Passion on the Ranch: Books 1-4 (4-Book Bundle) (Erotic Romance - Western Romance)

by Hart, Melissa F.

  A skinny man with cold eyes and a stubbled chin sauntered over. His cowboy hat sat low on his head and he held a revolver in his hand. He pointed it directly at Colton’s heart. In a voice as cold as his eyes, Jasper said “So, where’s your little girlfriend?”

  Colton squared off to the criminal and set his jaw. It was clear he had no indication of talking. Jasper nodded his head at his men. One of them secured the elevator, locking it in place, while two others moved inside the car and yanked Colton out into the vast cavern. They held him by the arms while Jasper interrogated him, but Colton set his jaw and refused to talk.

  Suzanna clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out, as she could hear the sound of Colton being punched repeatedly by Jasper and his men. She knew she had to act quickly if she were going to save both of their lives.

  “I’ll ask you one more time; where is she?” Jasper said. Colton opened his mouth as if to speak, and then spit on Jasper’s shoes in a clear act of defiance. Jasper grabbed Colton by the collar and said, “She can’t have gone far. We’ll find her, and when we do, I’m going to have a particularly good time killing her and pinning it on you! Men, search the mine shaft!”

  ***

  Chapter Two

  Colton held his breath as Jasper’s men entered the elevator car and began their search. As they peered over the sides, he was certain they would see the woman he loved dangling there and this would all be over. To his surprise and relief, the men only shook their heads. “There’s no sign of her, boss! She must have climbed out or fallen in.”

  “Well, which is it?” Jasper pressed his pistol to Colton’s knee; threatening to blow his knee cap off if Colton didn’t talk.

  “She’s gone,” Colton said.

  “We know that! Where did she go? Did she climb out the top?” Jasper sounded nearly hysterical in his rage.

  “No, she fell. I was trying to help push her to the top, but she slipped from my grip and fell to the bottom. She’s dead.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Sheriff Newman said to Jasper. It made Colton’s gut churn with disgust that the trusted man of the law had partnered up the gang of criminals. The Sheriff grabbed Colton by the hair and said, “Why wouldn’t you have just said that from the start and saved yourself a beating? A man only holds his tongue like that when he’s got something or someone to protect.”

  Colton jerked his head, freeing himself from the Sheriff’s grasp and said, “I knew that with Suzanna dead, you’d never let me go. I’m not gonna spend my life in prison for her death. My only chance to get away was if you thought she was still alive.”

  “So what made you confess now?” Sheriff Newman asked, still feeling skeptical.

  “Well, if Jasper’s going to blow my knee caps off, I’d rather go to prison,” Colton said, eying Jasper carefully. The band of criminals huddled together, trying to decide if Colton was telling the truth or not. Finally, they reached a decision.

  Jasper said, “The only way to know for sure if you’re telling the truth is if we see her body. Besides, the Sheriff is going to need it for your trial. Get in that elevator; we’ll lower it all the way to the bottom. When you’ve got her body, we’ll bring you back up.”

  “What if I can’t find it?” Colton asked, with true fear in his voice. He knew in his heart that Suzanna must have found a way to escape.

  “Then I guess you’ll die down there. Now move it!”

  Suzanna watched in terror as Jasper prodded Colton toward the elevator with the barrel of his gun. She had indeed managed to climb out of the elevator shaft while Colton had distracted everybody during his interrogation. She hid herself in a mining car and tried to think of a plan. This was her chance! Everyone’s attention was focused on the mine shaft. If she was going to stop these criminals, she had to do something now! She saw Colton’s horse tied to a post just outside the cavern and knew just what to do.

  “Do you have the body yet?” Jasper called down the mine shaft after a few minutes.

  “No, I can’t find her. It’s too dark down here. Pull me back up!”

  Suddenly, a female voice shouted from the mouth of the mine cavern. It was Suzanna, mounted on a horse. She called to the men, “You won’t find me down there! Prepare to go to prison for the rest of your lives! I’m going to the authorities!”

  She spurred the horse into a gallop and took off into the wilderness. Jasper ordered his men to chase after her. Running for their horses, they mounted and galloped after her. She had a good lead on them, but her tracks were easy to follow.

  “She’s not as clever as she seems,” Jasper scoffed, but he had no idea just how wrong he was. Suzanna knew the area well, having played there often as child. She easily created a complicated pattern of hoof tracks that doubled back onto itself. Soon, Jasper and his men were following their own tracks in a circle without even realizing it.

  As soon as she could, Suzanna ditched the horse, sending him running freely into a meadow, and then she ran back to the Groghan Mine. She entered the cavern cautiously, making sure they had all left. When she was sure the cavern was clear, she ran to the elevator and pulled the lever to bring the elevator car back to the surface.

  “Colton!” she cried out happily, and threw herself into his arms the moment the car reached the ground. She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him fiercely. The fear she had felt that she might never have held him again had almost been too much to bear and now she intended to make up for it now. She crushed herself against him, pressing her soft breasts against his hard chest and devouring him with her love.

  Colton wrapped his arms tightly around her, squeezing her to him. His own feelings mirrored hers exactly. He wanted to hold her and kiss her forever, and never let her go. Soon they could both feel his erection growing. Delighted by it, Suzanna stroked him through his jeans, causing him to moan with pleasure.

  “I love you so much,” she whispered as she kissed his neck. “I was afraid I’d never feel you make love to me again.”

  Colton buried his face in her chest to keep himself from crying with emotion, for he felt the same way. Her soft bosoms welcomed him and he couldn’t resist covering them with kisses as he lifted her blouse. When his lips found the dark pink nipple of her right breast, he kissed it so tenderly that a sigh escaped both their lips. Uncontrollably, Suzanna buried her hands in his hair and pushed his mouth closer to her, urging him to go on. He obliged willingly, and eagerly took her hardened nipple into his mouth, suckling her there while she moaned in pleasure.

  “Make love to me!” Suzanna cried out. She unzipped his jeans, freeing his throbbing member, and stroked him. Colton used both his hands to frantically remove Suzanna’s jeans. He caressed the bare flesh of her hips and buttocks, and she guided his hands to the triangle of her sex. He massaged her there and found she was already moist with the juices of her lust.

  Suzanna bent forward at the waist, spread her thighs wide, and invited him to enter her from behind. His manhood slid inside her wet folds easily, making her cry out in ecstasy. He thrust quickly, and their passion quickly rose to a frenzy.

  “Harder!” Suzanna moaned, feeling herself nearing climax. Colton gripped her breasts and played with her nipples as he drove himself into her with deliberate movements of his hips. Suzanna climaxed powerfully, crying out in pleasure.

  Colton climaxed with her, his entire body going rigid as every muscle spasmed with pleasure. When at last they had finished, they held each other tightly as they leaned against the cavern wall, and gasped for breath. It took them several moments to regain their composure, and then the reality of their situation came back to them.

  “We’ve got to get out of here. It won’t take them long to realize I’ve led them in circles and come back here looking for us!” Suzanna said smartly, pulling her jeans back on. Colton completely agreed. He took her by the hand, but the sound of approaching hooves let them know it was already too late.

  ***

  Chapter Three

  “Quickl
y, climb into this mining car!” Colton said in a harsh whisper. He grabbed Suzanna by the waist and helped hoist her inside. He was about to climb in with her when Suzanna suddenly stopped him.

  “Wait! You’ve got to lower the elevator back to the bottom of the mine shaft, or they’ll know you escaped!” she whispered. Colton realized she was right. He ran across the cavern and pulled the lever that operated the antique elevator. The gears groaned loudly, and then began to turn, slowly lowering the car. As the sound of hooves grew closer, Colton knew there wouldn’t be enough time for it to reach the bottom and pulled the lever to a stop.

  “Hurry! Hide!” Suzanna whispered fearfully. Colton ran as fast as he could to the nearest mining car and dove inside, seconds before Jasper entered the cavern along with his gang of cattle rustlers and the Sheriff.

  “Damn bitch lead us a wild goose chase!” Jasper snarled. He kicked a rock bitterly and it skittered across the cavern floor. When it banged right into the mining car where Suzanna was hidden, she had to stifle a yelp by covering her mouth with her palm.

  The Sheriff said, “She abandoned her horse in the meadow, which means she’s traveling by foot now. She won’t get far in this terrain. I’ll call in my deputies and they’ll find her in no time.”

  “No!” Jasper said. “We’ve got to find her ourselves so we can kill her. If you call in your deputies, it’ll ruin everything and we won’t be able to pin her murder on Colton Stevens.”

  “That could take days with your gang of bumbling idiots. My deputies are trained in finding people on the run. They’ll have her within the hour.”

  “You’re the idiot!” Jasper said, not caring that he was talking to man of authority. “If we can’t pin her murder on Colton Stevens, it blows our whole deal. I need him to take the fall for stealing her father’s cattle so I can walk out of town with all the money. The only way people in this town will believe he stole that herd is with her blood on his hands! If you mess this up by calling in your deputies before we’ve killed her, then you’re throwing away your cut of the money!”

  “Don’t threaten me, boy!” the Sheriff roared. “I could solve this cattle rustling crime right now by taking your ass to jail and I don’t care about the money. What I do care about it winning the election and I need Jeremiah Wheeler’s support to do that. I was going to gain that by arresting Colton Stevens for the murder of his little girl, but if she gets back to her ranch before we find her, then we’re all sunk. I think under the circumstances, we need a little change of plans.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Jasper asked, intrigued.

  The Sheriff paced around the cavern, growing dangerously close to the mining car where Suzanna crouched in fear. He said “If we can’t pin Suzanna Wheeler’s death on Colton Stevens, we’ll just have to pin his death on her. I’ll say they planned to sell her father’s cattle and run away together, but then he jilted her, tried to just take the money and run. In a rage, she killed him and dumped his body down the mine shaft. My Deputy Larson alerted me of the crime, and I sent my officers to arrest her, end of story.”

  “That won’t gain you Jeremiah’s favor in the next election,” Jasper said knowingly.

  The Sheriff said, “It will when I determine she was innocent of the crime and had been set up by Larson, who killed her to cover up his plan. I’ll put him in prison for the murder of Colton Stevens and Suzanna Wheeler. The election will be mine and you can walk out of town with all the money you got from the herd.”

  “Well, I guess you’re not so stupid after all,” Jasper said with a laugh. He strode to the lever that operated the elevator and pulled it, slowly bringing the car up to the surface. He grinned and said, “I’ll kill Colton Stevens and you call your deputies. I’ll meet you at the bar for shots of whiskey tonight. The first round’s on me; after all, I’ve got the money to pay for it now.”

  The Sheriff tipped his hat at Jasper and left the cavern. His patrol car churned up dust as it rolled down the dirt road that lead to the Groghan Mine, making the horses whinny in complaint.

  No sooner had he left, the elevator car reached the surface. Jasper glared to find it empty. He walked up the edge of it and shouted down the mine shaft, “You can try and hide down there if you want to, but you’re still going to die!”

  Jasper fired his gun into the void below. Suzanna covered her ears to protect them from the noise as Jasper fired again and again, until his pistol was empty.

  “Did you get him?” one of Jaspers men asked curiously.

  Jasper grabbed him roughly by the collar and said, “I don’t know; why don’t you go find out?”

  He shoved his man into the elevator car and stole his pistol from him. Another man shouted, “You can’t make him go down there!”

  “Fine! Maybe you’d like to go instead!” Jasper pointed the pistol at the second man and hollered “Get in the elevator. You can both go make sure Colton Steven’s is dead. Are there any other volunteers?”

  Jasper looked over his shoulder and saw that his remaining gang members were fleeing the cavern. They mounted their horses and took off into the wilderness. No amount of money was worth being sent down that mine shaft; they’d rather cut their losses and escape.

  “Fine! Let them go. That just means we can split their share among us.” Jasper said, still training his gun on the two men in the elevator car. He said to them, “Now, you two do what I say, or I’ll shoot you both and keep all the money for myself.”

  He pulled the lever and lowered the elevator down into the depths below. When it came to a halt at the bottom of the shaft, Jasper shouted, “Is he dead?”

  “No!” his men yelled from below. “There’s no sign of him anywhere! He must have escaped!”

  “Damn it!” Jasper shouted in a rage. “I’ll get that bastard and his bitch girlfriend!”

  “Not if we get you first!” a strange voice said from behind and Jasper turned to see Colton standing behind him. With one quick movement, Colton kicked the pistol out of Jasper’s hand and sent it skittering across the cavern floor. He followed the move, with quick punches of fists that landed powerfully on Jasper’s stomach.

  The criminal was no stranger to fighting, and the blows hardly seemed to faze him. He struck back, hitting Colton with rock hard blows that nearly knocked him unconscious. Colton fell back onto the ground and struggled to lift himself back into a standing position, but Jasper kicked him brutally.

  From where he lay on the ground, Colton saw Jasper’s pistol laying just a few feet away in the dirt. He scrambled for it, but Jasper reached it first. Training the pistol at Colton’s head, he said “Now where’s your little girlfriend?”

  “She escaped!” Colton said.

  “Now, don’t be lying to me. I couldn’t help but notice you used the word ‘we’ before, so I know she’s here.” Jasper grabbed Colton painfully by the hair and pulled him to standing position. He pressed the barrel of his pistol to the side of Colton’s head and shouted out into the cavern. “Show yourself girlie, or you’ll get to witness me blowing your boyfriend’s brains out!”

  Suzanna knew Jasper would only kill them both if she showed herself, but she couldn’t just let him murder the man she loved. She crouched in the mining car and considered her options. She didn’t have a gun, a knife, anything! All she had was the bootlace Colton had dropped earlier. Suddenly, she knew what to do!

  “Come on, Suzanna! I know you don’t want to see me kill this boy! Show yourself and I’ll let him go!”

  The cavern remained silent and Jasper began to wonder if Suzanna really had escaped, when suddenly he heard a rustling sound from the corner of the cavern. He inched in that direction and realized that the sound had come from one of the mining cars that stood in the corner. Suddenly, he knew right where she was. He smiled evilly and strode toward her.

  Colton heard the same scuffling sound that Jasper did and realized fearfully that Suzanna had been discovered. He struggled in Jasper’s grip, trying to escape the lock hold he had aro
und his throat. Frustrated, Jasper hit Colton hard on the head with the butt of his pistol, successfully knocking him unconscious.

  Colton fell to the ground and Jasper continued to slowly tiptoe toward the mining car.

  “Gotcha!” he cried out victoriously as he pulled the tarp swiftly off the car, but to his surprise it was empty. Only a length of cord lay in the bottom of it. He picked up and stared at it. It was too new-looking to have been there for long and had been tied into an unusual loop. Too late, his mind realized that it was a bootlace tied into the shape of a hunter’s snare.

  At that precise moment, Suzanna pulled the other end of the bootlace, closing the loop of the snare around Jasper’s hand. She jerked on the cord with all her strength, pulling the man off balance, and causing him to tumble into the mining car.

  Colton, who had only been pretending to be unconscious, leapt up from the ground and ran to Jasper. Suzanna out climbed from her hiding place behind a different mining car and handed the end of the bootlace to him. Within moments, Colton had expertly hogtied Jasper with his hands and legs bound behind his back.

  “We did it!” Suzanna cried out happily. She threw her arms around Colton and kissed him enthusiastically.

  “No, you did it.” Colton smiled proudly. He kissed her in return and held her tightly. “You captured Jasper; I just wrapped him up for you. The question is, what do we do with him and the two down in the elevator now?”

  “What do you mean?” Suzanna frowned, thinking the answer was obvious. Then she realized that calling the Sheriff’s office wasn’t an option. They didn’t have any proof that the Sheriff Newman had partnered with Jasper and it would just be their word against his.

  They sat thinking for a while, when suddenly an idea came to her. Beaming brightly, Suzanna said “I know how we can get the proof we need! It’s time for me to turn myself in for your murder!”