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“Spurlock,” she said, putting as much contempt into her voice as she could. “What did you do, crack the back of my skull?”
“Naw, it’s not cracked. Just a bit bruised,” he said, leaning against one of the posts in the barn. Her barn.
Now that her head was starting to clear somewhat, she could see that she was being held in her own barn. Something about that just felt so…insulting.
“If you’re going to go through the trouble of kidnapping me, you might at least hide me somewhere no one can find me. Put a little effort into it.”
Spurlock laughed. “You’ve got some fire in you. I can see why he likes you.”
“Who?” she asked, not holding out much hope the ploy would work. But there was no reason to give the man all the information he was after too easily.
“Come now, don’t play coy.”
She just blinked at him like the most innocent baby angel who’d ever flown in the heavens.
He huffed. “Your paramour, of course.”
“Husband,” she snapped before she could stop herself.
“Husband, is it?” Spurlock rubbed his chin. “No, I don’t think so.”
She raised a brow, though even that small movement sent a twinge of pain through her head. “Why not?”
“There’s no official record of any wedding, for one.”
She knew that would come back to bite them one day.
“And if he was really your husband, and you were his devoted wife…then where is he?”
Nora frowned and looked around. There was daylight streaming through the gaps in the slatted walls, though the light was muted. That side of the barn was always in the shade during the morning. Which meant…
“Trying to calculate how long you’ve been my guest? I’ll help you. I brought you in here a little after eight in the morning. And it’s now well after midday.”
All day. And no one had found her?
Spurlock’s grin made her skin crawl. “Ah, now you’re understanding. You have been missing all day, yet no one seems to have noticed. Not your friends or your father—though, to be fair, he doesn’t seem to notice much of anything these days, does he? And not your errant lover. My apologies,” he said, clapping a hand on his chest and giving her a little bow. “Your husband.”
Nora rolled her lips between her teeth and bit down, using the pain to distract her from the almost overwhelming desire to spit in Spurlock’s face. Somehow, she didn’t think antagonizing him to that degree would keep her alive longer. Though the temptation to unleash her rage and see just how far she could take it was strong enough to make her hands shake.
Instead, she sucked in a shallow breath and prayed for composure. “You seem to know a lot for a stranger to this town.”
Spurlock lifted a shoulder in a lopsided shrug. “Just because this is the first time you’re seeing me doesn’t mean it’s the first I’m seeing of you. I don’t just ride into a town without scouting it first. And I’ve got more eyes than my own keeping a watch out.”
She should have known. He seemed to be waiting for some sort of response from her, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Instead, she sat and waited until he tilted his head, regarding her a little more closely, before shrugging and continuing on.
“The fact remains, not one single, solitary person has come looking for you. It’s not like I’ve made it difficult. I want them to find you, after all. Well, I want one person to find you. I hope you don’t take offense. But he belonged to me first. He escaped from me once. It won’t happen a second time.”
She snorted. “Seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to draw one man out. Maybe he’d come if you just asked him really nicely.”
Spurlock gave her a cold smile that didn’t reach his dead eyes. Then he shrugged. “Or perhaps I should have used something he actually likes as bait. A nice apple pie, maybe. He’d at least get a few moments of enjoyment out of that before it was gone. You, on the other hand…”
He looked her up and down, the disdain dripping from his face enough proof of what he thought of her. “I don’t know how he brought himself to touch you. And I mean that literally. Most men prefer their women to be…delicate. Feminine. Not built like they could fell an oak tree just by passing it.”
She tried to tune out his words. Keep her face neutral, trying to look as bored as possible.
He was only saying what he thought would hurt her the most. She’d dealt with men like him her whole life. They were all the same. Especially if they were around a woman who intimidated them. Though for a man who didn’t know her at all, he was doing a very good job.
“Coming from a man who’d need a ladder to look me in the eye, I suppose I can see why you wouldn’t understand my appeal.”
