by Leah Brooke
He’d always been there for her, and she wished she could have talked to him one last time.
She felt more than heard Carson come up behind her.
“Your uncle loved you very much.”
Nodding, Deanna adjusted one of the pictures she’d sent of her and Casey together. “I know. I just wish he could have met Casey. He talked to her on the phone, but it wasn’t the same.”
“He always kept pictures of you around. In those older pictures, your hair was much longer.”
Deanna gulped and moved away. “Yes. I always kept it long and usually in a braid. I cut it shortly after I got married.”
Carson ran a hand over her short hair. “Why did you cut it?”
“It got in the way. I wish my uncle hadn’t wanted to be cremated. I would have liked to visit his grave.”
Carson wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back against him. “He didn’t want to be in a cemetery. He wanted to be on the ranch. We have the urn. You can scatter the ashes whenever you want.”
Deanna nodded, knowing that even if she left, she wouldn’t take her uncle’s ashes with her.
He’d loved the ranch, and she couldn’t imagine that he’d be happy with his ashes sitting on a mantel somewhere.
“I’ll wait until springtime. He loved the spring.”
If I’m still here.
Carson bent to kiss her hair. “There’s a bad storm coming, and I wanted to stack wood for a fire. It might get bad, and I don’t want you to be afraid if the lights go out while we’re gone. You have Don’s flashlights, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Deanna moved to the window, looking out at Casey’s snowman, at least what she could see of it. “The snow’s really piling up, isn’t it? Soon, we won’t be able to see Casey’s snowman at all.”
He moved in behind her, not touching her but close enough so that she could feel the heat from his body. “As long as we can see Casey. Why did you cut your hair, Deanna?”
Shrugging, she watched the bright red four-wheeler that seemed to continuously drive around the ranch. “Just wanted a change.”
“I don’t believe you. You got a strange look on your face and stiffened when I mentioned it. It was more than you just wanting a change, wasn’t it?”
She kept her back to him so she couldn’t see his face, but his tone held a tenderness that she knew would be reflected in his eyes.
Keeping her voice low, Deanna kept staring out the window, looking up at the darkening sky. “Jimmy used to grab me by the hair. Drag me around. Made it impossible for me to fight back. Cutting it made it harder for him to get a hold of me.”
“Fucker. I’m sorry.”
Deanna shrugged, fighting the maelstrom of emotions swirling inside her. “You didn’t do anything to be sorry for.” Turning, she forced a smile. “Not yet, anyway.”
He caught her arm when she started past him. “Do you want to tell me what you mean by that?”
Deanna shook her head, smiling humorlessly. “Carson, I enjoy being with you and Sam. I enjoy being here on the ranch. I feel safe here. Casey’s safe here, and I can breathe. But you and I both know that our sexual relationship can’t last.”
She patted his chest. “It’s fun and exciting, and I appreciate your help, but—”
Carson stiffened, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t belittle it. It’s more than sex, and you know it.”
Unsure of his mood and acutely aware that Sam stood in the doorway sipping coffee, Deanna stepped back, putting her hands on her hips. “Do you think that because I haven’t had sex in months I’d be so stupid and needy that I’d believe that two men like you could want me? That I’d fall for both of you? Am I supposed to believe either one of you is serious when you make it clear that either one—or both of you—is willing to do whatever it takes to keep me under your thumb? If you both want me, how am I supposed to believe that either one of you is serious? You don’t know which one of you I’ll fall for—so you’ll just hedge your bets and both try to seduce me? You both must think that because I stayed with Jimmy for so long that I’m stupid. I’m not. I’m not stupid, Carson, and I’ll be damned if I let myself be taken for an idiot ever again. I think both of you should go.”
Carson eyed her steadily and had opened his mouth to say something when the sound of Casey calling her had him snapping his mouth shut again.
Sam straightened, sharing a look with Carson. “We’ll go, but we’ll be back. We both will. You and I have some unfinished business.”
Unsurprised by the rush of heat, Deanna struggled to hold back a smile. “We’ll see.”
She could imagine things much worse than lying naked in front of a roaring fire with Sam. “Casey’s restless, and I need to spend some time with her.”
Carson’s lips twitched. “Good. Hopefully, she’ll be good and tired tonight.”
Deanna met her daughter in the hallway, picking her up and holding her as Carson and Sam went out the back door. “Hello, sweetie. Did you have a nice nap?”
“Yes.” Hugging her new doll close, Casey lifted her head from Deanna’s shoulder. “I hungry.”
Deanna smiled. “Again? You must be growing again. How about if we go to town and get a hamburger before it starts snowing again?”
“Yay!”
Deanna looked down. “You don’t have Pookey. Do you want to bring him?”
“No. I have Lily. I want French fries.”
She’d just finished bundling Casey up to go out, reaching for her own coat, when the phone rang.
Expecting it to be Carson or Sam, she smiled. “Hello?”
“Deanna? It’s Len.”
Something in his tone made her stomach roll. “What’s wrong?”
“I need to talk to you. Are Carson or Sam there?”
She sat to pull on her boots. “No. They just left. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’d rather speak to you in person. Would it be okay if I stopped by?”
“Casey wants a hamburger, and I wanted to get her out of the house for a while before the snowstorm hits. Are you in your office?”
“Yes. Can you stop by here?”
“Let me pick up something for Casey and I’ll be there.”
* * * *
Carrying Casey’s hamburger and fries into Len’s office, Deanna paused when she found Len waiting for her, his expression grim.
The knots in her stomach tightened, and relieved that she hadn’t bought anything for herself to eat, she stepped forward. “What is it?”
Shaking his head, Len looked meaningfully at Casey. “Let’s get Casey settled.”
Once Casey sat eating her hamburger and talking to her doll, Len led Deanna to the window. “I got another call from Karns.”
Deanna took a steadying breath. “Okay, what’s going on?”
Len continued to stare out the window. “Your husband—now ex-husband—attacked Karns.”
“What?” Stunned, Deanna gripped his arm, reminding herself to keep her voice low. “What happened? Is Ben all right?”
“He’s in the hospital.” Turning his head, he glanced at Casey. “It sounds like Jimmy went off the deep end when he found out that the judge granted you custody. He went to Karns’ office and demanded to know where you were. Karns wouldn’t tell him, so he decided to try to beat it out of him. His secretary’s in the hospital with a cracked skull.”
Deanna felt sick to her stomach. “Dear God.” Pressing a hand to her stomach, she slumped, her knees buckling. “Will they be all right?”
Deanna felt faint, her breathing becoming harsh.
Len led her to one of the chairs in front of his desk. “I hope so. Karns has some busted ribs and a concussion, but he fought with the hospital staff to let him call me. Jimmy took your file. It’s got my contact information in it and your uncle’s phone number.”
“No!” Her voice came out in a strangled whisper, the inability to get enough air into her lungs terrifying her.
“Mommy?”
Forcing a smile, D
eanna turned to Casey, gasping for air. “Everything’s all right, honey. Mommy and Mr. Miller are almost done.”
“Deanna?” Len crouched in front of her. “Are you all right?”
Deanna struggled to get more air into her lungs in order to answer him but couldn’t. Shaking her head, she reached for him.
He picked her up and rushed with her to the sofa. “Casey, your mommy doesn’t feel good. Sit with her a minute.”
Pulling out his cell phone, Len moved away and toward the window again, speaking in a hushed tone.
“Mommy? I here.”
Focusing on Casey, Deanna pulled her daughter closer, struggling to control her breathing. “I. Know. Baby. Lie down. Here. With Mommy.”
Fearing that she was in the middle of a heart attack, she started crying.
She didn’t want to scare Casey and suddenly started thinking about what would become of her daughter if something happened to her.
The thought of Jimmy having her renewed the panic and made breathing even more difficult.
Tears burned her eyes as she held Casey close, but she struggled to speak when Len finished his call and came close again.
He moved Casey and her doll just enough to help Deanna remove her coat. “Calm down, Deanna. Just breathe. Help’s on the way.”
Dr. Scott burst through the door a few minutes later, with Sam and Carson rushing in behind him. “Well, young lady. What seems to be the problem?”
Everything seemed to happen in a rush.
She knew that Len, Sam, and Carson spoke softly to Casey, who insisted on sitting by her feet while the doctor gave Deanna oxygen and spoke to her in a relaxed tone as he listened to her heart and took her blood pressure.
Carson held Casey in his arms while Len spoke in low tones to Sam, probably telling him about Jimmy.
Deanna focused on breathing, irritated when the doctor wanted her to repeat a series of numbers and letters, but concentrating on his voice, she found breathing becoming easier and easier.
“There you go. Can you sit up for me?”
Sam was immediately at her side. “I’ve got her. Are you sure she shouldn’t be lying down?”
“She’s fine, and it’ll probably make her feel better to sit up.” With a comforting smile, Dr. Scott removed the blood pressure cuff. “Have you ever had a panic attack before?”
Shaking her head, Deanna leaned into Sam. “No. Never. Is that what happened?”
“Yes. It’s not surprising when someone has been through a traumatic experience. Seems that, at the time, the adrenaline kicks in and your body handles it, but thinking about it later can cause an attack.”
“So I didn’t have a heart attack?”
“No.” He pulled off the leads to what appeared to be a portable monitor and tucked everything into one of his two bags. “Something triggered it. If it happens again, you might want to consider talking to someone. Call me and I’ll give you the name of someone.”
After Casey came to sit next to her, the doctor spoke briefly to Carson before leaving.
“I’m sorry.”
Sam pulled her onto his lap. “You don’t have a damned thing to be sorry for. You feel okay now?”
“I’m fine.” She glared at Len. “Len shouldn’t have called you.”
Carson lifted Casey and her doll and sat next to Deanna, settling Casey on his lap and reaching for her juice. “He knows better even if you don’t.”
Deanna took a steadying breath, relieved that it had become easier. Looking up at Len, she kept her voice low. “You have to get out of here. Get your secretary out of here. Jimmy’s dangerous.”
Len shook his head, smiling at Casey’s chatter to her doll. “No, Deanna. I can handle Jimmy. I’m not about to let him run me out of my business.”
“No. You can’t stay. You don’t know him. He’s evil.” Blowing out a breath, she mentally went through her plan for escape, her relief at having a plan and the means to implement it making her feel a lot better.
“I know.” Lowering his head, he held her gaze. “Are you okay?”
“Christ.” Deanna looked up at Sam. “He’ll come here and hurt Len and his secretary. He’ll go to the ranch and hurt someone there.”
Panic tightened her stomach again. “I can’t escape. I’d leave a trail of victims of his temper behind me.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
Casey turned to her and frowned. “Are we yeaving, Mommy? Did Daddy find us?”
Sam tugged one of Casey’s curls. “Casey, I made you a promise. Remember?”
Nodding, Casey huddled closer to Deanna. “You and Carson pwomised you don’t yet anybody hurt me or my mommy.”
The confidence in her daughter’s voice and the way she recited the words led Deanna to suspect that there had been more than one conversation on the subject.
Sam glanced at Len. “Thanks for the call, Len. You’ll have two of my men here round the clock.” Holding out a hand to Casey, Sam eyed Deanna. “Come on, Lil’ bit. Let’s get back to the ranch.”
* * * *
Riding back to the ranch, Deanna glanced over at Sam, the tense silence in her truck thick enough to be cut with a knife.
Conversation wasn’t necessary because Sam’s grim expression spoke volumes.
He’d insisted on driving her truck while Carson followed behind with theirs, his mood dark.
With a sigh, she turned to him. “I know I must seem ungrateful, but I’m not.”
“You just want to handle this on your own.”
Looking straight out the windshield again, she saw that it had begun to snow. She glanced back at Casey to see that her daughter was busy with her doll and deliberately kept her voice low. “A couple of years ago, he had a job as a busboy in a diner. He hated it. Wrecked the car again and didn’t have the money to fix it, so he had to depend on one of his co-workers for a ride. The other guy showed up and made the mistake of coming to the door instead of waiting out front the way Jimmy told him to. Looked in the screen door and I was in the living room giving Casey a bottle. She was about six months old at the time.”
Sam glanced at her with a frown. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I wasn’t in the best shape.”
A muscle worked in Sam’s jaw, his eyes narrowing even more when he glanced at her. “You’d only given birth six months before and he’d already—”
“Yes.” Cutting him off before he could finish, Deanna nodded and met his gaze. “He did it while I carried her. I was scared the whole time. I’d tried to leave several times, but he always made me pay for it. He seemed to change for a while, but then he would lose his job and start drinking again. Or vice versa.” Deanna shrugged. “They all blended into each other. A neighbor tried to help. She had a beautiful dog that she doted on. Jimmy poisoned it.”
“Why isn’t he in jail?”
“Charges never stick. No evidence. His word against someone else’s. Some people don’t press charges.”
“Have you ever pressed charges?”
“Yes. He told the judge that I just fell and was trying to blame it on him so he could go to jail while I ran away with his daughter. Turned out the judge just went through a divorce and sided with Jimmy.” Shaking her head, she smiled humorlessly. “He has a way of making people believe him and making me sound like I’m a liar—or worse, crazy.”
Sam stared straight ahead again, his lips thinned. “He made you pay for that, didn’t he?”
“Jimmy always made me pay and, when he was too drunk to remember, made me pay again. I tried to get away at least a dozen times, but he always caught me because I had no place to go.”
“Why didn’t you come to Don? He would have helped you.”
She turned. “Look what happened to Karns and his secretary. That’s just two of many people who have paid for trying to help me. He finds me. He always finds me and drags me back home. He grabs Casey and threatens to take her if I don’t go with him. He won’t give her back to me until we get home. He’
s mean. Evil. I couldn’t put anyone else in the middle. I couldn’t put Uncle Don in the middle.”
Sam’s eyes became ice-cold. “And that’s why you wouldn’t tell him what was happening? That’s why you kept denying it?”
“I couldn’t let him get involved. I came here because I thought I’d inherited the ranch. I thought I could hide here. I could keep others away.”
“And now that’s our job.”
“No!” Afraid that she’d scared Casey, she glanced back at her and gave her an encouraging smile before turning back again. “It’s not your job. I don’t want anyone else involved. It’s too dangerous. He’s too dangerous. I don’t want to bring trouble to anyone else. I really need to leave.”
“Do you really want to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder?”
Deanna blinked back tears at the thought of never being able to provide the safety Casey desperately needed. “No, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life knowing that he killed someone because of me.”
“He’s on the run now. Cops are looking for him.”
“Good. I hope they find him before he hurts someone else.”
Sam pulled into the driveway and threw the truck into park. “Go inside and pack up what you need. You and Casey are staying with us.”
“No. We’re not.”
After turning off the engine, Sam unfastened his seat belt and turned in his seat, gripping her chin and leaning close. “Yes. You are.”
He tapped her lips when she would have objected, his eyes narrowing. “Carson and I have tried really hard to be gentle with you because of all you’ve been through and because we know you and Casey are both afraid of men—especially larger ones. We’ve done everything we can to make you comfortable with us and start to build your trust in us. We wanted you to know that you’re safe here.”
His eyes glittered and narrowed even more. “But you have such a hard time trusting that you think we’re trying to earn your trust so we can control your money. The worse part is that you mistake our tenderness with you for weakness and manipulation.”
