Heart of the Hunter (85 page)

“Abandoned at birth,” Gris went on. “I guess that explains why you’re such a fucked up cunt.”

His hand began to clench into a fist, his strong fingers pressing into her cheeks painfully. She wanted to cry out but she was afraid that would only spur him on.

“That’s why you never settle down, never stay in one place, never commit to one man.”

Elle shook her head. That wasn’t entirely true. “I committed to you,” she whispered, her voice straining through the clenched grip Gris had on her mouth.

“I wish that was true, Elle,” he said shaking his head.

Gris was a large man. He could bench press three hundred pounds easily, as he was fond of boasting. When he needed extra money, he’d take on a prize fight, and he usually won. He had muscles like an ox.

He brought his fist down forcefully on the floorboards next to Elle’s leg. She flinched in fright.

“You always had one foot out the door, Elle. You always had your eye on the exit. Don’t think I didn’t feel that. You never let me in, not really. You have a wall built up around you like a fortress.”

Elle would have laughed if she wasn’t so frightened. Why did he think she had her guard up? Why did he think she didn’t trust him? He was a violent son of a bitch with the mean streak of a sadist. If she ever let her guard down, he’d destroy her.

She looked up at Gris and felt something snap inside her. Everyone had their limit, everyone had the point at which they couldn’t take it anymore, and Elle had just reached hers. She rose up on her knees and faced him. He stared back at her, and was surprised at the strength he saw in her determined eyes.

That’s right, Gris. I’m not as weak as I let you believe. Beneath the surface, I’ve got a hidden reserve of strength I never showed you. I’m so much more than you think I am.

Elle pushed herself up from the ground, intensely aware of Gris’s eyes on her.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

She let out a little laugh. She didn’t feel like laughing, the nerves in her stomach still made her feel like throwing up, but she had to let him know that she was taking back control of her life.

“You were right about me, Gris. I did hold back. I never let you in. You never knew the real me.”

“What the fuck?” he said.

“And another thing. For the last three years, every orgasm you think you gave me, was a fake.”

Before he could react, she turned to leave. She didn’t think of packing her things. She didn’t even grab a coat. Her purse was by the door and she grabbed it. Her phone wasn’t in it, but her wallet was. Gris would empty the joint checking account before she was out of the county but she didn’t want his money. She had a little cash, her driver’s license, and the key to her trusty Ford. She didn’t need anything more than that. Not yet.

As she walked out the door, she resisted the urge to look back, to get one final view of the man who’d dominated her existence for the last three years. She’d seen enough of Gris Black to last her a lifetime, and her only hope was that she never saw him again. She was done with him. He hadn’t been wrong about everything, he knew her more deeply than she cared to admit, but he’d abused her, and that was unforgivable.

She reached her car, climbed in and turned the ignition. Gris appeared at the front door. Elle smiled at him. She was happy, genuinely happy. For the first time in years she was taking back the reins of her life.

She revved the engine. Gris’s pride and joy, his custom Camaro, was parked right in front of her wreck of a car. She took the time to look up at him and watch the expression on his face change as he realized what she was about to do. Then she slammed her car into drive and smashed the solid steel of her battered Ford into the pristine, delicate metal of the Camaro. The back of Gris’s car crumpled as if it was made of paper. Apart from a few new scratches and dents on her already scratched and dented beater, Elle’s car was none the worse off.

Gris was so furious he couldn’t move. He looked like he could hardly breathe. Elle backed up a little and was about to pull out of the driveway. She looked at Gris one last time, and he did what he’d always done best, he threatened her. Silently, he ran his finger over his neck, showing her what he’d do to her when he got his chance. Elle knew she should get out of there. She should have put her car in Drive and put her foot on it. But she couldn’t resist.

She revved again and then lurched her car a second time into the back of the Camaro. This time she hit it so forcefully that the entire vehicle pushed forward and crashed into the closed garage door of the house, ruining the front.

Elle wasn’t a particularly reckless person. She wasn’t an adrenaline addict. She didn’t relish being so close to a man who might literally kill her. She turned to look at him, and he was still just standing there at the door, dumbfounded, his jaw wide open.

Elle caught his eye, and in a moment that she would look back on for the rest of her life with relish, she winked at him. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

And then she pulled out of the driveway and got the hell out of there.

She’d never come back. She swore it. This time, she’d leave Gris behind for good.

Chapter 2

Forrester

F
ORRESTER WAS SIPPING COFFEE AT
the kitchen counter when Faith and Lacey entered, each carrying a beautiful baby girl. His eyes lit up as he saw the babies approaching.

“Say hello to uncle Forrester,” Lacey said to her little daughter, before mimicking the words, “hello, uncle Forrester,” in a mock baby voice.

“Hello, little angel,” Forrester said, reaching down and taking Lacey and Grant’s baby into his arms. Then, greedily, he grabbed Faith and Jackson’s daughter with his free hand, and had the two babies cradled, one in each arm. He looked like someone’s version of a joke nanny, muscles, tattoos, a tight, white t-shirt, and two beautiful, innocent babies in his arms.

“They suit you,” Faith said.

“They really do, Forrester,” Lacey agreed.

“Hold on, hold on,” Forrester said, grinning and shaking his head. “I need a good woman before I can even think about getting one of these for myself.”

Faith nodded. “And how’s that going? You haven’t been on a date in years.”

“Ever, as far as I can remember,” Lacey said.

Instead of answering, Forrester made faces at the babies. It was true, he hadn’t dated in a long time, although he didn’t exactly have a hard time finding a woman to share his bed. He just always made sure the relationship was over before it had a chance to get started. He liked women to be close physically, but he made damned sure to keep them at a distance emotionally.

“Don’t get on to me about that,” he said. “Just let me enjoy these two little beauties.”

He raised his arms, bringing the baby girls’ faces up to his own, and then he kissed them both in turn, making playful sounds as he did. Despite being so young and tiny, they both managed to laugh.

Faith and Lacey already knew he’d be their favorite uncle. He was a natural with them. To the women, it was so obvious that Forrester loved children. He’d make a perfect father. He just had
commitment issues.
It was a common affliction for men of his type. He lived dangerously, he made and spent huge amounts of money without batting an eye, and he was never far from a fight or a bar. He wasn’t an angry man, nor was he aggressive, but he had a habit of getting into trouble. He had a quick tongue, a hot head, and a sense of humor that got him in more trouble than he really deserved.

“A very nice girl just started working for us at the wine shop,” Faith said, but Forrester was already shaking his head.

“I don’t even want to know her name, Faith.”

“You’ve got to meet someone,” Lacey said. “You just turned thirty. If you wait much longer you won’t be an eligible bachelor, you’ll be an old fart that doesn’t have a woman. There’s a big difference, believe me.”

Forrester laughed. “Is that how it is?”

“Trust us,” Faith said. “Women are very discerning. They know what they like, Forrester. Right now, you’re exactly what they like. You’re the perfect age, you’re rich.”

“You’re hot as hell,” Lacey added.

Forrester smiled at them cheekily. “Don’t forget that I’m hung like a horse.”

Faith rolled her eyes. “But you wait much longer, and the women, the smart ones, will start to wonder why you weren’t snapped up by anyone else.”

“They’ll think there’s something wrong with you, Forrester.”

Forrester handed the babies back to their mothers. He would have liked to spend the entire morning with them but he had things that needed to get done. He’d promised Grant and Jackson that he’d help out on the vineyard, and afterwards he had a job to plan with Grady.

“Listen,” he said, looking Faith and Lacey in the eye, “I’m not sure what I’m looking for in this world, but when I find her, I’ll know it.”

The women each kissed him on the cheek.

“He’s a romantic,” Lacey said.

“He’s a fool,” Faith added.

Forrester took another sip of his coffee and picked up the mail, checking to see if there was anything for him.

“I almost forgot,” Lacey said, “there’s a letter there for you.”

Forrester nodded as he found it. It wasn’t the usual junk mail from his cell phone provider or bank. The name and address were handwritten. He lifted it up to the light to better see the postmark.

“What is it?” Faith said.

“It’s from Montana.”

They both went silent. They didn’t need to know any more than that to know it would be something serious. In the existence that had formed itself into Forrester’s life, and in all the years that both Lacey and Faith had known him, they knew that nothing good ever came to him from the great state of Montana. For Forrester, Montana only ever meant bad news, and bad memories.

“What is it?” Faith said.

“Let me open it,” Lacey added, handing her daughter to Faith.

Forrester let out a small grunt, barely audible, but Lacey and Faith both heard it as if it was a scream from the bottom of his lungs.

“Sit down,” Lacey told him as she took the letter and ripped open the envelope with a knife.

Faith poured him some more coffee.

“Do you want me to read it?” Lacey said.

Forrester nodded. “Thank you,” he said, and even though he was only a few years younger than her, he reminded her then of the boy who’d been brought to the mansion by her father from a Montana juvenile detention center many years earlier.

She scanned the words of the letter as if searching it for hidden traps. She knew there was nothing that could hurt Forrester as deeply as the things that came to him periodically from Montana.

“It’s from your father’s lawyer,” Lacey said.

Forrester shut his eyes and waited for her to continue.

“He’s dead.”

Forrester didn’t say anything to that. The man was old and he’d no doubt prepared himself for that piece of news some time ago.

“The lawyer wants you to return to Stone Peak to settle the estate. It says the funeral is to be held tomorrow at the Good News Cemetery.”

“Good News?” was all Forrester said, and he got up from his seat and left the kitchen.

The two women looked at each other, and then hurried after him.

“Forrester,” Lacey said, and Faith had no difficulty detecting the stress in her voice. Lacey had known Forrester since he was a teenager, in fact, they both had, and they looked at him as if he was their younger brother. They would both do anything in their power to protect him from that sort of pain.

They climbed the sweeping staircase to the upper level of the mansion and found Forrester in his room, hurriedly packing a leather overnight bag with a few things, underwear, a clean shirt, a razor, soap and deodorant.

“You don’t have to go back,” Lacey said.

“You owe that man and that town nothing,” Faith added. “That’s what they gave you, and that’s what you’d be entitled to give them back in return.”

“I know,” Forrester said, gratitude and love in his eyes as he looked at them, “but it’s like you both said earlier. It’s past time I became a man. It’s time I stepped up to the plate. If I wait any longer, I won’t be a hot-headed bad boy with a troubled childhood, I’ll be a man who failed to face his past.”

“It was a little bit more than a troubled childhood,” Lacey said.

“That don’t make any difference,” Forrester said. “A man’s got to face his past. He’s got to face his demons. If he doesn’t, he’s no man at all.”

Chapter 3

Elle

E
LLE WAS LOW ON GAS,
low on food, and freezing her butt off when she saw the turn off that led into the mountains and the remote town of Stone Peak, Montana. She’d never heard of the place, she’d been driving all day, and hadn’t even ever been to Montana before, but something about the name of the town attracted her. It was twenty-five miles from the highway, and the road looked like it wound precariously through dense forest, high up into the icy peaks of the mountains. The route wasn’t her best bet. It was covered in snow and she lacked winter tires. The way would get progressively more frigid and treacherous as she ascended into the mountains, and there was something seriously wrong with the heater on her battered old car. Maybe she’d damaged it when she rammed the Camaro. If she had, it was worth it.

She looked at her gas gauge. Less than a quarter tank left. She’d make it. She had to.

Another town, another life, she thought to herself as she rounded the dangerous bends leading ever higher into the Rockies. She was only twenty-three and she’d already lost count of all the towns she’d lived in. The last stop, the three year stint she’d done with Gris, had been the longest of her life. She wondered apprehensively what this next town would have in store for her. Would it be the place that offered her a lasting refuge? Would it be the place she could finally settle down in for good? Would it be a home to her?

She shook her head. Now was not the time for sentimentality. She had less than a hundred dollars in her wallet, a few bank cards that had probably already been cancelled, and not a person in the world she could turn to. She was alone.