Rancher's Dream Read online

  She took a sip of the new drink. Whatever he put in it, she liked it because it wasn’t too sweet. Just a sip or two, she thought, enjoying the languid feel of her body as she began to relax even more. Jet was right. Her blood sugar must have been very low.

  “What was Ethan like when he was young?” she asked as she pushed her half-eaten sandwich away.

  Jet chuckled. “You aren’t going to believe this, but he was a lot like he is now. Always driven. Always very serious. He was our father’s favorite, of course. Mom loved me more.”

  “Your mom? Ethan told me his mother died and your father married your nanny?”

  Jet let out a bark of a laugh. “Is that what he told you? He always wished that we had different mothers. No, we are true siblings right down to our blood. The nanny came later but even she tried to balance out the love and did a pretty good job of it. Mom didn’t die until I was seven. I guess Ethan doesn’t have as good a memory of her as I do.” He sounded less bitter and she liked that. “You should eat more,” he said, seeing that she’d left half of her sandwich.

  She shook her head and felt a little dizzy as she watched him chew on the toothpick in his mouth. Mostly she felt overly tired. She could hardly keep her eyes open.

  “Another place we haven’t looked is the parking garage,” he said. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. Ethan keeps an extra vehicle down there. He could have taken it somewhere.”

  “I thought you’d never been to this house before,” she said and hated how suspicious she sounded.

  He smiled and didn’t seem to take offense. “It’s my first time seeing the real thing, but Ethan had a model built of it before construction started. He kept it at the office. Of course he had to brag about all the different levels, the unique design he’d come up with himself.” He shook his head as he removed the toothpick, broke it in half and dropped it onto his plate. “I call the place Ethan’s Ego. He told me about the vehicle he planned to leave here. An SUV since his expensive sedan just won’t do come winter. Sorry, I did it again.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I love my brother but you have to admit, sometimes he’s too much. I would imagine the wedding was quite the event. Sorry I missed it.” He didn’t sound sorry as he stood to take his plate and dirty glass away. “I’ll quit complaining about my brother. Truth is, I’m a little worried. We’d better hear from him today.”

  She agreed and was shocked to realize that she’d finished the second drink he’d made her. He picked up her glass to make her another one. “No more for me,” she said as he returned to the bar.

  Getting to her feet a little unsteadily, she took her plate over to the sink and scraped the contents into the disposal. Just the smell of the sandwich was turning her stomach. She kept thinking about what he’d said about his brother. He kept saying, “You know how Ethan is.” If half of what Jet had told her was true, she didn’t know her husband at all, she thought as she leaned into the counter for support and looked around for the disposal switch.

  Her cell phone rang, making her jump. Pulling it out, she prayed it was Ethan. As upset as she was with him and this new situation she found herself in, she wanted to hear his voice more than anything. She also wanted to hear his explanation for disappearing on her.

  But it wasn’t her husband.

  Disappointed, she looked up and caught a fleeting expression on Jet’s face. “Ethan?” he asked.

  She shook her head, trying to make sense of what she thought she’d seen on Jet’s face. He’d almost looked as if he’d known it wouldn’t be his brother. Did he know where Ethan was and why he hadn’t called? Was that the real reason he was here? The reason she’d gotten the impression he’d known it wouldn’t be Ethan on the phone? She could feel the effects of the past few days. A mistake not to eat more probably since it was so late in the day. But maybe her bigger mistake was marrying Ethan.

  “A friend. I need to call her.” But she didn’t move. She leaned against the kitchen counter, feeling sick and trapped and resentful of both Ethan and his brother for putting her in this position. She felt anger bubble up in her, mixing with her mental and emotional exhaustion. There was nothing keeping her here. She could leave. Just walk out and let Ethan wonder where she’d gone for a change.

  Except she didn’t even have a car. And where would she go? She’d given up everything to be here right now—her apartment she’d loved, her furnishings, her life, even her vehicle. Tears burned her eyes. She brushed at them. Where the hell was the stupid disposal switch?

  Jet stepped over and flipped a switch she hadn’t seen until that moment.

  Instantly, the disposal began to make a horrible sound.

  He hurriedly turned it off. “What the hell is in there?” he asked, looking at her.

  “That’s the first time I’ve used it. All I put in was my sandwich.” At least that’s all she thought she’d put down the drain.

  “Your sandwich shouldn’t make that sound. Let me take a look. You sure that’s all you put in there?”

  She stepped back to give him room and realized that she was light-headed and even more unsteady on her feet. Clearly her emotions were making her sick.

  His gaze locked onto her as he reached in and felt around. She held her breath, hoping she hadn’t accidentally dropped a piece of the silverware down the disposal. Like Jet had said, the set was heavy enough that it could be solid gold.

  Suddenly Jet’s hand stopped moving. She saw him grimace in distaste.

  “I hate to think of what this might be,” he said as he slowly withdrew what he’d found—and then quickly dropped it into the sink with a curse. “Oh God, is that what I think it is?” he exclaimed, taking a step back.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DREY COULDN’T SPEAK. She stared at what appeared to be a thumb. It was large with tiny hairs sprouting out of it. There was a slice across it—no doubt from the disposal blade. It was large enough to be a man’s.

  “Is it real?” she cried and took a step back.

  “I’m not sure.”

  As she pushed off the counter and took another step, she swayed, suddenly feeling her legs want to give out under her.

  “Easy.” Jet grabbed her arm. “Are you all right?”

  She was unable to take her eyes off the thumb lying in the sink. Because of the cut across the top she couldn’t be sure, but it could have been Ethan’s. She knew that didn’t make any sense. If Ethan had accidently cut off his thumb...

  “I’m no doctor, but if that’s a real thumb, shouldn’t there be blood?”

  She had no idea. “It’s not Ethan’s.”

  “Of course it’s not Ethan’s. Why would you even say that?” He sounded upset. “But as bloodless as it is and sliced open right behind the nail, I wouldn’t even be able to identify it if it was. How the hell did it end up in your disposal?”

  Now it was her disposal? Her head was spinning. “You have to do something with it. Take it to the sheriff. If it’s human...”

  “Okay, let’s slow down here. Imagine if I take it to the sheriff and it’s not human. It doesn’t even look real. We call the sheriff, get him up here and it turns out to be a joke... I’m sure the locals already think Ethan and this house are a joke. You really want to go through that? Maybe more to the point, do you want to put him through it?”

  How would he know that the locals made fun of Ethan and the house? She felt as if she was going to be sick to her stomach.

  “I think this is just a prank.”

  “What if it’s not?” she cried, remembering the workers who’d gotten hurt on this job. What if the thumb belonged to one of them?

  “I say we wait until Ethan comes back, let him decide if it should go to the sheriff. If it’s just a joke, then Ethan won’t have our heads over it. Ethan gets here, and we’ll let him handle it,” Jet said.

  The more she looked at the thumb, the mo
re she couldn’t be sure it was real. “What will you do with it?” Her words seemed to slur. “You can’t just leave it in the sink.”

  Jet sighed. “I suppose we can’t put it in a baggie in the fridge, huh.” She shuddered. “How about the freezer? I think it’s empty.”

  When had he looked in the freezer? She must have turned away, because when she looked in the sink again, it was empty and Jet was zipping a sandwich bag shut. He opened the freezer, tossed the parcel in and slammed the door. Making a show of brushing his hands together, he said, “Now it’s all up to Ethan. ‘Welcome home, brother. Oh, by the way, there might be a human thumb in your freezer or not.’” He laughed, but she didn’t see anything funny about it.

  She heard the whir of the disposal as Jet finished pulverizing her sandwich and washing it down the drain. She must have looked as if she was going to cry because she sure wanted to.

  Jet touched her arm, startling her. “You look exhausted. Maybe you should lie down for a while. If I hear from Ethan, I’ll call you.”

  She nodded. Her legs felt like rubber. She let him lead her over to the elevator since the thought of climbing all those stairs seemed impossible right now. He pushed the master-suite button for her. She stood there looking at him as the door began to close.

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  She didn’t have a chance to answer as the panel door closed and the elevator began to move, making a whirring sound. When it stopped and the door slid open, she stepped out, feeling confused and disoriented for a moment until a panel in the wall of the master suite opened into her enormous bedroom.

  She hadn’t been aware of the hidden elevator room, she thought as she stumbled. The door closed behind her, becoming a wall again. She realized there was a small screen at the edge of the wall that she’d hadn’t noticed before. She would never have guessed that the elevator was behind there.

  Feeling woozy, Drey had barely gotten the thought out when she heard the whirring sound and realized Jet must have called the elevator back down to the kitchen. Her mind seemed fuzzy and yet she still wondered why a man as healthy as he looked wouldn’t take the stairs.

  Not that it mattered, she told herself as she moved toward the bed, thinking she just needed to lie down. She felt light-headed and at the same time, her body felt leaden.

  Just the sight of the large bed with its expensive sheets and comforter looked like an oasis in the desert. All she wanted to do was crawl up on it and rest for a little while. By then Ethan would be back.

  But first, she had to call Lillie back. She and Lillie Cahill had been friends for years despite the fact that Drey and Hawk had broken up after being high school sweethearts and dating through college.

  Thinking that fresh air might do her good, she stumbled toward the balcony. Maybe this house was suffocating her. She reached the sliding glass door that opened onto the small balcony and fiddled with it until she realized it was already unlocked. She flung the door open and staggered out, nearly going over the railing.

  She hadn’t realized how high she was from the ground. For a moment, she teetered at the edge of the balcony railing, the dizzying drop making her head swim. She lurched back and dropped into one of the two small deck chairs as she pulled out her cell phone. She couldn’t remember ever being this exhausted. Jet had sworn there was no alcohol in her drinks. She would have tasted it if there had been. She couldn’t explain how light-headed she felt.

  Closing her eyes, she listened to it ring, her mind whirling. She had to calm down. Her heart was pounding. She couldn’t keep worrying about Ethan and at the same time, being furious with him. She had to get some rest so she didn’t feel so emotionally wrung out. But she knew it was more than that. More than even finding a thumb in the disposal. She’d made a horrible mistake marrying Ethan.

  Lillie answered.

  “Lillie,” Drey said into the phone and burst into tears.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, at the sound of an approaching vehicle, Hawk instantly regretted not getting his horse saddled sooner. “I don’t want to hear it,” he snapped as he heard his sister get out of her SUV and head toward him. He kept saddling his horse, telling himself if she wanted to talk about Drey, he would be forced to ride off and leave her standing in the barn.

  “I’m warning you, Lillie,” he said at the sound of her hurried steps. “If this is about Drey—”

  “You have to listen to me,” Lillie cried, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around to face her.

  “Lillie—”

  “Drey’s miserable. She called me yesterday afternoon bawling her eyes out. She sounded drunk. Drey, who I’ve never seen drink more than a glass of wine. Drunk! She’s made a terrible mistake. As if that isn’t bad enough, her husband has disappeared.”

  Hawk growled under his breath. He bit off each word, suspecting all of this was a vast exaggeration. “I’m sure her husband has not disappeared.”

  “On their wedding night.” She lifted a brow. “Before—”

  “Damn it, Lillie. I don’t want to hear any of this. It’s none of my business.”

  “Now Ethan’s creepy brother, Jet, has moved into the house. She’s scared of him. I could hear it in her voice before she...passed out.”

  Hawk shook his head as he turned back to finish saddling his horse. He didn’t want to hear any of this, but try as he might, he couldn’t imagine Drey drunk-dialing his sister—let alone passing out. If she really had admitted that she’d made a mistake, well...it was just the alcohol talking. And if her husband really had left her on their wedding night, well...that was none of his business. Whatever had happened, he had no doubt that they would patch it up and, along with her hangover, Drey would regret calling his sister.

  “I’m riding away now,” Hawk said firmly to Lillie. “When I return either you aren’t here or you don’t mention any of this to me again. I can’t make it any clearer than that. Have you heard the expression ‘made her bed and now has to lie in it’?”

  “You can’t mean that. This is Drey. Even if I believed for a moment that you don’t love her anymore, you can’t just abandon her now.”

  “I’m dead serious, little sister. Unless you really want to piss me off.” He swung up onto his horse, spurred the gelding and didn’t look back.

  The only sanity he’d had in the past forty-eight hours was either working or riding his horse up into the mountains. Not that Drey had ever been far from his thoughts. Trying not to think about her was thinking about her. It made him furious with himself. Then to have Lillie twisting his ear about her...

  He told himself that his sister had to be exaggerating about the phone call. He could remember Drey crying only a few times in the years they were together. She really must have been drunk, something he’d never seen, couldn’t even imagine. On top of that, she hated to cry, seeing it as a weakness and Dierdre Hunter hated seeming weak more than she hated to cry. He’d admired her strength and determination and even her weaknesses—at least until they came head-to-head with his own weaknesses.

  Hawk rode out to where he was meeting his brother for another backbreaking day of stringing barbed wire fence. He couldn’t wait. Anything to get his mind off Drey.

  * * *

  DREY WOKE CONFUSED, head aching. She tried to sit up. Morning sunlight and the scent of pines poured in through the open balcony door. She shivered, surprised to find herself lying across the bed, fully dressed, her phone lying on the duvet next to her. She frowned, trying to remember what had happened. How many hours had she slept?

  Was it possible she’d lain down yesterday afternoon and was only now waking up? She dropped back onto the bed and closed her eyes, wishing she could sleep forever if it would keep her head from pounding. Yes, she was exhausted but...

  She opened her eyes. She didn’t need to look around the room to know that Ethan was still gone. Had he returned,
she was sure he would have awakened her. She sucked in a breath as she felt that ominous weight on her chest and was struck with another terrifying premonition. She would never see him alive again.

  At the squawk of a bird on the balcony deck outside, she started. She was sick of these premonitions. Worse, sick of the worry and anxiety she’d felt since even before the wedding. Where was her husband?

  Turning, she saw a crow staring at her from the balcony with its beady little dark eyes. The bird flapped its silken ebony wings at her and hopped to the chair closest to the open door. Wasn’t there some superstition about crows and death?

  She shivered as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and tried to sit up. When had she opened the balcony door? And she’d left it open?

  The bird cawed at her and hopped closer. “Oh, no you don’t,” she said, struggling to her feet, determined to chase the bird off and close the door. She swayed for a moment. Why couldn’t she remember leaving it open? Unfortunately, all of yesterday afternoon and night was a blur.

  Dizzy, she had to hang on to the door handle for a moment. The bird didn’t look the least bit afraid. Instead, it appeared to be challenging her. She wasn’t up to a challenge this morning. She started to close the door, when she saw something on the balcony floor under one of the chairs.

  She blinked, the headache splitting now. The crow hadn’t moved. It seemed determined to get into the house. She stepped back to the bed, grabbed her pillow to shoo it away and returned to the balcony. She used the pillow to chase the crow away from the doorway and bent down to pick up the cell phone that lay next to the wall under the chair. The crow hopped along the railing, finally taking flight, but not before looking back at her. She met those beady eyes... If she was the superstitious kind...

  Dropping into one of the balcony chairs, she stared down at the device in her hand. A sliver of a memory came back to her of being out here on the balcony on the phone yesterday. With a curse, she remembered talking to Lillie Cahill. She felt her face flush with embarrassment. Recalling it all, she couldn’t believe that she’d broken down on the phone—and to Lillie. The last person she wanted to know about her problems because her friend would go to Hawk and he would be delighted to hear it. She was sure that he still felt she deserved whatever mess she made of her life. Well, she’d done it up proud this time.