Once he was settled into one of the rocking chairs on the porch, John Davis turned to look at her. “Now, I know you aren’t going to like this, but since I can’t get you to drop out of sight for a few weeks, this is my plan. Daniel, here, is used to working undercover and it looks like he’s a bit of a horseman. He comes with the very highest recommendations from his previous captain and I’m placing him undercover here with you, until Lambert is found and locked away again.”
Jordan stood up, walked over to lean back against the rail that ran around the porch and looked from one to the other. “Undercover? How is that going to work?”
John Davis shrugged his shoulders. “He can be your boyfriend, or someone who works for you. Either way, he is here all the time.”
“Do you think that will stop Lambert?” Jordan asked.
“Maybe it will make him think twice about attacking you.” John responded.
She smiled. “My husband tried to stop him and was killed for his efforts. I don’t think Lambert will hesitate because another man is here.”
Wolf leaned forward. “Maybe not, Jordan, but I’ll be expectin’ him. Your husband wasn’t and I have a lot of trainin’ your husband didn’t have.”
“My husband was a football coach and was in great physical shape.” She said firmly a spark of anger flashing in her eyes.
“And I’ve spent the last few years of my life livin’ with and workin’ among people just like this Lambert. People who hurt and kill other people because they got up on the wrong side of the bed. I know how to spot danger and how to deal with it. If I didn’t, I’d be dead by now.” Wolf hoped she would listen to reason.
“If that’s supposed to make me feel better, I’m sorry. It isn’t working. I know Lambert is coming after me and I don’t want anyone else in danger. I have Bhrandii to warn me and there are weapons stashed around the house and barn that I know how to use. I think I can protect myself.” She had discovered that she resented the notion she was some helpless female that would faint at the idea of being attacked. “I’ve been through this once and survived. I think I know better than anyone else just what Lambert is capable of.”
“Oh really?” John Davis said. “Remember that he killed Mr. Swartz first. They’re sure he planned to get your location from Mrs. Swartz by any means necessary, including torture, if she hadn’t had a heart attack and died before he got the chance.”
Jordan turned her back on the two men and looked out over the land that was once again her home. Finally she turned around to face them. “I don’t like this. I know, Sheriff John, that you are trying to protect me and I’m grateful for that.” She turned to look at Wolf and was again surprised by the clear blue eyes that looked back at her from his swarthy features. “And even though we just met, I do trust you and believe that you are trying to look out for my best interests. However, I don’t want you or anyone else sleeping in my barn and as old fashioned as it might sound, I do not want people that I go to church with thinking that I have a live in boyfriend. Now, we can pretend that we are dating or something that will excuse you being here a lot of the time, but when it’s time for me to go in the house and lock the doors at night, I do that alone! That is the only way I will agree to having a body guard. Between Bhrandii and the Lord, I think I will be fine.”
John Davis shook his head negatively. “Jordan, honey, your daddy would have me drawn and quartered if I let you make that choice. You’ve got to be a little more cooperative. You also need to remember that if people are going to judge your moral conduct when you know you are doing nothing wrong, then it’s a problem between them and God and not something for you to worry about.”
She met his eyes with a steady look of determination. “No.”
“It would help if you just allow me to set up a tepee somewhere between the barn and the house.” Wolf spoke up. “I’ve spent many nights in a tepee and am very comfortable there. Then even if I slept on your couch, people need not know that. I could still be here and keep watch without anyone doubting your morality and if anyone approaches the house at night, the dog will make enough noise to wake me, if you’re worried about me bein’ in the house at night.”
She started shaking her head negatively again. “That would be as bad as y’all sleeping in the barn.”
Feather arrived and joined the conversation at that point. “You’ve never slept in a tepee, Jordan. Wolf and I spent all our summers in them when grandfather was alive. He insisted that we learn to appreciate the way our ancestors lived. Tepees are wonderful.”
For the first time Jordan hesitated in her refusal. John Davis jumped in at that moment. “Daniel would be here to help you with your horses and would receive his pay from the county.”
“We can do all our own cooking and wouldn’t need to bother you at all if you allow us the use of the bathroom in the barn. I love camping, but I also love showers at night,” Feather chimed in.
Jordan looked at her, studying her face for any sign of deceit, then turned to look at Daniel before shaking her head again. “I don’t want to put anyone else in danger.”
“If you don’t agree to this, then he’s goin’ to have me sittin’ out in the woods all night watchin’ this place, fightin’ mosquitoes and everythin’ else that feeds on human blood at night.” Daniel returned her gaze evenly.
Jordan turned her attention on the man she had known all her life to find him nodding in agreement with his deputy. “Skeeters get real bad in the woods at night.”
“Like they won’t be bothered by them in a tepee?” She challenged him, her blond brows arching sharply.
“We burn a type of natural repellant.” Feather explained. “Mosquitoes have never been a problem when we camp. Please let us set up our tepee here, Jordan. I hate noisy campgrounds.”
“And suppose Lambert comes after y’all first?” She asked.
“I will know.” Daniel spoke softly. “My grandfather taught us to live in the old ways of our people. In fact, we learned to live off the land totally for weeks at a time. A man can’t do that without becomin’ a part of the landscape around him. My senses have always served me well. When this man comes, Jordan, whether for you or for us first, I will know, and I will stop him.”
Finally Jordan’s resolve melted. “I guess I can’t win against the three of you. Just remember, if I have a weapon in my hand, don’t get in my line of fire.”
“It’s not an easy thing to kill a man.” John Davis observed softly. “I’d be afraid that you’d hesitate and just a small hesitation would give him a chance to reach you.”
“I wouldn’t hesitate.” Her blond head shook firmly. “I remember what he did to David.”
“Thou shalt not kill. How often have you heard that during Sunday morning service?” The lawman asked.
Jordan shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I know how you were raised, Honey. I’ve been in those Sunday morning services most of the time. I don’t want to bet your life that you wouldn’t hesitate for just a second before you could pull the trigger. I feel better knowing that Daniel will be here.” He pushed himself up out of the chair he was setting in. “Besides, how do you know that God didn’t send Daniel here at this time for this very reason?”
That question took Jordan by surprise. She shrugged again, looking at the sheriff, then at Daniel. John Davis slipped one strong arm around her shoulders, surprised by the muscles he felt there. “You know how He works. You just gotta trust Him.”
Her head dropped and nodded slightly as she returned his brief hug of affection. “Thanks. You really know how to put a person in their place.”
He laughed heartily at her sarcastic humor. “See you in church Sunday.”
The three young people watched him get in his truck and drive away. After a few minutes of silence, Wolf left the women on the porch and went down to where he’d parked his horse trailer. They watched quietly as he pulled a huge bag out of the front of the trailer, then climbed up the ladder on the side and began unlas
hing some long poles that had been secured there.
“Let me go help him set up,” Feather said, as she rose and walked to the steps where she paused and looked back at Jordan. “Wolf is very good at undercover work. If he weren’t, he’d be dead.”
“I just don’t want something to happen because of me. Lambert has no mercy.” Jordan’s eyes were still following the man as he began to unroll what looked like a huge tarpaulin. She wasn’t aware that she was watching him, but Feather smiled before she turned to go.
She shrugged. “If that man doesn’t come after you, then he’ll be fine. If he does, Wolf will stop him. Trust God, yes, but trust Wolf too.”
Jordan’s eyes followed her as she joined her brother. Although not tall like her brother, Feather was slim and willowy, straight limbed, hard muscled but extremely feminine. In contrast, her brother stood a bit over six feet. He too, was straight and hard muscled. Jordan found herself admiring the movement of his arms and legs as the two moved about, setting up the big tent. With efficient cooperation that came from working side by side for many years, the brother and sister quickly erected the poles and soon had the heavy cover hung around them. To Jordan, it was a strange apparition setting in a small opening between the brick house and the barn.
Chapter Eighteen
Lambert was on the road again. He’d spent the night at a nice motel in Mobile and would soon arrive in Tallahassee, Florida. He knew it wasn’t but a couple of hours from Tallahassee to Lake City, but he would get a room for the night soon, because when he arrived in Lake City he wanted to drive around the town and see what the layout was like. Since Jordan’s address was a post office box, he didn’t know exactly where to find her, but he was getting closer. Knowing that she was that near started his heart pumping faster. It had been so long since he’d seen her, one would expect her face to have faded from his memory, but if he shut his eyes, he could still see her face as if it had only been yesterday. That head full of natural gold hair framing a face with softly arched brows, just a shade darker than her hair, above eyes that were almost a golden brown. Her delicate nose perched above full, generous lips that hid straight white teeth.
There was no denying that Jordan was beautiful. But she wouldn’t be beautiful for long, once he got his hands on her. She had been able to go on with her life, but for the last five years, he had been cooped up in a cage like an animal. If she hadn’t fought with him that night, they would have been out of the house before her husband ever realized what had happened. It was her fault that he had killed the man.
Lambert frowned at the long stretch of highway ahead of him. All he’d wanted was for her to love him the way that he loved her. The way he’d always wanted someone to love him.
Frank Lambert didn’t remember his mother ever hugging him or telling him that she loved him. Most of his memories of her were blurred with the smell of beer and cheap perfume. And her boyfriends. There had been lots of them over the years. Some stayed just one night, some for a few months. Those were the ones he had hated most. They always thought they had the right to boss him around just because they helped buy the food and pay the bills. When he was really little, he had done as he was told or he got slapped around, but Frank was soon old enough and smart enough to duck out of the house when things got rough. When he knew his mother and her friend would be passed out, he would slip into his room through a window and was often gone when they woke up the next day. By the time he was ten years old, he was not a stranger to surviving on the street. He knew how to grab things from stores and run before the clerks could catch him and was a master at finding places to hide. As he grew older, he learned to slip things inside his clothes without being noticed. He loved to do that. It made him feel superior to the people he was stealing from.
He didn’t join gangs, nor have friends because they all wanted to tell him what to do too, and he wasn’t interested in helping others. He knew he had to look out for number one, because no one else would.
Frank attended school because they fed him and he was bright enough to make passing grades without any encouragement or help. His teachers didn’t recognize anything special about him and he didn’t put forth extra effort. He just wanted to get by unnoticed.
When he was thirteen, he came home one day and found his mother dead. He didn’t know or care what caused her death. His only concern was that she wouldn’t be around to pay the rent and that meant he would now be out on the street for real. He swore at her loudly and kicked her dead body, then packed his few belongings and all the food he could find into a plastic shopping bag and left the house.
He took up residence in an old abandoned house in town and from there, continued to go to school. As he grew up, staying in school was the only steady thread in his life. He stole when he could and was not above robbing people he met on the streets at night. Some of the local prostitutes gave him a little money when they needed him to run errands for them. He was an attractive young man and was popular with them because he didn’t judge them. He would go to their drug dealer and pick up a hit for them and they knew he could be trusted not to use any of it. For that, he received a financial reward and sometimes a place to spend the night.
By the time he was seventeen, burglary was his main source of income. At school he had asked a couple of girls out on dates, but the ones he wanted to date were looking for more in life than a dead end and flatly refused him in spite of his good looks. He started slipping around their houses at night, peeping in their windows. He became so fascinated by this that he got careless and ended up in jail. He spent a couple of weeks there and was then released.
That started Frank’s drifting. He took futureless jobs and lived on the fringes of society, moving from small town to small town trying to keep a low profile. His life choices however, sooner or later drew unwanted attention from law enforcement officials, so he moved on again. His reading material consisted of magazines ranging from Playboy to detective thrillers and if he could get his hands on it, he craved hard core porn rags. He began to fanaticize about a woman who would love him so much she would get pleasure from his rough handling of her, or she might share his desire to hurt others and help him with his perverted sport. In his mind, she would be so beautiful that no one would think her capable of such and in fact, she wouldn’t realize her own desires, until he stole her away from all she knew.
He thought he had met that woman twice before, but in the end, they were trembling weaklings and he had found it necessary to kill them. Taking the first one’s life brought him an unexpected jolt of perverted sexual pleasure and with the second one, he spent a long afternoon practicing new ways to bring suffering to one who had not lived up to his expectations. It was his idea of a delightful afternoon.
However, when he saw Jordan Larson, he saw a woman with inner strength and outer beauty and he knew she was the woman of his dreams. He was disappointed when he found out she was married, but to his way of thinking, that was just a slight inconvenience. He took his time, flirting subtly with her when she was at the store. She was special and he didn’t want to rush her. He wanted her committed to him. In his mind, she was responding favorably when she smiled and spoke to him each time she was at the store, and he never noticed that she treated the other employees in the same respectful way.
Lambert’s whole world was wrapped around himself. His wants and needs were all that mattered and he saw nothing wrong with doing whatever was necessary to achieve his goals. The thought that other people had things they cared about never occurred to him and if they had, he simply wouldn’t have cared. He loved that he could make them fear him and dread the things he could do to them, but beyond that, they just didn’t count.
Except Jordan Larson. She counted! He had been prepared to let her become a part of his life and learn to share his pleasures. She and she alone was the woman who could make his life complete, but in the end, she had spurned his love. Not just by struggling with him when he tried to rescue her from that boring, unappreciative inse
ct she had married, but she sat in the courtroom and told the jury that he never meant more to her than just an employee at a store where she shopped! She denied that she had a special attraction to him and that secretly she was glad her husband was dead! She said that she reviled the man who had killed her husband. His actions were despicable. She couldn’t believe he thought she had been attracted to him and she wished it had been her who died instead of her husband. She had signed her own fate! His love turned to hate! She had looked so pitiful, sitting there on the witness stand with her eyes swollen and red, with tears running down her cheeks. It had all been a lie! She had fed those stupid jurors what they wanted to hear and they had convicted him!
Then he smiled as he looked down that long highway ahead of him. Once he had her with him, alone, as strong as she was, she might entertain him for a day or two, before he allowed her to die. But she would die. A long, slow death. Before he allowed her that release, he would know that she was broken. She would beg to spend the rest of her life with him, serving him and loving him. And she would. Only, the rest of her life would be entirely up to him.
Chapter Nineteen
After she turned out her lights for the night, Jordan couldn’t resist standing away from one window but looking through it down toward the tepee, for a few minutes. Feather had made sure a camp fire was alright with Jordan, then she and Daniel had created a fire ring with some rocks they apparently had stored in the front of the camper/horse trailer, after which, they built a small campfire.
As she looked out the window, Jordan could see the brother and sister sitting on what looked like stools facing each other across the smoldering embers from the fire. They seemed to be having a lively conversation and every little bit one of them would laugh. She could hear the musical sound and it made her feel lonely. Once, Daniel Cetan looked toward the house for a long minute, almost as if he knew she was watching them. She felt a rush of warmth, realizing that he was thinking of her at the same moment that she was thinking of him. Her feelings of loneliness intensified and she envied their easy camaraderie. She hadn’t experienced that in a long time. She felt very alone. She spoke softly to Bhrandii and the two of them walked to her room.
Another Chance Page 10
