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  He started to speak when he saw her click the small comm. link over her head, attaching the tiny speaker to her ear, the mic wand extending to her cheek.

  “Two to ride, whose check?” Her voice was low as she tested the device. She glanced at him with a mischievous glitter in her eyes. “Oh boy. Sis is playing watchdog on us. There goes our fun, cowboy.”

  Sam crossed his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes as he watched her check her gun, the loaded clip, and the spares that she tucked into her saddlebag. The automatic pistol was tucked back into the holster behind her hip, and still, she was listening to whatever orders were coming through that damned comm. link.

  “Tell Tara to assign someone else,” he said again, his voice louder this time. “Now.”

  She rolled her eyes as she tightened the saddle and tested it experimentally.

  “Give it up, Sam.” She shook her head as she looked up at him. “I’m part of this team whether you like it or not.”

  “Fine, be a part of it somewhere else then.” He held his horse’s bridle in a tight fist as she mounted her horse.

  He felt equal parts lust and rage thundering through his system. She looked like a living flame perched on the back of that damned horse. A ready target for the psycho stalking him.

  “I won’t ride out with you,” he said softly. He wouldn’t jeopardize her. He couldn’t.

  She tilted her head as she stared down at him. Her green eyes were quizzical, her expression curious. “Do you doubt my abilities, Sam?”

  Doubt her? He didn’t doubt in the least that she was the sweetest, softest thing he had ever touched in his life. That her heat, her passion, wasn’t the hardest thing in the world to resist. That he wouldn’t destroy her before it was over with. But he would be damned if he would lead her into the hands of a madman.

  He didn’t answer her. He couldn’t answer her. He wanted to scream, to howl out in fury at the injustice of what he faced. He couldn’t do either. He glanced out the open stable door, remembering his need to smell freedom. It wasn’t worth the possible sacrifice. His stubborn determination had sentenced his brothers to hell; he wouldn’t allow the same thing to happen to Heather.

  He shook his head wearily as he unsaddled his mount. Poor Rusty. He patted the roan’s rump. The stallion had been itching to run, just as Sam had.

  “Sam?” Her soft voice questioned him.

  “I won’t endanger you.” He tossed the saddle and blanket atop the saddle rail and led the horse back to its stall.

  She sighed impatiently behind him. “Sam, you can’t go out alone. You know that. Did you forget what happened the last time you did that?”

  His fists clenched as he locked the stall door.

  “Yeah, Heather,” he bit out, turning to her slowly. “Something real fucking easy to forget…”

  The scene surged through his mind, but it wasn’t Tate, it was Marcelle. Blood colored his vision as violence surged through his body for one hard, long second. He could feel his muscles tightening, his fists clenching as though to defend himself against the fury of a memory that never fully revealed itself.

  “I’m sorry, Sam.” She dismounted, her face pale, her eyes wounded as she watched him. “I’ll find someone else to ride with you…”

  He stopped her. Before he realized it he had gripped her arm, pulling her around until he had her pressed against the stall divider, her slender wrists shackled by his hands and stretched above her head. He stared down at her, breathing roughly, rage and desire burning through his body in equal measure.

  “You don’t understand,” he growled roughly. “Listen to me, Heather. For God’s sake, for my sake, listen to me. Stay the fuck away from me. Please. I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to be the cause of your pain.”

  She wiggled against him, her hips pressing closer, her stomach cushioning the hard-on raging behind the material of his jeans. He fought for his control, his muscles tensing, bunching as she watched him from those knowing, though innocent, eyes.

  “How much longer are you going to wallow in self-pity, Sam?” she finally asked him, and the very gentleness of her voice was like acid on an already burning wound. “How much longer will you let him destroy your life?”

  He stared down at her unblinking, fighting the overwhelming anger that made him want to hurt, to control.

  “As long as it takes, Heather, for the smell of blood and semen mixing to get out of my fucking head,” he finally bit out. “Take that away, baby, and then we’ll talk about it.”

  He threw himself away from her, knowing if he didn’t he might never be able to later. Her eyes were swimming with tears, her face pale with stress and pain as she watched him, and he couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear looking into her eyes, knowing she saw him for who he was, for what he was. Knowing that in one careless moment, in one passion dazed encounter, he could place her at the mercy of a madman once again.

  He whipped his hat from his head as the fingers of his other hand pushed violently through his hair. There was nothing he hated worse than this feeling raising inside him. The burning anger and pain. The shame. It never failed to trigger the need to connect, to ease the aching emptiness inside his soul. The need to touch, taste and hear the screams of pleasure. But it wasn’t Marly’s or Sarah’s he needed to hear. It was Heather’s.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Cade, he’s headed back in,” Heather spoke into her comm. link as Sam stalked back to the ranch house. It worried her, the intensity in his blue-gray eyes, the fury that tightened his body.

  Anger was riding him hard and it was easy to see that the coming eruption could be more than any of them wanted to face. For all his joviality, the bleak dark core she glimpsed in his soul seemed all the more dangerous.

  “Thanks, Heather. We’ll take care of him.” His voice was darkly brooding, anger and concern mixing in a haunting brew that tore at her heart. Three men, each scarred in different ways and fighting for survival. It terrified her, wondering if they would be able to fight their way clear of this one.

  And it hurt her. She knew how such episodes ended. The blistering heat of the female cries as the August brothers joined in an orgy of sexual intensity with them. Though Sam didn’t seem to be taking part as often as he had in the past, she knew he had at least taken part in that damned limo. The danger surrounding them only increased the edge of lust that glittered in the men’s eyes on a constant basis.

  They were highly sexed, and more than a little dominate. And though Sam seemed more playful than forceful, she could see the core of that dark sexuality becoming more apparent. The closer the danger came, the more that edge seemed to intensify.

  The stalker shadowing their every move was getting closer. Several attempts had been made to breach the house. Each one had gone unnoticed by any of the investigators until long after it had been too late to catch sight of him. The bastard knew the ranch too well to suit any of them.

  She clicked the link back to the open channel, listening with only distant attention to the chatter between the investigators as she unsaddled her horse and led him back to the stall. She stroked the animal’s long face, staring into the quiet brown eyes as sadness filled her.

  “He’s getting worse.” Brock stepped into the stables, his eyes so like Sam’s, were quiet, sad, as Heather clipped the stall door closed and turned to him.

  Heather watched as he moved deeper into the cool, shadowed interior. He watched her closely, his eyes contemplative, the way he held his body suggesting that he was a man on a mission that he wasn’t entirely certain of.

  “We can’t allow him to go riding off by himself, Brock.” Heather shook her head, knowing Sam needed the solitude of the open land to help still the demons raging inside him. A solitude that could be fatal now.

  She remembered before, when they were called out the first time to protect Marly. Sam had often slipped from the house, hiking or riding several miles away to a sheltering, tree-shaded pond where he would often sit and just s
tare into the water. He hadn’t been able to do that lately, and being confined seemed to only spur his temper.

  “I agree with you on that, Heather,” he sighed roughly, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he watched her with a questioning expression. “I’m not asking anyone to allow it.”

  He looked too much like Sam to suit her. The sharp, almost savage planes of his face reflected a quiet acceptance of the world though, rather than the careful joviality or alternate enraged grief that Sam’s could. Of all the men, Brock seemed more accepting of the past, more accepting of who they all were.

  She wished she could find a measure of the confidence he carried on his shoulders. At the moment she felt lost, uncertain. She was fighting not just for her life, but for the life of a man that didn’t want to love her, even though he did.

  “What?” Heather asked with a frown. Brock obviously had something on his mind, and yet was hesitant to broach the subject, whatever it might be. She had a feeling she didn’t exactly want to hear it either.

  “Why hasn’t he come to you yet?” he asked her softly, his head tilting as he regarded her with a quizzical expression.

  “For what?” She had a feeling she knew exactly for what, but she wasn’t about to let this man poke his nose in her business without a fight.

  He seemed to know that, too. He watched her knowingly. “You know what,” he growled. “He wants to fuck you so bad it heats the air around both of you, Heather. Don’t pretend you don’t know that.”

  Heather felt a curious flutter of nerves in the pit of her stomach. There was no heavy lust in his eyes as there was in Sam’s, but there was a sense of anticipation, of waiting. He was asking about Sam, but they were both well aware of what they all expected once Sam took her.

  “That’s none of your business, Brock.” She shook her head. She didn’t need the other two brothers complicating her life at this point. Her life, or her heart.

  He blew out a rough breath, his head turning as he stared into the shadows of the stables. His arms crossed over his chest, his hard body stiffly erect, as he seemed to be weighing what he should say. His expression was brooding, concerned, as he seemed to chose his words carefully.

  “It concerns us all, Heather,” he finally said softly. “Not just me and Cade, but Marly and Sarah as well. We all love him. Seeing him like this is…” He paused reluctantly. “It’s very hard on us all.”

  She could see that. Had seen it constantly. The relationship between the men was a curious one. A complete sharing, whether it was work, play or pleasure. Yet never together. For a while, she had wondered if the strange relationship they shared with their women was due to tendencies or desires to be with each other sexually. But as she watched, dissecting events and interactions, she knew that wasn’t the case.

  Heather believed they would have been inclined to the relationships they now shared. The horrors and nightmares of the past had forced the need for that closer bond, despite moral convictions. The abuse and their fight to survive together had made them closer than even they knew at this point. It was a closeness that went far beyond any sense of sibling jealousy. It had forced such emotions aside, which further enabled them to the sexual extremes they now practiced.

  “And I’m supposed to fix this?” she asked him finally, exasperated, just a little irritated. Suddenly, everyone was looking to her to fix the problems this family dealt with. She couldn’t see a fix in sight anywhere.

  He shifted nervously, spearing her with a look that had her taking a step back. Intense, heated, filled with conviction.

  “He loves you, Heather. I know he does. And you know what that implies.”

  His voice carried a hard, knowing edge. He wasn’t about to let her skirt around the involvement with the family should she accept the relationship with Sam. Damned men. The Augusts had to be the most contrary, stubborn, hard to get along with males it had ever been her misfortune to meet up with.

  “So you’re what, going to try to get your piece of ass now?” she bit out, frowning back at him. These men tried her patience in more ways than one, but this one, on the heels of his twin, was too much for even her normally strong nerves.

  He grimaced impatiently.

  “Don’t be a fool, Heather,” he growled, disgust marking his voice, surprising her by the vehemence in his tone. “This isn’t about getting a piece of anything. It’s about Sam. It’s about stilling the anger growing inside him before it destroys him.”

  “Dammit, Brock, only Sam can do that.” Heather shook her head, surprised, and not for the first time, over the brothers’ insistence on stilling Sam’s anger, and in the process, the healing. “He has a right to be angry. A right to hate everything that has happened and is happening now. You can’t expect him to joke his way through this.”

  “Listen to me, dammit,” he growled, his own anger surfacing then, surprising her. She had rarely seen Brock angry. “You don’t want Sam like this, Heather. None of us do. It won’t solve anything. It will do nothing but destroy him.”

  Taken aback by the surprising display, Heather could only watch, her eyes narrowed, suspicion beating a warning tattoo within her chest.

  “Or heal him,” she offered quietly. “Why don’t you want Sam upset, Brock? Aren’t you upset? Are you taking this stalker thing without a worry or a shred of anger?”

  His lips thinned, the muscle at the side of his cheek throbbing as he obviously fought his own sense of helpless frustration.

  “Listen to me, Heather. There are things you don’t understand here. Things you don’t want to understand and you sure as hell don’t want Sam thinking about.”

  “And I’m supposed to stop him, how?” She shook her head, spreading her hands out before him as she watched him with angry frustration. “Am I supposed to fuck him to keep him from thinking?”

  “If you have to,” he growled, then more softly. “If you love him, Heather, like I think you do, then whatever it takes should be all that matters.”

  The welling sense of fear rising inside her couldn’t be ignored.

  “What are you not telling me, Brock?” She crossed her arms over her breasts, watching him impatiently, angrily.

  He looked away, and Heather could have sworn she caught a flash of guilt in his gaze.

  “Nothing that would help you,” he finally sighed.

  “Right now, anything would help. Sam doesn’t want me…”

  “That’s bullshit.” His hand sliced through the air impatiently. “Sam wants you until he can’t walk for the hard-on he’s packin’. This has nothing to do with lust, Heather, and everything to do with his feelings toward you.”

  “I can’t make him come to my bed, Brock,” she sighed wearily. “And I’ll be damned if I’ll try.”

  “Heather…”

  “Brock, enough.” The lengthening shadow of Sam’s broad form entered the stable entrance.

  Heather’s head whipped to the side, her eyes widening at the hard, cold edge to Sam’s voice. Brock whipped around, his body suddenly defensive, prepared.

  “Sam.” Brock shook his head again.

  “I don’t need your protection any more than I need Cade’s.” Sam’s voice was low, thick, with a white-hot throb of rage. “Nor do I need you pimping for me.”

  Heather winced. “Takes a whore for a pimp to work, Sam. You’re not just insulting your brother here.”

  His gaze speared toward her, and though she couldn’t see his eyes for the piercing sunlight behind him, she could feel the intensity in them. For a moment she regretted drawing his attention to her.

  “Get serious,” he growled, though the restraint in his voice caused her to wince.

  “We’re worried, Sam…” Brock began.

  “Brock, let it rest…” Heather interrupted him, knowing he would try to smooth the event over, to ease Sam’s anger.

  “Goddammit, I’m not a fucking bone for you two to fight over,” he snarled, moving into the barn. “What do you want, Brock? A nice little
joke, how about another prank? Let’s pretend the world is fine when we fucking know better.”

  Throttled rage, agony, need. They all reflected in his voice. Heather’s heart broke as she watched him and as she glanced at Brock, she knew his was as well. Sam’s expression was dark, his face lined with both his fury and his pain. And Heather had a terrible, wrenching feeling that when it all spewed to the surface, none of them would be left unscathed.

  Brock raked his fingers through his hair as he glanced at her. Heather could only shake her head. She wasn’t about to help him. Sooner or later they would have to realize that Sam no longer needed their protection, all he needed was their support.

  “I’ll leave you two alone.” She headed for the entrance.

  “Fuck that. Who do you think I came back for?” Sam caught her arm as she made to move past him. “You, Heather, not my interfering brother.”

  “Sam.” Brock stepped forward as though in protection.

  Heather watched as Sam’s head whipped around, his expression harsh, defined by the years of pain they had all suffered.

  “You’re upset. You should calm down…”

  The smile that crossed Sam’s face did little to still the nervous tremor that fluttered through Heather’s body.

  “Do you think I would hurt her, Brock?” His voice was silky smooth, but they all heard the undercurrent that ripped beneath it. He was pushing his brother, and Heather wondered why.

  “Would you, Sam?” Brock asked him quietly.

  Sam shook his head. As Heather watched, the anger drained away and bleak sadness replaced it. She could see the sense of betrayal in his expression, his knowledge that for some reason, he wasn’t trusted.

  “I’ve never put so much as a bruise on Marly and Sarah, Brock. Never. Why the hell would you think I would hurt Heather?”

  Chapter Seventeen