Tempestuous Taurus Read online

  “You don’t know how hard it’s been.”

  He held her shoulders at arm’s length. “You think it hasn’t been hard on me? You think being in prison on death row was a walk in the park? You’re no different from Cassie. You run away as soon as anything gets tough. You ran away when your parents were killed instead of standing up for them and helping Aunt Lacey run this place, and you ran away from her when she got sick because you were afraid of her dying. You’re a coward.”

  “No. I’m not a coward. I didn’t run away. I would never . . .”

  Jared shook his head and picked up his keys. “One day, you’ll see I’m right,” he said as he walked out of the door.

  Chapter 37

  She wasn’t running away. It was unfair of Jared to say so. He didn’t know how hard she had worked to make a life in Phoenix, away from the hideous memories of the carnage.

  She needed information, and wished Shawn was around and could start searching for Cassie and Randall. She had texted him, and in his response, he had told her he was out in the middle of nowhere, fishing, and he would let her know when he was back in civilization.

  She made her way to the office and stared at the boxes. The ones she had been through were piled neatly behind the door. As she’d expected, they contained business tax documents and records. Only two remained. It would be a waste of time to go through them. She should go and get the dolly and wheel them back out to the storeroom. Then she’d be able to vacuum and clean the old carpeting.

  Outside, she came across a young, dark-haired woman sitting at one of the tables out on the rec patio, all on her own. Tara had been there almost three weeks and all that time she had managed to avoid meeting with the parents or any of the kids who came to the Center for therapy. Was it guilt because she planned to leave? She had chatted with the teenagers who worked there as volunteers, but she hadn’t ever gone out of her way to meet the patients. In fact, she had gone out of her way to stay away from them.

  “You must be one of the parents,” she said with a smile.

  “Yes. Cammie Sanderson,” she said, returning the smile. She held out a hand.

  Tara shook hands with her. “I’m Tara Ericson.”

  “You also a parent?”

  Tara smiled. “No. I’m the owner of this place.” The owner. It sounded strange to her. And yet it sounded right. No. She couldn’t be thinking this way. “Which is your child?”

  Cammie pointed. “The girl in the pink.”

  Tara watched the little girl with the blonde curls and adorable face. She was strapped into the saddle and it looked like she was giggling. Jules was walking alongside and speaking to her, a volunteer was leading the pony, and two other teenagers walked beside her.

  “She’s adorable.” A picture of Kaitlyn came into her mind. If only Lou would allow her to ride.

  “She has CP—Cerebral Palsy. At this stage, it’s only affected one side—her left arm and leg, and this one week camp is a trial to see if equine therapy could help her gain more control of her limbs. We know it takes a lot longer than a week before any results can be expected, but one thing we know now is that she loves the horses, and we weren’t sure of that before. We didn’t want her to have to do something that scared her.”

  Tara watched the child again. She was obviously enjoying herself. “She’s not scared. Our therapists are very dedicated. If anything can be done for her, they will do it. We’re lucky to have them.”

  “Yes, I totally agree. They’re lovely. Do you do any treatment?”

  Tara laughed. “No. I don’t . . .” She was about to say she didn’t live there, but she stopped herself. “I only recently took over after my aunt passed away. I was living in Arizona.”

  “Well, this must be a big change. My husband and I live in Dallas/ Fort Worth, and there are two equine therapy centers there, but we didn’t feel comfortable with either of them when we visited. Too many children in each session. Someone recommended this center and here we are. My husband had to work so he couldn’t come with us, but we face-time him every night and McKenzie tells him about her day. I’m so sad there are only three days left.”

  “Have you met any of the other parents?”

  “Yes. They’ll all be here soon.” She looked at her watch. “They usually get here at around eleven and have lunch with the kids here from the vending machines, or take them out to lunch someplace else. Did your aunt start this center?”

  “No. It was my mother, who has passed now.” Tara took a deep breath. “My sister, Cassie, is—autistic. She’s—I don’t think you can cure autism, but she can lead a normal life—or almost normal, and this is the only treatment she had.” This was the first time she had ever talked about her mom and Cassie, and the Taurus Center to a stranger.

  While Tara was chatting with Cammie, a young man and woman holding hands arrived, him with short brown hair and brown eyes, and she was African American with a beautiful, smooth, olive skin. Tara stared at their intertwined fingers and a pang of regret surged through her. Last night had been so amazing, the lovemaking with Jared so incredibly exciting and wild and wonderful, but now everything had come unraveled again.

  Cammie introduced the couple as Eldred and Sonya Richland.

  “Our boy has autism,” Sonya said. “He’s the only African American child here.” She pointed at the boy sitting on the paint pony Lizbeth was leading.

  “Tara was telling me her sister was cured—or helped for autism here at this center. Her mother started the Center and was running it.”

  Sonya gripped Tara’s arm. “So it really can be helped with this horse riding therapy?”

  “I wish it was that easy, but it depends on each individual.”

  Tara chatted with them for a while, and after the lesson, Cammie introduced her to other parents as they arrived. “She lived in Phoenix Arizona, and she’s come all that way to Hardship, Texas to take over running this center after her aunt passed. It’s such a blessing for us that you didn’t just sell it or close it down. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.”

  Chapter 38

  Cassie covered herself with the moth-eaten blanket. “Things are about to get interesting,” the man said with an evil chuckle as he bent and grabbed his shorts.

  He left without another word.

  He had told her his name was Jerry, but in her head, she called him Bull, because of the tattoo on his throat, and because he was such a bullshitter. Back when he had “rescued” her from the streets and killed Bucky, she had woken up in a bed with starched sheets and a comforter that smelled of vanilla, not a grimy mattress on the floor and a threadbare blanket in a hole-in-the-wall place she had to share with a bunch of other girls.

  She sat up and looked around. The room was decorated with rose-patterned drapes that were closed. A white dresser stood in one corner, with a hairbrush and what looked like perfume on it.

  She looked down at herself. She was clean—someone had bathed her and washed her hair. She wore a gossamer white night dress that was totally transparent.

  She felt groggy, but that soon passed and the tremors started. She needed a fix.

  As she lay there, the tremors got worse and her stomach burned. She got out of bed and tried the door. Locked of course. She made use of the bathroom en suite and splashed cold water onto her face. If she didn’t get a fix, she would soon be in agony. She banged on the door. “Help!” she yelled. “Is anyone there?” She stood with her ear to the door.

  Footsteps.

  She stepped back and held her breath, her own heartbeat loud in her ears.

  The door opened. “There you are, you’re awake,” he said with a smile. “How are you feeling?”

  She stared at him. He seemed to be an average kind of person with a pleasant, clean-shaven face. Brown hair, brown eyes, shorter than her five-feet, six-in
ches. He wore ironed cargo pants, a white, short-sleeved, button-up shirt, and brown lace-up shoes.

  “I—” Her teeth chattered and she doubled over as a spasm squeezed her stomach.

  Her captor—or was he her savior? She wasn’t sure, but the door had been locked. He stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out a syringe.

  “This is methadone.”

  Desperate for relief, she held out her arm and watched the needle slide into a vein and the liquid leave the syringe. The relief was almost instantaneous.

  “You’ll be able to go onto pills soon. I’ll make sure you have a supply.” His words blurred and it felt like the room was moving. She climbed back into the bed.

  “Who are you?” she had asked.

  Chapter 39

  “I’ll leave you to have lunch,” Tara said. She had a huge lump in her throat. She didn’t have the heart to tell them she was thinking of selling the Taurus Center, or at least leaving it in the hands of a manager until it sold.

  Surely Jared wasn’t right? He said she was a coward. That she always ran away from difficult situations. Sure, she had been planning to run back home and leave this mess for Cory to clean up, but that wasn’t running away. It was the logical action for her to take. Cory was the business owner.

  After lunch, Tara remembered she had been on a mission to get the dolly so she could move the boxes back into storage. It was sad the guest cottage had been made into a storage area. She headed out again, greeted Eldred and Sonya, and nodded at a couple of other parents as she passed. She stopped outside the door of the cottage. This had been Aunt Lacey’s home for many years. Tara could picture her wearing a red apron over her jeans, her gray-brown hair tied up in a high ponytail, bending to check whatever she was baking in the oven. She could almost taste the delicious cakes and cookies, and the warm scent of cinnamon.

  She and Cassie had spent so many happy times there while they were growing up.

  Tears welled up and she wiped them with her sleeve, swallowed, and opened the door. It smelled dusty. I could fix this up again and rent it out to someone. We could build another storeroom for all this crap. Maybe Jules or Christy would like to live here.

  The dolly was beside the door, and as she wheeled it to the office, she laughed and shook her head. What had made her think that? She wasn’t planning on staying.

  She stacked the first four boxes—the oldest ones—onto it and took them to the storeroom. She had also decided she would buy a couple of nice plants for the office, and she had an idea for a big poster showing all the benefits of equine therapy that she would have printed and hung on the bare wall.

  She made two more trips before she got to the two final boxes. She stared at them. These were the only two she hadn’t opened. But what was the point? They would just be filled with bills and other accounting and business documents like the others. She sighed, opened the lid of one of them, sank to the floor, and sat cross-legged.

  She would text Jared right away if she found anything. Thoughts of the awesome lovemaking of the previous night came back to her. Jared was no longer a young, awkward twenty-year-old, but a mature man who had done everything to make the experience as electrifying and stimulating as possible for her. She didn’t know where he’d learned all that, but it was extremely arousing to think about it. She pictured his naked body with the six-pack abs and broad chest and sighed. She forced herself to concentrate while she pored through the contents of the box in front of her.

  “Just as I thought,” she said as she stuffed the last file back into the box. “Nothing.” She eyed the last box.

  She slid the lid off, grabbed a handful of files, and dumped them on the floor.

  Someone screamed outside. Tara jumped up, tipping the box and spilling the contents all over the floor. She ran out of the office and saw Lizbeth Brixton holding a wild-eyed paint pony. Eldred and Sonya also ran to the arena and she saw their son, El Junior, was lying a little way away close to the pony’s flailing hooves, his mouth open in a silent scream.

  Tara desperately needed to go to him, but she had to get Ronnie, the pony, away from the kids or they would be injured. She grabbed the reins and ran away from everyone, ignoring the hooves coming dangerously close to her head. “Roberto!” she yelled.

  The wide-eyed groom took the reins from her and tried to calm the demented animal. “Okay, okay.

  The horse reared up and threw itself backward until it toppled onto the ground on its back, the whites of its eyes showing.

  She had to get to the child. She ran back to where he was lying on the sand. Jules was crouched down beside him. “Did someone call 911?” Tara asked. Jules, her face pale, held up her phone, and they could hear the operator talking.

  Julia nodded and spoke to the operator. “Tara’s here now. I’ll give the phone to her.”

  Tara slid down and sat cross-legged beside El Junior. He was so still and gray, but he was breathing. “Ma’am,” the operator said, “help is on its way. Don’t move him.”

  She glanced across to see Christy had control of the other children and several parents had taken custody of their charges. The pony was on its feet again, still thrashing about, its hooves making contact with the paved floor of the stable yard and ringing loudly.

  She became aware that the operator was speaking to her. “Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t get that.”

  Sirens sounded in the distance. Thank God.

  Everything seemed to happen in slow-motion—the fire truck arriving and the paramedics asking her to move out of the way as they worked on the little boy. Jules taking the rope from Roberto and leading the distressed pony away, and the parents all talking at once.

  “Is he gonna be okay?” she asked the medic as they loaded him into the ambulance.

  “He’s still breathing. Took a hard blow to his head and he’s most likely concussed, but there’s no way of knowing the extent of the injury to the brain at this stage.”

  Tara’s heart sank.

  Chapter 40

  Cassie’s thoughts stayed on the time she had spent in that house before they had moved to the cabin.

  The only choice of clothes she’d had were the dresses he provided for her. The kind of dresses she would never dream of wearing in her other life, back when she was free and a tomboy. Little girl dresses she called them—with a belted waist and short full skirt.

  Her head felt fuzzy pretty much all of the time, and she couldn’t think straight for what seemed like months without a break, but she had no idea how long she lived there. When she asked why he was sedating her, he said it was to make her withdrawal from heroin easier, but she knew he was lying.

  He wanted to control her. That first breakfast in the fancy house stuck in her mind. She had never been out of the bedroom. The house had seemed enormous as he led her down the stairs to a beautiful breakfast nook with a huge window overlooking the mountains. “Where are we?” Cassie couldn’t tear her gaze away from the mountains. She wished with all her heart she could be transported away from there to someplace on their slopes.

  “Where we are isn’t important. It’s just a place, and we won’t be here forever.” The food was exquisite, and he had plied her with champagne-heavy mimosas until she had a good buzz on. That was when he had kissed her and told her how beautiful she was. No one had ever told her that except Jared, and he had always said nice things to her, and she knew he didn’t mean it in a sleazy way. He loved her sister.

  She had been that silly little tomboy, autistic kid people probably thought of as weird and gawky, and had a habit of rocking backward and forward when she was sitting. Jared made her see herself differently. She had fervently wished he was her boyfriend instead of Tara’s—and she made up fantasies and dreamed of him kissing her and telling her he loved her.

  And then someone massacred her parents. At the time, she
thought it was God’s way of punishing her for wanting the man Tara loved so badly.

  After all the mimosas, her captor took her to his big bed and made her perform sexual acts. She had hoped he would be different, that he truly did care for her, but he didn’t. Life had changed, but she was still a slave.

  That night, she had fallen onto the bed and passed out from exhaustion. He woke her in the middle of the night and made her go back to that room and submit to more of his perverted sex games.

  That was—how long ago was it? She had lost track of the time she had spent there. She didn’t know if she had been there a month, six months, or a year, and the heavy drapes in her bedroom were always closed, making it impossible to know if it was day or night. She was never allowed to watch TV or listen to the radio, and she had no calendar.

  One day, out of the blue, he had entered the room and said, “Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

  Cassie’s thoughts were dragged back to the present when something made a beep and lit up. She stared at the cell phone he had left on the table close to the door. She was sure it was just a cheap throwaway phone, and she knew he wouldn’t allow her to speak for more than a few seconds. He wouldn’t risk anyone being able to trace him, but he wanted to tease her and Tara. She picked it up, hardly daring to breathe. She still remembered the home number. Her hands shook so hard she could hardly punch it in. She put it up to her ear, her heart in her mouth.

  It rang. Come on, Tara. Please answer it. Oh, no. It’s gone to voice messaging. “Help me, please help.”

  He charged into the room and wrenched the phone from her hand. The asshole was waiting outside the door and listening. He stood there grinning as if he was pleased with himself about something.