sense.
“Why did Sean want you to strip on camera?” he asked Jo.
“For the money,” she sobbed. “He said I could make more flashing my… going topless… than he could ever make. He said we were in this together and I should do it for him. I told him no. He just wouldn’t listen.”
That didn’t make sense to Brian. There was so much porn on the internet he doubted something so tame as Jo’s breasts could make a decent amount of money. Either Sean had wanted to lure Jo into doing much, much more—
Or he thought he could control her once she’d exposed herself.
He thought of Scott punching Lena. Howie and Mark working together—bringing Sadie along in Alice’s car. Bob trying to marry Cass.
Control tactics. It was all about control. All of it aimed at keeping the women silent.
Abou
t what?
“Shh,” he said again as Jo buried her face in his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”
He was going to stop whatever was happening at Two Willows once and for all.
When Cass woke it was dark outside and she sat up, thoroughly confused, sure she’d heard a noise. Glancing at her bedside clock, she realized she’d slept through the afternoon, through dinner and into the night. An engine racing outside brought her out of bed and to the window in time to see taillights disappearing around the house. Had that been Sean’s truck? He seemed in an awful hurry to leave.
Even at night the ranch was beautiful, Cass thought as she drew the curtains. She couldn’t blame Brian for falling in love with it. She only wished he’d fallen for her that way. He said he had, but after everything that had happened, how could she tell if he was speaking the truth?
She couldn’t help but think about making love to Brian earlier. Who knew sex could feel like that, like all the walls between them had dissolved to allow them to come together in a searing stroke of heat?
Could he have faked all that passion? Was it simply something men knew how to do? Cass wondered if there was some secret code when it came to men that she’d never find the key to unlock. Their motivations mystified her.
But not Brian’s. His were plain and simple. Understandable.
He wanted a home. Her home.
He’d do what it took to get it.
He wanted her, too. But which did he want more? Did it matter?
It did to her.
She knew she wouldn’t sleep again anytime soon. Might as well get up and look over the ranch’s accounts. But when she stepped out of her room, she was surprised to see Lena, Sadie and Alice in the hall, and a light shining from Jo’s room past the shattered remains of her door.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I heard voices. Someone running,” Alice said.
Cass pushed past them all to get to Jo, but when she reached her sister’s room, nothing could prepare her for the scene that met her eyes. Brian sat on Jo’s bed, legs wide, Jo balanced on his lap in his embrace, her arms wrapped around him tightly, her face buried in his neck.
Cass let out a choked sound, and when they sprang apart she could see that Brian had managed to get her sister’s shirt half unbuttoned. Pain seared her breath from her lungs as her other sisters crowded around her.
Brian and Jo? Not hours after he’d been inside her?
“Cass!” Jo clutched her shirt together.
Brian held a hand her way. “Cass, don’t—”
“Out,” she managed to say. “Get… out! Get out!” Her voice rose with every word. Jo began to cry, but Cass didn’t care. This was too much. The last straw. “Get out! I mean it!”
Brian opened his mouth, opened his hands wide as if in supplication, then seemed to realize there was nothing he could say. “All right; I’m getting out. But it’s not what you think, and I’ll be back.” He shouldered his way out of the room as her sisters stepped back, openmouthed with shock.
“Cass, I didn’t—it wasn’t—” Jo began.
Cass didn’t want to hear any explanations. As Brian disappeared down the stairs, his footsteps thunderous on the wooden boards, rage welled up in her throat and came out as a feral cry. “I don’t want to hear any more! I’m done! Just—done!” She pushed past the others out of the room, picked up speed and dashed to her own room down the hall. Inside, she slammed the door so hard its hinges rattled, and that felt so good she nearly opened it and did it again.
How much was she expected to stand in one night? Cass paced her room wildly. How treacherous could one man be? How much pain could one life hold? She rushed to the window to look out at her shed. Nothing it contained was big enough to express her anger.
“It’s too much!” Cass’s tears came hot and fast. She’d cried more in one day than she had in a decade, and she couldn’t stand it anymore. She didn’t want to feel like this. She craved another storm—one with enough thunder and lightning to broadcast her fury, but the night remained clear.
She scrubbed her cheeks angrily, but more tears came, as if the ache in her heart was leaking straight from her eyes. Cass knew she wouldn’t be able to stop it. She’d failed at every turn. She hadn’t kept anyone safe, least of all herself. She’d already begun to come to terms with the idea that Brian wanted her land more than he wanted her, but now he’d set her own sister against her.
And her sisters were all she had.
Cass stepped back from the window, defeated by the clear night sky. No storm would wash these feelings away. No fireworks were wild enough to express them.
She sank down on her bed, tucked her feet underneath her and curled into a ball. For eleven years she’d feared the day the General would take the ranch away from her. She’d never once feared the real catastrophe. If she lost her sisters, she’d lose herself.
The door slipped open and Alice glided in on silent feet, shutting it firmly behind her again. She sat next to Cass on the bed, and pulled her into her arms. “You haven’t lost anyone.” Cass shut her eyes and rested her head on Alice’s shoulder, grateful for her sister’s strength. When Lena joined them a few minutes later, she, too, knelt on the bed and wrapped her arms around both of them.
Sadie joined them next, and took a position on the bed near Cass’s feet. The door opened a fourth time, and Cass knew it had to be Jo.
She stiffened. A moment later, the mattress sunk, as Jo sat down.
“It was Sean,” she said quietly. “He tried to get me to take my top off while he was filming me. He wanted money. He said we should share everything; even my body. Brian stopped him—”
Cass thought she’d run out of tears but she was wrong. So wrong.
She’d failed again.
She’d failed everyone.
She turned and lifted herself to her knees, reaching for her sister. Jo leaned into her embrace, and clung to her. “I thought he loved me,” Jo said. “I thought—”
“I know. I know, honey.” Cass held on to her for dear life as the others leaned in, too. “I’m so sorry.”
“Brian decked him and Sean ran like the house was on fire.” Jo laughed amidst her tears, a painful sound. “If he hadn’t come right then, I don’t know what would have happened. Sean wouldn’t stop.”
“I’m glad Brian was there,” Cass said. She’d have to apologize in the morning. It shamed her that she’d read the situation so wrong. She’d looked for pain when there was only love.
“He got my car back, you know,” Alice said. “I didn’t have the guts to stand up to Howie, even though I sensed what he was doing was wrong.”
“Look at this.” Lena held up her phone. Cass wiped her eyes on her sleeve and squinted to make out the photo. “That’s Scott,” Lena clarified. “That’s his face after Brian got done with him. Ella Hall saw him in town. Now I can say, you should see the other guy.” Her laugh was all bravado, but Cass’s heart squeezed with gratitude toward Brian. She wasn’t one for violence—usually. But Scott was a bully who’d beaten up plenty of men—and probably women, she thought now—over the years. Maybe now he’d think twice about it.
“Brian stopped me before I got myself in real trouble,” Sadie said softly. “I’m so ashamed of myself I can hardly look at him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate what he did. He’s a man, and a meddling SEAL, and the General’s lackey, but he’s saved our bacon, hasn’t he?”
“I guess he has,” Cass admitted.
Jo gave her a final squeeze and pulled back. Tabitha jumped up onto the bed and Jo scooped her into her lap.
“Speaking of bacon… I’m hungry.”
Cass laughed, but when her stomach growled, she admitted, “Yeah, me, too.”
“Do you think Brian would get us some more pizza?” Lena asked.
Another chuckle escaped Cass, but so did a few more tears. “After tonight? I doubt it.” But even as she was saying it, Cass thought he probably would. If they asked.
<
br /> If a pizza place was open at one in the morning in Chance Creek.
“Come on down to the kitchen. I’ll whip something up.” She hesitated. “We’d better discuss the new order of things around here, too, while we’re at it.”
“What do you mean?” Alice asked as they climbed off the bed and headed for the door.
“I mean Lena’s right; we’re done taking orders. No more fooling around when it comes to the General. This is our ranch now and we’ll run it as we see fit. First thing tomorrow, those hands are going to go. We’ll kick them off together,” she told Lena. “We’ll all pitch in to help with the cattle until we can hire new help. We’ll all fix the roof together, too. I have a confession to make,” she added, straightening her clothes. “Bob stole quite a bit of money from us. We’re going to have to operate on a shoestring, but I have no doubt if we work together, we can get back on track.”
“I’m in,” Sadie said quickly. “All I want to do is get back to work on the gardens, but I’ll help with everything else, too, and put all my sales money into the kitty.”
“I’m in,” Jo agreed. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep this place running.”
“Are you saying I can be overseer?” Lena asked as they entered the hall.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Cass told her.
“Then I’m in. All the way.”
“Me, too,” Alice said. “Sales have been good this year. If you need more money, all you have to do is ask.”
Cass squeezed her. “Thank you. You four are all I need, you know.”
“You’re all we need, too,” Jo said, and led the way downstairs.
CHAPTER NINE
“Didn’t take you long to thoroughly screw things up,” Logan said when Brian shut himself in the General’s office and patched together a video call early the next morning with the men he’d left back at USSOCOM. He’d spent most of the rest of the night pacing the maze, telling himself he had to give Cass time to calm down and give Jo a chance to explain what had happened. He knew once she did, Cass would see her mistake. But then what? She still thought he wanted Two Willows, not her.
