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Veronica got up from the table and retreated to the kitchen. She gripped the edge of the sink for support and let the tears fall. Luke was a fucking monster. There was no way she could live like this, and it was only going to get worse.
A few moments later, the kitchen door opened and banged shut. She didn’t turn around, but she knew it was Luke. Somehow in the space of a day, she already knew the cadence of his steps.
“How can you treat me like this?”
He moved behind her, his hot breath on her ear. “How can you like it so much?”
“I don’t like it. I hate it, and I hate you.”
“Lies like that aren’t very becoming on a lady.” He slipped his hand under her skirt, pushing past her panties. She wriggled against him as his fingers pushed inside her, a gasp slipping past her lips. “You’re wet. Let me tell you something about yourself, Veronica. You’re in the girl’s club I like to call ‘methinks she doth protest too much’. Your indignant behavior over the slightest perceived gender inequality makes it almost certain that inequality is what you masturbate to at night.”
He’d started pumping his fingers in and out of her. Against all reason and despite her fears about a grisly end, she moved with him.
“So this is all about my irritation over the stupid door at the diner?” she said.
“And you look like her.”
Couldn’t leave off that important point.
“If you were so into her, why did you kill her? Because she got pregnant, and you didn’t want a baby?”
Luke moved his hands away and spun her around so hard she almost slipped. His eyes were angry when they met hers. “Okay, I’m done with that. Not that this isanyof your business, but Trish died in childbirth. The baby was stillborn. I lost them both in one night. Ilovedher. I didn’t kidnap her, and I didn’t kill her. If you think I’d kill somebody that looks like her, you’re crazy. Bring her up again at your peril, princess. I’d love to spank that lovely ass again today.”
“I’m sorry.” Veronica looked away. She couldn’t be sure if his story was true, but if it was, she felt like shit. Though, it still didn’t excuse the way his mind had apparently snapped when he’d taken her. “Do the guys know you took me the way you did?”
“Yes. And not one of them will go against me.”
“Are you sure about that?”
He nodded. “These men have been with me for the past ten years. They’re my ranch family. They’ve got my back, and I’ve got theirs. If I robbed a bank, they’d help me hide the money. If I blew up a building, they’d deny it under torture. If I killed some people, they’d help me bury the bodies. So give up.”
Will came in, then, with the juice and milk, followed by Robert with the butter and jam.
“Are we interruptin’ somethin’?” Will asked. “We thought we better get this stuff back in the fridge.”
“No, it’s fine. I was just about to show Ronnie the garden.”
* * *
Luke didn’t askfor dinner until about seven o’clock that night, which he claimed was very late given how early they had to be up in the morning. Veronica didn’t see the appeal in keeping this kind of schedule, or all the work involved. The late morning and afternoon had been spent cleaning, doing laundry and hanging it on the line, making lunch for the guys, and watering the garden, which thankfully was so late in the growing season that the plants were too hardy for her to kill if she followed Luke’s maintenance schedule to the letter.
She’d picked several small tomatoes that had ripened on the vine for the sandwiches. After lunch she’d lain out in the grass, watching the clouds float above her, shifting into new patterns and shapes and merging together and splitting apart. Even when she’d been in the penthouse, the sky hadn’t been like this. There had been too many buildings around.
Dinner was burgers again, more for expediency than anything else. Luke had showered while she’d cooked them on the grill out back with the last bit of light from the sky. When he came down again in just a pair of jeans, his dark brown hair still dripping water down his back, she tried not to stare. It was too wrong.
Twenty-four hours ago, she’d been tied up with ropes in the cab of his truck. There were still rope burns on her wrists, and a bandage on her arm from her escape attempt.
“What about the website?” She tried to sound casual about it. If she could get online, she could get out of here. Though even after such a short period of time, she felt less than excited about the plan. She didn’t want to go back to the city, living in a motel she barely felt safe in until she ran out of money. She didn’t want to go back to eating Ramen noodles and pork and beans. If he wasn’t violent with her, would it be wrong to just stay?
“We’ll work on it this weekend.”
“Where’s the computer?”
“Don’t even think about it. It requires a network password, and I’m the only one who knows it.”
“Did you go to college?” she asked. His manner of speech was relaxed, but still educated.
“I went to business school. I was going to open a tractor supply store a couple of cities over, but my old man got sick and asked me to take over here. I reasoned that it was a business, so I could still use the degree. And he wanted to keep it in the family.”
