Protector (Doms of Mountain Bend #1) - B.J. Wane Page 0,43

add to his reasons for making sure he was the only one to reap the benefits of his father’s labors.

If a young woman had to lose her life for him to keep what was rightfully his in the first place, so be it. His father had raised him to be a ruthless businessman; it wasn’t his fault the callous heartlessness Frank had instilled in him extended to beyond business dealings.

Bruce waited until he reached Idaho and got settled into a motel outside of Boise, about twenty-five miles from Mountain Bend where Halldor purportedly resided, to make his plans. He’d told his father he was leaving on a short business trip, but that he had people still looking for his daughter. Frank hadn’t been happy, but then, that was nothing new. He’d been impossible to live with, a changed man since recovering from his massive heart attack. Halldor’s sudden disappearance hadn’t improved Frank’s, or Bruce’s disposition for that matter, and he decided she needed to pay for the extra grief she’d caused him.

He would let her live a little longer for the payback fun of watching her squirm in fear. As he unpacked and climbed into the lumpy, uncomfortable bed and listened to the traffic outside the window, he added the necessity of staying in such a place to his list of grievances against her.

****

Temporary, lust-induced insanity. That’s the only excuse I can come up with. Lisa gripped the steering wheel as she turned off the main road and drove between the brick entrance posts to Shawn’s property Saturday morning, asking herself what the heck had gotten into her. She didn’t need the angst of spending more time with the man she kept obsessing over. Hadn’t tormenting herself last night by imagining Master Shawn at his club with another willing submissive been enough self-abuse and misery to put herself through? She’d enjoyed his surprise visit the other night way too much for her peace of mind. Add in the prickling jealousy still cramping her abdomen and her hopes of returning home unscathed from meeting her one-time protector were shot to hell.

“A bad case of the hots and curiosity, that’s all that’s going on,” she muttered as she drank in the picturesque vista spread out before her.

Ranging cattle herds dotted the vast acreage of wild prairie land, and, if she wasn’t mistaken, a few shaggy-haired, lumbering bison. A shimmering small lake offered water, with the ponderosa and lodgepole pines providing ample shade. She could catch the scent of pine on the light breeze coming in her rolled down window as she took in the snow-capped mountains looming skyward in the background.

Following Shawn’s instructions, she veered left and took the smooth dirt road to the log house he had described. Parking in the circle drive, she got out and admired the well-kept lawn and shrubs. From the pointers he’d given her on mowing, she suspected he took care of his own grass despite his busy schedule. How he kept up with his jobs as a deputy sheriff, part owner of this ranch, and now invested in a private club, she couldn’t begin to guess.

Lisa stood outside enjoying the sun on her face and the faint lowing of cattle reaching her ears, pondering how long she could procrastinate before letting Shawn know she was here, and how she could keep herself from wanting more from him than a day spent as casual acquaintances. Then he stepped out onto the front porch, and her heart executed a slow roll again, that funny feeling that hinted it wasn’t just her body craving more from the deputy sheriff slash rancher.

Screw it, she thought, eyeing his tall frame, broad shoulders, and rugged face, a curl of arousal settling low in her abdomen. She wanted this day with him, a few hours free of worrying about a crazy person stalking her, to enjoy his company without the secret of their first encounter standing between them.

Shawn came down the steps, his loose-limbed stride revealing the strength of his quad muscles contracting under the tight denim, the black belt cinched around his slim hips conjuring up new fantasies she’d never contemplated before. Looking up at his chiseled, tanned face, beard-shadowed jaw, and into the suggestive purpose in his potent, gunmetal gaze nearly stripped away the last of her defenses.

“Have any trouble finding your way here?” he asked, grasping her hand.

Lisa wished she didn’t like that sign of possessiveness or the tight clasp of his much larger hand engulfing her smaller one