“You’ll leave when I say, not before.” He caught her wrist and dragged her forward. She cried out as he slapped her again, hard enough to knock her to the floor. When he kicked her, Tory drew herself into a ball and put her arms over her head. She didn’t dare fight him, not with Ivy just down the hall.
“You little bitch.” Damon grabbed a handful of her T-shirt and hauled her to her feet. “You need a lesson on how to behave and I’m gonna give you one.”
Tory muffled a cry as he drew back his fist and punched her, her jaw exploding in pain as she hit the floor.
She put her hand up to protect herself. “Stop it, Damon! I’ll do whatever you want!”
“Oh, you’re gonna do what I want, all right, you little whore.” He dragged her up by the hair and slapped her, punched her again, knocking her into the dresser, banging her head so hard she saw stars and landed on the floor.
He was leaving her no choice; she had to fight back or he was going to kill her.
Tory shot to her feet and charged forward, punching him with her fists, kicking him, doing her best to hurt him. He was over six feet tall and muscular, an invincible wall of meanness and determination.
The last thing she remembered was trying to dodge the blow as his fist shot toward her, her body flying backward, slamming into the wall. His boot crashed into her ribs and pain shot through her. Then she felt nothing at all.
Victoria Bradford woke up the following morning in a Scottsdale Memorial hospital bed, one of her eyes swollen shut, with a concussion, four broken ribs, a punctured lung, and her entire body black-and-blue and covered with cuts and abrasions.
Through her one good eye, she spotted a nurse walking into the room. “My . . . my daughter . . .” She moistened her lips. “Where’s . . . Ivy?”
The nurse looked at her with pity. “Your little girl is fine. She’s staying with your friend Lisa.”
Relief filtered through her.Lisa. Thank God. Lisa would take care of Ivy. Tory didn’t ask about Damon. She didn’t want to know. She was simply grateful to be alive. At least she and Ivy were safe.
Then the unwanted thought occurred. They were safe. But for exactly how long?
Chapter Two
Iron River Ranch, Iron Springs, Texas,
Four Months Later
Joshua Cain shoved back his chair and rose from the round oak table in his kitchen. Next to the empty plate of overcooked eggs and slightly burned toast, the Iron SpringsGazettelay open on the table.
The headline readLone Wolf Terror Attack in Austin.Below was the story of an Islamic extremist who had attacked a man with a butcher knife. Fortunately, the victim, a former police officer, had fought off the attacker and killed him. According to Homeland Security, the threat was over.
Josh didn’t read more. He’d left the war behind when he’d left the Middle East. He had come home to Texas to forget about fighting and terrorism and good men dying, and that was exactly what he intended to do.
Crossing the living room, he pushed open the front door and stepped out on the porch beneath the overhanging roof that ran the length of the two-story ranch house.
The sun was out this early April morning, the temperature warm, the sky a clear robin’s-egg blue. The year was beginning to heat up, but the Texas temperatures wouldn’t be unbearable for at least another two months.
Josh didn’t mind the heat. He’d spent the last four years fighting in the blistering deserts of Iraq and the barren mountains of Afghanistan. The hot, damp climate on this side of Texas, along with the wide-open spaces and deep green grasslands, suited him just fine.
Refusing to think of the war, Josh tugged his battered straw cowboy hat a little lower across his forehead and started across the open space between the forty-year-old house he was remodeling and the barn he had just finished rebuilding. A dilapidated old cow barn sat in the field beyond, one of his next projects.
He’d been back in Texas since December when he’d officially left the marines, two months after he’d run into enemy gunfire, been shot three times, taken a load of shrapnel, and nearly died.
He’d spent the following months in the hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, before returning to Texas to live in a double-wide trailer on his brother Linc’s twenty-five-hundred-acre property seventy miles east of Dallas, Blackland Ranch.
Linc had insisted he take some time, finish healing, try to figure out what the hell he wanted to do with his life. Grateful for his half brother’s help, Josh had accepted the offer, then been surprised to discover that finding out what he wanted didn’t take as long as he’d thought.
As a kid, he’d loved country living, loved horses, wrangled cattle every summer and dreamed of owning his own place someday. But he’d had to work from the age of twelve to help support himself and his mother, living barely above subsistence level; it had been little more than a pipe dream back then.
Now he was the proud owner—along with the bank that held the mortgage—of the Iron River Ranch, a two-thousand-acre spread along the northern boundary of his brother’s property.
The ranch had come with fifteen head of Black Angus cattle and thirty head of horses. He had kept seven geldings—good, reliable cow ponies—sold and traded the rest for broodmares and colts he chose himself. He was looking to buy a stallion, had his eye on a registered quarter horse named Handley’s Pride.
He’d always had a way with animals, planned to raise a few cows but focus on breeding, training, and selling horses.
