The Color of Forever: Book Two: Forever Cowboys Series (20 page)

But tonight, she couldn’t get her brain to shut down its many distractions, mainly centered around Ben Connors, and focus on the book.

It had been dark for a couple of hours and was damp and chilly with a steady rain falling. Deciding that a fire in the fireplace would be nice, Samantha went to the enclosed back porch for wood and remembered that she had used the last of it brought in from the wood shed a few nights ago and hadn’t replenished her supply yet.

Drat! She cursed inwardly but shrugged into the old barn coat of Mari’s hanging by the back door, then slipped her feet into the over sized rubber boots sitting nearby. Grabbing the large flashlight kept on a shelf for emergencies, she braved the rain and headed out to the wood shed, head down to try and avoid getting any wetter than necessary.

Her brain registered seeing a pair of booted feet in front of her, illuminated by the flashlight beam, about the time a hand grabbed her arm and wrenched it painfully.

“Ouch!” she cried, trying to jerk away. She started to shine the light in her assailant’s eyes but it was taken from her forcefully.

“Hey, stop it!” Samantha ordered, fright beginning to give way to anger. “Who are you and what do you want?” It was difficult to see in the torrential downpour that was falling now, but she was able to make out not one, but two, male figures.

“Shut up!” The one holding the flashlight barked the order at her and then grabbed her shoulders and spun her around toward the house. “Get back in the house.” He shoved her roughly, causing her to stumble and almost fall.

“What if there’s somebody in there with her?” the other man asked.

“There’s not, we’ve been watching the house for hours and ain’t nobody come or gone.

Besides, if there was to be somebody else in there it’d be their tough luck. That’s what this pistol on my hip is for.” With that, the man gave an evil chuckle and prodded Samantha to walk faster.

She weighed her chances of making a run for it and hiding somewhere, but knew she wouldn’t get far in the huge boots that were at least 3 sizes too big for her and the heavy jacket that was weighing her down. Were these men the poachers? If so, why were they here?

The man behind her reached around to open the back door, then pushed her roughly across the threshold. “Get in there!”

He grabbed her arm again and half dragged her into the kitchen. The other man followed and they both sat down at the kitchen table. The one who had taken the flashlight and manhandled her snapped out a question in a mean, no nonsense voice. “You got coffee?” Samantha noticed that he appeared to be the one in charge. The other man seemed to be basically following along with whatever this one dictated.

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“Then make us some. Now.”

She moved to the kitchen counter, trying desperately to control her shaking. She didn’t want these men to see how afraid she was of them. As she ground the beans and heated the water to pour into the French press, the leader laughed harshly.

“Would ya look at that, Larry? She’s got a fancy coffee set-up,” he sneered. “She’s a fancy little piece all around, ain’t she? Take that coat off, honey,” he commanded.

Samantha’s blood turned to ice in her veins. She was wearing a thin, oversize tee shirt that she often slept in and that barely covered her bottom, along with a pair of bikini panties. There was no doubt in her mind that these men would rape her and maybe worse … they might even kill her. She swallowed hard and tried to smile engagingly at her captors.

“I’m not dressed for company,” she told them. “Let me just go to my bedroom and get something else to put on and I’ll be right back. I can fix you something to eat,” she went on, almost babbling in her nervousness and terror. “I’ll bet you’re hungry if you’ve been watching my house for hours.”

“Oh, we’ll be going to your bedroom, lady, you can count on that,” the more aggressive man sneered, leering at her. “Now get that coat off.”

Samantha stood there for a long moment, wanting to defy him but afraid of the consequences. If she could stall for time, maybe she could come up with a way to get away from them.

She removed the coat but left the old rubber boots on, hoping the clodhoppers might detract from her appeal to these men. But that wasn’t the case. The one called Larry gulped and openly stared at her, his eyes big and appreciative. The other man’s face wore a calculating grin, his eyes narrowed to slits as he surveyed her critically.

“Well, well, well, ain’t we just hit the jackpot tonight, Larry? Yep, all I wanted for starters was the little lady’s Jeep, but that can wait a while. Nobody’s likely to come calling at this hour anyhow, so we can take our time.”

He licked his lips suggestively and Samantha’s stomach churned in fear. “I’m goin’ first,” he told his partner, who bobbed his head in agreement.

“Okay, Bobby Lee.”

“But we got all night,” the one she now knew was named Bobby Lee went on, addressing Samantha. “So how about we take you up on that kind offer to fix us something to eat?”

She nodded. “Okay. What do you want?”

“Well now, you know what we want, sugar,” he said mockingly. “But we can wait a little while for that. What you got that you can fix us to eat in a hurry? We wanna get to the main event pretty quick, but we’re gonna need a lot of energy for that so go ahead and feed us to keep our strength up.” He laughed wickedly at his own joke.

“I’ve got some roast chicken,” Samantha told him hesitantly. “And vegetables. Potatoes and carrots, some fresh asparagus.”

“That sounds mighty fine,” Bobby Lee said approvingly. “Fix it up, and hurry. I’m anxious to see your bedroom.”

Hands shaking so badly she could hardly carry the food from the refrigerator and fearing that her legs were going to buckle under her, Samantha did as he ordered. Her mind was racing frantically, trying to come up with some feasible plan for escaping the fate these men had in store for her. If only she had some fast acting poison or sleeping medicine she could slip into their food!

She warmed the food and they wolfed it hungrily, washing everything down with coffee. Samantha pressed dessert on them, glad she had made a chocolate pie from one of Consuelo’s recipes yesterday.

“Nah, we don’t need no pie,” Bobby Lee informed her with an unholy gleam in his eyes. “We got dessert all lined up, don’t we Larry?” He cackled, much amused at his idea of wit. “I got an idea you’ll be a whole lot sweeter than any pie.”

She dreaded them finishing eating, but all too soon they had shoved their plates away and slumped back in their chairs. Both men were eyeing her, their intent plain to see on their faces.

The one called Bobby Lee suddenly sat up straight and snapped his fingers. “Hey Larry, I got an idea! Remember those high price dancers we seen on TV that time we stayed at a motel and rented a porn channel? They ain’t got nothin’ on this little hottie.”

He smiled suggestively at Samantha. “Can you dance?”

She attempted to lie, knowing it was an exercise in futility to try and change their minds. “No, not really. I’m … I’m a terrible dancer,” she faltered.

Bobby Lee slapped his knee. “Well just do the best you can do and it’ll be fine, won’t it Larry?”

Larry grinned salaciously. He seemed unable to tear his gaze from Samantha. “Yeah Bobby Lee, any old dance she does will be okay in my book.”

In a way Samantha was relieved because it had occurred to her belatedly that if she had managed to deflect their intentions to make her dance for them, they would probably have moved right on to the main act of the night’s entertainment even faster. Since she was the main act, she much preferred to stall as long as possible. Maybe something would happen to save her or she’d hatch a successful plan to get away from them.

The gun! She had completely forgotten the gun Marielle had loaned her! It was a double barreled shotgun, what Ben called point and click. He had given her lessons in how to use it and it was loaded and ready. The problem was that it wasn’t where she could put her hands on it quickly or easily. It was under her bed. When she had asked earlier to be allowed to go to her room to change clothes, her plan had been to open the window and run like the wind. She hadn’t remembered the gun then, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway since they wouldn’t let her leave the kitchen and get out of their sight.

Her mind was working feverishly, trying to come up with a plan to either get away or get to the gun.

“Come on, honey, move that pretty little ass! We want to see some sexy dancin’, don’t we Larry?”

Larry licked his lips in reply, obviously anticipating her dance … and more.

Samantha moved to the living room, the men right behind her. Bobby Lee was poking her between the shoulder blades with his pistol.

“Don’t you get no bright ideas about tryin’ any funny stuff,” he told her menacingly. “We’re bein’ nice to you so far but we can be real mean and you wouldn’t like that. You wouldn’t like that at all.”

Samantha wondered if raping her wasn’t their idea of meanness and shivered to think that she was at their mercy no matter what they did. Reaching the living room, Bobby Lee holstered his gun again and looked around the room.

“Where’s your radio?” he asked Samantha. “We gonna need some music for you to dance to.”

She swallowed hard, terror almost robbing her of speech. “I don’t have a radio,” she replied. “But I have some music on my phone. I can play that.”

Bobby Lee nodded his approval. “That’ll work. Just don’t try no funny business with that phone, you hear? Cuz I’d see you and nobody could get here quick enough to save you even if you was able to send some kinda signal.”

“I won’t,” she said.

Samantha soon had her phone playing a popular rock song as she was forced to dance for the two men sitting on the couch, watching her intently.

“Come on, now,” Bobby Lee exhorted her. “You can do better than that! Shake your ass and wiggle some. We wanna see some action, right Larry?”

Larry merely nodded, so spellbound by Samantha that he didn’t seem able to tear his eyes away from her. She actually saw a thin stream of drool oozing from his parted lips. Ugh!

She had to think of some way to stop this, to get away from these horrible, repulsive men. They didn’t even qualify as men, she corrected herself. They were animals. But on the other hand, calling these awful men animals was an insult to the animal kingdom.

Suddenly, she heard a vehicle coming up the long driveway and one glance at the men told her they heard it, too. Her heart almost burst from her chest with fear. It was Ben! It had to be Ben, stopping by to bring her up to speed on his search for the poachers. She felt an hysterical urge to giggle, thinking that the search was over because
she
had found them.

The truck stopped, the motor was cut off and they heard footsteps coming up the porch steps. Bobby Lee had already sprung up from the couch at the first noise of the approaching vehicle. He drew the deadly looking pistol again and held to Samantha’s back.

“Who is that?” he hissed into her ear, his voice muted to a bare whisper.

“I don’t know,” she fibbed, hoping that Ben would think she had gone to bed and leave. She was afraid that the men would kill him if they got a chance. They were bound to know that the local game warden was probably aware of their poaching and what it would mean to them if they were caught.

Bobby Lee motioned for Larry to join them about the time she heard Ben’s knock on the front door.

“Larry,” Bobby Lee whispered, “Walk over to that window real quiet like and see if you can figure out who’s come callin’ on our little darlin’ here so late at night.”

Larry obeyed, tiptoeing to the living room window and parting the curtain just a crack to be able to see outside to the driveway. He made his way back to where Larry stood with Samantha as the second knock came at the door.

“It’s that game warden that’s been hound-doggin’ us, Bobby Lee.”

Samantha risked a look at her gun-wielding captor and was even more afraid for Ben when she saw his cruel smile. He seemed pleased, which led her to believe that he meant to kill Ben and of course, her too, once they had finished with her.

“Unlock the door and let him in,” Bobby Lee told her, his voice so low she had to strain to hear his words. She shook her head, mute with fear. He twisted her arm savagely and a gasp escaped her lips.