Redeemer Read online

  Copyright © 2022 by BJ Wane

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Editors: Kate Richards & Nanette Sipes

  Cover Design & Formatting: Joe Dugdale (www.joe.ma)

  Published by Blue Dahlia 2022

  Doms of Mountain Bend:

  REDEEMER

  Book 6

  BY

  BJ WANE

  Disclaimer

  This contemporary romantic suspense contains adult themes such as power exchange and sexual scenes.

  Please do not read if these offend you.

  Prologue

  Louisiana’s heavy humidity pressed down on Sophie Turner, the sultry heat seeping through her black dress, drawing a bead of perspiration down her back. Her sun-streaked, light-brown hair clung to her neck the same as silent tears stuck to her ravaged face. Other than the minister, two of her co-workers, and Gloria, a college friend, no one else stood at her daughter’s flower-draped casket. The ornate box, so small, reflected the size of her eighteen-month-old little girl who had lost her battle with a malignant brain tumor after putting up a valiant fight for a few months.

  What will I do now? How will I go on without her?

  Sophie couldn’t imagine her life without Kasey. For the last year and a half, every day had revolved around her little girl, showering her with the love she’d missed out on by losing her own mother at a young age. What a difference her daughter had made in her life in such a short time. She’d become a workaholic after college, hiring on at one of New Orleans’ resort hotels and working her way up the ladder. After making assistant manager, an opportunity to take over a bed-and-breakfast at a renovated, historic mansion was too appealing to turn down. The added bonus of room and board included in her salary had enabled her to keep Kasey with her while working.

  Her daughter had been a godsend following the back-to-back deaths of her grandparents who had raised Sophie from the age of five. Life had been perfect again up until three months ago.

  She wasn’t proud of it, but her drive for success and losing her only family had kept her from seeking a personal life, and there were times loneliness would get to her enough she would indulge in a one-night stand just for the company and touch of another person. When she’d found herself pregnant following one such night, she’d been thrilled beyond belief.

  Now, faced with every parent’s worst nightmare, the soul-deep grief was eating her alive, leaving her nothing but an empty shell of her former self. Nausea churned as the minister tossed the first handful of dirt onto the coffin. Sophie shook her head, too numb to say anything when he beckoned her forward to do the same.

  “I’ll do it,” Gloria whispered next to her, squeezing her hand.

  “Thank you,” Sophie responded, pushing the words past her clogged throat, grateful to her friend, and relieved her beloved grandparents were spared suffering this loss after losing their only child.

  No matter how poorly she had acted when they’d first come to get her out of foster care, her mother’s parents had given her unconditional love and support her whole life, up until the day they had passed. She now had firsthand experience of what they suffered when they learned of her mother’s death, and imagined their grief went as deep as Sophie’s despite the fact her mother had become a drug-addicted runaway.

  Love for a child knew no boundaries or limitations.

  Even though Ethel and Frank hadn’t seen or heard from their only child in six years, they’d wasted no time in finding Sophie once they heard they had a granddaughter. They’d taken her in without hesitation, given her a home, and showered her with the love her sometimes neglectful mother had denied her. She prayed they were at peace, along with Kasey.

  The minister said a few more words then came around to Sophie. “If you need anything, my dear, don’t hesitate to call.”

  Can you give me my daughter back?

  “Thank you.”

  What else could she say? Her life once again had taken a turn for the worse, only this time, Sophie wasn’t a child, alone in a run-down dark apartment with her mother lying on the floor, not talking or moving, a raging storm scaring her into hiding. She didn’t know if she possessed the wherewithal to keep going.

  ****

  Idaho’s summer sun warmed Adrian Coultrane’s shoulders but failed to thaw the ice-cold rage he’d lived with for the past two weeks. He gazed upon his wife’s coffin with regret but little grief. The last year of their five-year marriage had been a nonstop argument fest with her complaining about his long hours and tight clasp on the purse strings. They’d discussed divorce, but he was the one who had finally gotten around to it after learning about her betrayal.

  He switched his gaze from the flower-draped casket to the five people he was closest to, whom he’d known most of his life and considered family. Ashe, his cousin and only blood relative other than their parents, still hadn’t learned to curb the temper that had landed him in so much trouble when they were younger. Anyone who saw them together might think they were brothers, their resemblance unmistakable even though Ashe’s eyes were gray blue instead of silver, like Adrian’s. They had argued and gotten into scrapes as kids but always had each other’s backs and never let anything or anyone come between them. Until Nicole. Ashe still had yet to forgive him for marrying Nicole after his cousin had shown an interest in her. At least he could still count on him to put in his fair share of work with breeding and raising their horses, a business they’d started together after the two of them had inherited the ranch from their fathers.

  Adrian and Wyatt Davenport had become friends in high school, Wyatt fitting in with him, Ashe, and Jessie as if he’d always been part of their inner circle. Looking at him now, his sandy hair disheveled, his brown eyes twitching, Adrian could tell he was using again and suspected he was responsible for the drugs found in Nicole’s system at the autopsy. Wyatt turned to drugs as a coping mechanism when he was stressed, which was often due to his upbringing by alcoholic parents and his job as an IT specialist with a Boise security firm, and didn’t mind sharing when he wasn’t alone. While disappointed in both him and his wife, Adrian had enough on his plate without worrying about Wyatt’s most recent lapse.

  Then there was Jessie Shields, whom Adrian was closest to of the three men. After Adrian kicked the butts of two older boys picking on Jessie when they were eight, Jessie had latched onto him and they’d remained tight during the past thirty years. They’d tussled as youngsters, sparred verbally as teens and young adults, and, like with Ashe, were there for each other through thick and thin, without fail or question. Jessie liked to put on a fake accent whenever someone mistook him for Irish because of his auburn hair and green eyes. He owned a bar off the highway, was a shameless flirt, and never took anything or anyone seriously, Adrian’s complete opposite, yet they remained as close now as when they were younger.

  Adrian’s attention switched to Nicole’s two best friends, Nora and Rachel. Three years younger than him and the guys, the then freshmen girls had flirted their way into earning their protection during their senior year. As adults, they’d eventually wormed their way into their beds. Nora wanted only Jessie for as long as Adrian could recall, but despite their recent affair, the odds of Jessie settling down with just one woman were as long a shot as Adrian using his prize stud to service only one mare.

  He had stayed out of their relationship, believing they were both making a mistake, and ended up being the one who had made a huge error in judgement concerning mixing friends with sex. Adrian never should have gone from Nicole’s bed to marriage, mistaken sex for love. He’d been aware of Nicole’s fickl
e love interests for years, her need for attention and selfish ways, but one night of over-indulging at Jessie’s bar and he’d woken the next morning with her curled around him in his bed. He thought he’d been doing the right thing ending it then and there, explaining it had been his blunder.

  Too bad he’d failed to continue doing the right thing when he caved to his lust for Nicole less than a month later. Their volatile relationship had been toxic for everyone and often put a wedge between friendships when they took sides. Nicole had placed the sole blame for every argument on him, and to his knowledge, Nicole, Nora and Rachel got along without petty rivalry or jealousy coming between them. Both of Nicole’s friends were quick to jump to her defense whenever he and his wife had fought, which, in the last year, was often.

  Still, Adrian had tried to salvage what he could of their relationship, did everything possible to make the marriage work, and then opted to part friends while that was still possible. Two weeks ago, though, before the papers could even be filed, Nicole had tumbled to her death over a craggy ledge off a trail she knew as well as the back of her hand.

  Now, as the minister wound down his sermon and the five people he cared about the most started toward him, their faces etched with ravaged grief, all that was left to do was figure out which one killed his wife.

  Chapter One

  Eight months later

  Sophie cursed as another jagged streak of lightning rent the air, wondering if this inclement weather was an omen telling her making this drastic change was a mistake. She cringed from the ensuing loud thunderclap, clutched the steering wheel tighter, and flipped her windshield wipers on high then slowed down even further. It was bad enough she had taken a wrong turn when she reached Boise, Idaho, but driving into this storm after getting directions at a gas station in the small town of Mountain Bend had slowed her down, making her even later. The sky had darkened ominously by the time she had gotten gas, and that alone was enough to turn her hands clammy from jittery nerves. When those clouds had opened up as she was navigating the long stretch of barren highway that was supposed to lead her to the Coultrane Ranch, her irrational fear of storms had kicked in, which didn’t do anything to calm her racing heartbeat.

  For God’s sake, she thought, irritated with herself when she jumped with the next thunder boom, this stupid phobia of hers was driving her crazy. Counselors had told her grandparents her fear stemmed from being found alone in an apartment darkened from storms, her mother dead from an overdose when she was five years old. Since she didn’t remember much of that day and little of her mother, with no recollection of those hours she’d been alone with her corpse while a storm raged outside their small apartment, she didn’t understand why she was, to this day, deathly afraid of a little moisture accompanied by some loud noise. But she was, and nothing she, or her counselors, or her grandparents had tried had gotten her over it, much to her annoyance at times like this.

  If it weren’t for the fact she was arriving at the ranch to start a new job as housekeeper and cook almost two hours late with her heart pounding a rapid tattoo of anxiety, she would have loved to take this drive slower, to enjoy the scenery that was polar opposite from Louisiana where she’d lived all of her thirty-two years. Even though it was midafternoon, she could barely make out the forest of pines on her left or the far-off mountain silhouette reaching into the skies beyond the wide expanse of rangeland on her right. She knew from her research that late in the year was Idaho’s rainiest season, the storms often turning to a light snow, but she had hoped to find herself safely ensconced inside the Coultranes’ mansion before encountering one, not smack dab in the middle of it. Her nerves were already stretched taut over meeting her boss, the very wealthy, eccentric, elusive Adrian Coultrane, the storm and her fear something she could have done without.

  After applying for the job online, she had researched as much as she could find out about the Coultrane cousins. Surprisingly, there was very little public information about the family best known for the prize thoroughbreds they bred and raised on their twenty-thousand-acre ranch and the multimillion-dollar investments the cousins had taken over for their fathers. She’d read Adrian, as the elder heir, controlled the purse strings and sat at the head of the board of investors. Following the death of his wife last spring, he’d become something of a recluse, shunning social events he’d attended in the past, leaving it up to his cousin, Ashe, to put in an appearance for the family. Other than the articles and newspaper clippings from Adrian’s marriage five years ago, and on his wife’s death from an accidental fall off the cliffs, she couldn’t find much else on him. She found a few articles in the Idaho Statesman paper on his cousin, who seemed to have trouble controlling his temper, even in public. But her new boss remained something of a puzzle.

  Sophie jerked again with the next crack of lightning, but thankfully, that brief flare was enough to catch the turnoff to the final leg of this long journey. The one-lane road wasn’t paved, and the torrential downpour, coupled with the overhang from the trees lining the road, made it eerily difficult to find her way. Swallowing past the lump lodged in her throat, she prayed the ranch wasn’t too far ahead. After what seemed like hours but was less than thirty minutes later, she came to the open double gates leading onto Coultrane land. Another few minutes of driving and she got her first in-person glimpse of the eight-thousand-square-foot estate she was now responsible for keeping up.

  What the heck was I thinking? If the online photos Mr. Coultrane had sent weren’t intimidating enough, staring at the sheer magnitude of what she’d taken on was enough for Sophie to question her sanity. Her abdomen clenched as she recalled her last visit to the cemetery to say goodbye to her daughter. Eight months of waking every morning to face the nightmare of losing her, and she still couldn’t get past the numbing grief shredding her will to go on a little more each passing day. She despaired of ever finding some peace from the constant grief of missing Kasey, becoming desperate to escape the daily reminders of her daughter.

  Following the funeral, she couldn’t bring herself to do anything more than gather up Kasey’s toys from the small living area in their suite at the bed-and-breakfast, put them in her room, and close the door. Every few days, she would cave to the need to enter that room and let the memories assail her all over again, craving to get close to her little girl in whatever way she could. After work, she would walk to their favorite park and sit on the bench in front of the swings, her heart breaking as she tortured herself by recalling all the afternoons she’d spent pushing Kasey on the toddler’s swing with the sweet aroma of the blooming magnolia trees around them, listening to her squeals of laughter.

  Small hail pellets pinged against the windshield, snatching Sophie’s attention out of the clouds. She longed for an outlet to keep from drifting into the past, and what she could never have again. The wind was even gustier now as she veered onto the winding gravel drive that led up to the three-story brick, wood, and stone mansion, praying this hiatus from the norm would give her the time and space she needed to come to terms with her loss.

  Sophie parked in the circular drive, as close to the walkway leading up to the covered, wraparound porch as she could. Through the window and storm-driven rain, she could barely make out a colossal gray stable with red trim, the pastureland behind it enclosed with neat gray fencing. Taking a deep breath, she jumped out of her car and dashed up the steps to the large wooden double doors that remained closed. Her light, waterproof jacket didn’t have a hood, and in this downpour, it had taken only moments for her to get drenched. Lifting a hand, she rapped on the door, her loud knocking still unanswered by the time the next lightning bolt lit up the sky. The ensuing rumbling thunder and her ice-cold hands galvanized her into trying the knob. Finding it unlocked, she shoved the huge door open and practically fell inside. Leaning back against the door, she pushed it closed, shutting out the storm and welcoming the warmth with a relieved shiver.

  She recognized the wide staircase several feet across the te
rra-cotta-tiled entry from the photos Mr. Coultrane had sent her of the house. The curved, ornate wood banister was just as rustic and appealing as it looked in the pictures, the enormous wagon-wheel light fixture above her giving off some much-needed light in the otherwise dim interior. To her right, she could see the great room with its vaulted ceiling and brick fireplace that dominated the far wall but not the open dining area and massive kitchen around the corner. To her left, the first door of the hallway stood ajar, and she could glimpse the end of a desk but detected no sound or movement inside the office.

  Another shiver racked Sophie’s body, and she scraped her damp hair away from her face and neck. “Hello?” she called out, her voice bouncing off the high ceilings. Silence met her tentative greeting, and she sighed in exhausted, nerve-wracked frustration.

  Stripping off her wet jacket, she hung it on an empty peg next to two men’s all-weather coats and Stetsons and one smaller woman’s size jacket, indicating there were people in residence. Running her clammy hands on her khaki slacks, she padded down the hall toward the only light she could discern, wondering if her new employer had given up on her arriving today. She passed the office and one closed door before hearing voices coming from the room near the end of the hall then the distinct sound of slapping flesh. She paused, cringing and debating whether to stay or go when a roll of thunder penetrated the thick walls.

  Left with little choice, she moved ahead. Instead of calling out again, afraid of interrupting something, she crept toward the open door only to stop dead in her tracks at a tableau that shocked her into stunned immobility and silence. Bent over a padded footstool, a naked woman knelt with her hands cuffed behind her, the man standing in front of her holding her head as he fucked her mouth with long, slow thrusts. Another man stood behind her upturned butt, wielding a wicked-looking leather belt across her buttocks, the snap of leather striking bare skin mingling with a low moan from the woman.