COWBOY ROMANCE: Justin (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 1) (145 page)

***

Raine had barely hit the floor when the front door was slammed hard behind her, the report echoing off the walls and making her ears ring. She slid along the polished surface for a few feet, he had shoved her so hard, then rolled to a stop. Somehow she knew she had screamed and could still hear Celine screaming. The pain in her shoulder, where she had been shoved, and the pain in her knees, where she had fallen, dissipated as she turned to look at the armed man in her hall.

“
Carson!
” she screamed. “Oh, thank God, it’s you.”

His features changed for a split second before twisting back up into a sneer. Raine felt fingers of ice trace up her back as the realization hit her. He wasn’t there to save them. It was him who had broken in!

“Carson what’s...”

“Shut your bitch mouth and you take the frog upstairs.” His voice was calm but dripped with malicious intent, his deep Louisiana accent overlaying every word.

Raine scrambled to her feet, noticing for the first time the huge gun he had trained on her. It looked massive in the bright lights of the hallway, bright silver with a little section of black where it jutted out of Carson’s hand. Although she had never owned a gun herself, Raine had grown up in Texas, so she knew it was a Smith and Wesson revolver and just had time to see it had seven cylinders.

She turned her attention back to Carson, who was still waiting for her to move.

He cocked his head to one side and waved the pistol towards the stairs.

Somehow he had managed to grab Celine’s phone, and her eyes flicked across to her friend, who sat on the bottom step, shaking and sobbing quietly. Although she was scared, Raine managed to keep her head and slowly crossed to take Celine’s arm and gently guide her upstairs. Unfortunately, Carson followed them immediately, so there was no chance of them running. Raine’s mind flicked through the possibilities. She could try and get them into their bathroom, where the granite and marble might protect them from whatever caliber bullets that hand cannon fired. The only problem with that was the door consisted of thin wood and wouldn’t stand up to much force.

There were no weapons in the house. Neither she nor Antony thought they would ever need them. Now, she wished they were the kind of people who had a baseball bat under the bed.

What the hell am I thinking? There’s no way I would take on someone holding a gun with anything, let alone a bat! Think woman, for the love of God.

“In the bedroom,” Carson ordered from behind them, and she steered Celine in that direction, flipping the lights on as she did. “Have yourselves a seat there, ladies,” Carson commanded them, throwing two pairs of shiny handcuffs on the bed. “Put those on, girls, one hand on either side of those poles there.

When they had furnished the bedroom, Raine had begged Antony for a four-poster bed, something she had wanted for years. Needless to say, he was more than happy to oblige her and the large, oak behemoth had been fitted bespoke. Raine clapped the cold steel round her left wrist then did the same with her right, making sure she had the post on her corner in between her arms.

Celine also did as she was told, sniffing now that she had stopped crying.

Once they had both secured themselves, Carson approached and tightened the cuffs, making Raine flinch, as she had left hers as loose as possible, pinching her skin. He then took a seat in the large armchair they had in one corner of the room and sighed deeply as if he had managed to complete a strenuous activity.

Raine took the opportunity to study the man who had been fiercely loyal to Antony, his driver and bodyguard. Weirdest of all was his hair, it had been almost white the last time she had seen him, although he wasn’t particularly old.

He must have dyed it for some reason.

He was also a great deal thinner than before, not that he had been fat, but he had always given off the impression of being bulked with muscle under the slate gray uniform he wore. Now, however, he looked tired and worn, the skin on his face sagging and making hollows in his cheeks. His eyes drooped like half-closed blinds, and he stretched his legs out before him, apparently intending to go to sleep.

Don’t let him sleep, Rainey. Keep him tired and awake, and he might just fuck something up.

“So what’s this all about then, Carson?” she asked him in a tremulous voice.

His eyes opened and swung to fix on her with a hate and pain filled expression. “What’s this all
about?
” he growled. “What’s
this
all about?” He pretended to think, rolling his eyes up and pointing at an imaginary time line, his every action filled with sarcasm. “This is all about getting what’s owed to
me.
This is all payback for what the DuBenses did to
me
. It ain’t about you, or you.” He pointed at Celine. “This is all about me.”

“What did they do?” Raine wondered, trying to keep him talking.

“When your lover-man took himself off to be with you, they snatched me up right quick. Said there was no way I couldn’t have known about his little dealings on the side, and they were gonna punish me for betraying the family. I told them I ’got no idea what their little golden boy done, but they didn’t believe me. Can you get that? So there I was, stuck in a room at Chez DuBesne, armed guards and bars on the door, like I was some kind of prisoner.” He scratched his head. “All because of little Tony.” He pointed at Raine. “And you of course. He was a different fella once he started banging you.”

“We tried to find you,” Raine said, flinching when Carson trained the revolver on her.

“Don’t lie to
me
, bitch!” he shouted. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“It is true, Carson.” Celine’s pleading tone echoed off the walls. “Antony was desperate to find you. We had private detectives looking for you, people tracking your bank and credit card accounts, even your phone to try and find you. Jackson has done nothing else for months. Call him, and you will see.”

Antony’s ex-driver turned thoughtful, as if he was connecting what she said with experiences he had been through.

“And you can get my laptop,” Raine said gently. “I’ve been trawling through social media pages and emailing anyone any of us could think of to try and find you,” she explained. “Go through my history and check my mailbox, you’ll see.”

“Even if that’s all true,” Carson said in a calmer tone, “I’ve still been on the run for five months. I got a daughter, you know that?” His eyes flicked from one to the other. “Sweetest little blond-haired ten-year-old you’d ever want to meet.” He smiled, thinking about her, “I had to move her and her momma, take her away from all her friends and everything she knew just to keep them DuBesnes from using her against me.”

Carson eyed both women with a speculative look. “I tell you what, I’ll call Jackson, but you do the talking.” He nodded at Celine. “If I hear one word out of place, one caught breath, even a hint of you trying to let him know I’m here, I’m gonna plug you in the knees.” He raised his eyebrows and nodded to make sure she understood.

Celine took a deep breath and nodded.

Carson grabbed her cellphone and sorted through the contacts, until he found the one he wanted then dialed it and put it on speaker.

A nasal voice with a generic mid-west accent answered.

“Jackson, Celine. How...”

There was a sigh from the other end.

“I know what you’re going to ask, Miss Moreaux, but these things take more time than on TV. I haven’t managed to uncover who has been calling the number you gave me this morning. Sorry.”

“Never mind,” Celine said in her aggressive business voice. “How is the hunt for Carson going?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Carson tensed, looking as if he was about to end the call and Celine’s chance of walking again, until Jackson sighed.

“I know this isn’t what you or Mr. DuBesne want to hear, but I’ve come to a complete blank wall on that. It’s as if the man doesn’t exist anymore. And...” He stopped himself.

“Tell me,” Celine commanded, still using her authoritative voice, even though she was shaking and her eyes were glued to the gun.

“Well, I don’t know if either of you were aware of it, but it turns out he’s got a daughter, one Sheryl-Ann Beauchamp...ah...mother’s name is Janine. They were living in a small town called Columbia, up in northern Louisiana.”

Carson’s eyes had gone wide and the hand holding the gun had gone limp.

“Ah, well it seems, Miss Moreaux, they’ve both gone missing, ah, without a trace.” There was an undertone of complete embarrassment in Jackson’s voice, as if he couldn’t accept the fact he and his men could not locate Carson or his family. “Hopefully it’s Carson that’s moved them. He seems like a resourceful man. My guy had a look round the house, where his daughter was, and said he couldn’t see any signs of a struggle, and it looked as if some kind of packing had taken place, so it looks as if Carson got there and managed to squirrel them away somewhere, possibly with counterfeit identities. They haven’t turned up at the mother’s parent’s house, and his folks are deceased, so that’s the only conclusion I can draw for now.”

Jackson cleared his throat and continued. “Ah, on to Carson himself, he’s like a ghost, Miss Moreaux. I’ve got tracking programs on his bank accounts, any phones associated with him, a track on his passport and driver’s license. I even checked his social security records, and there hasn’t been any activity on any of them for months. Ah, if it wasn’t for the discovery of his daughter and her subsequent disappearance, I’d have concluded he was dead, but these ex-navy types sometimes have a whole network of contacts, alternative persona’s and a resourcefulness you can’t begin to fathom. Ah, the bottom line is, if Carson doesn’t want to be found, we’re not going to find him. Sorry.” Jackson sounded so apologetic it seemed he was genuinely upset to have been foiled.

“Well, you have done your job, Jackson,” Celine said. “I will make sure Antony hears about this and carry on with your surveillance. Bon, farewell.”

“Goodbye,” Jackson said in the same, defeated sounding voice.

Carson’s eyes were red-rimmed, and he had laid the gun on top of her mother’s antique dressing table, one of the few things of Raine’s mother’s, which she had brought with them. His shoulders were slumped in defeat, and it looked as if he was about to cry. He reached into a small pocket in his jeans and pulled the handcuff key out, freeing both women who rubbed their wrists.

Celine got up and snatched her phone from his hand, her eyes ablaze with rage, and, to Raine’s surprise, slapped Carson hard across the face, the sound loud enough to echo through the room they were in.

“Did you really think we...Antony would just dump you like some piece of rubbish? Stupid man! It was almost like someone had died when he couldn’t find you. He grieved for you, chatte stupide!” She swore at him. “I am done with this.” She threw her hands up. “I hope Antony has you put in jail.” Celine’s French accent had grown stronger during her tirade. “I need a fucking drink.” She declared.

Raine had managed to get round behind Carson and grabbed the revolver, intending to take all the cartridges out and make the thing safe. As soon as she held the thing, however, the fear and anger he had made her feel, not just today but with the empty calls she had been receiving – she reasoned it must have been Carson – all came to the surface.

Carson turned as he heard the hammer ratchet backwards, the clicking sound horribly loud in the confines of the room, his eyes widened at first but then he straightened and faced her.

“That’s probably for the best,” he stated in a pathetic voice. “I don’t think I’d be any good serving time in prison anyway. Aim for the heart okay, right here.” He laid a fingertip on his chest.

Is he bluffing or does he really not care if I shoot him? I can’t imagine what the DuBesne family put him through to make him desperate enough to do something like this, but I do want him to feel as scared as I did today.

Raine’s hands were as steady as a rock when she laid her right index finger on the trigger and straitened her arms into a firing position. Celine had sat back on the bed, wide-eyed and pale-faced in expectation of the murder she was about to witness, and put a hand over her mouth.

“Raine,” she whispered. “Do you know what you are doing with this gun?”

Without ever taking her eyes off Carson, Raine answered her.

“Born and raised in Texas, baby. Course I know what I’m doing.” She watched as Carson swallowed and took that as her cue to point the Smith and Wesson at the ceiling before putting the hammer back down slowly and flipping the cylinder open.

With an ease borne of practice she slowly rotated the cylinder, removing all seven cartridges from the pistol before closing it again. “It ain’t even worth it.” Raine muttered in her native accent. “I just wanted you to go through a little of what you put us through.” Carson hung his head.

“I never knew you was looking for me.” A tear rolled down his cheek. “All I knew was Antony had gone. After all the years I spent with him, it felt like he was my son, or we was close at least. Then he was just gone, and them DuBesne’s, they got hold of me, said they was gonna find my kid and make her pay if I didn’t tell them what I knew.”

Carson’s voice grew hoarse as he added, “But I never knew nothing.” He sniffed and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “I’m so tired. And sorry.” He looked a Celine. “I shouldn’t have thought you people left me behind.”