Tex's Revenge: Military Discipline, Book Two (6 page)

“You better hope that doesn't turn out to be true,” Tex growled. He didn't make a more specific threat, but Zora got the message. “Complete and utter little brat,” he said, as if he were voicing part of an ongoing internal diatribe that she was not privy to. “No discipline at all.”

Zora smiled to herself and looked out the window at the burnished red and orange hills. It felt good to get her own way, to score a point here and there. She was a great deal more comfortable in the pants, which allowed her to twist around and sit cross-legged in the front passenger seat.

Tex continued to occasionally remark upon her poor behavior for the next several miles. “I wonder if he did spank you after all,” he said, referring indirectly to Savage. “You certainly don't behave like it.”

“I behave like someone old enough to choose what they want to wear, Tex,” Zora said. “It's not my fault if you insist on trying to boss me around and dress me up in ugly clothes like some sort of doll.”

He scowled at the road as Zora came to the realization she was dealing with a man who truly expected to be obeyed. He was actually surprised that she kept doing what she wanted to do. He had to be hooked up to the government or something like that, there was no other way he would have cultivated that much of a sense of entitlement. That left her with a question that had been floating between them from the moment he'd dragged her out from under the bed. “What are you going to do with me if your plan doesn't work out?”

He glanced at her quickly. “My plan?”

“Your plan to lure my ex by using me as maidenly bait,” Zora said. “What if it doesn't work?”

Tex shook his head. “It will work.”

“Well are you going to let me go if it doesn't?  Or do I get a bullet in my skull?” The question was delivered in perfectly neutral tones that shocked Tex into looking at her and not the road for almost a full thirty seconds.

“Do you take me for a murderer?”

Zora shrugged. “I know you're a kidnapper – and that's all I really know about you. Don't tell me you're offended because your victim doesn't quite trust you.”

“I'm not going to kill you,” he said, focusing back on the road.

“You'd probably say that even if you were going to kill me.”

His face twisted with frustration. “I'm taking you somewhere safe, and you're going to be asked a few questions.”

That was new information. New information she didn't like. “Why?”

“Because I'm not sure you are who you say you are.”

“Wait, you're the one who decided I am who I am.” Zora said, barely making sense. “And I thought it was your job to get the truth out of people.”

“It is,” Tex said. “Sometimes you need the proper environment for that.”

Zora fell silent, mulling that information over. She'd fucked up. Far from making Tex think that she was harmless, she'd managed to make him so suspicious he was hauling her off to question her in a 'proper environment'. Old fear returned. A 'proper environment' could be a cell or worse. She had to get away. She'd been stupid to let Tex dominate her, he'd distracted her with spankings and now she was being driven, docile as a lamb, to god knows where.

Visions of the compound came flashing back into her mind, memories of being locked away deep underground. Panic came with them. She started breathing shallow and fast. The dusty landscape was flashing by too fast, too fast to escape. There was no way out, but there had to be a way out, there had to be. She was starting to feel dizzy and nauseous. Her palms were sweating, her heart was pounding and in turn her breathing became even more uncontrolled. She started shifting about in her seat, trying to get comfortable, but there was no finding comfort, not here, not anywhere.

“Settle down,” Tex's deep voice rumbled.

She didn't settle. She couldn't. As the panic rose beyond the point of control she made a peculiar, almost strangled sound and threw up all over the seat and Tex's spare trousers and the foot well of the car. Tex said pulled the car over smartly whilst Zora continued to alternately retch and gasp for breath.  “Are you alright?” He inquired redundantly when they came to a stop at the side of the road.

Zora pushed her door open and stumbled out into the desert. She made it a few steps away from the vehicle then went to her knees, her head down on the ground as waves of nausea continued to roll over her.

“Zora,” Tex came up beside her and placed his hand on her lower back, crouching down next to her. “What's wrong?”

“Let me go,” she said woefully, pleading with him. “Please just let me go.”

He made a sympathetic clucking sound and rubbed her back. “I can't do that, little girl.”

“You have to,” she whimpered. “You have to let me go.”

“I just want to know the truth,” he said. “If you tell me the truth, there is nothing for you to worry about.”

Shaking all over, Zora shook her head. Her mind was still whirling. He couldn't know the truth, she had to safeguard that at all costs. Sensing that she wasn't ready to talk, Tex didn't push her anymore instead he stayed silent until the tremors subsided and her breathing was back to normal.

“Are you sick, or just scared?”

The question was as humiliating as having thrown up bits of dry toast all over the place.

“I'm not sick,” she said, avoiding an admission of weakness.

Tex's large hand rubbed across her lower spine, soothing her as effectively as it had spanked her. “Okay, let's get you cleaned up,” he said, scooping her up into his arms and carrying her back to the car. Mercifully he did not insist on her staying in the front seat and instead laid her in the back before cleaning up as best he could with a towel he retrieved from the trunk of the car.

“Always have your towel nearby,” he winked over the front seat at Zora, who groaned, but smiled a little at the Hitchhiker’s Guide reference. He was being nice, so nice and that was dangerous. He was most dangerous when she felt herself softening towards him, when she felt like maybe, just maybe he could be a friend.

Tex cleaned up what he could then they got off the main highway and found a small town going by the auspicious name of Bethlehem not too far away. It wasn't much to look at, but it had a few stores, a couple of motels and a car dealership. They checked into a motel aptly named 'Dry Dock Inn', which had seen its heyday sometime in the 1950's judging by the memorabilia which was scattered everywhere it could be scattered. Betty Boop was also prominently placed in several locations, including an almost life sized cut out behind the front desk that threatened to dwarf the proprietor of the establishment.

“A room please,” Tex said, sliding a credit card across the desk. He had Zora firmly by the hand, making sure she didn't go dashing off anywhere.

“You want a single or a double?” The motelier was a weathered woman in her sixties who regarded them with a mixture of relief at their custom and suspicion. Her wispy gray hair was tied back in a severe bun and she wore a light yellow checkered blouse with a blue skirt that looked a lot like the one Zora had stuffed into the trash.

“We won't be staying long,” Tex said. “A single is fine.”

“Oh it's like that is it?” The woman's lips pursed in undisguised disapproval.

In spite of being still partially covered in her own vomit, Zora snorted with laughter. She thought they were shacking up for a dirty afternoon. “Don't worry, I'm not going to touch his di...”

Tex clapped a hand over her mouth. “Please excuse my niece, she's not feeling well. We just need somewhere for her to clean up and take a nap.” He bestowed his most charming smile on the woman and Zora watched her icy demeanor melt away almost immediately.

“Oh,” the woman's expression brightened. “Well now. I think we have a room that will suit. Suite 3 is on the ground floor, last one on the right.”

“Thank you kindly ma'am,” Tex said, taking the key she offered. He tugged Zora out of the front office before she could say anything else wildly inappropriate.

“Uncle?” Zora laughed as she trailed behind him.

“Sure, why not? It might explain the spanking I'll give you if you speak that way to her again, you foul mouthed little brat.” He slipped the key into the door of the suite and ushered Zora inside the simple room. “Go take a shower,” he said sternly.

For once, Zora didn't argue.

* * *

In the small motel bathroom covered in seashell wallpaper and gaudy pink accents, Zora showered in a pink plastic shower. Tex was in the main room, but he wasn't wasting any time sitting around waiting for her, as she'd been getting ready to get into the shower she'd heard him on the phone organizing for the car to be properly cleaned at the yard down the street. She was mildly impressed that he'd thought of that. Nothing really phased the man, he was always in control, even when things were going wildly out of control all around him. Hell, she'd fired a gun at his face and it hadn't bothered him at all. What kind of craziness must he have been party to in the past to make him so bomb-proof?

She raised her face to the water and let it run over her as she soaped herself down, sliding the bar of predictably pink soap down between her breasts and over her tummy. Maybe if they'd met under different circumstances they might actually have been able to be friends. He was funny and he was charming and when he wasn't spanking her, he was pretty gentle too. There was a lot to like about him that was for sure.

She turned away from the shower head and the warm water dashing against her stinging bottom reminded her that it wasn't all fun and games with Tex. He might feel like a friend, but that was probably his job. It was probably his job to get close to people and then betray them, or make them betray themselves. She had to be vigilant, and she had to make sure that he didn't take her to the 'proper environment' for questioning too.

“Stay strong, Zora,” she lectured herself. “Don't let him trick you.”

Having washed herself from head to toe, she emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel long enough to cover her from under her shoulders to her knees. The shower had made her feel better, but a lingering sense of doom still hung about her. She was not happy, not at all.

Tex had used the motel's facilities to make them both a cup of tea and was sitting at the glass topped wicker table when she made her entrance. He waved her over to take a seat, which she did.

“Okay,” he said kindly. “Do you want to tell me what is going on with you? Why did you panic out there?”

“I've been kidnapped,” Zora said. “It's scary being kidnapped.”

Tex cocked his head at her. “You weren't scared until I said I was taking you somewhere to ask you questions. In fact, you were anything but scared.”

Zora fiddled with the handle of her teacup. “I wasn't scared before because I knew you'd let me go when you figured out I didn't know anything. But now it sounds like you're going to put me in a cell and interrogate me.”

“Is that the only reason?” He looked at her with those oh so intelligent eyes and she did her best to make her expression inscrutable.

“I think that's more than enough reason,” Zora said, putting her hands in her lap. “Look, you're ruining my life and you're scaring me and I don't know anything. Why won't you just let me go?” An unsolicited tear slid down her cheek as she made the plea. “I don't know anything about him anymore, not that I ever did anyway. He was always totally secretive.”

Her words had a ring of truth to them. Savage always had played his cards close to his chest. He had always kept her in the dark, even now, months and months on she had no idea what was going on. For all she knew he really had just dropped her in Iron Horse and forgotten about her.

“What sort of work do you do, Ms Matthews?”

The sudden change caught her off guard. “I used to be an accountant,” she said, looking up at him.

“But you're not anymore.”

“No I'm a professional alcoholic and bum,” she gave a wry twisting smile.

“Why?”

“Eh,” she shrugged. “Why not?”

Tex leaned forward, his eyes keen. “People don't just toss in the towel and move to the middle of nowhere for no reason.”

“Maybe I was heartbroken when Savage dumped me,” she suggested. “Handsome man like that, leaves me, takes my heart with him. What's the point of going on?”

Tex smiled thinly. “You're lying, Ms Matthews.” He had slipped into a very professional way of speaking and Zora got a glimpse of what it would be like to be sitting across from him in one of those plain austere interrogation rooms. It wouldn't be pleasant.

“Am I?”

“Here's a tip,” he said. “If you're going to lie, you have to at least make it sound plausible by speaking in the first person. You don't say 'maybe' as if you're making up a story.”

“Maybe I do,” Zora replied flatly.

Tex snorted. “Brat.”

“I really don't know anything. I'm of utterly no use to you,” Zora repeated the words she'd said so many times before as if simply repeating them would somehow convince him.

He nodded blankly.  “We'll find that out, won't we?”

The threat of incarceration was there again, along with the impulse to cry. Zora held the tears back in favor of finding out what he really meant. “How? Are you going to torture me?”

Tex's brow creased and he shook his head. “Torture is never useful unless you want to break someone. I have no reason to break you.”

“So what are you going to do?”

He tried for a reassuring smile. It failed.“I'm going to take you to a secure place where we can get to know one another better. I want you to think of me as a friend. I can help you, Zora.”

“If you want to help me, let me go,” she insisted.

“And what? You'll go back to that little town and drink yourself into an early grave?”

“Probably. So what?”

“Don't you want more for yourself?”

“Not really.”

“You need such a spanking,” Tex said, shaking his head at her. “You're obviously a bright, strong woman. Wasting your life away is just that, a waste.”

Zora sat silently. She couldn't refute what he was saying without giving herself away. Besides, wasn't this precisely what she wanted? She wanted him to think of her as a complete waster. If he thought she was nothing more than a lovelorn lush she might get free. But it still stung, hearing him say those things.