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Veronica sat quietly next to him while he filled out the paperwork. Under name, he wrote:Patricia Walker.
Once again she wondered at his sanity and how firm his grasp on reality was. How safe could she be with a man who didn’t really know who she was? Or couldn’t stop forgetting?
“Luke?” she whispered, afraid she’d get in trouble for calling him by his first name, but knowing realistically she was safe here with so many witnesses around.
He looked up. “Hmmm?”
She pointed at the name on the forms, unsure how to phrase her question in a safe way. Thankfully, she didn’t have to.
His voice was low when he spoke. “Part of the benefit to you in being kidnapped is that you no longer have to worry about your debt. You want to change that now with a paper trail?”
He was protecting her.
“But... it’s insurance fraud.” Like such a thought should matter to him in the face of kidnapping.
“I’m paying cash.”
“Oh.”
She looked down at her hands while he finished filling out the forms, occasionally asking her questions such as allergies that could put her in harm’s way if incorrect. Wouldn’t they know Trish was dead? Even if she looked enough like her and even if most of the people here weren’t on a first name basis with Luke and Trish, wouldn’t it come out that he was giving a dead woman’s information?
They had to wait an hour before someone took her back. He held her and stroked her hair the whole time.
Alone in the hospital room, Veronica thought again about escape. She could leave now, easily. Anyone would believe her if she showed them the brand on her hip. Even if the cattle brand had been consensual, it would have been hard, if not impossible, to convince a normal person of that. She was home free if she wanted it.
But Luke was right, where would she go? She couldn’t go back to the city where she could barely see the sky for all the buildings and crowds of people. It was too stifling. There was no space there. Everyone was shoehorned in too tight. Human beings needed space. It was hard to breathe there for all the people, all the noise and stress. She needed to see the sky to feel right.
And her body had needs now that even with fantasies she couldn’t have foreseen. Sure, if she was free, her milk would dry up eventually, but did she want it to? The feeling of Luke drinking from her was exquisite. Beyond just basic survival, how would she go back to how she’d been? The answer was obvious. That door was closed. She couldn’t go back. She’d changed too much. He’d softened all her edges so much that the real world would just snag and cut her.
Before she’d always seen herself as strong and independent. But how independent could someone who couldn’t control their spending be? Had she spent out of loneliness? Unhappiness? She didn’t know, but since coming to the ranch she’d been free of it all. There had been no creditors calling, no bills or shopping urges. She’d been too busy with her list of chores to think about the mall.
Serving him and his men domestically and sexually should have broken her beyond repair, but in a weird way it had fixed what had already been broken a long time ago. Yet, sitting in the hospital room, surrounded by the normal people in the normal world, she was reminded of how wrong this all was. She’d been living in a haze, but in the hospital, the fog felt like it had lifted for a moment. Shouldn’t Luke pay for this?
On the balance sheet, he came out ahead with all he’d given her, but something inside her screamed that he must pay.
A nurse came in, then. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Walker. The man who brought you in, is that your husband? Boyfriend?”
Master. Owner. World.
“Boyfriend,” she lied. After all, she wore no ring. It was the most believable of the options presented. It was telling that brother or friend hadn’t been among the assumptions made.
The nurse wrote something down on a clipboard. “I’m sorry to have to ask this, but when a woman comes in with a man, injured like this, we have to. Has he hurt you?”
“No!” The word flew forcefully out of her mouth before she could stop to consider her answer. Luke was tall and strong. With the work he did he wassostrong. Once the immediate fears had died, he was a place of safety she could hide in. Giving him up suddenly felt like opening the door for the tiger to eat her.
Thoughts of ending up starving, giving blow jobs in alleys to barely scrape by, perhaps finding fetishists to sell her milk to, had her quickly defending her captor.
“Are you sure? Because, if he’s hurt you in any way, we can protect you. We can get you to a safe house, and you can press charges. I know it might feel like life is over, but it’s not. You can start again. People can help you.”
She’d already started again. Luke was her do-over. Anything else was just moving backward.
Did her face show her inner conflict? It must if the nurse was pushing on what was supposedly a routine question. Had someone observed them in the waiting room? Had they seen timidity or fear on Veronica’s face? Had they seen her pull back from him when she was afraid he might become unhinged over the question about the name he’d written down? What other clues might they have seen? How much had her face given away? How much was it giving away now?
“I’m sorry, but this seems more than routine.”
“I apologize ma’am. I usually have an instinct for these things. I could, of course, be wrong.”
Veronica became angry. “Hell yes, you’re wrong. Luke hasn’t hurt me. You don’t know what he saved me from. He takes care of me. We’re paying good money at this hospital to be insulted this way.”
