Like hell I am. “What happened to you, Damon? You never used to be like this.”
“You don’t think so?” He propped a thick shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “I finally accepted who I am—that’s what happened. Sooner or later, you will, too.”
She was shaking inside. She didn’t dare let him see how terrified she really was. “I’m not going with you, Damon. Not now or anytime in the future.” She was ready for this, she reminded herself. She just needed him to come a little closer. “I’m warning you. I’m calling the police. This is your last chance.”
“You little bitch. You think you scare me? You’ve belonged to me since the day you put my ring on your finger. That isn’t going to change. It’s time you accepted it and I plan to see that you do.” A hard smile curved his lips. “First, I’m going to punish you, give you the beating you deserve; then we’re leaving. And there isn’t a damn thing you can do.”
Wait, Tory warned herself. She swallowed a fresh rush of fear as Damon shoved away from the wall and started toward her.You’ll only get one chance. The eyes she saw in her nightmares were dark with a combination of barely suppressed rage and anticipation. His hands fisted as he stalked across the room, around to the side of the bed.
The stun gun was in her hand before he reached her. She swung her arm toward him so fast he didn’t see it coming, the stun gun making contact—right in the middle of Damon’s chest.
A gurgling sound came from his throat. His eyes shot wide open and his teeth clenched into a frozen snarl. His muscles contracted. His head jerked back and forth before she hit him again and he crashed to the floor beside the bed.
Tory shot off the mattress. With shaking hands, she pulled open the top drawer in the nightstand and grabbed a couple of nylon zip ties from the bag she had bought at Home Depot to prepare for exactly this. Dragging Damon’s limp arms behind his back, she looped a tie around his wrists and cinched it tight. She did the same with his feet, pulling the tie tightly together around his ankles.
She hit him again with the stun gun to be sure he wouldn’t struggle while she stuffed a washcloth into his mouth and tied a scarf around his head to hold it in place.
Dressing quickly in jeans and a short-sleeved sweatshirt, she opened the closet door and grabbed the go-bags she kept packed for her and Ivy, snatched her purse, stunned him again just because he deserved it, and ran down the hall.
She shook the little blond girl’s shoulder. “Get up, sweetheart, we have to leave.”
Ivy was wide-awake in an instant. “Is it him? Is he here?” Her daughter was terrified of Damon, and she had every right to be.
“He’s tied up in the bedroom. We need to leave. We have to hurry.”
Dressed in her unicorn pajamas, Ivy grabbed Pansy, her brown velvet stuffed pony, and raced down the hall to the living room.
She slid to a stop in front of the door. “Where are we going?” She looked frantically back over her small shoulder, her face pale with fear.
“Someplace safe. Someplace Damon won’t find us.”
Ivy’s blue eyes filled with tears. “There’s no such place, Mama.” She started crying. “There’s no place safe from Damon.”
Tory jerked the door open and urged Ivy out into the night. “Thereisa place, honey. This time we won’t stop until we find it.”
Tory and Ivy raced for the car.
Chapter Three
Three weeks passed. Three weeks since Ramirez had quit and left the ranch, and Josh still hadn’t found a reliable stable hand. He’d hired a kid just out of high school but the boy had quit after shoveling manure only a couple of days.
Like a lot of kids today, Chris expected to start as foreman instead of working his way up from the lowest job on the ranch, or at least that’s the way it looked to Josh.
He’d had to fire the second guy for stealing.
“You’re finished, Randy,” he’d said. “Get your stuff and get out of here.”
The lanky black-haired teen clamped his hands on his skinny hips. “Man, you gotta be kidding! You’re gonna fire me for taking a five-gallon can of gas? I had to drive out here, didn’t I? That ought to be worth something.”
“You wanted the gas, you should have asked. Take a hike and don’t come back.”
“Screw you, dude.”
The kid grumbled all the way to his car, then shot Josh the bird as he roared off down the dirt road to the highway.
So Josh was back to shoveling the stalls himself. With so many people looking for work, it should have been easy to hire someone, and he could afford to pay for the help.
In high school, he’d been dirt poor, working two jobs to help his single mother feed and clothe them. His life had changed course when his mother had told him about his half brother, a son his no-good father had sired by a previous wife before Josh was born.
