Hunted Love (A Dangerous Kind of Love Book 2) (22 page)

“Yes, when I was little. It’s nice that you live so close.”

“I absolutely love it here,” Phoebe said. “I’m so glad to finally be back home.”

“You shouldn’t have left in the first place,” Kristen said. “You should have stayed and gone to college here.”

“Brian wanted me to go with him.” Phoebe urged her horse forward as the trail narrowed. “There was nothing keeping me here anyway.”

Kristen slipped behind Sarah. “I really think you should stay here for a few days, Sarah. At least until they find Fletcher.”

“Jamie doesn’t seem to think that will help.”

Phoebe lifted her leg and swung it over Bess’s head. Soon she was riding backwards, facing Sarah and her sister.

“Phoebe!” Kristen said in exasperation.

Phoebe ignored her. “But if Fletcher’s gone, then we don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Jamie thinks someone paid Fletcher to come after us,” Sarah said. “Until we find out who that person is, we’ll still be in danger.”

Phoebe’s eyes went wide. She sent a panicked look towards Kristen. “I thought you said it would be over with soon.”

“It will be,” Kristen said. “Fletcher will tell us who paid him and that will be that. Don’t worry, Phoebe. Everything will be fine.”

Phoebe groaned. “I wish you would tell me these things. I’m not a child, you know.”

“I know that,” Kristen said.

The horses slowed to a stop, one after the other.

“What’s wrong?” Kristen asked, standing up in the stirrups to look toward George.

“I can’t get him to move,” George called out. “He’s eating the bushes.”

Phoebe swung around in her seat. “Oh, Buck, it’s not time to eat yet, silly.” She hopped down from her horse. “We’ll stop to eat in just a few more minutes.”

Sarah watched as Phoebe began coaxing the horse to move again. “How long have you had Buck?”

“Years,” Kristen said.

“Did he once belong to Robin?” Sarah asked, remembering the picture of Robin and the horse next to Buck’s stall.

Kristen nodded. “She was crazy about Buck.”

Phoebe hopped back into the saddle. “No, she wasn’t,” she said reaching for the reins.

“What are you talking about?” Kristen urged Joker forward. “Robin loved that horse.”

“She was using him,” Phoebe said.

Kristen snorted. “How do you use a horse?”

“She was using him to attract Jamie.” Phoebe looked over her shoulder at them. “I thought you knew that.”

Kristen laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No, it’s true,” Phoebe insisted as they came to a clearing. She slid off her horse and grabbed a blanket and the picnic basket. “Let’s eat here,” she said spreading out the blanket.

Sarah climbed off Jack and sat next to Phoebe as the other girl began passing out the food. She looked up at the sky and then the surrounding woods. Everything was so beautiful and peaceful that for a moment, she forgot about Fletcher and the danger she was in. The conversation quickly turned to talk of summer and another party Kristen was planning to throw for the Fourth of July but try as she might Sarah couldn’t seem to focus. Her mind kept wandering to thoughts of Jamie and his life at Bellemeade with Robin O’Malley.

After a while, when the other girls had lapsed into silence as they finished their meal, she asked, “Just how did Robin use Buck?”

“When Jamie first got here,” Phoebe said, “Dad paid him to work in the stables. Robin started begging—”

“Whining,” Kristen muttered before popping the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth.

“—Dad to buy her a horse,” Phoebe continued over her sister, “so that way she’d have an excuse to be in the stables where Jamie was. Jamie loves horses, so she pretended she did as well.”

“He does?” Sarah said in surprise.

“Yep,” Phoebe said, brushing crumbs off her skirt. “She thought she could seduce him by showing an interest in something he cared about. It worked. I’m surprised you didn’t know how much he likes horses.”

If I had
, Sarah thought amusement,
I would have busted out some of my riding pictures and brought them into work to show him a long time ago
.

Kristen tucked her short black hair behind her ears. “You had to hand it to Robin,” she said, “when she wanted something she didn’t stop until she got it.”

Sarah grabbed a bottle of water from the basket and took a drink. “How old was Jamie when he came here?”

“He was fifteen,” Kristen said “when his uncle first dropped him off and left him with us. I felt so sorry for him. Both of his parents were dead and he was just so sad and lonely. He barely spoke to anyone.”

“He spoke to me,” Phoebe said, packing away the napkins and drinks.

“You were the only one,” Kristen responded.

“He spoke to Robin too.” Phoebe dusted off her hands and stood up. “I don’t think he had much choice in the matter. She kept sneaking down to the stables shortly after he arrived for one reason or another.” She stretched her hands above her head before moving toward Queen Bess. “Jamie was all she talked about back then.”

Kristen dusted off the seat of her tan pants. “It broke her heart when Dad threw Jamie out.”

“Why did he do that?” Sarah asked, picking up the blanket. A sudden gust of wind swept through twisting the blanket, preventing her from folding it.

Kristen reached out to help her. “I think Dad started to suspect that Robin and he were doing more than mucking out the stalls. About a month after Jamie arrived, he called Jamie’s Uncle Roger and told him to pick him up.”

“We didn’t see Jaime for almost a year and a half,” Phoebe said continuing the story. “But then one day, Dad asked Roger to come back and take care of
some problems
for him and he brought Jamie along with him.”

Sarah joined Phoebe near the horses. “What sort of problems?” she asked, passing the blanket to Phoebe.

Kristen placed her hands on Joker’s saddle. “We learned early on not to ask those kind of questions.” She tried to put her foot in Joker’s stirrup but he shied away from her.

Phoebe leaned over and whispered, “Roger did whatever Dad wanted him to do, no matter what it was or how bad it was and when Roger died, Jamie took his place.”

While Kristen struggled to get on Joker, Phoebe and Sarah mounted their horses.

“Oh, come on, Joker,” Kristen said in annoyance as Joker pranced to the side.

Sam tossed what was left of his sandwich to the side and reached for Joker’s reins, holding him still as Kristen climbed into the saddle.

Once Kristen was seated and they had passed through the clearing to another trail through the woods, Sarah said, “Robin must have been pretty excited when Jamie returned.”

“Actually,” Kristen said, “she didn’t seem that interested in him anymore. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw her at the stables after he came back. They obviously learned to be discreet the second time around.”

“Well, not completely,” Phoebe said with a snort. “On Robin’s twentieth birthday, she threw her own little birthday party with just her and Jamie upstairs in her room. Dad heard them and busted in on them.”

Sarah ducked under a branch. “I heard that Jamie ended up in the hospital.”

“Spent weeks there,” Phoebe said bitterly. “Dad said he had to teach him a lesson. Kept saying it was a sign of disrespect for him to go behind his back like that. Jamie knew she was off limits. I’ll never understand why Jamie took such a risk. He knew what Dad would do to him if he caught them together.”

“They were in love,” Kristen said. “Jamie was actually very lucky. The only reason Dad didn’t kill him is because he liked Jamie. Had it been anyone else, he would have had him killed immediately. No question. Jamie was lucky to get away with just a beating. Robin was devastated. At the hospital, she told us that Jamie had proposed to her that night. Gave her a ring and everything. I just couldn’t believe they were able to keep their relationship a secret for so long.”

“Me either,” Phoebe said.

The trail narrowed and Sarah moved her horse behind Phoebe’s horse. “So, none of you knew that they were together?”

“No clue,” Phoebe said.

Surprised that Robin didn’t share her secret with her sisters, Sarah said, “Holly must have known. They were best friends, weren’t they?”

Kristen fell behind as they crossed over a stream. “Robin knew better than to tell Holly. Holly couldn’t keep a secret to save her life.”

Phoebe glanced over her shoulder. “I think Holly was more surprised than any of us when they were discovered together. She was so furious she even stopped speaking to Robin.”

“Why?”

“She was angry that Robin didn’t confide in her,” Kristen said, coming along side of Sarah again. “Holly only thinks of herself. She didn’t care that Jamie was lying in the hospital or that Robin was being forced to marry a man she didn’t love. She was just angry that she wasn’t a part of the drama. I also think she may have had a crush on Jamie and was a bit jealous that he preferred Robin over her. I felt sorry for Robin. She was closer to Holly than to any of us by that time and she could have really used a friend, but Holly took off to California. We didn’t see her again until Robin’s funeral a few months later.”

“I can kind of understand why Holly was angry,” Phoebe said. “Robin lied to us all for years.”

Kristen pushed her hair out her eyes. “Robin had no choice. You saw what happened when Dad found out about them.”

Sarah shook her head sadly. “I can’t imagine being in love and not being able to tell anyone. It must have been very difficult for her.”

Kristen glanced at Sarah out of the side of her eye. “Are you in love with Jamie?”

Sarah thought about denying it. It was sometimes easier to deal with his rejection when she could pretend that she didn’t care but she was tired of hiding the truth. “Yes, I am.”

“I always wondered what would have happened if Robin had lived,” Kristen said. “Would Jamie be my brother-in-law? Would they still be together? Would they be happy? It’s sad knowing that I’ll never know. I wish things had been different between us before she died. I wish she had confided in me. Before our mother died, we were as close as can be but then our father put a wedge between us. He started playing us off on one another. He would trick us into spilling each other’s secrets. That’s how he kept control of us. It wasn’t so bad when our mom was alive but once she was gone, things just got worse. At some point, I stopped trusting Robin and she stopped trusting me. We never stopped loving one another, but we were never close again. We couldn’t be close. We each had secrets that we had to protect.”

“What happened the night Robin died?” Sarah asked.

Kristen struggled to keep Joker on the trail a moment before saying, “She tried to run away. She snuck out of the house and made her way to the pub.”

“I caught her before she left,” Phoebe said. “I woke up in the middle of the night and found her downstairs stealing money out of Dad’s safe. I asked her what she was doing and she said that there was no way she was marrying Nathan. She said she was going to marry the man she loved and they were going to disappear and live happily ever after.”

Sarah glanced up through the treetops as the sky began to darken. “What did you say?”

“I was only fifteen. I had no idea what to say so I ran upstairs and woke Kristen up.”

“I caught up to Robin in the driveway,” Kristen said. “I told her she was being stupid and to go back inside before our father caught her. That was the last time I ever spoke to her.”

Phoebe shook her head. “She called—”

“It’s so hot out here,” Kristen interrupted. She started to say something else but snapped her mouth shut as Joker took off down another trail. “No, Joker. No!” Kristen said trying to turn the horse’s head in the opposite direction.

Joker suddenly stomped off the trail and into the woods. They turned in circles, each fighting for control.

“Need help?” Phoebe said with a laugh.

“No, I’ve got it,” Kristen said. She struggled with the horse for a few more minutes when finally, Joker gave up and got back on the trail. “And here I was about to praise him for being so good.”

“You know he hates going this way,” Phoebe said. “He’s going to put up a fuss until we turn back around.”

Sarah glanced behind her, surprised to see that Sam was nowhere in sight. She narrowed her eyes, peering into the forest suddenly alert. She was just about to say something when she saw Blondie’s head through a bare clump of bushes. “Are we almost there?” she asked rubbing the crick out of her neck.

“Not much further,” Phoebe said pointing to a large outcropping ahead. “The Sheltowee Trail is right up ahead.”

“How about we stop there and then turn back?” Kristen said glancing up at the sky. “It looks like it’s going to storm any moment.”

“The meteorologist said it won’t actually storm ‘till tonight,” Phoebe yelled back as she hurried Bess forward.

Sarah lifted her hand up, trailing her fingers along the rock over her head. She dropped her hand as they came out from underneath the outcropping and stopped at the edge of the cliff to check out the view. Dark thunder clouds, their shape moving and changing with the wind, hovered ominously over the gorge, threatening to let loose with a downpour at any moment despite the local meteorologist’s prediction.