Serial Killer Eyes 3

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“We need to talk.”

Santee looked down at the hand on her arm and raised her cold eyes to Ruarke’s heart-throb-blue ones. She twisted her arm free. “I can’t think of anything we need to talk about.”

She turned to head to the barn where Uncle Sol, the head stableman, had a horse saddled and waiting for her.

“You covered me up this morning.”

“So? I’d do the same for any dumb ass who spent a cold night outside for no good reason.”

“No good reason! Dam—“ at her glare Ruarke quickly changed it to “—dang it, Santee. Lord only knows where you could have gotten to overnight.”

Santee halted and turned on him, hands on slender hips. “So my promise to your mother that I’d stay the week was what…a lie?”

Ruarke had a good four inches on her six feet and upwards of one hundred pounds on her, yet he backpedaled when she advanced and jabbed a stiff finger into his sternum. “Of course not. But—“

She forced him backward another couple of steps. “But what, Mr. Ruarke Sinclair?”

“Dang it, Santee.” He grabbed her hand and enclosed it in both of his ‘oh so warm’ ones. “I’m going to have a bruise there.”

Her lips twitched as his heat hit her veins and started a direct course southward. Before it could hit anything, vital Santee shook free.

“Why don’t you go workout with your buddies Pete and Joe and let me get on to business?” Hard as it was to turn away from the pain in those liquid ocean-blue eyes, Santee marched off, ignoring the anguished ‘goddamnit!’ that sounded behind her.

Ahmed, her Arab protector, held out the reins of the young horse but refused to release them to her. He was still recovering from the catastrophic accident where his horse rolled over him, crushing his pelvis and femur or he’d want to intrude on her solitude by riding out with her. “You are making a mistake leaving here. They would protect you.”

Her baleful look made him fight a smile. This mere woman, an American at that, had saved his life when he’d been mortally injured, had shared her precious water during a ferocious sandstorm, seen to his baby-like needs, and would have stood between him and a hungry mountain lion armed with only a small knife. “They are many,” he said. “You are but one.”

Santee ran her hand down the strawberry roan’s neck. “Did you ever see the movie, Jurassic Park?”

“I believe I did.”

“Do you remember the velociraptors?”

“Those vicious smaller dinosaurs?”

Santee nodded. “Vicious. Smart. Cunning. Ruthless. Pack hunters. That will be my sisters. If they were to come here, they’d be of the shock and awe, scorch and burn mentality.” She pulled the rein from Ahmed’s hand and mounted, “I can’t…I won’t let that happen to these good people—just because they made the mistake of bringing a malediction like me into their gentle, loving family.”

She turned the horse away and trotted him out of the yard, leaving Ahmed and Ruarke to watch her graceful movements to the horse’s bouncy stride, her raven ponytail keeping rhythm.

“What the hell is ‘malediction’?” Ruarke demanded. “And how does someone who can’t read have a better vocabulary than me?”

Ahmed pensively watched until his princess—though he wasn’t allowed ‘per her directive’ to call her that —disappeared from sight. He turned to the man who, so obviously, to all but Santee, adored the princess. “I believe it may mean cursed or loathsome.”

“She can’t see herself like that.” Ruarke found her so refreshing, enlivening, aggravating, and even ‘testicles hiding-in-scrotum’ scary at times. But despicable or loathsome? Never.

“It would seem that she does,” Ahmed said. “And she is terrified of plaguing you and yours with her troubles.”

“Well, hell,” Ruarke breathed.

* * *

The next morning Santee looked mournfully at her beloved flowers. The blooms drooped, and petals scattered on the floor. The seductive scent had turned musty and old. Should have taken a picture, Santee thought as she pulled them out, pricking her finger and dropping them into the garbage.

She stuck her finger in her mouth, wincing at the familiar metallic taste. Then she froze.

“Well, nuts!” They were only flowers! No reason to get all mushy about their loss.

Sunny and Rufus looked at her from the dinette. JW pulled his nose from the door jamb.

Santee stomped into boots and clamored out the door before the dogs.

Ruarke lay where he had the previous night but this time zipped into a sleeping bag. Santee halted at what was across his lap. A rifle! Her heart thumped heavily. He’d spent the night guarding her door. Warmth gushed through her erasing the instinct to call him a “dumb ass”. He was a baseball player, for pity’s sake, not a bodyguard. He’d hired Pete and Joe because they had training in that respect. He didn’t. And yet—. Here he was.

He made her so mad and yet had the ability to make her all mushy inside and not just sexually.

She dropped to a knee and touched his shoulder. “Ruarke.”

He surged awake, hands trying to raise the rifle. He realized and smiled that killer smile, his azure gaze caressing her face. “Santee.” Her name was spoken as soft and gentle as his hands were on her breasts.

His hands reached for her, but she pulled back. Oh no, that couldn’t be allowed to happen.

“You need to get up off that cold, damp ground before that leg stiffens up like frozen turkey drumstick.”

“Always the romantic.”

She snorted but held her hand out to him, more than a little surprised that the big man so readily accepted a ‘girl’s’ assistance. His hand clasped her so warmly as she pulled him upright to stand tight before her. She tilted her head slightly to meet his gentle gaze. At 6’ she didn’t have to look up far to his 6’4” and meet his eyes.

“Thank you,” his deep voice rumbled straight through to her groin.

Santee forced herself to pull free and look away from his sexy hypnotic gaze. “You don’t need to guard my door,” she said as she backed away. “It’s not like I’m some virginal prize.” She spun away and jogged toward Rogue’s corral, where the stallion paced, nickering at her tardiness.

Ruarke chuckled, then sobered. The fact that that beautiful woman had such a poor sense of self-worth ripped at his guts. He watched as, still not allowed to lift a saddle because of the stitches, Santee quickly bridled Rogue and climbed the rail fence, where Rogue shifted himself close enough for her to slip onto his bare back. They trotted to the other side of the barn, swung Bandit, that damned Raschid’s horse’s, gate open, and released him.

The two stallions snapped at each other, a couple of studly squeals sounded, and tails flicked warningly, but they trotted side-by-side out of the yard. Leaving Ruarke slack-jawed by the ease with which she’d controlled the two testosterone-driven equines. And the alluring way her body swayed so wastefully atop a dang horse when Ruarke’d give about anything to have her do that atop him.

* * *

At noon Santee rode a trainee into the yard. A big Mercedes SUV was parked in front of the house. Her shoulders slumped. Uncle Sol, who, as far as she could figure out, was no one’s uncle, took the tired mare’s reins as Santee dismounted. Her almost pleading gaze made him shake his head.

Max, Ruarke’s friend, manager, and Bobby John’s hubby; Miri Adams, Ruarke’s bestie, mother of Maddie and Simon, and wife of Sam Adams, football wide receiver and soon-to-be psychologist, were back. Which, of course, was their right, Santee acknowledged as she kicked rocks out of her path on her way into the mandatory noon dinner, mandatory because Sir Rob knew that she would forego eating in order to take Rogue out again. Both Bobby John and Max and Sam and Miri had suites in the upstairs. This was their home though only Bobby John spent much time here. Their families had disowned them; Sam and Miri’s because they were a bi-racial couple and Max and Bobby John’s because they were homosexual.

Santee didn’t know Max that well. He, Ruarke, and Miri were like three peas in a pod. Santee, Bobby John, and Sam had bonded as the three extraneous members of the group.

Climbing the four steps to the porch was like the long climb to the gallows.

There was a motive to this visit. Maybe they’d heard about the impending trouble and had come to take Maddie and Simon back to Massachusetts with them. Normally, Miri was happy to let her kids be parented with their ‘cousins’, leaving her free to live the unencumbered life in Boston society, lapping up the accolades of Sam’s being one of the league’s top wide receivers. Or maybe Miri just didn’t want to have to deal with Maddie’s spoiled rich-girl ways.

Santee pushed into the room and was almost knocked backward by Maddie’s little-girl-shrill voice dominating the conversation.

The men arose and Sam came to her with open arms.

“What’s up?” Santee whispered as his long arms wrapped her tightly.

“Don’t know, but something sure is.”

By the time dinner was over and Santee could escape to the barn, her head throbbed. So many times she’d had to clench her fists and her teeth to prevent herself from taking the brat, Maddie, in hand. The girl had sat on Miri’s lap the entire meal, her voice and its ‘I’ this and ‘me’ that drowned out all other conversations.

And when Miri wasn’t giving in to Maddie’s demands for attention she was draped over Ruarke, hugging his arm to her luscious breasts as if they were lovers rather than just best friends…if that was all they were.

Sir Rob got up to go back to the horses and Santee rose to follow. She still didn’t have his instructions for the afternoon rides. But Ruarke stopped her.

“Wait, Santee. Miri has something to tell us.”

“Oh, let her go," Miri said with the graceful flap of a well-manicured, diamond-flashing hand. “This doesn’t concern her.”

Ruarke looked down at her. “If this concerns me, it concerns her.” He motioned for Santee to sit and then sat beside her opposite Miri and Sam. Miri’s eyes blazed hate at Santee.

“The kids are in the family room now, Maddie,” Santee commented.

“No,” she pouted and squeezed Miri’s neck to the point of strangulation.

Miri patted her daughter’s back. “She can stay.”

Maddie stuck her tongue out at Santee. In an instant, Santee was around the table, untangled Maddie’s arms, and hoisted her over Miri’s head. Only then did the surprise wear off enough for Maddie to unfreeze and kick and howl. Her sandaled toe nailed Miri in the jaw drawing a squawk of pain from both.

“Now you see here!” Miri launched out of the chair. “I’m her mother—“

Santee corralled both little arms with one long arm wrapped around the skinny body and the other arm around Maddie’s legs. All while being cursed at and avoiding being bitten.

“Then be her mother and take her back to Boston with you. If she stays here, she’s mine.”

Santee and Miri’s eyes battled as Maddie shrieked and bucked. Miri turned to her husband.

“She’s right, Miri,” Sam said.

She turned to Ruarke. “Surely—“

“I agree, Miri. You can’t have it both ways. Either we’re raising Maddie, or you take her and do it.”

Finally, she looked pleadingly at Reggie, who stood in the doorway between the living room and the family room. “I also agree,” Reggie said. “You can’t be gone for months and expect to play the parent card for two days, then vanish again, leaving us to get Maddie straightened out. Personally, I wish Santee had gotten fed up an hour earlier, so we might have enjoyed dinner and some good conversation.”

Tears streamed down Miri’s face. “Sam, surely you see— You can’t want our daughter raised by—“ Her watery eyes scraped down Santee and back up. “—someone who would manhandle our child.”

Bobby John snorted, then raised his hands palms outward. “Excuse me, but manhandling, when Ah was a kid, involved my daddy’s knee and a paddle, his belt, or the flat of his hand on my ass.”

Santee shivered as memories of sweltering, pitch black, breathless closets stole up. Days on end spent with no food, water, or bathroom. Where the only escape from the cesspool stench she’d created was the air wafting under the door. And many times HE’d stuff a towel along that opening to cut off any vestige of light and seal in the stench. When her sentence had been served, she’d still have to clean up the mess without the benefit of a bucket, water, or rags. Her tongue worked the inside of her mouth to rid her of the taste.

“Santee.”

She twitched and was back. Ruarke’s gentle concern created a hollow in her chest. She stiffened her shoulders, aware that Maddie had worn herself out and the adults were eyeing her. “So, what was the decision?”

Miri turned away but not before mouthing, ‘I hate you!’.

“MIRI!” Ruarke couldn’t believe his best friend could behave like that.

Santee bumped her shoulder into his and shook her head. The fight wasn’t worth it…not when her time here was so short.

Sam took his sleeping daughter from Santee and carried her into the family room where the other little kids were napping. He put her down on an unused mat and covered her with the soft throw.

Returning to the dining room he looked speculatively at Santee as he circled the table to sit beside his wife. Something Bobby John said had sent her trembling into a not-very-pleasant memory. Bobby John had been able to shrug off his remembered punishment, but Santee had lost all color, barely seeming to breathe, throat working as if fighting the urge to projectile vomit.

* * *

Miri drew a calming breath, forcing herself not to glare at the b***h who had Ruarke’s nuts tied in a knot. How could he? The b***h was so far beneath him…them. When was the last time her hands had seen a manicurist or her hair a stylist? It was beyond incomprehensible that her Ruarke could be so daffy over that b***h!

She tapped the pile of handouts on the table before passing them out to Sam, Max, Bobby John, and Ruarke. She gave Santee her best apologetic smile and shrugged. Santee didn’t seem to care, but Ruarke glared as he moved to share his with that woman.

On her laptop, she brought up the PowerPoint.

“As you can see the main house is huge; six bedrooms, eight baths, two master suites, chef’s kitchen—“

“Where is this?” Santee asked, suspicious of the tropical vegetation. But Florida and South Texas could be pretty tropical.

There are also two-three bedroom houses and four-two bedroom houses—“

“And this is where?” Santee asked again.

“Plus, there are rooms over the garage for the help.”

Santee didn’t like that Miri refused to reveal the location. They’d already had this discussion about a winter retreat in a warm place. Miri had pushed for the Virgin Islands. Santee had commented that being so far away, they wouldn’t be able to go very often, what with the kids in school. Miri had countered that the kids were smart enough that a day missed here and there wouldn’t matter.

The men sided with Santee that closer was better, which really deteriorated womanly harmony. Miri was supposedly looking for something in Florida or South Texas. Santee had suggested the river in Arizona but knew Miri would rather die than look there because it was Santee’s idea.

“Miri,” Ruarke said. “Where is this property located.”

“It’s the Virgin Islands, but just listen. It’s perfect for all of us!”

Santee got up and walked out. It really wasn’t any of her business now that she’d be leaving. If they wanted to spend that many hours flying back and forth it was totally up to them.

* * *

Santee sat on the front porch glider with Sunny and Rufus. Sunny’s head rested heavily in her lap. Inside, things wound down for the night, kids bathed and either in bed or on their way. Outside, crickets chirped and cicadas strummed their wings so loud as to drown out conversation. Far away a coyote howled a lonely song at the slowly rising moon.

Santee struggled to get up the gumption to head across the yard to her camper. Interpersonal relations weren’t her strength and dealing with Maddie and Miri had just plain pooped her out.

Ruarke came out and Santee cussed herself out for not ‘gittin’ while the gittin’ was good’. He sauntered over the epitome of the self-assured male. Gently he scooped Sunny up, sat down tight to Santee’s hip, and put the dog across his lap.

“I’m sorry about what happened today with Miri and Maddie.”

Santee shrugged and shifted tighter to the glider’s arm, gaining a mere fraction between them. “Not your fault she’s in love with you.”

“What? Miri’s not— We’re not—“ He cleared his throat. “Miri is in love with Sam.”

“She loves you both.”

“Me as a brother or friend.”

“You as a man…a lover.”

“No way.”

“Come on, Ruarke. Why do you think she hates my guts? It can’t be because of my glaring lack of womanly virtues that makes me so resistible. She’d hate anyone moving in on her territory. I bet she helped torpedo your exes, Heather and Rachel.”

Ruarke thought back and decided Santee might have something there. In high school, after his and Heather’s marriage tanked, he had dated Miri for all of about two weeks. But in college, she’d latched onto Sam’s rising star. Ruarke’s marriage to Rachel had been so short, his total focus on baseball to blame. But now he did seem to remember Rachel ending up in tears whenever Miri was around.

“I don’t love her. Not like that.”

Santee nodded, believing him. He didn’t look at Miri like he wanted to find the nearest flat surface and have at it. She glanced at him and jerked her eyes away. Heaven help her…the way he was looking at her right this minute.

“I’ve gotta go.” Santee shot to her feet. Sunny scrambled to get down and Ruarke carefully put the three-legged dog on the porch.

“Stay with me,” he rumbled so closely to her ear.

Shivers ran through her. He smelled so good as if he’d just spritzed— She looked suspiciously at him. Her flared nostrils caught the scent of soap and toothpaste. Had he just showered and brushed his teeth? His dark blonde hair had a few glistens trapped within.

He grinned devastatingly at her. “Please?”

It would be so easy. She forced her feet to back away. Far easier to stay with this guy who’d showered just for her than it was to turn tail and run away.

But she turned tail.

Tears streamed like lava down her cheeks as she walked away.