Authors: Gigi Moore
“I never wanted to risk that what I saw—either before or after the fact—would be ignored. If there was a chance that I saw a future for you with Carson and Sam, or
anyone
, I had to let you know. I couldn’t hold anything back anymore.”
Desiree came from behind her desk, realized she had been using it as a shield the way she always did, even with family. She was getting better, but old habits remained hard to break.
She took a seat on the edge of the desk in front of Maia and took her sister’s hands in hers. “I don’t blame you for what happened. I know you did your best.”
“Thanks, Desi. You don’t know how much that means to me.”
“Now that we’ve settled that, let’s get back to this Thayne Malloy problem.”
Maia sighed. “I don’t even know why I brought it up. He’s out of my league, anyway.”
“What am I hearing from Ms. Self-Confidence Personified?”
“It’s all an act.”
“Well, it’s a good one. You’ve got a lot of us fooled.”
“That’s good to know. But I think I’m going to have to drop it if I’m going to have a chance with this guy.”
“You like him that much? You barely know him.”
“I know, and that’s the weird part. There’s something about him, something deep and something different from any other guy I’ve known. He’s not just surface pretty.”
Desiree smiled at the description, remembering Carson’s reaction to Doctor Malloy’s looks. There was no doubt that he was pretty to look at, and her sister was obviously smitten.
She rubbed and squeezed Maia’s arm. “I have every faith that you’ll figure this out.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“Hey, you got me, Carson, and Sam together.”
“And that was a miracle. There were times when I had my doubts about you all.”
“When did you find out about them being…shifters?”
“I was wondering when you were going to ask me that.” Maia smiled. “I think I knew from the beginning, when you first started having your dreams. I didn’t believe it until I actually saw them change. I mean, knowing and seeing are two different things.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Anyway…” Maia stood up to leave. “I’ve taken up enough of your time with my nonexistent love-life. I’m heading back to the ranch. Going to help out with horseback-riding lessons for the kiddies.”
“You really are settling into the cowboy life, aren’t you?”
“Don’t sound so shocked, especially since you’ve got your wagon hitched to two cowboys now.”
Desiree laughed but just as quickly turned serious. Things were nowhere near settled for her, Carson, and Sam. She didn’t for a minute believe that they had seen the last of Remy or that they were out of the woods. The man had too big a score to settle and so did Carson and Sam—their family’s honor.
“Don’t look so down. Being with Carson and Sam is a good thing.”
“It is, but…I’m just wondering what Remy’s going to do next for revenge. I don’t for a minute think he’s given up.”
Before Maia could open her mouth to respond, the phone on Desiree’s desk rang. She went behind her desk to answer it and spent the next few minutes trying to calm down a panic-stricken Sam.
When Desiree hung up the phone she could just imagine the look on her face, how pale her complexion must look, from the worried expression on her sister’s face.
“What? What is it, Desi?”
“That was Sam.”
“Okay, so? What’s up?”
“Helena. She’s…she’s missing.”
“Missing? I’m sure he’s mistaken.”
Desiree shook her head. “No one’s seen her since breakfast. Carson usually checks in to see how she’s doing before he heads out to the Western town. But she wasn’t in the cookhouse. The staff said she had an errand to run.”
“Okay, so she’s running an errand.”
“She hasn’t returned, and they’re having lunch rush. She’s always around for lunch rush.”
“Maybe…”
Desiree shook her head. “She’s gone, Maia.” According to Sam, he and Carson knew just where she was, too.
Desiree grabbed her bag from her desk drawer, determined to get back to The Double R as soon as possible and stop her men before they went off half-cocked.
“They couldn’t have gone far. Remy was just here.”
“That’s what I told Sam, but he wouldn’t put it past Remy to have had one of the pack’s lieutenant’s escort their mother back to Louisiana.”
“What do they think they’re going to accomplish going there to retrieve her?”
“Helena’s their mother, Maia.”
“What I mean is, what if she went with Remy or his escort on her own?”
“It doesn’t matter. The man killed Carson and Sam’s father. They’re not going to let things go that easily.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh.”
“So, what exactly are they going to do? Did Sam say?”
Sam didn’t have to say, because Desiree already knew without having any of her younger sister’s gifts.
Carson and Sam were going back to Louisiana to get their mother and kill Remy Bastien.
Chapter 21
If Desiree thought the woods on The Double R were scary at night, they had nothing on the wooded area in the bayou where she and Sam had been taken to witness the spectacle.
They had all arrived at Louis Armstrong International Airport earlier in the afternoon, met by four of Remy’s trusted lieutenants, two of whom escorted Sam and her to one limousine while the other two escorted Carson to another parked right behind it.
If Desiree had had any doubts as to Remy’s power and wealth, they were soon erased by her and Sam’s bodyguards’ show of deference and the opulence of the limousine’s interior. The vehicle had all the trappings of comfort and success, with plush leather seats, leg room for days, and an extensive bar.
She thought had she and Sam been so inclined, they could have easily made out and the driver and his companion wouldn’t have been any the wiser.
None of this, however, changed the fact for Desiree that she and Sam remained prisoners, their jail a gilded cage but a jail nonetheless.
She hadn’t expected to be welcomed with open arms at their arrival, but neither had she expected such security cloaked in good old Southern hospitality. They were treated like visiting royalty when she knew that nothing could have been further from the truth. She knew had they voiced a wish to leave, they would not have been allowed to. They stayed safe and comfortable because Remy wished them to.
From what Desiree had learned from Carson and Sam, from what she had seen for herself, Desiree knew that Remy’s wishes could change, and he’d show no compunction when it came to dealing with them as he saw fit.
Once she and Sam had been settled in their hotel room—again lavish and outfitted for maximum comfort and security—she’d had a chance to ask him some questions and get a clearer picture of what was going on and what their role was.
Before their departure from McCoy, Carson had contacted the pack elders and thrown down the gauntlet, officially challenging Remy for pack rights. Despite his status as a fugitive on the run, the council granted him dispensation upon Remy’s behest.
Remy, Sam explained, proved eager to get this whole unpleasantness behind him so that he and his future mate could start their life without any blemishes or ugliness from the past.
“So you and Carson are blemishes and ugliness?”
“It would seem so, as far as Remy is concerned.”
“How can he get away with this?”
“Pack law,
bebe
.”
Right, pack law superseded all other, and whatever the alpha said, nine times out of ten, was the word that all in the pack followed.
Despite the crash course Desiree had received on the workings of pack hierarchy and alpha rights, she still didn’t agree with what was going on or what she, Sam, and the pack were about to witness.
Carson and Remy would soon get into a ring on the edge of these very woods and fight to the death in front of their tribe, and there remained nothing she, Sam, or even Helena could do about it.
She had wanted to see Carson in all his beastly glory, see him shift, but not like this, not when the end result could very well be his death.
As honored guests—an honor Desiree neither wanted nor cared about—she and Sam had front-row seats to the impending carnage, spaces saved for them right on the outer edge of the circle that had been drawn in a small clearing just beyond the sweeping, low branches of several lofty weeping willows. She couldn’t help thinking that the trees’ dramatic appearance and the droop that created the familiar falling canopy perfectly suited her mood and perfectly suited the moment. The only thing missing remained a drumroll…and Helena.
Desiree had yet to see her, and when she brought up her absence, Sam told her that she had probably been sequestered so that she couldn’t witness the fight.
“My guess is she doesn’t even know we’re here or what Remy is doing. I’m sure she went with him on the condition that Carson and I would be left alone. It’s the only way she would have agreed to go with him in the first place. The challenge, and the fact that Remy accepted it, violates whatever agreement Mama and Remy came to.”
That sounded about right. It sounded exactly like the sort of sacrifice a mother would make for her children. It sounded like the sacrifice that Helena would make for her sons.
Sam rubbed her arms then removed his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. Before that moment she hadn’t realized she shuddered or how cold it could get in the bayou.
“It takes some getting used to.” Sam smiled at her and she remembered the night she’d seen him and Carson strolling out of the woods, dripping with water from the stream in the cool, early-spring evening.
That night seemed so long ago, McCoy so far away from this baleful bayou.
Though Colorado was much colder at night, she hadn’t imagined it could be this cold in the Gulf after being out earlier in the day, experiencing her clothes sticking to her in the sultry heat.
“It won’t be much longer. They’ll bring Carson and Remy out soon to fight.”
“They like to build the suspense.”
“It’s all part of the sport.”
How could he be so matter-of-fact about this? Two men were about to fight to the death, one of whom was his brother.
She wanted to call Sam on his nonchalance but knew he wasn’t as nonchalant as he seemed, especially when he grabbed her hand and squeezed it. To comfort herself or him, she wasn’t sure. She just squeezed back, trying to absorb some of his calm sanity.
Desiree glanced around her and took in the expressions of everyone present—a group of elders to one side, lesser lieutenants to another, a large throng of general pack members making up the bulk—and except for a number of the younger ones, teens and twentysomethings, their dispassion remained heavy in the air.
Were they really all so blasé about the prospect of seeing blood spilled?
“Whatever happens, Desi, you can’t react like a…like a human.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means even if…if Carson goes down, gets hurt—”