The stalker shadowing their every move was getting closer. Several attempts had been made to breach the house. Each one had gone unnoticed by any of the investigators until long after it had been too late to catch sight of him. The bastard knew the ranch too well to suit any of them.
She clicked the link back to the open channel, listening with only distant attention to the chatter between the investigators as she unsaddled her horse and led him back to the stall. She stroked the animal’s long face, staring into the quiet brown eyes as sadness filled her.
“He’s getting worse.” Brock stepped into the stables, his eyes so like Sam’s, were quiet, sad, as Heather clipped the stall door closed and turned to him.
Heather watched as he moved deeper into the cool, shadowed interior. He watched her closely, his eyes contemplative, the way he held his body suggesting that he was a man on a mission that he wasn’t entirely certain of.
“We can’t allow him to go riding off by himself, Brock.” Heather shook her head, knowing Sam needed the solitude of the open land to help still the demons raging inside him. A solitude that could be fatal now.
She remembered before, when they were called out the first time to protect Marly. Sam had often slipped from the house, hiking or riding several miles away to a sheltering, tree-shaded pond where he would often sit and just s
tare into the water. He hadn’t been able to do that lately, and being confined seemed to only spur his temper.
“I agree with you on that, Heather,” he sighed roughly, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he watched her with a questioning expression. “I’m not asking anyone to allow it.”
He looked too much like Sam to suit her. The sharp, almost savage planes of his face reflected a quiet acceptance of the world though, rather than the careful joviality or alternate enraged grief that Sam’s could. Of all the men, Brock seemed more accepting of the past, more accepting of who they all were.
She wished she could find a measure of the confidence he carried on his shoulders. At the moment she felt lost, uncertain. She was fighting not just for her life, but for the life of a man that didn’t want to love her, even though he did.
“What?” Heather asked with a frown. Brock obviously had something on his mind, and yet was hesitant to broach the subject, whatever it might be. She had a feeling she didn’t exactly want to hear it either.
“Why hasn’t he come to you yet?” he asked her softly, his head tilting as he regarded her with a quizzical expression.
“For what?” She had a feeling she knew exactly for what, but she wasn’t about to let this man poke his nose in her business without a fight.
He seemed to know that, too. He watched her knowingly. “You know what,” he growled. “He wants to fuck you so bad it heats the air around both of you, Heather. Don’t pretend you don’t know that.”
Heather felt a curious flutter of nerves in the pit of her stomach. There was no heavy lust in his eyes as there was in Sam’s, but there was a sense of anticipation, of waiting. He was asking about Sam, but they were both well aware of what they all expected once Sam took her.
“That’s none of your business, Brock.” She shook her head. She didn’t need the other two brothers complicating her life at this point. Her life, or her heart.
He blew out a rough breath, his head turning as he stared into the shadows of the stables. His arms crossed over his chest, his hard body stiffly erect, as he seemed to be weighing what he should say. His expression was brooding, concerned, as he seemed to chose his words carefully.
“It concerns us all, Heather,” he finally said softly. “Not just me and Cade, but Marly and Sarah as well. We all love him. Seeing him like this is…” He paused reluctantly. “It’s very hard on us all.”
She could see that. Had seen it constantly. The relationship between the men was a curious one. A complete sharing, whether it was work, play or pleasure. Yet never together. For a while, she had wondered if the strange relationship they shared with their women was due to tendencies or desires to be with each other sexually. But as she watched, dissecting events and interactions, she knew that wasn’t the case.
Heather believed they would have been inclined to the relationships they now shared. The horrors and nightmares of the past had forced the need for that closer bond, despite moral convictions. The abuse and their fight to survive together had made them closer than even they knew at this point. It was a closeness that went far beyond any sense of sibling jealousy. It had forced such emotions aside, which further enabled them to the sexual extremes they now practiced.
“And I’m supposed to fix this?” she asked him finally, exasperated, just a little irritated. Suddenly, everyone was looking to her to fix the problems this family dealt with. She couldn’t see a fix in sight anywhere.
He shifted nervously, spearing her with a look that had her taking a step back. Intense, heated, filled with conviction.
“He loves you, Heather. I know he does. And you know what that implies.”
His voice carried a hard, knowing edge. He wasn’t about to let her skirt around the involvement with the family should she accept the relationship with Sam. Damned men. The Augusts had to be the most contrary, stubborn, hard to get along with males it had ever been her misfortune to meet up with.
“So you’re what, going to try to get your piece of ass now?” she bit out, frowning back at him. These men tried her patience in more ways than one, but this one, on the heels of his twin, was too much for even her normally strong nerves.
He grimaced impatiently.
“Don’t be a fool, Heather,” he growled, disgust marking his voice, surprising her by the vehemence in his tone. “This isn’t about getting a piece of anything. It’s about Sam. It’s about stilling the anger growing inside him before it destroys him.”
“Dammit, Brock, only Sam can do that.” Heather shook her head, surprised, and not for the first time, over the brothers’ insistence on stilling Sam’s anger, and in the process, the healing. “He has a right to be angry. A right to hate everything that has happened and is happening now. You can’t expect him to joke his way through this.”
“Listen to me, dammit,” he growled, his own anger surfacing then, surprising her. She had rarely seen Brock angry. “You don’t want Sam like this, Heather. None of us do. It won’t solve anything. It will do nothing but destroy him.”
Taken aback by the surprising display, Heather could only watch, her eyes narrowed, suspicion beating a warning tattoo within her chest.