Christian
Christian spent most of the ride filling her in on his history in rodeo, his little sister’s knack for horses, his life to date. He hadn’t talked this much in years. But Ellie kept asking him questions, and he kept answering.
He had carefully avoided talking too much about his deadbeat, druggie parents who had abandoned him and his sister. Molly had been two. That was the thing Ellie couldn’t believe. At fourteen, he’d basically become a father.
But he hadn’t had a choice.
Ellie sat close to him and held his hand while he talked. She would chime in with her own stories about Donny—who had been a bronc rider—and her cousins. She had no siblings, and her parents lived in Florida. Candace Culver was the closest thing to a mother she had now. And he already didn’t like Candace.
“I think I would have liked Donny, though,” he said, as they pulled off the freeway onto the Route that would lead them to the Quade ranch. “The more you talk about him, the more I like him.”
“He was a good man,” she said with a smile. “And you’re right, he wasn’t as great of a bronc rider as he could have been, but he sure loved it.”
“Not everyone needs to be the best.” He shrugged. “Look at what it produced in Phillip Quade.”
And they had landed squarely on the subject they’d been avoiding. The Quades. Their weird eugenics experiment with Christian as the stallion to a Quade mare. It had been creepy enough when he first learned about it, but after experiencing what the bond was like, it was downright asshole-ish.
If he had shackled Kate to him like this—the way he and Ellie were now connected—it would have ruined her. Especially if she was really in love with Ryan Travis.
“Are we gonna talk about this now?” she asked, squeezing his now-healed hand.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’ve been avoiding talking about the Quades for many hours. I want to know if, now that we’re in El Paso, you’re going to talk about the plan,” she said, like she was reading his damn mind.
He hated she could do that.
“Fine.” He relaxed back against the seat. “You’re going to flip out on me when I ask this, but know that this is the absolute Plan Z for me…”
“You want to know if we can annul the bond.” Her words dropped like a lead balloon in Texas summer air.
“I have to know.”
“I don’t know if we can or not,” she said with a shrug. “But we’re not going to.”
“El…” He licked his lips. After facing his demons, he didn’t want to go there either. But to save Molly, he would do just about anything.
“I’m not letting you throw your life away like that.” Her nostrils flared as she took a breath in. “Fate sent me to you so you wouldn’t do this.”
“You don’t know that.”
“That’s how Fate works,” she said flatly. “She’s a being, like God. She has a will. She doesn’t want you to make this choice, and neither do I.”
“Well, Miranda Quade does.” He sounded more irritated than he thought he was, but his tone was rising with each word. Christian took a breath, settling himself.
“But there has to be something we can do.” She stroked his hand tenderly. “Tell me about the layout of the place again.”
He described the Quade ranch, or what he remembered of it. He’d been there twice, when he thought he was going to sell Phillip Quade some embryos from his champion brood mare. Take a look at the stock, see if there’s anything you want, the old man had said with a clap on the back. And then he felt a pinprick in his neck…
And woke up a wolf.
He still remembered Kate Quade, in that room, and the shock on her face. She had been as disgusted with her grandfather as Christian was with himself when he tried to mate with her in Durant.
Shuddering at the thought, he pushed out a breath.
“What’s wrong?” asked Ellie.
“This family is seriously fucked up. I don’t know what they’ll do if they find me on their property.”
“You’re afraid they’ll hurt Molly.” Her tone was low, and her words certain.
She didn’t need to feel his feelings by magick to know things about him now. He liked that. Of course, as she said, it helped that he’d told her things about himself. Fourteen hours in the car together would do that.
“What if we caused some kind of diversion?” she asked.
“Like what?”
“How about we let some horses out of their stables? Or open one of the corrals?”
“That might be enough.” He tried to remember the layout of the main ranch house and the stables and recounted it. “But the problem always is… there are so many of them.”
“And they all live around the main ranch?”
“It seemed like they were spread all over.”
Dodger whimpered from the back seat and Christian looked in the rear-view mirror. They’d put out a little water tray for him that Ellie kept inside. He’d had food. But he hadn’t gone out yet.
“We still have four hours,” he said, pointing at the clock. “I’m going to stop here before we get too close and let Dodger out so he can do his business.”
“Thank you for that.” Ellie reached back and tousled the dog’s fur. “He’s not in a need spot yet. But he will be within an hour, probably, and that will put us on the Quade property already, won’t it?”
“It will.” The big red-rock formation that locals called the Thunderbird was behind them, and they were almost past the Franklin Mountains, and near the turnoff that would take them out to the big, sprawling Quade ranch. Christian pulled off into a turnout and Ellie climbed out, calling the dog.
He watched her take Dodger around, encouraging him to run a little, and Christian turned off the motor and joined her. There was a little space outside, before the rise of the hill that would turn into a mountain. Dodger ran and Ellie watched him.
Christian walked up behind her, sliding his arms around her stomach. A sudden thought struck him. They’d had sex the night before. It had been unprotected. This was the first time in his life he’d thought about making a baby with someone, and it wasn’t just because his hands were on her stomach. It was because he wanted to have a family.
He’d known it. For hours, he’d known it.
But it took the physical feel of her to make it hit home for him.
If he died today, and they had made a baby, a part of him would live on.
Sobering thought.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
He paused, knowing he would come off like a creeper if he mentioned the real thoughts he’d been having. Instead, he said, “Four hours isn’t a lot of time.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t know if they still have Molly where they had her before.”
“In the main ranch office,” she repeated, because he’d told her on the drive, all about him waking up in a bed in the corner of that office.
But it was still strange for her to know those things. For her to repeat them back to him. The one thing he’d never had was a confidante. He’d always been the father, the brother, the protector. The one who paid the bills and kept Molly safe.
He’d never had a… a wife. A mate. Never wanted one. Not until Ellie.
“Yeah.”
“And that’s in the heart of the complex,” she said, leaning back against him.
“Right near the big corrals where they had the broncs out. But they’re not always out. Not when they’re not practicing.”
“So we can’t use them for a distraction.”
“No.”
Ellie sighed, giving a little chuckle as Dodger jumped over a gray shrub, bounding toward them. She always knew where he was. Always kept an eye out for him. She would make a great mom.
To Molly, something whispered inside him. But he ignored that voice.
There was still too much to work through, too much to even consider letting that thought take roost in his head. He still might have to bond with one of the Quade women if he couldn’t rescue Molly.
That was still a last resort.
“So, we can’t let horses out…” Ellie smacked her leg and Dodger came toward her, hopping up into the truck without more than a nod. “We might be able to start a fire inside one of the houses.”
“But if you’re Miranda Quade, you don’t leave Molly unprotected, even while people go to fight a fire.”
“Still. It would be a distraction.”
Christian smiled and pulled her into his arms before she could climb into the truck after her dog. He just stood there and held her. He hadn’t gotten to do enough of this. The thought of maybe having to be without her was driving him crazy.
Was he going to hurt her? Probably. But dammit, he couldn’t imagine being without her. Especially because she thwarted him every time he tried to outsmart her.
“You amaze me, woman,” he said, shoving his nose into her hair and snuggling her close. He loved the citrus scent of her hair. Like a balm to his hurting soul. If they could stay like this forever…
She giggled and nosed at his neck. “I’m just superb in bed. It’s all an act.”
“I mean, I’m not denying that,” he said, his voice low and full of grit. Just remembering her on top of him was enough to start his dick thinking sex thoughts. “But I mean it. You are tenacious, Ellie Culver. And smart. And you have a heart bigger than Texas.”
“And Oklahoma,” she countered, grazing his neck with her lips.
“Together,” he finished, and found her mouth, taking it in a deep kiss.
She relaxed against him, and he pushed her up to the truck. Her legs parted just the slightest bit, and he stepped into the cradle of her hips. His dick was so hard. He wanted her so much. But they couldn’t do this here, on the side of the road… not when the Quades were expecting him to be there without her.
Christian pulled back, a thought striking him. “Oh, shit.”
“Oh, not already,” she moaned. “Stupid mate bond…”
“No, not that,” he said, stepping back, away from her. She looked dazed and wanton and so damn hot, but he’d just had a thought that he couldn’t stop from forming into a plan.
“Sorry.” Ellie swiped at her pants, like she was cleaning herself up. “I just… I want to have sex with you all the time. Even when we’re supposed to be doing other things.”
“I know the feeling.” He gestured down at the front of his pants, where his erection was painfully stating its agreement. “But listen to this. I think I have a plan.”
Her eyes went wide, and her jaw dropped. “Honey, if not having sex gives you the plans, then let’s not have sex all over this damned desert, okay?”
He laughed and smacked her ass as she turned around to climb up into the truck. “Just get in. I think this will work.”
Running around the front, he dug for his phone and hoped his boner would settle down. Much as he would like to pin Ellie up against the side of her vehicle and plow into her over and over and forget his problems, he needed to call Miranda Quade.
He had a plan to rescue his sister. And it was going to work.