The Bride Star Page 2

  After a few minutes, Jared ran his hand down her arm. “I’ve missed you.”

  She shrugged him off. “Don’t be weird, Jared.” She stepped away to put distance between them. “You know we’re just friends.”

  He dragged his lower lip ring into his mouth and smiled. “But I’ve always wanted you, Rayne. You were the goal.”

  “The goal?”

  He caught her and settled a hand on her hip. “Yes, the goal. Everyone wanted you. You must know that.”

  “Like you’d ever have a chance.” Rayne blinked as the room began to swim. “I’m not feeling so hot.” The cup fell to the ground and the remaining contents spilled across the floor.

  “Oh?” he said a little too innocently. “Sit down over here.”

  Rayne rubbed her forehead. “What did you put in my drink?”

  “Nothing.” He wrapped an arm around her waist. “I would never do that.”

  “What did you slip me, Jared?”

  “Shhh,” he crooned. “Baby, we’re all alone. I know you’ve dreamed about this for a while.”

  Pushing her against the wall, he kissed her neck. Rayne was disgusted, but she was losing her ability to think. Pushing at him, she tried to pull her face away from him.

  “Get off me,” she snapped.

  “Please. You were always the biggest slut in school.” He slid his finger down her collarbone and slipped it into her cleavage. “Don’t go prudish on me now.” Moving his hand lower, he grabbed her breast and squeezed.

  “Stop, Jared, you’re hurting me.”

  He wrapped his hand around her throat and painfully forced her face up. A tear slipped down her cheek as she tried to get her emotions under control. “Shhh. Just let the stuff do its magic. You’ll love this.”

  “No, Jared. Stop.”

  He continued his assault, and even as she felt the drugs pulling her deeper and deeper into their power, she somehow found just the right opportunity and shot her knee between his legs as hard as she could.

  “You bitch!” he screamed as he fell, doubled over in pain.

  She ran with no idea where she was going, trying to stay upright as the world spun around her. She went through the first door that opened. The stairwell. The door closed with a loud click. She tried the handle—it was locked. “Shit!”

  The stairwell was hot, humid, and smelled of old age, compounded with the heat outside. Through the fog of the drugs she vaguely likened it to Shaye’s grandmother’s house, only mustier.

  She tripped several times walking up the stairs, her legs growing heavier with every step. At the top, she found herself facing a large room that looked as though it hadn’t been touched in a hundred years. It was a perfect replica of a Victorian Era parlor. She moved forward, running her fingers along the back of a deep-green horsehair sofa. A wave of dizziness overtook her and she grabbed the back of the sofa, its coarse texture rough against her palm. She attempted to dig her cell phone out of her pack, but with her vision blurring, coupled with confusion, she couldn’t manage even this simple task.

  She stepped around the sofa, her legs feeling like hundred-pound lead weights being dragged through thick, sucking mud. It grew harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other, and when she made an attempt to sit down, the sofa disappeared and she was staring at a muddy road unfamiliar to her.

  Shaking off her confusion, Rayne looked down. The rich oriental carpet swam before her, and as she went down hard, the floor was no longer the floor. Mud and dirt greeted her as everything went black.

  Washington, D.C.

  October 1864

  SAMUEL POWELL SAT in his office at the prison, a stack of paperwork before him. As head of Special Prison Task Forces, he was responsible for approving the invoices on top of the stack. He couldn’t help but note that the captives in the Union prisons received the highest level of care and ate better than their own soldiers out on the field.

  “Hell, they eat better than I do,” Sam grumbled out loud.

  Despite his young age, only twenty-four, he was a highly respected lawman. One who had, in the past, apprehended some of the most dangerous criminals in the area. He specialized in the most difficult cases of missing persons and murder, the cases no one else wanted.

  He had taken his current position as a favor to his friend, Christopher Butler, who worked in President Lincoln’s war cabinet. The war office needed someone they could trust to ensure the prisoners did not escape and to interrogate the ones coming in. Sam had decided settling down for a while might be a good idea, so he accepted the job.

  He’d originally thought it would be more of a challenge. Christopher’s wife, Hannah, had commented several times on the slowness of his job, even going so far as to give his special assignment a new name, Babysitter of the Elite Accused of Treason – or B.E.A.T., as she had once joked, and the title stuck. He smiled at her strange term. Sitting back, he ran his hands through his hair with a deep sigh.

  “Bad day?”

  Looking up in surprise, Sam saw his friend, Laughing Crow. The tall Indian grinned as he leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his wide chest.

  “Slow,” Sam grumbled.

  “You should have told Christopher no.”

  “I thought you were doing something useful with your weekend,” Sam smirked.

  Crow chuckled as he pushed his large body away from the doorframe and moved into the office. “She bored me.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Sam stretched his legs out onto his desk. “Quit choosing whores and you might find a woman who offers a challenge.”

  “White women are never a challenge,” Crow grunted as he sat across from Sam’s desk. He’d left his long hair free and it slid over his shoulders as he shook his head.

  “Why don’t you marry a Muskogee?”

  “As I’ve said many times before, I will never marry.”

  Sam stopped himself from rolling his eyes as he leaned forward. “Why don’t you join me this weekend?”

  “For?”

  “I have to head out to the farm.” Sam picked up his nib pen and signed a sheet of paper. “With the decision to free the slaves in Maryland, I need to make certain the Negroes are safe.”

  “Do you think there will be trouble?”

  Sam frowned. “I don’t know. It’s possible. There are southern sympathizers close enough to us to be concerned.”

  Crow nodded. “I’ll come with you.”

  “Thank you.” Sam dropped the pen on the desk. “Will you be joining us for Thanksgiving?”

  “In Harrisburg?”

  “No, in Virginia at the home of General and Mrs. Robert E. Lee.”

  “I have not decided yet,” Crow said.

  “What is there to decide?”

  “Whether or not your friends will take issue with a half-breed in their home.”

  Sam scowled. “Who’d take issue? They all know you.”

  “No, they don’t, Sam, and you well know it.”

  Sam did know it. Crow had endured prejudice his entire life. His Indian name was Laughing Crow, but when missionaries came through their village and discovered his mother was white, they gave him a Christian name. He was known from that point on as Douglas Smith. They cut his hair and made him wear white man’s clothing, but Crow did his best to hold onto his grandfather’s teachings, and as soon as he grew big enough not to be manhandled, he’d stopped the mandatory haircuts. His hair now hung halfway down his back.

  Sam met Crow five years ago while working on a missing-child case. Crow tracked the little girl to a remote area in the mountains and they rescued her. But it was Sam, not Crow, who was given a hero’s welcome. Crow, however, was happy to stand in the back and let Sam take the glory. They formed a close friendship and because of it, Sam had lost a few friends and colleagues.

  “You have over a month to decide, but in the meantime, the Butlers have invited us for dinner,” Sam said.

  “Why?”

  Standing, Crow raised an eyebrow a
t him.

  “Look,” Sam pointed out. “Hannah and Christopher like you. They don’t care that you’re a half-breed, and I have a feeling Victoria might take offense to that term.”

  “Are you saying Quincy and Victoria will be at dinner?”

  “Yes, they will.”

  Crow shrugged. “I will attend.”

  Sam laughed. “Victoria apparently made an impression.”

  Crow didn’t say anything as he turned and walked out the door.

  * * *

  Something foul stung Rayne’s nose as she tried to force herself to wake up, but she was having difficulty opening her eyes. A cold breeze feathered her skin.

  Funny… the room had been so humid.

  “Ooh Eee! Look-y what we got here.”

  Pounding footsteps and the sound of men’s voices pushed her to urgency, and she opened her eyes to find she was no longer alone. Just as suddenly, she realized she was lying in mud—and something entirely less pleasant.

  “Ain’t never seen a whore look like that before.”

  “What?” Rayne grasped her pounding head and sat up.

  “Lyle! Get a load of this one!”

  She found herself staring into the face of a ragged-looking man with pockmarked skin and rancid breath. “Ugh. Where am I?”

  He leaned forward from his hunkered position, his thin lips puckering. “Ain’t you perty?”

  Rayne pushed at his face. “Go away!”

  “We’re gonna have a heap o’ fun. You ain’t never had someone like me before.”

  “And I won’t now! Leave me alone.” Bile crept up her throat when she was hauled up and away from the foul-smelling man. Turning, she faced a large man with a heavy beard and scar down the left side of his face. He grasped her bicep, squeezing much harder than necessary, and shoved her against what she could only surmise to be a building of some form.

  “Let me go,” she whimpered.

  “Lyle!” the smaller man whined. “I found her first.”

  Lyle narrowed his eyes. “Shut your mouth, Curtis.”

  “But, Lyle—”

  “I said, shut yer mouth! You kin have her when I’m done.”

  “Done? No!” Rayne whispered. “Let me go!”

  Lyle hauled her into the middle of the street. Rayne tried to fight him as her stomach heaved and her head pounded. She had to get away, but didn’t know where to go.

  Letting her powerful lungs work for something other than singing, she screamed as loud as she could. Even though she received a slap from Lyle, she continued to scream.

  “Lyle!” Curtis warned. “The sheriff.”

  “Damn it,” Lyle growled and promptly let go of her.

  Rayne was dropped in a heap to the ground and she heard the men scurry into the alleyway to her left. She took a deep breath and mustered all of her strength to scream again. The shadow of a large man loomed over her and she was lifted off the ground again.

  The man wrapped a large arm around her waist and gave a gentle squeeze. “You’re safe now. I’m going to take you to the jail and we’ll get you sobered up.”

  “What do you mean? I’m not drunk.” But as her speech slurred she knew he wouldn’t believe her. He wrapped a warm coat around her shoulders and carried her down the street and into a large brick building in the middle of the square.

  “John!”

  “Ow! My head,” Rayne complained. “Could you perhaps not shout?”

  Another man strolled out from a back room and his eyes widened as he gave her the once over. “Whatya got there, Jimmy?”

  John nodded toward her. “Drunk whore.”

  “I’m not a whore!” Rayne pushed at him. “Dick.”

  “Put her in cell one,” John said.

  “You’re locking me up?” Rayne bellowed as she tried to pull herself away.

  “You need to sober up.”

  “I’m not drunk, asshole!” Rayne grasped her head and realized that no one was listening. They pushed her into a tiny space, three sides surrounded by bars, the other one solid brick, and a small cot in the corner. “It stinks. I can’t be in here. It smells like rotten feet and sweat. Let me out!”

  The men ignored her as she ranted. Jimmy locked her cell door and left her alone.

  * * *

  Crow arrived back at the jail just before dinner. Grabbing his jacket and hat, Sam followed Crow outside to their tethered horses and mounted.

  Navigating the busy streets of D.C., they took off toward the Butler’s townhouse. The rain from the night before created the occasional puddle, but it was better than the constant dust. Arriving at their destination, they pulled their horses to the back and handed them off to a stable boy.

  “Thank you, Jack,” Sam said.

  “Sir.” Jack nodded.

  They made their way to the front of the townhouse and knocked. Christopher’s housekeeper opened the door and ushered them into the parlor. Crow removed his hat, nodding to the group.

  Victoria jumped from the couch and ran to hug him. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  Her husband, Quincy rolled his eyes, which only made her laugh as she wrapped her arms around the large Indian. Sam stifled a grin at his friend’s discomfort.

  Crow smiled, but only slightly. He seemed a little off-guard at her show of affection. “I was threatened.”

  She glanced up at him. “By whom?”

  “A petite woman with violet eyes.”

  Victoria smacked his arm with a girlish giggle. “Oh yes, I’m certain you could be persuaded by a threat. I simply requested your presence. I would never threaten!”

  Crow raised an eyebrow. “A request from you, Mrs. Butler, is not a simple request.”

  Victoria had been kidnapped shortly after her marriage to Quincy and Crow was instrumental in finding her. Since then, Victoria considered Crow part of her family and refused to let him hide from them.

  “Well, never mind. I’m thrilled you’re here.” She pulled him further into the room. “Come and sit down.”

  Once the rest of the greetings were finished, Crow and Sam settled in the parlor with the drinks Christopher poured for them.

  “How’s the BEAT tonight?” Christopher asked.

  “Slow.” Sam sat in the chair closest to the fireplace.

  “Is that a bad thing?” Victoria asked as Quincy pulled her back onto the sofa.

  “No, not necessarily. It’s just not what I’m accustomed to.”

  Just then, the housekeeper led a young man into the parlor.

  Samuel raised an eyebrow. “Robert?”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir.” Robert, the sheriff’s deputy, twisted his hat in obvious nervousness. “We have a situation.”

  “A situation?”

  Robert nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there.” Sam rose to his feet. “Spit it out.”

  “It’s somewhat delicate,” he said, rolling the rim of his hat between his fingers.

  Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just tell me.”

  “John brought a woman over and asked that we house her.”

  John Patton ran the local jail and was good “muscle,” but women were not his strong suit. Sam crossed his arms. “Why?”

  “She’s drunk.” He cleared his throat. “And she’s not entirely dressed.”

  Sam frowned. “What do you mean by ‘not entirely dressed?’”

  “She’s wearing black, shiny breeches... and... uh... not much else.”

  “Is she a prostitute?”

  “It would appear so, sir. Although I’ve never seen a whore dressed like that.” He turned to the ladies with an expression of contrition. “Sorry.”

  “Why would John need to bring a working girl to you, Sam?” Christopher asked. “The general jail should be sufficient.”

  “No sir. The woman is causing a ruckus. John was hoping Mr. Powell would take her and keep her isolated.” Robert’s head bobbed as he retold the story.

  “A ruckus?” Victori
a asked.

  “Yes ma’am.” Robert lowered his gaze. “She’s a distraction to the other prisoners.”

  Victoria’s eyebrows rose, but she didn’t comment.

  “John needs to develop a backbone,” Sam grumbled. “How is it that a grown man cannot handle one woman?”

  “Go and take care of it, Sam. We’ll save you a plate,” Hannah offered.

  Crow stood to join Sam. Sam shook his head. “Crow, you should stay.”

  “Yes, Crow, you should stay,” Victoria said pointedly. Crow rolled his eyes at her, but she responded with a giggle. “No, my friend, you don’t get to escape dinner with us.”

  Sam walked out the door with Robert, promising to return soon.

  * * *

  Rayne couldn’t think straight. Her mind was cloudy from the drugs, and it didn’t help that she was shivering from cold. Lying on the filthy cot in the dark cell, her head pounded and the nausea wouldn’t leave her alone. She groaned as she tried to sit up.

  “Ma’am?”

  “What?” Rayne snapped.

  “Um...ma’am, if you’ll—”

  “Stop calling me ma’am!” She glared up at John. “Why am I in jail?”

  “Ma’am, if you’ll wait for Mr. Powell—”

  “Stop calling me ma’am!” she yelled and immediately regretted it. She gagged and lay back down.

  John lowered his head. “Sorry, ma—”

  “John? Where’s this whore you apparently can’t handle?”

  Hearing the new voice, low and strong, Rayne sat up, but she was not prepared for the man heading toward her prison cell. Tall, taller than even Trevor, with sandy-blond hair and the lightest blue eyes she’d ever seen. They reminded her of ice-blue satin—and Paul Newman. He was gorgeous. She shook herself from her thoughts and scowled. “I hope to hell you aren’t referring to me.”

  * * *

  Freezing in place at the authoritative voice, Sam stared at the vision in black. The woman had short blonde hair in a pointy style he’d never seen before. Her clothing, what there was of it, seemed to have been painted onto her body. The corset, sans chemise, was entirely inappropriate and she appeared to have something painted on her shoulder. Despite her lack of dress, his only thought at that moment was that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Although her make-up appeared heavy, she looked young. Not at all a used-up whore.