If the Dark Wins (Finley Creek Book 4) Read online

  IF THE DARK WINS

  CALLE J. BROOKES

  LOST RIVER LIT PUBLISHING, L.L.C.

  CONTENTS

  Also by Calle J. Brookes

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Epilogue

  Excerpts

  Excerpts

  Other Titles by Calle J. Brookes

  Paranormal

  DARDANOS Paranormal Romance

  Live or Die

  The Blood King

  The Seer’s Strength

  The Warrior’s Woman

  The Healer’s Heart

  Once Wolf Bitten

  Awakening the Demon’s Queen

  The Wolf’s Redemption

  The Wolf God & His Mate

  God of Nightmares

  DARDANOS: THE LAQUAZZEANA

  A Warrior’s Quest

  Out of the Darkness

  Warrior Blind

  The Witch

  Balance of the Worlds

  The Healer’s Soul

  DARDANOS: THE ADRASTOS

  The Outcast

  The Forlorn

  The Beloved

  The Betrayed

  Romantic Suspense

  PAVAD: FBI ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

  Beginning (Prequel 1)

  Waiting (Prequel 2)

  Watching

  Wanting

  Second Chances

  Hunting

  Running

  Redeeming

  Revealing

  Stalking

  Ghosting

  Burning

  Gathering

  Falling

  Hiding

  Suspense/Thriller

  PAVAD: FBI Case Files #0001

  “Knocked Out”

  PAVAD: FBI Case Files #0002

  “Knocked Down”

  PAVAD: FBI Case Files #0003

  “Knocked Around”

  FINLEY CREEK SERIES

  TRILOGY ONE

  Her Best Friend’s Keeper

  Shelter from the Storm

  The Price of Silence

  TRILOGY TWO

  If the Dark Wins

  MASTERSON COUNTY SERIES

  Seeking the Sheriff

  COMING SOON

  Wounds That Won’t Heal (Finley Creek Trilogy 2)

  As the Night Ends (Finley Creek Trilogy 2)

  Seeking (PAVAD: FBI Romantic Suspense 15)

  Discovering the Doctor (Masterson 2)

  Calle J. Brookes is first and foremost a fiction writer. She enjoys crafting paranormal romance and romantic suspense. She reads almost every genre except horror. She spends most of her time juggling family life and writing while reminding herself that she can’t spend all of her time in the worlds found within books. Calle J. loves to be contacted by her readers via email and at www.CalleJBrookes.com.

  Calle has several free reads available at CalleJBrookesReads.com

  For my grandfather, the best man I have ever known.

  You will be missed.

  Oct. 2015

  For my grandmother, who gave me the courage to try. Without you and your love of romance, I never would have made it this far.

  Feb. 2016

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  If the Dark Wins

  Calle J. Brookes

  Lost River Lit Publishing, L.L.C.

  Springs Valley, Indiana

  Est. 2011

  The Lost River Lit Publishing, L.L.C. name and imprint are the sole properties of independent publishers Calle J. Brookes and B.G. Lashbrooks. They cannot be reproduced or used in any manner; nor can any of their publications or designs be used without expressed written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, or locations, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Copyright © 2017 Calle J. Brookes

  Cover by Lost River Lit Publishing, L.L.C.

  All rights reserved.

  If the Dark Wins

  Finley Creek

  Book 4

  1

  The letter came on a Tuesday near the end of March. The man came on the first Thursday of April. Lacy McGareth looked at the man and wondered just what the going rate for making one of the wealthiest ranchers in the state of Texas disappear would be. It would almost be worth it.

  Travis Worthington-Deane was as offensive as his name. Although he sure didn’t look offensive. He was just too pretty. Too perfect. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired and green-eyed, he walked onto her slightly lopsided porch and demanded to speak to the one who’d stolen her ranch from him.

  Well, that was guaranteed to set Lacy’s teeth on edge from the very beginning, wasn’t it?

  She stared at the man for a moment. “I don’t know who you think you are, but you need to get off my porch before I shoot you. Trespassers aren’t wanted.”

  “Neither are
land thieves, darlin’. Even pretty ones.” He adjusted his white Stetson with one hand and stared at her.

  “I bought my ranch fair and square.” Using every penny she had saved up and a prayer. Had it not been a foreclosure, she never would have managed it—and if the realtor hadn’t been a friend who’d stayed up late to put in a very last-minute bid just as the auction ended.

  “It was supposed to be mine. I was the only bidder. The old woman who lived here promised I could have it when she passed.”

  “The old woman was my aunt, and she wanted me to have it.” And the small amount of cash she’d inherited from her aunt had gone a long way toward Lacy’s bid.

  The ranch had been in her mother’s family for five generations, but when her mother had died in a wreck when Lacy had been eleven it had been sold to pay off her mother’s bills. A great-aunt had repurchased it a decade later.

  She’d contacted Lacy a few years ago to reconnect with the only family she had. It had been awkward between them, but Lacy had made the effort. Dorothy had been the only biological family Lacy had had.

  Now she had no one. She was the last McGareth of Finley Creek County. One of the county’s most historic names and she was the last.

  This was the original McGareth ranch, and it was hers. That most of the land had been gobbled up in the last decade by the man in front of her didn’t change that fact. Or make her like him all that much.

  The ranch and the two hundred acres surrounding it were hers. No Worthington-Deane was going to take that from her. “What do you want? I assume you’re the one responsible for the letter?”

  “I’m going to offer you a more than fair offer for this place.” The man smiled, revealing a too-perfect set of teeth. He looked… too sculpted, or genetically engineered to be a perfectly masculine specimen. Like a perfect cowboy-android—that’s what he was. Perfect.

  “No.”

  “Can’t you be reasonable?”

  “No.” Like she hadn’t heard that before. Many people in her life had told her to be reasonable—usually when they wanted her to do something their way.

  “Surely you don’t think you can keep up with this place all by yourself?”

  “No.” She had no intention of just keeping up with it, she was going to make it shine. Make it her home again. The way it should have been.

  The room her mother had painted for her when she was six was just down the hall. Her twin sisters’ room was right next to it. They had been three when they’d died, along with their mother.

  “Do you even realize what you are saying?” He took his hat off his head and wiped at the sweat. It was a balmy ninety already, and he was showing evidence of it. So was she--her place didn’t exactly have air conditioning. Something she was determined to rectify soon.

  “No.”

  “Are you always this stubborn?”

  “No.” Yes. When it mattered. Stubbornness was what had gotten her through the last sixteen years.

  “Can you say anything else?” Hard to miss how irritated he was becoming. Lacy resisted smiling. She wasn’t going to let a man like him bully her into giving up one of the biggest dreams she’d ever had. She’d finally made it home.

  Lacy opened the screen door and stepped more fully out on the porch, avoiding the trap board that she’d been meaning to fix the night before. She’d gotten called back to the hospital on an emergency call and hadn’t been able to finish what she wanted. “No.”

  “Listen, why won’t you consider it? You can’t be attached to this place.”

  “I am. Very, very, very attached. In fact, you want this ranch, you’re going to have to pry the deed from my cold, dead fingers.” She smiled at him and walked right up to him.

  She wasn’t afraid of this guy. Well, not too afraid, anyway. She’d seen more nightmares than he could ever count. He wasn’t going to be able to intimidate her. Nothing intimidated her any longer. Besides, she already had her pistol within easy reach.

  The last few months had taught her some valuable lessons, after all.

  “You really think a slip of a girl is going to be able to manage a two-hundred-acre ranch all by herself? What are you going to run on it? Cattle? Sheep? Horses?”

  “Angora-paccas.”

  “What?”

  She smiled again. It was a running joke between her and her friends. She had no intention of raising any kind of animal on the ranch. She was just going to live there. And one day pass it down to those it rightfully belonged to.

  If she ever married, that was. She still had another three to five years in her surgical fellowship before she was even going to contemplate a relationship.

  “Pretty little Angora bunnies and alpacas. That’s what I’m going to run here, Mr. Worthington-Deane. Bunnies. Maybe a few turtles. That’s it, I’m going to raise turtles. But whatever I do with it, you don’t get to say. Like I said when I called you Tuesday. My ranch is not for sale.”

  She yanked the hat out of his hand and slapped it back onto his head, stretching up on her toes to do it. She wasn’t all that tall at five-seven. He had a good eight or nine inches on her. Probably a hundred pounds, too. Pure lean muscle. “Here’s your hat, I suggest you hurry. I have company coming, and you’re wasting both our times. Bye-bye, now. Watch out for my pet rattler on your way out. He lives beneath the porch. I think. It could be an alligator. I’m not brave enough to look closely. Want to?”

  TRAVIS STARED at the pretty little nutcase in front of him for a moment. What would happen if he picked her up and dropped her straight down the well he knew was behind the house? She was small enough to fit. He could toss her in blonde head first. Wrap his hands around that small waist and…

  Green eyes snapped fire at him, tempting him.

  He was close enough to see a few freckles over the bridge of her nose, and a tiny scar where she’d had it pierced at one time. Who was this woman, anyway?

  He’d had his secretary look up the name of the new owner of the old ranch that now sat right dead center of his much larger spread, but he’d forgotten the name in his hurry over here. He’d received her response to his formal letter in his own mail just two days after he’d sent it.

  Hell no, asshole.

  It had been rather succinct, hadn’t it?

  He had to admit, the interloper wasn’t exactly what he’d expected. She was younger, for one thing. Less than thirty would be his guess. She didn’t look like a ranch woman, either. The boots and jeans, maybe. But the rest of her...no.

  She wore a skinny little blue tank top that showed off some seriously smooth skin. And some nice female flesh. The kind a man liked to look at. The hair was pulled up off of her neck, but some had escaped. It was long and curled and light.

  The jeans were old and ragged in all the right places.

  Hell, if he didn’t want her ranch, he probably would have played very nicely with this neighbor.

  He’d burned that bridge, obviously. He wasn’t giving up, though.

  “Don’t touch my hat,” he ordered, just as an older BMW pulled in the drive, carefully avoiding the potholes that should have been fixed long ago.

  This prickly little porcupine probably left them there on purpose.

  He looked over at the car as two women climbed out. Travis was always an appreciator of women and these two...

  Nice. Very, very nice. Second look worthy—even third look.

  “Lacy?” the redhead said. “You ok?”

  “I’m just peachy, Jill. Mr. Worthington-Deane was just leaving. He got his answer. He just doesn’t want to take it.”

  “I see.” The shorter redhead eyed him like he was a snake and her little blonde friend a mouse. They stepped up to her side. He looked at them for a moment, then decided to at least try to charm them. Maybe her friends would see reason somehow.

  “I’m here to buy Ms...” Hell, he didn’t remember her name, did he?

  She smirked at him. “It’s doctor, actually. Dr. Lacy McGareth. Owner of the last McGareth ranch in Fi
nley Creek.”

  “Doctor of what?”

  “Of medicine, you idiot.”

  Well, that surprised him. She didn’t look like any doctor he’d ever known.

  “Lace...” the brunette stared at him out of ridiculously large brown eyes. She looked like a china doll or one of those glass ballerinas his mother liked to collect. She was the tallest by a few inches, but the most delicate looking. The short redhead was just as beautiful; it was the hair and the classic allure that caught a man when he looked at her.

  But it was the blonde’s sexy earthiness that would stay with a man the most. “I’m going to up my original offer by twenty-five percent. Move back to town, close to the hospitals.”

  “Don’t start this again. The answer is no. No, no, no, no. I could sing it for you if you’d like?” She patted him on the cheek.

  He had to admire her boldness.

  The friends were eying him like he was about to eat them all. It was actually a strange reaction and he couldn’t figure them out.

  Sometimes the best strategy was retreat. And Travis had the time to do just that. He’d give the girl two more months out there on the ranch, right during the hell that was a Texas summer, and let her see. She’d accept his offer then.

  He had no doubt about that.

  “Ladies, sorry to have bothered you.” He said the hell with it. She’d already touched him, she deserved it. Travis grabbed the hand she still had between them. He brought her palm to his lips and kissed her right in the center. He watched for the reaction that he expected would come.

  And react she did. With a hiss and a jerk, she yanked her hand back like he’d burned her. “Don’t ever touch me again.”

  “Oh, I’d like to. I’d really like to. If you or either of your friends are interested in dinner, I’m more than willing. They’re really pretty, too. But probably a whole lot nicer than you. Like I said, ladies.” He tipped his hat politely, ignoring the wariness in two pairs of brown eyes and one green. “I’ll be seeing you again, Doc. You can count on that.”

  What a strange little trio of females they were.

  2

  A logical person didn’t turn down his final offer of four times what she’d paid for it. Not without a good reason.

  Travis had gotten the hint loud and clear.

  Her ranch was safe. He was a businessman—he’d lost on properties before. And he wasn’t one to dwell on situations—he was better off strategizing other solutions to his problems.