Just One Look (Women of Substance) (16 page)

One look in his father’s eyes and he knew why the side door had been unbolted in the middle of the night.

“He’s taking her with your permission, Father?”

“Yes.”

Trey swallowed a wave of rage at the terse word from his father. “Well not with mine!” He jerked away and tossed his saddle aside, deciding to ride bareback. Before he could mount his horse, his father grabbed him and pushed him against the side of the stall. He could no longer hear Carlee’s cries. His heart thundered and fear tightened his throat. “Get out of my way, Father!”

“I sold her, Trey.”

“Sold her? But you gave her to me! You can’t sell her. She’s mine!”

His father’s hands tightened on his upper arms, holding him still. “That happened when you were seven and I never expected you to fall for her. In this family, we do not bed our slaves, boy!”

His heart sank. His mother had not kept her word. She had told his father about seeing him kissing Carlee the previous week. “I know that, Father, and I have not bedded her! I give you my word!”

“And I believe you, Trey. We Brandauers are not known for being liars.”

He tried to pull away. “Then let me go and get her. She’s mine. I will not have her sold away from me and her family.”

“She is already sold. I believe that you haven’t touched her, but I have seen the way you two look at each other. You are no longer children, Trey. I can’t allow you to father children with her.”

He sucked in a shuddering breath. At seventeen, he longed to discover sex with the fifteen-year-old Carlee. Still, he'd never gone beyond an occasional hug or a rare, brief peck at her sweet lips. He hadn’t even dared touch her breasts. The temptation had been difficult to resist since he had inadvertently seen her sleek, nude body as she had bathed in the pond deep in the woods early one morning.

He had longed to strip and join her. The thought of seeing the hurt and confusion in her brown eyes if he betrayed her trust had been enough to cool his passions. He had forced himself to steal quietly away instead.

“Please, Father. I promise…I give you my word. I will not touch her! Just please don’t sell her!”

“It wasn’t an easy decision, Trey, but it was a necessary one. I’ve made sure she’s going to a good home where she’ll be treated properly.” His father reached in his pocket and produced a large sack filled with bills. “This is yours…for her sale.”

The wall of rage consumed him. He jerked away from his father, slapped the sack out of his hand, placed his hands against his father’s chest, and pushed as hard as he could.

Taken by surprise, his father stumbled backwards and fell.

Trey turned and jumped onto Danton’s back, wheeled him around, sent him jumping over his father’s body, and galloping out into the night.

He rode Danton hard and fast, ignoring his father’s outraged shouts for him to return. He knew he was in more trouble than he’d ever been before for having shoved his father. Nevertheless, he had to save Carlee. After what seemed like an eternity, he heard soft wails that he knew belonged to her.

“Carlee! I’m coming!” he called.

“Trey! Oh, Trey!” He heard the relief in her voice. “I knew you would save me, Trey.”

He rode low over Danton’s back, taking a curve in the road quickly. He spotted Wilton, at least thirty or forty yards in front of him.

He dug his heels into Danton’s flanks and urged him on. Danton was a better horse than the one ridden by Wilton. Elation filled Trey. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do after he rescued her, but he was only moments away from getting her back.

He would worry about the consequences later.

Danton steadily closed the distance between him and Wilton. Soon, he would be close enough to reach out and snatch Carlee off Wilton’s horse. He heard the sound of a galloping horse behind him.

“Trey! Come back here now or there will be hell to pay!”

He cast a quick glance over his shoulder.

His father charged after him, astride the only stallion in the county capable of outrunning Danton.

He leaned low over Danton’s back. “You can do it,” he whispered to Danton. “You can outrun Lightning. Just this once, Danton. You can do it for Carlee. Run like the wind, Danton. You can do it.”

Within a few horse lengths of Wilton, Lightning drew even with Danton. His father snatched him off Danton’s back and onto Lightning’s. Danton continued running as his father pulled on Lightning’s reins, urging him to an abrupt stop.

Trey struggled to be free. “Let me go! Please!” Although he was strong, his father was bigger and far stronger. His father’s arms tightened around him, immobilizing him.

Trey watched Wilton’s horse disappear around a bend in the road. “No! Carlee! Carlee, I’ll find you. I promise. I swear. No matter how long it takes, I’ll find and rescue you! And when I do I will never leave you again!”

“Trey! I’ll wait…I’ll wait for you to come, Trey!”

His father wheeled Lightning around and sent him galloping back towards the house Trey would never think of as home again. He slumped back against his father, bitter tears streaming down his cheeks. “Let me go rescue her, Father, or I swear I will never forgive you.”

“I know this hurts now, Trey, but this is for the best. I need you to understand why I had to do this.”

“You didn’t. I would have kept my word.”

“I know you have good intentions, boy, but you would be sneaking into her bed eventually. Do you understand? “

“I won’t ever forgive you for this, Father.”

His father pulled up his horse and turned his face up to his. He saw something he’d never seen before—tears in his father’s eyes. “I didn’t do this easily, Trey. I know this hurts you and it hurts me, but I had to do it. I had to. You’ll forgive me because it was done out of love.”

He shook his head. “No. I won’t ever forgive you for this. You don’t know what you’ve done. I’ll never be happy again if I don’t find her. You have to tell me where she’s going.”

“I know it hurts boy, but in time you’ll forget her and move on. You’ll marry and have children and be happy.”

“I’ll never be happy without her. Never. And I will never forgive you for this.”

“Time has a way of healing all wounds, Trey.”

“Time will never heal this wound. Nor will I ever forgive you or Mother.”

Soul Mates is available from Marilyn Lee Unleashed

Shana Mine Excerpt

“I must be hearing things.” I stared at the woman seated in one of the two chairs opposite my desk in silence for several moments. Best friends since kindergarten, we were so close that in every way that mattered, we were sisters of the heart and soul, if not by blood. I’d even named my daughter after her.

We generally did anything for each other but what she wanted now was too much—especially after all the intimate stories I’d heard. I shook my head. “Come again. You want me to do what?”

“Oh come on, Shana. Don’t look at me as if I’ve lost my mind.”

“Either you’ve lost yours or you think I’ve lost mine,” I said, trying to sound and look resolute.

As usual, Jasmin quickly came up with a reason why she shouldn’t take no for an answer. “A change of scenery will do you good.”

Since ending a three-year relationship six months earlier, I’d been struggling to overcome loneliness and boredom so I could get my life back on an even keel. After a lot of heartache and too many sleepless nights, I finally felt ready to share my life and bed with a man again.

Although I didn’t have any particular prospects in sight, I didn’t want to put my plans on hold to do her another favor. “I don’t need a change so badly that I’m prepared to fly across the country to do your dirty work,” I said.

“If you do this, I promise I’ll never ask you to do anything ever again.”

Ever since I could remember, Jasmin had been asking and expecting me to do favors for her. Rarely able to say no to her, I generally did them. Of course, the favor thing worked both ways. I’d talked her into doing some things for me she didn’t want to do once or twice. Still, I think we’d both agree that she tended to ask for more favors than I did. “Never is a long time and I don’t recall you going for more than a few weeks without needing a favor,” I reminded her.

She grimaced and then nodded. “Okay. You’re right, but honestly, Shana, Taylor’s a great guy and he deserves to hear the truth in person.”

I shrugged. Although I’d never let on, her sensual tales of the man she was about to dump had sent me reaching for my BOB on more than one night since my break up from Tremain Younger, the sexy stud I’d almost imagined myself in love with. His dumping me for another woman had soon cured me of that delusion.

A lonely woman could only hear so many stories of a handsome, sexy Native American hunk who loved his women dark-skinned and full-figured before she found herself engaging in forbidden activities—namely fantasizing about spending a night in the arms of her best friend’s man.

Feeling my cheeks burn at my thoughts, I shrugged again and tried to appear disinterested. “So tell him.” I glanced at my watch to give her a reminder that I had a nine to five job I needed to get back to instead of discussing her love life.

“Are you listening, Shana?”

I nodded, giving her my full attention. As usual, both her hair and make-up were as flawless as was the beautifully made pantsuit that flattered her full-figured body. It was attractive, confident women like Jasmin who helped put plus-size women on the cover of fashion magazines and put men on notice that we could stir their passions too, I thought with sisterly pride.

Although thirty-nine, Jasmin looked ten years younger, which probably accounted for her having caught and held Taylor Raymond’s attention–even though he was nine years her junior.

“Shana?”

I sighed inwardly, mentally preparing myself to remain firm. I owned a cleaning company that was finally successful enough to allow me to devote most of my energies to doing what I’d always wanted to do—write an erotic romance with a hero who couldn’t keep his big, hot hands off the sexy, confident plus-size heroine.

I’d hired and trained an office manager who had taken over the day–to–day management of the business, allowing me more time to write. “My novel is going really well. I’m not going to lose my momentum by stopping to fly to the East Coast to deliver your Dear John letter.” I paused and bit my lip at the exaggeration. While the storyline was coming along well, writing the love scenes was heavy going.

Of course, Jasmin knew that but like the best friend she was she didn’t use it against me in an effort to strengthen her case. “You have a laptop and that tablet I bought you for your birthday that you can take with you,” she pointed out sweetly.

“Never mind that,” I retorted. “Anyway, if this Taylor Raymond is so wonderful, why are you ending your relationship with him in favor of going off with your rich photographer boyfriend?”

“First girl, you know I don’t do boys. Both Taylor and Howard are men with all caps, but Howard can open some very important doors for me. At my age, I’m very fortunate to still be able to land assignments. After the European layouts, I’ll be in a better position to decide if it’s time to say goodbye to modeling and dust off my MBA and put it to work full-time.”

“Jasmin—”

“I can’t pass up this opportunity, Shana. But in order to take full advantage of what might be my last opportunity, I have to leave tomorrow and be free to travel as needed. That doesn’t give me much time to fly to the East Coast to return his bracelet and explain that right now is not a good time for me to start a serious relationship.”

“Well, he’ll just have to wait to hear the news when you have time,” I said.

“He deserves better than that, Shana.” She sighed. “We haven’t slept together for over four months and I’ve hinted that I don’t have time for more.”

“Then why take that bracelet which must have cost close to a grand?”

“Because it’s beautiful and at the time he gave it to me, I wanted more than I now have time for,” she said, sounding defensive.

“Why take an expensive present before you were ready for an exclusive relationship with him?”

She shook her head. “Asking the question a different way won’t change the answer. Look, wait until you meet him. He’s sexy as hell, great in bed, and he can be very persuasive. Why else would I have gone out with him more than a few times? You know he’s not my type.”

I’d never known Jasmin to date a non-black male more than a few times. On the one hand, the fact that she’d engaged in a long distance relationship with this Taylor Raymond for nearly a year said a lot about the effect he must have had on her. On the other hand, she’d gone out of her way to make sure he and I never met. I had to think that said something about her lack of interest in a serious relationship with him.

“I hear what you’re saying, Jas, but I’m not interested in making this my problem.”

She stared at me, her gaze narrowed. “Girl, get a grip. Since when are there my problems and your problems instead of our problems?”

“Since never, “ I admitted. “but what were you thinking Jas? What did you think you’d have in common with a handyman?”

“He’s not just a handyman,” she said. “Like you, he owns his own company. Yes, he still has to get those big, hot hands of his dirty sometimes, but it’s his company. Just as you’ve made a success of your company, so will he.” She arched a brow and gave me a long look. “Actually, you own a cleaning company and he owns a handyman one. The two of you should get on like a house on fire.”

“Nice try, but I can’t get away right now.”

“Shana, you have to do this for me. He’s been…dumped before.”

And you know what that’s like. Of course, she didn’t actually say the words aloud but we both felt the words hanging between us.

She removed the beautiful tennis bracelet from her wrist with obvious reluctance and handed it to me. “Please, you have to go and let him down, Shana. You have such a pleasing way that this is bound to sting less coming from you.”

Maybe that was why I’d had trouble landing and keeping a man since my divorce. If so, clearly it was time to stop being so soothing and concentrate on turning myself into a sexy siren. Call me old-fashioned but I wanted to know my man loved me enough to marry me.