AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We have a wonderful muscle balm made of natural ingredients found right here on the land that you can use. And after standing up all day in the kitchen, you’ll need it.”
“Mrs. Tully was threatening me with bathroom cleaning responsibilities, so I’ll take any job in the kitchen I can get.” He slapped his hands together as though he were pumped for the task. He didn’t realize just how long and tedious this kind of work could be once the excitement wore off.
She was feeling her own kind of excitement. The air between them was charged with tension. It had been far too long since she’d been in the presence of a man like King. It reminded her of Italy. Of the freedom she had when she’d first escaped Cinderhill. He was like a glass of red wine in a bustling café. A ride through the busy street. King, with his mischievous grin and large capable hands, was a compelling reason to miss the outside world.
“You’ll be glad to know we reached out to the tow company and they’ll be putting gas in your car, so if you want to leave today—”
“A week.” He folded his arms across his chest.
“Okay,” she said with a shrug, enjoying this banter more than she planned.
Bailey came up to him with a knife in her hand and a funny grin on her face. "Is this triggering for you? I know you were stabbed.” She eyed the spot on his shoulder where he’d shown her the injury.
“Nothing scares me. You’ll have to find another way to win the bet.”
“Okay, are you ready to learn how to preserve peaches?" she asked. “This is an essential skill for living off the land. What will you eat when the gardens aren’t growing? You have to have a stockpile of food for everyone in the community and plan for things to go wrong.”
"That seems pretty easy.” King grabbed a peach from the counter and brought it to his nose. She watched his eyes widen as he smelled the sweet freshness.
"It can get very monotonous and it’s hard on your hands. The key to this kind of work is making it fun. It’s best to make a game out of it. For every batch we make, you have to tell me something about yourself.”
King raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "That game sounds a little disproportionate. Every other batch, you have to tell me something.”
“Fine,” she shrugged, knowing full well there were plenty of things she’d never be courageous enough to speak out loud to him.
“And what do I get when I finish all the peaches?" He was strutting around as though this would be easy. He didn’t realize there were seven more bushels waiting for them when this one was done.
Bailey stepped closer to him. She could practically feel the heat radiating off his body. "I'll think of some kind of reward," she whispered, taking the peach from his hand. This sultry flirtation had not been part of the plan, but King’s pull was strong and she continued being drawn in closer.
“I don’t know what else you’ll want to hear from me. I’ve told you plenty already. More than I have told anyone in a long time.”
“Why do you think that is?” She curled a loop of her hair around her finger and eyed him closely.
“Who would you tell?” he chuckled. “It’s not like you’re posting stuff on social media. I guess you could whisper all my secrets to a bird or something.”
“Good point. But you are going to go back out into the world and maybe you will tell them all about me and my secrets. I’m the one who should be worried.”
“I won’t tell anyone anything.” He plucked three peaches from the counter and began juggling them. “I think I’m joining the circus after this, so the clowns won’t care about your secrets.”
“I can see you in the circus.” She winked at him and loved the way he smiled back.
Peeling and slicing the peaches with effortless precision, Bailey laughed at the image of King running off with the circus. Did people still do things like that? She was envious of how open the road in front of him would be once he left Cinderhill. Clearly he was fleeing something difficult, but he was going to just travel around until he found some place he liked. Anywhere. It seemed like a liberating kind of strategy she wished she could adopt. “You’re obviously deflecting. I think there is a lot more you can tell me. Who exactly are you, King?”
“I’m a kid who had a messed-up family, and got taken in by people who might have been even more screwed up. They were involved in organized crime. They did what they needed to in order to get what they wanted. I felt like I’d finally found somewhere I belonged, and so I was willing to do their dirty work. Turns out I was good at doing what other people didn’t have the stomach for.”
“And then one day you decided it wasn’t right?”
“The guy I worked for did a lot of terrible stuff, but the worst of it was how he treated his wife. He humiliated her. Hurt her. Scared her. They had a little girl and she saw way too much of it. I was worried he’d soon move on to hurting his daughter too.”
“That’s terrible.” Bailey felt her cheeks rise with heat as she thought of her own father and how he tormented people. How being his daughter didn’t give her some blanket of protection. In fact it seemed to do the opposite.
“The problem was his wife wasn’t ready to leave. She didn’t think she could safely get out so I had to just wait. I did everything I could to minimize the violence and shield their daughter from it. But until I was confident she was going to leave and stay gone, I couldn’t step in.”
“That must have been hard to watch.”
“It was the worst thing I’ve had to do. But if I’d have tried to help her before she was ready, he’d have killed me, and then she would have had no one there when she was strong enough to leave. I had to walk a tightrope.”
“But you did it. You saved her and her daughter.”
