“Yes. Deborah is in charge of the house. The infirmary, the kitchens; all the women who work inside during their pregnancies report to her. Her bedroom is at the opposite end of the hall from this one.”
“I see.” So they trusted at least one woman. Jake wondered what she’d had to do to earn that position. Even Joy, who had been at the compound since before Owen’s arrival, still lived in a bunk with a shared bathroom. And he’d seen a couple older women, in their sixties or so, who ought to have been inside, away from the brutal heat of the summers. But none of that seemed to enter into the equation.
A young girl—no more than sixteen and at least seven months pregnant—entered with a pile of linens, and Samuel smiled. “Go over to your cabin and collect your own things. We will send Serena to get hers later this afternoon. See you at lunch.” He slipped out, and Jake took the sheets out of the child’s arms.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” she said. “I’m perfectly able.”
“And so am I. My mama would have had my hide if I let a beautiful young woman like you wait on me.”
The girl blushed, and Jake desperately wanted to ask her who’d knocked her up and under what circumstances. But he couldn’t afford to let his concerns show. Samuel had been very confident that he wouldn’t find any bugs in the room, but Jake refused to let his guard slip. A few more days—at most—and then the innocents like this little girl would get the help they needed. And he would descend like the wrath of God on Samuel and his ilk.
• • •
ONCE AGAIN, TARA hadn’t seen Jake all day but for a passing glance at lunch when he’d winked at her across the room. When Samuel entered the room in the middle of her afternoon sewing and waved her over to follow him, her stomach clutched. What kind of trouble were they in now?
She made her excuses to the other ladies at the table and approached Samuel with lagging steps.
“The Leader would like to speak with you.”
“Of course.” She followed him back to Owen Stephenson’s office. How odd to think that, for the man’s father, this was a working ranch office, a place where he tracked stock and worked out crop and personnel issues. What did Owen do here? Track drug shipments?
“Serena,” Owen said in his deep, hypnotic voice.
“Yes, Leader?”
“You are aware that Jacob found a problem with our computer system yesterday.”
“Yes, Leader. He is very smart. I am sure he will be able to fix it for you if you give him a little time.”
“His unique talents make him quite valuable to the Chosen. As such, we are moving the two of you into the main house. None of the others who live so close have bonded. This means other women in the compound will look to you for direction. Do you believe you are capable of advising them?”
“I’m not certain, Leader. I haven’t much experience in being an advisor. Usually I am the one asking for aid.”
“It is likely that none will ask outright questions, my dear. What you need to understand is how to behave in your new role. You have recovered well from your purification, but others remember your lies to the Chosen. You must be above reproach. Humble and obedient.”
God, her mother would die laughing if she hadn’t been in the ground for years already. Obedience and humility did not constitute Tara’s strengths.
“Yes, Leader.”
“You must obey not only Jacob, but any of the apostles who speak to you, without question. If you wish to ask questions, you must do so later, in private. When given the command, you must set an example by following it without hesitation.”
And there wasn’t really any possible answer other than: “Yes, Leader.”
“Very well. At dinner, you will sit with the women as usual. We will introduce Jacob to the community and explain his new role. People may ask you afterward what you think. You will not have an opinion. Is that understood? To be prideful, especially when you yourself have done nothing worthy of note, is sinful in the eyes of the Powers.”
And fuck you very much.
“Yes, Leader. Of course.”
“For now, Samuel will take you back to your cabin, and you can bring your belongings to the main house.”
Tara nodded, and Owen flicked his fingers at them to dismiss them. She followed Samuel out and across the yard to the cabin she and Jake shared. Gathering her things didn’t take long. She had a half dozen pairs of jeans, three pairs of shorts, a couple of pairs of sweatpants, then tees and underwear. Piling up her bras and underwear under Samuel’s watchful eyes—he didn’t offer to help in any way—might have embarrassed her, but her brain was too caught on what she might be able to do with freedom of the house.
“The Leader did not say so, but you will be continuing with your duties. Nothing has changed in that respect.”
“Of course. We must all do the work required of us.” She tied the laces of her extra pair of running shoes together and hung them about her neck.
“Exactly. Are you ready?”
“Let me just get my toothbrush and brush and comb.”
Jake’s things were already gone. Had he picked them up himself, or had some oh-so-helpful disciple taken the opportunity to go through them in the guise of shifting them to the main house?
Awkward load in her arms, she followed Samuel back to the main house and up a wide, curved stair in the entry to a balcony lined with doors. He took her to one at the end of the hall and let her in.
The room was lovely. Heavy curtains had been opened, letting in the sun, and a fan hummed in the corner. Ah, electricity. She’d almost forgotten what that was like. A chest stood guard in a corner, and she carried her clothes over and began to lay them in the drawers.
“You may stay here until dinner,” Samuel said. He looked at his watch. “There are only another twenty minutes until the horn sounds anyway.”
“Okay.” Tara nodded, choking back the Yes, master that wanted to pop out. He spun on his heel and left, giving her the distinct impression that she’d been checked off a mental list. Girlfriend of new apostle resituated; back to the important stuff.
Putting her things away took less than five minutes. Samuel hadn’t told her she had to stay in the room, but she doubted they wanted her exploring. And security cameras almost certainly covered every inch of the second floor.
Still, it couldn’t hurt. She wouldn’t open any of the doors without knocking first and being invited in. If they took her to task, she could always say she was trying to familiarize herself with the place.
Four doors remained closed as she went down the line. She didn’t dare, with the creepy, crawly feeling of being watched all the time, to try their handles and see if they were locked. Behind the fifth door, a woman’s voice called, “Come in.” She went in to find Deborah, who’d taken care of her in the infirmary, at a small writing desk. One wall of the woman’s bedroom was taken up by a giant medical refrigerator with glass doors and a locked medicine cabinet. Well, that answered one question. Did Deborah also participate in the drug scheme, or were her medications on the up and up?
“Hi,” Tara said. “I just . . . The Leader has moved me and Jacob into a bedroom down the hall. I am trying to figure out where everything is.”
The woman watched her in cool silence.
“I didn’t realize you lived here,” Tara hurried on. “But I guess it makes sense so you’ll be close by if anyone is really sick in the infirmary and needs you.” She glanced at all the medicines. “Are you a doctor? I wish I were smart enough to do something like that. But I’ve never been much good at school. I took care of my granny when she was sick, but that was mostly just sitting next to her and holding her hand and reading to her. Occasionally helping her with, you know, personal stuff because she couldn’t get out of bed.”
“Would you like to assist me with the medical care?”
“Wow. Sure. But I really don’t know anything
about it. If you think I could learn, that would be awesome.”
“Of course you can learn. You simply haven’t had the necessary opportunities. I will speak to the Leader about taking you on in the afternoons.”
“Oh, thank you. I would love that.”
The woman nodded, dismissing her, and Tara continued on her way. No further knocks resulted in invitations, however, and the horn for dinner sounded as she was returning to her own room. She washed up—they had nicer soap and towels in the main house—and went downstairs and then out the front door to walk around to the dining hall.
• • •
AS OWEN HAD predicted, the women at her table at dinner asked plenty of questions when he spoke about Jake’s special skills and how, having proven himself unusually useful to the Powers, he was moving into the main house. And, as directed, Tara professed herself ignorant of what any changes might mean.
“I remember John from when I first visited here,” she said to Joy at one point. “I guess they need a replacement since he . . . went on a mission.” She hadn’t given John much thought. She’d been intent on proving that Andrea wouldn’t have killed herself. And then, when the drug issue had arisen, it seemed as if maybe a precipitous depression might have been related to that, so Tara had let it go. But John wouldn’t have been drinking the tea. He would have known better.
Which meant that whatever had happened to Andrea, John had been murdered.
Joy poured more tea into Tara’s cup.
“It must be exciting for you. To move into the main house.”
“I’m a little in shock, I think. I don’t know how much will change. I’ll still do morning duties in the laundry, but Deborah has invited me to learn about healing with her in the afternoons.”
Joy’s eyes narrowed. “You are going to assist Deborah?”
“Shouldn’t I?”
“No, no, by all means, whatever path the Powers set before you is the one you should travel. But
Deborah has never taken an assistant before. She holds herself apart from the others in many ways.”
“How long has she been here?”
“Oh, since she was a child. Like the Leader, she went away for a while to learn medicine and then returned to help the community. The Leader is caught up with the spiritual health of the Chosen; he needed help to provide aid to those in physical need.”
“So she’s a medical doctor?”
“I believe in the outside world she has the degrees, yes, though we don’t value such things here. Here she is a healer and would be with or without the approval of the Outside establishment.”
Lost women came in all shapes and sizes. Tara had seen it numerous times as a beat cop. Women who seemed to have it all together but were found beaten and bloody on a street corner or even in their own homes, women who should have been willing and able to get out of abusive relationships but stayed for reasons Tara would never understand. But Deborah was a doctor. You don’t get that far in your life without having a certain level of self-confidence and ambition. Why had she returned to the fold?
The most likely motive was greed. If whatever drug they were developing resulted in something beyond a method of controlling the flock, it could be worth millions, or even billions. Deborah would be sitting pretty. But that would mean she had to have known about the experiments before she came back to the compound.
“How long has she been your healer?”
“Almost four years.”
Wow. Talk about the long con. But if the rewards were great enough, it might be worthwhile.
“You’re lucky to have access. In the town where I grew up, the nearest doctor was miles and miles away.”
“The Powers provide,” Joy said. “Just as they provided Jacob when we needed to replace John.”
“Indeed.”
The Leader released them from dinner, and Tara cleaned up her place and went to join Jake.
“Hey, babe,” he said, dropping a kiss on her forehead and pulling her close as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “ We can’t go out at night here without sacrificing the Leader’s security, so I want to take a quick run before bed. I’ll meet you upstairs, okay?”
“Of course.” Tara was beginning to feel as if she said nothing but “yes” and “of course.” But it was only for a few more days. Then she could take off Serena’s personality and slip back into her own.
She climbed the steps to her new bedroom and went inside. Would Jake have checked for cameras? Probably. But still, she looked to the best of her ability herself before stripping down for her shower. If they were watching, they could assume she’d caught his paranoia.
The bathroom was infinitely nicer than the ones shared in the bunkhouses and cabins. To start with, it had electricity. Lights and an exhaust fan for the steam. Fluffier towels. A fresh bar of soap. Shampoo, even, when she was used to washing her hair with the hand soap in the cabin. A razor rested on the vanity, and a search of the drawers revealed fresh blades. So she turned the water on in the shower, noting its glorious pressure, and stepped in.
If she took longer than strictly necessary, well, she hoped the Powers would forgive her. But when she stepped out, she’d shaved, shampooed, and scrubbed until she felt almost herself. The luxuries of the bathroom did not extend to a hair dryer, so she walked out to the bedroom and sat on the bed in front of the fan. She tipped her body forward and let the air flow through her hair from underneath while combing it with her fingers.
She’d gotten most of the wetness out when she heard steps coming down the hall, and then Jake popped in.
“Hi honey, I’m home,” he teased.
She grinned at him.
“I see you’re enjoying the new accommodations.”
“I am. I even checked for any video because I knew you’d want me to.”
“I checked myself. But you did right. You can’t be too careful,” he said. “Let me take a shower. I feel pretty grungy from that run. Then we can test out the bed. Hell, it’s a private bathroom. We could even test out the shower if you like.”
Her whole body clenched in answer. Yes, please. But no way could she let down her guard like that in here. “I just got my hair dry. But I’ll come in and chat with you while you shower.”
“I’ll seduce you into that shower yet,” he said, and held out a hand.
Once inside, he turned on the shower and waited a couple of seconds before speaking.
“I checked pretty thoroughly, and I’m sure there’s no video, but audio can be done through the walls and windows if they’re determined, and I don’t for a second believe putting us up here is a sign of trust.”
“No.”
“So for the moment, voices low, with running water. Or buried under the pillows on the bed. That should muffle any distance equipment.”
He shucked his clothes in a quick, matter-of-fact motion that shouldn’t have left her feeling as if she’d just watched a first-rate male strip show, but it did. Her breath stuttered and her palms went sweaty, and she plunked down on the toilet, thankful the lid was down.
When she had her breath back, she raised her voice above the shower’s noise and told him about the job with Deborah.
“Hey, that’s really cool,” he said, also loud enough for any eager listeners. “You’re a born helper, baby. You will be great at that. Deborah’s lucky to have you.”
“Life is going to be good, isn’t it Jacob?” She let anxiety bleed into her tone. “We’ve found a good place, right?”
“We have.” The water went off in the shower, and Tara squeaked and excused herself before being confronted with a wet, naked Jake.
In the bedroom, she slipped beneath the fluffy duvet that covered the bed—no scratchy blankets or low-thread-count sheets in the main house—and waited for Jake. Scraping and scrubbing noises indicated that he was shaving and brushing his t
eeth. Any hope she had that he might have dressed while out of sight was squashed when he opened the door.
Dear, sweet God, the man was gorgeous. Just when she thought she was getting used to his physical impact, the sheer mass of sinew and muscle, the elegant grace and restrained power overwhelmed her again. He lifted the comforter and slid in beside her. His arm slid behind her neck, and she rolled closer until she was lying against him, her belly at his hip, her head in the hollow of his shoulder.
She breathed him in. He should smell like her. They’d used the same soap, the same shampoo. But he didn’t. He smelled musky and dark, and she wanted desperately to lick him and see how that tantalizing scent tasted against her tongue.
But even after all the intimacies they’d shared, she couldn’t.
Jake, however, had no such hesitation. He rolled to face her, tilted her head back, and kissed her. His mouth was hot, and he tasted of mint and musk.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” he murmured, slipping a finger beneath the elastic of her panties.
“Yeah?”
“Definitely.” He sat up, tossing the comforter to the foot of the bed, and knelt so that his calves trapped hers. Hooking fingers in either side of her panties, he pulled them slowly, oh so slowly, down her legs, then reached behind his own back to pull them off. Her mouth went dry and her core went wet. When he’d tossed away her undies, Jake brought his legs closer together, forcing hers shut. The sensation of her own skin pressing tightly against her flesh sent a shiver through her.
Jake grinned.
He leaned forward, and she felt his cock move over her mound. She tried to arch upward, but his position kept her down as he applied his considerable skill to kissing her. His fingers tangled in her still-damp hair, holding her head in place. His mouth hovered, nibbled, licked, teased until she pushed up and forced him to meet her full on. He stretched out his legs, letting her bear his full weight.
She wiggled her legs out from under his so that he lay between her thighs, his erection pressing hard against her center. He reared back just enough to get his hands beneath her shirt and yank it over her head, then came back down on top of her.
Lost Page 19