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As horrible as the thought was, Chris Turner dying in that crash had almost been a relief to Katie’s family. Josh would always be marked with the years of physical and mental abuse his father had inflicted on him. But Cindy McIntyre hadn’t been such a malicious person, at least, not in Katie’s eyes. It was true that the woman was flighty and had cheated on Zach, but that didn’t mean she deserved to die. The innocent baby certainly hadn’t deserved its fate.
The entire incident had taken a toll on both families. It was a minor miracle that Katie and Hannah still remained such close friends after events.
Katie clenched her jaw as she vowed to stay close to Hannah after she left for college. Hannah was young and innocent and thought the best of everyone. She didn’t realize the world was filled with people who would claim to be your friend one minute and then turn around and stab you in the back the next.
Thankfully, Katie’s thoughts were interrupted from going down a darker and even more upsetting path by the sound of the door opening.
“She’s asleep. Time for you to go.” Katie stiffened with nerves as the deep, sharp voice interrupted the peace of the bedroom. Without looking at Hannah’s sweet brother, Katie glanced from her books and saw that Zach was right. Hannah was asleep and breathing deeply.
She silently gathered her books and stood with an unconsciously graceful movement. Her long, dark hair uncoiled and slid all the way to her waist. She managed to keep her face devoid of all expression as she prepared to leave. Hooking her bag over her shoulder, she started to walk past him, looking neither to the left nor to the right.
Katie had no reason to trust men and no matter what his little sister believed, Zachary McIntyre was harsher than most.
As she moved to slide past him, he reached out and grabbed her wrist with a hand roughened from hard work. His glance slid to the book in her arms and a withering stare crossed his features. “A Turner studying for an AP test. What a joke.” His voice was a sneer and she pulled on her arm in an attempt to be free of him as waves of remembered fear diluted by only a hint of curiosity assailed her. Zach McIntyre hadn’t always hated her. “Not so fast.” He continued to control her movements with his strong hand.
He eased the bedroom door shut behind them and tugged her down the hall to the office. Katie glanced around at the darkened room as butterflies tried to claw their way up from her stomach through her tight throat. It didn’t escape her notice that if this had happened a year before, it would have been her most secret fantasy for Zach McIntyre to pull her into an empty room. Of course, he’d been married back then, and she’d had to bury the inappropriate thoughts that she’d had about him.
And it didn’t matter anyway, it wasn’t a year ago; it was now and she was no longer the trusting soul she used to be.
The darkness of the room was only mitigated by one small table lamp that radiated a subtle glow. The room was masculine, its dark leather furnishings and rustic embellishments attempting to convey informality that in her opinion missed by a long shot; the room oozed old money. The domain of Hannah’s stepfather, the room now temporarily belonged to Zachary, and evidence of his occupation was everywhere. His laptop was on the desk, his tie carelessly thrown on the floor where it had missed the chair he had obviously aimed at.
And the aroma of hard liquor was in the air.
Katie’s breath got clogged in her throat and her eyes moved back to his as she stood frozen in his grasp. Trepidation mingled with fascination as he stood over her. Who was the real Zachary McIntyre? The sweet, loving person who felt things deeply and was affected by pain and betrayals so deeply they had scarred him? Hannah fully believed that was so, but Katie wasn’t convinced. She thought he was exactly who he seemed to her now. A man who ridiculed and disparaged, who had absolute control over his actions, a man who managed to scare her shitless with his tyrannical, domineering behavior; that was probably who Zachary McIntyre truly was.
Katie desperately wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but her innate sense of protection wouldn’t let her. She was saddened by the man he’d become, and she mourned for the man he used to be.
As he stood so close to her now, his scent invaded her senses. He had a masculine aroma, a musky scent with a hint of bourbon and leather. It was a spicy and heady smell. That potency, combined with his sinewy strength as he towered over her and held her in his uncompromising grip made her limbs tremble with a kind of fear she was afraid she would never be able to conquer.
Her heart started beating a vicious tattoo as she waited for him to say something. She could feel the anger pulsing from him. He hated her; she knew that. And she knew the reason, too. It was because Chris Turner had been her father’s brother. It hadn’t always been this way. Zach hadn’t always hated her. Growing up, she hadn’t seen him often, but when she had, he’d always been teasingly indulgent.
Until the day her uncle began sleeping with his wife.
Katie straightened to her full height of five feet, six inches and just managed to glare up at him. She had to look a long way up; he towered over her by a good eight inches. His body was lean and tempered with hard, steely muscles and his stance emphasized the strength of his legs and the power and virility of his upper torso. The clear-cut lines of his face were tanned by the sun, his skin weathered by exposure to the wind and elements. He had high, proud cheekbones, and his lips were firm and sensual. His eyes held a stormy, inky blackness and a menacing tic in his cheek was indicative of his feelings. Distress ran through her as she tried to maintain a façade of bravado.
She knew that if this encounter had transpired a year earlier, he would have found a more worthy opponent and that knowledge disappointed her. But this was now, and her life was forever changed by an event that she hadn’t been able to control. An episode that had left her a different person. A scared person. She stiffened her spine, clenched her jaw, and tried to find the courage she had once possessed in spades.
****
Zachary ran his eyes over the girl in front of him. She wasn’t as young as his sister, and the two years difference in age was a very important two years. It was the difference between girl and almost-woman. He saw the hint of that in Katie’s eyes. She was already, undeniably beautiful. With her dark hair and slanted green eyes, she was beautiful in a sultry, exotic way.
Even though she was a decade younger than he was, he’d always been aware of her existence; he even had a vague memory of picking her up and taking her home when she’d hurt herself as a child. She’d been a pretty little girl even then.
But he’d first noticed Katie sexually only a few months before, when she began hanging around his little sister, about the same time that his wife began fucking Chris Turner. The cheating hadn’t been much of a secret around town, and he knew that this girl had known about the affair.
Zach admitted to himself that he had fucked up feelings about Katie, even back then. Every time he’d seen Katie at his parents’ ranch house, he’d wanted to steal her away. All he could think about at the time was the fact that Chris Turner had stolen his wife, so didn’t it seem fair that Zach should have Katie? An eye for an eye, that was the way he looked at it.
But there was one thing that stood in Zach’s way from doing something stupid, something crazily impetuous. He hadn’t had a choice at the time; it had to stand in his way. Katie Turner was too young. And Zach had still been too angry. Livid with it. Even now, months later, he still couldn’t give Katie the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was a nice, decent person, but he refused to consider it. All he could think about was the fact that she was a Turner. A female Turner, and one he wanted so badly it made thinking of anything else almost impossible. Yeah, the feelings he had for Katie were borderline insane and he knew it. She should be his. She should belong to him, because she was owed to him. And even though it was imperative that he let her grow up some first, someday it would happen. He’d bide his time because he’d have to, but one day, he’d feel her underneath him … at his mercy.
/> He comforted himself with the knowledge that he wouldn’t have to wait forever. She was already on the cusp of becoming a woman. And what a woman she would be. He had to remember what kind of woman she would become. A manipulative, grasping, destructive bitch. She came from that kind of stock and she damn sure had the beauty for it. Yeah, she was beautiful already, even though she was still a teenager. But she was eighteen, and legally, that made her an adult. The seductive truth of that spread through his veins like hot lava.
He tightened his grasp on her as her feminine scent hit his nostrils. He ruthlessly pushed her sexual allure from his brain and focused on the reason he had pulled her into the office in the first place. “What do you want from my sister? What do you hope to accomplish with this so-called best friends bullshit? Why are you hanging around here all the goddamned time? This isn’t about keeping Hannah company so she won’t be lonely. Don’t give me that shit. I want the truth.” The harsh words spit from his mouth, one by one.
“Let me go,” she answered him in a low, tension-filled voice.
He heard what almost sounded like fear in her voice but his grip only tightened. Her fear made him feel strange; it was a feeling he didn’t care for. He wanted to feel her hate, not her fear. Why should the glimmer of alarm in her brilliant green eyes make him feel … protective toward her? That was utterly absurd. Who had been there to protect his child, his baby, when it needed protection?
He steeled his guts against any softer emotion and his voice dropped an octave. “Answer the question.”
Katie’s breath caught. She didn’t like this man. Really, truly, didn’t like the man he’d become. Maybe he thought he had a reason to hate her. But it didn’t change things. Emotion pulsed through her as she tried to respond to him with the same kind of antagonism he was showing her. “What do you care? You’re never here. You’re always in Dallas. You haven’t been around for years. If you’d been here, you’d know that Hannah and I have been friends for a long time. Long before your wife—”
His grip tightened even more and Katie’s words came to a halt and she thought for a moment that he was going to shake her. “Don’t say anymore. That still doesn’t explain why you’re hanging around a girl so much younger than you.”
Katie found the backbone she had once possessed and began to argue with him more easily. “She’s only two years younger. Our property borders The Bar M. Why wouldn’t we be friends?”
His eyes narrowed on hers. “I think you want something other than friendship with my sister. I think you’re after a bigger prize, sniffing out sex and money, just like your deadbeat uncle was doing.” The words came at her, hard and gravelly.
Katie registered his meaning and started pulling on her arm again. His grip remained firm as she started to struggle, anger and innate stubbornness coming to the surface. “You? You think I’m after you?” She sneered the words at him.
Zach held her firmly as she struggled. He realized that his heart was begging his brain to have mercy on her but he tamped the emotion down before if could infiltrate his entire system. She was the enemy. He had to remember that. It had to be true. If she wasn’t the enemy, then she was just a young girl … a young girl who was nice and sweet and cared for his sister. A young girl he’d have to leave alone. He couldn’t leave her alone … he didn’t want to leave her alone … so therefore, she had to be his enemy.
His mouth flattened as he held her close and answered her question, “You catch on pretty quickly. Yeah, I think you’re after me. I think you’re using Hannah to get close to me.”
Katie dislodged her arm from his hand and immediately moved away from him toward the door. “You’re a freak. An old, used up, ancient freak. What are you, like thirty or something?” Her words were derisive. “Why would I be interested in you?”
“I’m twenty-eight, and don’t pretend you don’t know that already.” His eyes roamed up and down her body, now held so stiffly away from him. “Right. You think I’m old. That’s a laugh. You’ve been doing nothing but watching me from beneath those long lashes of yours for weeks now.” He moved toward her again.
Katie rubbed her wrist and backed up, her spine going flush against the wall as he approached her. Had she been that obvious? Was the fact that he disturbed her on several levels there for anyone to see?
He continued the harsh diatribe. “And guess what, sweetheart? You’re not so young anymore.”
Katie’s eyes remained glued to him as he paused and almost gently lifted a lock of her hair and began rubbing it between his fingers. Her breathing snagged as he continued, “You’re eighteen, right?” Katie hesitantly nodded and he kept talking, his voice dropping lower. “You know what eighteen means in the great state of Texas? It means you’ve reached the age of consent. A year past it, in fact. No more jailbait.”
Katie stared at him as he stopped speaking but continued to look down at her. She didn’t like where this conversation was going. She inhaled deeply and threw her head back as she tried not to notice the gold flecks she could see in his dark brown eyes. “Well, I’m not consenting to anything. I’m going home.” She turned to move past him.
His body surged forward and crowded her back against the wall. His hands reached for her more fully, one spearing into her hair and the other landing on her waist. His voice hissed out, “Sure you are. When I say you can. But first we’re going prove my theory.”
He looked as if he was about to kiss her and Katie stiffened. Her heartbeat accelerated. She’d been kissed before, of course; she’d even had a boyfriend last year she’d finally become intimate with after two years of dating. But when they broke up, the date she’d gone on with someone else had changed her life forever. She pushed the black memory of that night from her mind. Since then, she hadn’t given anyone the opportunity to get close to her. Certainly no grown man had ever laid his hands on her. Certainly nobody like Zachary McIntyre. She didn’t want him to kiss her. She couldn’t stand the thought of him hating her and touching her at the same time. The dichotomy was almost panic inducing. It didn’t matter how good-looking he was.
But as much as her mind fought against it, Katie couldn’t stop the slight tremor that shook her body. She knew he felt it, too.
“See? I haven’t done anything to you yet, and it’s happening already.” He didn’t give her time to answer as his mouth came down and closed over hers. She stiffened and gasped in shock, and when she did, his tongue slid deep into her mouth.
Katie stood frozen in his grasp as his hand tightened on her skull and he began kissing her in earnest. Through a wave of confusion and anxiety, she remained rigid in his embrace, as his warmth, his scent, his masculinity swamped her senses. Her rational mind knew that he wouldn’t really hurt her, he was Hannah’s brother for God’s sake and she’d known him forever. An old, vague memory came to her of a time when she’d felt safe in his arms, when he’d picked her up and rescued her when she’d been a little girl. She tried to blank her mind, tried to temper her mixed emotions, and for a fleeting moment in time, she was another woman. She saw herself as if from outside her body, and felt his touch as if it were happening to someone else.
And then she understood; he knew full well what he was doing, and she realized that he was kissing her in a way she didn’t want to be kissed. Kissing her with the intent to mate. He knew what he wanted. It was the same thing they all wanted. If she were any other person, at any other time, maybe she could have enjoyed his embrace. But she wasn’t another person, and she couldn’t let herself trust any man. The thought scared her and brought her back to herself, and she jerked back from him, her stiffened spine glued to the wall as she turned her face from his.
Zachary must have felt her withdrawal and he spit out a vicious, “Why?”
Distress pierced Katie’s numb mind and residual shock bled through her veins. “Please don’t touch me,” she said in a voice so low, it was almost a whisper.
“You want me to touch you.”
She shook her head.
r />
“You need to admit it. Admit why you’re here all the time. Admit that it’s because of me and not my sister. Admit you want to give it to me.”
Katie violently shook off his hands and moved to the door, grasping the handle with shaking fingers. Tears came to her eyes and clogged her words. “I’ll never give it to you. Not in a million years. You’ve turned into a horrible, evil man and I don’t ever want to have anything to do with you … not ever again. “
Zachary leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, and watched her with hooded eyes. He saw the tears glistening from her lashes and refused to feel anything. He thought of everything her family had taken from him and hardened his emotions against her. He wouldn’t let her youth and seductive beauty sway him. “Don’t kid yourself, Katie. You’d give it to me if I wanted it. I just don’t want to catch something from a Turner.” He tried to stop himself from hurling those words but couldn’t and hit out with something that he knew would hurt her. He wanted her to hurt like he was hurting. “But mark my words, babe, someday you’re going to admit you want me, for sex or for money. I don’t know which, but someday, you’re going to come begging me.”
Chapter Two
In late June, Hannah and Katie were tanning by Hannah’s swimming pool when Zachary’s car pulled around back. He slammed out of his vehicle, glanced in their direction, and strode purposefully into the house.
“I didn’t know your brother was in town.” Katie knew her voice sounded unusually subdued but there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
“I didn’t know he was, either.” Hannah looked toward the house, no doubt feeling her parents’ absence. “I haven’t talked to Zach much lately—” Her voice trailed off as she looked at Katie.
