Which makes me the villain since I snatched her and brought her out to the middle of nowhere. But I’m desperate. Achingly desperate, and I’m running out of time. I need a plan. And fast.
“Water,” she croaks from her position on the bed. “Please.”
I don’t deny her, reaching into the fridge and coming out with a plastic bottle. I unscrew the cap and take a knee before gently pouring some into her mouth. She takes one sideways drink, then another. A stream trickles from the corner of her lips and onto the thin, bare mattress at her cheek.
“Better than gas station wine,” she says when I pull the bottle away.
I blink, shocked she’s joking with me.
She tries to sit up, but winces. “Can you take off the ropes?”
“No.” No way. Neither of us can trust the other.
She sighs in resignation and settles, tipping her chin so she can look at me “Why did you bring me here?”
I don’t answer.
“Are you going to let me go?”
I don’t answer again.
“Tucker.”
For some reason, her speaking my name in her soft, caressing voice cracks me open. I give her an inch—the truth if she plays her cards right. “Yes. But not yet.”
Morgan
Not yet.
Goose bumps abrade my arms. So, he might let me go? All I have to do is ride out our time together and hope it ends sooner than later. I can do that.
Squinting, he watches me for a long moment before he stands and crosses the room. The lights are off, but I can make out his movements in the grainy moonlight coming in the window.
He returns with the knife and I consider that I’m wrong. Maybe he has no intention of letting me go but is telling me what I want to hear to keep me quiet. I think of Drew and figure that he’d told me what I wanted to hear most of the time. So, in a way, this situation is familiar.
Tucker raises the blade between our faces and I try not to freak out. I stay still, cheek on the mattress, breathing as evenly as possible.
“Make you a deal. You help me. I help you.” He looks both handsome and harried, and it bothers me how I pair those words in my mind. “Tell me what I need to know, and I’ll free your ankles.”
“And my hands?” Being tied is making me claustrophobic. Plus my ribs itch and I’m not asking him to scratch them for me.
“Maybe tomorrow.” His mouth is hard, but his voice is soft.
I try to sit up, but without leverage I flop like a fish. The mattress is thin and uncomfortable, no sheets. I’m trying not to think about what was on this bed before me. Or who.
Yuck.
“What do you need to know?” I ask.
He slides the knife into a holster at the side of his belt, twisting his mouth in thought. Then he asks me the last thing in the world I expect. “Would your father defend someone for free?”
“You mean pro bono?” Was he asking for himself or “for a friend”? Is there a bigger criminal he owes a favor?
“I didn’t get out of prison with much cash,” he says, answering my unspoken query.
“Defend you after you kidnapped me? Probably not.” I doubt it’s what he wants to hear, but it’s the truth. My father won’t be in a gracious mood when he finds out I was held against my will. I tilt my chin to take in the dried blood on Tucker’s shirt. “Or do you need a lawyer for whatever you did to end up bloody?”
“The second thing.” His vacant gaze tells me his thoughts are focused on a memory and not on me at all. When Luke pushed me against the wall and his greasy hands started wandering, Tucker’s eyes were like that. His arms vibrated with rage, his shoulders strung tight, but his eyes…his eyes were distant when he pulled Luke away from me. Just like now. It isn’t hard to imagine him ramming his fists into someone else’s face present day.
I had nightmares after that day. Nightmares about what could have happened had Tucker not been there in that hallway. Luke had his meaty paws on me, on my body. Two hot showers a day did little to erase the sensation of him touching me. The rasp of his roughened knuckles on the sensitive skin below my belly button as he undid my pants. I woke up in a sweat more times than I could count that school year. And I never stayed after school again. Extra credit be damned.
Blood stains Tucker’s shirt now. Had he been defending a helpless girl? Or had he been defending himself?
I clear my throat. “What happened?”
He blinks, entranced no longer, stands, and backs away. “You should get some sleep.”
“Wait.” I push up on my elbow. “My ankles. You said you’d take the ropes off.”
“You didn’t tell me what I need to know.”
“Yes,” I say, desperately. “The answer is yes. My father will represent you…if I tell him to.”
That gets his attention. Head tilted, he slides his finger over the hilt of the knife at his belt. “If you tell him to?”
“He listens to me. If I tell him you’re innocent, he’ll believe me.” I’m not sure that’s true, but I’ll say anything to get closer to getting free. To get Tucker to trust me. If he trusts me, he might let me go…take me home.
He takes a step away from me, his hand leaving the knife. “Guess we’ll see in the morning.”
I open my mouth to protest, but his eyes carve into mine, his words stunning me silent.
“Quiet, Angel. Get some sleep.”
Chapter 5
Over It
Morgan
The sounds of popping and sizzling wake me. A haze of smoke fills the cabin. The windows in the kitchen are open, but the smoke hovers unmoving. No breeze today, and judging by the sheen of sweat on my body, the humidity is twice what it was yesterday.
The smoky fragrance of bacon is both enticing and stomach-churning.
Not wanting to alert Tucker that I’m awake, I lie still and fantasize about my rescue. My father and police officers on their way to find me, a massive search featuring the eleven o’clock news and baying hounds hot on my trail. The clerk at the 7-Eleven has a photographic memory and recalls every nuance of Tucker and myself, including the direction in which we sped off. Amateur video of Tucker popping up on YouTube, like one of those stupid criminals you know will get caught. The seemingly hidden cabin is just a few hundred feet from a busy road in a neighborhood and escape is the equivalent of a few blocks away…
I let out a deep sigh. That’s not the case. Tucker is far from stupid and we weren’t followed, so I may as well stop nurturing that fantasy. If I’m to get out of here, it’ll be because of me.
Sunlight slants through cheap metal blinds and filters through the smoke, highlighting my kidnapper. Tucker stands at the stove, cracking eggs into a skillet, his hair falling over his eyes. His body is sure and strong¸ shoulders wide and solid, chest broad and testing the limits of a clean white T-shirt. His jeans are loose. His feet are bare. He’s achingly attractive and I find myself in the middle of another fantasy.
I’m not kidnapped. We’re camping together. Enjoying morning eggs and chatting about where we’ll explore this afternoon.
Yeah, right.
I shift my legs and they come apart. My ankles…The ropes are gone. He must have cut me loose while I slept. At my jostling, he turns, but I can’t see his face. The sunlight behind him swathes him in shadow.
“Morning,” he says, as if this is the most natural thing ever. As if my being tied and held hostage is an everyday occurrence. “I’m making eggs and bacon.”
“Just eggs for me.” My response is as ridiculous as his muttered greeting. I wrench myself into a sitting position, wincing at the pain from sleeping on my hip on this pathetic excuse for a bed: a mattress on a piece of plywood. I twist my neck, my back, hearing a series of pops and cracks, then place my feet flat on the floor. I want to stretch my arms wide, but with my wrists tied, I settle for lifting them overhead as high as I’m able.
Exhaustion has to be the only reason I slept at all. Who sleeps when their life is potentially at s
take? Me, apparently. I stand.
“Where are you going?” he asks, spatula in hand.
“The bathroom,” I answer. He’s taller than I am. Bigger. Even in the nonthreatening position of standing over a stove fixing me breakfast, he’s intimidating.
“No. You’re not.”
“Yes, I am.” When I take a step around the divider, he pushes the pan off the heat, turns off the element, and follows me. I’m not allowing him to dictate my every move. If I have to be here, he’s going to at least give me run of our tiny living quarters.
He tails me through the house, which isn’t far to go since the bathroom is right around the corner. He catches me at the accordion door, but I spin on him before he can grab me.
“Where am I going to go?” Wiggling my fingers on both hands, I show him my bound wrists.
“I don’t trust you.”
“Well, you’re going to have to if you want my father’s help.” If I’m a bartering chip, then that should afford me basic rights.
His lips flatten and I realize I have him. He needs something from me. I have more power in this situation than I’d first thought. Further proving my point, he pulls the knife from its holster and slices the ropes. They drop to my feet.
“Make it quick. I’m hungry.” He crosses his arms over his chest as I massage my aching wrists.
“I’m shutting the door,” I announce.
“Don’t push it.”
He didn’t let me shut the door yesterday, either. He turns his back and that’s the best I’m going to get. I manage to do my business even though he’s close. A “desperate times” situation, I guess.
I wash my hands and examine my wounds. My wrists are slightly rope-burned, and the scrape on my foot is no deeper than a paper cut. I wash it, using a paper towel off the roll on the back of the toilet. As I’m gently probing the top of my head, I feel the faint stickiness of dried blood.
“Does it hurt?”
Alarmed, I jump when I find him leaning one shoulder on the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, watching me.
“Don’t you knock?”
His eyebrows close in over his nose.
“Yes,” I answer. Honestly.
He pushes himself off the frame and I take a step away from him. Sharing this room with his big body shrinks it to the size of my Kate Spade wristlet. He reaches past me and pulls open the mirror—behind which is a medicine cabinet.
He pulls out a white box with a red cross on it—first-aid kit—and gestures to the toilet lid. “Sit.”
“Why?” I try and back away another step, but my back collides with the wall.
He opens the box and lifts a packet with the words RUBBING ALCOHOL on it. Obediently, I sit. I hear the tear of paper and then feel a stinging sensation when he lays the cool wipe to my wound.
“Ow,” I hiss, sucking air through my teeth.
“Your fault,” he murmurs. “You were struggling and hit your head.”
I can’t help it—I laugh. “I’m supposed to not struggle while being kidnapped?”
“Good point,” he admits and I swear I can hear him smile. We share a weird moment of levity that vanishes instantly. My smile fades and he tosses the used swab into a wastebasket next to the sink.
Tucker sweeps his arm ahead of him and I return to the kitchen and sit on one of the lawn chairs. The one not by the door, since he insists. He doesn’t trust me, which pisses me off, but at the same time I can’t blame him. I’ll escape the second I have a chance.
A paper plate filled with scrambled eggs and bacon greets me a minute later. My nose wrinkles at the slices of pork that look both rubbery and sad.
“I’ve been a vegetarian for three years,” I say.
“Congratulations,” he mumbles.
“I don’t eat bacon.” I lift my face and my eyebrows.
He gives me a look that says This ain’t the Five Seasons, honey, then tosses me a plastic fork.
My stomach lets loose a mighty growl and I jerk my eyes to Tucker to find a smirk sitting on the edge of his mouth. I take a tentative bite of the eggs, despite the fact they’re swimming in pork fat. The moment the salty flavor hits my tongue, I can’t eat fast enough. I’m starving.
He pushes a bottle of water across the plastic table, over deep grooves filled with dirt. I think of home and Julia’s Sunday morning pancakes. The way she puts chocolate chips in them for me. I miss my bedroom, my toiletries lined neatly on a counter next to my sink. Every creature comfort I need at my fingertips.
Tucker chomps down on a slice of bacon and, as if an afterthought, reaches across the table and pulls the three pieces of bacon off my plate and transfers them to his.
Mind locked on home, I attempt to start negotiations to get back there. “So?”
He pauses, then polishes off a strip of bacon, swallows, and brushes his hands together before he says, “So, what?”
“Do we call my dad now? Tell him your story?”
“No.” He says that a lot. He grabs the water bottle he set in front of me and takes a swig. “Your dad won’t believe me if we go to him now. He’ll be concerned about you and won’t listen to a damn thing I say.”
“Well, then, what”—I gesture impatiently with my plastic fork—“is your plan?”
“You want to be tied up again?”
“No,” I answer immediately.
“You’re not in charge, here, Morgan.”
I fall silent. He’s right, of course, but I’m not exactly used to having things not go my way. Not that I’m spoiled, but I am accustomed to my freedom. My father doesn’t keep me on a short leash. This…restriction is foreign. This whole situation is insane.
“I’ll tell you what you need to know,” he says. “And you’re going to convince your dad my story is true.”
My eyes meet his. “Is it?”
“I won’t lie to you.” He hunches over his food as if someone might take it away from him at any moment. His posture is weirdly defensive and I can’t figure out why…until he says, “Let’s start with my arrest.”
Ah. Prison. That might make someone eat fast and furious, with his ears perked and eyes shifting left then right.
“Which arrest?” I challenge. There were several.
A forkful of eggs hovers in midair for a second before he shovels it into his mouth and chews and glares at the same time.
I don’t balk, but I do rephrase. “How many times have you been arrested?”
“Too many.” He looks at his food and shovels in another bite.
Rumors surrounded Luke and the incident. Everyone knew Tucker did it and assumed his expulsion would soon follow—that he’d be carted off to a juvenile detention center. To me, Tucker was a hero. A hero who didn’t speak to me, but a hero all the same. He came to school the next day, his same quiet, angry, distant self. His bad-boy reputation preceded him. Girls at school whispered about him, attracted to the unintentionally sexy vibes radiating off him. He was power. He was danger. He was intrigue.
My attraction to Tucker was more authentic. He saved me from the fate of Luke.
“How much do you know about what happened to my brother?” His voice is tight, like he’s having trouble squeezing the words from his throat. As if he’s lost his appetite he puts down his fork and leans back in his chair.
“Jeremy?” He flinches when I say the name. “Baybrook is a small town. People talk.”
“People gossip.”
“Same thing.”
He sucks in a breath and blows it out. I wonder if he’ll say more. Then he does. “It was after I came back.”
“I remember.”
His expulsion was overturned, but not everyone was glad to see him. Luke and his friends openly threatened him at lunch or in the parking lot, but most threats fell flat. As far as I could tell, Tucker was unfazed and I’d never seen him retaliate. Not even verbally.
Tucker never talked to me after that day. It bothered me then and, for whatever reason, it’s bothering me now. Why go ou
t of his way to help me only to pretend I don’t exist?
“I hear your father pulled a lot of strings to get you back in school,” I venture.
His jaw hardens and his eyes burn into mine.
“Is he the reason you’re out of prison now?” His face goes red. I don’t know anything about his prison sentence, and clearly he doesn’t want me to.
On a low growl, he asks, “Do you want me to continue or not?”
I lean forward in my chair and train my gaze on his. “I want you to talk to me about the day you beat the crap out of Luke. The day you saved me from being hurt by a guy who outweighed me by a hundred pounds.”
Tucker’s chin jerks in surprise. I don’t care. I deserve an explanation. An explanation years overdue.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone what really happened? You let them think you were the bully instead of the other way around.”
He narrows his eyes. Frowns. And says nothing.
“I tried to thank you when you returned to school and you treated me like I was invisible.” I cross my arms over my breasts. “Some people might call what you did heroic.”
He grunts and his eyes slide away. The sound is disbelief with notes of frustration. Apparently, he’s uncomfortable with the term “hero.”
“If you want me to tell my father your truth, you’re going to need to tell me the whole truth.”
He’s leaning back in his chair, regarding me with an almost bored expression. But his arms, one on the table, the other at his side, are coiled. Veins pop and tendons tighten. That granite jaw grinds left then right.
“Luke lived in my neighborhood my entire life,” I continue. “He still lives there. I’ve gone to school with him since the second grade and could never have imagined him attacking me.”
When he responds, it’s with four softly spoken words. “People surprise you, Angel.”
“You definitely have.” My insult earns me a subtle smile. It’s more rewarding than I expect. “What made you stand up for me in that hallway? Why did you get kicked out of school for a girl you never spoke to? Did you like me? Do you still? Is this your way of asking me out because you never had the balls to do it then?”
Forgotten Promises (Lost Boys #1) Page 5