Bound By Desire (The Acadian Curse)

by Rebecca Lyndon

  Bound By Desire

  The Acadian Curse #1

  By

  Rebecca Lyndon

  Copyright Rebecca Lyndon

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2012 by Rebecca Lyndon

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written consent from the author/publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons living or dead, or places, events, or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are products of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Acknowledgments

  As always, a huge thank you to Lisa Alder and L.G.C. Smith for everything that you do. I can’t imagine how I would get through without your encouragement and support, and you’ll never know how relieved I am that I don’t have to.

  Also, to Lisa M, Martha, Rachel and Delilah—your invaluable help made this story come to life. Thank you.

  And, of course, my husband, thank you for all of your patience, help and advice…even the parts I didn’t take.

  “Crap.” Sarah McIntire wrenched the steering wheel of her father’s Ford hard to the left. The tires skidded across the highway blacktop. That morning’s empty coffee cup flew from its perch on the wide dash and toppled onto the floorboard. Trucks this old didn’t come with cup holders.

  She barely made the turn. The tires spun loose for a split second on the private dirt drive before catching.

  She muttered a little prayer of thanks that she had decided at the last moment to take her father’s truck. If she had tried that move in her Prius, she would be at the bottom of the ravine right now.

  It had been a sentimental decision to take the old Ford. Back when she was a kid, her father had been the town’s only big animal vet, and she had gone with him on just about every call. There was still a worn spot on the passenger side where she’d sat by his side for nearly eighteen years.

  At first, it had been a matter of practicality. She was too little to stay home alone, and it was just too hard to find a sitter at a moment’s notice. But even after she was old enough to take care of herself for a few hours on her own, she’d still tagged along. Her father’s work had fascinated her. He made sick animals well. He eased their pain. Of course, it wasn’t always smooth and easy.

  It had been over a decade since she had driven this rugged two-lane highway. She thought that she remembered every curve and pothole. Apparently, she’d been wrong.

  She might be forgiven for not remembering every inch of the roads around here, but in Sarah’s mind the sin of missing the turn off to the Anderson Ranch was unpardonable. This was the place where her life had changed after all. This was where she had decided to follow in her father’s footsteps and study veterinary medicine. The place, like the moment, should have been permanently etched in her mind.

  Carl Anderson’s place was where she first witnessed her father put an animal down. A quarter horse had fallen on a jump and shattered a leg. Its howls of agony had almost scared her out of the barn before she’d even set foot in it. But her father had placed his big hand on her shoulder and she had gone with him. She’d watched as he put that same calming hand on the terrified beast, then he had filled his long syringe and put him out of his misery.

  Sarah had tried to be strong. She really did. But as that beautiful creature closed his eyes, and the life began to drift out of him, Sarah had started to cry. She couldn’t help it. Her lip shook and her knees wobbled. Her father had looked up. It was the understanding in his eyes that had broken her. Sarah ran out that barn like the spirit of the horse had fled right into her.

  “Nature always knows best, sweet pea,” her father had said when he’d found her weeping at the end of the Anderson’s half mile drive. “All we can do is all we can do.”

  In that moment a strange truth had clicked in her mind. Just like life could be beautiful, it could also be horrible. In order to have the good, you had to accept the bad. But that didn’t mean that you stopped fighting for the wonderful. At the age of eight, Sarah had found her calling and her father had found an assistant.

  Of course, she hadn’t followed her father’s path step for step. By the time she graduated high school, she couldn’t imagine living her life in a small town where nothing ever happened and everything stayed the same. After she had earned her doctorate Sarah had become a professor at the same university where she had studied. Between the classes and her research she always found herself far too busy to come home for a visit.

  Sarah glanced in the rearview mirror. A trail of red dust billowed out from the tires, and hung suspended in the air. It was a familiar sight. The rust-colored clay covered everything here. It got into everything too—shoes, clothes, cars. In the ten years she’d been away she hadn’t once missed the gritty feel of it.

  So why was she now staring at it like it was a welcome banner hung out just for her? It couldn’t be that she actually missed this place. No, that was just another scrap of misplaced sentiment. Time could dull the edges of a memory, but give it another couple of days and Sarah was sure that all the reasons she had left the little mountain town of Rutledge would come roaring back—the boredom, the monotony, the tedium. By the end of the month she would be staring at the back of her father’s front door, waiting for the moment he returned so she could kiss him on the cheek, toss him his keys and race the nearly two hundred miles back home.

  Without looking, Sarah cranked up the volume on the radio. Music filled the cab, popping and fading around each turn and bend. Her father had never bothered to put a true stereo in. Like the rest of the truck, the radio worked well enough to see him through as he traveled along the Plumas County roads.

  Sarah popped the stick into neutral as she crested the hill and coasted into the gravel-lined courtyard that sprawled out before her.

  Well, maybe not everything had stayed the same.

  This wasn't the Anderson place, at least not how she remembered it. The flat aluminum-sided ranch house that had stood in the center of the lot was gone, replaced by a double story log cabin that was at least three times as large. A finely crafted porch wrapped its way around the entire building. The front of the house had grass and wildflowers blooming along the edges. A rock fountain burbled in front. Maybe the Anderson’s had come into money while she was away.

  The dust cloud caught up to her. It overtook the truck and blocked out the windows. Sarah waited for the worst of it to pass before reaching for the door handle and stepping down.

  Sarah could just make out the form of someone that had stepped in front of the Ford. Someone over six feet tall and with a chest almost as wide as her truck door—someone who most definitely was not old Carl Anderson.

  Sarah sucked in a breath. Damn. Who ever this guy was, he wasn’t from around here. She would have remembered him. Hell, if he’d been here when she had graduated high school she might have found a reason not to leave.

  The middle two buttons of his loose fitting, plaid shirt were secured but Sarah didn’t have any trouble making out the plain cotton t-shirt that was pulled taut across his chest. His brows were heavy and his eyes dark. A trace of a beard lined his jaw and framed his lush looking lips. His hair was tousled, not really short and not quite long. He didn’t look to have even a trace of the Anderson’s Scandinavian blood. If he wasn’t some distant relative, maybe he was a new hand around here.

  By the way h
e was frowning at her, she was no doubt making an idiot of herself staring at him.

  Sarah leaned back into the truck and took her time grabbing her bag. She attempted to regain some of her composure. When she emerged, her best smile was firmly in place.

  The gorgeous stranger obviously wasn’t impressed by her show of professionalism. His frown had turned to a full-on scowl.

  “Where’s Henry?” he asked. He had a drawl—a long sexy one. Louisiana, if she had to guess.

  "He's in Florida.” And with any luck her father would return covered with mosquito bites and a sun burn that would dry out any further ideas he had about retiring to a beachfront condo and guilting his only daughter into replacing him at his practice.

  "And who are you?" he demanded, as though he didn't have the time to be bothered with her.

  "Dr. Sarah McIntire.” She put out her hand. He looked at it, but didn't take it. Sarah could practically feel her skin begin to burn under his glare. She pulled it back and tried not to look too self-conscious as she tucked it into her pocket.

  “McIntire? You’re Henry’s daughter then.” He sounded annoyed. His jaw tightened as he looked her up and down.

  Sarah gave a tight nod. She couldn’t tell if it was the thought of a female vet or just the change in routine that irritated him. She didn’t really care. She was here on a call, and that was all that mattered, not what some chauvinist ranch hand thought of her. It didn’t matter how hot he was.

  “And you are?” she asked when his rude silence had stretched on for too long.

  “Grant LaCroix.”

  “Is Carl around?”

  “Carl Anderson died two years ago,” he said.

  “Oh.” Sarah’s heart fell a little in her chest. The news shouldn’t have been so surprising. Carl Anderson had been an old man with a couple dozen great-grandchildren when she’d left town ten years ago. “I’m so sorry.”

  “There’s no need for your sympathy. I’m just the one who bought the place.”

  Sarah’s spine stiffened. “Well then, it appears that I’m here to look after your foaling mare.”

  He gave the horizon one last hard look before nodding. He bit into his lip as though the idea pained him. “The stables are this way. Follow me.”

  She strode past him before he had a chance to turn around. “I remember the way.”

  At least she had thought she did. Sarah rounded the house to find the old barn she recalled so vividly from her childhood gone. In its place stood a long modern stable.

  Mr. LaCroix might not have come to Plumas County with much in the way of manners, but it appeared that he had brought along more than enough money to make up for it.

  Sarah was a few steps from the entrance when she heard a loud, shrill whinny. All of her healing instincts rushed to the surface at the sound of pain. She broke into a run and was a little surprised to find LaCroix matching her pace.

  She found the mare lying on a pile of fresh hay in her stall. The horse lifted her head as they approached, her giant brown eyes wide with pain and panic. It was obvious that the terrified mare was already wary of strangers. As she took a step forward the mare started kicking violently. Sarah jumped back.

  LaCroix didn’t show any hesitation. He rushed in and knelt by her side. He laid a hand on her neck and brushed back her mane. The mare calmed dramatically at his touch.

  "She wasn’t like this when I called you," he said.

  Sarah inched forward, doing what she could to avoid the mare’s powerful back legs. She knelt down in the hay and laid her hands on the mare’s distended belly. The foal was starting to show. Sarah could see two hooves and a short stretch of leg. Another contraction racked the mare’s body, but the foal didn’t budge.

  Sarah reached into her bag and snapped on a pair of long, clean gloves. She slid her fingers up the foal’s leg and felt inside. Her hand came into contact with haunches instead of a head. Damn.

  “The foal is breech, and it feels stuck. No wonder you’ve been having such a hard time, girl.” Sarah gently petted the mare, but she only tensed further. It seemed that Grant was the only one with the magic touch when it came to the skittish creature.

  Grant glanced out the window behind him at the darkening sky. "How quickly can you do this?" he asked.

  Sarah frowned and shook her head. “You must be pretty new to horse ranching, Mr. LaCroix.”

  “Been doing it my whole life,” he said. “And call me Grant.”

  “Well, then you don’t need me to tell you, Grant, that Nature runs on her own schedule, no matter how inconvenient it might be to the rest of us.”

  “I don’t need the reminder, I assure you.” It seemed that he was none to pleased with her on any level, professionally or personally. "This just needs to be done before the sun goes down.”

  "Or what? You’ll miss the first couple innings of the game? You'll live," she said. “Besides, I’m afraid I can’t do this without you.”

  His head snapped up, looking into Sarah's eyes for the first time. Despite her current low opinion of him, she felt a little flutter take root deep in her belly. He might have a few things to learn about gentlemanly behavior, but Grant LaCroix certainly wasn’t hard to look at.

  “I can’t stay.” His voice was hard, but shaky.

  “I’m going to have to pull the foal out, and I can’t do that with her kicking at me. You seem to be the only one that can settle her down.”

  Sarah uttered a silent prayer as Grant drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. His hands trembled a little against the mare's sable hair as he petted her.

  Was he squeamish? Was that what all of this was about? He sure didn’t look the type. Tall and broad in the shoulders, he looked like he could take on anything that life threw at him. Then again, she knew better than to judge nerves by appearance. She’d seen more than one arrogant frat boy pass out at the first sight of blood. Of course, Grant LaCroix could never be confused for a kid.

  "You have me until the sun reaches the horizon.” He whispered the words gently to the mare. Then he looked up at Sarah. “I can’t promise you any more.”

  “We’ll just have to see if it’s enough.”

  He stared at her, a strange intensity building in his eyes. At first Sarah thought that she might have offended him, but the look wasn’t it. There wasn’t any hurt or anger in his gaze, just something that bordered on hunger.

  It looked like a barely contained craving that was focused solely on her.

  The mare screamed again, and Sarah snapped back to herself in a hurry. She was here to help an animal in danger, not indulge in whatever wild fantasies her sex-starved libido had decided to invent.

  Sarah wrapped her hands around the foal’s hooves and gently pulled down as the mare’s muscles tensed. The foal slipped out a little further. On the next contraction she pulled again and was rewarded with another few inches of movement. The hips were nearly out. Once that happened, the mare wouldn't have to fight. Nature would take over. She just needed a few more minutes.

  Sarah glanced up at Grant. Beads of sweat had begun to show on his brow, and it wasn’t because the stables were overly hot.

  "We're almost there,” she said, hoping to reassure him. "You can do this. Just breathe."

  He glanced up at the window. There was hardly any natural light coming through them now. There was only the harsh flicker of the fluorescents out in the hallway lit the room.

  "I have to go," Grant said. His voice was so deep and low that she could barely make out his words.

  "Another few minutes and we're done," Sarah said.

  The sweat increased on his brow. His hands were openly shaking now. He groaned loudly. Perhaps she had overestimated the man's intestinal fortitude. Well, she didn't have time for wounded pride, and his mare certainly couldn't survive it.

  "I've seen people become sick at less," Sarah said. "It doesn't bother me. It’s nothing to be ashamed of."

  He shot her a glare. Ok, maybe it wasn’t his stomach. But the
re was something wrong with him, and she could only deal with one patient at a time.

  He stood suddenly. The mare lifted her head, the fear returning to her eyes. Her legs thrashed out again, and Sarah had to shuffle back to avoid them.

  "I have to—"

  "Go. I know," Sarah shouted, her patience finally breaking. If he wouldn’t take her reassurance, her only hope was to go after his sense of shame. No doubt he would hate her. Why that should matter to her, she wasn’t sure. "If you leave now, your mare will panic, and I won’t be able to help either of them. She will die and so will her foal. That will be on your head, Mr. LaCroix not mine." She couldn’t put it any plainer.

  She stared up at him. Maybe it was her angle from down on the floor, but he looked bigger—taller, maybe, but mostly just more massive. Still, she wasn’t about to let his size intimidate her. She kept her eyes firmly on him as she waited for his answer. It was his move now, and she wasn’t going to make this any easier on him.

  He stared right back at her, his jaw line so tight Sarah feared he might shatter some teeth. A few seconds of tense silence passed as they stared each other down. Just as she was about to give up on him, his fist shot out and landed on the solid pine beam at his side. Sarah could have sworn that she heard the crackle of splintering wood.

  "Damn it," he muttered. "I'll stay, but you have to promise me something."

  “All right.” At this point she’d swear to anything if it meant seeing this foal safely born.

  "Promise me that the second this is done that you will strap me to the wall of the last stall," he said.

  Sarah didn't bother to mask her shock.

  "Promise me or I’ll leave now, " he repeated.

  Was he joking? Crazy? Either way it didn't matter. Sarah needed him. She would deal with his demand when the time came.

  "Whatever floats your boat," she said. Though she had to admit that she hadn’t pegged him for the submissive type. The man exuded dominance. But what did she really know about these things? She’d had a few kinky fantasies, sure, but she’d never pursued any of them. It just had never felt right.