The last place Dade Foundree wanted to spend his first free weekend in damned near six months was in his hometown of Lone Pine, Colorado. Unfortunately, that's where Grandma Joy needed him to be this weekend. For a man that prided himself on his ability to say no, whenever one of Grandma Joy's calls came in the word left his vocabulary.

He owed her too much not to be at her beck and call. And if this particular call was one that had him returning to a town he'd long since promised himself he'd never again set foot in, then that's just the way it would have to be.

Dade braked his truck at the town's sole stoplight, looking around out of instinct more than anything else. The place was exactly as he remembered it. A market, a gas station, a post office, and a school not much bigger than his house back in Chicago, and that was about it. Not even so much as a damned bar or, for that matter, a place to buy beer, for miles. Thank God, he'd had the foresight to pick up a twelve-pack in the last city he'd passed through.

A city. Which Lone Pine was not and would never be.

A shithole. What Lone Pine was, and the fact its citizens thought differently just went to show how asinine they really were.

The light changed and Dade pulled through, shaking his head. God, he hated this fucking town. The memories associated with it. The way he'd been ridiculed for something that was completely beyond him. His father had been a drunken bastard and his mother just the half-witted sideshow act to match the old man perfectly. They'd been outcasts and that had made him one of the same simply by relation. He'd been shunned as a kid, treated like shit. Beaten up more times than he could remember by those his own age and his father to boot.

Grandma Joy was damned lucky he loved her as much as he did to be here now, sitting for a house that held more bad memories than any place should have and a cat she talked so much about you'd swear it was her kid.

Hell, who was he kidding? He was the lucky one, blessed beyond measure that Grandma Joy loved him. As much as she'd never gotten along with her daughter--his mother--his grandma had moved to the area and in with them just before his seventeenth birthday. She'd told him the day he'd left Lone Pine that she'd made the move for him, because he'd needed someone to help him see the potential that no one else had even bothered to look for. He knew his worth now, just as he knew his grandma had been the only good thing about Lone Pine fifteen years ago and was still the only good thing about it today.

In the fast-waning light of day, the ranch house he'd been raised in came into view a quarter-mile ahead. It had been a dingy gray then, now it was a pale yellow and matched almost perfectly the house that followed it. Looking at that second house, Dade realized how wrong he'd been. His grandma might've been one of the good things about Lone Pine back then, but she wasn't the only good thing. There'd been one other. One girl. Emily Sorenson.

The thought of the green-eyed, blonde-haired kid he'd last seen waving goodbye as he pulled out of the town all those years ago had an automatic smile claiming his lips. She'd been his neighbor and, despite the fact she was five years younger, in many ways his savior. She'd liked him, listened to him, wanted to spend time with him. For a long time, he'd thought it was because she was young and didn't know any better, but then she'd gotten older. Not much, but some. Enough to know better, to know that he wasn't any good. That associating with him was the fastest way to sell her soul to the devil.

He'd actually said that to her once, and she'd said back in her slow, sweet drawl, "Then to the devil I go, because I like you Dade Foundree and nothing's ever going to change to that."

Sweet. Naïve, but sweet. And, as he recalled, when he'd left town just on the verge of womanhood. She would've turned into a real charmer between those huge green eyes and all that wild blonde hair. Probably married by now with a baby at her hip and another on the way. That's what always happened to the good ones. Not that there were many good ones in Lone Pine. Not that he even wanted to think about the residents of this shitty little town. He just wanted to get settled in his house--make that his grandma's house--serve out his weekend time, and then get the hell out of dodge. That's exactly what he planned to do, too. Another fifty-three hours and he'd be home free.

Hiring a shrink might be out of the question, but that didn't mean Emily couldn't take matters into her own hands. She had all that she needed to get the job done. A sturdy chair. Duct tape. And the pièce de résistance--sleeping pills. If strapping herself in place wasn't enough to stop Tammy from emerging, then knocking her out with a double dose of Sleep-Aid had to be the answer.

Setting the bottle of pills between her thighs on the chair's hardwood seat, Emily went to work with the tape and securing her ankles and legs. This was definitely one of those times when she was glad her parents had decided to move away from the area and leave their home to her. If they were still living here, or if she were living with a roommate somewhere, they would think she was losing her mind. She wasn't losing her mind. She'd lost it long ago, most of it anyway. The few shreds of sanity that still remained were what she was trying to save now. If she could just get through tonight without Tammy taking over, then she could wake up clear-headed tomorrow and able to think straight for the first time in weeks. Straight enough to arrive at a solution to ending this horrid curse before it was too late? Probably not, but she still had to try, and that meant wrapping the duct tape just as tightly as it would go and not worrying over how she'd get free of it tomorrow.

He should have known his grandma wouldn't have cable. The rest of the house had been given an extreme makeover from when he'd lived here and that renovation had given Dade hope he'd be spending the weekend sitting around, drinking beer and watching SportsNet.

No such luck. The beer was flat, the only station coming in offered a late night soap opera, and his grandma's pride and joy--a longhaired cat damned near half his size in weight and girth--had taken up residence on his lap. Yeah, this weekend was getting off to a rip-roaring start. He'd go to bed but it was barely nine, Colorado time, and he never slept more than three or four hours a night.

He pushed at Gigantimo, the nickname he'd given the massive feline in his first fifteen minutes of boredom, in an attempt to get him off his lap. The animal gave a loud hiss, swished its ass in his face and then slowly stepped off him, dropped down on the floor, and started for the kitchen. The cat stole glances at Dade as it went, and he remembered he was supposed to feed him. Not feeling any too friendly toward the animal, yet not about to starve it either, he strode into the kitchen and took out a can of food from the refrigerator.

He was emptying the food into a bowl when light from the house next door caught his attention. Someone was home, and he couldn't help but wonder if that someone was Emily. She probably didn't even live there any longer. If anyone, her parents might. In the grand scheme of things, they hadn't been such bad folks. Not the type he'd typically spend a Friday night with, but then, this wasn't a typical Friday night. And there was one damned long weekend ahead. Besides, his grandma had probably told them he'd be in town, seeing to her place and cat. He might just as well go over. Even small talk about a town he hated would be better than staring at the wall, drinking flat beer and waiting for Gigantimo to return.

Before he could change his mind, Dade made his way through the shadows of night to the neighbor's front door. He took a moment to admire the starlit and Milky Way lightened sky, then lifted his hand to knock. Sounds reached him before he could make contact with the door. Loud, unpleasant sounds. Sounds like someone was dying. Or being murdered.

In Chicago, hearing those sounds might have fazed him slightly, but not unnerved him. In Lone Pine, hearing those sounds had his heart galloping and his body taut with the need to take action. Not about to pound on the door now and let whoever was inside know he was out here, he jiggled the knob and found it unsurprisingly locked. Hell, he couldn't just crash through the door. Not only would it alert the person inside in a big damned way, but he'd probably kill himself in the process. There had to be another way in, or at least a window where he could catch a glimpse of who or what was making that painful sounding screech.

Dade skirted around the front porch, stepping past shrubs to peer in windows, finding nothing but empty, mostly dark rooms. He'd reached the back of the house and the last window when he finally spotted movement. The angle of the window didn't give nearly enough away. He cranked his neck and pressed his face against the glass in the hopes of seeing more. Just enough to give him something to go on. Just enough to give him some idea who...

Oh, fuck.

The sight before him was far worse than what he ever could've imagined. Emily was inside--time might have passed, but he'd know that wild blonde mane of hair and those dimples anywhere--strapped to a chair with duct tape. By the looks of her clothes and body, she'd been attacked. Oh, Christ, what if she'd been raped? What if she wasn't even alive? Her head wasn't slumped forward, but her eyes weren't open, either.

The thought was too much. This was Emily. Sweet, naïve Emily. And she was in trouble. Bad.

No longer thinking, merely reacting, Dade raced back around to the side of the house. The first window that was big enough to fit through quickly bore the imprint of his fist, followed by spattered drops of blood and jagged edges of glass. Pain edged through him as the lacerations on his hand made themselves known. He shut out that pain and barreled through the window and then the door of the sitting room, en route to the kitchen.

Just inside the kitchen door, he came to a jerking halt, able to do nothing more than stare at the woman before him. Emily was exactly the way he'd always imagined she would be as an adult. Cute as hell. Outside of that, she was exactly the way he'd never wanted to see her, deadly calm and motionless.

A low moan caught up with Dade. One not as keen as what he'd heard outside and yet one that had him bursting in to action. She was clearly hurt, but still alive.

He dropped to his knees in front of her and cradled her face in his hands. Her eyes opened slowly to reveal haziness, and past that the subtle traces of recollection. "Emily, honey," he soothed, taken aback by the comforting sound of his voice. He hadn't heard anything even half that gentle come out of his mouth in years. "I'm here," he continued, stroking her cheeks, waiting for further signs of life to bloom. One finger wiggled past the bounds of the tape that held her hand in place, and he breathed a sigh of thanksgiving. "You're safe now, Em. Nothing more is going to happen to you. I promise."

With a final reassuring stroke, Dade let her face go and turned to the task of freeing her from the duct tape. Much of it was already shredded, as were her T-shirt and cotton shorts. Patches of soft, smooth, tanned skin peeked out from everywhere, as well as patches that weren't so soft and smooth and tanned. The material of her shirt and bra had both been torn away from her left breast and her nipple was sticking through clear as day. Under his scrutiny that nipple hardened.

It was a hell of a time to have a physical reaction, least of all to a woman as sweet and naïve as little Emily Sorenson, but Emily wasn't that little any longer. She obviously wasn't hurt as badly as he'd feared, either, if she were showing signs of stimulation. Pushing back his own unexpected arousal and the way it turned his cock hard lightning fast and pumped his blood into a frenzy, he concentrated solely on freeing her from her bonds.

Dade had managed to work a long strip of tape away and free a good deal of her right arm when Emily screeched out, "No!"

He jerked his attention to her face. Her eyes were large now, wide the way he'd remembered them; the sound of her voice when she spoke low and fading. "Please ... don't ... touch..."

Her eyelids slipped shut as her speech died away, her head tipping to the side.

Disgust roiled through Dade's gut. What kind of monster was he? He'd been looking, really looking at her naked breast, and feeling aroused because of it. Worse than that, he'd thought she'd been stimulated, too. She hadn't been stimulated. She'd been scared to death, afraid of him laying his hands on her the way someone before him had done. And if the way her head was bobbing now, the way low, indistinguishable words were falling from her lips, that someone hadn't stopped at laying his hands on her. He'd drugged her, as well.

Dade returned to his efforts of freeing her, this time with new vigor; yet awareness of what a fragile state she was in. Fragile and dependent on him. He didn't know who the Sheriff of this town was any longer or even if they had one, but he did know the closest hospital was almost an hour away. He couldn't rely on an ambulance making it to Lone Pine in time to save Emily. He had to see her to safety himself.

"You're going to be okay, honey," he promised in a hushed voice as he continued to work at her bonds. "Just relax and breathe deep." And pray to God whatever drugs she'd been given hadn't already done more damage than what could be reversed.