Mr. Taken

by Danica Winters

  “Well, at least you can’t say that she’s a quitter. One of these days she’ll get ya tied down. Come hell or high water.”

  “If she does, I’ll be in hell all right.” He rubbed the old girl’s neck, running his fingers down her silken coat. “What can I help you with?”

  “If you’re really that afraid of going back out and facing your ex, I could use some help getting down the decorations for the party,” his father said, motioning toward the hayloft. “We need the lights and the rest of the wreaths. Your mother is making a fuss about everything being just perfect.”

  Colter didn’t need his father to tell him why or how much was riding on their success.

  “Did we sell any more tickets?” he asked as he made his way over to the ladder that led up to the hayloft and stepped up on the bottom rung.

  “We’re up to about fifty. Some donations are coming in, but as of right now we are thinking that we’re only going to just about break even on the thing. We’re going to need to sell at least a hundred more tickets.”

  “Who knows what will happen?” Colter said, making his way up the ladder so his father wouldn’t see the concern that undoubtedly filled his features. “Last year we had a lot of people show up at the door, right?”

  “That’s what we’re banking on.”

  Colter could hear the concern in his father’s voice.

  “I’d hate to have to start letting people go, but if things don’t turn around...”

  Whitney hadn’t been on the ranch that long. If his parents decided to start laying off staff, he had no doubt that they would do it as fairly and equitably as possible—which meant it would be based on time at the ranch, and Whitney would be among the first to be let go. He couldn’t let that happen.

  Colter stepped off the ladder as he reached the top and made his way over to the corner where his parents kept the Christmas supplies for the barn. There were green and red tubs, each carefully marked with WREATHS, LIGHTS and TREE DECORATIONS. He loved how meticulous they kept everything. It made life so much easier—when there were labels to everything and instructions on how to keep things from going out of control.

  The floor was covered in a thick layer of dust and scattered bits of broken hay. It was warm from the bodies of the horses below and it carried the sweet scent of grass. He remembered coming up here as a kid, hiding in the boxes and making forts with the horses’ blankets. He and Rainier, being the two youngest brothers, had spent most of their time up here, close to the horses and the things they loved the most.

  He sucked in a long breath as he thought of the careening path to disaster that Rainier’s life had taken. If only his parents had made a label, or a set of instructions, for his brother, maybe his life would have gone down a different path.

  Colter pulled the top bucket off the stack and moved toward the ladder. “I’ll hand this down and grab another.”

  The floor creaked loudly, and as he took another step, the board beneath his foot shifted. The box in his hands blocked his view, and as he twisted to check his footing, there was a loud crack. The board gave out, and before he could move away, he was falling.

  The jagged edges of the wood tore at his legs as he fell through the floor. The pain was raw and surreal, almost as though it was happening to someone else.

  He’d always had this fear, but in his mind’s eye, he’d always thought that something like this would happen only at his job, when a floor was burning out from underneath him—not in the safety and security of his parents’ barn. His world, the one he’d created in his mind where everything was controlled and safe, was betraying him. It was almost the same feeling he’d had as a child... And he couldn’t believe he was back here again—feeling powerless as his world collapsed around him.

  He threw the bucket and a strange, strangled sound escaped him—the guttural noise as instinct took over. The box clattered onto the floor, the lid flying open and a garland spilling out. Holding out his hands, he scratched at the floor around him. He had to stop. He had to catch himself before he hit the ground below.

  His father made a thick sound, somewhere between a gasp and a call to help, just as his fingers connected with the needlelike points of the broken floor. The wood pierced his hands, but he gripped tight. Holding on in an effort to slow his fall.

  Though he was strong, his elbows strained with his weight as he jerked to a stop. His feet dangled in the air, just above the bucket of pellets.

  There was the grind of metal of the door and the sound of Whitney gasping behind him.

  “Colter!” she called, a sharp edge of fear in her voice.

  There was the warmth of blood as it slipped down his leg and spilled into the top of his boot. He let go of the wood and fell into the galvanized bucket. It tipped with his weight as it broke his fall, spilling the horses’ treats onto the dirt floor.

  He threw his arms out, catching himself as he fell, but all it did was slow his descent into the dirt, muck and bits of the broken flooring. For a moment he lay there, taking mental stock of his body. He’d jarred his ankle and he was cut up, but he was going to be fine.

  “Colter, are you all right?” Whitney asked, rushing to his side. She touched his shoulder gently, almost as though she would hurt him even more if she pressed too hard.

  “Yeah, yeah... I’m fine,” he said, trying just as much to convince himself as her. He pushed himself up to sitting. His jeans were torn and there was a deep gash on the side of his leg. The blood was flowing from it, dotted with bits of sawdust and dirt from the ground.

  “What in the hell happened?” his father asked.

  Colter looked up at the floor. Where he had fallen through, the plywood was jagged on one end, but suspiciously straight on three other sides. He picked up a bit of the flooring that had landed on the ground beside him.

  There, on the bit of wood, were the distinctive marks of a saw blade. He lifted the piece for his father and Whitney to see. “Everyone at the ranch knew we would be going up there for the decorations for Yule Night.”

  His father took the piece of broken lumber and turned it around in his hands, inspecting the marks. “No, Colter... It had to be just some kind of accident. Maybe one of the volunteers just cut through the floor on accident. These things happen.”

  Colter could hear the lie in his father’s voice.

  No one would cut almost a perfect rectangle in the floor by accident. Anyone in their right mind would know the likelihood of someone getting hurt if they stepped on the spot—a spot he’d had to step on in order to get to the boxes. Someone had intended to set a trap—albeit a poor one, one that would hurt anyone who went up there and not someone specific.

  He thought of the bottle of oil and gas they had found. While he had tried to convince himself the device wasn’t a threat, and was just some random discarded item, now he couldn’t be so sure. The odds of two things like this happening on the same day had to be slim to none.

  Yet the bottle hadn’t been in a place where it would do much damage. In fact, if they hadn’t come across it by accident, it could simply have been covered by more snow in the coming days. Unless someone had dropped it there in an attempt to not be seen carrying it. It didn’t make sense.

  If anything, this all seemed like the ill-conceived plan of a teenager, or else this was someone who wanted to simply send a message—a warning that Dunrovin was coming under attack.

  Chapter Five

  She could understand acting tough, but Whitney couldn’t understand Colter’s need to pretend his body wasn’t racked by pain. He walked with a limp that he couldn’t disguise as they made their way to the ranch house.

  “Let me clean you up,” she said, motioning to his torn pants and the blood that stained the cloth.

  “Don’t worry—I’ll be fine. It’s just a little flesh wound,” he said, but the darkn
ess in his eyes and the deep, controlled baritone of his voice gave his pain away.

  “Don’t be so stubborn. Flesh wound or not, it needs to be cleaned up. And that’s to say nothing about maybe going to the emergency room.”

  Colter shook his head. “There’s no way I’m going to the doctor.” He lifted the injured leg like it was stiff as he made his way up the stairs and into the house.

  She followed him inside and pointed to the oversize leather chair that sat beside the fireplace in the living room. “Sit down. I’ll be right back.”

  His mouth opened as though he considered protesting for a moment, but as he looked at her, he clammed up and hobbled over to the chair and thumped down.

  She made her way to the bathroom and got the first-aid kit out of the closet. She was still angry with him. Hurt or not, he’d had his hands all over the blonde in the driveway.

  Though she shouldn’t have been jealous, she couldn’t help it from swelling in her like a fattening tick. She had no claim on Colter Fitzgerald. In fact, no one ever seemed to have a solitary claim on the man. He dated too much and too often for her to let herself even think about him. Yet she couldn’t help her thoughts as they drifted to the way he had looked holding the puppy.

  No. She couldn’t let the thought of how cute he was alter the fact that he usually drove her crazy. They couldn’t be a thing. She wasn’t looking for a relationship—especially not with a man like him.

  She walked down the hallway. As she turned the corner, the blonde and Eloise were standing beside Colter. Before they could see her, she ducked into the tiny little room that was Merle and Eloise’s private office. She felt out of place and unwelcome in the room that was neatly organized, its bookshelves color-coordinated with three-ring binders and business books. She stood there listening as the blonde fawned over the hurt Colter.

  Whitney stared around the room. She shouldn’t be in here, but there was no way she was going to walk out in the living room and fake nice with the woman who was clearly head over heels for Colter—and, if truth be told, probably more up his alley than Whitney was.

  The lump of jealousy inside her swelled further, threatening to burst.

  She stepped back, bumping against the desk as she tried to make physical distance work in the place of the emotional distance she needed. A piece of paper slipped to the floor, landing with a rustle at Whitney’s foot.

  Leaning down, she picked up the page. It was a bill from Cattleman’s Bank to the tune of more than five thousand dollars. Printed on the top, with large red letters, was the word Overdue. Though it wasn’t her bill, a feeling of sickness passed over her as she stared at the number at the bottom. There was no worse feeling than looking at a bill that you knew couldn’t be paid.

  She had seen those kinds of things over and over as a child when her parents were going through their divorce. The red letters were like shining beacons from a time in her life that she never wanted to remember, yet was forced to face as she looked at the paper in her hands.

  No wonder everyone on the ranch had seemed on edge. She had known things were tight with her employers, but she had no clue that things were this bad.

  Laying the paper back on the stack of bills in the inbox, she stepped away from the desk and the memories it wrought.

  Maybe they weren’t as bad off as she was assuming. Maybe it was just one bill that had slipped through the cracks. She was tempted to flip through the other bills that were there, but she stopped herself. It wasn’t her business. And even if she knew, there was nothing she could do to change the outcome.

  On the other hand, it was her future at stake. If they couldn’t pay their regular bills, then there was no possible way that they could continue to carry a staff. She had been lucky to get the job, and it was only when she’d told Eloise about her life in Kentucky that the woman had told her to come to Montana.

  The woman had been so kind to her, even offering to pay for her flight here, which now, seeing what she had, Whitney knew the woman and the ranch couldn’t afford.

  And now she would just have to turn around and go home. She wouldn’t be able to find another job in the tiny community that was Mystery, Montana. There was little in the way of anything here, and no one would want to hire a girl like her—one with a past spattered throughout the media.

  Whitney stared at the papers. Once again, her future was at the mercy of the world around her, and there was nothing she could do to control her destiny.

  She rushed out of the office, unable to stand the indelible red ink at the top of the bill a second longer. The blonde was still standing with Colter, but before Whitney could turn and rush back down the hall, Eloise noticed her.

  “There she is,” Eloise said, waving her over. “Whitney, have you met Sarah?”

  She felt like a dead man walking as she made her way to the living room. Sarah was smiling, her radiant white teeth just as straight and perfect as the rest of her.

  “So nice to meet you, Whitney,” she said, reaching out to shake her hand.

  “Likewise.” Whitney played along, but broke away from the handshake as quickly as she could. She didn’t want to meet Colter’s girlfriend, or friend with benefits, or whatever it was that this girl was to him.

  “Sarah is catering the party,” Eloise added, almost as though she could sense the tension between the two women.

  Whitney forced herself to smile in an attempt to comfort Eloise. Her friend didn’t need to worry about some drama that was happening between her and Sarah. Based on the paper she had just seen, there were already enough things going on in Eloise’s life.

  “That’s great. I’m sure it’s going to be marvelous,” Whitney said, her voice dripping with sugary sweetness put there only for Eloise.

  Colter looked up at her and frowned. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Sure. Just fine,” she said, but she looked away out of the knowledge that if he looked at her face he would see just how bad she was at lying. She grabbed the first-aid kit out from under her arm. “Here,” she said, handing it to him.

  He took the box but looked up at her like he wanted to ask her to help him.

  She glanced over at Sarah.

  Eloise took Sarah by the arm. “Why don’t we run along and finish up going over the menu? You were saying something about the shrimp?”

  Sarah opened her mouth to protest being pulled away from the man she was clearly moving in on, but before she could speak Eloise was herding her toward the kitchen.

  Whitney walked toward the front door, uncomfortable with being so close and alone with Colter. There were pictures on the wall of the staff over the years, and for a moment she stared up at them.

  There was a man in one of the pictures from the early ’90s. His hair was slightly longer than everyone else’s and his eyes looked dark, almost brooding. As she stared at his features, something about him felt familiar—perhaps it was the look on his face, or the way that he seemed alone when he was surrounded by others, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  Colter grumbled and cringed as he limped his way over to her side and looked up at the pictures. “This place has seen a lot of things.”

  “And a lot of people come and go,” she said, instinctively glancing toward the office and then toward the kitchen, where she could hear the garbled sound of Eloise and Sarah talking.

  He glanced toward the kitchen.

  “What is going on between you two?” she asked, motioning toward the closed kitchen door.

  His eyes widened and his mouth gaped like he was waiting for the right answers to simply start falling out.

  “I saw you guys in the parking lot.” She turned away from him, unable to look him in the face as she talked. “I know it’s not any of my business. But I know...I know you date a lot. And I don’t want her to think...”

  �
��She can think whatever she wants,” he said, finally finding his voice.

  “So you’re not dating?”

  He shifted his weight, but jerked as though the movement caused him pain. “I... She and I, we were a thing once. It wasn’t anything serious.”

  “But she’s your ex.”

  He looked over at her, catching her gaze. “I would hardly call what she and I had a relationship, so I wouldn’t really call her an ex.”

  “I would,” she said, feeling the acidic tone of her words straight to her bones.

  He stared at her for a moment before looking away, and her heart sank. She shouldn’t have come at him like that. They all had a past, and if he looked too deeply into hers, she had no doubt that he would find things that he didn’t like, as well. Her thoughts moved to the fire and the man who had caused it.

  Colter turned to walk away, but she stopped him as she grabbed his wrist.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as he turned to look at her. “I’m just upset. You didn’t do anything wrong. And I have no reason to be jealous. You can date whoever you want.”

  It wasn’t as if Colter liked her anyway. If he got to know her, everything would fall apart and whatever crush he had on her would rapidly diminish.

  “I don’t want to date just anyone. The only one I’d love to take out is you,” he said, pulling her hand off his wrist and wrapping her fingers between his. “From the moment you came here, it’s all I wanted.”

  She wanted to give in to the joy of hearing those words, but her reality wouldn’t allow it. She was so close to losing her job, her place here, and that was to say nothing about the odd things that were starting to happen around the place.

  She pulled her hand from his. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m telling you that I’m not perfect. I’m not the kind of woman who most men want to date. If you just got to know me a little more, you would see that you wouldn’t want a woman like me.”

  “I know you, whether you want to admit it or not.”