by Frankie Love
“The twins of course. You think a virgin carries a high price? Twins on the black market are pure fucking gold.”
9
I return to the diner after stopping at the Sheriff’s office. To be honest, I’m a little annoyed that I went, considering they didn’t have much to say besides asking if I got a fucking license plate number. What the fuck? My focus was on Rosie, on making sure she was okay.
And now, I need to get back to her.
People say love at first sight isn’t real, well then those fools have never had a woman like Rosie riding their cock, her lips swollen and her tits full and round – and no I’m not talking lust here. I mean sure, her appearance turns me on, but what I feel for her is deeper than that. I’ve seen plenty of pretty girls before and they never drew out this animalistic desire deep inside of me, that is driving me to protect her at all costs.
I need to take this woman to my cabin and show her that I’ll take care of her for the rest of her precious life.
My tires crunch over the gravel in the parking lot, and I jump out of the cab, ready to see her again.
My parents are arguing, which, truth be told, is not exactly their mode of operation. They get along, are willing to do anything for one another. Hell, my mom was running around the property today chasing my dad’s dumbass dogs.
“What’s up?” I ask, the door jangling behind me. I scan the diner for Rosie, but she isn’t here. “Where’s Rosie.”
“That’s the problem, Buck. She’s gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?” I ask, immediately on the offensive. “You know there were two guys packing heat, looking for her, right?”
“Her?” mom asks. “Buck, you said they were here, trying to rob the diner, you said nothing about Rosie.”
“Fuck,” I shout, my hands running through my hair. “When did she leave? I’ve been gone about an hour.”
“It must have been minutes after you left. She went to the bathroom to freshen up and after awhile, I went looking for her. The backdoor was slightly ajar, and she was gone.”
“Did you go after her?”
My dad nods. “Yeah, we walked the property, checking to see if she was out there, hell, maybe taking out the trash or something, but she wasn’t anywhere.”
“We even called the motel,” Mom says. “Apparently she checked out, Janice running the front desk said she was really a sweet thing, but said she had a family emergency and needed to leave, even though she’d paid cash for the entire week.”
“Shit,” I press a fist in my palm. “This is bad. Those guys probably came back.”
“Did she know them?” my mom asks, her eyes wide.
“Yeah, the guys were looking for her, but I don’t know why. This is fucking messed up.”
“Language, Buck.” Dad frowns.
“You do realize two men with guns just took Rosie against her will, and that we have no way of tracing them?”
Dad shakes his head. “Not against her will, son,” he says, crossing his arms. “She left here on her own accord. Truth be told, it doesn’t sound like she was very stable. Hitchhiked to middle-of-nowhere Idaho with men after her.”
“You hired her Mom, do you have her name, social security number or something for tax purposes?” I ask, grasping for a clue, something. Anything.
Mom grimaces. “You know I’m not exactly the best at business. I figured I’d pay her under the table until I decided if she was a good fit.”
“This is so messed up.” I pace the diner, desperate. Lost. Wanting so much for Rosie to be here so I could take her home. “I’m going to the motel, maybe she left a clue. And I’ll call the Sheriff, obviously”
“Why are you so interested in this girl, Buck,” Dad asks.
“It’s not some girl. Rosie is my woman.”
“Sweetie, you just met. Looks like she made you lunch and you saved her from the men, but it was only an hour. How much can you know in that length of time?”
I shake my head, not having any of it. “Sometimes you just know. And I know Rosie and I aren’t through. She and I – we’ve just begun.”
The next night I walk into Jaxon and Harper’s home exhausted. I feel beat up, battered and bruised.
“Dude, you look like shit,” Jaxon says, offering me a cold one.
I take a long pull on the beer and follow him to the kitchen. Harper is pulling the potpie from the oven, a salad is tossed and on the island. And all three of their babies are in identical highchairs in various states of disarray. Food in their hair, on their faces, and what looks like mashed up, steamed carrots painted all over their highchair trays.
“Hello, Bucky,” Harper says, giving me a hug, her hand still wearing a potholder. She’s the only person I put up with calling me Bucky, mostly because you don’t say no to a woman like Harper.
She’s grown into a strong, determined woman over the course of the last year. Hell, getting married and having three babies at twenty-one is an impressive feat. But the thing with Harper is, you know she is living her life to the absolute fullest.
“Bucky you look exhausted. Which is saying something considering we’re the ones with the triplets,” she says, giving me a once over.
“It’s been a hell of a twenty-four hours.”
“Tell me everything,” Harper says, handing me the salad bowl, and weaving to the table. “Jax, love, can you grab me some white wine?”
Jaxon kisses Harper’s cheek before pulling open the fridge. As he uncorks the bottle, I tell them the story with Rosie. The meal she made, the men coming after her, the bathroom, the running away.
I explain how after I found her missing from the diner I went to the motel and convinced Janice at the front desk to walk through the room with me. It was empty, stripped of anything personal that could give us a clue.
All I know is that her first name is Rosalind. “I spent hours Googling every iteration of her name, trying to find a Facebook profile or a Google image – anything. But there is nothing on her anywhere.”
“She just vanished?” Harper asks.
Jax and I exchange a knowing look. No one vanishes. Rosie was taken.
“Did you contact the Sheriff’s department again? They could put out a missing person alert.”
“Except I don’t have a photograph, and when the cops interviewed Janice, she told them plainly that Rosie walked in of her own accord and checked out. No one was being coerced, so far as she could tell. I can’t actually prove anything.”
“Fuck, man,” Jaxon says, shaking his head as he dishes Harper up a plate of food. “Here you go, baby.”
We eat in silence, my story having created a somber mood. Even the babies seem to realize it, seeing as they eat their carrots in relative quiet.
“Thank you for having me over tonight. I know you guys have a lot going on.” After taking a few bites I add, “And this food is amazing, Harper. “
“Sounds like Rosie knew her way around a kitchen too,” Harper says, swirling the wine in her glass.
“Way to pour salt on the poor man’s wound,” Jaxon says laughing.
“I didn’t mean any harm by it,” Harper frowns. “It’s just, I’m sad too. I want to meet this woman who so easily wooed a mountain man like Buck. She must have been pretty special.”
“Doesn’t matter now,” I say, running my hand over my beard. “She’s gone. She decided to leave. And the truth is, she didn’t want me to find her. If she had, she’d have left a clue, a number, a name. Anything.”
“So you just move on?” Jaxon asks.
“Didn’t you do the same thing after I left you, Jax, and went back home? You tried to move on?” Harper asks quietly. “Maybe Rosie had somewhere she needs to be right now, but maybe when she’s ready, she’ll return.”
I nod, looking around their beautiful home, their happy children, the love that so clearly covers every single log laid in this cabin. “How long do I wait for her? Because the truth is, I’d wait forever if it means I’ll end up having a life lik
e the two of you.”
“Then don’t give up, Buck,” Jaxon says. “Get your shit together so when she returns you can be the man she needs.”
10
Planning an escape from the mob is no easy feat. Not for a healthy young man or a strong woman, and certainly not for a woman who is eight and a half months pregnant. Certainly not for a woman who has unborn children already purchased.
After the genetic testing, it was confirmed that I have two strong, healthy, female babies growing in my belly. No complications, no red flags.
I’m not surprised. Their father had a heart like no other man I’ve ever met.
He was good. Kind. Gentle.
I’m banking on his generosity right now.
In fact, it’s all I have to go on. Maybe I’m grasping at straws; looking for something that never existed.
But I know Buck would have fought to the death for me. When I left, I was only thinking of his safety. I didn’t know I was carrying his daughters.
But now I do.
And I sure as hell can’t go into labor here. If I do the babies will be taken from my arms and whisked away to a couple in Russia, who apparently are unable to conceive – not to mention the husband is a mob boss.
They paid in cold hard cash for my children.
Of course I haven’t seen a dime, not that I’d expect to, or even want to.
The whole thing makes me sick.
The fact that I’m carrying daughters only confirms my resolve to get the hell out of here before they are born.
The moment they come into the world, that is the moment their lives are as good as over.
This world of crime is no place for a girl.
No place for me.
I need to get out of here tonight.
There are thirty-eight dollars in my pocket, all I have in the world. I can’t risk packing any clothes, any preparations for the night only put a target on my back.
Instead, I wear two sweaters to bed, shove gloves in my winter coat. I get up in the dark of night, tiptoe to the exit, and walk through the mansion with my eyes lowered. Hoping that as I walk through the shadows no one will see me, find me. Restrain me. Sedate me.
Hoping I can leave before I am found.
My heart races as I fumble with the stolen keys to unlock the door in the kitchen.
“What are you doing out of bed?” Latvia asks, coming up behind me, causing me to rattle the keys, my hands shaking, my fear knowing no bounds.
“What is this, a prison?” I laugh nervously.
The starushka narrows her eyes on me. She has been the closest thing to a mother my entire life. Which is saying very little. Every woman at the mansion does as they are told; there is very little gossip or chatter.
Tonight, I hope to find sympathy with this woman who has watched my belly grow so large over the last eight months.
“Not a prison, child. You want a prison, you can have one.”
“I don’t want a prison, Latvia. I want to....”
“Leave?” she supplies the word I couldn’t find.
I nod, the kitchen is dark, but my heart spreads with warmth. I should have confided in Latvia months ago about my plans to leave.
“I have to go, Latvia, for the babies.”
She nods, tears in her eyes. “Go, child. Go, and never look back.”
“I’m going back to the Idaho forest, to find the babies father. Maybe he can help –”
“Shhh,” Latvia says harshly. “Don’t tell me a thing, Rosalind. I don’t want to know.”
I must look hurt because she adds. “Don’t you see? Information can be used against me. If I know nothing, it is better for you. For the babies.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, kissing her cheek. “Thank you, Latvia.”
I steal away in the night, the moon swollen in the sky, its light guiding me.
The light, the only thing I can cling to as I cross a highway, disappear. I leave without looking back.
The third trucker who picks me up looks me up and down, searching for a story that I refuse to give. Latvia was right, avoid telling my story, because if I spill anything – the underground crime ring, the women for sale, the babies on the black market, it will only put a target on my back.
“Just trying to get home,” I tell him.
When the morning sun breaks through, I run my fingers over my eyes, determined to be positive.
Buck will remember me. He will be happy to see me. He will keep me safe.
Maybe – it’s a lot to ask.
If I don’t ask him, I’m alone.
For all these months I’ve been dreaming of this day.
The day when I get to walk up his road, taking a left off the highway at Eagle Canyon, and a mile up is a marker for his place. A massive, carved bald eagle is perched out on the gravel road.
I memorized the directions he gave me to his cabin the day we met and have been reciting them ever since.
“Just pull up here,” I tell the driver when we reach Eagle Canyon. “I really appreciate it.”
“Sure thing, honey. Now you gonna be safe walking through the woods at dawn?”
I nod. “As safe as I’ll ever be.”
I carefully get out of the big rig, taking a deep breath.
This is it. Now or never.
I blink back tears, needing this to work.
The truth is, I have nowhere else to go.
11
I wake up with a hard-on. Once again I spent the night dreaming of a woman that at this point I think I made up in my head. It’s been eight months since I saw her heart-shaped face, since we laughed over pancakes, and I spread her pussy apart with my cock.
It’s been another night of stroking myself, remembering her tight pussy, the way her tits bounced as she rode me. I can still taste her creamy release as I licked her cunt nice and thoroughly.
Dammit, it’s been eight months. It’s time I moved on.
But hell, forgetting Rosie is the last thing I want.
What I really want is her, here with me.
Her, riding me.
I wrap my hands around my hard cock, pumping hard, coming quickly.
My thoughts filled with her. Only her.
As I come, there’s a knock at my door.
What the fuck? I look at my phone, not even seven in the goddamned morning.
I get out of bed and tug on a pair of jeans. I live in a one-story cabin, but it’s pretty roomy. It’s got three bedrooms, two baths, a hot tub out back and a kitchen that, to be perfectly honest, doesn’t get much use. Walking to the front door, I eye the fireplace, thinking I should start a fire and warm up this place, always preferring the heat from burning wood to the stale air of the radiator.
I pull open the door and fucking forget to breathe.
Rosie is here.
Her face written with exhaustion, her eyes searching mine, and her belly round.
Very round.
Like, I’m going to have a baby now, round.
Round like Harper was with those triplets.
“Rosie?” I pull open door, wanting to pull her into my arms, which I know I shouldn’t want – not after she left the way she did.
But she came back.
She is here.
Seemingly frozen in place.
A single tear running down her cheek.
“Are you okay?” I ask, knowing she’s not. She’s bundled up, but still, it’s November, not the time for her to be traipsing around in the cold. Looking behind her, I search my driveway for a car. But there’s nothing. “Are you alone?”
She nods. “I hitchhiked here. I know,” she says, shaking her head. “It was stupid, but I didn’t know what else to do. How to get to you.”
Taking her hand, I draw her inside, needing to understand exactly what brought her here.
Her hand is gloved, but it’s still cold. I try to picture this sweet thing, so incredibly pregnant, riding in a stranger’s truck.
Only desperation would drive a woman
to do such a thing.
“Rosie, you’ve gotta warm up.”
She nods, her eyes brimming with tears. I press my thumb beneath her eyes, and wipe them away, hating to see her upset, wanting to understand her story.
“Why did you leave all those months ago?” Of course what I really want to know is if this baby is mine.
But dammit, one look at this broken woman and I don’t give a fuck. I will do anything for her and this child. I knew it the moment I met her, she was mine.
She presses her lips together, her hair loose around her shoulders, and her chin quivering.
“Shhh, it’s okay, darling.”
Those words send a flood of tears from her eyes. “Do you have a bathroom I could use?” she asks. “I’m just a mess. I just need a second.”
My jaw tenses. “Last time you went to the bathroom, you disappeared.”
She nods. “I know. You have no reason to trust me, Buck.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, wanting her to calm down so I can hear the whole story. “You’re here now, and the bathroom is right through that door.”
She sniffles, but turns to the bathroom. I run my hands through my hair. What the hell? This was the last thing I expected.
Clearly, she’s a mess, worked up and scared. If I want her to open up and explain what happened after she left me, I need to help her relax. Striding to the fireplace, I add a few logs, add some kindling and strike a match.
The fire begins to roar quickly and I head to the kitchen to start the teakettle. Girls like tea, right? Or maybe coffee. I do both. Put the kettle on a burner and brew a pot of coffee. Scouring my cupboard, I look for decent breakfast food for a pregnant woman who has been hitchhiking for God knows how long.
I find a package of powdered donuts– not exactly gourmet, but better than cold cereal. In the fridge I have half a cantaloupe, and I slice it, setting it out as well.
Just as the kettle begins to whistle, Rosie walks out the bathroom. She isn’t crying anymore, so that’s something. But the moment I offer her something to drink, a whole new flood of tears escapes.
“Fuck, what did I do now?”
