by Debra Kayn
Brand new makeup, a box of tampons, lotion, two toothbrushes still in their package, toothpaste, hairbands, and a pink bottle of Nair filled the drawer. Obviously, Cam neither trusted her with a cheap disposal razor or he thought she was hairy. She slammed the drawer shut, keeping the toothbrush and toothpaste out. Damn him.
She brushed her teeth in angry, short strokes. Punished for whatever reason, she only wanted to do her job of keeping Jeremy safe and find a way out of here. She never expected Jeremy would be a barrier, blocking her from escaping. She understood his reasons for wanting to stay with Cam. His father acknowledged Jeremy's place in his life, and filled a void. That kind of fulfillment to a kid who suffered from abandonment issues and only wanted to belong blinded him to what was really happening.
She'd have to get herself out of the house and worry about how to get Jeremy out later. Her first step was getting help.
She spit in the sink, not liking that option at all. How many times had she reached out for help after she found herself alone after her parents' death? She'd gone to a community house for support, and they only wanted to provide her with food and help to pay her rent. Finally, they provided free counseling for those suffering from overwhelming grief. The stories she'd heard and the bi-weekly meetings only crippled her from living a normal life.
She'd been eighteen years old. Still a kid in most people's eyes, and she needed her parents. Nobody could bring them back, and all she wanted was the security of knowing she wasn't alone. She'd gone six years trying to survive month by month, until she'd snapped. Her thoughts and behavior changed. She needed answers.
She'd spent every second thinking about finding the murderer and killing him. She'd used every piece of scrap paper she could find and wrote lists of facts about what she remembered. One by one, she planned ways to kill him. She'd spent so many hours thinking of doing the one thing that ripped her family from her, she thought she was going insane.
Then, she found enough strength to write a prisoner through a program at the state penitentiary. The prisoner let her see inside his head and learn how he thought. She envied his ease of hurting someone else without feeling remorse. She wanted to hurt someone the way she hurt inside. Except, prisoner #18794 validated that seeking her own punishment would ruin her. He gave her strength to move past the worst point of her life and for that, she owed her life to him. A man who disgusted her became her best friend, her confident, her security blanket. If she had the chance to talk to him one more time, explain the position she found herself in now, she had no doubt he'd tell her to do whatever she needed to gain her freedom again, even at the cost of her life.
She opened her drawer, and put away the toothbrush and toothpaste. She wanted to go back to her apartment, to her kept letters, to her solitude.
She left the bathroom and instead of going back into the bedroom, she found Jeremy in the living room. It was obvious to her that she couldn't ask Jeremy for help or put him in danger. She sat down on the opposite end of the couch and stared at the television. Some movie about fast cars and barely dressed women flashed on the flat screen. Unable to concentrate, she examined the room. With Cam's apparent gift of her freedom to wander the house, she had to familiarize herself with everything within her reach.
Between the two windows, the television sat on an old, scarred stand. To her left was the hallway, leading to the bedroom she'd stayed in and the bathroom across the hall. To the right was the foyer with a set of stairs she suspected went to bedrooms upstairs. Staying on the main floor, she could walk through the foyer to another hallway that led to the kitchen. Nowhere had she seen a backdoor. She picked at a hangnail on her thumb. Usually she did a home study prior to any adoptions or foster stays, but because Cam had handed over proof of being Jeremy's father, a home study by the county wasn't necessary.
"Cam said to tell you that you can go outside if you want." Jeremy crunched the empty pop can in his hands and set it on the coffee table.
Hope filled her. She straightened. "He's letting me go?"
"No." Jeremy stood. "The other guys are here. It's safe for you to be around them as long as you don't try and walk away."
She sank back on the couch. Cam had stripped everything away from her. He had no plans to let her go
"Listen..." Jeremy exhaled loudly. "I don't know what he's thinking. All I know is he doesn't want to hurt you. He didn't get much sleep last night, because he knew you were scared. Just, don't cause trouble and you'll be fine."
"He was in the room with me last night again?" she whispered, afraid of the answer.
Jeremy shrugged. "Yeah. I saw him sitting on the edge of your bed when I came down to take a piss...uh, pee this morning. He came out of the room and said you were having nightmares."
She stared after him as he walked outside. When she finally woke this morning, she was alone. She'd been surprised she'd slept most of the night, and couldn't remember fighting sleep the way she had the previous nights. Maybe he'd drugged her. Jeremy's confusion probably came from when he ran into Cam unlocking her door. Maybe Cam was checking to see if she was still alive.
She stood from the couch and wandered over to the window. Outside, several men stood around talking. She recognized Stache and Gunner, but the other ones were strangers—rough, dirty strangers.
Cam was nowhere in sight. She assumed Cam took off the shoot-at-sight notice if he was giving her permission to go outside. She rubbed the back of her neck and decided to go for it. If they shot her, at least she'd tried.
Chapter Eight
Cam knew the moment Christina stepped outside the house. His muscles tightened in awareness and the men stopped talking around him. Suddenly, he wanted Christina away from his club, his men, and their eyes. Hell, he wanted to drag her back in the house and fuck her. He'd waited long enough.
Priorities came first. He had to make sure no one stepped over the line. MC brothers or not, he trusted no one with his woman.
"Are you nailing her, Cam?" Gunner pulled out a pack of smokes and lit a cigarette. "She's been here a week."
Cam looked at his men and kept his gaze off Christina. "She's mine. Make sure the others know she's hands off."
"Yeah, sure." Stache fingered the long whiskers at the side of his mouth. "I take it she's allowed to come and go now."
"Baby steps." Cam glanced over at her and caught her looking. "If I'm not here or she's heading toward the road, you stop her."
Stache squinted. "I've never seen her around Federal before. Where'd she come from?"
"She's the kid's social worker." Cam hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. "I also want you to spread the word to the brothers that they're not to mention to anyone that Christina is staying at the house. That includes watching what they say around the Moroad women."
"Kid is too old for a nanny." Stache cleared his throat. "Hell, he's old enough to tap a nanny."
"Christina was his social worker, asshole. The kid's mom was a shit mom. She neglected him most of the time and died with a needle in her fucking arm. Christina was the one trying to keep him safe," Cam said.
"Damn..." Stache shook his head. "At least he's with you and Moroad now. With all the hell he's been through, he needs a woman and I'm not talking about one that'll babysit him."
"I've already scheduled that part of Jeremy's education. Lola's going to spend some time with him." Cam's gaze followed Christina, and he pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. "I need you and Gunner to go into town and pack up Christina's belongings from her apartment after you pick the Moroad women up at Silver Girls and take them home. Bear, I want you to remain here and make sure Christina stays on the property."
"I can do that," Bear said, though his big, bushy tan beard hid any movement of his mouth.
Stache pocketed the keys. "What's the security like at her place?"
Cam removed an envelope with a month's worth of rent in cash and a notice Christina was moving. "No security. She stayed in apartment D above the coffee shop on Main Street.
Enter through the back. The main door for the tenants is always unlocked. Put this envelope in the manager's slot by the door. You can take the truck. Make sure you leave the furniture; the place came furnished. Lock up when you leave. Don't leave a fucking pen behind. I want everything she owns."
"Got it." Stache glanced over at Christina and lowered his voice. "Is anyone going to question why we're there?"
"No. She has no close friends and keeps to herself." Cam went on instinct. "If anyone asks, just tell them you're helping her move."
He watched Christina turn the corner of the house and slip out of his sight. In her letters, she'd confessed her greatest fear was having others judge her for what she'd gone through, and she hated pity. She kept to herself, and admitted she had no one close to her, not even her coworkers.
"Hey." He called to Gunner and Stache. "Call me before you head back to the house."
Gunner raised his hand in acknowledgement and Stache nodded. Not wanting Christina to wander too far away from him, he followed her steps. He only had one more thing to do, and the outcome depended on Christina telling him the truth.
He'd let her believe she had a chance of leaving him. If she told him the truth, he'd know he could move forward and let her know his identity. If she continued to be uncooperative, the end wouldn't matter. She wasn't going anywhere even if she spoke the truth.
At the back of the house, facing the thick white pine and tamarack trees lining the foot of the Bitterroot Mountains, Christina sat on a broken picnic table that had seen better days and matched the condition of the run down house. Cam approached her quietly, not wanting to frighten her. She appeared lost in thought and oblivious to her surroundings.
He stopped at the end of the table and Christina glanced over at him and then returned to gazing out into the trees. Her hair stuck out in every direction and cascaded down her back. He leaned his upper thigh against the table. She hadn't used the supplies he'd given her. Though he enjoyed the way she looked regardless of makeup and brushing her hair. It reminded him of how she looked laying in his bed.
Tonight, he'd be able to watch her all night long, because her sleeping arrangement was going to change. He needed rest, and she'd sleep better knowing he was watching over her once she settled down and accepted her fate.
"Planning to escape through the woods?" he asked.
She moistened her lips, looking longingly into the trees. Within seconds, the strength he'd grown to recognize washed over her and she gazed at him. "It's five miles to town by road, probably twenty miles if I actually make it over the peak of the ridge. There are bears coming farther down on the mountain following the huckleberries this time of the year. I'd be a fool to try."
She was right. He crossed his arms over his chest. For the last week, he'd forced her to rely on him for her safety. He'd broken her spirit, but she'd kept her head about her. A normal woman would crumble if kidnapped. If that didn't do her in, then witnessing a killing would. Christina adapted. She adjusted the same way Jeremy changed to his living situation. Because of the age difference and life experiences, Jeremy reached out for a family. Christina alienated herself and had the maturity to hold back from adapting, even when her life was at stake.
Now it was time for him to push her into fully relying on him.
"I'd like to ask you a few questions and if you tell me the truth, I might let you go," he said.
She glanced at him and went back to gazing out into the woods again. He clenched his teeth. Her eyes had continued to see through him. Her pupils remained little black dots, no excitement at the thought of leaving. She wasn't allowing herself to hope.
"What's your full name?" he asked.
She sighed, but answered without pausing. "Christina Ann Nickelson."
He thought back to every letter she wrote, and the only thing she'd done to protect her identity was changing her last name from Nickelson to Penny. He'd profiled her as a woman disassociated with the real world and living in fear of her past experience without even meeting her face to face. That personality he knew well, because every fucking prisoner in the state pen lived the same kind of life, only Christina lived on the outside.
She'd never given him a hint of where she was born or grew up. She only gave him the thoughts in her head and nothing from the outside world that would tell him where she lived, the amount of money she earned, what kind of car she drove, or what she did in her spare time. Yet, they'd spent two years talking about the reasons behind people's choices.
"Black or white?"
Her back stiffened. "What?"
"Pick one."
She shook her head and shrugged. "Black. Are you done?"
"What did you do before you started working for the county?"
She blew her cheeks out and exhaled. "Fast food, stocking shelves, basically anything I could do to earn money to keep a roof over my head."
"Shit life working for other people," he muttered. "Favorite food?"
"Split Pea soup," she said.
"Really?"
"Yes," she said, snapping the reply.
"Age?"
"Twenty six."
"Do you have any relatives around?"
She shook her head. "No."
"18794"
She remained silent looking forward. He tensed, wanting to shake a response out of her. He needed confirmation that he meant something to her. That she spent as much time thinking about the man in prison as he spent thinking about her.
"Does the number 18794 mean anything to you?" he repeated.
She stood. He stepped around the table and blocked her path. Her breathing remained even, her expression lax, her arms loose and hanging at her sides. He cupped her chin with his hand, tilting her gaze up to his. Her black pupils dilated, turning her brown eyes to black. Fire burned in his belly. Proof that she understood the significance of the numbers stared back at him.
She couldn't hide the emotions his state assigned numbers caused. His hold on her softened and he stroked her soft skin of her cheek with his thumb.
"I'm going inside." She pulled away from him and walked toward the house.
Staggered at her strength to keep her mouth shut, he stepped back, bumped into the picnic table, and sat down. Satisfaction boosted his drive to move forward. She'd tried to cover her reaction at hearing the numbers and the importance of them.
At one time, she'd wanted the truth from him, and he'd given her every piece of information she asked for and more. The courts, the juries, the guards at prison all believed the charges against him without knowing the reasons. Normal citizens held hope for his recovery, and believed a personal need to better his life would reform him. That's not the way he lived. He'd do ever crime he committed again without a second thought. The only thing he'd change is the stupidity of being caught. Christina accepted him without trying to rehabilitate him while they wrote back and forth.
Now he was on the outside, and she feared him.
He'd make her forget about what he'd put her through when he locked her in the bedroom and refused to let her go. She'd adapt, because that's what she'd always done to survive in her short ever-changing life.
"Cam," Bear yelled from the other side of the house.
He jumped down from the table, groaning when his knee took his weight, and jogged along the side of the house. His moment of self-indulgence at seeing the truth in her eyes cost him. She probably tried to escape, and he'd have to start all over locking her in his room.
He spotted Bear on the porch waving his arm over his head. At first, he couldn't see Christina. Then he saw her, and his leg locked up. He fell into the railing of the porch, hopping onto the step.
Christina laid face down, her arms straight down to her sides. He kneeled beside her. He'd heard no gun blast, but that didn't mean Bear hadn't used a suppressor.
"What happened?" he asked, rolling Christina over.
Blood ran down her face. He checked for a pulse and found a steady beat on her neck.
"Don't know
. I watched her walk up on the porch and she just dropped. She didn't trip or nothing, just boom... fucking face-planted." Bear squatted down. "Looks like she cracked her head open."
"Open the door. I'll take her inside." He slid his arms under her knees and her upper back, picking her off the porch. "Where's the damn kid?"
"In the trailer." Bear stepped out of the way.
"Send him inside." Cam walked through the house and set Christina on the couch, propping up her feet.
Alone with her, he stared down at her injured face and grew angry. When he'd allowed her to walk away, his head wasn't in the right place. He was thinking about the future, and not all the work he still had to do to make her come around. He wouldn't make that mistake again. She had the ability to fuck up his life.
"What's up?" Jeremy walked into the room and stopped. "Whoa, shit...what the hell did you do to Ms. Nickelson?"
Cam scooted the coffee table closer and sat down beside Christina's head. "She fainted or passed out. Get me a couple wet washrags...clean ones. Then get me the first aid kit in the kitchen. There should be some superglue in the drawer under the silverware. I'll need that too."
"Maybe she needs to see a doctor," Jeremy said.
"Maybe you need to move your ass like I asked before she wakes up." Cam carefully moved Christina's hair away from her forehead.
He had a feeling the second she woke up and came to her senses, it'd take three men to hold her down until he could seal up the split on her head. He held her hair back with one hand and checked her pulse again. He'd fed her and made sure she showered, used the bathroom, and received fresh air through the window. For good measure, he'd even removed the medicines out of the bathroom in case she got a stupid idea to escape by overdosing.
Unless she had a medical condition he was unaware of, there was no reason for her to collapse.
