Eric’s parents had split up years ago, and his mom had left during his senior year of high school, leaving him to fend for himself. He never spent holidays with his parents. Funny, she hadn’t given that fact much thought until now. What a great friend she was.
“Damn, Eric. I’m sorry.” When she looked over at him, he kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes straight ahead. “For everything,” she added.
“Doesn’t matter. Let’s get this morning over with.”
Disappointment tasted sour on her tongue. Once again, she had screwed up something good.
The ride to town took place in dead silence, thickened with her own swirling thoughts and his not-quite-hidden emotions. While she didn’t actively search for his feelings—she’d be stupid to want to know what he thought of her—she could feel the suppressed anger simmering below the calm demeanor.
They pulled into the Copper River Supply, the only hardware store in town, a little before 8:00 a.m. After a few minutes, the pretty blonde clerk—Sara’s friend, Izzy Brand — flipped the open sign around, and Shelby and Eric entered.
Too bad the Brand family ran this store. She hated the idea of giving them her money, since Hank and Wyatt Brand had kidnapped Zach and Sara. Two good people had almost died that night.
Two bad people should have died that night. A shiver ghosted up her back.
She glanced at Eric’s broad back as he took his list and trudged away from her, down an aisle. He’d supported her that night, stood up for Shelby when Garrison bullied her into using the locator power even though it would hurt her. Eric had made sure that she and Zach returned to the ranch alive and then got them to the hospital.
He had even made sure her father went to the hospital for what ended up being a stroke.
Even though he wasn’t family, Eric had looked out for them all.
Way to repay him with a heaping helping of rejection.
Damn it, she was an idiot.
She browsed the craft section, selecting wire, dowels, and wood glue. With these items and some scrounging around the ranch for other materials, she could bind wreaths and make wooden decorations. Unfortunately, she wasn’t in much of a holiday spirit, but for the sake of Zach and Dad, she wanted to make the house festive.
Still in her alpine rescue gear, minus her jacket, she finger combed her unruly hair into some semblance of order.
“Well, well. Miss Shelby Taggart.”
Her spine stiffened.
That voice, so low and slimy. She wanted to scrub her skin raw and plug her ears so she didn’t have to hear the nasty tone. Spinning around, she pasted a bland smile on her face. “How are you, Wyatt?” The words barely made it past her gritted teeth.
The burly guy, about thirty-five years old, rubbed his clean-shaven jaw and puffed out his barrel chest, ignoring her question. “What’s a pretty lady like you doing in my store this fine morning?” He strutted down the aisle toward her, scooping his shaggy brown hair to the side in what served as his version of male preening.
Ew. “Just picking up some supplies, thanks.” She turned her back to him, but he didn’t take hints.
In a heartbeat, he stood a few inches away from her. Looming. His sour coffee breath irritated her nose. Then he stared at her chest. His visible interest echoed his slimy thoughts flooding her mind. The mental impression of his arousal left an aftertaste like biting into rotted meat. Hello? Ever heard of personal space? Or keeping your thoughts to yourself? Gross. She faced him and shuffled backward, but he followed her.
“What for?” he asked with a smile, raking his eyes from her head to her boots. Weird: one of his eyes twitched as he stood there.
“Huh?”
“What do you want . . . to get here today?” Another scrape of his hair with a ham hand. He raked an avid, dark gaze over her until her nerves felt like they were coated with pond scum.
Unlike Eric, Wyatt’s emotions were front and center to examine, like spotting a road kill from the highway. She didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t keep from staring at the mess.
Disgusting, his mind. The flashes of male sexual hunger coming from him? Nasty, cobwebby, thick like decay. She leaned away. A brief red glow in his eyes was followed by a sharp sulfur odor, like someone lit a match. Ok, weird.
She swallowed. “Uh, stuff for the ranch. Well, you have a nice day, Wyatt.”
He put a thick hand on her arm.
This bastard had been involved in kidnapping people she loved. Maybe he hadn’t been convicted—that had more to do with his older brother Tommy being in local law enforcement—but he had participated in the crime.
Everything about Wyatt Brand oozed nastiness. Everything about her visceral response screamed at her to back the hell away from this guy.
She needed to remove his hand from her arm. Now.
At a few inches and well over fifty pounds more than her, he intruded on her field of vision. She hadn’t seen him in months, but somehow he seemed bigger than he did before. Ripples of bizarre, black anger vibrated off him like random crashing notes mashed on an untuned piano. His brown eyes flickered red then back to brown.
That imaginary hand on the back of her neck squeezed hard, trying to get her attention. No problem. Message received. How close was she to the exit?
“You look awful pretty with that new hairdo, Shelby.” Wyatt’s gravelly voice and dark, tarry emotions fixed her horrified attention on his hard face. His left eye twitched again.
Unable to resist touching the ragged ends, she tucked the wild strands behind an ear. Singed hair had been a small price to pay to save her horse from the fire. Why did he grin? Because she had nearly died when the burning barn collapsed on her? Because Wyatt’s brother set the barn on fire?
Enough of the stupidity. This guy needed to back the hell away and fast, or her poor head would explode from all the greasy meanness coming from him. “Ok, dude. I’m plumb out of patience this morning. What the hell do you want?” In her hand she held a thick wooden dowel, and she was not afraid to use it if he came any closer. She backed up against the metal rack behind her.
“Just being friendly. Like neighbors should. We could go have a cup of coffee together, all neighborly like.” His red tongue running over his chapped lips? So not working for her.
“If you’d like a cup of shut the hell up, then I’ll make yours a double. Otherwise, leave me alone.” Manners be damned. Whatever weirdness was shooting out of his head, she needed to be away from it, pronto.
“That’s too bad, since I thought maybe one day, you and I . . . ”
This moron had better not finish that thought or she would hurl.
Time for a frontal assault. “Wyatt Brand, how are you not in jail? You know, for kidnapping my nephew?” Felony charges apparently didn’t mean much these days.
Sparks stung along her nerve endings. This guy had some gall, standing there with that stupid grin. Hell, he was out on bail. Shelby might put on a polite face, but threaten her family? You bet she’d turn into a crazy, redheaded mama bear who had no problem using any weapon at her disposal to keep the people she loved safe. Yeah, she’d take on Wyatt Brand, if it meant helping her family.
The bark of his laugh came out sharp as a nail into her eardrum. “Jail? The police? All red tape and procedures, you understand. They brought me in for questioning.” He scratched his head. “And an overnight stay. Formality.”
“No, I don’t understand, you dope. It’s called kidnapping. You should be put away.”
“Now, now.” He raised his big hands and grinned. A flash of what passed for handsome came and went, replaced by an expression of unbalanced weirdness. An eerie shiver hit her with two blinks of his beady eyes. “I posted bail like a good boy. Besides, everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
“Easy to say when your brother is the sheriff.”
“Tommy? He didn’t give me any preferential treatment.”
“And the judge is in your back pocket.”
He snorted. “My cousin, the
judge, recognizes when someone has good behavior, no priors, and is a low flight risk.”
Time to let the sarcasm drip. “Of course. Your family all followed protocol by the book.” She waved the dowel in front of him. “Dude, not only are you guilty, you’re an asshole.”
“Shelby. Give me a chance, baby.” He advanced, filling her vision, his beefy hands outstretched.
That was it.
She flicked her wrist.
All of a sudden, he gurgled and stiffened, his eyes going wide.
She had embedded the dowel deep in the pants fabric covering his left testicle. Best use of craft materials she’d ever seen.
When he lurched back, he ran into the immovable body of a glaring Eric, who held a spool of fence wire in one hand.
And nothing but a bad attitude in the other.
Chapter 9
“This asshole bothering you?” Eric asked.
“A little bit, but I’ve got things handled.” Shelby pushed the dowel again and Wyatt yelped.
Note to self: never piss her off during arts and crafts time. A twinge of sympathy created a pinch in his own balls.
From Eric’s vantage point, Wyatt’s ruddy neck grew even redder. The dumbass made the bad decision to point a finger at her. “Screw you, Taggart. I gave you a chance. One day, we’re going to have that whole ranch. And your family will have nothing. Then you’ll come begging for me to help you. And it’ll depend on how nicely you beg me, if I’ll ever do anything for you.”
Eric curled his free hand into a fist, primed to level the jerk. No one said stuff like that to her.
But Shelby stepped up instead.
“You disgust me, Wyatt,” she spat, only a few terrifying inches away from the man’s face. Eric blinked. Wow. Her focus on indenting the guy’s junk was remarkable, even as she snarled at Wyatt. “Stay away from the ranch. Stay away from my family.” Wincing, she added, “And quit thinking that nasty stuff. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
She moved her arm. Her orange hair stuck out in all directions, her eyes flashed a warning, and her cheeks flared pink. Geezus, she was beautiful.
Wyatt jumped and gurgled in an unladylike yelp.
With a wheeze, she gritted out, “Now leave me alone. I’ve had a really crappy day, and your face doesn’t improve any of it.”
Eric leapt to the side so that Wyatt stumbled. The man backed away, a clenched fist held in front of him.
“Get out of my store, you bitch. Taggart money is no good here.” He lifted his chin toward Eric. “Yours, too. I don’t want to see either of you in here again.”
Through a series of rapid calculations that included how hard he could hit the guy, how many years in prison he’d get for doing so, and how quickly he could defend Shelby if Wyatt did anything stupid, Eric decided that the best choice was to get her out of here. For now. Eric had enough military training to know you don’t engage the enemy with an innocent civilian in close proximity. But damn, he wanted to push that man’s face through the back of his head more than just about anything else in this world.
Control. He had to maintain control of the situation. Much as he wanted to fix that guy so that he whistled out his ass, they were in public, after all.
He cut his gaze away from Wyatt to Shelby. All high color and blazing gold and brown eyes, she stood ready to take on the guy and damn the consequences.
Eric outweighed her by a lot, but even he wasn’t stupid enough to tangle with a fired-up Shelby. Not like this. Maybe in the bedroom.
His groin tightened. Oh man, that kind of energy and passion focused in the right way—that would be a wild ride.
Wyatt cleared his throat. His voice came out too high and cracked. “I said, get out of my store.”
Eric met her eyes, and as one, they let all of the items crash to the floor, scattering wire, tools, and wooden dowels on the worn linoleum. Then he and Shelby strolled away. With his hand on the small of her back, he guided her in front of him, keeping his body between her and Wyatt. If that asshole wanted to hurt her, he’d have to come through Eric first.
They strolled past a wide-eyed, slack-jawed blonde at the checkout counter. Izzy Brand, Wyatt’s younger sister. Eric knew her from high school. Too bad that nice woman had been born into such a shitty family.
He shepherded Shelby out the front of the building. When he opened the passenger side door of the truck and slammed it shut after she entered, a shadow at the side of the store, near the alley, came and went. He blinked and rubbed the sudden chill away from his neck. Trick of the morning light? Who cared. Not like he was coming back here any time soon. He stepped up into the truck and glanced at Shelby.
She put her head in her hands. “Wow. Burned that bridge good and proper, huh?”
“What bridge? The Brands are assholes. You shouldn’t be giving them your money anyway.” He yanked his door shut.
“Not Izzy. She’s a good person.”
“Who had the misfortune to be raised with those dickheads. If she’s a good person, then she’s trapped with that herd of boars.”
“Good point.”
He turned the ignition and tapped her hand with his finger.
She jumped.
“You okay? Seriously?” he asked.
A softness in her gaze came and went so quickly, he must have imagined it. However, that glimmer reset his priorities in a flash. That glimmer made him want to be the kind of man who made her look at him that way: vulnerable, appreciative, trusting. Damn it, he flat-out wanted to be that man.
But that wasn’t happening, as she’d made crystal-clear.
Wasn’t happening because he had too much at risk. He’d rather have Shelby as a friend than risk losing her forever, and that, as they said, was that.
“What about the supplies?” she asked.
He rolled his neck. “I’ll run back to Jackson later today and take care of getting everything at the store there.” To be honest, the last thing he wanted to do was take another three-hour trip anywhere, but they didn’t have a lot of choices. “Let me know what craft dowel size you’d like. I’ll get extras.”
She grinned.
• • •
His minion had failed.
Not quite minion, the creature seethed as he reminded himself. To make that human into a true minion, the Great One needed to return to this world. As yet, more steps remained in the plan. The new blade needed to be forged and used again. Soon the weapon would be ready to plunge into the heart of the first sacrifice, allowing the Great One to return to worldly power. But first, paths must be cleared. Enemies needed to be removed.
But his almost-minion had discovered something important. That woman with the fiery hair? One of the legacy children? Much stronger than the creature had expected. Such fire. Reminded the creature of someone else he had once loved.
And lost.
His love from years past had betrayed him.
Betrayal of the worst kind. What he’d give for revenge.
A rumble formed like a cloud in his gut, then broke into searing acid rain, scoring the corporeal flesh of the human vessel he had acquired, strafing fire down his yet-mortal skin. Careful. The Great One had to be careful with this human, at least until the creature had fully manifested back into His immortal form.
Did the legacy’s daughter hold the key to the Great One’s re-emergence?
Like a moth ready to emerge from its hellish, heated cocoon, the Great One vibrated and stretched against corporeal bonds, eager to come back into the world. His dominion.
To rule.
Was she the key? No. Not by herself, she wasn’t. All four of that family held the key to the success or failure of the Great One’s second coming. Together.
If he and his minions could get rid of them all—together—there would be no barrier to the new age of the Great One.
The creature expanded and contracted, darkness shifting in and out in what now served as respiration.
A parody of alive.
Soon, hi
s body would be indestructible and that paltry human male would change from minion to become the right-hand man of the Great One, carrying out His commands to rule the world.
Soon.
Chapter 10
“Son of a bitch, Shelby!” Her older brother, Garrison, paced in front of her in the kitchen, his work boots leaving chunks of sandy mud on the floor with every stomping impact. “Why did you take that kind of risk? You could have died.”
The cheery red-and-white floor tiles and worn maple table usually made her happy. Not today. Not when her older brother, Mr. Grouchy and In Charge, was having a full-on meltdown in front of Kerr, Eric, and herself.
It would have been nice to have her eldest brother, Vaughn, here on a day like this. He’d reel in Garrison’s overreaction.
Actually, on second thought, Garrison’s demanding boorishness made him look like a delicate fairy princess next to Vaughn’s legendary temper when it got going.
Still, she missed Vaughn.
For his part, Eric had dropped the tasty tidbit about her new power rendering her blind while they worked at ten thousand feet elevation. Then the rat implied that if she had fallen, she would have slid to her death. After that, he took that smug mug and sat back, letting her brothers do all his dirty work. Jerk. How nice would it be if she had a cool power like stabbing him in the eyeball with a mere thought.
Even now, Judas relaxed in one of the wood spindle chairs, stretched out his long legs, and shot her a cocky smile. Screw him and his muscled cowboy legs. She didn’t even care that the lines of fatigue bracketing his dark blue eyes made his rugged face even more handsome.
Instead, she needed to focus on the Taggart in front of her who was going supernova.
Due to her exhaustion from last night’s horrible escapade, she had zero filters left to hold back the hot pings of angry emotion flying out from Garrison like sleet shot out of a cannon.
Her big brother’s temper might be legendary, but she had some skills in the don’t-screw-with-me department, too.
“Keep it down, Garrison. Dad’ll hear,” she said.
“He’s still sleeping. I checked before coming in here to take a break from caring for him and from managing the ranch business.”
Legacy Lost Page 7
