Anita's Triple Temptation [Men of Montana 4] (Siren Publishing Menage Amour) (35 page)

As she felt herself being pulled backward, she could hear Virgil’s screams right before she felt the blow to her chest. Her breath left her body in a painful blow and darkness began to descend. Fighting it, she struck out with the hand that had been ripped from the shirt she had a hold of and she struck flesh over bone and heard Virgil scream again.

In her mind, she pictured Virgil as a little girl screaming being taunted by a little boy with a snake. Laughter bubbled from her though she couldn’t catch her breath and then everything went dark, her last thought being of James and if he was all right.

Darkness surrounded James as much as the cold did. He stirred against the wall the where the bitter bite of cold air came in through the cracks. The one spot on his leg that had been warm before was now frozen, the life fluid that had escaped now an icy gel around the wound.

To say he wasn’t frightened was an understatement. After Anita had essentially lost her mind, James tried to grab her again but then Virgil pulled the trigger on the shotgun after she hit it with her body. The blast hit his thigh, driving the small bearings through his jeans and into the flesh.

He fought to stay on his feet as he watched in shock as his woman physically attacked the man threatening her, her children, and him. If it wasn’t for the danger they were in, he would have been extremely proud of his little tigress as she fought for everything that was important to her.

She had grabbed onto the bastard, digging her nails into his face and held on. Blood spurted from Virgil’s face as he tried to disengage her from him, but was unsuccessful. Jeremy had to grab Anita and when he did, she had pulled a chunk of flesh from the man’s cheek leaving a ghastly bloodied hole where skin had been moments before, but when this happened, Virgil had instinctively struck out, hitting Anita in the chest.

A loud “Oof” sounded from her as the breath was knocked from her lungs. James knew she was going to pass out and yet she had a moment to laugh hysterically before unconsciousness overtook her. Her body slumped over against Jeremy’s arm as he continued to hold her.

In the wild seconds after Anita had lost it, James was going to try to intercept her from her attack on Virgil but through the screams of a desperate woman, he also heard the two men behind him tell him not to move. Unaware they were there, fear rushed through him knowing if he moved they could possibly miss and hit Anita. Instead, the danger had come from in front of him.

When Anita’s screams had ceased and Virgil was holding his bleeding cheek, or what was left of it, blubbering like a baby, Sean and Gene had come up behind James and he felt the double barrels of both shotguns in his back.

“You all will die if you hurt her,” he threatened before the world went black.

One of the two idiots behind him must have knocked him out for when he came to he was in a dark shack, or at least that’s what he thought it was. The surprising thing was he wasn’t alone.

He had been awake for a little while. Since there wasn’t any light to see his watch, he wasn’t able to see the time. Then a movement a few feet away from him startled him. Thinking it was an animal smelling the blood, he stilled himself, waiting for the impending doom. When it didn’t come and there wasn’t another sound, he relaxed. That lasted for a while longer when the sound came again.

It was a scraping sound along with what sounded like a muffled moan. Was it possible Anita was in here with him?

“Anita?” he called out.

The moan repeated itself so he moved through the pain toward it. His hands were numb from the cold and his leg hurt like hell but he had to find out who was with him.

Moving slowly, he inched his way over to the moaning that was now turning frantic and louder. Since he was crab-crawling his foot struck what felt like a leg first. “Anita?” he said again. “Is that you?”

What sounded like a “huh-uh” sounded from the other person, but he was certain it was a woman. Turning his body around so that his body was closer to the person instead of his legs, he shook his hands to try to get some feeling into them. He reached out to touch the unknown.

The leg was feminine under what felt like polyester pants. A sigh of relief escaped him that it wasn’t Anita but at the moment, he had to hope the woman before him could help him get out so he could find his woman.

The woman’s leg began kicking out at his touch and then he felt the other leg strike him in the arm. “Stop!” he said a bit more loudly than he thought he should but he needed her to quit struggling. “I’m trying to help you.”

She stopped thrashing at his voice but kept trying to talk into whatever was keeping her gagged. James moved closer and ran his hand up the outside of her thigh, up her hip and then higher until he could feel the material covering her mouth. The woman leaned forward, giving him better access to undo the gag which he did.

“Who are you?” she demanded though her teeth were chattering.

“My name is James. What’s yours?”

“Gwen. I’m Mr. Cantrell’s secretary. Can you untie my hands? I can’t feel them anymore.”

He heard her scoot around and felt the material of her parka pass by his hands before he felt icy flesh, wool fingerless gloves, and rope. It took him a while to untie the rope due to his fingers being frozen. As he worked the hemp, he kept thinking about the below freezing temperature and them being stuck someplace he was pretty certain wasn’t near anything close.

Once her hands were free, she pulled her hands to what he assumed was in front of her. Instead, the irritating sound of her parka moving against itself for a few moments before a blue illumination appeared, outlining the woman’s heavily clad body.

“You have a phone?” James asked numbly. The cold was really getting to him along with the loss of blood.

“Yes. Once I overheard Mr. Cantrell and that Jeremy guy plotting, I knew things were going to go south so I hid my phone down my bra,” she said between chattering teeth. “I just didn’t think things would go this far.”

He heard the beeps of her dialing. He hoped there was a cell signal, but didn’t hold much hope.

“Damn, voicemail!” she said, discouraged.

“Here, let me try someone,” he said, holding out his hand.

The blue light came toward him and then landed in his hand. He couldn’t feel the object but tried to push in the numbers he needed to. Holding it up to his ear, he heard the rings and feared there would be no answer.

“Hello?” came the familiar voice on the other end.

“Trey, its James. There’s been an incident up at Cantrell’s. He has Anita and I don’t know what he’s going to do with her. They knocked me out and now I’m in some kind of shack with Virgil’s secretary.”

“You okay?”

James didn’t want to have Trey worry about him, but he knew Gwen had to be taken care of. He knew his friends would come find him but he wanted Anita found and safe. Glancing at Gwen and seeing the fear in her eyes along with the way her lips trembled from the cold, he knew he had to do the right thing.

What sounded like wood scraping on the floor and keys jangling coming from the phone told James that Trey was already on the move. “Leave the call open,” he said as a door slammed behind him and then a shrill whistle and then Trey was back. “We’ll have the phone company try to pull up the GPS off the chip in the phone. We have to hope that we’ll catch Cantrell as he comes off the mountain or at his office.”

“Cantrell is hurt. Anita laid into him and ripped open his cheek so you may want to advise the hospitals. He was bleeding pretty badly,” James explained, trying to keep his voice from shaking with the cold.

“Okay, thanks for that information. We’ll do everything we can to get Anita back safely, man. I can’t say the same about Cantrell,” Trey said with venom in his voice.

James could hear others in the background now reminding him of the day they had to defend Lyndee against the Russians. “Do what you need to do, Trey, but get Anita to safety before me.”

“We’ll do, buddy,” Trey promised. “But you are coming home safe and sound, too.”

“Who’s coming home safe?” James could hear Dave ask, panic already in his voice.

“I’ll leave the line open and hope the battery lasts.”

“Good,” Trey said. “We’re coming to get you and Anita.”

James held the phone up to see what he could see in the shack. It seems as if it was for the workers to take refuge in should inclement weather set in on the mountain, so there were some sleeping bags along with some lanterns and some canned food.

Setting the phone on the floor, James could hear the frantic sounds of his friends moving around to come to the rescue. The light provided enough illumination for James to see what he needed to do.

Unzipping one of the sleeping bags, he helped Gwen climb into it before zipping it back up around her neck. She had a beanie and scarf so she was warmer than he was. He shimmied himself into the other sleeping bag, zipping himself in. He could only pray that Trey found them before he bled out.

* * * *

Garbled voices infiltrated Anita’s consciousness along with the pain. As she listened to what sounded like two men arguing, coherency slowly set in. Trying to move, she found she was tied to a chair, arms behind her and an ankle to each of the front legs. The voice within her head told her to remain still and act as if she was still unconscious so she left her head hanging down and her eyes closed. The question was, why was she tied up to begin with?

A door slammed and the building they were in shook. She remembered that feeling from a while back when she had to go to the office to pick up Craig’s belongings after his death. She knew she was in that office again.

Bile rose in her throat at the thought of being there but for more reasons than just one. She had hoped she would never have to go back and she couldn’t stand to be near Virgil again.

The memories came flooding back to Anita. Virgil and his men had held her and James at gunpoint. Wait! Where was James? Was he in the room with her?

Swallowing the panic that began to rise within Anita, everything came flooding back to her. The threats Virgil had made against her kids and her men, the moment she lost control of her senses and attacked Virgil to…

Oh, God! The gun went off! Was James dead?

“No, he’s not dead, but he soon will be,” Virgil’s dastardly voice sounded from nearby.

Had she really thought out loud?

Tears prickled behind her closed eyelids as she heard movement but was too terrified to look up. She wasn’t going to let Virgil get to her as he had earlier for she had gotten James hurt. Or worse.

A hand touched her shoulder and she jumped at the unexpected contact. “Oh, Anita,” Virgil said softly near her ear. “You are going to get used to my hands being on you, but first, you are going to pay for what you did to my face.”

Vivid visions appeared in her mind’s eye of the carnage she had reaped when she attacked him. She could feel the sticky congealed blood beneath her fingernails, or what was left of them, the memory of the missing part of his face stamped into her brain forever.

He had looked like a zombie or a human in decay after death while blood was streaking down his face from where claw marks of her destruction had dug into his flesh. She had to keep from retching as the picture remained vivid in her head. Or, was it from the touch of the demon?

Virgil’s hand moved up and caressed the side of her neck before moving around to the front of her throat below her jaw. His body was behind hers as she could feel the roughness of the slacks he wore against her hands though she tried to pull her hands away as much as possible in spite of the ropes around her wrists.

The hand at her throat was pressing in on both sides of her larynx. The pressure was uncomfortable, painful but not overly so, yet. His head rested the side of her head, his lips next to her cheek. “Oh, Anita,” he purred. “How I’ve waited for this moment. Everything I have done for the past year has been for you.

Anita tried to remain calm especially when Virgil kissed her cheek. His fingers tightened at her neck as if he was going to tear her throat out and now, the airway was blocked. Trying not to panic, she kept still as long as she could but then her lungs were screaming for air. Black spots were beginning to appear within her vision which was when she began to struggle against her bonds.

Instinctively trying to kick, she pulled against the rope as it cut into her boots. The rope chafed against her wrists as she tried to rub her way free. Just when she thought she was going to pass out from lack of oxygen, Virgil let go, his hand pulling away from her throat.

Drawing in large amounts of air, Anita tried to calm herself again. She couldn’t believe this man was so vile, so vicious. What had she done to him that he would want to hurt her? He said everything he had done in the past year he had done for her. Finally, the truth dawned on her.

“You did kill Craig, didn’t you?”

Virgil moved out from behind her and sat on the corner of his desk which was about three feet away from her. Anita looked up at him and gasped at the damage to his face. She had to admit that the man had been good looking on the outside, but that wasn’t something she looked for. The inner man, the real man, is what was important.