Page 20 of Handling Harley Ann
Jesse smiled. “You’re doing fine. Do you know how big the house was? Could it be rotted and falling in by now?”
Miss Edna frowned. “It wasn’t very big. One big family room and a kitchen. Two bedrooms. Maybe a thousand square feet. Maybe not even that big. It was wood with a front porch. And it had tall windows. They went almost to the floor. One in every room.”
“Good.” He said, standing up. “I’ll start in the yard where Lily Gayle found the broken twigs on the bush and go east.”
He walked toward the back door with Lily Gayle on his heels. “I’ll call Ben and send him after you.”
“Please, don’t.” He said as he pushed through the back door. “I’m a highly trained army ranger and the sheriff, regardless of his own training, will only slow me down or hinder me.”
Lily Gayle frowned.
“The important thing here is to find Harley Ann as quickly as possible.”
Lily Gayle nodded. “You’re right.” She flapped her hands at him. “Go, then. And bring our girl home safe.”
Jesse made his way across the backyard to a bush with yellow flowers. He had no idea what the hell a yellow bell bush was, but figured it must be this one since there was nothing else yellow back here. Or blooming.
Just as Lily Gayle had said, there were some broken twigs on the branches. With now wilting flowers. He gave her credit for having taken notice of that and knowing that it indicated someone had moved violently past the bush.
And as Lily Gayle had said, there were no visible tracks going off into the woods. But this was where his expertise kicked in. Where he saw things only someone with intense training would see.
He glanced back toward the house and spotted Lily Gayle and Miss Edna watching him with worried eyes.
He had to find Harley Ann. Not only for them, but also for himself. For the first time he admitted to himself that he’d developed feelings for her.
Eyes to the ground, senses alert, he moved into the woods going east.
Chapter 14
“Don’tyou pass out on me!”
The voice roused her from her delirium. Raising her head, she glared into David’s ice-cold eyes. And tried not to notice the two-inch wide leather belt he was fondling. How could she ever have believed she loved this man?
“I’ve told you as many ways as I know how that I don’t know where the damn jewelry is. I never had it.”
The belt whistled through the air and bit into her upper arm.
Biting back the scream she knew he wanted to hear, she continued to glare at him through eyes full of tears. They were tears of pain, but also tears of rage.
She’d always been a crier when she was enraged and she hated that more now than ever before. He thought the tears were because she was afraid of him -- and more pain.
He smiled that thin cold smile again, satisfaction lighting up his awful face.
She spit into that face.
Saliva mixed with a lot of blood.
The satisfied expression dropped from his face like a brick and was replaced with rage at her audacity. He wiped his face with his sleeve, never taking his eyes from her face.
She watched as his arm went back. Watched as the belt whistled through the air again. Watched its rapid descent toward her. And swallowed the pain when it lashed across her thighs. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of the scream she knew he wanted to hear.
She felt like she’d left her body and watched, as though from a distance, as blood from the new cut trickled down her calves.
“Bitch!”
The word jolted her back into her body and she raised her head to stare into David’s face.
“Tell me where you hid the damn jewelry.”
