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My retort died in my throat. The farmhouse, my old home, was in sight through the dusty windshield. We traveled slowly, since the road was neglected and potholes plentiful. A bigFor Salesign was readable out the front. That would explain the deserted appearance and poor property maintenance.
But it was more than run down—it was smaller and sadder than I remembered. It was all kinds of wrong.
CHAPTER19
Zara
“We have company.”Val nodded toward the windshield.
We pulled into the front yard before what had looked like an empty house, except an SUV was parked at the rear. Two people strode along the side of the house toward the front—a man and a woman, both with startling red hair, both wearing dark clothes, though the woman also wore a red coat that matched her hair.
“They don’t look like farmers, Val.”
“No. Maybe stay here while I see who they are.”
“Silly me, I thought we saidpartners.”
The small muscle on the right side of his jaw ticked—maybe I was starting to read him.
Maybe both of us felt a little frayed.
He sighed the sigh of the suffering and shook his head. “Bring your weapons.”
The knife was in the sheath strapped around my waist. The Ruger would surely be too aggressive looking if I carried it in my hand? Any other past day, I’d have wondered why I needed a gun to meet strangers. Today though...if he’d told me to bring a rocket launcher, I’d have looked in the trunk.
Then I saw what Val must’ve noticed, why he’d wanted me in the car—the man standing there measuring us, wore a shoulder holster.
I slipped from the car and brought the Ruger in my handbag. Since I’d snuggled my hand onto the butt so I could fire through the bag, I figured I was ready for anything. I hoped these weren’t plainclothes cops.
“Have to buy you a good holster for both those—ones that fit.” Val then set off across the dusty yard. I ended up trailing a few feet behind him. He seemed determined to meet these people first.
“Hello there! We were hoping to meet whoever owned this farm. Would that be you?”
That horror movieeee eee eeeviolin sound began as I saw that the woman also carried a pistol in a holster at her waist, as well as a long knife on the other side.
Both of them halted. Their faces were set and the man’s eyes narrowed as he studied me then Val. “You...” he began.
The woman’s gun hand settled beside her very large pistol.
Jesus.What was this?
Val had his Taurus in his holster and I knew he was good with it. This’d better not be the gunfight at the OK corral, because I had no clue who this pair were...except they looked like twins with their pale, freckled skin and red hair.
Then both of them lowered themselves to one knee then planted a hand in the dirt of the yard. They bent at the waist in a transient bow. “Mistress,” they chorused before they stood and looked to me.
“Uhhh.” Mistress? Had I opened a kinky dungeon and not noticed? Of course, I had an inkling as to what or who they were. I waved my hand in a hesitant half-circle. “Hi? I’m sorry? I don’t really know you.”
“I’m Samuel and this is Rose, my sister.” A lock of Samuel’s red hair flopped across his brow. There was a vague accent to his words I couldn’t place.
Though they were surely no more than twenty, both were lean and mean in physique and face. Rose’s tattered red coat and torn purple tights, along with her gray shirt and poorly laced boots, made her look like a video game nemesis in need of ironing and repair. Samuel’s clothing—pants, shirt and jacket—was simply black and grimy up close.
Their youth had been burned away and replaced by hard stares.
Uncertain how to respond, I shifted my feet.
If anyone was getting the bulk of the stares from them, it was Val. He appeared to be waiting for my cue. Did he think these were just exceptionally odd friends whose names I’d forgotten?
“I really,reallydon’t know you.”
