Big Sky (5 page)

Except for tying her up in the truck, he hadn’t been cruel to her. He’d let her use the bathroom, given her a snack, patched up her scratches...

She tied the belt as tightly as she could, even though she knew it wouldn’t stop him. The old hardwood floors creaked as she made her way into the kitchen. It was a throwback to the past, with appliances that looked like they were from the fifties and a green-and-white tile floor. The walls were a bright, sunflower yellow, and there were green gingham curtains on the windows. It was what she imagined a farmhouse kitchen would look like.

“Sit.”

He brought over the burgers and some chips and sodas.

“Eat.”

“Stop barking orders at me.”

He arched a brow. “I saved you from starving in a ditch, I’ll bark all the orders I want. Now eat.”

Veronica stared at the burger. Every tiny demand she gave into was one step closer to... something. She didn’t know what, exactly, but it felt that each time she did what she was told, they moved further along some plan known only to Luke. A plan to rebuild her? To unmake her? Part of her thought he might not kill her. What would be the point? If he were a serial killer, wouldn’t she already be locked in the basement?

“I’m losing patience, Veronica.” His voice had dropped a register, and it was the first time he’d spoken her given first name.

“What if I say no?”

“Then I’ll spank you.” There was no hint of teasing or amusement in his voice. The statement had been matter-of-fact as if it were an obvious conclusion that any thinking person would reach. What did you do with a woman who didn’t eat her burger on command? Of course you spanked her.

She gawked at him, her mouth dropped open. “Excuse me? You’ll WHAT?” Like hell he was going to spank her. She’d fight him until he killed her.

“You heard me. Eat your burger. There’s no need for things to be unpleasant.”

“Let me just say, you’re about the creepiest little fucker I’ve ever met.”

“Big fucker,” he said around a mouthful of burger.

“What?”

“I’m the creepiest
big
fucker you’ve ever met. I’m six and a half feet tall. No one uses the word
little
when describing me. Eat.”

She sat for another minute trying to determine if he meant the threat. The look in his eyes said he did. Was refusing to eat when she was hungry really worth dying over? Veronica took a bite. It was the best burger she’d ever eaten, and not just because she’d been eating cheap food for a week and had only had chips and a coke for the last ten hours.

“Now, you will call me
Sir
.”

“Excuse me?”

He sighed. “Ronnie, you’re making me tired. I’ve had a long day. If you interrupt me every time I speak, we’ll be up until the roosters start. And they’ll be starting in about two hours.”

“That’s before dawn.”

“Welcome to the ranch.”

She went back to her burger, trying to ignore the company and the fact that the way he was treating her, though offensive, was having a fucked-up effect. She was sure if—no when—he hurt her, it would snap her back to reality, but for now, his low voice, good looks, and semi-barbaric ways were sending her spiraling back into fantasy world.

“You’ll have chores here. You’ll also be cooking for me and the guys. You’ll keep the house tidy, and you’ll tend to the garden in the backyard. We don’t sell the produce; it’s just for us. We don’t eat a lot from the grocery store, some snack foods here and there and soft drinks. Most of our meat, eggs, and dairy comes from here or our neighbors and our produce comes from the garden. The growing season is short so we also have a pretty big greenhouse. Any questions?”

“I’m not going to be your happy domestic slave. I don’t live to serve men.” In real life she had barely been able to stand Joe as her boss at the ad agency. And she’d never called Joe
sir
. Her first two years at the agency it had been a woman, but then she’d run off to Australia with her boyfriend. The fact that Veronica would be the only woman here, waiting on them all hand and foot, caused an indignant rebellion to rise up in her. She didn’t know how long she could play nice with this psycho.

“All right, get in the truck. I’ll take you back to the city and you can die in a ditch or turn to prostitution and drugs to dull the horror of it all.”

Would he really take her back to the city? If he meant it, she wanted to take the offer and get away, but his forecast of prostitution and drugs felt too true and close to the mark to take the bait. It might not be any better out there.

“Don’t
you
intend to use me like that?”

“When the time is right, and I feel you’re ready to be a good slut, absolutely.”

She cringed at the way he spoke to her, rough and calloused like his hands. “What you’ve done and what you obviously plan to do is wrong.”

“It’s wrong to feed you and give you shelter and productive work?”

“That’s not what you’re doing.”

“Isn’t it?” He took his plate to the sink. “See you in the morning, princess.”

Veronica was left alone in the kitchen with only the grandfather clock in the other room for company. She couldn’t believe he’d left her unattended. Of course she wasn’t going to run away without her shoes, but there had to be shoes somewhere in this house. Or a phone.

She scanned the kitchen, but all she found was a place where a phone used to hang on the wall. Searching the lower level didn’t produce a phone either. She winced every time she stepped on the wrong wooden board, causing a loud creak to sound throughout the house. Luke leaned over the upstairs railing.

“If you’re looking for a phone, I only have a cell, and it’s locked in my safe in the bedroom.”

So much for that, but she still had the other plan. She’d have to wait until he fell asleep. Even as she thought it, the prospect of actually making it back to New York sounded awful. So far he hadn’t harmed her. What would be her fate in the city with such limited resources? Though by this point she could stand the humiliation of going back to Joe and begging for her job back, if the job still existed. She could see a credit counselor and get her life back on track.

If the slow downward spiral from her penthouse to the apartment with the ugly brick view hadn’t changed her thinking, the past week of genuine fear for her ability to survive much longer the way she was going had. Jimmy Choos, Manolo Blahniks, and all the other frivolity seemed like just that.

She turned the knob of the door for the bedroom he’d assigned her. She was still confused that he hadn’t thrown her down and raped her.

A silver, antique full-length mirror stood in one corner of the room. The wallpaper was a light blue-and-white stripe. The furniture was painted white: a chest of drawers, a vanity, a night stand, and a full-sized bed. The carpet was light blue to match the wallpaper.

Veronica guessed there was hardwood underneath. For a crazy second she wondered if the carpet covered evidence of something gruesome. The closet, also white, was filled with sundresses for the summer, both long and short, as well as jeans and sweaters for the winter. But no shoes. Not a single pair of shoes was in the closet or under the bed. A chill went down her spine. If she’d had any doubts before, now she knew—Trish had been a prisoner as well.

Chapter Three

Veronica waited until she heard the even hum of breath from her captor’s room that indicated he’d fallen into sleep. She prayed he was a deep sleeper. She was careful to stay close to the walls, so the hardwood wouldn’t creak. But when she turned the knob and pushed it open, the door gave a loud groan. He turned in his sleep, his breathing pattern interrupted. She stayed frozen in place, barely breathing until his pattern resumed. Then she crept into the room. If there were no women’s shoes, she wasn’t picky. Luke wore shoes. She’d just take some of his.

The moonlight came into his windows and fell over his face. Damn him and that face. That face had already made her hesitate a few times because something inside her responded to him. His mere presence did everything to her that her every sexual fantasy had done, but she was smart enough to know that the men she invented in her mind didn’t exist—couldn’t exist. She’d wasted enough time figuring that out.

She hadn’t been out with a man since college. The whole thing seemed pointless. Men slowed you down. They complained when your career was going better than theirs. They wanted you to pop out babies and make sacrifices for the kids because aren’t women all supposed to be maternal? Even in New York, you didn’t have to peel through too many layers in a man to find the caveman underneath. All the equality and supportiveness on the surface was window dressing.

After her second abortion, Veronica had found a doctor to tie her tubes. He’d been against it at first, but given his conservative leanings and her past history of killing the unborn, he’d decided it would be best if she didn’t get pregnant again. Smart doctor. Following that episode, she’d switched to women doctors for everything. Fuck the patronizing bastards who would give a man a vasectomy at nineteen but felt a woman couldn’t know her own mind until she’d already had children or turned thirty-five.

For a fleeting moment, Veronica wanted to go downstairs to the kitchen, take a knife, and lop off the dangerous part of Luke Granger. While he hadn’t hurt her...
yet
... she’d seen the perverted wheels in his head turning, and he’d admitted as much. She wasn’t going to think about the brief inappropriate wetness she’d felt between her legs as the word
slut
had tumbled out of his gorgeous mouth.

Perhaps worse than that, he’d decided she’d be free labor around the house. He didn’t seem intent on paying her. And even if he would, he hadn’t given her the choice to refuse the job.

His boots weren’t on the floor, so she went to check the closet. Behind the dark wooden doors, were his clothes and a large safe, but no shoes. Could he have put his boots in the safe? He’d put his cell in there. To be that meticulous... How many times had he done this? No matter what he said, Veronica didn’t believe he hadn’t killed Trish and whoever else had been before her. This behavior was too pathological.

Somehow on the trip, she’d convinced herself that he was attracted to her and wanted to help her, and maybe the way things were out on the ranch didn’t translate to more enlightened relationships between men and women. Perhaps he thought he was helping her, but since she was too stubborn to accept help, he’d had to take drastic measures—like an intervention with a drug addict.

She slipped past his bed to go back to her room when his hand shot out and grabbed her, pulling her back onto the bed with him. Her bathrobe bunched up around her thighs as he flipped them so he loomed over her. His hand slid up her thigh and between her legs, his fingers teasing just over her clit for a moment. It was enough to confuse her—to make her unsure if she wanted him or not. Even if her body did, she didn’t. She hated him. He was the embodiment of why she didn’t trust men. Weren’t they all savages under the civilized exterior? Wouldn’t they all do whatever they could get away with and rationalize it?

Luke Granger had decided he could keep a slave on his ranch and save some money. And past experience without getting caught proved his point. He sat up then and put her over his knee. It happened so fast she couldn’t find the words to protest before her robe was up around her waist and his hand was coming down hard across her bare bottom.

She squirmed and struggled against him, screaming at him to stop. Indignant. Pissed-off. Humiliated. Scared. The threat of him was a reality now. He grabbed her wrists in one hand, the non-spanking hand. She would have bitten him, no matter the cost, if she could have reached him.

“Let me go you fucking bastard. I hate you. You are a sick motherfucking psycho who should be locked up!”

He ignored her screaming and kept spanking her until she’d reached her pain threshold. Her cursing and yelling turned to begging.

“Luke, please. I’m sorry, please.” She didn’t know what she was apologizing for. She’d say anything to make him stop. It hurt too much for pride to get in the way. In her mind, she reasoned she could just let go of it for one second to make him stop this, then she could reclaim her identity in the light of day when the pain had faded.

“You don’t come into my room unless I send for you. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes.”

“Yes what?”

She recoiled and resumed struggling, not yet ready to give in to the next step in her degradation.

“My hand isn’t even tired. I can keep going.”

Just the threat was enough at this point. “Y-yes, sir.” If he didn’t kill her, she’d jump off the balcony. “This is why I hate men. No one hurt me. But any one of you could have done what you’re doing now. Isn’t that enough reason to hate and not trust? How do I know when a man looks at me like you did in the diner that he isn’t planning to act on his fantasies? I don’t. None of you can be trusted.”

He’d gone to stroking over her skin where he’d struck her. She tried to pull away when his finger dipped between her legs.

“You’re wet. Dripping.” He practically growled when he said it.

“Stop it.”

“No. Say ‘Sir, please stop groping me,’ and I’ll think about it.”