Big Sky (16 page)

Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up to an old-fashioned drive-up restaurant that seemed to specialize in ice creams and milkshakes. A teenaged guy came up to the window as Luke rolled it down. “I just want a chocolate milkshake. And what do you want, sweetheart?”

“The same,” she said, not wanting to have to pick from the menu while her heart was fluttering in her chest so hard it made it difficult to think. Part of it was the sweet way he spoke to her in front of the teenager, like they were a couple on a normal Sunday afternoon jaunt. Part of it was over the introduction of a stranger who might help her if only he thought she needed it. And then part of it was the fear of Luke’s wrath coming down if she tried anything, angrily pressing that button until she went unconscious while he peeled rubber to get out of there.

He squeezed her knee while the guy went to get their shakes. “You could have had anything off the menu,” he said, still sounding like a boyfriend—doing funny things to her brain and heart.

“Nobody can screw up a chocolate shake,” she said, feeling awkward and weird like she was on a first date. Some insane part of her brain decided she was. But it wasn’t the kind of first date young girls giggled and daydreamed about.

The guy came back a few minutes later with their shakes, and Luke paid him then started the truck. She didn’t want to go back to the house yet. Even with the fresh air and people around her and plenty of chores to keep her busy, she missed being out.

“Are we going back home now?” Why had she called it home? If the look on his face could be trusted, Luke had caught the slip as well.

“Not just yet. I want to show you something first.” They drove for a long time in silence until he pulled onto a dirt road with a state park sign. They went down the road for a few more miles until they came upon a large lake.

For an insane minute she thought he was going to drown her. Maybe he worried the boy at the drive-in restaurant had been suspicious, and she’d proven too great a liability. She was about to beg and plead her case when he spoke.

“Don’t look so spooked. The weather’s about to get too cool for this. No one’s around. Let’s skinny dip while it’s still warm enough to enjoy it. He took a key from his pocket and bent to undo the cuff around her ankle, then he came around to the other side of the truck to let her out, peeling his clothes off along the way.

She tried not to drool over his physique, but every time she looked at him naked or half-naked, something low inside her responded in a primal sort of way she couldn’t deny. It was the kind of way that knew nothing of cell phones or television or takeout or society. That part of her wanted things to be simple in the way they weren’t in the city. The ranch was hard and at times scary, but it was simple. She’d yet to even see the computer he’d promised to show her. For all she knew it was just a laptop locked up in his safe. It seemed most likely at this point.

Veronica didn’t resist when he pulled her dress off and let it fall into the pile of clothing he’d created.

Her teeth chattered when they got into the water. Luke’s eyes went straight to her breasts as her nipples became hardened points.

“Give it a minute, you’ll get used to it,” he said, trailing his fingers over her breasts and moving in to kiss the side of her neck. It seemed to be Luke’s mantra about everything. If something was uncomfortable, she’d get used to it. This was the only way the female of the species ever could have survived... by getting used to everything.

He swam out a little way, and she followed him. When they were far from the shore, he said, “If you didn’t trust me, you would have gone for the shore and the keys in the truck, not followed me out here. Do you know how at my mercy you are right now?”

Her blood ran colder than the water, but she forced herself to hold onto her bravery. “I’ve been at your mercy since you took me.”

“Good answer. Now tell me you trust me.”

Veronica balked at the request. Of all the things he could have asked her for—all the dirty and degrading things—it was this thing, this small verbal acknowledgment that she couldn’t give him. It felt like losing everything—like selling her soul.

He raised an eyebrow and waited. “I haven’t drowned you, yet. We’re alone in the middle of nowhere. It would be easy. How long do you think it would take them to find you? From what you told me that first night, nobody would be looking. It could be years. Certainly long enough for that brand to decompose off your body. And then what link would there be to me?”

She started to swim at a feverish pace toward the shore, desperate to get away, to lock him out of his truck and just drive forever.

He easily caught up with her in a few short strokes. It was obvious he swam a lot when he could get away from the ranch. “Tell me.”

“Tell me you trust
me
,” she countered. He clearly didn’t. Men and their double standards.

“That’s different. You could send me to prison.”

“You could take my life. You just got finished laying it out point by point. The stakes are bigger for me.”

He nodded. “All right.” He moved them closer to the edge where he could stand, but she couldn’t yet. Before she could get much of a breath to hold, he pushed her under.

In the first few seconds, she panicked, thinking he’d finally crossed the last line. Maybe the story he’d just painted sounded safer. Dimly in the back of her mind, she didn’t think he’d drown her. She believed he was only screwing with her, trying to scare her and intimidate her into obeying his earlier request. But what if she was wrong? He’d already shown edges of crazy with the episode a few nights ago when he’d called her by the name of his former lover.

In a moment of self-protective madness, Veronica reached between his legs and started stroking his cock. Pleasuring him was the only currency she had to work with. A part of her recoiled at the act, especially under the circumstances as she struggled to hold her breath. His hand loosened on her shoulder and she came up, gasping for air. Then his lips were on hers, his tongue in her mouth.

He pulled away. “Don’t stop touching me.”

The thought hadn’t crossed her mind; she was too desperate to keep him happy so he wouldn’t push her under again.

“Take a deep breath,” he said.

Veronica shook her head, her eyes widening. “Please, Luke, don’t push me under again.”

“What did you call me?”

“I’m sorry, Sir.” How could she be expected to remember titles when he was scaring her like this?

“Tell me you trust me and mean it.”

“I can’t.”

“Take a deep breath, then.”

She wanted to lie to him and give him the words he wanted, but he’d know she was lying. She took a breath and he pushed her under the water again. She stroked his cock with one hand, while she played with his balls with the other, still hoping she was reaching him and he saw the value of keeping her alive, while privately she fantasized about murdering him. This moment was perhaps the most degrading, while he held her life so precariously in his hands and she pleasured him to appease him—to keep breathing.

A few moments later, he came and pulled her back up. She took in gulps of air.

“If I wanted you dead, it would be so simple. Tell me you trust me or we’ll do this until the sun sets.”

“You can’t force someone to trust you!” she shouted. Her survival instinct had fled in the wake of her anger. Let the fucker kill her. What difference did it make at this point? She was his slave. No better than one of his animals. He’d slaughter her the second her continued existence became inconvenient for him. Fuck him and every man on that ranch.

“Then just say the words. Tell me you trust me not to harm you.”

Why did he need to hear it so much? Had Trish trusted him? Was it part of the charade of her being his dead lover? If Veronica said it, they could leave, maybe. Despite her anger, despite being at the end of her rope, she didn’t want to go under again, and with him spent, she had nothing else to barter with.

“I trust you not to harm me, Sir.”

“And eventually, you’ll mean it.”

She thought he was going to push her under again, but he helped her out of the lake, instead. He took a blanket from the truck and wrapped her up in it until she was dry, then slipped her dress back on over her head and helped her into the truck. He locked the cuff back around her ankle and then put his own clothes back on.

She was crying, trying to wipe the tears away before he could see them when he got back in the truck.

“I didn’t hurt you out there.” There was the slightest note of regret and guilt in his voice. If he thought he could rationalize now and make her believe it, too... he really had lost his mind past the point of return. The thought made her even more afraid.

“You scared the shit out of me,” she said, her tone bitter. “I get it. You’re all powerful. You can stop lording it over me. You know I’ll do whatever you want to stay alive.”

He started the truck and eased it down the dirt road. “I want everything, Ronnie. Not just your body. I want your soul, your every thought and desire. I want it all. By the time I’m finished, you’ll give it to me.”

“Or you’ll drown me?”

He pulled the remote out and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t want to use this on you.”

She shut her mouth and looked down at her hands. If he didn’t want to use it, it was a simple matter of just not using it, but she didn’t dare give that thought voice.

They drove in silence for a while and he finally said, “You’re so like her. Just
be
her, please. Be Trish.” His voice cracked.

This time the glimpse of vulnerability didn’t make him seem as crazy and unhinged, just sad. So terribly sad. And broken. She wondered if he fully comprehended how wrong his actions were, or if he was just so desperate to bring back a ghost that he couldn’t see anything else but Trish. Veronica was a casualty in his quest to work magic to transform her into another woman, and he didn’t seem capable of understanding what he was doing.

Sympathy and hate warred within her. She wanted to escape him, but at the same time, it hurt her that when he looked at her, he saw another woman sitting there. What would it be like for him to look at her and see
her?
To want
her
instead of a passing specter? Instead of the phantom that sat in the sixth chair at the table for their morning and afternoon meals.

“Would you have taken me if I didn’t look like her?”

“No,” he said. There was a conviction in his voice that she couldn’t deny. At the very least, he believed it.

The admission only made her more confused. In a sense he
had
rescued her. In her thoughts of escape and freedom, she’d tried not to think about what she’d be going back to. If he hadn’t taken her where would she be by now? In a soup kitchen line? Sleeping under a bridge if she didn’t make it to the shelter in time, or if they were too full? What about when winter came? The only thing that had put her in a warm bed with food in her belly was her resemblance to Luke’s former lover. He couldn’t have victimized her otherwise, but he wouldn’t have saved her.

They stopped at a four-way stop sign and he turned to her, his eyes so dark and intense she wanted to find a way to hide under the seat or just disappear for a few minutes.

“I’m not kidding, Veronica. You will
be
her. Or else. You’ll make me forget you aren’t her. I’m not going back to before I found you. You will love me and obey me and submit to me, and you’ll do it with that look of adoration Trish used to give me or I’ll never stop making you regret wearing her face.” His voice had risen as he became more intense. “Am I getting through, here?”

“Y-yes, Sir. I’ll be her. I swear. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Just don’t be crazy. Please don’t be crazy. I need something safe to hold onto.

A Sheriff’s deputy pulled up at one of the other stop signs and for a moment both Luke and Veronica froze. The wheels spun in her head. If she could get the cop’s attention as they passed ...

“Do it and you might not survive to tell your story. How much of this do you think you can take?” She looked over to see the remote in his hand. The look in his eyes said that whatever brief moments of guilt or regret he felt, he’d do whatever he had to do. “Eyes on me.”

Hesitantly, she looked at him. Then Luke stepped on the gas and lurched past the police officer. When they’d passed, she turned in her seat to see the cop go in the opposite direction down the road they’d been on—toward the lake. She wondered if the lake was his destination. Maybe he’d just gotten off work for the day and wanted to fish or swim. What if their timing had been just a little different? What if he’d discovered them in the water?

“Do you think he’s going to the lake?” she finally asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“What if he’d caught you while I was underwater? Would you have killed me even though it wasn’t my fault?”

His only answer was silence. Finally he said, “Going out was a bad idea.”

Chapter Eight

They didn’t speak about the trip again. But when he took her to the playroom that night, the only thing in her head was his demand that she be Trish. She wondered if the afternoon had sobered Luke up, if it had brought home how dangerous the game he was playing with his freedom really was—how easily it could all go wrong. How easily he could be caught. For now, his community thought he was a law-abiding citizen, but how close would he come to unraveling that fiction?