AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her world narrowed to the feel of him grasping her—and the masculine, heady scent that crept up and made her thought process splinter and disappear. She felt like a robot obeying commands as he continued to walk her backwards until the back of her knees hit the bed.
She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t get enough oxygen as they came to a complete halt. The hand entangled in her hair fisted until she felt the strands pulling at her scalp, but she felt no pain, only a wicked titillation. She felt a weakness creep over her, a haunting feeling of sexual need mingled with panicked nerves that invaded her bloodstream and settled in the pit of her stomach.
His head began to come down—and Janet heard the muffled sounds of her daughter awakening. She didn’t know whether she was relieved or disappointed, but sanity returned with the sound of Hannah’s cry.
The downward motion of his head stalled, even as he tightened his hold in her hair. She licked her lips and struggled to move away from him. His other hand slid around her wrist in an unbreakable grip as he seemed to shake himself.
His eyes narrowed, antagonism replacing the look of lust that had been emblazoned on his features not five seconds before. He released her scalp as his mouth opened and hot, fierce words rang out. “Go see to your daughter.”
She moved to pull away, but he was still holding onto her wrist. She cleared her throat and looked between them, pulling on her arm. He began escorting her back to the door and as she heard Hannah’s muffled cries become an all-out wail, his fingers bit into her flesh as he warned once again, “Stay out of my room, girl. You understand?”
Janet nodded her head in delayed shock and when he released her wrist, she pulled away and stared at him for the count of two seconds before turning and escaping to the safety of her room and to her daughter.
Chapter Three
That evening, Janet was still messed up from the earlier events of the day. As the supper hour neared, she tried to push her angst to the back of her mind, but she found it almost impossible.
Zach had come rambling into the kitchen some fifteen minutes before and had asked if she knew anything about geometry. While she was certainly better with algebra and calculus, she’d liked geometry at one time. Unfortunately, she hadn’t retained much of it, but together, they had figured out the problem, which was the last of his homework for the day.
Now, his book was closed and pushed to the side as he gave his attention to Hannah. He’d twisted her highchair toward the chair he sat in, and it seemed to amuse him as he tried to make her baby laugh at his antics.
It was a quarter to six, and Janet was silently panicking. The meal she was preparing, she could tell, was going to be the worst of her endeavors so far. Why the hell weren’t there any cookbooks in this house? She’d scoured the kitchen cabinets and the bookshelf in the living room, but had come up with nada. If a phone call to her mother wouldn’t have cost a fortune, she’d have already called and asked for help—but she didn’t dare. The one phone call she’d made on the McIntyre line to let her mom know she was okay and where they were living had already put her in the rancher’s debt—although she seriously doubted he did more than give his phone bill a cursory glance before simply paying it.
As she tried to figure out why the roast beef was getting tougher instead of more tender, she was seriously berating herself for not confessing her lack of skill the moment she’d stepped foot on the Bar M.
And exactly where had she gone wrong with the gravy? Was the concoction even edible? It looked more like paste—it was paste—there was no way it would pour over the meat. As the act of stirring actually took muscle to scrape the bottom of the pot, Zach must have noticed and he made a strangled noise in his throat. “Are you actually expecting us to eat that?” he asked in an agonized voice.
As his pained words penetrated, Janet flipped off the heat, bowed her head in a moment of utter dejection and finally, coming to terms, she then turned around to face the boy. She could see that her daughter was happy, tugging at Zach’s fingers and trying to pry them open to get at whatever he had teasingly concealed from her.
Zach’s face had blanched completely white as he saw the mess of her efforts. No, there wasn’t any way she could actually serve the gravy, and now she could tell that the time was upon her to confess her sins, at least to this boy, if not to his father.
She took a deep breath and spit it out. “No, I don’t expect y’all to eat it.” She stalled a moment, both anxiety and a tenuous pleasure running through her bloodstream as she saw the bond that seemed to be forming between her daughter and Zach. She wanted Hannah to feel rooted, but she also didn’t want her child to form an attachment that might be brutally ripped away at the drop of a hat.
But she couldn’t worry about that at the moment, first things first. “Zach, kiddo—I have a confession to make,” she forced out. He continued to watch her, his eyebrows lifting, waiting. She took another sustaining breath, before letting it out in a deflated sigh. “I don’t know how to cook very well.”
The boy looked flabbergasted for a moment before finally nodding his head. “Yeah, I figured that out.”
The horror she felt when her suspicions were confirmed made unease settle in the pit of her stomach. The boy had noticed she couldn’t cook. And surely his father had figured it out as well? How could he have not? “I know I can learn. I’m practicing every day. I promise I’ll get better—but please, please, don’t say anything to your father.”
At any other time, the look on his face would have been priceless, but at that moment in time, it only caused more anxiety to form. The boy first looked as if he might laugh, but he caught himself and his face froze into an impenetrable mask. And then a look of sympathy lit his eyes before he opened his mouth and in an almost gentle voice, replied, “I don’t think you need to worry so much.” His shoulders lifted as he took a deep breath. “He already knows.”
With that, the boy gave his attention back to her daughter and Janet stood in silence as the proverbial penny not only dropped but crashed to the floor. So, she’d been right about Jeff McIntyre and it was even worse than she’d thought. He already knew she was worthless at cooking, so there could only be one reason he was keeping her around—the one her mother had warned her about.
How long would he keep it contained? And when he made his move, would she be able to withstand him? Did she even want to try?
****
The next evening she was cleaning the kitchen in peace. Zach was watching a movie on the VCR, and because it seemed to be an old favorite and because he’d requested it, they’d put down a blanket on the living room floor and he was entertaining Hannah as the movie played.
Janet checked on them several times, in fact, she could see her daughter if she stepped to the entrance between the kitchen and the living room. But the longer she was here, the more comfortable she was with the boy’s attention to her daughter. He was a sweet kid—a sweet, albeit precocious, twelve-year-old kid. He was studious, helpful, and the only beef she had with him was his colorful language.
She felt comfortable leaving Hannah with him for a while at a time, and now, she used the ‘free’ time to get the kitchen in order. As she worked, she worried—about everything. Even though she now knew that Jeff evidently couldn’t care less that she didn’t know how to cook, she was silently appalled at her lack of skill and her predicament. She wanted some level of control and if she could learn how to cook, at least that would be something. If she could get to town and find a library and some cook
books, she knew she was smart enough to learn.
As she scrubbed at a pot that unfortunately, she’d scorched to near ruin, she felt, more than heard, someone come to the doorway. She didn’t have to turn around or even glance back to know it wasn’t Zach—it was most definitely his father—she knew it was, she could feel it.
Her psyche so in tuned to his, she could tell he watched her from where he stood, the heat of his stare coursing down the length of her body. An alarming tingle ran from her hands that were covered in suds, up her arms and shoulders and into her neck where she could feel the loud tick of her heart in her throat.
The click of boots against tile floor told her he’d stepped closer and a dangerous, disturbing thrill sent her senses spinning. His footsteps stalled and so did the breath in her lungs. The scent of his freshly showered body sent a hungry spurt of desire blazing through her. Her hands stilled in the water as she braced her knees, expecting some kind of jolt to her sanity, but not knowing what was in store.
He hadn’t spoken more than five words to her since the scene in his bedroom the morning before and as her emotions spun wildly, she struggled for control.
The breath stuck in her throat as his boots clicking on tile rang out once more. She realized he’d come so close that he was crowding her now—he couldn’t be more than six inches behind her. A deliciously insidious feeling of lethargy assailed her, taking away the choice of moving away from him.
He stood behind her, impossibly close but not touching. A thousand alarm bells went off in her head, pounding through her veins, freezing her in place. He stood still for a solid minute, and then another, his breathing so harsh and loud in her ears that it produced a fiery sensation low in her pelvis.
She felt him pick up a strand of her hair, not touching her in any other way, but she felt the tug on her scalp as he seemingly rubbed the lock between his fingers. Why was she standing still, letting him touch her? It was more than a feeling of being paralyzed; she wanted him to touch her. A firestorm of emotions exploded inside as she bowed her head, realizing in that moment just how fully he could control her if she wasn’t careful.
