“The main house? Really?” So whatever secrets Owen hid there had come into being after Hal’s time.
“Oh, yes. It was very democratic in those days.” Joy stitched steadily, without looking up, as if her words were not a complete indictment of Owen’s lifestyle.
“What changed?”
“The old Leader sent his heir to be educated in the Outside world so that he might return better equipped to help the cause. The information he gathered was useful, but when the old Leader passed on, our current Leader made changes based on what he had grown accustomed to Outside.”
“Wasn’t that difficult for you?”
“Of course. Change is always hard. But the work, the mission, remain the same and that is what matters. The trappings are irrelevant.” She looked up from her sewing.
“Are you nervous about your bonding with Jacob?”
“I’m not really sure what to expect. I mean . . . I was ready to marry him in the Outside. And I love him. But I’m barely settling in here and I am not sure he’s really ready, despite what he says.”
“Pledging yourself won’t change much about your life here. And should things turn sour, it’s easier to walk away. It’s not as if you have to ‘choose friends’ the way couples on the Outside do. You will remain part of the community. You won’t even fight over children because they, too, belong to the community as a whole.”
Tara choked. “Oh, I am definitely not ready for children yet.”
“You’d best be. They’re inevitable.”
“I—I thought that since I went off the pill when I joined, Jacob would use condoms?”
“Children are blessings from the Powers. We do not try to prevent them.”
Well, hell. Was everyone going to be watching her for signs of pregnancy now? Because they were going to be sadly disappointed. She and Jake needed to close this damned case before Owen or one of his lieutenants began to wonder why a couple as hands-on as they were in public somehow couldn’t conceive.
• • •
BY THE TIME Sunday morning rolled around, Tara didn’t even have to act nervous. As she sat in the dining hall waiting for the Leader to finish his sermon and announce that he was uniting her with Jake, her stomach rolled and twisted. They’d been out walking Saturday night, and Jake had filled her in on what he’d learned from Ethan.
He’d also passed on the information that two separate women had been to visit him in the office as he worked and tried to seduce him.
Tara had stopped dead when he’d told her about the woman who’d slid into the room on the pretext of offering to bring him coffee or water and proceeded to stroke his arms and massage his shoulders. He’d sent her away, reminding her that he had a commitment ceremony coming up, but then another woman had arrived.
“The first one was dark, this one blonde, like you. I think they’re testing my dedication to you.”
“Why?”
The look in his eyes . . . Tara couldn’t ever remember being so chilled by anything.
“Back when I talked to Owen the first time and he told me I could work on the computer, he mentioned that you couldn’t leave, that you wouldn’t be happy anywhere else. I didn’t put much stock in it then, figured it was just the kind of narcissistic nonsense you get from these guys. But the news from Ethan about the suicides . . . I’m getting a very bad vibe. I think they want to be sure that as long as you can’t go anywhere, I won’t, either.”
“So they test your commitment by sending hot chicks to try to seduce you?” Try not to sound so pathetic, Tara Jean.
“I didn’t say they were hot.”
“Wouldn’t be much of a test if they weren’t.”
He shrugged. “Honestly, I didn’t notice. I was too busy trying to figure out why they were there, what was the right reaction to have.”
At that, she laughed. “You know, I believe you.”
“Why should I look at another woman when you’re right here?” he asked. And her foolish heart had trembled.
And now they were to be united, whatever that meant in Chosen terms. Tonight their walk would not end with him kissing her good night in front of an audience at her bunkhouse. Tonight they would share a bed.
She shivered. When they’d been in the infirmary, she’d slept against him, entwined with him, but she’d been so tired, so weak, that she hadn’t had the energy for nerves. She’d needed the comfort of his strength so badly after the isolation cell. This would be different. Entirely.
At last the sermon ended and Owen gestured for her and Jake to come to the stage. They climbed the four stairs together and stood beside him, hand in hand.
“Unity of all kinds is our strength, our bulwark against those who would defeat us, trample us down, and force us into the world of the Outsiders. Just as our earthly community mimics the perfection of the community of the Powers, so our terrestrial unions bear shadowy witness to the pure love of the Powers.
“Today, Serena and Jake are to be united, their bond with each other blessed by the Powers. This does not lessen their bond with the rest of you, as so often happens to couples in the Outside; it merely indicates that they have moved to a new stage of life.
“Serena, Jake, you will be moving into the empty side of the house shared by Caleb and Bea. They will show you where it is.”
Caleb and Bea. Kevin Reasoner, the DEA agent, and his girlfriend. Coincidence, because half their house was empty, or was it another test? Did Owen know about Kevin? Kevin had been “given” Bea. Was she there to watch him, and to watch them, too?
And then it was over. Owen put his hands on their shoulders, turned them to face each other and then out to the crowd. He gave them a little shove forward toward “their new lives as one.”
Not so different from a traditional wedding, though without the kissing. And thank whatever powers there were for that, because kissing Jake always took her places she had no desire to go in front of a crowd.
Kevin and Bea came up to the stage and offered to help them move their things to the cabin.
“I usually quilt on Sundays,” Bea said. She was a petite blonde whose hard, round, pregnancy belly looked as if she’d stuffed a basketball up her shirt.
“When are you due?” asked Tara.
“Oh, not for another month. I can’t wait, though. I feel so restricted. Just wait and see. It’s enough to drive you mad, not being able to move right.”
“Won’t you mind giving your baby up? That’s the part that scares me. That the baby just becomes part of the community.”
“Oh no. I’ll still see him. And he’ll have so much more opportunity as a member of the community than he would as the child of just one parent. All the children are raised that way, so it’s a tremendous benefit. Even the Leader’s children don’t get special treatment. He decided that based on his own experiences. Because he was sent away, singled out as a child. When he came back, he said he would never do that to his own child, that he would want his offspring raised as part of the community, too.”
Bile rose in the back of Tara’s throat and she swallowed it down.
“So is your baby one of the Leader’s children?”
A frown crossed Bea’s face. “No . . . I’m not—Jonas is the baby’s father. It was just a night of . . . you know . . . fun.”
Sure didn’t sound fun. In fact, it didn’t sound as if Bea particularly remembered it, which set every nerve in Tara’s body on fire. She’d been drugged in the isolation cell; what other drugs were they using here?
She patted Bea’s back, feeling the bones shift beneath her hand as she flinched slightly. “We all have nights like that. But it looks as if you’re doing better now, if you and Caleb are a couple. He seems like a good man.”
“Oh, he is.” She nodded rapidly. “He’s amazing. So kind and understanding and helpful. I couldn’t believe my luck when he chose me and th
e Leader blessed our union. And your Jacob seems much like him. I am sure you’ll be very happy together.”
They arrived at Tara’s bunk and collected her belongings. Tara didn’t have much experience with pregnant women, and she was pretty sure if she allowed Bea to carry more than a toothbrush and a T-shirt, the woman would pop.
They arrived at the new bunk just after Jake and Caleb. Jake had brought his trunk from the bunkhouse and sat it by the door. In the women’s bunks, they had industrial-size chests of drawers, so Tara had been forced to bring her few possessions loose. When she arrived, Jake opened the trunk so she could put her things in with his. It felt . . . intimate.
“I’ll put the toothbrush in the bathroom,” Bea said, disappearing through a door.
“Help me move the bed,” Jake said to Tara. “You know I can’t sleep with my feet facing the door.”
Caleb raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“Oh, it’s this ridiculous superstition he has,” Tara explained, just as they’d practiced on their walk. Wherever the bed was when they got into the house, Jake was going to insist on moving it. And Tara would find a reason. “Some stupid thing about how if the bed is set so your feet face the door, you’ll die quickly and they’ll carry you out in it.”
“We can just put it up against that other wall,” Jake suggested. “No problem.”
“Well, yeah, it’s a problem, because the bed’s bolted down,” Caleb said.
“Bolted down?” Jake’s eyes flicked from the bed to the ceiling and back to the bed. “I am going to go talk to the Leader.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Kevin said. “You can’t just ‘go talk to the Leader.’ You have to make an appointment.”
“Well, then, I’ll find one of his guys. I saw Jonas the other night, and he said there’s always someone around if I need to talk, and I do.”
Tara saw Bea flinch at Jonas’s name and held back her rage by sheer force of will. When they brought down the Chosen, she was going to take special pleasure in destroying him.
Jake stalked out, and they followed him.
“Bea, honey, why don’t you go find your quilting friends,” Caleb said gently. “I think Jacob and Serena can settle in well enough from here. And they probably want some time alone, anyway.”
“Would that be okay with you?” asked Bea.
“Of course! Maybe some week, you can teach me to quilt. I’m not a very good stitcher, but I would love to learn.”
Bea’s face lit up. “I certainly will. It’s easy once you get the hang of it. And very satisfying to make new quilts out of what would otherwise be nothing more than rags.” She hurried away toward the dining hall.
Jake, too, was speeding along, his long legs making quick work of the distance between the cabin and the main house, but Tara held Caleb back. “Let him go. He’ll be fine. He’ll talk it out. It’s his way.
You should go on and do whatever you usually do on Sundays, too. I’ll wait for Jacob.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
She watched Caleb take off toward a barn where they kept carpentry tools, then turned and reentered the cabin. She lay on the bed and closed her eyes, pretending a complete lack of concern, when in fact every muscle remained almost painfully tense.
• • •
At the front door to the main house, Jake was stopped by two men who were standing as sentries. He’d never spoken with them, though he’d seen them eating at a separate table with others of their ilk: big muscles, suspicious eyes. Former military or mercenaries. More of the hired help.
“Where do you think you’re going?” asked Muscles One.
“To speak to the Leader.”
“Not without an appointment,” said Muscles Two.
“Then get me an appointment.”
“Talk to Samuel or Aaron,” said Muscles One.
“Fine. Where are they?”
Muscles Two shrugged. “Around.”
The door behind them opened and Samuel appeared. “What’s going on?” The muscles twins didn’t precisely salute, but Jake had a pretty good idea who they answered to.
“Man says he needs to speak to the Leader,” said Muscles One.
“I’ll handle it. Jacob, come in. Let’s talk.”
Jake followed Samuel across the main hall and back into the office where he’d met with Owen originally. This time, it was Samuel who sat across the desk. Owen was nowhere to be seen.
“So what’s the problem? I would have thought you’d be enjoying yourself with your girlfriend.”
“You know my background. You know what I do—did—all day before I came here. I spent eighteen hours out of every twenty-four online. Which means that I saw more than my fair share of Internet porn. So I am sorry if my brain’s not been purified to the point where I can consider a bolted down bed anything but positioned for a camera.”
Samuel placed his palms flat on the desk and rose to lean heavily on them so he loomed over Jake. “You are accusing the Chosen, the Leader, of making sex tapes?”
“I’m not accusing anyone. The Leader knew when he brought me in that my mind didn’t work the way other people’s does all the time. Maybe it’s not about sex tapes. Maybe it’s about control. I don’t know. But I don’t want Serena to see anything like that. She believes a lot more than I do. So I am going to take her for a nice, long walk this afternoon, and when we get back I am going to climb up on that bed and check every nook and cranny for video. I wanted to give you a heads-up so you could get rid of anything that might be there before she saw it and decided you weren’t what she thought you were.”
“You are free to leave. You know that. If you don’t like it here, if you don’t trust us . . . ”
“This is my punishment. I fucked up in the outside world. I cheated on her. I can’t leave until she’s ready to, and I have no intention of having her lose faith in her own judgment again the way she lost it when I screwed her over. She doesn’t deserve it. So, yeah, I’d like her to see me find a camera because then we could just leave, but it would destroy her. She’s fragile, doesn’t believe in herself. I’d rather she just outgrew the need to be here, and I am content to give her time to do that.”
Samuel nodded. “And if she never wants to leave? Most people don’t. And if they do, they come back. Part of what they like here is the stability. That’s why the bed is bolted down. We don’t allow personalization in the houses. That leads to discontent, the perception of inequality.
“But you take your girlfriend for that walk. Figure things out. You haven’t been here long, so it is to be expected that our ways still seem strange to you. I think the women plan to do a “welcoming surprise” anyway. They usually do, but I don’t know whether they’ve had time to put anything together yet, given how quickly the two of you got to your bonding ceremony.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Jake.
He took his time heading back to the cabin, stopping to talk to various groups of people out enjoying the cool weather and sunshine.
When he arrived back at the cabin, Tara was lying on the bed, eyes closed. He knew she was awake, could feel her tension, but to anyone else she would appear utterly relaxed.
“Hey, babe,” he said. “It’s beautiful out. Let’s go for a walk.”
“Did you talk to the Leader? Ask him about the bed?”
“No, but I chatted with Samuel. I think what we can do is maybe make up the bed backward, just so our feet are against the wall. Would that be okay with you?”
“Of course. You know I only want to make you happy.”
“I know.” He pulled her into his arms. “I love you, baby.” He bent his head and took her mouth. She rose to her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, opening to him so sweetly he had to remind himself three times of the damned cameras in order to stop from pulling her down on the
bed and taking everything she offered.
“Walk,” he groaned at last. “Let’s go for that walk.”
Instead of letting him go, however, Tara tucked her head beneath his chin and clung for a long moment. Could she possibly be as affected as he by their kiss? He let his hands wander just a little, up and down her spine, feeling knotted muscles and taught tendons. He slid his fingers through her soft curls and massaged her scalp for a minute, and her moan nearly undid him there and then.
Sucking in a deep breath to firm up his resolve, he stepped away. But he couldn’t let the connection go entirely, so he took her hand. He’d become accustomed to the sensation of her small palm resting against his over the past few days, and now it felt . . . right.
• • •
I LOVE YOU,baby. What she wouldn’t give to hear those words for real. But she followed Jake out into warm afternoon sun without, she hoped, giving away her thoughts. She’d taken the kiss as far as she reasonably could, using the excuse that there might be cameras. When they returned from this walk, video surveillance would be over, and there would be no reason for Jake to treat her like a lover in private.
At least there was only one bed. She’d discovered in the infirmary that she liked sleeping with Jake. The logical part of her brain was certain the security she felt wrapped in his arms was an illusion, that neither of them would be safe as long as they were inside the Chosen’s territory, but some base, chemical part of her refused to recognize that truth, simply shut it out the minute his body curled around hers.
Jake hadn’t found anything in the drying sheds or at the greenhouses, which left the odd storage buildings at the far edge of the property to search, assuming Kevin hadn’t discovered anything. Between them, they’d covered almost the entire compound and were still no closer to finding out how or why Andrea had died. Maybe she should just give up. Nothing about the way Owen and his pals behaved seemed right to her, but intuition could take her only so far. Keeping the investigation going, putting Jake in danger without any real evidence, was unfair.
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