Operation Mustang [The Service Club 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More) (9 page)

“I’m not sure he’s out of the woods yet. I left Lucky watching over him.” It had pained her to walk away. She had wanted to stay herself, to be there when the colt regained his alertness. Living on a ranch her whole life had taught her about horses, but she was woman enough to admit Lucky knew far more when it came to what ailed them.

“Best thing you coulda done.”

Mustang nodded her thanks, the only indication she gave of how much his approval meant to her. “Did you see anyone this morning going in or coming out of that barn?” She shot a look Thomas’s way. He’d stopped a few feet from them and kneeled, resting his forearms on his knees as he watched them. “Did either of you see anyone?”

Chester rubbed the back of his neck. His eyes narrowed as he gave her question a moment’s thought. “Naw,” he finally drawled. “Didn’t see a soul.”

“I saw Lucky comin’ and goin’ just after sunrise,” Thomas volunteered, plucking a blade of grass from the ground by his boot. “Didn’t think nothin’ of it, though, what with the new colt and all. I just figured he’d be in there checkin’ up on it.”

“You figured right, which means whoever went in there did it between the time Lucky came out and I went in.”

“Had to have been shortly before you went in,” Chester commented. “Usually don’t take more than twenty minutes for a sedative to kick in.”

“True.” Mustang nodded. “But the effects of a normal dose can last for one or two hours with residual signs long after that. That colt wasn’t given a normal dose, Chester.”

“Fair enough,” Chester conceded. He moved a half step, turned and spat on the ground before facing her again. “You thinkin’ it was one of my hands, ain’t ya?”

Mustang sighed. “I don’t want to think it. Every man we have working for us has been with us for a number of years.”

“Everyone except Diek,” Thomas pointed out.

Mustang slid him an incredulous look. “Really, Thomas? Diek wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“I’m not saying it was Diek,” Thomas said quickly. “He might be a trained killer, but I can’t see the man doing that to that colt any more than you can.”

“He’s a trained protector,” Mustang corrected. “He’s a solider taught to defend our country by whatever means necessary, not to tranquilize an innocent horse for no flipping reason.”

“Come on, Hot Rod,” Thomas said as he straightened, sounding every bit like the little boy she grew up with. “Don’t get so defensive. I’ve known that man just as long as you. Like I said, I’d never believe he’d do such a thing either. I was just statin’ a fact.”

“What else happened since last night?”

Mustang turned her attention back to Chester. “Someone was in my bedroom last night.” She kept her expression blank, her tone neutral.

“What?” Thomas closed the distance between himself and the front of the truck in four quick strides.

Mustang glanced at him. The little boy had morphed instantly into the protective surrogate brother.

“Who?” Chester asked.

“Well, if I knew that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Were you hurt? What happened? How do you know?” Thomas fired off questions, his eyes blazing.

With his red hair, freckles, and fair complexion despite countless hours of working in the sun, he’d always reminded Mustang of John-Boy Walton. They’d even kidded about it growing up when he and Chester stayed in the main house for many years before relocating to the cabin her father and Chester built on the backside of the Circle M.

She shook her head. “I wasn’t hurt.” She hesitated, not knowing how to answer his other two questions without telling all. “And how I know is irrelevant. Whoever it was got past all three of the Rylon brothers without any of them hearing a sound.”

“They stayed in the main house last night?” Chester asked evenly.

Mustang locked gazes with him and saw a world of knowledge and understanding in his eyes. “They each took a guest room.”

Intrigue and what might have been a trace of disappointment moved through Chester’s expression. Did he think her strong enough to resist them in her bed when they planted themselves in her house? Maybe she hadn’t revealed as much as she feared, seeing as how they hadn’t stayed in her room.

“How do you know it wasn’t one of them?” Thomas asked.

“Because they told me it wasn’t.”

Thomas made a disgusted sound. “And you believed them?”

“Yeah, I believed them.” Mustang couldn’t hide the sarcasm in her tone. “Why in hell wouldn’t I?”

“Those men have a reputation in this town.”

“And a damn good one, too.”

“Not when it comes to that club they’re in,” Thomas argued. “Fuck, Mustang. They could’ve let any one of those perverts they call friends into your room last night.”

“Watch your language, boy,” Chester reprimanded him.

“They wouldn’t do that.” A sliver of doubt stabbed into the certainty she felt. Would they? No, she was almost positive of it, at least not without telling her. They would have wanted her to know, would have used it as a way to heighten her arousal.

“Wouldn’t they?” Thomas pushed. “We haven’t had a minute’s trouble on this ranch in years. Diek and Gunner are here less than twenty-four hours, and already you’re being defiled and your brand-new horse is nearly killed. Tell me it ain’t connected somehow.”

“Fine, it isn’t connected.” But he had her thinking. Could the incidents be linked in some way? Did it have something to do with the Rylon brothers?

The sliver of doubt turned to a familiar dart of fear. She knew of only one way it could be connected, and it had every bit to do with the Service Club.

* * * *

“This is some room you’ve got here.” Justin Bryan tipped back his cowboy hat as he studied Lucky’s living quarters. “I bet Mustang loves it.”

“She will,” Lucky predicted. He propped his elbows on the rail and looked down into the barn. From where he stood, he could see the colt—steadier now after his episode that morning—feeding from Raven. He could see the door leading outside, too, and silently beckoned it to open, for Mustang to come inside even though he didn’t want her present for the conversation they were about to have. “As soon as I get her in here. So far I haven’t managed to get her to look up when she’s in this barn, let alone climb the stairs. She acts like this room is a quarantine cave or something.”

Gunner barked a laugh. “That probably isn’t far from the truth.”

Lucky turned and rested his back against the rail. He couldn’t disagree. He’d claimed the loft over the horse’s stables when he came to work at the Circle M and turned it into a studio apartment. He kept it simple, furnishing it only with a small table, television, minifridge and a superking bed. The accents, as he often thought of them, were where his simplicity ended. He’d made sure he had everything he could want to use to pleasure a woman at his fingertips. He had quarantined passion before his very eyes, and he couldn’t wait to put all his fun toys into play with Mustang.

“Where is she, anyway?” Ben Hoffman stepped to the only window in the room and peered outside. “I saw her truck out front when we pulled up, but no sign of her. Then again, she does tend to keep her distance from us.”

Lucky knew the distance had nothing to do with the fact that Justin and Ben were part of Horn Hill’s finest and everything to do with their membership in the Service Club.

“She’s probably holed up in that office she keeps in the main house.” Diek propped a booted foot on one of the chairs at the table and rested his forearm on his bent knee. “The woman busts her ass on the ranch all day and then buries herself in the office half the night.”

“You won’t change that,” Justin told Diek. “She’s always worked harder than any woman I know. Hell, harder than half the men, too. And she’s been working even harder since her Pa died.”

“We’re not aiming to change that.” Gunner plopped down on the end of the bed and propped his feet on the nearby spanking platform. “She lives and breathes this ranch. Take that away and we might as well slice out a piece of her heart.”

Ben nodded. “Marissa is the same way about her store.”

“How is that doing now that she’s got it back open?”

Marissa Schultz owned a high-end children’s clothing store in town. Several months back, her store had caught fire. Fire investigators determined the cause had been arson. As far as Lucky knew, the police had yet to catch the person who did it.

“Damn good. Real damn good.” Pride rang in Justin’s voice. “She’s got a knack for it, and she’s great with kids.”

“I’m surprised the two of you haven’t gotten her pregnant yet,” Diek commented.

“She wants to wait, wants it to just be the three of us for a while.” Ben shrugged. “Hell, I can’t say I’m ready to share my time with her with a baby yet, anyway.”

“Georgia’s pregnant,” Justin said.

“No shit?” Gunner’s feet fell from the spanking platform to the floor with a thud.

“They told everybody last night at the meeting,” Justin said. “Of course, you three would’ve known that if you’d been there.”

“We ended up with a training mission that took priority,” Diek said.

Justin grinned. “It’s about time you SEALs got your ops straight.”

“Covert operations take lots of planning and skill, man,” Gunner said impishly.

“And it’s worth every minute when you catch the naughty girl in the end,” Justin added.

“You got that right,” Diek agreed. “Did you ever catch the guy who burned Marissa’s store?”

A muscle ticked in Ben’s jaw. “No. We didn’t catch the fucker who showed up naked on her doorstep either.”

“You still thinking her ex was behind it?” Lucky asked Justin, knowing the man had been picking through Richard Schultz’s whereabouts during the times in question.

“Thinking it, yes. Can I prove it? No.”

“Is he the type to go after other women, too?” Lucky had never met Richard Schultz, though he’d heard enough about the man to know he got off on verbally abusing Marissa. He’d made her ashamed of her desires to the point that Ben and Justin had to fight a hard battle to erase what she’d been taught to believe before their relationship truly began.

“I wouldn’t put anything past the bastard,” Justin scoffed. “Why all the questions about Richard?”

“We didn’t call you two out here to chitchat.” Diek straightened and shoved his fingers in his pockets to his knuckles.

Ben nodded once, almost imperceptivity. “I think we both had a feeling you didn’t. I’m getting the vibe this isn’t an official matter, either.”

Lucky thought about that a minute. Breaking and entering was a matter for the law. As far as that went, attempted murder of an animal was, too. “Some might consider it to be, but we didn’t call you out here to file a police report.”

“All right, I’ll bite. Why did you call us out here?” Justin asked.

“We’ve had a bit of trouble on the ranch,” Lucky started, intentionally being vague because he still wasn’t quite sure what to do about it or how it all fit in with his brothers’ suspicions.

Ben visibly stiffened, and Lucky all but saw him switch into cop mode. “Define trouble.”

Diek, apparently being the master at definitions these days, took the lead. Lucky settled against the railing and listened as his brother filled the men in on the events that had occurred since they left Mustang in her room last night.

“Someone was in her bedroom?” Justin pinned Diek with a hard gaze that shifted to Gunner and Lucky when he asked, “You don’t know who? You didn’t hear anything?”

“Not a fucking peep.” Anger simmered in Gunner’s tone. Lucky was pissed about that, too, but no more so than Gunner and Diek. Being SEALs, both former and present, Lucky knew the fact they hadn’t heard anything chipped at their training and everything for which they stood and lived.

“Gunner and I haven’t been around in a while, but we heard word some things had happened to some of the women affiliated with the men in the club.” Diek settled his attention on Justin. “Also heard you had a half a mind to think whoever’s behind all of that was out to get Marissa, too, even though you’d give your left nut to put it on Richard.”

“That bastard is the only fucking suspect I’ve got.”

“It’s personal,” Ben commented. “The strikes have been directly aimed at their reputations, at the things that mean most to them.”

“It’s more than that.” Lucky’s statement drew all attention to him. “Think about the timing. Do you think it’s a coincidence these women were fine, to some degree at least, until something sparked between them and members of the club?”

“Sasha Coleman, Annett Hewitt, Georgia Cooper, Marissa…” Gunner ticked the names off on his fingers.

“And now Mustang.” Justin nodded slowly as understanding and agreement finally took hold.

Diek nodded. “All women associated in some way with men in the club.”

“Now that you gentlemen figured that out, what are you aiming to do about it?”

Mustang topped the stairs leading to Lucky’s loft, and her question died in her throat. In all the years Lucky had lived on the ranch she had never been up here. She had never allowed herself even a peek at the place he called home. Her blood ran cold, then hot as her gaze traveled around the room. The men didn’t scare her even though deep down she knew they sure as hell should. The items she saw sent blades of equal parts fear and acute desire slicing through her very core.