Darin: The Pride of the Double Deuce - Erotic Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance (2 page)

“Both,” Gerard told them as he continued with the information they’d gotten from her. “He’s not going to be happy when he finds out that she’s moving. He likes her under his thumb. And he does have her there. Mercedes is afraid that he’ll take her daughter from her and that he’ll hurt her. Not legally, but simply to take her because he knows that it’ll hurt Mercedes. He doesn’t want her either, but he likes having control over Mercedes. The only reason she was able to file for divorce was because he was in jail just long enough for her to get a judge to grant her one, and when he got out, he was fucking pissed.”

“And the money that she owes, is it because of the divorce or something more?” Palmer didn’t look like he needed anyone to answer him, and when he spoke again, she was sort of proud of him. “He tried to ruin her. Or has he?”

“Close to it. She lost her house, her car, and can’t get a loan. When she told me that she couldn’t afford an attorney to go over the contract we’re taking her, she wasn’t kidding. They have nothing. Less than nothing. Next month the school that her daughter goes to is going to tell her that they can no longer carry her. She knows this, but can’t stand the thought of losing it for her little girl. It’s not only a good school, but a safe place for her too.”

“We’ll bring her back with us.” Susie nodded at Palmer. “If I have to pack her up myself, I’m bringing her back with me.”

“We all will. But I think we’re going to have to go at this slowly. Think of her like a skittish horse or cow. She’s terrified to trust anyone anymore, and when this ex finds out she’s flown the coop, he’s not going to lay back and just let her go.” Mason asked her what she meant. “He’s a man used to getting his own way. He’s Nash Crosby.”

Palmer didn’t have any idea who that was, but Susie knew that Mason did. And so did Ed. Ed Clarke was the one that had told her and Gerard about him when she’d asked him about the divorce papers that she’d had sent to her. Crosby wasn’t just bad news, but he made her own father look sort of saintly.

“Nash is...how should I say this? He is a man who is used to getting his own way, but it’s more than that. He’s a thug. And the worst kind of one. When he was younger, there was speculation that he might have been involved in the car accident that took both his parents’ lives and that of his sister. Six months after they were gone, his grandmother died in a house fire.” Ed looked at his notes as he mopped his brow with his handkerchief. “Then about eleven years ago, he married Mercedes Gillespie. Her family had some money, but not a great deal. Mercedes was in her last year of veterinary college and making a name for herself even then. By all accounts, Mercedes didn’t care for the man, had on several occasions gone to the police about him. Then one day there was an article in the paper that they were to be wed. Six months later, Bonnie was born.”

“You think he raped her, got her with child, and then forced her into marrying him? That might have worked some years ago, but not now.” Mason looked at Palmer when he laughed nervously. “Please tell me that I’m wrong about this.”

“You’re not. And she might not have married him had her father not been ill at the time. His death happened a few months after they said their vows. We think he might have been hurting her father, and that might be the reason that he got her to say yes. I guess we won’t know for sure until she tells us.” Susie didn’t even look at them as Mason continued. She knew, but it wasn’t her story to tell.

“So we’re here to bring her to safety, not hire her.” Mason told Palmer that they were going to hire her, had already as far as he was concerned. “Then I don’t understand. Why all this cloak and dagger stuff? I really like this woman, but why do we need to know about her personal life like this?”

“She’s going to be living on one of the ranches and we don’t want anyone hurt. We have to consider what sort of baggage she’ll be bringing with her in the form of that ex of hers.” Gerard continued as Palmer agreed with him. “And if she’s not happy, the horses and the cattle will know it. We can’t have her stressed out when the horses have enough of that on their own.”

As they were landing, she sat next to Gerard again. Susie had only touched the woman once, but it was enough to bring her to tears over what she was going through. Not only was the woman in desperate need of a break, but she was on the verge of losing even her home if her ex had anything to do with it. Nash was going to be a problem for them all.

The hotel was nice, and she wished that Darin had been able to come with them. He’d been hitting all the B&B’s around the country to find out what he wanted in theirs. The construction was nearly finished on the building, and the decorators had already finished up on three of the floors. In about a month, less she thought, they’d have all the rooms ready and Darin would have Douglas House up and running.

The restaurant, too, was nearly complete, and the new chef had been thrilled to death to take over the lower level for his own. Susie was still trying to keep herself from freaking out every time a bill came in, and finally, Gerard had told her not to open them anymore. It was expensive to start from scratch, and he assured her that they would be fine.

The business was going much better than they’d ever hoped it would, too. They were selling horses almost faster than she could train them. Several ranches had made the trip to their ranch to not only buy, but to place an order for other horses as well. Their monthly income was by far more than most people made in a lifetime.

They had expenses too; huge straw and hay bills, vet bills in the five figures weekly. Grain and feed was being delivered daily, and they still had to supplement that with an extra truck once in a while. But she was doing something that she loved, and they were doing well with it.

As soon as they were settled in their room, she called Darin to let him know about the room, even sent him a few pictures. Calling the doctor to ask her where they could meet, Susie was surprised when the little girl answered the phone. After telling her who she was and why she was calling, Bonnie started to cry harder. The noise in the background had her reaching for the others as the little girl sobbed in the phone.

“My daddy is here now, and he said that we weren’t going anywhere. I don’t know how he figured it out, but he’s really mad at us.” Bonnie cried harder when something sounded like it broke behind her. “Can you please come here and get us? Hurry, please? I don’t want him here.”

“They’re coming. Where are you? Can you see them?” She told her that her mommy had told her to hide. “Good girl. You stay on the phone with me, and my family will take care that he goes home. Then you’re going to come here with us and we’re going to go to my house. We have a lot of ponies, and they’re excited about you coming out.”

Susie thought it important to keep the child on the line. She was afraid, and so was Susie. When another crash sounded very close to the phone, Susie brought up the trip again.

“Mommy said that we’re going to fly away if we can.” Susie told her that would be wonderful. “And that I can see the cows and horses that she’s gonna take care of. If you hire her.”

“She’s already hired.” There was a scream and then a man yelling for the little girl. “Don’t go to him, Bonnie. Your mommy won’t like it if he takes you from her.”

Bonnie screamed, and the line went dead. Before she could reach for Gerard and the others, Gerard said they were there, and for her to call the police. She picked up the phone again with shaking hands and dialed the number. They said that they were on their way and that someone had already called them.

“There’s a little girl in the house. She’s ten and terrified. I think someone is trying to hurt her.” The dispatcher told her that they were on the way, and would be there soon. “I hope so.”

Susie was just going to go to them when she heard from Mason. He used the phone to contact her, and that terrified her more than she could have thought. When he spoke, his voice was calm and even, but she knew that he was beyond pissed off.

“I’d like for you to meet us at the hospital. The bastard has...we’re still trying to find the little girl, but the woman is beaten to shit.” Susie said she was leaving now. “Have our things packed up by the staff, and everything taken to the airport. We’re not hanging around to see if he comes back to finish the job.”

“How bad is she?” Mason said that the medics were there now, but she was talking to them. “She’s gonna be worried about the bill. Tell her that she’s insured as of three days ago when we hired her. And have the bills sent to our house.”

“I’ll take care of it.” She thanked Mason and asked to speak to Gerard. “He’s talking with the police, honey. As soon as he’s done...he’s fine, but he got hurt too.”

She felt her legs shake, then she had to sit down. As she slid to the floor, she felt his touch, Gerard’s touch, and his love as it surrounded her. Susie knew that Mason was still speaking to her, but the only person she cared about right now was the one in her heart and head.

I’m fine. It’s a good thing that he hit me.
She asked him how
. Because he assaulted me, and even if our vet doesn’t press charges, I’m going to. This way he’ll be in jail still by the time we land at home.

So you’re telling me you took one for the team?
He didn’t say anything.
How badly are you hurt? And so you know, I’m going to do ten times worse when I see you.

Only a black eye and maybe a broken nose.
She growled low at him.
If you want, I’ll let you beat me a little before I take you hard on the floor. After, of course, I eat you.

I dislike you very much right now.
He laughed.
Come here to me, Gerard. I need to see you for myself.

I love you as well. When we’re done here. Meet us at the plane. We’re out of here.
She felt his anger. Sharp enough that she could almost taste it.
We have her. She came out when her mom told her to. The little girl has been hurt too. I’m going to kill this bastard.

Chapter 2

Darin wasn’t sure, but he thought he was missing something. The conference room was set up. The bedrooms, two of them on this floor, were also finished and ready and the beds made. There was even local art work on the walls. But he was missing something and it bothered him. As he made his way through both of those rooms again and in to the kitchen, he thought that maybe he was just stressed. In two days he had his first out of town businessmen coming in for a stay.

“It looks good.” He grinned at his aunt. “What are you going to do about staff? I’m assuming that you’re going to have them on call here.”

“Yes. We have some of the pack coming in to work for us. Paddy said that they’re mostly younger people. All of them are working their way through college or starting a family.” Aunt Georgie sat in one of the comfy chairs he’d purchased for the conference area. “I’m missing something. I have no idea what it might be, but I can feel it.”

Aunt Georgie looked around the room much like he had. “I don’t know what it would be. It looks really nice. Maybe you can have someone that goes to these sort of meetings come in and tell you. Too bad Palmer isn’t here. He’d be able to tell you right away.”

“Yes. He’d know.” Just as he was going to suggest maybe he should ask Emma, she walked in from the elevator. “Hello, sweetheart. I was just thinking about you.”

She was just beginning to show. The baby she and Mason were having would be coming along in about six months. Jace’s wife, Holly, was due in a few weeks and looked every bit as cute as she did uncomfortable.

“I have to tell you, Darin, I love the way you have it set up so that only a person with a card can come to a certain floor. That will be so much easier on guests, too. To know that no one can come in and bother them when they’re in a meeting.” She kissed Aunt Georgie on the cheek and sat down. “What did you need from me? Oh, and you should get some shades on the windows. I think they’ll leave a glare on the computers when someone is sitting here.”

“That’s it.” He kissed her on the cheek and made a call down to the front desk. The shades had come in two weeks ago, and since the windows hadn’t been cleaned then, he’d forgotten to have them put in. After asking some of the crew to come up with them and install them on each floor, he went to sit with his family.

“I was just telling Aunt Georgie here about the vet they’re coming here with. Her little girl has a broken arm, and the mom has some lacerations on her face and neck. Had the men not gotten there when they did, there is no telling what her ex might have done to them.” Darin asked what had set him off. “He found out from her place of business that she was leaving town. I’m not sure why they’d do something stupid like that, but I’m having it looked into. This guy has been hurting the two of them for years, I guess.”

“Mason said that she hasn’t got much. A two-room apartment that’s not in the best of neighborhoods. I thought that vets made a lot of money.” Emma said that they did. “So what is her deal then? Or is it the ex?”

“He’s been taking her things. Getting into her bank account. And he’s put a lot of credit in her name, thousands of dollars’ worth without her knowledge, and now she’s responsible for it. He pays no child support and he has spies everywhere, Palmer told me. I guess they tell him her every move. There is also something about the divorce and his not wanting it. He’s mad that she divorced him when he was away. He’s very possessive.” Darin got up to let the builders in and made some tea for the three of them. When he sat down, he thought about the women in his life as he looked around.

“I can’t imagine any of you taking that from a man. You’d have killed him the first time he’d drawn back to hit you.” Emma said she would have no problem knocking him around for just thinking it. “But how could you hurt your own child? I mean, he broke her arm, you said. Who does that to a child in the first place? But of your own flesh and blood?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to protect her and the little girl from now on. Oh, and before I forget to tell you, because she’s hurt, they’re going to go out to the Mitchell ranch for a few days. The little girl wants to see a pony and Susie promised her that she would.” Darin had already been told this by Gerard earlier. “Do you think you’ll be okay next week? I guess you’ll be a full house in a couple of weeks.”

“I have one coming in on Friday. I’m glad for it. I think it’ll be like a trial run for us. It’s Guy Rose.” He laughed. “The restaurant is going to open for them, just the men that are coming in, and then a grand opening on Saturday night. Truman Rogers, the cook, he’s been fussing over the menu for a week and a half now. I mentioned to him that he should just serve them sandwiches, and I think he was ready to cry. The guy is seriously stressed out.”

“I guess there is no set menu, right?” Darin nodded at Emma. “I mean for lunch he’ll have the same sort of thing, but not dinners. That’s kind of scary. What if someone doesn’t care for whatever he’s cooking that night?”

“It’s not like that. There will be a beef entrée, as well as a pork and chicken or fish. Vegetables will be the same for all three, and there will be two starches to choose from. Breakfast will be an open buffet kind of thing, with eggs or omelets to order. On the weekends there will just be buffet things. Fresh fruit and cereal. Coffee and juices for those who want it.” He went to the file he’d brought with him today. “Here you go. This is the menu that he has planned for us on Thursday night. Then on Friday he’ll serve the same thing unless we all hate it. I don’t think we will, but we might have suggestions. There will be twelve men and women, I guess, and most of them will be staying at the hotel down the street.”

Emma looked over the menu and smiled at him. “You’ve done a great job, Darin. I’m very impressed. Jace said you were taking night classes too, so you can have a better understanding of running a place like this.”

“I’m having fun. And Jessie Edwards, my assistant, has been a great deal of help too. He’s done this before, ran a B&B, but he said he has no desire to come and take over. He only wants to be a part of this, not the boss.” He didn’t have to tell them that the man had served a prison term for embezzlement. Darin trusted him not to hurt the company. And so did Susie and Gerard. “As of right now, the Douglas House is ready to go.”

As they made their way down to the lower levels, Darin showed them all the improvements they’d made in the last several days. There was a bar, but it was closed off to the public. He had wanted a place where the people staying there could have a nice, quiet drink and not be bothered by anyone. There was also the spa and gym that they’d only just put in.

“We didn’t need much in the way of equipment right now. And if we need more, there is plenty of room to expand.” He moved back the door that opened into a large space that they’d done nothing with so far. “No pool, which I think is going to be more of a blessing than a bad thing. These men and women might want to relax and such, but I don’t think they’ll think of this place as a holiday. It’s just too expensive for that.”

Everything was included in the staying price. There was a special price, however, for people coming to the meeting and not staying overnight. This included lunch and dinner served to them in the restaurant, the two bedrooms, as well as anything they might need for the conference rooms, and wipe off board, pens, and paper. Even drinks, should someone desire them, could be worked into the one price. Darin thought it was pricey, but then he was having enough trouble trying to wrap his mind around anyone wanting to stay here at all, much less pay to do so.

Darin made his way back to his house after the women left him. His truck didn’t want to start, but finally turned over and he made to the ranch. He was still trying to get used to having such a huge fucking house, but he loved it here. The McBrides had made him an offer too good to turn down on the house, and he’d been moving in almost the same day. Landon had come to see him a few days after they’d returned from their cattle drive.

“We can’t live there anymore.” Landon had said that before, just in passing; that the house, like the land around it, held too many memories. And few of them all that pleasant. “There was just too much there that I don’t think we can ignore. And I think we’re just too old to try.”

“I don’t know if I can afford the place, but if you’d rent it to me, I’ll make sure that it’s safe and no one tries to mess with things.” Landon nodded but only played with his drink. They’d met at the bar in the Douglas House while it was still under construction. “Landon, you can trust me not to do anything bad to your home.”

“I know that, boy. I know that better than anyone.” He nodded before continuing. “Katie and I talked about the house while we were gone. Just at odd times one of us would bring it up. We figured that was the best way to deal with what he’d done to us. Not grieve over what we lost, but to take it out and look it over a little at a time. Anyway, we talked and we decided that we want you to buy it off us. I’m making you a one-time offer for it.”

“Landon, I’m a poor man. The only income I have coming in right now is barely enough to cover my rent and my cell phone bill. And I’m driving a truck almost as old as your daughter. As much as I’d like to buy the house from you, because it is a really nice house, I just don’t have the funds for it. Much less a down—”

“You listen to me here. I said I have you an offer, and you’ll let me tell you about it.” Darin remembered thinking he was in deep trouble, but then he smiled at him. “A dollar. That’s all we want for it, and the promise that you find you a mate and take as good a care of her as you can. Bring you up some babies in that house. Just like me and the missus did. And be happy.”

“Landon, I don’t think I can—”

He put his hand up and Darin had shut his mouth. “You know as well as I do that I don’t have any use for any more money. Hell, I got more now than I could spend if I lived another hundred years. And that brother of yours is making us more every day with his new ideas. But to see some other yahoo living there would plum break my heart. I know you, son. I know your family. If anyone was going to be good for that house, I know that it will be a Douglas boy.” He wiped at his face, tears streaming from his eyes. “He done hurt us, Dirk did. Not just with that bat when he took it to me, but in our hearts too. I know that we should have done something more about him, but I just.... If you’d do me this favor, Darin, live and love in that house, I know that someday I’ll be able to forgive myself for the fact that I’m glad that my son is gone.”

Not only had he gotten the house, but the contents too. The only thing he’d had to do when he moved in was to put his clothing in the dressers. The rest was finished. Darin was almost afraid of his good fortune.

~~~

Mercedes held Bonnie to her on the trip to Ohio. There were so many things going through her mind right now that she wasn’t sure that she could single out one to concentrate on. When Susie sat beside her, Mercedes felt her face heat up. To have a potential boss see her looking like this was embarrassing.

“She’s very brave, your little girl.” Mercedes tried not to look at the pink cast on her daughter’s arm. “When I was talking to her before the men arrived, she was so calm and quiet. And she knew to stay on the line until the others got there. She told me that you told her to hide. I’m sorry that you had to teach her that.”

“He was there when we got home. Not in the apartment, but close enough that I wasn’t able to get in and lock him out.” Not that Mercedes thought that would have stopped him. “Someone at my work told him that Bonnie and I were going out of town on a job interview. It doesn’t take much to set him off, and this was a big one.”

“Why would they do that?” Mercedes had an idea but didn’t voice it. “We’ve had you investigated, as I’m sure you know.”

“Yes. I would expect no less of you. I’m sure that whatever you found, only about half of it is true. Nash has a way of getting people to do what he wants them to do, no matter how it hurts them or others.” Susie asked her if she meant her office. “No. I think they were afraid I’d get the job and then they’d have no worker for when they wanted time off. I’ve been on call more than I’ve not in the last couple of years. I had hoped that it would pay off, but....”

“I don’t blame you. Working there now would have been stressful since they’re the ones that are responsible for you and Bonnie getting hurt.” Mercedes looked at Bonnie again. “I wanted to answer some questions for you now. If you’re up to it.”

“You must think I’m a fool.” Susie asked her why she’d think that. “I married this man because I had no choice. And before you say that everyone does, I really didn’t. He abused me to the point where I was in the hospital more than I wasn’t. The police were no help. Not even when I put out a restraining order on his ass. When he started to get into my bank account, I would only put enough in there to satisfy him but kept the rest for the two of us. How stupid is that? To hide money from the very man who fathered my child.” Susie said nothing for several minutes. “Why are you hiring me? Really?”

“Palmer knows you to be a good vet, as well as a good person. He talks on and on about your little girl as well. There are others too, that said glowing things about you. Most of them have never worked with you, but in the type of business that we’re in, word gets around faster than a flu at a grade school.” Mercedes didn’t get the chance to ask her who as she moved onward. “My husband and I run a ranch with more ponies on it than most people seen in all their lifetime. We also graze cattle and steer on the same land. There will be some donkeys as well as a few goats that you might have to see to if they get ill. There are cats too, small barn cats that keep the children that come out entertained. The pond in the back of the property has ducks on it most of the time. Deer, as well as a whole lot of other animals, run the woods. You’ll be very busy when you’re ready to start working.”