Free Eagle's Refuge by Regina Carlysle

arms were around her. His hold tightened. “You listen to me, honey. We’re calling Sheriff Coleman and filing a report, okay?” Though his voice practically vibrated with emotion, his tone was gentle and low. “And then you are gonna pack a bag. Get your stuff together and come with me to the ranch.”
    She looked up at him, for the moment ignoring the tears that fell in a steady stream down her face. “I don’t know.”
    “Yes you do, Callie. You can’t stay here. I can protect you out there while Doug is hunted down and arrested. My family will help.”
    Callie opened her mouth to protest but the phone by her bed rang. Pulling from Mac’s arms, she grabbed it up and spoke.
    “Left you a note, Callie. Did you see it?”
    Doug. She’d know his voice anywhere. He laughed.
    “You bastard!”
    “Now now, no name calling. You know I don’t like it when you use gutter language. It’s not appropriate.”
    “Not appro—” she began when Mac yanked the phone out of her hand.
    “Listen up, asshole.” Mac growled the words and then Callie heard a click as Doug hung up.
    Mac cursed and punched a number into the phone. While he’d asked the sheriff to come by and stated it was an emergency, he went to her closet and dragged a suitcase out. He pointed to it. “Pack. Now. I’m getting you the hell out of here.”
    There was no use arguing. She wasn’t stupid and Mac was right. Doug was getting braver by the minute and today there had been a touch of insanity in his voice.
    Shivering in reaction, Callie did as Mac said and began to shove clothing and toiletries into her suitcase.
    Within ten minutes, she was sitting in the living room with the sheriff and Mac talking things through. Together, Mac and the sheriff had examined every lock and latch, finding Doug had entered by the guest bedroom window, which she’d apparently, very carelessly, left unlatched. His footprints were prominent in the dirt outside. Callie seldom went into the guest room and she’d simply overlooked the window lock.
    Dumb!
    Sheriff Coleman was a brawny middle-aged man. He sat on her couch making notes on a pad. “Do you have a picture of Doug Hill?”
    “Yes. Hang on and I’ll get it.” Callie pulled out a photo album and searched through it until she found one of his more recent photos. She handed it over to the sheriff. “This is about seven years old but he hasn’t changed much.”
    Mac who had remained standing through the interview looked at the picture when Sheriff Coleman handed it over. His eyes widened incrementally. “Hell, he was in Hell’s Bells a few nights ago. I actually poured him a beer.”
    When the sheriff got up to leave, he shook hands with her and then Mac. “I’ll keep an eye out and have my deputy patrol this area, Callie. We’ll find him. I promise you.”
    He turned to Mac. “It’s a good thing that you’re taking her out to the ranch. She’ll be safer there. Every soul out there knows the land and how to use a gun. Hoping it doesn’t come to that. Let me know if anything else happens.”

Chapter Six
    “I love this big tub, Mac.” Callie sat in the warm tub, leaning against him, and sighed. Mac knew he could stay like this with her until his skin shriveled and the water went cold. She was warm, sweet and wet, lying against him. Something about her felt so damn right. He wouldn’t have wished for the circumstances that had brought them together this way, sharing the same space but at the moment, he wasn’t going to second-guess things. His big oval tub sat along one wall in his master bathroom. Above them a shell-shaped sconce sent muted lights over them both.
    Sex was one thing but intimacy? That was new for Mac, a man who’d been careful to keep sex and intimacy two separate things. But Callie, in just a short time, had managed to squirm under his skin and into his heart.
    Mac settled his mouth against her wet hair, breathed in the scent of her and sent his gaze down the front of her body.