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“Sir, I’d be happy to reciprocate,” Leslie offered, inching her hand down his waist.
He grabbed her wrist but smiled to soften his refusal. “I know, and appreciate it, but I’m good.” At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.
Nothing has changed. Nan Meyers breathed a sigh of relief as she peered out the taxi window as they drove through her small hometown of Willow Springs, Montana on a quiet Monday morning. There had been so many changes in her life the ten months she’d been away, she didn’t think she could handle it if she’d finally gotten the nerve to return home and found a lot of things weren’t as she’d left them. She needed the soothing comfort of small-town living, the embrace of warm friendships and the time to find herself again more than a spring blossom needed the sun to survive.
Looping around the quaint town square with its gurgling fountain and century-old buildings, she instructed the cab driver to take her around the back of the block of small shops and businesses. Parking behind the tea shop she inherited from her grandmother, she grabbed her bag and got out, handing him his fare through the window.
“Thank you. Have a nice day.”
She waited in the empty alley until he drove away, standing next to her car where she’d left it parked so long ago. She’d timed her arrival during mid-morning, when everyone would be at work and few people were out and about shopping yet. With her emotions in a turmoil and her confidence still shattered into a million pieces, she needed to get her bearings before seeing anyone she knew well yet.
Nan took a moment to bask in the mid-May sun warming her face before clutching her suitcase and reaching for her keys. When she’d left for a short visit with her brother in New Orleans last summer, she had only planned on being away for a few weeks, thus the one bag. Getting involved with Gerard Avet and her own stupidity kept her away much longer. A shudder ran through her as the memories she was determined to overcome flitted through her head. Her brother, Jay had begged her to hold off a little longer on returning, insisting she wasn’t ready to go it alone. But she wanted her life back, and her life was here, in the beloved town where they’d both grown up before Jay left for college and their parents died in a car accident a few short months after retiring.
Nan inserted the key and let herself into the back door of the two-story shop, veering left and up the rear stairs to the apartment she’d lived in with her grandmother following the loss of her parents shortly after her seventeenth birthday. With Jay settling in New Orleans following college instead of coming back home to Montana, it had been just the two of them the last seven years of Nana’s life. Jay visited often and the three of them had remained close, sharing the burden of grief along with the cherished memories of their family, but Nana passed away over eight years ago and Nan returned to the apartment with a stab of nostalgia.
Opening the door, she was unprepared to face the darkened interior, the flash of instant terror keeping her rooted on the threshold. Gripping the doorknob, she sucked in a deep breath, fighting off the throat clogging fear threatening to choke her. I’m fine, this is home. Gerard is in New Orleans awaiting trial. The silent assurances did little to calm her racing heart or settle the nausea churning in her stomach that darkness always produced. She had spent three long, terror and pain-ridden days locked in Gerard’s pitch-black basement before her rescue, long enough for fear to become entrenched into her soul with a tight clutch she’d failed to loosen in all the months since.
Sliding a shaky hand along the inside wall, she found the light switch by touch and flicked it on. The center bulb in the overhead fan lit up, dispelling the dark and easing her terror as she scanned the combined living, dining and kitchen room and breathed in the musty odor of a closed-up space. There was no distant sound of slow dripping water or the dank smell of an unfinished cellar. Shaking off the paralyzing remnants of her neurosis, she entered the small cozy home, set her suitcase down and went straight to the window to shove the blinds up and let in some much-needed fresh air and sunshine. The last of her jittery nerves settled down with the incoming breeze and bright swath of light spreading across the hardwood floor.
“Much better,” she said aloud with a decisive nod, gazing out at the mountains towering behind the buildings of the square below.
New Orleans might be rich with history and offer an array of twenty-four-seven entertainment, but Nan still preferred the wide-open, less populated spaces she’d known her whole life. For fun, there were large barbeques at the neighboring ranches and riding pell-mell across a prairie dotted with daisies and glimpsing elk among the Ponderosa Pines or Douglas Firs. The annual county fair brought a crowd from the nearest towns in the spring and with both the Red Lodge Mountain and the newest dude ranch within a thirty-minute drive, they enjoyed tourism benefits year-round.
Thinking of the new ranch and lodge that opened right before she left reminded her of meeting the owners, Greg Young and Devin Fisher, and the one ménage she’d indulged in when they’d become members of The Barn. Just thinking about the kink club owned by her closest friends’ now husbands drew a ripple of longing through her. Leaning her forehead on the windowpane, Nan closed her eyes and recalled the fun and pleasures she had indulged in as a member of the nearest BDSM club. Master Clayton, who moved away a year after the club opened, had tutored her into accepting and then embracing her sexual submissive needs, and taught her not to be ashamed of getting those needs met through pain, bondage and dominance.
It had taken Master Gerard just one short week to strip her of everything she craved and cherished about the lifestyle she’d reveled in for five years.
Pivoting from the window, Nan turned her mind to the tasks of settling back into her apartment before venturing downstairs and getting to work on what needed to be done to open her tea shop again. Her phone rang as she started to toss her purse on the kitchen counter. Pulling it out, she wasn’t at all surprised to see Jay’s name pop up. “Hello, big brother,” she answered with a warm smile.
“You got in okay? How are you holding up?” he asked, getting right to the point.
Discounting that brief lapse into fear at the door, she answered him with all honesty. “Yes, my flight arrived in Billings with no problem and I just got home. Other than looking around at the cleaning I need to do, I’m fine. But I love you for caring.”
“Always, sis. I’m a plane ride away if you need me. Don’t hesitate to call if you can’t cope.”
Nan stiffened against his good intentions. Damn it, she vowed. She would get her act together, and her life back, one way or another, without continuing to lean on her brother. “I have to do this, Jay. You know that.”
His sigh came through the line. “Yeah, I know. That doesn’t make it any easier. Remember, I saw the state you were in when we got you out of Avet’s house.”
She didn’t need the reminder. She would carry the scars on her back forever, mementos of the mistake she’d made in trusting the wrong person. “Trust me, I remember. I’ll call after I get settled back in, I promise.”
“I’ll hold you to it. Bye, sis.”
Nan hung up feeling better just from hearing her big brother’s voice. She would give anything if Jay moved back to Willow Springs but had given up trying to persuade him. He’d tried just as hard to entice her into relocating to New Orleans, but just as he’d made a life for himself there, she fostered no desire to start over anywhere else.
Brushing her hands down her jean-clad thighs, she tightened her jaw with determination and muttered aloud, “Okay, down to work.”
Chapter 2
Nan spent all of Monday doing nothing but cleaning, both her apartment and the tea shop. The good news was she fell into an exhausted sleep without nightmares and woke refreshed this morning, eager to get her butt in gear. She brought back a variety of new teas, a sampling of gourmet coffees and a large assortment of French cookies to sell in the shop, but after taking inventory yesterday and throwing away almost everything still shelved, she spent the morning in Billings on a shopping trip.
As she carried in her purchases, she knew she should let her fr
iends know she was back, but every time she thought of calling, she cringed. They’d texted and spoken often the first few weeks she’d been in New Orleans, but after her ordeal with Gerard, she hadn’t had it in her to talk to anyone from home. Her silence these past months would be hard to explain without revealing too much.
She didn’t worry as much about her three closest friends insisting on answers – they wouldn’t be happy with her but would accept her need to come forth with the whole story in her own time. Master Dan might not be so understanding. It shouldn’t have surprised her to find herself missing him the most, thinking about him the most during those traumatizing days and subsequent recovery. One reason she had searched out a BDSM group was because she’d needed a diversion from thinking about him so much.
Of the Doms Nan had submitted to at The Barn, he was not only her favorite, but knew her needs, and how to meet them the best. Despite the number of years she’d known the owners, both Dunbar brothers and Sheriff Monroe, Dan was the only one whose friendship outside of the club went a step beyond casual and stayed a comfortable margin short of committed. They’d met after her initial training and over the years had enjoyed each other enough to keep them interested in coming back for more.
