Springer, Jan - Be My Dream Tonight [The Desperadoes 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (4 page)

She turned around to tell C.J. just that, but her mouth dropped open in a silent gasp. Anxiety slithered through her, and her tummy hollowed out as if she were on a runaway elevator.

C.J. was gone.

And Eve was alone.

* * * *

The jagged edge of fear cleaved through Eve Wright as she urged her horse to run faster. Through the looming twilight, she strained her eyes to look for familiar landmarks, and each time she found one, her panic increased. Yes, she’d been here before. But were the men she was looking for here?

Please, be here. Please. I’ll do anything they want as long as they’re here.

She’d spent the entire day following the river, plodding through melting snow and slick, muddy, swampy areas before finally ascending the rocky incline about an hour ago. It was as if she were on automatic now, following her instincts that this place, this scenic mountain, had been something special to her.

There
was
something familiar about this place, she realized as she continued to urge the horse to move faster. She could remember the fresh, crisp scent of the cold air that drifted from a glacier nestled on the other side of this mountain. The raw April mountain wind tore at her shoulder-length, golden-brown hair and chilled her face and her gloved hands. Ever since her memories had started to return weeks ago, she and C.J. had been riding and looking for the men who Eve hoped would help her remember more.

Now, as she rode the horse along the rocky crevices onto a path that ran right along at the edge of the mountain, tiredness clawed at her senses, urging her to sleep, and she literally had to force herself to keep her eyes open because she knew she needed to keep moving or she could freeze to death tonight.

The late evening shadows grew denser, and her horse began to slow as the green glow of the aurora borealis flickered in the night sky. Ordinarily, she would appreciate the assist from the lights. Unfortunately, her horse didn’t. Snowball had never gotten used to the steady nightly visits of the lights, and now she nickered nervously and slowed even more.

Eve’s dread rose, and her hands tightened on the reins as the snow-white horse suddenly began to prance dangerously close to the edge of the mountain. A sudden thought slashed through her brain, and she knew that before the Catastrophe, her photographer eye would have appreciated the spectacular view of the plunging five-thousand-foot valley below. She would have been snapping scenic shots left, right, and center of the towering black pines, the array of gray boulders, and the jagged snow-covered mountains reaching to the sky on both sides of her.

C.J. had filled her in about the solar flares during her memory loss. About how they that had disintegrated quite a bit of the world’s population and taken out the world’s electrical grids, putting pretty much all forms of transportation and anything modern out of commission and tossing the world into the dark ages.

Eve had been glad she couldn’t remember that. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to, and that’s why she’d had amnesia? But flickers of her past were also returning, and along with it came the pain of loss. Her family was dead. Her two younger brothers and younger sister and mom and dad. She’d gone home, looking for them, but she’d only found piles of ash on the seats at the dining room table where they’d been eating. All of her friends were gone, too. She’d also remembered that the Catastrophe had destroyed virtually every decent camera on the planet, and she’d been put out of business as a professional photographer literally from one second to the next.

Eve inhaled the cold air, and once again fear slammed into her at the thought the guys she was looking for may no longer be using this place. She wouldn’t blame them. Especially since they didn’t know what she’d told her captors about them almost two years ago. Heck, she still didn’t remember much herself about if she’d told them about the Durango Gang’s several hideouts, because her time in captivity was pretty much a blur since receiving a head injury that had caused her amnesia.

Eve shook away the uneasiness every time she tried to remember what might have happened to her back then. Maybe she didn’t want to remember? Maybe something horrible had happened to her and she shouldn’t dare revisit that time in her life?

Maybe she should just forget about looking for the Durango Gang and go back to her life now? Back to her friend, C.J., the woman who’d helped her escape her captors.

She should forget about the flashes of memories that intoxicated her. The erotic sounds of skin slapping against skin. Men’s sensual groans and her carnal whimpers. The exquisite sensations of a cock sliding into her ass and another plunging into her vagina. At the same time!

The pleasure and happiness and love shifting through her mind and body every time she experienced one of those flashbacks made her so hot and so insanely needy for sex that she craved to experience those seemingly intoxicating ménages again. She wanted to fully remember the three men that now haunted her dreams and her memories. Wanted them to make love to her.

Yes, she had to be crazy coming here. Desperate was more like it. But the overwhelming, heated way she felt now just thinking about the three men made her realize why they’d wanted her back so badly the last time she’d seen them almost two years ago.

The unexpected encounter with them had happened shortly after her escape from her kidnappers and her memory loss. She and C.J. had been purchasing much-needed supplies in the lawless
Hell
City
. Eve had been standing outside a store, guarding their horses.

The three tall strangers had come out of nowhere. They’d been so happy to see her that their tight, desperate embraces had frightened her into screaming and fighting them off. Upon discovering she didn’t know who they were, rage and disbelief had flared across their faces.

Back then, she hadn’t wanted to go with them when they’d said she belonged with them.

She’d been hysterical when they’d tried to physically take her away. C.J. had heard her screams from the store, and she’d come to her rescue. She’d produced a rifle and warned the men to back off. Thankfully, they had, because Eve knew C.J. was capable of killing. And she would have killed all three men to protect Eve.

So, she’d gone with C.J. Hidden with her in the mountains. Learned to live off the land with her and accepted the fact she may not ever remember her past. That is, until the erotic flashbacks and feelings of losing something very special started happening. She bit back a whimper and hunched her shoulders as another blast of frigid air roared around her.

Suddenly, a shadowy figure stepped out onto the trail right in front of her, making her horse stop short. If she hadn’t grabbed the saddle pommel, she would have flown right over the horse’s head. For a split second her knee-jerk reaction had her going for the rifle in her scabbard. She knew she could take him out. She was
that
good with a weapon now. But she eased off in her attack.

The man stood there, leisurely cradling a shotgun in the crook of his right arm, seemingly unafraid of her arrival. Instinctively, she knew beneath his calm exterior lay a man who could be lightning fast with a gun and just as deadly if someone crossed him. He was dressed from head to toe in patchwork coat and pants made from grizzly bear hides. The top of his head was covered by a fur beaver hat, his face concealed behind a black scarf. He looked scary. Despite his features being hidden though, she almost fell off the horse again as unexplained relief swept over her in one violent wave.

Suddenly she recognized him, and his name flew right into her memory. Maddox Burns. One of the three men who haunted her flashbacks. Eve swallowed against the wave of fever heat that unexpectedly rushed through her body. For a split second, she regretted coming here. What if they decided they didn’t want to help her? What if they told her to go away and never come back?

She flinched as he reached out and grabbed the reins of the skittish horse.

“Easy, girl. You’ll be okay,” he said softly, and Eve wondered if maybe he was talking to her instead of the horse.

Snowball quieted immediately, and Eve couldn’t help but smile as she stared down at the man. Her relief began to grow again. Yes, she’d come to the right place.

“You still have the magic touch, Mad,” she commented, and then blinked in surprise at not knowing where that comment had come from. A flash of memory slashed through her, and she envisioned him speaking in low murmurs to frightened horses, who were immediately soothed. She remembered telling him on more than one occasion that he had the magic touch while his hands made love to her body.

Oh my goodness
. Suddenly she was feeling way too hot.

Her cheeks heated.

He’d visibly tensed and frowned at her remark, and she immediately regretted saying it.

“The women seem to think so,” he said slowly as he watched her with intense curiosity.

It was Eve’s turn to stiffen. His remark about other women sent a spear of something she could only recognize as jealousy through her. She didn’t have any claims on this man or the other two, for that matter. They would all have gone on with their lives since she’d lost her memory of them. They wouldn’t have waited around for her. Not after the way she’d refused to see them again and allowed C.J. to back it up by pointing a rifle at them.

Despite her pushing them away all that time ago, it now hurt somewhere deep inside of her knowing they were with other women and that they’d gone on without her.

“What brings you here, Eve? The last time we saw you, you said you never wanted to see us again.” If there was happiness or surprise for seeing her after all this time, it didn’t show in his voice, which sounded as cold as the icy
Rocky
Mountain
winds.

“I need your help. I want to remember everything about our relationship.”

* * * *

“What we need is a warm woman so we won’t have to keep doing this.” Riley Raine chuckled as Kayne
Durango
’s axe blade split the log he’d been chopping cleanly in half.

Kayne said nothing as he watched his friend pick up the two pieces and hurl them onto the nearby crackling fire. Hell, what could he say? He’d run out of excuses for them not to go into town and pick up a pleasure girl or pleasure girls to bring back to their hideout. To go and get a woman who was willing to have sex with them for the money.

He grimaced. That kind of woman wasn’t for him. He just wanted the one that had literally forgotten them. The one who wanted nothing to do with them. He wanted Eve.

Riley set another log onto the chopping block, and Kayne lifted the axe, a sudden burst of anger slamming into him at the thought of what had happened to her. He brought the axe down with a mighty force, and the sound of it cracked through the air like a gunshot. The log snapped in half, the pieces flying a few feet off to the sides, one chunk narrowly missing Riley’s shin. Thankfully, he managed to jump out of the way, tossing Kayne a pissed-off scowl at the close call. Then he set another log on the block.

The guy had balls. Kayne chuckled to himself. If he himself knew someone was wielding an axe and pissed off about an ex-bed partner, he’d be staying totally out of the way.

Up above them, the sky glowed with an eerie greenness, and all around him he could hear the sharp wind slice into the jagged rocks that surrounded their little clearing nestled behind a stand of towering pine trees. They were hiding on a plateau on a mountainside, and from the sounds of the howling wind, he knew it would be another cold one tonight. Correct that. Colder than usual.

He didn’t know why he’d insisted they come here to their summer hideout earlier than usual. There had been something deep inside of him that had missed this place. Eve and he had made love only a quarter of a mile down the mountainside from here. It had been their last time together. Had he known she’d be kidnapped and lose her memory of them, he’d never have gone after those goddamn gold bars, which, it turned out hadn’t been in the fucking bank after all.

An icy chill scrambled through him at the memory of that morning of the bank job. They’d gotten into the bank and hadn’t found anything in the vault that Riley had managed to unlock. When they’d come back out and headed into the alley behind the bank, their horses had been there. Eve was gone. Even to this day, his gut hollowed out in a sick feeling at realizing she’d been taken.

He shivered at the disturbing memory and tugged his jacket collar up around his neck. He wished he could be more like Maddox and wear animal skins. But Kayne wasn’t a hunter. Didn’t like killing animals or wearing them. He preferred to freeze his ass off in human clothing. At least that way he could pretend he wasn’t sinking into the Neanderthal, ice-age world that had once existed many years ago on Earth, and which, compliments of the Catastrophe, seemed to be happening again.

“Rider coming in with Maddox,” Riley whispered, and for a moment Kayne thought he’d heard wrong. But then he saw the gun suddenly appear in Riley’s hand and knew he hadn’t. He palmed his own gun, twisting around, readying for a gunfight.

His eyes widened in shock as he saw the hunched figure riding a white horse. He recognized her immediately, and the weirdest happiness cracked through his frozen exterior, warming his insides like they’d never been warmed before.

Eve. She’d come back.

She was dressed for the cold mountain weather, wearing layers of clothing, as well as thick woolen leggings, slouch socks, and what appeared to be moccasins. She looked like an American Indian woman. Healthy and curvy and very pretty.