Outcast (The Friessen Legacy Series, Book 2), A Western Romance

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  “Stay behind me. Look at these.” He crouched down and pointed at the muddy ground. “Tracks, probably a couple large guys, I’d say. See the difference from my boot print to these? They have ridges and grooves, like hiking boots similar to yours.”

  Diana stared at what looked like several prints in the fresh mud before the open gate of the corral. They clearly weren’t Jed’s and were too big to be hers. “You left the horses outside last night?”

  “I’m redoing the roof above their stall before it collapses in on them, so I had to leave them out,” he replied a little more sharply than was needed.

  “Who would do such a thing, Jed?” But as she said it, she knew the answer, and she whispered his name: “Andy.”

  Jed must have heard, because he stood and glared down at her in that same towering rage Andy had when she was a child, reducing her in that instant to the same terrified kid who had been tossed into the dirt. His cold, ruthless eyes had her taking a step back, following her step for step, a slow dance, until he backed her against the barn wall. His arms shot out before she could move sideways and slip away, and his palms flattened on both sides of her shoulders, pinning her in. He leaned down, and her heart was hammering so hard she had trouble swallowing, so she focused on the open vee of his shirt, where his chest hair stuck out and where his pulse throbbed visibly. She focused on that and reminded herself that this wasn’t Andy and she was no longer that scared, helpless thirteen-year-old.

  “Don’t think I didn’t see you yesterday. My cousin had you behind your fancy SUV, kissing you in a way that could have lit the barn on fire. The way you responded to him when he touched you like this…” Jed slid his hands down and inside her coat and gripped her hips. “When he pulled you against him and let you feel him.” He ground his hips and his telltale bulge into her, and there was no mistaking his interest. When he lowered his head, his warm breath wafted over her lips, his mouth moving toward hers.

  Desperately, she wedged her arms between them, bracing her hands against his chest. He inhaled, expanding his chest beneath her palms as he deepened the kiss, the pressure hard and ravaging. His calloused hands slid under her sweater to her braless breasts, and he rolled his finger and thumb around her nipple. God, how she wanted his mouth there now, and he must have sensed her need, as he moved more fully against her, shoving his long, muscular leg between hers as if making a place there for himself. He slid his hand down over her derriere and lifted her so he could fit against her, and the proof of his desire, how much he wanted her, was pressed against her. There was no mistake. He trailed kisses down her neck. He had her coat pushed back and sweater lifted.

  “Is this what Andy did when you jumped in his arms? Tell me now what you liked so much that you’d have let him take you against your truck for everyone to see, like a common whore.”

  She blinked when his meaning washed over her like a bucket of frigid water. With a flurry of rage, she shoved and kicked at him until he backed away, looking half wild.

  “You jerk,” she shouted, so angry that she was shaking, and she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth as if to wipe away that steamy kiss. “Maybe you should have stuck around to see me push him away. But yes, I kissed him because for more than half my life, I’ve worshipped Andy even though he ground me in the dirt as if I were nothing. But I’ll be damned if either one of you will have me. I am not a whore. I am not my mother. I’ll tell you what I told your cousin: Don’t you ever touch me like that again.” She slid away, putting distance between them. “I’ve worked so hard to get what I have, to be respectable. You are just like your cousin. What is it with you Friessen men? You hate women so much you’re hell bent on destroying them?”

  He jerked his head up and stalked toward her again, and she knew she’d hit a nerve. “How dare you compare me to those two? I am not my uncle or cousin.”

  Sadness filled her heart, and tears made her eyes glassy as she met the darkness that flared in his. “You just treated me as Andy did, and I responded because there is something about you … but I didn’t want to.”

  “I was jealous!” he shouted, his hands on his hips as he loomed over her and ground the words out. “Are you happy now? I had just threatened my uncle and warned him off you. Because no man has the right to ever treat a kid, an innocent like you, the way they did. Whatever it is you really want with this justice thing and what you hope to accomplish, maybe I admire it a little bit. The way you held your head up high, the way you never had the chance to be a kid but always looked after others, especially a little kid who had to be hell to care for. You didn’t deserve to be tossed out, and she didn’t deserve to die, and I told my uncle that, all of it, and I told them that if they insisted on making things any more difficult for you and continued to drive you out of this county, they could consider it their declaration of war with me. That was when I looked out the window, and it knocked the wind out of me as if I’d been sucker punched. Because there you were, kissing my cousin as if there was no tomorrow, and it sure didn’t look as if you were trying to get away.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. I did push him away, and I locked myself in the SUV. How can you stand there and say you were jealous? How am I suppose to believe that?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  Jed stepped closer and brushed his fingers down her cheek. He nudged his hips closer. “Do you deny this? Hell, I want you more than I’ve wanted any woman,” Jed stepped back, his jaw hard as steel, “but I will not compete with my cousin. I won’t be second.” His eyes narrowed and he sighed. “I need to find the horses.”

  It was lighter out, but his mood was still dark. He moved back to the corral and the open gate. “I’m going into town to have a talk with the sheriff. Are you coming?” He glanced at her over his shoulder, his body slightly turned away.

  Her stomach clenched at the mention of seeing the sheriff, as she remembered all too well his rough hands grabbing her and tossing her out when she had been only thirteen. The way he and his men leered and hefted everything of theirs out into the dirt was a horror that went bone deep, and she was unable to shake it. Jed must have recognized her discomfort, and her head was still spinning over what he said: He wanted her.

  “No, you go.” She choked out her response and almost said she had her own ideas of where to look, but she couldn’t. She needed to think, needed room to breathe.

  He must have sensed this, too, as he ducked his head and left. Soon, Diana watched his taillights disappear up the road.

  Diana strode back to where the footprints were around the gate, and she wondered how someone could have opened the gate and led the horses out without them having heard. She thought about it and remembered nothing unusual about the night before. They must have come in on foot, because she didn’t hear a vehicle and there were no unusual tire tracks. This whole thing was odd, but in a way, it wasn’t a coincidence. Hadn’t Jed stepped in to defend her against his own uncle and cousin? She remembered all too well Andy’s ruthlessness as he had leered with such contempt fifteen years before. And his dad, she still didn’t know what had happened between him and her mama or what Bonnie had meant when she said that Faye had drugged Todd. Todd hadn’t disappeared like Andy had said. The fact that he was here now was living proof. Diana didn’t like this scenario one bit, and instead of getting answers, she was only finding more questions. What she feared was that Jed had stepped into the middle of her war with Andy and Todd, the one she had never signed on for.

  Diana couldn’t help feeling responsible for Jed’s horses and the fact that they had most likely been stolen. This was her fault. She stalked into her cabin and grabbed her purse and keys. A few minutes later, she was following the same route that Jed had taken, but she wasn’t going to the same place. She didn’t want to go back to Andy’s. She growled at herself—she was tired and hungry, and she needed a coffee but wasn’t going to get it anytime soon.

  She figured the best way to get there would be the same route she had used when she was thirteen. From
her days of escaping and roaming the woods, she knew the Friessen land as well as she knew the back of her hand. She drove to an isolated place, close to where her home had been before Andy burned it down. When she approached the spot where her home would have come into view, she pressed the brake and gripped the steering wheel as if hanging on for dear life. Trembling, her heart hammering, she couldn’t make herself go around the bend. She didn’t want to see the burned-out remains of the only home she’d known, the home that was weaved so emotionally deep in her that she would relive the painful memory of that night.

  The lump jammed in her throat, and her eyes glassed over with tears, making it a struggle to breathe. She wouldn’t allow herself to cry. She had cried for Louisa, for her adopted parents, but she hadn’t cried for herself ever, even the night Faye had left and never returned.

  Sitting here fretting wouldn’t solve anything, so she pulled to the side of the road and got out, locking the doors. She shoved the keys in her jeans pocket. Bushes grew thick along the side of the road that led to her old place, making it impossible to pass a car through. The forest was reclaiming the land. She had to squeeze through overgrown briar bushes, but once she passed where the house once stood, it would be easier navigating the forest. She didn’t know how she’d react, but the lump in her chest rose from nowhere and sucker punched her when she suddenly stood before the rubble of what had once been her home. Long grass and overgrown bushes filled the yard, and the charred boards were in a heap, with moss and vegetation growing out of them. It would accomplish nothing to stay and mourn this loss, and picking her way closer wouldn’t ease the memories. So she pushed on and wiped the tears that trailed down her cheek.

  Familiar trees and the open meadow welcomed her, as did the rich, piney scent of sap and the aroma of rotting vegetation mixed with plenty of earth as she walked on until she approached the back of the Friessen estate and slid around the old cedar she had hidden behind when she stumbled upon Andy riding his magnificent Valentino with Hailey. She still remembered the sexual tension that had filled the air.

  She slid past the cedar, following the trail, sheltered by heavy pine and fir that protected her from the view of the open yard, approaching the stables from the north and back. The Olympic-sized pool was still there, although, covered, she didn’t see anyone lurking about.

  The stables had changed with time and weren’t the same dark green, now a vivid red with the trim painted a vibrant white. It was larger, too, so they’d expanded. She knew it was a thriving pastime, as she could see about twenty stalls and servants’ quarters above the barn. She figured now, by the looks of it, there were two or three apartments up above. Horses nickered, and a few poked their heads out their large stall windows, seeing who was intruding on their space. She walked to the barn door, which was shut and latched. No lock. She pulled up the handle and opened the door just enough to slide in. It was dark inside the barn, her boots echoing on the concrete as she tried to step quietly.

  She gazed at the long row of stalls. The barn was clean, but the pungent aroma of manure filled the air. Stopping at each stall, Diana peeked in, wandering one side then the other, but not one of the horses in the barn was Jed’s. A chestnut horse stuck its head over the stall door and sniffed Diana’s head, its lips flickering, showing all its large, grainy teeth. She rested her hand on the horse’s forelock and rubbed down its nose. When she glanced over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of a stall door swaying, and she stiffened, her heart hammering with dread as she slowly turned. An open stall door at the other end meant someone was in here. She dragged her gaze to the wooden door, where a large hand rested, a hand belonging to Andy. He stood in a dark oilskin slicker and dark blue jeans, watching her with his eyes narrowed.

  For almost an instant, they stared at one another from across the barn. Diana began to scramble, panicked, trying to think of a reason for being here. But her quick legal mind had suddenly gone blank. She was positive she’d been alone, and it was barely past dawn. Andy started to close the stall door, and that was when Diana bolted to the barn door beside her and slid through the narrow opening. Pumping her legs, she ran through the tall grass, toward the trees. She knew she could lose him if she made it there. She could hear him swing open the other door and heard his heavy footsteps pounding the dirt, coming after her. Diana was fast, but there was no way she could compete with the speed of a former football star. She saw him from the corner of her eye, just a flash, but he was coming close, gaining on her with those long legs. She could see the trees, almost there, but he was suddenly in front of her, blocking her path, and there wasn’t a chance in hell she could stop when she slammed into him, knocking her breath out from the impact. He staggered a few steps, his arms wrapping around her and holding her against his chest to keep her from falling on her face in the dirt.

  “Settle down there, you wildcat.” Andy chuckled in a way that sent a shiver deep inside her belly. “Just what do you think you’re doing on my property, sneaking around in my barn?”

  Diana struggled for air, sucking in deep breaths to satisfy her throbbing lungs. Lord, he was hard as a rock, and she thought she may have bruised her shoulder. She slid her hands up and pushed, trying to wiggle free. “Let go of me.”

  “Uh-uh, you didn’t answer me.”

  Imprisoned against his hard body, she finally stopped wiggling. “Just curious,” she muttered, still breathing hard.

  “Try again. You need to come up with a better answer than that. You were trespassing.”

  His arms were still wrapped tightly around her, and feeling all that hardness pressed into her was becoming distracting.

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Oh, I just bet you do. What are you up to now, Diana?” He must have decided to let her go, as he loosened his arms, but he made sure she felt every hard male part of him before allowing her to step away. She blushed furiously and refused to look into those sharp eyes, so she stared at his wide chest, which was a mistake, because she was picturing her hands running over those wide pecs and hard biceps.

  “What are you doing up so early, anyway? I thought all you rich playboys slept till noon?” she stuttered, still not answering his question.

  “I was going to take my horse out for a ride,” he answered, narrowing his eyes.

  “Is that Valentino?” She wanted to take it back, but it slipped out, and so did the memory of him riding with Hailey.

  “No, not Valentino. How do you know about Valentino, anyway? He was put down a year ago. You’ve been asking questions about me—what are you up to?” He grabbed her arm and shook.

  She was really getting tired of all his manhandling. “Get your hands off me. And no, I wasn’t asking around, I just remembered from when I was a kid.” He narrowed his eyes again, as if he didn’t quite believe her, but then she didn’t really want to tell him what a love-struck fool she’d been, hanging on the word of everyone when she was a kid to find out the tiniest bit of information about him. She had held everything about him so closely and treated it like a shrine. “I heard kids talk when I was young, is all, and I remembered.”

  That must have satisfied him, as he eased up his grip. “You still haven’t answered me on what you were doing, snooping around in my barn.” He glanced around. “And how did you get here?”

  “I walked.” That was all she was going to answer. She didn’t trust Andy enough to tell him the truth. If he had stolen Jed’s horses, tipping him off could have him making sure the horses were never found.

  “From where?” he demanded.

  “From the old highway. I cut through the woods.” His eyes flashed with anger, and his grip tightened on her arm again.

  “Are you crazy? This time of morning is prime hunting time for cougars, and there’s one that lives back in there. You could have been mauled, and it wouldn’t have taken too much to take you down.”

  She gazed with disinterest at the forest. “I grew up in that forest as a kid, Andy, and played all through there with Lou
isa. You had no concern then of the dangers, so why worry now?” She realized too late she’d gone too far.

  “I told you before that I want you gone from here. I don’t want my family embarrassed again by the likes of a Claremont. I’ve warned you over and over that you are playing with fire with me. I will not back off, and I won’t play fair. I will hurt you.”

  The way his eyes burned down into her, she believed him, because she broke free and raced for the trees just ahead of him, but his pounding feet were just behind her, and he was on her at the edge of the woods, grabbing her from behind, lifting her as she kicked and flung her hands, her fists, trying to break his hold. He only grunted when she connected her boot with his shin, and he took her down on the ground, fitting his leg between hers and grinding his mouth hard against hers. He rolled her in the pine needles and slid open her coat, slipping his hand under her sweater and discovering that she’d forgotten her bra. He chuckled softly and took it as his invitation as he covered her bare breasts with his hand, first twisting her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. It felt so good, but it was also like a splash of cold water, as they weren’t calloused and rough, like Jed’s. Even though she’d dreamed of Andy kissing her, touching her, making love to her since she was a little girl, she wouldn’t be his whore, and to Andy, that’s all she’d ever be. But it was Louisa’s image that flashed across her mind, her screams echoing, a reminder of the night they’d been tossed out, and it had her struggling beneath him.

  “Stop it, Andy!” she yelled.

  He lifted himself away, but he was still too close. Desire was an inferno between them.

  “Diana, are you okay? I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” The way he asked sounded as if he cared.