Relentless (Fallon Sisters Trilogy: Book #1) (38 page)

Her hand flew to her mouth. Oh God, I need a towel—something. Her legs shook, and she struggled to her feet. And then she felt it. The shadow. It darkened the floor in front of her, cutting Jo's pale body in half as it swayed across the soft features of her face.

Bren stiffened. She pushed up from her knees and swung wildly. A solid punch landed at the base of her head, and she fought to remain standing. Her arms gaining mobility, she fisted her hands and swung, but her target dodged her and came around. A movement in solid black, it pinned her arms to her side. Her back moved up against something resilient yet substantially larger than her—a man's chest. His breath, heavy and hot from exertion, brushed her bare neck, and she shivered.

"No!"

She struggled, and he shifted his body. Forcing her over, he pushed her face down on the center island. Her arms flailed, and she managed only to knock the gallon of milk to the floor with a hollow thud, the milk splattering her calves. He pressed her cheek against the granite countertop, cold and hard, her last thought before something soft was shoved into her face, the smell pungent and sweet—everything went dark.

Bren's eyes fluttered open. She couldn't see. Her hands flew to her eyes to make sure they actually were open. They were. But the sudden movement reawakened the angry thump at the base of her head. She pressed her fingers into her scalp and stopped at the knot behind her ear, cringing at the size. But the fluid movement of her hand gave renewed hope. She moved her legs. He hadn't tied her up. Bren ignored the pain and sat up slowly. Her hands reached into the darkness and came up short when she touched a stone wall, cold and damp. She pulled her fingers in.

He's coming back for me.

Her heart sped up. She slid forward, the give of springs beneath her bottom making it clear she was on some sort of bed or cot. She blinked into the darkness, hoping her eyes only needed to adjust. Her sight unchanged, the dark only became a frightening obstacle. She scooted toward the end of the mattress, her toes scraping cold ground. She bent over to touch it and dropped to her knees, recognizing the pungent, moldy earth. Her fingers dug into the floor, dirt slipping under her nails. She must be in some sort of basement.

She wasn't dying in this hellhole.

She stood and held out her hands, afraid of what she might bump into. She couldn't waste anymore time. It didn't matter where she was. She needed to get out. There had to be a door. She only needed to find it. She took tentative steps until her hands ran into another cold, wet wall. She continued groping, trying to find the door. One hand rested on the wall, her fingers coming into contact with something slick and glossy, the other trying to find a way out. Frantic, she shuffled her feet forward and winced when her toe struck something hard. Her hand dropped—it was a table. She moved her hands across it. Slick paper sticking to her sweaty fingers and palm, she pushed it aside until her finger bumped into something smooth and hard. Her hands formed around it. It was wide and round and fluted at the top—a glass sconce. Lantern. God, please let there be a lighter... matches.

Her hands trembled, anxiously feeling around for anything resembling a lighter or a matchbox. Everything else she pushed to the floor. Then her fingers ran across something—a small rectangular box. She snatched it, the top of the box moved like a sleeve, and she thought she'd crumple with relief. Her fingers dug inside, touching several pieces of thin wood and rounded tips, and she fumbled the box. It fell. A quiet thud and then the scattering of matches made her cringe.

"Shit!"

Bren dropped on all fours. Her hands shaking and moist, she searched the dirt floor. Her hand bumped into the box first, and her knee landed on several wooden matches, the weight pressing them into her skin. She lifted her knees, afraid she'd snap them. They remained glued to her clammy skin, and she plucked them from underneath her knee and held the box firm in her other hand. There were three matches. She needed to use them sparingly. Standing, she kept the matches in one hand, the matchbox in the other. She moved toward the table and felt around with her fists and arms until her knuckles bumped up against it. Bren transferred the matches to her other hand with the matchbox and lifted the glass off the lantern. If she managed to light it the first try, she wouldn't need the others. She leaned over, struck the match, and held the flame up and touched it to the wick. The match burned lower, the wick refusing to take the flame. Choking back tears of frustration, she drew the match down toward the bottom of the lantern where the kerosene was kept. It was bone dry. The flame burned her finger. She bit down on her lip, dropped the match with a curse, and was plunged back into pitch blackness.

Damn it. She had only two tries left to get it right. The next match she'd find the door and hope there was no lock to wrestle with. If not, the third match would be used to work the lock. She prayed it was something simple she could break through.

Bren shivered. Barefoot, wearing only Rafe's shirt and her panties, she was chilled through her skin by the dampness. But she was alive and wanted to stay that way. She pulled on every fragment of strength. Jo's limp body invaded her mind, and she swayed, not knowing if she were even alive. She needed to get her help. But first she needed to get her wits about her and calm the rattle of fear shaking her insides.

She took the match, pinning it between her fingers and rubbed it along the box until she met with friction. She struck it, her mind racing with what she had to do when the flame came to life. She held it up and began to search the walls.

She gasped, and her pulse beat furiously in her temples. The walls made of stone, the joints twined in moss were covered in photos. There were small snapshots, some larger, but the theme was the same—they were all of her. He'd blown them up, her face life-sized and carefully trimmed in her likeness, her brown eyes staring their warning.

Terror turned her blood to ice. A wave of dizziness came over her, and the room, with its apocalyptic collage, seemed to spin.

The heat of the match brought her around, and she remembered the door. But it was too late. The flame singed her finger, and she dropped it, the orange glow burning the matchstick on the ground. The thin wood curled into a gray ember before darkness descended.

Bren fell to her knees, her hands covering her face.

Tears escaped through her fingers, and she dashed them away.
Think, Bren.
She lifted her head and remained there quiet, except for her sniffing. Then she stopped, and her back went rigid. She remained on her knees and listened. Shuffling—it came again, closer. Scraping. The jiggle of a lock—she held her breath—an audible click.

Heart pounding to the point it would beat out of her chest, she struggled to her feet. Her breathing came in quick, hard pants.

God, don't let me hyperventilate.

Hands out in front, she searched for the bed and the only place to hide until he found her.

And he would find her. She knew with every rising hair along her neck she had miscalculated in a fatal way. There was someone far more evil than Wes Connelly fixated on her. And what he would do to her and for how long caused her terror-numbed brain to freeze up. She couldn't begin to search it for his identity. She would know soon enough.

Her main focus now was to survive him.

W
hat the hell was he doing? Rafe huddled under his sleeping bag.

Freezing my ass off, for one.

Uneven ground and twigs poked his back no matter which way he turned, which was increasingly difficult with Roscoe's boulder-sized, jowl-hanging head resting on his shins and Finn pinned against him.

He guessed that Finn's
"I'm not afraid of the dark"
mantra, after Aiden had ridden him before lights out, had fallen short of its mark.

Brothers...

Finn shivered, and Rafe touched his soft cheek. Cold. He should have realized a seventy-degree day in mid-March would plummet to near freezing by two in the morning. Rafe concentrated on the mesh window in the tent's roof. Blanketed under heavy clouds, the metallic smell of rain all around him, his heart weighed a miserable ton. What did his mama used to say? She was full of advice—Mrs. Sawyer Langston—and she was his mama, the only woman in his life who could set him straight when he'd find himself in the doldrums for one reason or another.

Nothing weighs heavier than a sack of regret, Rafe Austin Langston, and you best remember that.

So he didn't know Tom Ryan, but he knew his boys. He loved them like his own. Even with all the shit with them, they were his only glimpse into the past and what he and Tom would have shared. It would have to be enough.

A cold raindrop nailed him in the eye, and he blinked.

Wake up, cowboy.

Regret he was done with. He loved her. And whether Bren wanted to believe it or not, she damn well loved him, too. She was just too stubborn to admit it. He had a good mind to gather his nephews and go get her right now. His lips curled with wicked humor—that burned her ass, too. They were his nephews, and he had every right to remain a part of their—

Aiden let out a sneeze and huddled deeper into his sleeping bag. Rafe pulled Finn closer, the boy's small body trembling against him.

He'd never hear the end of it if he got her boys sick. And, selfishly, it gave him a good reason to see Bren. Not that she'd welcome him in the middle of the night. But considering he was returning her boys...
Shit.
That didn't make much sense. His house was closer.

Ah hell. I'm doing it anyway.

Never too late... He checked his watch and grimaced—two ten in the morning. Or too early to set his world right. He nudged the hound with his knee. A droopy eyelid rose, and the dog licked his chops, his loose-skinned jaw nestling deeper against his leg. "Up, Roscoe," Rafe ordered, his voice a low grunt, so as not to disturb the boys until he'd packed them up.

Rafe forced Roscoe's head up again with his knee. The dog yawned, pulled himself to his feet, and shook his head. The melodious jingle of his tags, a prelude to a harmonious existence with a redhead he was bound and determined to sway into marrying him. He smiled and hoisted himself up.

He took the cutoff from the main driveway to Bren's house.

"Sweet—we're home." Aiden pushed Finn off his shoulder. Finn mewled, transferring his head to Rafe's arm. The three were packed in the front seat with wet-smelling hound and supplies in the back. Rafe couldn't help but smile. Family was growing on him, even the damn dog.

But the spritz of rain, enough to blur his vision, and monotonous grind of the wipers didn't help bolster his courage. He checked the clock in the dash and winced, almost two-thirty. He was half-tempted to turn around and call it a night.

Rafe maneuvered the truck close to the house.

"You can have camping. All I want is my bed." Aiden grabbed for the door handle before Rafe could put the truck in Park.

"Hold up. We can't go in raising a ruckus. Your mother will have my hide."

Aiden gave him a sly grin. "Maybe you should drop us off then. She's already pissed at you."

Rafe smiled. "Better me than you. Right?"

"Hell, yeah. She's scary when she's mad." Aiden grimaced.

Finn moaned and sat up. He blinked through the lenses of his glasses and pushed forward, his small hands gripping the console in front. "Aunt Jo's here." He pointed at the dark SUV Rafe had parked next to and turned to Rafe and squinched his nose at him. "You think they're having a sleepover?"

Whether they were or weren't was of little concern, except his plans for sneaking up into Bren's bedroom, after judiciously sending his nephews to bed, just got a little bothersome.

Rafe shut off the truck. "Remember, stealth. To your beds and lights out." He peered back at Roscoe, still resting his heavy, slack jowls on a rolled-up sleeping bag, and turned hard eyes toward the boys. "I'm not looking to get my butt chewed by your mother. Keep the hound outside. I'll deal with him."

They both nodded. He unlocked the doors, and they piled out. The rain began to pick up. Rafe drew up his hood and opened the back door. Roscoe jumped out, all four paws splashing in the muck, and Rafe grimaced. Looked like the hound would be coming with him and the gear. He'd sort it out tomorrow, along with his life.

The boys ran ahead of him, the hound bounding behind them. Rafe kept his head down, avoiding the fat raindrops spotting his jeans and boots. The steps came up fast, and he climbed them two at a time. Once he reached the landing, he flipped his hood off and stopped and winced.

"What the—"

The boys stood on either side of the door, their eyes wide, their only responsibility halfway through the door. Roscoe's paws, mud slicked, slapped the wooded foyer, the thrash of his wet tail smacking against one side of the wall.
"Shit.
I thought I said to keep him on the porch." Texas was looking a might safer.

"But we didn't—"

Rafe put up his hand. He didn't want to hear their excuses. He was wet, bone-tired, and the hound had just put Rafe alongside him in the doghouse.

Finn yanked on Rafe's jacket. The soft underside of his neck craned up, and his brown eyes, resembling black marbles in the dark, widened with worry. "But, Rafe, we didn't open the door."

"What?"

"It was already open." Aiden's wary voice sent a chill racing down Rafe's spine.

"Maybe the wind blew it open," Finn said.

Rafe ruffled his soft blond head. "It's a starting point." Although his gut told him otherwise, he didn't want to frighten him. He glanced at Aiden. "Stay with your brother. I'll get the dog, check things out, and be right back."

Aiden's lips thinned, and his face took on a more serious expression. "You don't think—"

Rafe frowned, hooked his chin toward Finn, and shook his head a definite no. Aiden nodded his point and pulled his brother next to him. "Come on, squirt. Let's see how many puddles we can find."

Rafe stepped over the threshold and reached in to hit the light switch. It clicked, but still he remained standing in the pitch black. He cursed under his breath and turned back toward the boys. "Aiden, go to my truck and get me the flashlight. It's in the glove compartment. The lights are out."