Being this close to Conrad again filled Jess with rage. How dare he come and pollute her corner of the world? Wasn’t it bad enough that he had taken New York from her, but now he had to invade her patch of Colorado too!
“What are you doing here?” she demanded again.
Conrad smiled at her. It was that infuriating, self-satisfied grin, that Jess had wanted to slap off his face every day during the divorce discussions.
“Jess what’s going on?” Wyatt asked trying to grab her wrist and pull her back. She shook him off.
She opened her mouth to speak but Conrad brushed passed her and stood in front of Wyatt. He was much smaller and it would have been comical if Jess hadn’t known what strength lay in that small frame.
“I’m Conrad,” he said extending his hand, “Her husband, and you are?”
“Ex! Conrad, you are my EX!” Jess roared at him, “And this is none of your business.”
Conrad looked from Jess to Wyatt. Then he leaned over to the big man and said in a not too soft whisper, “Well at least she’s playing to her strengths, she was always a good lay.”
“What are you trying to say little man?” Wyatt asked looming over Conrad.
“Oh just that I hope you’re paying her for her company properly. A girl like this is worth…”
Wyatt punched him.
It seemed that everyone had simply been waiting for an excuse to rip into each other, and Jess found herself in a world of brawling men. She tried to make her way out of it, but suddenly someone grabbed her by the arm and rammed her against the wall. Pain shot up her back and for a moment she wondered what was happening. Conrad held her firmly. He must escaped Wyatt somehow. His lip was bleeding but he didn’t seem to notice.
Jess struggled and writhed trying to get free, while inside fear built, the same fear that had made her leave him.
He’s going to kill me.
Then Conrad hit her. This wasn’t the first time but it was still a shock. The stinging, ringing in her ears made her eyes roll and water. She felt something trickle over her lip. He hit her again, and again, this time in the stomach and she bent over vomiting up her wine and dinner.
“Why can’t you leave me alone?” she gasped and sagged to the floor.
Conrad lifted her chin as he hunkered down in front of her. “You don’t deserve happiness Jess. You left me and no one does that! You hear me? No one! I will hunt you down wherever you go! I will find you and I will take everything from you!”
Suddenly hands gripped Conrad’s shoulders and pulled him off her. It was one of his pack.
“We gotta go Conrad,” the pack member said hurriedly. “We’re in deep for this,” and he pulled Conrad back again.
“I’m not finished!” Conrad roared but a wall of big burly men was closing around Conrad and his friends, pushing them out of the door.
“This isn’t over Jess!” Conrad yelled at her. “It will never be over!”
Suddenly Wyatt was by her side. He looked so worried that Jess tried to smile to tell him it was okay, but all she could do was cry. Jess realized that she would never be free of Conrad. Never. He would haunt her steps for the rest of her days, sucking the life out her slowly, painfully. She would always be looking over her shoulder, and he would always be there, forever.
Wyatt drove her home. He didn’t speak, only put his arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. The heat off his body melted her frozen, aching muscles and Jess felt herself turn into a limp rag doll. She was so tired. Conrad had sapped the life out of her.
When they reached the ranch, Wyatt got out and opened the door for her. Then he picked her up in his strong arms.
“I can walk,” she said softly.
He ignored her and carried her inside. Then he took her up to her bedroom, and laid her on her bed and helped her get her boots off. Jess was aching all over. Wyatt examined her face and her stomach. Then he produced a tub of ointment and began to rub it on her bruises. He was so gentle she could hardly feel his fingers on her skin.
“It’s a special mixture,” he said, “Works like a charm for bruises. I keep it in my truck just in case you know? You just get some sleep and you’ll see, tomorrow will be better.” He kissed her forehead gently, brushed a strand of dark hair from her face and left.
Jess slept in fits and bursts. She woke often and at one point in the night thought she heard an animal howl. She hoped it was just a wolf, a normal wolf, but her gut told her not to be naïve. Conrad was here. Her footsteps would be hounded by wolves until he made her crazy or she died.
By morning Jess was a more composed person. She looked in the mirror at her bloodshot blue eyes and pale cheeks, but apart from a slight swelling under one eye, she looked perfectly normal. What was in that crème?
Throwing on jeans and a blue Tee she went out into the yard as Wyatt’s truck pulled up, brimming with workers. He had organized extra help for the day, including as it turned out, his sister, Donna.
Donna was lovely in daylight too. She bounced into Jess’s house, and in no time at all, was elbows deep in boxes pulling things out and finding places for them.
“Wyatt told me about your ex,” she said.
Jess didn’t say anything.
“Sounds like a right turd to me,” Donna said. “But you know what? I believe that nasty people get their payback in the end. Just you wait and see, this Conrad will get his. Especially if my brother has any say in it.”
“Really?” Jess asked, interested despite her feelings of dread.
“Oh sure, no one messes with a girl my brother has his eye on,” Donna said. She went on to explain how strong and brave her brother was. How there wasn’t a man who could beat him.
Jess smiled, “He’s not a man. Conrad is a werewolf, Donna. So I don’t know if your brother can beat that.”
Donna didn’t seem concerned at all. She just smiled and carried on working.
That night a cow died.
Something broke in and hauled it halfway across an open field, leaving bits as it went. The next night brought the same thing, only with two cows this time. Jess fretted and spent half the night awake listening, not daring to go outside because what could she do against a werewolf?
Wyatt did his best, he fortified the fences, tried every trick he knew, but still those crafty wolves were getting in.
“I’ll have to speak to him,” Jess said six days later and five cows down. Wyatt and Charlie were seated at her new kitchen table holding mugs of coffee.
“You can’t,” Wyatt said flatly.
“Actually I can,” Jess said with more vehemence than she had meant. “This has to stop. It just has to.”
“Do you think talkin’ will do any good, deep down in your soul?” Charlie asked.
Jess sighed and shook her head, “Probably not. But what can I do? I haven’t slept in forever, and each night more of my cattle are slaughtered and mutilated. Conrad has to stop or be stopped. We have to have a plan.”
Charlie looked at Wyatt who shrugged. “There might be something,” he said.
“What?”
Charlie shrugged, “There is a man, he makes things. Things that work on werewolves.”
“You’ll have to use it though,” Wyatt said.
Charlie nodded. “I will. I’ll take her there.”
There turned out to be a little shed in the middle of nowhere. The man was small, greying and owlish with huge eye glasses. He grunted and spoke only to Charlie even though he accepted cash from Jess happily enough. And then with a package under Charlie’s arm they left and returned to the farm.
The package turned out to be a gun, and silver bullets. Jess nodded.
“Okay, so do you know how to shoot? Oddly it never came up as something I needed to know,” she said.
Wyatt smiled. He and Charlie showed her how to load the gun with normal bullets, and then spent the afternoon teaching her to shoot. It was a rifle and took some getting used to. Jess kept closing her eyes when she pulled the trigger. In the end she hit the target three out of five times and that would have to do.
Wyatt sat with her in her sitting room. They had taken to spending silent hours together. He had practically moved into the house now, sleeping downstairs on the sofa, at his insistence. Some nights Jess tiptoed downstairs to find him gone, she suspected to walk the grounds, but he was always back in the morning looking tired.
This had to end. So when Conrad came sniffing around this time, he would meet his maker in the barrel of a loaded gun. And she would be the one pulling the trigger.