Serial Killer Eyes 3

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“What?” the girls cried. “No way!”

“You have to. It’s the only way. We can’t have a huge neon banner blinking over this ranch screaming, ‘We’re here! Come get us!’”

“You’re not sacrificing yourselves for us,” Ruarke growled.

“They’re psychopaths,” Santee said. “They have no empathy…no conscience. HE brutalized that out of us way way early on.”

“Not you,” Dakota said.

“You saved us,” Cheyenne said. “Or HE’d have done to me the same thing HE did to Dakota.”

A bitter smile contorted Santee’s face. “Ah, little sisters, you don’t understand. I’m as bad as they are.”

“No, you’re not!” They tried to throw their arms around her, but Santee fended them off.

“Let me tell you about this person you’ve bestowed sainthood on,” Santee sneered. “I knew HE had plans the minute He gave you to me, Dakota. You see, HE was constantly giving me puppies or kitties to play with and love. It might be two days later or two weeks or two months, but I’d always do something wrong and HE’d wring their innocent little necks and put their still quivering bodies in my hands and say, ‘See what you made me do. If you were a good little girl, I wouldn’t have to do such terrible things!’ I tried not to fall for HIS gifts, but I was such a sucker. I learned to remain stoic as their little bodies stiffened in my hands.” Her lips twitched at the memory. “HE was not pleased.”

“That day, your birthday, I knew.”

“You tried to save me,” Dakota cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I remember.”

Santee nodded. “I also tried…other things. And, while He enjoyed my efforts, it didn’t alter HIS plans one little bit.”

“You were a child,” Mrs. Reggie said. “You couldn’t—“

Santee winced as if a stiletto rammed from one temple through her eyes to the other temple. Bright red and blue squirmy worms wriggled in her vision. Her hands were planted on either side of her head in an effort to hold her skull together.

“I knew,” Santee ground out between clenched teeth. “If I hadn’t been such a gutless wonder…. If I’d acted sooner…”

“But, oh no,” she sneered. “I let HIM r**e my baby sister before I got up the gumption to do something.”

“But that’s not going to happen again. I won’t be…”. Her heart wanted to say that she wouldn’t let the comfort, peace, safety, love, and home that she felt here to divert her. Not this time. “I’ll leave—“

“Not for a week,” Mrs. Reggie said. Santee stiffened, ready to flare up at the older woman.

“Unless you intend to go to a clinic and have someone else take those stitches out. You either stay here and let me poke around in your back, or you let some stranger.” Mrs. Reggie looked innocently at Santee.

The room was silent as Santee and Mrs. Reggie silently dueled. Then Santee’s lips twitched and her eyes sparkled. She gave Mrs. Reggie a knowing look which made her blush. Santee shook her head and said, “Well played, Mrs. Reggie.” Suddenly Santee felt fully deflated. It was going to be a long haul to get out to the camper. “One week. Then we’ve got to be gone.”

Joe slapped Pete’s shoulder and gave Ahmed a jerk of the head as the three of them headed out.

Santee looked to the shell-shocked S-twins, Shaynee and Shawnee asked, “Can Dakota sleep in your room?"

They nodded and motioned her to come.

“Hannah, Cheyenne is your age, but you’ve already got Ariel and Lexi—“

“It’s fine.”

“Or-“

“No, no. There’s plenty of room.”

Santee sensed something but the beating of the jungle drums in her head made thinking nearly impossible.

Bobby John stood up and wrapped his tree-trunk arms gently around her. “It’ll all work out,” he said.

Santee nodded. “Once we’re gone-“

Bobby John placed a finger over her lips to silence her. He pressed his lips to her forehead and silently vowed that things were not going to be resolved her way. Not if he had anything to say about it.

Santee turned to Ruarke’s father—her horse-training business partner and the father she wished she had. “I’m sorry. I never meant-“

“I know that, child.” He moved in to hug her. The comforting odors of horse and leather filled her corpuscles though she cringed at the bodily contact. “A lot can happen in a week.”

Santee nodded, damnably close to tears which wouldn’t do. Not at all. She knew nothing would change. THEY would still be coming. And she had to be strong enough to break free of the delicate, but oh so strong, ties to this place and these people. At one time she’d been good going solo. Now, that alone life seemed like a vast, lonely, daunting wasteland.

Ruarke held his arm out indicating his suite. It would be so easy to go with him despite the fact that he’d acted the epitome of a male chauvinistic ass. And she was still steamed at him.

They weren’t lovers, but they’d come close only to be broken apart at the penultimate moment by circumstances, every time. They didn’t sleep together because she couldn’t stand to be in bed with a man, instead opting to sleep in his huge shower with all the bathroom lights on, keeping the nasties away.

She had a gigantic amethyst and diamond ring on a chain around her neck, but they weren’t actually engaged.

She wasn’t his type; too tall, too shapeless, too boobless, and as ‘not blond’ as a person could be. He tried. Like any man, he was willing to nail anything that breathed, but she just wasn’t what he desired—evidenced by the leering looks he’d bestowed on the blonde floozy just the other day…precipitating their latest tiff.

Her dogs, Sunny, the abused golden retriever, Rufus, the extremely long-legged pit bull type, and JW, the Belgian Malinois, sat looking up at her. They would adjust to her decision. Each had a doggie bed in Ruarke’s room. It would take a while, but their affiliations would change over to him.

Ruarke usually tried to talk her into his bed. ‘Just until I go to sleep,’ he’d say. And it would be so warm and comfortable. And he’d smell so doggone good which surprised and terrified her that, after everything, she could stand…could desire… to be spooned by this man. But a break needed to be made. Now.

Santee shook her head and pushed past him and out into the night.

“Santee, please!”

She cringed inside at the plea but forced her feet to trudge on.

* * *

“Pete,” Ruarke said into the phone as he paced his room. “I need you to get Santee’s camper door unlocked for me.”

Pete’s heavy sigh carried over the air weaves. “No can do.”

“Peter,” Ruarke growled.

“First off, Ruarke, after Santee got through kicking my butt, I’d still have to face Rosarita, and I’d just as soon not be sleeping on the couch for the next year. And then there’s JW.”

Ruarke flinched at the thought of facing those tiger-like fangs and those shark-like eyes. “I can’t convince her to stay with me if I can’t get close to her.”

“Your mom bought you a week. I’ve seen you in action. I know you can do it.”

But the stakes had never been this high before. Over the course of his baseball career, he’d wined, dined, and bedded many women. None of whom he’d brought home to meet his family…his kids.

It had never bothered him on the rare occasions when he’d struck out, other than his ego. But this…if he failed this time, not only was his heart going to be blasted to smithereens, his kids and his parents—especially his dad—were going to be devastated.

* * *

Santee awoke face down on the converted dinette/bed, the warmth of her dogs and their even breathing soothing her.

The small camper was aromatic with the scent of roses. Two dozen red roses to be exact. The first flowers she’d ever received. It had been Ruarke’s attempt at an apology for ogling a buxom blonde, and it had almost worked. He’d gotten her naked and hot. Just remembering his tanned, muscular body, his hungry lips, his impatient rending of her chemise made her panties moist.

Santee groaned and sat up. Shaynee’s knock on the door last night had been fortuitous. Had they gone all the way, it would have made leaving that much harder.

But at least she’d have known a lover! r**e was the only thing she knew, first by HIM and then by the prison guards. It would have been nice—before she died—and with Ruarke Sinclair. He was way beyond her league, but he sure rocked her boat like a dang tsunami.

Santee paused to bury her face in the delicate rose blooms before heading to the tiny shower, secretly thankful that this wasn’t her last morning in this sanctuary. But then, at least the break would have been swift and clean. Now the next week was going to be a whole series of lasts; the last time she rode her horse, the last time she visited her dogs’ graves, the last time she saw the moon shine across the yard…

And a whole lot of extricating herself from people. The kids wouldn’t understand. Ruarke would feel like he had to convince her to stay, though he’d be relieved when she was gone, and he could go back to his blonde bimbos. Sir Rob would be stuck with a bunch of horses to train alone. Bobby John, her best and only friend, would miss her.

And Rogue. Her beautiful, abused, scarred stallion. How does one explain to an animal that she couldn’t take him?

And the dogs…her sanity. They’d have to stay, also. Her gut twisted as she looked at the three who watched her as she stepped into the tiny bathroom. When her beloved sisters caught up to her—and they would—Santee couldn’t let them butcher her animals, too.

* * *

JW sniffed at the door jamb, body stiff and tense. He looked over his shoulder at Santee, plainly saying that someone was outside.

Santee edged past the canines right hand on her holstered Ruger as she eased the door open. The sight of Ruarke, wrapped in a blanket and sound asleep as he sat beside the horse trailer, clenched her heart and prickled her eyes.

She removed her hand from the holster/pouch on her belt.

“You knew that was Ruarke there,” Santee scolded the big dog.

JW looked up at her with wide innocent eyes. Santee didn’t know why JW and Ruarke didn’t mesh. It had to be a ‘male’ thing, though Rufus and Ruarke got along fine.

They silently exited the camper and crept past the sleeping man. He looked so dang good. Santee wondered what his reaction would be if she kissed him awake. Her face burned as she pictured those sexy blue eyes opening. Those lips curved into a welcoming smile. Those big hands—

Santee jerked out of the delicious dream as JW slowly stalked Ruarke. She hissed and flapped her hand at the dog. JW looked at her and lifted his leg, and the steaming stream barely missed Ruarke’s foot. She would have sworn the dog was smiling as he sauntered off.

The mild summer morning was surprisingly crisp. Santee went back into the camper and grabbed a quilt. It smelled extremely doggy, she decided as she carefully tucked it around the man’s broad shoulders. For just a moment she allowed her hand to rest on that strong shoulder and then ever so lightly cup his bristly face. A strange rumble, almost like the protest of a hungry stomach, built in her chest as her mind memorized him.

He twitched, a slight sexy smile forming.

Santee jerked back and fled. She didn’t hear the sleepy mumble, ‘Santee?’.

* * *

Breakfast was the normal chaos. The younger kids easily accepted that Santee’s sisters had come for a visit. The adults were the quiet ones, making Santee regret promising to stay. She’d have been gone by now and the adjusting could have begun—hers included. She’d lost her solitary survivalist edge and without her dogs…. She didn’t want to even think about what it was going to be like, turning the truck out the driveway…all alone…for the last time.

And to again actively begin the search for a way to drastically shorten her life expectancy. Anything short of suicide—wuss that she was. Sunny and Rufus coming into her life had banked that burning desire for an end to the tormenting memories. The Sinclairs had fully squelched that need, or so she’d thought. But Santee could already feel the rekindling of that self-destructive flame.

“Rosarita, Joe, and I are taking the girls shopping,” Mrs. Reggie said. “Cheyenne and Dakota need just about everything.”

“That’s not necessary,” Santee protested.

“Did you want to take them?” At the ‘I’d rather have a root canal’ look, Mrs. Reggie snorted. “Thought so. Don’t expect us until after dinner.”

“Do all us girls have to go?” Lexie whined.

Ariel, the eldest, and Farah, the youngest of the three Arab girls, nodded. “We don’t need any clothes,” Ariel protested.

Mrs. Reggie chuckled. They were miniature versions of Santee, horse-crazy shopping loathers. Of course, if they needed riding clothes or the dogs or horses needed something, that would be entirely different. “No, you don’t have to go.” The three breathed sighs of relief.

Ruarke’s mother winced at the flash of memory of Santee’s abduction by the girls’ father’s first wife. The jaded prince had seen the internet video of Santee’s rescue of Rogue and that sparked interest had led the entitled woman to kidnap Santee and gift her to the prince. After the prince finally realized that Santee would never truly be his, he returned her to South Dakota and later brought his three horse-crazy daughters to Santee rather than marry the five-year-old, Farah, off and put Ariel and Alexandria, 12 and 8, into harems in order to strengthen alliances with men he despised but needed.

Santee had only been on the ranch a short time when that happened, yet her months-long disappearance had gutted Ruarke, making him a living, breathing zombie, barely eating enough to stay alive and forcing himself out of bed each morning after a sleepless night for the sake of the kids and in the hope that this would be the day they’d find Santee.

Her husband, Rob, had also been hamstrung. If she hadn’t been so sure in her marriage, Reggie could easily have been jealous of the instantaneous bond between the lovely and much younger woman and her husband. But Rob’s love was that of a father, not a philanderer. Rob was an excellent rancher, but his heart had always been in training horses. When their adopted daughter, Savannah, had vanished so had that dream. An unenthusiastic but singularly focused rancher had emerged. But Santee’s appearance had resparked the horsiness in Rob, resuscitating the man Reggie had fallen in love with.

What would happen to the two men in her life if Santee once more vanished from their lives? Already their shoulders carried a defeated slump and their eyes a sad hollowness.

Reggie had gotten them a week. Someway, somehow they had to come up with a solution that would allow Santee to remain.