Garrett, Joe, and Lenny stood by Colby, and they listened to Harvey outline their next quest. “There’s a blonde and two brunettes, all about twenty and enrolled in some Ivy League college back East. They reserved the campsite with their boyfriends and I’ve got them staying at site nine on the South side of Glacier on the weekend of the fourth. According to our records, it has been five years since we used the park and eleven since we used that site. After you nab them, I’ll handle the diversion so the authorities will think the girls were taken in a vehicle. There shouldn’t be any problem.”
The trainers mentally envisioned site nine from what they had learned from their sponsors when they were hired. It was one of the most distant abduction points on their roster, and quite a journey from any of their remote hideouts. They calculated the date they would have to leave to meet up with the others on time.
“Sounds covered,” Joe replied, and added, “I hope I get the blonde.”
“Remember you said that,” Lenny chuckled. In his experience, the blondes were always stupidly stubborn in their reluctance to training, after years of being pampered on the flatlands. “You aren’t backing out on it.”
Garrett shrugged indifferently. “I don’t give a damn who I get, as long as I have something to keep me warm through the winter.” He was already looking forward to breaking in some high-class society brat.
“We’ll see you in May, then,” Colby said. Harvey walked with the rancher to the pickup truck, and the three men in black watched the taillights bounce as they drove across the pasture.
The men continued to stare into the darkness where their employer was disappearing over the prairie, and Joe asked, “How much did you get for her, Garrett?”
“Enough to buy that ranch on the ridge from Colby,” Garrett replied. “I’ll be heading down after this one, and Colby said he’d set me up with stables to train some of the girls in specialty services.” After his five years running the Western slope, the allure of the isolated mountain hideaway was wearing thin and he welcomed the change. “Guess we better head back up.” The men walked to the tree line where their horses were tethered, and they rode towards the mountains.
CHAPTER I
The ranger smiled when he saw the SUV round the last corner and approach the station, and he reached into his back pocket for the pre-marked park map. Right on time. He slid open the window and leaned out. “You folks got your ticket?”
“Yes sir.” Brad reached on the dashboard for the stiff receipt card they had received when they passed through the main entrance of the park thirty minutes ago. He handed it to the man in the booth, and read the ranger’s nametag. “So, Harvey, is this as far back as they go?”
“Sure is. There used to be a couple spots on an old logging road further in, but they got too hard to maintain so they shut them down a couple of years ago.” Harvey leaned further over to look into the vehicle, and he studied the pretty girls then winked at the driver. “I had a family reunion cancel that we put in the back. It’s a bit of a drive, but really secluded. We didn’t want the noise from their gathering to bother the other campers.” He saw the couples listening while he waved their ticket. “This place is shared by two other families with about ten kids.”
Brad looked at his friends and they all nodded. “Harvey, you’re the man. Are you sure you won’t get into trouble?”
“Positive. This is my last shift, and then I transfer to the main gate. George comes on tomorrow, and you’re lucky to get him to check out the sites closest to the shack. There’s no way he’s going to drive over to where you’ll be staying. It’s almost a half mile to the nearest campsite, and five from here, so you’ll have plenty of privacy.”
Harvey laid the prepared map on his desk and pretended to write out the pre-drawn route. He leaned out the window and pointed to the left. “Just stay on that road until the asphalt ends. It winds around a lot and, like I said, it’s off by itself. You’ll have a clearing in the center, and then there are four little sections off it to pitch your tents.” He handed Brad the map, and said as an afterthought, “Make sure you pick up when you get ready to leave. George is going to think that site is empty, so he isn’t going to know to go back there.”
“No problem, thanks.” Brad drove slowly down the winding road through the pines. “Shit, Charlie, this is great.”
“Well, we lucked out that Ranger Harvey was sympathetic to our cause,” Charlie drawled.
“God, could you imagine trying to spend a quiet weekend with a bunch of kids?” Amy’s blonde curls shook as she laughed. “So not my idea of a good time.”
Linda leaned over from the passenger seat and studied the map that Brad had spread in the center of the steering wheel. “It looks like there’s a pond right by the campsite.”
Brad pulled up to the log at the end of the pavement, and the couples loaded up their gear and quickly decided which of the secluded sections they wanted. They had purchased small pop up tents and cheap sleeping bags, because they doubted they would ever use them again. The whole camping trip had been planned on a lark just before Spring Break, when the couples decided to go out West and visit Charlie’s ranch for a week.
They spent the afternoon swimming, and cooked dinner over a fire in the center of the clearing. One by one, the couples drifted to their tents, all of them exhausted after the late night cross country flight and driving all day.
Ashley snuggled into Charlie’s warmth. Even wrapped inside the joined sleeping bags, the air was a little cool, but enveloped in his arms with the coarse hair of his thigh tickling her bottom where it lay slung over her, was perfect. She ran a short French tipped nail down the forearm hugging under her breasts, and she decided the camping trip might not have been such a bad idea after all.
Ashley thought of her mother and smiled to herself. The carefully maintained sophisticated woman would have had a stroke if she knew her Ivy League daughter was sleeping in a discount store sleeping bag in a one room nylon tent in the woods instead of vacationing on a balmy Caribbean island with some rich escort.
Ashley’s father had been a one-night stand while her mother had been a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas. Her mother quickly discovered that she had a talent for manipulating wealthy men. Ashley had been an inconvenience to her, and she had been raised by nannies as a child and then sequestered in year-round boarding schools. She only saw her mother during the few holidays throughout the year that the school was closed down.
Before Ashley entered college, her mother suggested that she could teach her how to get men to support her. To Ashley’s relief, she quickly retracted the offer when she noticed that the man she had been eyeing took a greater interest in her daughter. That was the first taste of a depressing reality her mother experienced that time was marching on, and that it was a distinct disadvantage to remind the jet setting targets she adored that there was a younger version of herself available.
She quickly shuttled Ashley to a respectable college and told her she would pay her dorm fees and tuition. Ashley struggled to make the uneasy transition to the slight taste of independence. She had lived her entire life under carefully monitored guidance, and she was somewhat comforted when she discovered that while she lived in the dorm, Mrs. Handley kept close watch on the young women. She was quick to issue reprimands and penalties for breaking curfews and house rules.
Six months ago, Ashley met Charlie. He was a cowhand with a lazy drawl who was making his way through college with funds from his parents’ small Montana ranch and a scholarship. The only two friends she had made were Amy and Linda, who were outcasts like herself. Their divorced mothers had been trophy wives with no social class or breeding to fall back on. Their sole occupation was finding the next rich man to support them, and freeing themselves from further responsibility of raising their daughters.
This summer, Ashley’s mother had sent her a short note. She told Ashley that her tuition and living expenses would be paid as long as she was in college, but she really did not see the s
ense in sending for her this year. Essentially, Ashley had been abandoned to flounder her way outside the structured guidance she had been raised in, and instead of kicking up her heels and relishing her freedom, Ashley was terrified.
With more than a little trepidation, Ashley had agreed to the week long camping trip before traveling to the ranch to meet Charlie’s parents. He had grinned while he watched her inch her way into the cold stream earlier, squealing and eyeing him as if she thought the very pebbles on the bed would bite off her toes. At twenty, Ashley could not remember ever sleeping outside before, and immersing herself in nature was both challenging and intimidating.
The noises of the tree branches falling and the sounds of strange animals had kept her awake for a long time after she heard Charlie’s quiet snoring. At last, the long day took its toll and she dropped off to sleep.
The captors checked their supplies and left their horses tied to different sides of the ridge. Their long, split riding coats fluttered behind them like black capes as they made their way down to the campsite. The moon was full and lighting the gray rocks, and they spotted each other and joined their paths halfway down the slope.
Experienced at tracking their prey, the large men traveled silently through the woods until they reached the base of the foothills. Garrett turned to scan the area below for the remnants of evening fires. Some were fairly close together, but he located the single trail of smoke wafting into the air from a campsite close to the path on their right, and far from the ranger station.
Quietly approaching the clearing, they were pleased to see the campers had taken full advantage of the solitude by setting up their tents in the separate sites, hidden from the others by the trees. Near the fire, there was a line strung between two pines, holding damp shorts and two piece bathing suits drying in the night breeze.
It took a minute before they located Harvey, hiding in position near the parked SUV. He hand signaled that all three women were present, and pointed at the tent closest to them and grinned at Joe. That would be the blonde, he indicated, and he figured Joe might have his hands full with the curly, mop headed co-ed. Harvey felt an aroused sense of anticipation. He would be replacing Garrett next year and finally have the power his friends were experiencing first hand. He watched from the shadows until it was time for him to make a loud production of leaving the campsite in his pickup truck.
After choosing their targets, the men silently split up to capture their women. They would not see each other again until the spring. The abduction was an exhilarating rush for the men, and they each employed their own methods to grab their girls without allowing their boyfriends to see them, or yell and set off an alarm to the others.
Garrett pulled on his leather gloves and shrugged out of his long black riding duster, after removing the roll of silver tape from the deep pocket. He tossed his black hat on top of his coat and proceeded to cut four long lengths of tape and stick them to the side of his jeans in preparation. As he approached the tent, there was movement and he quickly retreated behind a tree at the edge of the campsite. A lanky man lifted the net flap and glanced up at the moon, yawning. He stood and stretched as he made his way into the trees behind the tent, and Garrett smiled at his good fortune, and the man’s impatient bladder.
Charlie cursed the last beer that had forced him from the warmth of the tent and Ashley. The night air was cool against his naked flesh, and it was beginning to wake him up enough to have an uneasy feeling of being watched. He decided it had just been too long since he had enjoyed the outdoors, away from the hectic noise of the city. He stood with his back to the campsite with one hand wrapped around his cock and the other braced against a tree.
Garrett silently stalked forward with a piece of the tape resting across one palm. Before the sleepy camper registered his presence, the big man slapped the tape across Charlie’s mouth and wrapped it twice around his head. Charlie reached up automatically to remove the gag, instead of recognizing the danger he was in and fighting or trying to run, giving Garrett plenty of time to wrap tape around one wrist. Still standing behind him, he wrenched Charlie’s arm to the back and caught hold of his other flailing limb. He secured the man’s wrists behind him and pulled him back into the dark shadows of the trees. Garrett kept his face carefully hidden until he managed to wrap a third piece of tape over Charlie’s eyes as a blindfold.
The man was frantically kicking backwards at his unknown assailant, and Garrett wrapped his fist around his quarry’s limp cock and yanked down until the man’s muffled moans accompanied his buckling knees and he sank to the ground. Garrett released the man’s rod and grabbed one leg, dragging him towards a tree. The man muffled shrieks behind the gag as the pine needles scratched and pierced his cock and balls, and he tried to roll to his side. Garrett held back his laugh at his captive’s cowardly wails while he scraped the man’s thighs on the bark of the trunk. He pulled his legs around either side of the pine, and he used his longest length of tape to secure Charlie’s ankles.
Garrett looked down in disgust as he realized the man was not fighting, and he heard soft whimpering cries through the gag. He left the man lying on his stomach with the tree between his legs and no leverage to move.
Garrett made his way back to the trees by the campsite and stuffed his gloves back into his coat pocket. He cut a short length of tape and checked his jeans pocket for the wrist straps. The young woman’s ankles would be left unsecured for the long walk back to the cave. Smiling cruelly as the moon emerged from the clouds and lit the clearing, Garrett lifted the flap and entered the tent to teach his new captive her first lesson.
Sometime in the night, Ashley felt Charlie unwrapping his warmth from her. She tried to grab his arm and keep it secured under her chest, and he whispered, “I’ll be right back. Nature calls.” He brushed a kiss across her cheek, and she was already sleeping again as he made his way to the exit. She snuggled deeper into the polyester cocoon, and she did not bother to open her eyes when she heard him return.
Garrett could barely make out the top of the young woman’s head in the shadows. The fact that she was already restrained within the confines of the sleeping bag would be a help, but he needed to seal her lips before she could scream and alert the nearby campers. He crawled up behind her and stretched out along her length. Ashley turned her head, and with her eyes still closed, she murmured, “Get under the blanket, Charlie. I’m freezing.”
Ashley felt a strong hand clap down over her mouth, and she opened her eyes in surprise as a tall, muscular body rolled on top of her. She struggled to clear her mind into wakefulness, confused and refusing to accept it was not Charlie who had her pinned. In the darkness, she could see the outline of a much larger man sprawled across her, and she screamed behind his hand and struggled to get her arms free from the confines of the sleeping bag.
Garrett let her continue to thrash for a minute, realizing his words would not be digested until the woman recognized how ineffective her struggles were. When he sensed her panic reducing to wary fear, he gripped her throat with his other hand and lowered so the soft whiskers of his beard brushed her cheek. He whispered close to her ear, “Not a sound.”
The woman made a soft quivering noise as he loosened his hand from her mouth, testing her compliance. The hold on her neck gripped tighter while he lifted his hand off her lips, and he reached down to his jeans for the short piece of tape that he would seal across her mouth.
“Please…” Ashley whimpered in terror.
The fingers around her throat tightened, cutting off her words. “Not a sound,” the deep voice repeated. Garrett laid the tape across her mouth, silencing her.
Ashley was shaking and trying to free her arms from the sleeping bag that was secured around her by the man’s weight. She wondered if Charlie would walk in and save her… she wondered if the stranger had already found him. Tears slipped down the sides of her face as the man continued to keep her pinned.
Garrett had not gotten a good look at his prey, though the
women selected were always pretty. Through the thin fabric of the sleeping bag, he could tell she had a slender figure with the promise of nice sized breasts, pushing up against him as she panted. He found the zipper of the bag, and the woman jerked when she felt the cool air as he lowered it to her waist.
Ashley managed to get one arm free and she swung it wildly to the side, thumping her fist down onto the man’s back once before reaching for the tape on her mouth. Garrett captured it easily and looped it with one of the leather straps. He dug through the sleeping bag until he located her other arm as she tried to pull it away from him. The confining space made it easy for him to noose her other wrist, and Ashley felt herself rolled onto her stomach while the man pulled her arms and tied the two straps behind her.
Her screams were muted to an ineffective level behind the tape, and Garrett was certain the other campers could not hear her. He rolled her back over so she was lying on her arms, but still restrained inside the bedroll. Ashley tried to squirm away, and once more his hand circled her throat. “Be still.” She continued to struggle, and his grip tightened until she could not breathe. “Be still,” the deep voice repeated.
Her head began to throb while she tried to get air, and she finally stopped her thrashing. Trees shaded the moon making the inside of the tent darker, and Ashley could only make out the shadow of the frightening man leaning over her. She felt the sleeping bag lowered, and her nipples tightened in the cool air. When his hand touched her breast, she began struggling again, and his fingers pinched her nipple and squeezed.
Ashley screamed, and the man gripped tighter and began to twist the tender tip. She arched her back up, trying to buck herself free from the clamping pain, and the man once again ordered her to be still. The pink knob felt as though he was pulling it off, and she sobbed and stopped moving. As soon as Garrett felt her cease her struggles, he released her nipple and gently brushed his thumb across the lengthened tip. He felt her trembling, but she tried not to fight him.
Predator Ridge Page 2
